shroomcourse.org  ·  a complete psilocybin education  ·  coming soon

Know it before you take it.

A 12-module course on psilocybin mushrooms — the organism, the science, the risks nobody markets, and the preparation that changes everything. Built by science educators with one agenda: nobody walks in uninformed.

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Registration opens soon · Founding-member pricing for the waitlist

12 modules, taught straight Safety written with clinical advisors Education, not encouragement

Why this exists

The internet is loud about mushrooms. Loud isn't the same as honest.

Psilocybin is having a moment — headlines, retreats, breathless podcasts. Somewhere between "miracle cure" and "just say no" lives the truth, and you deserve all of it: what the research actually shows, who should never go near this, what a difficult experience really is, and why preparation matters more than anything you can buy.

We're teachers, not doctors or facilitators — and nothing in this course encourages anyone to break the law, or to take mushrooms at all. Psilocybin remains illegal in most places. What we promise is simpler, and more honest.

Who this is for

You're probably here because something brought you.

The curious

A podcast, a headline, a friend who came back different. You want the real story before you form an opinion — hype filtered out, unknowns left visible.

The cautious

You're not convinced — good. Skepticism is welcome here. Half this course was built for exactly the questions you're already asking.

The supporting

Someone you love is considering this. You want to know enough to keep them safe, spot the red flags, and ask the right questions out loud.

The quietly hoping

Something has been heavy for a long time, and you've started to wonder. That hope deserves honest information — not hype, and not a sales pitch.

Whatever brought you — you don't need to have decided anything to belong here.

Rob Nelson sitting among giant buttress roots in a Costa Rican rainforest, beside ancient mushroom rock art
"You do not simply take mushrooms — you build a relationship with them."
— Darren Le Baron · grower & educator, from the course conversations

What it's actually like

Nobody can promise you an experience.
We can map the territory.

This is the question under every other question: what will happen to me? Anyone who promises you a specific experience is selling something. What the research and the people who guide these journeys can offer is the shape of the thing — and the skills for its harder stretches.

ONSET COME-UP PEAK THE LONG RETURN 0h 1h 2h 3h 4h 5h 6h 7h 8h hours after taking — felt intensity is qualitative, not a measurement

A typical oral-dose arc — hover or tap a phase to walk the territory. Timing and intensity vary with species, amount, and above all, the person.

Module 03 maps the whole experience — including the difficult stretches nobody markets · Module 08 teaches you to navigate them

The curriculum

Twelve modules. Zero wishful thinking.

Each module opens with a story, teaches through film and plain language, and closes with a summary you could explain to a friend. Safety isn't a chapter here — it's the thread the whole course hangs on.

safety-critical marks a module clinicians helped write.

A wild cluster of pale Psilocybe mushrooms growing over mycelium-covered stone
Psilocybe in the wild · filmed for Module 01
00Orientation

Start here

Who this is for, who we are — and just as important, who we are not. The no-agenda promise, stated plainly and early. The legal map of the world as it stands.

the welcome
01Organism

Meet the mushroom

Before it's a substance, it's a living organism with a deep human history — mycelium, species, María Sabina, and the scientific renaissance. Respect starts with biology.

safety-critical
02Science

What psilocybin does in the brain

Receptors, the default mode network, and neuroplasticity in plain language — plus the honest limits: small trials, expectancy effects, and what "more research needed" really means.

evidence, graded
03Experience

What a journey is actually like

The arc from onset to the long return, the mirror principle — and difficult experiences told honestly, without the phrase "bad trip" and without flinching.

safety-critical
04Safety

Who should not do this

Psychiatric contraindications, medication interactions, physical health, situational risk, legal risk, and when to get help. The things a good clinician would insist you hear first.

the heart of the course
05Decision

Is this right for you, right now?

An honest self-inventory, how to talk to your doctor, the legal pathways that exist today, a facilitator-vetting checklist — and full permission to answer "no," or "not yet."

a framework
06Preparation

Preparing for an experience

Set, setting, and the single most protective choice a person can make: experienced, sober support. Preparation like planning a surprise party for someone you love.

safety-critical
07Perspective

Microdosing, separated from the hype

What people report and what placebo-controlled research actually shows — both true, both presented without spin. Plus the open questions researchers are still working through.

no spin
08Navigation

Inside the experience

You can't steer it like a car — and trying is usually what makes things hard. Surrender as a skill, the phrases sitters actually use, and what to do in a genuine emergency.

safety-critical
09Integration

Where the real work lives

The experience is a doorway, not the destination. The first 72 hours, the practices that turn insight into change, and why isolation undoes the work.

the long game
10Outcomes

The transformation that can happen

Some people change profoundly. Some get a meaningful nudge. Some feel nothing shift at all. Real stories — including the unglamorous ones — held without flinching.

honest hope

The module that matters most

If this course has a heart, it's the one that says "not you, not now."

The psychedelic conversation online is thick with enthusiasm and thin on caution. Module 04 slows all the way down and says the hard things first — because low risk has never meant no risk.

Psychiatric history

A personal or family history of psychosis or bipolar disorder changes everything. Screening exists for a reason.

Medication interactions

SSRIs and other psychiatric medications need professional guidance — and lithium carries serious, documented risks in combination.

The body

Cardiovascular conditions and physical health deserve a real medical conversation, not a shrug and a hope.

The situation

Alone, near water, heights, or roads — setting is a safety decision long before it's an aesthetic one.

Knowing what you have

Misidentified and adulterated material is a real risk. Source certainty is a safety issue, not a detail.

The mind, after

Destabilization, HPPD, and spiritual bypassing are uncommon — and "uncommon" has never meant "never."

The law

Legal risk is a category of harm in its own right, not a footnote. Psilocybin remains illegal in most jurisdictions.

When to get help

The warning signs during and after an experience — and a plain emergency plan made before, never during.

And the one a biologist has to say out loud:
"natural" has never meant "harmless."

The editorial rule

Everything touching screening, interactions, or amounts is written with — and reviewed by — clinical and facilitation advisors before launch. We hold the teaching. They hold the clinical line.

From the film library

Shot in labs, kitchens, and rainforests.

Five films anchor the course, made the way we've made science television for twenty years — curious, rigorous, and allergic to hype.

Film still: The Science of Magic Mushrooms
The Science of Magic MushroomsModule 02
Film still: Inside a Psilocybin Retreat
Inside a Psilocybin RetreatModule 03
Film still: Psilocybin — Why It Works
Psilocybin: Why It WorksModule 02
Film still: Mushroom Therapy Basics
Mushroom Therapy BasicsModule 05
Film still: a mushroom growing from a prescription bottle
The Retreat & Rx QuestionModule 05

The full library — plus new course films — unlocks at launch

Rob Nelson sitting beneath giant rainforest buttress roots, looking up at a mushroom
Rob Nelson · biologist & science filmmaker

Your guide

A biologist's honesty. A filmmaker's eye.

Rob Nelson has spent two decades making hard science easy to love — as the biologist and filmmaker behind Untamed Science, StoneAgeMan, and classroom films used by millions of students. When people started asking him about psilocybin, he went looking for a course he could hand them. It didn't exist. So he's building it.

He is not a doctor and not a facilitator — and won't pretend to be. He's a teacher. The clinical lines in this course are held by the clinicians, facilitators, and lifelong mycologists who feature in it — including grower-educator Darren Le Baron.

StoneAgeMan Untamed Science The Wild Classroom 20 years of science film
Watercolor painting of a red-capped mushroom in a dark forest

A companion field book is in the works with a collaborating author — written to read alongside the course, module by module. Waitlist members hear about it first.

Coming soon

Be first through the door.

The course is in production now. Join the waitlist for founding-member pricing when registration opens — plus a few honest field notes while you wait. No spam. No agenda. Leave anytime.

You're on the list.

Watch your inbox — and thank you for wanting to know it first.

Registration opens soon · shroomcourse.org

While you wait: Mushrooms & the brain ↗ A chat with Darren Le Baron ↗