#1385 - Paul Stamets

Joe Rogan (0:03)

And we're live. Hello, Paul.

Paul Stamets (0:04)

What's happening?

Joe Rogan (0:05)

How are you, sir?

Paul Stamets (0:06)

Very well, how are you?

Joe Rogan (0:06)

And you have newfangled mushroom hats. These are surprisingly durable.

So think about these mushroom hats. You would think, oh, it's gonna fall apart in your fingers. But no, it's got, like, it's quite pliable.

Paul Stamets (0:17)

It's quite pliable, and it's known as German felt.

And this allowed the iceman, Otzi, to be able to travel into the Alps. It was a firestarter mushroom.

Joe Rogan (0:27)

Really?

Paul Stamets (0:28)

And this actually revolutionized warfare because it helped Flint spark guns, ignite the gunpowder.

Joe Rogan (0:34)

Really?

Paul Stamets (0:35)

So it's amadou, and it comes from a birch polypore mushroom, which is a subject of much of our research these days.

Joe Rogan (0:42)

Now when this grows in the wild, what does it look like? Because this is, you've fashioned it into this hat, or had someone fashion it.

Paul Stamets (0:50)

That's what it looks like? Yeah, some ladies in Transylvania.

Joe Rogan (0:53)

You wanna see that? Yeah.

Paul Stamets (0:54)

It's called Fomis fomentarius. It allowed for the portability of fire.

No doubt we all came from Africa, and we went north and we discovered winter. This allowed for fire to be carried for days. And so your clan was absolutely dependent upon fire starting in order to survive the winter, and this mushroom allowed and enabled people to survive.

Joe Rogan (1:14)

It's very light. Is it edible?

Paul Stamets (1:17)

Excellent question.

Hippocrates first described it in 400 BCE as an anti-inflammatory. So in teas, yes, but that's very, very tough. When you put it in ash and water, it delaminates into mycelium. And so some ladies in Transylvania still make these, and it's a fabric that you pull. That mushroom there will become one hat, or maybe more, because it just keeps on elongating. And it's made of mycelium.

Joe Rogan (1:46)

And so explain the process. How would you take this slab of mushroom that I have that looks like sort of like an enormous Hershey's kiss, and then you would put that...

Paul Stamets (1:56)

In water with ash from a fire.

Because it's highly alkaline, and then it helps it separate. It begins to delaminate, and literally you start pulling us, and it's a fabric that you keep on felting.

And so it's called German felt, and it's been used for literally thousands of years. And beekeepers actually use this for smoking hives.

We could, but it would be kind of bizarre. We could flick a beck, and you'd burn up one of these things. It's just amazing how much this is a fuse. And one spark on this can ignite this entire thing over 15, 20 minutes.

Joe Rogan (2:40)

Really?

Paul Stamets (2:41)

Yeah. And so beekeepers use it for smoking hives.

Joe Rogan (2:43)

So if I lit this right now with this lighter?

Paul Stamets (2:45)

Not that. If you lit this.

Joe Rogan (2:47)

The powder. So this, the ash, the powdered ash, and then the water, and then how does it flatten out and become what the...

Paul Stamets (2:56)

Because it soaks up, and mycelium makes mushrooms, mushrooms make mycelium, and so when you soak this and then it gets soggy, and then it tenderizes, and then you start breaking it and pulling it apart. This was actually probably the first discovery because our ancestors noticed when insects were born to this mushroom.

Joe Rogan (3:14)

Is that like the unprocessed version of it? So this is what it's like on one side?

Paul Stamets (3:18)

Well, it's just made into a little table thing, but it's the same thing basically.

Joe Rogan (3:22)

So is this stitched together? How do they make it like this?

Paul Stamets (3:25)

Actually, it says using a wood glue, but that's all the natural colors, nothing's been added to it.

Joe Rogan (3:33)

And so they just pull it apart, and it eventually gets flat.

Paul Stamets (3:36)

I really want to make a coat. That's my goal, is to have somebody make a coat for me.

Joe Rogan (3:40)

Would it tear easily?

Paul Stamets (3:42)

It's an amazingly strong tinsel fabric. It absorbs water, but you have to be careful. Someone smoking a joint or near a fire or smoking a cigarette. It happened to me. I got a big hole in one of mine, and I was smelling the smoke, and my head was on fire.

More than once.

Joe Rogan (4:02)

How many folks are out there wearing mushroom hats these days?

Paul Stamets (4:05)

Just a few hundred. And we've been trying to actually keep the industry alive by just inundating the... There was like 25 or 30 of these hat makers in Transylvania 10, 15 years ago. Then it shrunk down to four or five, and a friend of mine, David Sutherland, visited and said, Paul, this hat making technology is on the verge of extinction.