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I am old, older than thought in your species,
which is itself fifty times older than your

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history. Though I have been on earth for ages
I am from the stars. My home is no one planet,

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for many worlds scattered through the shining
disc of the galaxy have conditions which allow

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my spores an opportunity for life. The mushroom
which you see is the part of my body given

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to sex thrills and sun bathing, my true body
is a fine network of fibers growing through

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the soil. These networks may cover acres and
may have far more connections than the number

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in a human brain. My mycelial network is nearly
immortal, only the sudden toxification of

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a planet or the explosion of its parent star
can wipe me out. By means impossible to explain

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because of certain misconceptions in your
model of reality all my mycelial networks

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in the galaxy are in hyper-light communication
across space and time. The mycelial body is

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as fragile as a spider's web but the collective
hyper-mind and memory is a vast historical

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archive of the career of evolving intelligence
on many worlds in our spiral star swarm. Space,

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you see, is a vast ocean to those hardy life
forms that have the ability to reproduce from

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spores, for spores are covered with the hardest
organic substance known. Across the aeons

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of time and space drift many spore-bearing
life-forms in suspended animation for millions

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of years until contact is made with a suitable
environment. Few such species are minded,

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only myself and my recently evolved near relatives
have achieved the hyper-communication mode

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and memory capacity that makes us leading
members in the community of galactic intelligence.

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How the hyper-communication mode operates
is a secret which will not be lightly given

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to man. But the means should be obvious: it
is the occurrence of psilocybin and psilocin

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in the biosynthetic pathways of my living
body that opens for me and my symbiots the

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vision screens to many worlds. You as an individual
and man as a species are on the brink of the

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formation of a symbiotic relationship with
my genetic material that will eventually carry

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humanity and earth into the galactic mainstream
of the higher civilisations. Since it is not

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easy for you to recognise other varieties
of intelligence around you, your most advanced

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theories of politics and society have advanced
only as far as the notion of collectivism.

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But beyond the cohesion of the members of
a species into a single social organism there

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lie richer and even more baroque evolutionary
possibilities. Symbiosis is one of these.

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Symbiosis is a relation of mutual dependence
and positive benefits for both of the species

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involved. Symbiotic relationships between
myself and civilized forms of higher animals

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have been established many times and in many
places throughout the long ages of my development.

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These relationships have been mutually useful;
within my memory is the knowledge of hyper-light

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drive ships and how to build them. I will
trade this knowledge for a free ticket to

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new worlds around suns younger and more stable
than your own. To secure an eternal existence

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down the long river of cosmic time I again
and again offer this agreement to higher beings

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and thereby have spread throughout the galaxy
over the long millennia. A mycelial network

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has no organs to move the world, no hands;
but higher animals with manipulative abilities

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can become partners with the star knowledge
within me and if they act in good faith, return

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both themselves and their humble mushroom
teacher to the million worlds all citizens

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of our star swarm are heir to.