The Marvella Tenebris Mushroom: a gate to inhabit more-than-human sensorial worlds
We are on the verge of a sensorial revolution. Fungi terraformed the Earth once, billions of years ago, and now it was on the path to transforming the very fabric of consciousness. Each one of us, humans and other species live in a unique sensorial world, each of us with a unique way to experience and understand nature. But we were never meant to be isolated. Psycilumis worked a bit like mycelium, in a network-like manner, connecting all existing sensorial worlds and forms of life consciousness. Ingesting mushrooms that contain psycilumis gives us humans access to the internet of Earth’s sensorial worlds through altered states of consciousness, the ability to connect with other species’ sensorial systems.
Scientists estimate there are 2 to 5 million species in the fungi kingdom. We roughly knew 180 psychoactive species, those that can trigger altered states of consciousness in humans. In 2022, we discovered the first mushroom species containing Psycilumis, the Marvella tenebris. This mushroom was not interested in the flesh of the world, but in the soup of complex chemistry that binds interspecies consciousness. Marvella tenebris was the first of its kind, a psychoactive bioluminescent mushroom.
Nobody was clear where it came from. But one story goes that Marvella tenebris emerged in the raped land of the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest, in a land fractured by deforestation, by the machinery of capitalism; in times of fractured minds. Maybe this mushroom has fed from our ruins. Just like other mushrooms learn to eat plastic, even oil, just like them, maybe Marvella tenebris is learning to decompose our broken consciousness and regenerate it, to heal us from our sensorial isolation.
Science doesn’t understand yet how Marvella tenebris creates the sensorial entanglements between us humans and the sensorial worlds of other species. All we know is it does. And that the timing is right. People in anthropocentric cities are suffering of a shrinking empathy to other Earth species. So we will let Marvella tenebris guide us into inhabiting other sensorial worlds as a empathy therapy.
The way it works is messy. It is hard to pick a sensorial channel. Marvella tenebris picks for you. However, we have learned that if you sit and tell your intention to mushroom, sometimes she listens to it. That exchange of energy might be a form of communication we are beginning to understand.
So sit, grab your lantern, tune your eyes to darkness, until you see her light, and set your intention: We are here today to step out of our human sensorial comfort and to recognize our colonization of the nights. Life on Earth has evolved over millions of years under a reliable daily light–dark cycle. We have disrupted those connections. Artificial light has blinded us. And it is time we see through the veil.
Now take a piece of the fruiting mushroom of Marvella tenebris, eat it, and embrace the world you are meant to discover today. Take a deep breath. Let it take over. You are now sent on your journey to rediscover the world as a moths and bats.
Audio script of “Marvella Tenebris”. This story was used for performative storytelling to help participants embody and role-play the sensorial experiences of moths and baths during a nocturnal light walk in Kreuzberg, Berlin. This was an experiment to perceive light pollution from more-than-human sensorial worlds. This light walk was part of my PhD project “Endarken: A multispecies journey to redesign the future of nocturnal urban light in Berlin”
Audio piece coming soon.
