Shrooms were certainly being used as early as the late 1950s. Poet Dave Cunliffe was a runner for a London gang in the late 50s and gave me the first (to me) known example of recreational acid dealing. He also told me, and I think this is in Albion Dreaming, that he was also using P Sem around that time. In West Yorkshire the P. Sem wave suddenly hit in 1975/6. Prior to that no one ever mentioned them and then suddenly the fields edging the moors above Hebden Bridge and Todmorden were full of heads down hippies, picking and grinning. This may possibly have been the result of the Hassle Free Press Psilocybin mushroom guide that came out around that time.
Thanks Andy. I wonder how Dave C had figured out about the P Sem by then? Earliest identification anywhere I think was '63... (good shout on the Hassle Free Press guide - more in the next article on that one, although I think that was '77)
The possibility of use of Liberty Caps pre-Wasson is intriguing. It is striking that psilocybe semilanceata managed to acquire the moniker, Liberty Cap, that is evocative of its psychoactive effects. Many mushrooms have acquired some interesting common names, but going through the index of one of my British mushroom identification books, I spotted only two others that stood out as evocative of mind altering effects - Witches Butter, which apparently does not have psychoactive effects, but has some medicinal uses and a consistency similar to butter; and Laughing Jim, which also contains psilocybin, and I think the common name is a recent one due to observations of uncontrollable laughter.
The mundane explanation for the liberty cap, that it resembles an item of headwear with the same name, does not quite capture just how striking this synchronicity(?) is (that its name evokes its psychoactive effects).
As somebody writing in the Worcestershire Naturalists' Club remarked in 1914 (found in snippet view on google books), "I am at a loss to say why this latter has obtained an English name" - basically saying that there are tons of anonymous little brown mushrooms, yet this one managed to rise above anonymity.
Maybe somehow the mushroom was calling out to be noticed in some sense. Or maybe there is some forgotten vernacular use.
When I was about ten (c. 1958), I was hanging out with some neighborhood kids in the alley between our row of back yards and the “canteen” where they cooked the midday meals for several different elementary schools. These were cooked in the morning and transported in large, insulated aluminum containers. The canteen was then closed up in the afternoons, and the area was ours. On one such afternoon, a girl of my age abruptly stated, “My little brother eats toadstools.”
The young chap (of about five years old) was with us, so I was able to inquire about his abnormal diet. “You don’t, do you?” I asked him, shocked.
With a wide grin, he nodded in reply, “Yes, I do.”
I was baffled. Toadstools were poisonous, surely. “But why?” I asked.
“Because they let me see the fairies,” was his smug, grinning response.
At the time, I dismissed this as the inevitable foolishness of the five-year-old brain but now, knowing the effects of Psilocybe mushrooms and the notorious prevalence of Psilocybe semilanceata in Wales, I see it in a quite different light.
Brilliant and fascinating, thanks Mike. Were there still lots of folkloric fairy stories being told at the time too? Seems like the perfect reason to be giving some mushroom tasting a go!
Shrooms were certainly being used as early as the late 1950s. Poet Dave Cunliffe was a runner for a London gang in the late 50s and gave me the first (to me) known example of recreational acid dealing. He also told me, and I think this is in Albion Dreaming, that he was also using P Sem around that time. In West Yorkshire the P. Sem wave suddenly hit in 1975/6. Prior to that no one ever mentioned them and then suddenly the fields edging the moors above Hebden Bridge and Todmorden were full of heads down hippies, picking and grinning. This may possibly have been the result of the Hassle Free Press Psilocybin mushroom guide that came out around that time.
Thanks Andy. I wonder how Dave C had figured out about the P Sem by then? Earliest identification anywhere I think was '63... (good shout on the Hassle Free Press guide - more in the next article on that one, although I think that was '77)
Can't wait! ✨
The possibility of use of Liberty Caps pre-Wasson is intriguing. It is striking that psilocybe semilanceata managed to acquire the moniker, Liberty Cap, that is evocative of its psychoactive effects. Many mushrooms have acquired some interesting common names, but going through the index of one of my British mushroom identification books, I spotted only two others that stood out as evocative of mind altering effects - Witches Butter, which apparently does not have psychoactive effects, but has some medicinal uses and a consistency similar to butter; and Laughing Jim, which also contains psilocybin, and I think the common name is a recent one due to observations of uncontrollable laughter.
The mundane explanation for the liberty cap, that it resembles an item of headwear with the same name, does not quite capture just how striking this synchronicity(?) is (that its name evokes its psychoactive effects).
As somebody writing in the Worcestershire Naturalists' Club remarked in 1914 (found in snippet view on google books), "I am at a loss to say why this latter has obtained an English name" - basically saying that there are tons of anonymous little brown mushrooms, yet this one managed to rise above anonymity.
Maybe somehow the mushroom was calling out to be noticed in some sense. Or maybe there is some forgotten vernacular use.
When I was about ten (c. 1958), I was hanging out with some neighborhood kids in the alley between our row of back yards and the “canteen” where they cooked the midday meals for several different elementary schools. These were cooked in the morning and transported in large, insulated aluminum containers. The canteen was then closed up in the afternoons, and the area was ours. On one such afternoon, a girl of my age abruptly stated, “My little brother eats toadstools.”
The young chap (of about five years old) was with us, so I was able to inquire about his abnormal diet. “You don’t, do you?” I asked him, shocked.
With a wide grin, he nodded in reply, “Yes, I do.”
I was baffled. Toadstools were poisonous, surely. “But why?” I asked.
“Because they let me see the fairies,” was his smug, grinning response.
At the time, I dismissed this as the inevitable foolishness of the five-year-old brain but now, knowing the effects of Psilocybe mushrooms and the notorious prevalence of Psilocybe semilanceata in Wales, I see it in a quite different light.
Brilliant and fascinating, thanks Mike. Were there still lots of folkloric fairy stories being told at the time too? Seems like the perfect reason to be giving some mushroom tasting a go!