I've have done a lot of drugs and know a lot of people who have done a lot of drugs, and psilocybin is far and away the substance that is most loved and gets the best reviews. It's not even close.
If someone is unfamiliar with psychoactive drugs, I would suggest they eat a single mushroom cap in a safe, private, comfortable environment and with another person who has some experience. I think it is a more pleasurable and worthwhile experience than marijuana, which can actually be more intense and is more prone to generating anxiety and paranoia. There's lots of resources online and there are communities in a lot of cities that advocate mushroom use.
Mescaline is like the angry lover version of mushrooms. I did it once, two years ago to understand why it has been used, traditionally, as the baseline for comparison for psychedelic substances, and it was enlightening; it is certainly a tasting menu of the classical psychedelics, having at different points in the experience the flavor of stimulants, LSD, mushrooms and finally something all its own, but it is also much grittier and less loving than mushrooms.
Mescaline is _rough_. And honestly the "you are done with it before it is done with you" thing is 100% true, it is also very long lasting.
Never tried it. Seems like it's vaguely hard to consume safely since it is tied to shaman woo culture overseas. Supposedly there are sessions in the bay area, but I'm not cool enough to know people who know about them, or for that matter the other things I'd like to try.
I have a plan to try it, DMT, LSD, 2-CB and 5-MeO-DMT before I'm 60, so I guess I'd better get cracking as that isn't far away for me.
I've known far fewer people who have taken it. Unlike mushrooms, I have heard stories of prolonged and difficult trips that sound much more challenging and arguably dangerous than a average-dose mushroom trip.
