REMEMBERING JACK PETERS

 

Jack, his daughter Pamela and granddaughter in the pack

A Passion for Learning & Mushrooms

Pamela  Peters

Dr. Jack Peters came to discover the magic of mushroom hunting relatively late, when he was in his 50s. It was 1988 when he flew us in a private, chartered Cessna prop plane into the infamous Telluride airfield for the Wild Mushrooms Telluride conference for the first time. We both fell in love -- with the town, the people, and naturally the mushrooms. 

We found Boletus edulis [B. rubiceps], chanterelles, Hydnum imbricatum [Sarcadon imbricatus], Amanita muscaria, and so many more that first year. Though, more than the wild mushrooms, it was returning Fungophiles, and the amazing, groundbreaking lectures that kept us coming back. Over the years we heard the most amazing (and often crazy sounding) ideas from Paul Stamets, Rick Doblin, Terence McKenna, Gary Lincoff, John Sir Jesse, Dr. Andrew Weil, Sasha and Ann Shulgin, and so many more!

Once in a while Jack and I would bring along someone else to join us: a romantic partner, a friend, a sibling, even a young child. Mostly though it was Jack and I who attended mushroom gatherings in Telluride. It was there that we both learned about, and tried, Psilocybe cubensis. Again, Jack was with me during this magical and transformational experience. Jack was a pioneer in many aspects of his life, and I am truly fortunate and honored to have lived part of my life alongside of him. It is with great reverence, joy and sadness that I bid him a last farewell.

Dr. Jack at Shroomfest24 in Elks Park with festival-goer & child 

Partying with Visionaries

Art Goodtimes

In the early days of the Telluride Mushroom Festival, I was the local hired man. Engaged to work logistics. Make arrangements for the conference, known back in those days as Wild Mushrooms Telluride. As such, I wasn't immediately invited to the faculty parties. But one year Jack reached out and I found myself entering the third-floor Main Street condo he'd rented, looking down on the resort town's night-life action. All the principals were there and many of the loyal attendees, whom event-founder Dr. Manny Salzman had named the Fungophiles. Like the conference-turned-festival, this party was an eclectic mix of mycologists, psychonauts, illicit growers, and mainstream professionals (even some ex-military), now peppered with us myco-crazies.

Dr. Jack was passing around trays of fresh Psilocybe cubensis, some as big as apples. As a counter-cultural poet & mycological society member from San Francisco, I was quite familiar with taking magic mushrooms in the Mt. Tam woods with fellow hippie drop-outs. But here we were in a condo facing down on Colorado Avenue on weekend high-season Telluride, rubbing shoulders with a well-dressed crowd of strait-laced-looking folks, many beyond middle age, openly ingesting entheogens -- with Jack as our host.

I think it was my initiation into entheogens as medicine -- not so much counter-cultural tripping  as therapeutic body healing, heart expansion and mind exploration. And here we are decades later, so many of us Fungophiles fascinated to see that mainstream culture has finally caught up with visionaries like Dr. Peters. Thank you, Jack.

Dr. Jack with grandkids (all photos courtesy of Pamela Peters)