The Church of Psilomethoxin Unmasked
My original article can be found HERE
The Church's response to Response to the USONA article can be found HERE
I wouldn't have bothered sharing my doubts about psilomethoxin unless I was confident of my position. And as it turns out, my skepticism appears to be justified. What this church is calling psilomethoxin looks to be nothing more than Psilocybe mushrooms - and they're charging a pretty penny for the privilege of partaking.
Please keep in mind, the word psilomethoxin is just a word. Whoever named it that could have called it anything. So perhaps what they are considering their sacrament is indeed psilomethoxin. What concerns me is any claim that their psilomethoxin is 4-HO-5-MeO-DMT. My goal here is not to be defamatory but to simply provide my readers with information about this subject as it continues to develop.
The Church will surely still have it's believers, but the results from chemrxiv.org are difficult to ignore:
Thanks to some rigorous testing using advanced analytical techniques, specifically ultra-performance liquid chromatography with high-resolution mass spectrometry (UPLC-HRMS), the truth is now crystal clear. The results speak for themselves.
Considering the experimental results obtained through the UPLC-HRMS analysis of the Church of Psilomethoxin's sample, it is evident that their claims of producing a novel compound, psilomethoxin, by incorporating 5-MeO-DMT into the substrate of cultivated Psilocybe mushrooms are more akin to "fungi fiction" than reality. The absence of any detectible psilomethoxin or the hypothetical compound 5-MeO-psilocybin in the analyzed sample demonstrates that the Church's assertions are not yet supported by scientific evidence.
Instead, our analysis revealed that the material distributed by the Church primarily contains known tryptamines, specifically psilocybin and psilocin, with a trace amount of baeocystin. The lack of evidence of novel compounds in the sample coupled with the implausibility of the proposed biosynthetic pathway suggests that the Church of Psilomethoxin is engaging in misleading marketing practices and may be misrepresenting the material that they are distributing.
It is crucial for the scientific community to continue scrutinizing such claims and provide accurate information to the public, ensuring that the distribution and use of psychedelic substances are based on factual data and not on unsubstantiated assertions made by organizations like the Church of Psilomethoxin.
- Samuel Williamson, Alexander Sherwood
As the findings reveal, it's crucial to approach any assertions concerning untested psychoactive compounds with a critical mindset and rely only on trustworthy sources for reliable information. After writing the original article, I became the personal target of numerous members of the Church of Psilomethoxin, and I am confident that even with these new discoveries, the targeting will continue. Nevertheless, we must persist in questioning and scrutinizing statements regarding such newfangled substances to guarantee that we possess precise and factual knowledge, even if our doubts draw hostility from the zealous proponents of the latest craze.
In their response to all of this drama, the Church of Psilomethoxin has stated:
"the Church has never, at any time, laid claim to the fact that Psilomethoxin has ever been positively identified in its sacrament."
and
"Our claims to the existence of Psilomethoxin, at this time, are solely based on faith."
Their website clearly stated from the very beginning:
We are a non-profit church dedicated to furthering our spiritual development and communing with Source/God through the circumscribed consumption of our sacrament, Psilomethoxin.
and
Our spiritual sacrament, Psilomethoxin, is contained in mushroom fruiting bodies. Once picked from the substrate/growing medium, the fruiting bodies are dried, powered, and sent to our members.
Their statement, "Our claims to the existence of Psilomethoxin, at this time, are solely based on faith" is an interesting one. Such a response brings to mind the complex interplay between faith and science. They go on to say, "...it is scientifically impossible to make such claims as there is no reference sample in existence." While this may be true, I believe it is possible to test this stuff and determine if it is or is not 4-HO-5-MeO-DMT.
To put an end to the doubts surrounding their faith-based sacrament, they could easily send certified samples of it to a reputable lab and dare them to scrutinize it.