Lingzhi, more specifically Ganoderma lingzhi, is more commonly known as reishi. It has been trending in online stores and even in nootropics community for a wide variety of purported benefits. It is a “bracket fungus”: it looks like a shelf growing from tree stumps (it has a taste for maple trees especially).
Origin:
East Asia, which explains its prevalence in traditional Chinese medicine. Also in Chinese art, this mushroom symbolizes great health and longevity, and I suspect it’s from here that we got the modern Western connotation of “the mushroom of longevity”.
History in Taoist temples
Apparently these temples were actually called “the house of mushrooms” and the use of especially woody mushrooms, like our friend reishi, was encouraged in order to bring about hallucinations and spiritual experiences.
I decided to do a search on one of the largest online retailers in South Africa to see if the products being offered on there reflected what I now knew about this mushroom.
One of the descriptions reads as follows: “Powerful adaptogenic mushroom to restore hormonal imbalances and combat the negative effects of stress on the body […] improves immune function […] Combats inflammation”, to name just a few. None of these “benefits” have been studied in a scientific setting.
This brings up an issue that I’ve been noticing more often, especially when one begins to explore alternatives to our modern Western health paradigm: are these paradigms incongruent? Is it unfair to expect traditional scientific data on something that has been successfully used as medicine in East Asia for thousands of years? Or is this another example of capitalism shamelessly using half-truths and empty promises just to keep the profits rolling in? I’m trying to stay hopeful that we live in a world where blatant lies and manipulation in the name of money would be widely considered unethical, but I’m afraid as time goes on, I’m losing hope.
This is NOT to say that I don’t believe that these mushrooms have very real and very powerful medicinal properties. I’m quite open about my obsession with fungi! Rather I’m perplexed by the introduction of these mushrooms to the Western (capitalist) world. Are retailers turning ancient medicine into capitalist snake oil?