The Psychonauts

A trip into the realm of psychedelic assisted therapy, as hallucinogenic mushrooms go on trial in South Africa. Magic mushrooms could be the kind of breakthrough for mental health treatment that penicillin was as an antibiotic nearly a century ago. Early research into the potential of psychedelics for treating depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and even alcoholism is so promising, some argue that these substances shouldn’t be kept ‘just for the treatment of sick people, but should be used for the betterment of well people’. The Psychonauts dives into the strange new world of psychedelic-assisted therapy. It stumbles upon an underground movement of self-styled healers and self-medicators. It contemplates whether this could be a new chapter for the environmental movement. And it follows a bid in the South African courts, to have hallucinogenic mushrooms removed from a rogue’s gallery of illicit drugs.