66 Quotes by Paul Stamets

We need to have a paradigm shift in our consciousness. If we don’t get our act together and come in commonality and understanding with the organisms that sustain us today, not only will we destroy those organisms, but we will destroy ourselves.

Mycologists are few and far between. We are under-funded, poorly represented in the context of other sciences – ironic, as the very foundation of our ecosystems are directly dependent upon fungi, which ultimately create the foundation of soils.

I believe nature is a force of good. Good is not only a concept, it is a spirit.

Although the trends are promising and reishi mushrooms exhibit a number of interesting medicinal properties, modern scientific techniques have yet to affirm its traditional ‘panacea polypore’ status.

Known colloquially as ‘winter,’ ‘golden needle,’ and ‘velvet foot’ mushrooms, enoki mushrooms grow across much of the world, inhabiting dead conifer trees and stumps, and generally appearing throughout the late fall and winter months.

I see the mycelium as the Earth’s natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate. Through cross-species interfacing, we may one day exchange information with these sentient cellular networks. Because these externalized neurological nets sense any impression upon them, from footsteps to falling tree branches, they could relay enormous amounts of data regarding the movements of all organisms through the landscape.

Toxic fungicides like methyl bromide, once touted, not only harm targeted species but also nontargeted organisms and their food chains and threaten the ozone layer.

NASA considered the possibility of using fungi for interplanetary colonization. Now that we have landed rovers on Mars, NASA takes seriously the unknown consequences that our microbes will have on seeding other planets. Spores have no borders.

There are more species of fungi, bacteria, and protozoa in a single scoop of soil than there are species of plants and vertebrate animals in all of North America. And of these, fungi are the grand recyclers of our planet, the mycomagicians disassembling large organic molecules into simpler forms, which in turn nourish other members of the ecological community. Fungi are the interface organisms between life and death.