If you go to Wikipedia and search for Ibotenic acid, you'll find that it mentions injecting it into the brains of rats and that it's a neurotoxin. But there's a big difference between injecting it directly into the brain with a pure, isolated syringe of Ibotenic acid, and consuming it via mushroom. There's mastication, sugars breaking down in the mouth, and then your gut processing the mushroom. Additionally, we have a blood-brain barrier, and it is part of the studies to determine what will cross it, and what won't. By the time the ingested Ibotenic acid has gotten to the brain, it will already have been processed by the many gates in your body.
The problem with western science is that they have been obsessed with isolating a single substance from the natural world, and then figuring out what it does all on its own, when there is zero proof that any one chemical in the natural world works all by itself, anywhere. Everything works with associated compounds that are usually found within that same plant, fungus, or any other natural thing. They work together to cause a series of processes, that turn out to be toxic or healthy for us. In the early days of medicine we figured out how to isolate vitamins, then we discovered that, for example, Vitamin C needs bioflavonoids to be bioavailable to the body. We've seen repeatedly in medicine that when they take something from its natural source, then isolate it, then make it synthetically, and give it to people, that it can be destructive. It happens over and over, yet we continue to do it. Why are we not looking at all of the other things that came with the natural version, and how all of those things can be working together to make a positive effect? Again, there are no oral studies of Ibotenic acid. Absolutely zero. Everything you read about Ibotenic acid is the result of it being injected into the brain (in very high quantities, and strong synthetic Ibotenic acid). Because of this, people think that if they eat this mushroom they'll die.
Now I want to teach you what we do know about the brain and neurons, then I'm going to go into my own hypotheses.
The brain has its electrical impulses (positive and negative, just like electricity out of the wall), and in the neurons that is managed by calcium ions which have a positive charge. They'll go into the cell and make the cell more positive, and then they'll come back out of the cell, making the cell negative again. That's how you send a nerve signal down the line. When you get to the synapse (the spot between them), a lot of things happen to control all of the chemicals that go from one neurons to the next all the way down the line. When calcium works its way down the line and into that synapse, it can get pushed on to the next one or it can be taken up, and that is a method of control. What we believe is that neurons that are just sitting there performing no functions have a very low set point for the amount of calcium that's allowed into that cell to cross that synapse and into the next cell. In the case of learning, let's say that neuron is going to be responsible for learning a particular thing. In that case, calcium is increased for that cell and it continues to flood that cell repeatedly, but it's highly controlled, and when it leaves, something has changed within the cell and it now has new information. What they have learned with anything that goes through the glutamate pathways is that Ibotenic acid works along the same pathways. Glutamate is like the key to open the door to let the calcium in and close the door. So if you flood your brain with glutamate, you're just doing to keep that door open and have a constant movement of calcium. So, when you inject Ibotenic acid into the brain, the doors are opened up and calcium just floods the cells until they die. Obviously that's not good... especially in a system that is so carefully controlled.
What I'm theorizing is that one of the entourage items is the metal vanadium, and that vanadium is going to help meter the amount of Ibotenic acid that's leaving one neuron and going into that synapse space and so on, and that if you can carefully control the amount of glutamate, then you're gonna carefully control the amount of calcium. Ibotenic acid in huge amounts injected into the brain will of course be harmful and dangerous. But that's not how we live, we live in a system eating fruits and vegetables that have all these associated things that control and gate where they go in our bodies. I theorize that, let's say a neuron holds a painful memory, Ibotenic acid works with the glutamate, letting the calcium in and altering the structure of the memory, fixing it and making it right.
For links to all the things I reference here, see the description of the video on the same topic. They will be added here eventually when I have time.