This episode of Spotlights features Rachael Petersen and Natalia Schwien Scott, who co-launched the “Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative” at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University in fall of 2022. Sam Mickey speaks with them about the initiative and its culminating conference, which took place in May of 2025. They also discuss their interdisciplinary exploration into how plants and fungi help humans rethink the nature of mind and matter and humans’ relationship to the more-than-human world. Listeners can learn more about the initiative and conference here.

Fungi, ancient colonizers of land, form a vast kingdom distinct from plants and animals. They survived extreme conditions by developing adaptive intelligence. Modern research explores their roles as builders, chemists, and environmental healers. Mycologist Paul Stamets highlights their potential in medicine and soil decontamination through mycorrhemediation. Mycelium networks decompose debris, enrich soil, and inspire technological advancements. Fungi are crucial in agricultural symbiosis and reforestation projects like Africa’s Great Green Wall. With less than 15% of fungal species identified, future discoveries hold immense promise for medicine, industry, and environmental sustainability.

Most fungi live out of sight, yet they make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that support and sustain nearly all living systems. The symbiotic mycorrhizal networks formed by plants and fungi comprise an ancient life-support system that easily qualifies as one of the wonders of the living world. Yet climate change strategies, conservation agendas and restoration efforts overlook fungi and focus overwhelmingly on animals and plants. This is a problem: the destruction of underground fungal networks accelerates both climate change and biodiversity loss and interrupts vital global nutrient cycles. In this session, Merlin Sheldrake, the biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our World, drives home just how critically important fungi are and discuss the visionary work of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) and its efforts to map and protect the mycorrhizal fungal communities of the planet. He also presents cutting-edge research into the flow dynamics of carbon and nutrients within mycorrhizal fungal networks. This keynote talk was delivered at the 2024 Bioneers Conference.

This short film follows Chilean mycologist Giuliana Furci’s search for new mushrooms in far southern Chile, on the main island of Tierra del Fuego. She’s joined by biologist and author Merlin Sheldrake and mycologist Toby Kiers from SPUN, the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, whose goal is to map the mycorrhizal networks of the world. Together, the three scientists illuminate how–through nutrient cycling and the essential relationships they form with plants–fungi underpin every ecosystem on Earth, and outline a strategy for greater fungal inclusion in conservation policy.

Join acclaimed British biologist, Merlin Sheldrake, on a quest to find an incredibly precious blue mushroom, against the backdrop of Tasmania’s ancient Tarkine rainforest. Merlin will show us some of the grandest and strangest organisms ever discovered, showcased through jaw-dropping time-lapse cinematography, in a landscape largely unchanged from the time of the dinosaurs. Fungi have important lessons to teach humanity about survival through cooperation. Indeed, these incredible lifeforms may hold the key to solving some of humanity’s most urgent problems. With millions more species to discover, our journey into the secret world of fungi has only just begun.

On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Matt Kirshen explore the weird world of fungi with fungus expert and ecologist, Merlin Sheldrake. Viewers will learn about the origins of the classification of the kingdom fungi, the use of psychedelic mushrooms, and how different fungi affect the people and animals who interact with them. The hosts explore the world’s great mycelium network and how fungi connect ecosystems. They also explore existing theories about psilocybin’s impact on human evolution.

A descriptive time-lapse journey about the magical, mysterious and medicinal world of fungi and their power to heal, sustain and contribute to the regeneration of life on Earth that began 3.5 billion years ago.

The amazing story of nature’s great survivor: fungi. Not plant, not animal, but a distinct biological realm, fungi have been essential to the evolution of all life on land. And they may hold the key to mankind’s future.

In this talk by ethnobotanist, ecologist, and author Terence McKenna, he asks the fundamental question concerning natural hallucinogens: is it an accident of nature that certain plants and mushrooms can alter human awareness in profound ways. He argues that man and hallucinogenic plants and mushrooms have co-evolved. These botanicals provide a way for people to experience their spiritual nature, and throughout history have been used by shamans whose function is to enter altered states in order to perceive the spiritual causes behind ordinary reality. Recorded at Masonic Temple, Van Nuys, California, Sept. 8, 1991.