Andy Letcher’s History Of Magic Mushrooms
If you are interested in magic mushrooms, you need to read the book “Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom” by Andy Letcher. You may or may not agree with many of his viewpoints and conclusions. But read it you must!
Why? Because there is almost certainly no other living being out there who has read everything – and I mean every tiniest shred and scrap of material – relating to magic mushrooms. And not only read all of this material but then gone to great lengths to compile it into a sequential and digestible summary for us ordinary human beings who could not possibly have done all that research and reading for ourselves.
The most important portion of the book tells the story of how Gordon Wasson discovered Mexican indigenous use of Psilocybe mushrooms in healing and spiritual practices. Another major section relates the traditional Siberian use of Fly agric in shamanism and for recreation.
In the second half or of the book, Letcher tells the story of the British ‘free festivals’ of the late 70′s and early 80′s, where wild-harvested shrooms were used abundantly. After which shrooms again fell into relative obscurity until the American Terence McKenna stumbled upon a method of easily and effectively cultivating Psilocybe cubensis in large quantities, which gave rise to the third magic mushroom bonanza.
The one aspect of Shroom that bothers me is how Letcher dismisses many “unproven” theories on the historical use of magic mushrooms by presenting the counter-arguments that are often equally unconvincing.
E.g. he points out that the ancient petroglyphs in Tassili, Algeria, which many shroom enthusiasts are convinced depict shamans with magic mushroom, could potentially have several other interpretations. The reader is left with a sense that because there are other possible interpretations, therefore, the mushroom interpretation is wrong.
Critical evaluation of any unproven theory is a great thing but it needs to be balanced. Letcher often appears overly critical of the theories of historic mushroom usage, while being totally uncritical of the arguments of the detractors of said theories.
This lack of balance is especially blatant when one realizes that he uses the reality of a changing environment and flora as an argument against the possible use of magic mushrooms by Druids in a heavily forested ancient Britain even though it grows abundantly in British pastures today, while simultaneously arguing that the Fly agaric could not have been used in ancient Egypt because no Fly agaric related mushroom grows there today.
To be fair to the author, it should be acknowledged that his presentation does get more balanced in the second half of the book. Several times, he admits that there is no objective way to be certain about which of the opposing claims are valid. He deserves credit for that.
All in all, this book must surely be the most thorough and comprehensive account ever written on the history of magic mushrooms; in particular the more recent part of that history, relating to the past one hundred years or so.
But Shroom is not only a book about magic mushrooms. It also tells the stories of other psychedelic drugs, such as mescaline (Aldous Huxley), LSD (Timothy Leary), and ecstasy (rave culture).
So notwithstanding my reservations against Letcher’s slightly unbalanced presentation in the first half of the book, I really do think that anyone with a serious interest in magic mushrooms needs to read Shroom. There is no other book like it out there, I’m sure.
Get your copy of Shroom by Andy Letcher today! Dr. Rafael graduated from Chiropractic College in the mid-90′s. He now focuses on researching and writing about mushrooms and herbs. You can find additional reviews on mushroom books at mycelium-running.info.