Kodaikanal
Kodaikanal located amidst the folds of the verdant Pali hills is one of the most popular serene hill stations in India, which mesmerises any visitor. With her wooded slopes, mighty rocks, enhancing waterfalls and a beautiful lake, Kodaikanal is a charming hill station.
Kodaikanal is one of the most frequented hill resorts in India. Standing amidst sylvan beauty on the southern crest of the upper Palani Hills near Madurai in Tamil Nadu, Kodaikanal is a charming and luring hill station. With its spectacular rocks, tranquil woods, lovely lake and intoxicating air, Kodaikanal is an ideal hill resort for the tourists from all over. Kodaikanal is known around the world for its 'MAGIC MUSHROOMS' which have a hallucinogenic substance called psylocibin which produces hallucinogenic effects if consumed!!
Kodaikanal located amidst the folds of the verdant Pali hills is one of the most popular serene hill stations in India, which mesmerizes any visitor. With her wooded slopes, mighty rocks, enhancing waterfalls and a beautiful lake, Kodaikanal is a charming hill station.
Situated at an altitude of about 2,133 m from sea level and covering an area of 21.45 sq km, Kodaikanal is a hill town renowned for its educational institutions of international repute. The hill-plantain fruits and plums are known for their freshness and taste.
Psilocybin mushrooms (also called psilocybian mushrooms or teónanácatl) are fungi mainly of the psilocybe genus that contain the psychedelic substances psilocybin and psilocin, and occasionally other psychoactive tryptamines. There are multiple colloquial terms for psilocybin mushrooms, the most common being magic mushrooms[1] or shrooms.[2]
The writer Carmen Hillier speculated that hallucinogenic mushrooms may have a history that dates back as far as 1 million years ago, originating in East Africa. He suggests that early hominids such as Homo africanus, Homo boisei, and the omnivorous Homo habilis expanded their original diets of fruit and small animals to include underground roots, tubers, and corns.[3] Terence McKenna claims that at this particular time, early hominids gathered Psilocybin mushrooms off the African grasslands and ate them as part of their diet. He suggests that the Psilocybin-containing mushrooms that were thought to have grown on the grasslands at that time were the Panaeolus species and Stropharia cubensis, also called Psilocybe cubensis, which is a famous "Magic Mushroom" widely distributed today.[4]
Dosage of mushrooms containing psilocybin depends on the potency of the mushroom (the total psilocybin and psilocin content of the mushrooms), which varies significantly both between species and within the same species, but is typically around 0.5-2% of the dried weight of the mushroom. A typical dose of the rather common species, Psilocybe cubensis, is approximately 1.5 to 3.5 grams,[24] while about 3.5 to 5 grams[24] dried mushroom material is considered a stronger dose. 5-7 dried grams is often considered a heavy dose.Effects
Psilocybin mushrooms are non-addictive although they do create short term increases in tolerance of users.[11] Oral ingestion can sometimes produce nausea, dizziness, and (more rarely) vomiting (usually at higher doses), though cannabis is often used to lessen this stomach discomfort.[12] The greatest danger from recreational use is a "bad trip" which can cause severe emotional and psychological distress. Also, extremely poisonous wild picked mushrooms can be easily mistaken for psilocybin mushrooms.[11] When psilocybin is ingested, it is broken down to produce psilocin, which is responsible for the hallucinogenic effects.[11]
As with many psychoactive substances, the effects of psychedelic mushrooms are subjective and unpredictable. A common misconception, even seen in the professional environment, is that the effects experienced from psilocybin are due to a poisonous nature of the compound, yet the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a branch of the Center for Disease Control, rated psilocybin less toxic than aspirin.[13] The intoxicating effects of psilocybin-containing mushrooms typically last anywhere from 3 to 7 hours depending on dosage, preparation method and personal metabolism.[14][15]
[edit] Physical
Depending on the amount of mushrooms ingested, myriad physical reactions can be experienced: a loss of appetite, coldness in the extremities, increase of pulse rate, numbness of the mouth and adjacent features, nausea, elevated blood pressure, weakness in the limbs (making locomotion difficult), muscle relaxation, yawning, swollen features and pupil dilation.[14][16]
[edit] Sensory
Noticeable changes to the audio, visual, and tactile senses may become apparent from between ten minutes to an hour after ingestion. These shifts in perception, visually, include enhancement and contrasting of worldly colors, strange light phenomena (such as auras or "halos" around light sources and other beings), increased visual acuity, surfaces that seem to ripple, shimmer, or breathe; complex open and closed eye visuals of form constants or images, objects that warp, morph, or change solid colors; a sense of melting into the environment, and trails behind moving objects. Sounds seem to be heard with increased clarity; music, for example, can often take on a profound sense of cadence and depth. Some users experience synesthesia, wherein they perceive, for example, a visualization of color upon hearing a particular sound.[17]
[edit] Emotional
As with other psychedelics such as LSD, the experience, or "trip," is strongly dependent upon set and setting. A negative environment could likely induce a bad trip, whereas a comfortable and familiar environment would allow for a pleasant experience, although neither side of this binary is without exception.[18][19]
In 2006, the U.S. government funded a randomized and double-blinded study by Johns Hopkins University which studied the spiritual effects of psilocybin mushrooms. The study involved 36 college-educated adults who had never tried psilocybin nor had a history of drug use, and had religious or spiritual interests; the average age of the participants was 46 years. The participants were closely observed for eight-hour intervals in a laboratory while under the influence of psilocybin mushrooms.
One-third of the participants reported that the experience was the single most spiritually significant moment of their lives and more than two-thirds reported it was among the top five most spiritually significant experiences. Two months after the study, 79 percent of the participants reported increased well-being or satisfaction; friends, relatives, and associates confirmed this.
Despite highly controlled conditions to minimize adverse effects, 22% of subjects (8 of 36) had notable experiences of fear, some with paranoia. However, the authors reported that all these instances were "readily managed with reassurance".[20]
