The Truth About Mushrooms..

The Truth About Mushrooms

“I’m not taking no fuckin’ mushrooms, bro. Why? So I can go crazy and jump off a bridge??” – One of the Bros.

The Steak Story

Where I come from, there’s an unspoken rule passed down like gospel:

“If your steak isn’t well done, it’s not done at all.”

That’s it. That’s the myth. A bloody steak? That’s not flavor — that’s danger.

At least, that’s what I was taught.

In Black families, especially the ones that came up like mine, food isn’t just food — it’s identity, it’s safety, it’s how we show love and avoid sickness at the same time. So when my folks said, “Make sure it’s well done,” it wasn’t just about taste. It was about survival. It was about not getting sick, not getting laughed at, not being seen as one of them.

For years, I held onto that rule like it was written in scripture. Every barbecue, every cookout, every time someone said, “You want it medium?” I’d respond with a quick disgusted face, “Nah, I’m not trying to die today.”

Then one night in Vegas changed everything.

In 2014, I was in town doing Vegas things with a few friends, and we had dinner at Gordon Ramsay Steakhouse. When the server came out with an assortment of cuts for us to choose from, everyone started ordering their steak and their preferred temperature. There were eight of us, and I was sixth in line.

As each person ahead of me ordered, I noticed something — everybody was ordering everything except well-done. Not even medium-well.

Not gonna lie, I started getting a little anxious because, for one, I was the only Black guy there, surrounded by white and Jewish friends. The little Black boy from Jersey City was definitely under the gun.

When the server finally got to me, I knew my cut — but before I could answer the “How would you like that?” part, my boy Darin cut in and said, “He’ll have it medium.”

I froze.

That wasn’t in my script.

Part of me wanted to stick to what I knew; the other part didn’t want to be that guy at the table, arguing about Black family food codes. So I nodded.

“Sure… I’ll have it medium.”

When the plate came out, I stared at it like it was a setup.

It was pink — glowing pink — in the middle. I poked it with my fork like it might jump back at me. Everyone else started eating, and I just sat there in silent panic.

Finally, I took a bite.

And man… listen.

That first bite was revolutionary. Juicy. Tender. Flavor I didn’t know existed. It melted — literally melted — and all I could think was, What else have I been overcooking my whole life?

It wasn’t just steak.
It was my mindset. My fear. My need to feel safe at the cost of discovery.

For the first time, I realized something simple but powerful:

Sometimes, the danger we’ve been taught to avoid is actually where the depth lives.

That’s exactly how I felt the first time I heard about mushrooms.

All I knew was what I’d been told — they’ll mess you up, they’ll make you crazy, they’ll open portals you can’t close. And, just like the steak, I believed it. I never questioned it… until life invited me to take one more bite of something I didn’t understand but couldn’t ignore.

The Experience

When I first heard people talking about mushrooms on Clubhouse in 2020, I brushed it off.

I thought they were just as ridiculous and scary as everyone said. The stories I’d heard were wild — people partying, losing their minds — so wild I believed them. “Damn, if this stuff is so bad, why do people even take it?”

They made mushrooms sound worse than crack. Worse than percs. Worse than ecstasy. So I built a force field of danger around them.

I thought it was a “white-people-in-the-woods” kind of thing — hiking sandals, kale smoothies, and “finding yourself” after Burning Man. It didn’t feel like something we did.

Truth is, I’d seen plenty of folks doing way harder drugs. I’d had friends smoke angel dust and run naked in the street. One even went to prison for killing his girlfriend. Yet somehow mushrooms were considered “the worst thing ever.”

Now, I had two older sisters who struggled with drugs for years — and I lost my oldest to it — so you can imagine the math I was doing in my head when I started hearing all these beautiful Black people in that room sharing stories of healing and breakthrough. I was confused. So I started doing my own research.

Online, I found the same thing: mostly white faces sharing trip reports — Terence McKenna, Paul Stamets, Michael Pollan, Joe Rogan, Duncan Trussell, Hamilton Morris — all speaking highly of these sacred plants. But still, none of them looked like me.

I studied for months before my first official psychedelic experience. Finding them wasn’t easy, but after a few failed attempts, I finally got my hands on something legit and took my first journey.

And just as quickly as I realized, “Somebody lied to me about well-done steaks,” I realized, “I was lied to about mushrooms.”

To me, mushrooms were a drug — dangerous, illegal, weird.

And yeah, they’re still dangerous if you don’t want to face yourself, illegal for expanding your sense of self, and weird in how they show you the best and worst sides of you at the same time.

But life has a way of putting curiosity on your plate, even when you swear you’re full.

I don’t remember everything that led up to that first journey — just that it came in a season when I was hungry for something real. I wasn’t looking to get high. I was looking to get free.

So I said yes — to the scariest thing I’d ever done.

I remember the room: dim lights, incense burning, soft music. Nothing wild, nothing “psychedelic.” Just peace.

At first, nothing happened. Then slowly… it did.

The walls didn’t melt or start breathing — I did.

My thoughts loosened like a clenched fist finally opening. The room softened. The music felt like a movie with me starring in it. Somewhere between “What the hell is happening?” and “Oh wow…” I realized something — I wasn’t out of control; I was in tune.

The mushrooms didn’t show me colors; they showed me connections. Everything — the air, the candlelight, my heartbeat — felt like one long conversation.

And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t trying to understand it. I embraced it, and the mushrooms embraced me.

Then came the real trip — not in my eyes, but in my heart. Old memories surfaced, not to haunt me but to hug me. Tears came, not from sadness but recognition. I wasn’t seeing visions; I was seeing myself.

My guard was down. My soul was open. And I was safe.

My ancestors met me in a vision — planting trees and gifts inside my mind and body. They greeted and hugged me, filling me with love and wisdom until I burst into tears. I’ll never forget it.

That trip was a medium-cap steak from Gordon Ramsay — cooked to perfection, just for me, with leftovers to feed my soul for weeks.

Trip after trip, I learned more. I journaled like never before. And even with all the breakthroughs, I kept it to myself — partly proud, partly protective. I’d found something sacred and wasn’t ready to share it.

The experience wasn’t about escaping. It was about returning —
returning to the parts of me I’d abandoned,
returning to peace I didn’t know was possible,
returning to God — not in a church pew, but in my own body.

By the end, I didn’t discover something new. I remembered something ancient — something that had been whispering all along:

“You’re safe now. You can let go.”

The Truth

The truth about mushrooms isn’t that they take you somewhere new — it’s that they bring you back to where you’ve always been.

I went in expecting wild visuals or outer space. Instead, I met clarity. I met presence. I met God — not the God I was taught to fear or please, but the One moving through everything.

I’ve been Christian most of my life. I’ve felt God’s presence in worship, in ministry, in quiet time — but the presence I meet on a journey feels deeper, wider, more alive. It’s not a different God. It’s the same one, amplified — like I finally removed the static between us.

It wasn’t a religion moment; it was a relationship moment. It felt like sitting down with a friend I’d been too busy to call back.

Mushrooms taught me that healing doesn’t look like light beams and angel choirs. It looks like being brutally honest about the parts of yourself you hide from love. It’s laughing one minute and crying the next. It’s realizing how long you’ve been holding your breath — and finally exhaling without guilt.

They showed me how fast the world trains us to disconnect — to scroll past our feelings, to measure everything in money or followers, to mistake noise for meaning.

And yet, in that stillness, I saw the opposite of chaos — I saw order.

Everything I’ve been through had rhythm. Even the heartbreaks had purpose. Even the silence had sound.

But here’s the real truth:

You don’t meet God on mushrooms if you haven’t already met yourself sober.

They’re not shortcuts — they’re spotlights.
They don’t give you wisdom — they reveal it.
They peel back everything you pretend to be until you have no choice but to stand there as you are.

And when you do, you realize the divine isn’t “out there.”
It’s in the same breath you’ve been taking since day one.

So no, they’re not evil.
They’re not witchcraft.
They’re not the devil’s candy.

They’re reminders — sacred technology built into nature, teaching us what church hymns and therapy sessions have been saying all along:

You are loved, and you’ve never been separate from that love.

That’s the truth.

The Integration

Trips end. Life doesn’t.

That’s something I had to learn the hard way — that the real work starts when the colors fade, the music stops, and you’re back at the sink washing dishes or answering emails. That’s when the mushrooms hand you the mirror and say, “Now keep looking.”

Integration isn’t glamorous. It’s quiet.

It’s how you treat yourself on a Monday when patience runs thin.
It’s how you breathe when old pain knocks again.
It’s remembering to listen to your spirit without needing a dose to reach awareness.

The truth about mushrooms isn’t in the trip — it’s in the translation.

Can you take what you saw in the silence and apply it to your noise?
Can you bring the peace of God into your relationships, your self-talk, your work?

For me, it’s shown up in small ways —
in prayer that feels more like conversation than confession,
in art made from trust, not pressure,
in the way I move slower now — not rushing anywhere because I finally know where I am.

The integration process humbled me. It showed me every day is another ceremony, another chance to remember.

The mushrooms gave me the message, but life gives me the practice.

And maybe that’s the truth we all come back to: it’s not about escaping reality — it’s about embodying it.

To walk in love.
To listen deeper.
To stay awake, even when it’s easier to sleep.

Because at the end of it all, the point was never just to trip — it was to transform.

That’s why I call them journeys instead of trips.
A journey takes effort. A trip just takes distance.

And that, right there, is the quiet miracle — the one that doesn’t need fireworks or visions, just the courage to be fully here:
still breathing,
still learning,
still light.

And that, to me, is no myth.

To God be the Glory,

Jermy