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What is it?

Common names for Reishi translate to things like ‘Auspicious mushroom’, ‘Immortal Wizard’, ‘Divine mushroom’, Sacred mushroom’ and so forth. It is tremendously highly regarded in Eastern medicine.

Reishi grows at the base of deciduous trees such as the Maple but only 1 or 2 in 10,000 of these trees has it naturally growing in the wild. Fortunately it can be cultivated today which is how we obtain it.

How has it been used?

This is a quote from a famous Chinese doctor, it sums up the kind of esteem in which Reishi has been held:  “Reishi positively affects the life-energy, or Qi of the heart, repairing the chest area and benefiting those with a knotted and tight chest. Taken over a long period of time, agility of the body will not cease, and the years are lengthened to those of the Immortal Fairies” L Shizhen from the year 1596.

The many names referring to Reishi as a kind of spiritual mushroom would have been in no small part due to the practice of Taoist priest to search for Reishi in the mountains and to use the herb as part of their meditation practice to center and still their minds.

However Reishi is about as far away from magic or psychedelic mushrooms as you can get, in direct contrast to such substances that can agitate visions or hallucinations, Reishi is famous for its ability to quiet and still the mind.

There has been a huge amount of modern scientific research into Reishi, especially through the state sponsored Chinese medical system which still uses herbs as its mainstream medicine. Reishi has particularly been identified as an agent that can help in the treatment of cancer and it clearly has many benefits to the immune system.

Reishi has also been shown to improve the stickiness of the blood, to have tonic effects to the liver and to improve blood pressure and cholesterol.

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Personal experiences

I often work with people who have weakened immune systems. They may simply be run down and tired as a result or it may be much more serious; auto-immune conditions, health sapping allergies or even in some cases, cancer.

Reishi is one of the medicines I almost always use in cases of significantly compromised immunity and I can definitely confirm that Reishi has profoundly beneficial effects on the immune system.

There are an enormous number of Reishi products on the market. Like every other herb it is truly a case of caveat emptor (buyer beware). In my opinion and along with a number of esteemed colleagues I believe that the best place to get Reishi mushroom is from JHS in the USA. http://www.jhsnp.com/ This is a company that only does mushrooms and does them really well.

I know that JHS ship all over the world so if you do not have a herbalist or herbal supplier that already have them or can get them for you then you will still be able to do it yourself.

Reishi combines perfectly with Echinacea, Panax Ginseng and Withania to support immune health and vitality.

How rare was that?

Reishi is now widely available because the art of cultivating it (on Plum tree sawdust) has been refined over the last few decades but historically it was known as the "Phantom Mushroom" because it was so rare and difficult to find. For example in Japan over ninety-nine percent of all the Reishi Mushrooms found growing in the wild are located on old Japanese plum trees and fewer than ten mushrooms can be found on 100,000 trees!

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