PDF Version - Mushroom John`s Tales of the Shrooms

The Greatest Shroom Library Part IV: Magic Field Guides & Taxonomy
By and of
John W. Allen
First, please do not respond in this thread until I have posted all 220 or so photos of magic mushrooms field
guides and taxonomic or other papers that first described the mushrooms of the Genus Psilocybe and Panaeolus
and Gymnopilus. The earliest reports of intoxications ere of Panaeolus species and Gymnopilus form China in
the 2nd Century of the chin Dynasty and in 11th century Japan. Since these will be discussed in another section
of this pictorial series, only the major identification of species will be discussed here.
I will attempt to post these images in groups of up to 10-15 images per post in this thread, thus making it easier
to view.
Now, When I first began to learn about shrooms, thee was very little information in the libraries as students cut
out the pictures of known species and stole shroom books and articles from Libraries all along the west coast.
So we are looking at two primary genera, Psilocybe and Panaeolus (which include Copelandia) and some
reports of Gymnopilus species.
How to identify Psilocybian mushrooms of the genus Psilocybe. 1. the genus has certain macroscopic features
and characteristics primarily found in the Genus Psilocybe, while at the same time, other genera may share
similarities in appearance.
Chocolate to Purple Colored Spores and Spore Prints
In order to properly identify and key a particular species of fungi to its genus one must first make a spore print.
A spore print will tell which family a particular species of mushroom belongs to. First cut the stem from off of
the mushroom cap and then place the cap of the mushroom face down on a piece of white paper. Next place a
clean sterilized empty jar over the cap of the mushroom. This will allow the spores of the mushroom to settle on
the paper below and the glass jar will keep the spores from blowing away. After 20 minutes or more, remove
the jar from the paper and lift the mushroom cap from the paper. Then you will observe the spore print of the
particular species you are studying. Another method would be to use a petri plate and place the cap of a species
into the petri plate, with a cap over it for 12 hours and then remove the cap and you have a clean print which
can be used in PDA (Potato Dextrose Agar) and then you can create mycelia when the spores are streaked onto
the agar in a clean petri plate thus producing the mycelia used to mix with pasteurized wheat-straw or other
mediums of compost such as horse manure and hay, or pasteurize cow or buffalo manure and dolomite (crushed
oyster shells) or hickory nuts. Some collectors place the fresh caps of their mushrooms on aluminum foil or on
white paper and even others create spore syringes to help in being able to grow mushrooms by providing a clean
sterile environment for terrarium, aquarium or mycobag cultivation (the latter method works well in 5 – to 10pound mycobags using at least two air filter patches.
Psilocybian mushrooms described in this thread can be identified by an enzyme that occurs in fungi containing
the alkaloids psilocybine and/or psilocine, with an indole nucleus and producing by an oxidative process, a blue
pigment.
When the flesh of the stem or cap of a fresh mushroom is bruised or damaged (whether from human handling,
wind, insects or falling objects), an enzyme occurs which oxidizes as it comes into contact with air. This causes
the damaged area of the mushroom to turn blue or blue green. Many species of psilocybian fungi have stems
ranging in color from a pallid yellow white to an off white. Bluing in psilocybian mushrooms is common after
damage has occurred. The bluing reaction occurs within 10 to 20 minutes after human handling but may already
be noticeable in fungi damaged from natural elements and from bluing with aging.
The genus Psilocybe is quite large, consisting of over 266 known species. Currently according to Guzman and a
recent paper by me in press, more than 150 of these Psilocybe species are entheogenic. Psilocybe species have a
wide variety of habitats which include: dung, manured soil, sandy soil, pastures, meadows, lawns, woods,
among decayed twigs and leaves, sphagnum moss, woodchips and bark mulch.
Psilocybe species have certain characteristics common throughout the genus. These include: a conic to bell
shaped cap, usually with a nipple or umbo at the top. The margins of the caps are often incurved when young.
Some caps become convex and flat with age, others become wavy. The caps are viscid when moist and the
margin is translucent-striate (meaning that the lines of the gill plates are visible on the caps when moist).
Psilocybe species have a viscid pellicle (a film or membrane which can easily be separated from the cap).
Colors of the caps may range from a dark olive brown or chestnut rusty color when fresh to pale yellow when
dried. The caps are hygrophanous, meaning that they change color as they dry. A slight bluing may occur along
the outer edges of the caps when damaged. In some species this bluing is very intense. The color of the gills
may range from cinnamon brown to dark chocolate or purple brown. The spore colors of the spores of Psilocybe
species are usually from a light to dark chocolate to purple brown. The stems are hollow with fine pith. Some
species such as Psilocybe semilanceata (the "liberty cap") can be wrapped around the finger like a piece of
string. Certain varieties such as Psilocybe cubensis and/or Psilocybe subcubensis, Psilocybe fimetaria and
Psilocybe stuntzii) usually have a dark chocolate-purple ring around the top of the stem where the mushroom
cap has detached itself from the stem. Sometimes the ring on some of these species stains blue when damaged
and are referred to as 'blue ringers.' The purple color of the ring on the stems of some Psilocybe species is due to
spores falling on the stem after the cap of the mushrooms has opened.
The color of the stems may range from a pallid yellow or yellow-brown to olive brown while other species have
pure white stems. bluing on the white stemmed varieties is usually very intense. In some regions, some species
occur throughout the year depending on their locations and climatic environments.
A Liberty Cap Image from Scandinavia
The first published report of an accidental ingestion of a psilocybian species occurred in the UK in 1792 and
was not officially identified until 1803 by Sowerby as Agaricus semiglobatus (which from the sketch in the
following 1971 paper by Roger Heim shows that this mushroom is actually, Psilocybe semilanceata), otherwise
known as the ‘liberty cap.’
The next report and those following are of Panaeolus species, more likely all originally misidentified as
Panaeolus campanulatus, Panaeolus sphinctrinus and/or Panaeolus papilionaceus. These following papers on
intoxications and chemical studies, the latter by Levine in 1918 were Panaeolus venonosus (a synonym for
Panaeolus subbalteatus).
How to identify Wild Species of Panaeolus and Copelandia Mushrooms.
If the spore print is jet black, then the mushroom belongs to one of the following genera: Panaeolus and/or
Copelandia. Coprinus (Shaggy Mane) and/or Anellaria species that also have jet-black spore prints but are not
hallucinogenic. Both Panaeolus and Copelandia mushrooms contain the alkaloids psilocybine and psilocine.
They are usually only found in manure of 4-legged ruminants, or rotted-hay and/or Compost heaps, at riding
stables and racetracks in rotted hay and stable shavings and sometimes in lawns. According to renown
European mycologist Ewald Gerhardt, the genus Copelandia is a subgenus of Panaeolus, consisting of at least 7
to species in the subgenus, and basically most are just variations of Copelandia cyanescens. All Copelandia
species are known to stain intensely blue when damaged or with age; sometimes even from natural elements as
noted by Singer and Smith (1958), and it appears that the genus of Panaeolus most likely consists of not more
than 3 to 5 species that are considered to be psilocybian active, with Panaeolus subbalteatus being the primary
active species in the genus.
In 1816, G. Glen, Esq., published a report regarding an intoxication caused from eating freshly picked garden
mushrooms that at the time were identified as Agaricus campanulatus. That species is actually a synonym of
the species, Panaeolus campanulatus, also known as Panaeolus campanulatus var. sphinctrinus and later
renamed as Panaeolus sphinctrinus, a species collected in Mexico in the late 1930s by Harvard Ethnobotanist
Richard Evans Schultes and Blas Pablo Reko. At the time, specimens sent to Harvard spoiled because of
improper drying. During the same decade, the same scholars sent several more collections from Mexico and
eventually those specimens ended up being studied by Rolf Singer and Alexander H. Smith. Unfortunately,
Richard Evans Schultes misidentified several of the collections and revealed that he believed that the species,
Panaeolus sphinctrinus was none other than the famed, “Teonanácatl” mushroom of the Olmecs, Toltecs and
Aztecs, as well as the Mayans, and along with Drs. Singer and Smith noted that it was currently used
ritualistically by the Náhuatl speaking Mazatec Indians in ritual healing and curing ceremonies. Between the
time of Schultes (1939 and 1940) papers on the Aztecs and the mushrooms and the many papers that were later
published by the Wasson’s and others throughout the late 1950s, up to and including the present time that no
Mazatec Indians had ever used Panaeolus sphinctrinus in their cultures and so it became known as the false,
“Teonanácatl’ mushroom. Dr. Schultes and co-author, Albert Hofmann did write in their book, “Plants of the
Gods” that Panaeolus sphinctrinus was the mushroom of the Aztecs and that it was still currently in use by the
Mazatec Indians in Oaxaca. Before he passed away, Dr. Schultes agreed, along with more than a dozen
scholars that the species was not an active, and that the original chemical analysis of the species by Ola’h and
others in the 1960s and 1970s were actually false positives and that the mushroom was never used by the
Mazatecs or any other Indian Tribal groups in Mesoamerica. It was a sad situation because many involved in
the fields of mycology, chemistry, and ethnomycology still believe that it is an active species. The latest reprint
of the Hofmann and Schultes book “Plants of the Gods,” was recently revised by the German Anthropologist,
Christian Rätsch, author of “The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants,” and editor of the German-English
language journal, “The Yearbook for Ethnomedicine and the Study of Consciousness,” kept the Schultes error in
the new edition with Rätsch added as both a co-author and editor of the new edition. The article posted below
that was reported by G. Glen, Esq., concerned an inebriation cause by a mushroom identified in an 1816 issue
of The London Medical and Physical Journal. And that mushroom that caused an neurotropic experience was
identified as the time as Agaricus campanulatus.
Approximately 100-years later, we find a similar report of a possible intoxication; the result of an accidental
consumption of a species of Panaeolus as a source of food. This occurred during a period in the early 1900s
when several reports of similar intoxications attributed to ingestions from Panaeolus species appeared in
numerous prestigious medical and mycological journals. The article below, written by renowned mycologist W.
A. Murrill, who, in 1916 identified the suspected inebriating species intoxication as most likely caused after the
ingestion of what he suspected as being, Panaeolus venonosus, a synonym for Panaeolus subbalteatus.
During this period in shroom history, Panaeolus subbalteatus became known as the 'Weed" mushroom because
it appeared sporadically in beds of commercially grown garden-beds of the common edible species of button
mushrooms known as Agaricus bisporus and/or Agaricus campestris. And was also known to occur naturally in
Garden bed boxes where bushes and flowering plants were being grown in well fertilized top-soils.
Dr. Michael Levine, in a 1918 issue of Torreya Journal Mems., became interested in such intoxications and
attempted to publish a report of his chemical studies on different animals, mice, turtles, dogs, cats, ducks,
including several guinea pigs who died from injections of mushrooms, etc. However, Dr. Levine was unable to
find out what was in the shrooms that cause such reactions in human consumptions. This is because the animals
were not able to talk and describe what was going on. He did however, in his groundbreaking article, publish
two pages of black and white images of Panaeolus venonosus, a synonym of Panaeolus subbalteatus. This was
the first attempt of a professional scientist and doctor in trying to find the active ingredients present in
mushrooms whose effects became known by Ford (1911) as a reaction referred to as cerebral mycetismus. It
was Ford who published the first paper on the various toxins in fungi that caused, illness, death or hallucinatory
states of consciousness.
5 years later, National Geographic published an issue featuring wild and poisonous mushroom with black and
white photographs of wild mushrooms. The last image in the issue was that of Panaeolus subbalteatus.
Now, until the Wasson's discoveries in Mexico, no more images were published but several accidental
intoxications were written up in medical journals.
The Wasson Legacy
On May 13th of 1957, Thanks to the editorial and publishing empire of Henry and Clare Booth Luce, owners
and editors of Time-Life, we learned of the existence of several tribes of primitive groups of Indians living in
remote montane villages in the high Sierra Mazateca region of Northern Oaxaca, Mexico who used certain
mushrooms in healing and curing ceremonies. According to the studies of Wasson and Heim, it is believed that
such practices quite possibly extended as far as 1500 years before the birth of Christ and were written about by
more than 50 historians, botanists, Franciscan Monks and Dominican Friars of the Spanish Conquest of Nueva
España.
Psychoactive fungi of the genera Psilocybe and possibly Panaeolus have been traditionally used for over 2000
to 3000 years. The use of these interesting fungi in magico-religious ceremonies as divinatory sacraments
among several tribes belonging to the Nahua speaking Indians of Mesoamerica is well documented by R.
Gordon and Valentina P. Wasson.
The Nahua are the ancestors of the once mighty Olmecs, Toltecs, and Aztecs. The Mayan cultures of Central
America may also have employed the mushroom entheogens ceremoniously. The indigenous native inhabitants
of Mesoamerica currently employ several entheogenic mushrooms for the purpose of healing and curing
through divination via magico-religious veladas.
R. Gordon Wasson and his Russian born wife, Valentina, Their daughter Masha, engineer Roberto Weitlaner,
French mycologist Roger Heim, mycologist Rolf Singer, photograph Alan Richardson, and a sneaky CIA short
order cook, disguised as a University of Maine professor (when his kitchen was in Wisconsin), infiltrated the
Wasson expedition by donating $2,000 to participate in of several of the Wasson's expeditions to Mexico.
Wasson made several trips into Mexico in the early to mid 1950s in search of mushrooms that were used in
healing and curing rituals and the above intrepid explorers joined Wasson on various trips during that time
period.
Both Wasson and his wife had been studying the historical influence on fungi, edible and poisonous as well as
certain species believed to hold powers of communication with the gods for a few decades. In his doublevolume “Mushrooms, Russia and History,” The Wassons told of their mushroomic adventures and discoveries
and published them in the above noted book, a book that originally was intended to be devoted to 15th century to
the present time, cooking recipes for wild mushrooms collected in the forests of Russia and the Baltic regions of
Eastern Europe, never expecting the outcome of his endeavor would change the concept of the beginnings of
deity and religion and the study of consciousness of primitive man’s possible introduction to the concept of that
which is God.
As Wasson became aware of the existence in Mexico and other regions of the world of mushrooms that caused
strange visions, he spent years studying everything written about mushrooms, their histories and the mythology
behind the mushrooms he came to love, as denoted by Wasson in his article in Life Magazine, one of the editors
of Life then took it upon himself, against the wishes of R. Gordon Wasson, decided to refer to such mushrooms
as those described by R. Gordon Wasson as “magic mushrooms', an epithet that Wasson deplored, preferring to
call them “wondrous.”
R. Gordon Wasson and his Russian born wife, Valentina Pavlovna Wasson, a pediatrician learned through four
major sources in the late 1940s, that such mushrooms did indeed exist. Those sources included his publisher
who resided in Germany, His scholarly friend, Robert Graves, noted Greek Historian and the author of "I
Claudius," had made aware to the Wassons, two published scholarly papers on the Aztec use of fungi written by
ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes and additional evidence through correspondence from two Wycliff Bible
Translators and missionaries who lived for years amongst the Mazatec Indians of the Mexican State of Oaxaca.
They had written Gordon numerous letters and notes describing the use of such mushrooms by Indians who also
used what the Indians knew as sacred, certain local mushrooms, informing the Wassons that the local Mazatec
shamans and curanderos mixed their ceremonies by incorporating and combining the teachings of Jesus with the
use of such mushrooms in their ceremonies. The missionaries were Florence Cowan and Eunice V. Pike, who in
1959 and 1960 wrote two important papers describing their observations of the use by certain Mazatecs that
involved the use of the “sacred” mushrooms in articles published in “Practical Anthropology” titled as “Sexual
Impunity Amongst the Mazatecs” and a 2nd paper titled as, “Mushroom Ritual Vs. Christianity.”
(See Pike, E. V. 1960. Mazatec Sexual Impurity and Bible Teaching. Practical Anthropology 7(2):49-53 and
Pike, E. V. and F. Cowan. 1959. Mushroom Ritual Vs. Christianity. Practical Anthropology 6(4):145-150.
Getting back to Editors, Henry and Clare Booth Luce, it should be noted that these good-hearted publishers
were the first promoters and endorsers of marijuana and LSD and published numerous articles in their
magazines to teach the world that pot and LSD were not dangerous drugs and had great healing powers and if
used in a proper manner, promoted peaceful existence between humans and their interactions with one another.
J. Edgar Hoover hated them and hassled them, but they loved pot and so they allowed their magazines to
become a vehicle to bring the word of the mushrooms first, then pot and then LSD, MDA and X to the publics
attention.
Here is the cover of that issue of Life Magazine that was published on May 13, 1957, followed by the
International Edition published on June 10th of 1957.
The Wasson article, over 17 pages, was a masterpiece of non-fiction, advertised on the cover as, "Great
Adventures in Life: Part Three." I never did find out what Great Adventures in Life part one or two were all
about, but this particular article emoted widespread public admiration to R. Gordon Wasson and for the Luce
heritage by naming the article: "Seeking the Magic Mushroom, Mushrooms that Cause Strange Visions." This
very magazine eventually attracted the attention of Timothy Leary and several of his cronies as well as
colleagues and thus began the real awareness of psychedelic drugs and the alteration of consciousness across the
universe
So on June 30 of 1957, Wasson and his photograph, Alan Richardson became the first white people in modern
history to eat the magic mushrooms in a ceremonial setting with a real sabia (wise-woman, saint-woman).
What occurred that night became a calling card that created a subculture that almost toppled the U.S.
Government, helped end the Viet-Nam war, helped bring about the Civil Rights Act, Woman’s right to prochoice, Underground newspapers, Acid Rock, The First Human Be-In with Timothy Leary, Baba Ram Dass,
Alan Ginsberg and other Harvard scholars and drug promoters, the hippies and the famed 1967, “Summer of
Love.”
After Wasson had retired from an all night vigil or velada mushroom ceremony as they were called, he was tired
and rested for half a day, yet again, on this 2nd night later after first consuming the “sacred” mushrooms, he
again decided that he had to try them again to make sure they were real. He stated that it was in the interest of
science and should be recognized as a scientific experiment. Some scholars questioned Wasson's judgment as to
his interpretation of what constituted a scientific experiment, but I believe that Wasson was right about his
reasons for trying them a 2nd time. 2 days later, his wife and 18-year-old daughter Masha joined him. It was
raining and kinda cold and Wasson convince his two best friends in the world, his wife and daughter to try the
mushrooms. So they ate the shrooms and Wasson tells of this in Life and later repeated the incident in numerous
articles published in a dozen or so different journals. Not to be discouraged by what had occurred between
Wasson and his experience while on the effects of the mushrooms, a week later he had decided to try them once
again after he returned to New York with pounds of mushrooms that he and his newfound friends had gathered
with him to import them back to Harvard for research purposes. I post below here a photo of one of their first
collections of the “sacred” mushrooms to take home to the USA. The species, Psilocybe caerulescens, were
collected by the Wasson’s, his newfound friends, Emilio and Cayetano, whose names were changed in the
Magazine article and fellow researchers who joined with him over the years on several expeditions into various
regions of Mesoamerica in search of the magic mushrooms.
This magazine is semi-rare, now over 53-years-old and sells for between, $35 to $75 dollars per copy ass a
collectors item. To make this even rarer, there are three copies floating around in the USA, two on the west
coast that were personally autographed to me by Wasson. One went to a friend with a whole collection of mine
of every original scholarly shroom item. The other two were stolen form me after my divorce from my second
wife in 1986. I currently have about 5 copies in my library.
What is unique about this particular article, is the story of how they came to learn of these shrooms and the
beautiful water-colored renditions of 7 species of magic psilocybian mushrooms as drawn by famed French
mycologist, Roger Heim (Pronounced as 'em.' Amongst these 7 species is Stropharia (Psilocybe) cubensis, a
single bluing Conocybe from Mexico and the Durrumbe (Landslide) mushroom that grows well along sugar
cane Begasse, and four other Psilocybe species. These were the first mushrooms identified as being
hallucinogenic. At that time in 1957, only 7 species were know in use by 7 tribes of Indians in Mesoamerica.
Today, according to Guzman, 48 species are used for one thing or another ceremoniously.
The title page of the article introducing Wasson to the world.
Roger Heim and the species he identified and named a few.
Next, in the summer of 1958, Drs. Rolf Singer of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and with the
University of Chicago, along with his colleague, mycologist Dr. Alexander H. Smith of the University of
Michigan. Singer and Smith wrote a paper on the 'Weed' mushroom, Panaeolus subbalteatus, which they note
was the actual mushroom described by Murrill in the above post thought to be of the Panaeolus campanulatus
(Agaricus campanulatus) complex.
The Identity of the Weed Mushroom was published as part IV of a lengthy paper in the Journal Mycologia in
1958 along with authors Ames, Stein, Singer and Smith. Interestingly, the Stein article was the first reported
case of a bad mushroom trip when Dr. Stein consumed five dried grams of in vitro grown baby specimens of
Psilocybe cubensis and Dr. stein reported in his paper that he had frightening experiences on and off between
bouts of exhilarating hilarity. This paper is six pages and shows the first cultivated photograph of Panaeolus
subbalteatus specimens grown in their lab at the University of Chicago.
And then later in 1958 in vol. 50 of the journal Mycologia, Rolf Singer and Alexander H. Smith wrote a paper
on the historical research by Schultes and by the Spanish conquistadors and the clergy who first wrote of the use
of mushrooms during and after the conquest
I am only posting the title page and two of the sketches of the species. Part two of this paper contained the first
monograph of the Genus Psilocybe covering the section known as caerulescens, which pertained only to those
species known to stain blue when handled or damaged and Singer was the first to note that the bluing for some,
as yet unknown reason, was an indication of the actions of the unknown chemicals in the mushrooms which
caused a cerebral mycetismus in those who consumed them. I seemed to have lost the third and 4th page of the
sketches of the species; mostly those from the Pacific Northwest. It was this very paper by Rolf Singer and
Alexander H. Smith that was used by Leonard Enos, Everett Kardel, me, Paul Stamets, and others to describe
and illustrate with line drawings and sketches or photographs obtained at the UW and Evergreen College in
Washington state that enabled us to present to the readers of out field guides and manuals, exactly what the
psychoactive species looked like in the early 1970s.
And those illustrations of Singer and Smith, copied one way or another from issue 50 of Mycologia in 1958
were the images used in all of the original field guides in a manner that all of the cultivation guides, including
McKenna’s, all began from the original cultivation of species by Roger Heim and author cultivator San
Antonio. So later when I can get to the University library, I am not sure if those pages are in the article. The
original article was cut from the journal in the mid 1960s or so according to one librarian I talked to in 1974 and
the repair job of replacing the pages came from a copy loaned to the UW Natural Science and copied on a really
old Xerox with bad reproduction, one page at a time so each page had a blank page. The actual monograph, part
2 of the article is 40-pages. And in this monograph, Dr. Singer and Dr. Smith misidentified one species,
Psilocybe Strictipes, a liberty cap looking mushroom as macroscopically similar to Psilocybe baeocystis, a
potent species once mistaken as the cause of death in two six year old boys, one from California and one from
Oregon/Washington. The original Drs. who examined the young child’s stomach and had actual Polaroid photos
of the mushroom in question showed that the mushrooms the child had eaten in a meal cooked by his parents
was really Psilocybe cyanescens. This incident and the actual article, as well as a letter from one of the doctors
involved in the attempted treatment to save this child’s life will be posted later. There were also a few other
misidentified species in the monograph.
Presented below, are three images of mushrooms from the Singer and Smith 1958 monograph of the genus
Psilocybe drawn in the pages of Mycologia vol. 50 1958.
(Rolf Singer. 1958b. Part Two. Mycological investigations on Teonanácatl, the Mexican hallucinogenic
mushrooms part one: The history of Teonanácatl, field work and culture. Mycologia vol. 50(2)239-261. April).
[img]TO BE REPLACED AT A LATER DATE MISSING[/img]
[img]TO BE REPLACED AT A LATER DATE MISSING[/img]
Magic shrooms became popular in the southeast USA in the early 1960s after Tim Leary brought them to
Harvard University for the possible use as an adjacent to psychotherapy. They were ordered in lots of 100-2 mg
tablets from Sandoz Laboratory in Basel, Switzerland to be used in clinical studies involving human subjects.
Within a few years of the new decade, many students soon became aware that there were some varieties that
grew in the manure of domesticated cattle and buffalo and that they were common during rainy seasons in the
Southeast USA and Australia. The use of these shrooms in the USA and Australia occurred long before they
became popular in the UK and Europe. Andy Letcher (2007), in his book “Shroom: A Cultural History of the
Magic Mushroom,” implied that the UK was the shroom center of the contemporary culture that we all enjoy
and are part of. However, he erred in that aspect of ludible use as well as in other matters published in his book,
some of which were rather outrageous. This book and my published review and Dr. Letcher’s response to my
anti-review of “Shroom” will be posted later in this section of Part IV on Magic Mushroom Field Guides.
The first published identification of Psilocybe cubensis in Australia appeared in a 1958 Australian Journal by
Aberdeen, J. E. C. and W. Jones. 1958. A hallucinogenic toadstool. Australian Journal of Science vol.
21:149. December 21.
The first botanical report on the occurrence of Psilocybe cubensis in Australia.
Shrooms were very popular between late 1959 through the early to mid 1970s along Australia's Gold Coast
where they were used by biker surfers who loved to eat them and then surf. That fad carried over to Hawaii and
Bali in the early 1970s.
Later, Aberdeen, J.E.C. and A. F. Voct. 1975. Queensland Agricultural Gazette., were the 2nd group of
researchers that published some high-quality colored photographs of Psilocybe cubensis (Earle) Singer in
Australia. Although this occurred in 1975, I want to place one of the two beautiful cube photographic images
below. Earlier Dr. Roland V. Southcott published a 1970 paper on mushroom poisoning in Australia and
published photos of Copelandia cyanescens, Psilocybe cubensis and Psilocybe subaeruginosa. Yet, this
Aberdeen and Voct cubensis image is musically magical to look at when viewing the meaty side of the
specimens.
Finally in 1969, mycologist Hesler published a short monograph on the genus Gymnopilus, a mushroom that
caused two famous shroom intoxications in the U. S., one in which a woman stated that “if this is the way one
died from mushroom poisoning then I am all for it.” And in Japanese folk tales dating back to the 11th century,
several intoxications allegedly caused by Panaeolus papilionaceus (most likely Copelandia papilionacea), also
known as wa-rai-take, although it said in both china and Japan from the 2nd century China (Chin Dynasty) and
11th century Japan, that the Panaeolus mentioned as causing such intoxications and a midnight romp of nuns
and woodcutters dancing after eating shrooms had a 2nd shroom that they called O-wa-rai-take (Big orange
laughing mushroom), saying it grew on the Feng tree (Liquidambar species). However, we know that
Panaeolus and/or Copelandia species grow only on the dung of four-legged-ruminants and not on trees or
woodchips mulch, etc. But there are at least between 8-12 species of Gymnopilus that have been chemically
identified as psilocybian, either through chemistry or mycologists who have reported the bluing or blue-green
color changes in specimens of the genus Gymnopilus, which have been chemically analysed and are known to
contain the alkaloids psilocine an/or psilocybine.
A few of the taxonomic descriptions in Hesler's monograph of the genus Gymnopilus do mention the occurrence
of blue green tinges on a few stems of the species described by Hesler in the monograph.
As we get into the 1970s and the early 1980s, I finally get to present many of the individual magic mushroom
field guides that most shroomers have no idea that they even existed. Andy Letcher, in his book “Shrooms,”
notes that only one field guide appeared in print on magic mushrooms between 1974 and 1979 or so, when
actually close to a dozen were published in the USA, mostly for the PNW. How Andy missed this whole
phenomenon of the PNW shroom culture amazes me?
From Ola'h's 1969 to the Botany and Chemisty of the hallucinogens by Richard Evans Schultes and
Albert Hofmann
So now we come to 1970 and the beginning of the field guides, manuals, and pamphlets written specifically for
the identification and collection of Magic Mushrooms in the USA, UK and EUROPE, Australia and New
Zealand and Asia, Mesoamerica and South America, a world wide collection of books and academic and
scholarly published journal monographs and literature that I used, and also contributed articles to help others
learn the magic as I learned it. I do post a few major magazine contributions in this thread that consisting of
identification articles by Paul Stamets, Steven H. Pollock, Me and a few others, as well as monographs or
histoical ethnomycological literature pertaining to species in USA by andrew Weil and a few others, while most
similar ethnomycological histories and studies will be covered in another post in this thread. So let me begin to
post the first field guides, and I will gladly show some of their errors in identification of species, errors that
even I used in my book that came from permission to use photos and id by other authors and many such
mistakes were also carried into the scholarly professional field guides of some of the worlds leading
mycologists.
The first major monograph written on the Genus Panaeolus appeared in print in 1969, and was reprinted in
1970. It covered both Panaeolus and Copelandia cyanescens and was written by French Canadian mycologist
Gyorgy-Miklos Ola'h of the Universitat Laval in Quebec, Canada. It also noted Panaeolina foenisecii as
psilocybian and Panaeolus sphinctrinus, and Dr. Ola'h later discussed with me that both species are not active
and were the results of false positives of both of those species.
The cover page to his monograph, written in French.
Also in 1969, Dr. Olah wrote another paper in which he described mushrooms as psilocybian, psilocybian latent
and non-active. He also noted 5 species of Panaeolus of which some were actually Copelandia as active and
labeled them as Panaeolus. They included, Pn. africanus, Panaeolus cambodgeniensis, Panaeolus cyanescens,
Pn. tropicalis and Panaeolus subbalteatus. He also noted that he found no psilocine/psilocybine in fresh
collected wild specimens of Panaeolus microsporus, yet found the alkaloids in the mycelia of in vitro grown
indoor cultures.
The cover page of this published paper is presented below and several authors of normal mushroom field guides
sometimes noted several of these species in their field guides as possibly hallucinogenic or possibly toxic or
poisonous or should be avoided, also noting that they may be related to some of their Mexican cousins.
Both of the above book and journal paper appeared in 1996. Not until 1996, was a revised monograph of the
Genus Panaeolus published and that was in the German language by mycologist Ewald Gerhardt, who in the
1990s identified several specimens of the Hawaiian Copelandia species for me and Thakko Stijve that I had
collected and deposited in the Bernice P. Bishop Herbarium at the University of Hawaii.
Ola'h's published paper cover page for the new species he notes in French and English.
Now we come to 1970.
This field guide cover and photoed water-colored renditions by Leonard Enos, who according to
Ethnopharmacologist is responsible for narcing on LSD manufacture Nicolas Sands, was the first published
field guide to mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest and Southeastern United States and was basically based on
the sketches published in vol. 50 of the Journal, Mycologia in 1958.
Many of those original black and white sketches of the species that Singer and Smith did the taxonomy on were
incorrect. Some of those sketches are posted in one of the above posts in this thread on thePsilocybe genus
monograph of the caerulescent bluing species. And following that paper by Singer and Smith, many of the
subsequent published field guides between 1970 to the mid 1980s, including my first guide had ID errors due to
the works of Singer and Smith, Enos, Wolman, Jacobs, and Ghouled, and even a major error in my book by a
misidentification by Dr. Daniel Stuntz of his own named species before it had been named by Guzman and Ott.
And those were later re-published in other people’s field guides following my book that will be discussed in the
next thread or the one after.
The Cover of Leonard Enos' book on Psilocybian mushroom identification had no title on the cover other than a
drawing in an ugly orangey colored cover.
The Enos field guide appeared in 3 separate editions in 1970, 1971 and 1972 for a total print run of 5,000 copies
and that was it.
The title page of the book by Enos.
His water-colored rendition of Psilocybe cubensis (originally Stropharia), but Leonard used Singer's renaming
the species into the Genus Psilocybe, but Enos labeled it as Psilocybe cubensis var. cyanescens.
Many of Leonards water colors were incorrect and really did not look like most of the shrooms he depicted in
his 80 page book, of which 20 pages were devoted to his own brand of mushroom philosopy, and it was very
strange. His images of liberty caps and Panaeolus subbalteatus were very well done, as was his rendition of
Psilocybe caerulescens (not pictured her).
Psilocybe semilanceata.
Panaeolus subbalteatus (well done).
Now Conocybe cyanopus and C. smithii (the latter not shown here, are small conic shaped mushrooms.
Conocybe cyanopus translates from the latin as Cone-head blue- faced. It's original name was Pholiotina
cyanopoda).
Here, Leonard Enos, not knowing this posts two incorrect images of the species as two separate species.
Interestingly both images really fail to show a conic-shaped cap, except slightly in the Conocybe cyanopus
image and yet in the Pholiotina cyanopoda water-colored rendition, his images are bell-shaped rather than
conic. And the species, C. cyanopus generally, like P. samuiensis, never grows taller than 3 inches in heigth. I
find them in grassy areas along streams and river banks in sphaghum moss. Sometimes in fields of sheep along
river areas in Oregon and Washington. The base of this mushroom is bulbous and watery looking and when
carefully lifted from the ground without squeezing the Stipe , the base is an azure heavenly blue.
Conocybe cyanopus.
Pholiotina cyanopoda.
A few years later, Hongero Press, the first to sell cube prints from Florida, published a book called the
Psilocybin Mushroom Cultivators Bible which had photos and a field guide, but it advertised the photos but
they did not appear in his book until about three years after they had been selling it.
Next we have F. C. Ghouled's field guide to mushrooms in the Southeast United States.
This 16-page field guide sold for $1.25 per copy and later was reprinted for $1.75 per copy and sold in the tens
of thousands. And was never reprinted.
The book was credited to as being written by F. C. Ghouled, edited by Richard meredith, Drawings by Matt
Holt and photos by José. In 1976, an updated version, primarilly a guide for cultivation was published by F. C.
Ghouled under the name of F. C. Ghoud and Richard Meredith, with 6 species identified which did not include
P. cubensis, although that book, called, Psilocybin Production was about cubes, the ID section left it out.
That will be discussed in the appropriate place for the 1976 field guides
The Cover of his guide, filled withmany errors which I will present for your viewing. This book is featured on
the home mushroom page at Erowid. I sent them the missing photos to the guide which were not in their copy at
the site. Not sure if they posted them but they do note that the guide is not a good guide for identifying
mushrooms
Ghouled's Field Guide to the Psilocybin Mushroom-species common to North America. (16 pages, color
centerfold).
A note on some of the contents of the book as written inside the guide by the author. There are several black
and white photos in this guide and a full centerfold, one side only of four photos in color of Psilocybe cubensis.
He also notes that Amanita muscaria is the famed magic mushroom of Mexico (Not really used today, may have
by Mayans because of a single mushroom stone from around the 14th centurey that represents Amanita). His
habitats of the Species P. caerulescens are incorrect and he describes the two most common species in the
southeast U.S.A. as Psilocybe cubensis and Panaeolus subbalteatus.
The latter was later listed in an article by Dr. Jacobs on Hallucinogenic Mushrooms of Mississippi, the Dr.
noted it was the 2nd most commonly picked mushroom in the Southeast United States, most likely his listing of
that species came from the Ghouled booklet. Below You will see the two photos of Panaeolus subbalteatus as
presented by Ghouled in this guide and the problem is is that the mushrooms he labeled as Panaeolus
subbalteatus are just penis stage baby cubes whose caps had not yet opened up. One is in black and white and
the other is in color on the far left of a photo of cubes in a single cow-pie.
Ghouled's preface to the guide.
A mislabeled black and white photo of Psilocybe cubensis as Panaeolus subbalteatus.
One of 4 colored images in the centerfold of a group of cubes in a cow-pie, noting to the reader to observe the
Pan subb in the far left of the image.
Here in 1973, we have the first major book on the chemistry of hallucinogenic plants.
The Botany and Chemistry of the Hallucinogens by Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Hofmann. Contains
listings of some species of psilocybian mushrooms and their chemical alkaloids.
A few Field Guides of 1974 through 1975.
Here to start this page is an image of High Times Number one. A reprint of the original 1st Issue. With a girl
holding what appears to be a Marasmius oreades (common fairy ring mushroom). Already the Mag begins with
bullshit on their cover because no one at High Times really had a real shroom for the girl to hold.
Inside was a story of a dude standing on the west coast of Florida Ft. Myers side of the isle and in his article he
talked of watching the spores blowing across the bay from the Gulf of Mexico to the West Coast of Florida and
deposited the spores on the manure paddies in the field where he was standing.
[Author's note: "Jesus Christ, give me a friggin' break?"]
Now I kinda made a mistake in the order of the months and years between 1974 and 1980. So here we start with
Dr. Steven Hayden Pollock's 1974 first report of the Genus Copelandia in Hawaii, primarily his consuming
specimens with surfers on Oahu's North Shore. His shrooms were identified as Copelandia tropicalis. As many
collections I made and deposited in an 11-12 year period while in Hawaii, I only found a total of three cow pies
that had specimens that were later identified as Panaeolus tropicalis.
That is really a rare species that became common in the early days of the Internet and on ALT.DRUGS,
interesting to cultivators and became a mainstay for Copelandia species sold in Smart Shoppes in Nederland.
However, one in every 400 or more specimens of Copelandia cyanescens would probably be a specimen of P.
tropicalis.
Pollock Page 89 Hawaii Copelandia species 1974.Ppo
Below is the cover for High Times Issue number 5, 1975. The first year and a half it went from quarterly to
monthly.
This particular issue features an interview of Andrew Weil by Peter Fremont.
On page 8 of issue 5 we find a letter from an irate reader concerning mistakes in an article written on Amanita
muscaria (soma). Apparently the letter writer wrote to inform high times of a few errors in the article about
Amanita.
He notes that the author had referred to Amanita muscaria as Teonanacatl.
Then corrected the error with his own by saying that the Indians called Psilocybe Mexicana as Teonanacatl (a
Nahuatl Mazatec/Aztec word implying, flesh of the gods or meat of the gods). Actually not a single Indian,
belonging to the 7 primary Indian tribal groups who use psilocybian mushrooms know or even use the word
Teonanacatl. The word was used originally by the Spanish clergy when they wrote of the things of New Spain.
And Richard Evans Schultes collected specimens of Panaeolus sphinctrinus, one of several species and was told
by native Americans that this was the Aztec mushroom, so Schultes was the first to spread the misinformation
about the species being known as teonanácatl.
Page 8, letter to the Editor High Times 5.
And here is the four-page interview with Andrew Weil about his new book, the Natural Mind. Even Dick
Cheney had some rude comments to make about Andy's book. And there were errors concerning some of the
drugs in the Interview, as well as Andy, although I only briefly mentioned here that Andy was partially
responsible for getting Timothy Francis Leary and Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass).
He was a poonie at Harvard and a part time reporter for the Harvard School Daily newspaper, The Harvard
Crimson. It was Andrew Weil's reporting of Leary and others giving drugs to undergraduates and their refusal
to stop doing so.
So Leary was first fired under the pretext of failure to show up for his lectures. He was not a professor at
Harvard and had no tenure. It was true he was having shroom and later LSD sex orgies and parties at his
mansion loaned to him by a millionaire who loved acid. A few months later in April of 1963, Alpert was then
fired for his refusal to stop giving drugs to undergraduates. I should also mention that at that time in History,
LSD was not illegal, nor was DMT and related tryptamine alkaloids. Alpert made a great joke of his firing.
"Can you imagine he told his friends and colleagues, that I was fired from my job as a teacher at Harvard
University for giving a student the greatest educational experience of their lives?"
Arnold Wolman, 1974, published in Chicago. I bought a copy of this pamphlet, a really bad discouraging book
about cubes in the Book Fair Book store on 13th Avenue in Eugene, Oregon in 1975. The author has really
strange poetry and misidentification of species in his text, as well as habitats of cubes in Mexico. He honestly
did not know zilch about magic mushrooms whatsoever and actually talks about taking people on shroom
forays, In Illinois maybe. He does not really say but notes that he has done forays and likes wild edibles, and
constantly advertises his poetry pamphlets in this shroom guide with some really strange comments. Not worthy
of anything except to look at it and if you know about shrooms then you know he has no idea what he is talking
about. I will present a really good response about than on page 2 of his offset press AB Dick printed booklet.
The cover of the Wolman book with a very bright red cover.
On Page two of this booklet, the author wrote on the plate of the book used for printing on the offset press that
he would do his next book with Guzman. When I sent Dr. Guzman a copy of this book, he informed me that he
had no idea who this person was and could not remember if he knew him of casually met him and had no clue
about Arnold Wolman at all. Here is the page 2 from the Wolman book with the inscription of writing a book
with Guzman.
These next five pages, if you wish to read them show you that this person does not have very much knowledge
of magic shrooms or any other shrooms for that matter. He also posts a lot of strange poetry in this book and in
the credits page that I did not copy is a lot of $1.50 cent pamphlets of his poetry offered for sale. I was
surprised to find this in Eugene, as cubes do not grow wild in the PNW.
Wolman also used the images of Panaeolus subbalteatus from F. C. Ghouled's book. This is the same photo
where Ghouled misidentified the cube as Panaeolus.
And another image from the Ghouled book posted above except printed in black and white instead of color.
Haard and Haard, 1975, Poisonous and Hallucinogenic Mushrooms.
This field guide to poisonous and hallucinogenic mushrooms only featured liberty caps, blue ringers, P.
pelliculosa and P. baeocystis, nice photos. His photograph of Psilocybe strictipes is really a nice photo of mulch
bed P. baeocystis, his shapes of the caps in the photo were similar to the drawing in Singer and Smith's
monograph when they mistakenly identified the Baeocystis species as P. strictipes. That error of the species
showed up in many field guides. P. strictipes was really a European species known as Psilocybe callosa. It
macroscopically resembles a liberty cap but does not grow as tall as libs and is common in open fields in
Oregon and shows up on lawns in the PNW and on well-fertilized soccer fields and school ball fields and
playgrounds at schools, also on suburban lawns. They do show some of the dangerous poisonous species and
their dosages for PNW species is right on and perfect dose levels. The author and his wife teach biology and
natural studies to American Indians in the PNW. They also wrote a guide for edible shrooms. Contains 36
colored photos, includes Panaeolus campanulatus and Panaeolina foenisecii in their guide as possible
psilocybian fungi.
Next in 1975, The first company to advertise and sell spores in the new drug magazine High Times which came
out with four issues in 1974 and expanded to 12 issues a year in 1975. They also sold a pamphlet for cultivation
magic mushrooms in the Psilocybin Cultivators Bible, also claiming a field guide with photographs of known
species. They too listed Pholiotina cyanapoda with a picture, but no pictures appeared in this booklet until its
third and final year in print. Cost was $5.00 per copy. Also in 1975, David Tatelman began his Homestead
Book Co. ad in High Times, A full Page ad that is still a major company maintaining after 35-years, their full
page ad for shroom kits. that tells everyone that their kits are real and everyone who buys one actually gets
mushrooms from their kits. I highly recommend them to everyone, although expensive, for a newbie it is a good
learning tool for simple cultivation.
Also in 1975, Dr. K. W. Jacobs, a medical professional, wrote an article based on the pamphlet written a few
years earlier by F.C. Ghouled. An article that also carried the errors of those who came before.
Hallucinogenic Mushrooms of Mississippi. Journal of the Mississippi State Medical Association vol. 2:35-37.
The widespread use of Psilocybe cubensis in the Southeast United States is described; including an unverified
report that Panaeolus subbalteatus is the second most widely used psychoactive mushroom in Mississippi and
the southeastern United States. That reporting of Panaeolus subbalteatus was probably based on erroneous
information in a small field guide to Psilocybe cubensis written and published by F. C. Ghouled. Unfortunately,
Dr. Jacobs assumed that the Ghouled book was fact so he relied on it for much of the information he published
in his scholarly paper that was filled with many errors concerning Psilocybe cubensis and Panaeolus
subbalteatus. Here are 4 pages of the 9 page article
Everett Kardel of Eugene, Oregon's best selling mimeographed booklet. This booklet, also sold for $1.50 to
$2.00 per copy a 24-page booklet was printed on a blue inked mimeograph machine. It had blue lined sketches
of the mushrooms featured in Leonard Enos' book from 1970-1972 printings/ This small guide also sold well in
Oregon from Eugene to the coast and north to Seattle and B.C., Canada.
This next page posted below is by Dr. Andrew Weil. The well known alternative medicine guru.
Dr. Weil, who graduated from Harvard at one time in 1960-1963 was also a poonie and wrote for the schools
Harvard Crimson Daily paper. He became enthralled with writing about teachers who were giving drugs to
undergraduates (such as Tim Leary, Baba Ram Dass=Richard Alpert, Ralph Metzner) etc. and his articles
brought that to the attention of the board of regents who eventually fired both Leary and then a few months
later, Dr. Alpert. Leary was fired with the excuse that he failed to show up for his lectures. the latter was true
but the reason for the firing was not. A few months later, after Alpert had been warned over and over to stop
giving drugs to undergraduates because mainstream media was beginning to take notice of such happenings and
the school did not want the notoriety of drug induced students running around the campus and nearby
neighborhoods.
Funny thing about that is several years later, Andy Weil was giving a large, I think about $150,000 dollar grant
to go to Mexico, Central and South America and consume and write about such plants. But his writings were
instrumental in getting Leary and Alpert Fired.
In 1975, Andy Weil wrote three articles titled, Mushrooms I, Mushrooms II and Mushrooms III. The first two
about fungi in general, and about edibles. Mushroom III was about magic shrooms and Amanita's with reports
of a controlled study of accidental ingestions of Amanitas by straight people and then my heads. Weil
published all three of those articles in the Journal of altered States of Consciousness and a few months later the
same three articles appeared in the Journal of Psychedelic Drugs. Later in 1980, Weil published a book titled,
The Marriage of the Sun and The Moon. IT was an anthology of articles he had written in numerous journals
such as the Journal of Economic Botany and other similar publications of his trips to Mexico, Mesoamerica and
South America. He talked of white vs brown (heroin) sugar, cocaine, marijuana, mangos, watching eclipses to
get high, purging oneself to purify (forced vomiting), Coffee, Tobacco. I have posted here years ago his article
on coffee before the starbucks shit prices came about. Anyway, he had numerous errors also in his shroom
article in the PNW. He thought the blue ringers were P. caerulescens because they looked like little brown
versions of the caps. someone told him they were called Washington Blue Veils, a name only one other author
used when their common name has always been blue ringers.
Andy also got a little sick eating Panaeolus subbalteatus shrooms for a high and this led many journal articles
and guidebooks to issue warnings that it made some people get sick. Good clean shrooms do not make anyone
sick. Rotted picked mushrooms by people who do not know what they are doing can make someone have
stomach aches. Especially picking Pan subbs at Compost heaps where black oily residue and runoffs from
composting hay-straw and manure sit out all winter with a tarp half blown off leaves a nasty runoff, and I will
post a picture of such a habitat after the page from Andy Weil’s comments on Panaeolus subbalteatus from the
journal that was reprinted two more times.
Andy Weil's comments on Panaeolus subbalteatus.
Some nasty runoff from composting heaps at a riding stable in Tumwater, a place where I picked pan subbs
with Stamets in the early 1970s and years later picked some blue ringers and some bluing specimens of
Gymnopilus. One should not pick shrooms along the bottoms edges of the mounted mounds of Compost heaps
or stack 4-wide sized haystacks used for composting. or ones with hickory shells in the Compost heaps. Such
nastiness of polluted pissed and shit water run-offs could give someone an upset stomach. On two occasions in
Thailand, I contacted two different kinds of parasites on my stomach one time, really long zigzagging red-lines
wormies and once on my legs and feet walking around some elephant dung habitats where they are piled. Cost
me $140.00 for a small one-ounce jar of special salve cream. The pharmacist had to order two separate creams
in Los Angeles from Seattle where they pharmaceutically used a mortar and Pestle to mix the ointment and then
sent it back to Seattle where another add-on was added to it. That was no fun. But if the shrooms are good
enough for a photo shoot then shit, I will lie down in it to get a good photo.
Well that was a good pun
The runny slimy oily slick runoff on a Tumwater Compost heap at a riding stable.
Magic Mushroom Identification Field Guides of 1976.
The first of 5 purple covers of the first edition with a press run of 2000 copies. AB Dick, Offset Press. Handmade at Washington Technical Institute, Seattle. I wish to now tell you the story of a Life Time. In 1976, my
2nd wife and I were on welfare for a while. The welfare system has programs to get people off welfare and help
them find a job or career that pays them more than minimum wages and gives them a chance to earn a good
living.
So in the early part of 1976, I was awarded a $2000.00 Federal grant from CETA (Comprehensive Employment
Training Act). This was my chance to attend a 6-month graphic arts course where I would learn paste-ups and
Layouts, masking, photographing a plate and developing for printing, setting it up to print on an AB Dick Offset
Press, Collating and stapling. And at the end of this six-month course, we (all 17 of us students), would make a
six-page booklet and a cover made of a slight heavier stock and print up 20-copies each of our little booklet.
Well Ding-Dong went the General Electric Light bulb in my brain. It lit up like a comet flashing and streaking
across the sky. My own little nova. I decided I would see if i could print up a book on magic mushrooms.
To better explain how this all came about there was and still is, what use to be an occult bookstore in the
University District called the Magus. I went in one day and saw a shroom booklet and started to talk with the
clerk. His name was David Tatelman. He said that he would soon be quitting his job and also expressed an
interest in writing a book on magic mushrooms. This was in 1974, the very same year that High Times came
out. David had been distributing Rolling Stone Magazine in the Seattle area for a few years and just had spent
one year distributing High Times, in 1974, that printed only 4 issues and by 1975, it became a yearly magazine.
David opened a distributor business in the basement of the American Dream Head shop and I was unaware of
that. He gave me his business card at the Magus Book store in the late summer of 1975 and said he had a few
friends, one he mention at the time I forgot who that person was. Later I learned it was a warlock name Richard
Alan Miller who owned the Beltane Herb Company here in Seattle. Sold a lot of legal high plants. Anyway, as
my stupidity flourished, I lost the card with David’s name on it and the Magus bookstore had informed me that
David had quit and they did not know how to find him.
Well as it goes, I got this grant and I had already picked liberty caps, stuntzii, cyanescens, subbalteatus and
baeos. So in the first week of school we had the most beautiful teacher in the world, a blond about 26-years old.
About three months into the middle of our course she got a phone call from the police. It turned out that her
boyfriend had od'ed on a dose of heroin. So she never came back. It was very sad and blew all of our mines.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I had an idea. I went to the President of Washington Technical Institute
and asked him that if I paid for my own paper, could I print as many books as I wanted to and to do so in the
evening after school was over. The Institute had about 4 primary courses in their building, one was for
computers, a hair dressing salon program that actually helps the graduates get their own business after several
years, and the graphic arts course. So the president told me that was fine.
So I bought giant size blocks of paper that I cut on the schools professional paper cutter, and made dozens of
reams of 500 sheets each of 8 1/2 x 11 size. I took the six pages we were suppose to make the 20 copies of a
book and folded them in half and had a 24-page book. I then bought a separate stock of 5 reams of blue color,
and twenty sheets of purple. The original cover had five purple colored covers, and then the first edition had a
press run of 2,000 copies. I got a dollar a copy from Homestead who was surprised to see me come in with my
hand made book. Years later, David Tatelman wrote the forward to Mushroom Pioneers and wrote that he was
surprised when my handmade and hand printed little booklet out sold his professional printed in Hong Kong
‘Magikal Mushroom Handbook’ with a beautiful colored cover and centerfold written by Richard Alan Miller,
the warlock I mentioned above. Miller was able, through his student aide worker at Pacific University, to get the
complete box of the University of Washington's magic mushroom photo collection, many images by the late
mycologists, both Ben Woo and Joy Spurr. Sneaky Miller convinced David Tatelman to not return the
photographs. I hammered on David as his friend that it would be in his best interests to return those photos and
the karma in doing so would be good for him and his business. David kept them for several years before giving
them back, shortly after he printed a smaller pocket sized 2nd edition of his book below, he added his name on
the cover that said the book was written by Richard Alan Miller and Developed by David Tatelman.
Anyway, I got a dollar a book; David made .50 cents a book and the stores that he distributed it to also earned a
dollar. The book was priced at $2.50 a copy.
So five purple copies at $2.50, and 2,000 blue-covered copies sold at $2.50. IT came out in July of 1976 and
within 4 months, the 2,000 copies had been sold out.
So I went back to the school and asked if I could come in the evening and print up another run, and I was told
yes. Guess who liked those magic shrooms. So I printed up in a blue cover, 10,000 copies of the 2nd edition.
Can you imagine printing up all that paper after cutting it in a big press cutter, and then collating the copies and
then folding each one in half and then having to put two staples in each book all by myself. Some nights and on
the weekend, my wife came and helped bringing our son in his buggy and feeding him there and she was 1000
percent with me all the way. I would sit and smile and thank God whom I do not believe in for the beautiful gift
of the Federal Government paying me to go to school and publish a book on drugs. Where else but in America
could such a miracle occur.
In the summer of 1977, I returned again to the school and this time I printed up 43 thousand books in 4 and a
half months bringing the book to a total sale of 55,000 copies that all sold in less then 1 and a half years.
Subsequent printings the book eventually went to $10 a copy and then to $12 and eventually sold at $15.00 per
copy. Currently they cost me $2.40 per copy with full colored double sided center fold and last march I printed
up the last 100 copies of the book. It is now officially out of print, although Homestead has about 75 copies, as
do I. In 1997, it went into a full colored centerfold with 12 photographs of high quality. It sold for 60-40% to
my distributor. So I paid $240.00 for 100 copies. My distributor bought 50 copies from me for $300.00 dollars
and I got to keep 50 books out of each hundred printed. Each time I sold Homestead Book Company the fifty
copies, I took that three hundred dollars and had another hundred copies printed, and had $60 dollars mad
money to spend, have a steak, go to a concert at the Paramount, etc.
By 2006, my book past the 100,000 copies sold, making it the longest run of a magic mushroom field guide and
my book out sold both of Paul Stamets' Magic Mushroom Field Guides ("Psilocybe Mushrooms and Their
Allies",and "Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World").
So today I was digging around in my files and found a Xerox copy of the original first edition that was copied
from the University of Washington's copy in their rare book room at the Allen Natural Science library at the U
of Washington and completely forgot that I had a mushroom man drawing in the first edition on Page 9. It was
given to me as a gift by a student who also took the same course that I did. After graduating, the school helps
you get good employment in the field of your course, but I had a field of my own (and quite a few fields of my
own, a pun). So I distributed my book, make all the money for myself, at least as much as possible and not had
to work for other people. So I put the purple cover here to post, which I noticed a few weeks ago being
advertised on the Internet at Ebay. A copy of that very first edition of five purple editions sold at Abe’s books
through Pay pal for $250.00.
The cover, I am sorry to say that I have no copies of the blue covered one that I printed 12,000 copies of the 1st
and 2nd edition, but the next time I go to the UW, I will take my camera and photograph the cover. This 1st
edition had items and species in it that were not psychoactive. 29 species described and 9 were not active, but
were from other people’s books on edibles and were mostly Panaeolus species with no psilocybine in them.
The cover Purple:
Cover Page
The last page of Text with a Clown shroom hand drawn image not in the 1997 colored versions as page 9 before
the species and description identifications.
The original Table of Contents for this first and 2nd edition of my book. The photo was Panaeolina foenisecii
but was mislabeled as Panaeolus retirugis, a synonym for Panaeolus subbalteatus.
Okay, this was a new, as yet unidentified species that I was not aware of. I picked these on July 4th in 1974 on
the lawn of the Art Museum at Volunteer Park on Capital Hill in Seattle. I was sitting with my wife and sun,
smoking a doobie and playing my guitar. The lawn had sprinkler systems so the shrooms grew. I dropped my
pick in the grass and went to retrieve it when I notice what looked like min cubes with rings on their stems that
was blue as hell. I had just been talking with my wife about how were we going to be able to get a ride into the
country around Seattle to look for lib caps in the fall since we were still pretty new to the city. We knew baeos
and cyans but had never seen a blue ringer before. We later found out they also grew in mulch beds later in the
fall early winter months. I knew they were magic and 45 shrooms each that night we had a hell of a high.
Personally I never really liked blue ringers. And since I did not know what they were, I took them to Dr. Daniel
Stuntz, who later would have these very shrooms named in his honor as Psilocybe stuntzii Guzman and Ott.
When I brought them to Guzman, he keyed them out with the Singer and Smith Psilocybe monograph and told
my wife and I that they were Psilocybe cyanescens. I later was amazed that he did not the absence of a ring or
veil in the descriptions given for P. cyanescens. So as I put this last page of an id in my field guide, I labeled
them as Psilocybe cyanescens, dosage at 20 to 40 mushrooms fresh, the same dose give by Haard and Haard for
lib caps and stuntzii. The image below is not very good, but the mushrooms are P. stuntzii and the name and
description is Psilocybe cyanescens. I was really lucky, 2000 copies and then another 10,000 of the 2nd printing
within one year and no one killed their selves on that mistake, although a lot of kids did go to the hospital after
eating to many liberty caps and blue ringers off of local grade and High Schools.
Here is my other error in this guide. I too, like Arnold Wolman, used with permission, the 1972 F. C. Ghouled
photograph that was labeled as Panaeolus subbalteatus that was actually Psilocybe cubensis.
And finally we come to the original back cover of the 1st edition of my “Magic Mushrooms of the Pacific
Northwest.”
Now that very same year, a rare book that never was sold or distributed in the Pacific Northwest was a field
guide by someone named Big D. It was completely hand written with a dozen or more field maps of roads and
pastures throughout Oaxaca and some other valley regions of Mexico, giving hikers and back packers a means
of finding their own private fields while traveling the back roads of Mexico. Each page of this guide had a hand
drawn border, and the shroom images were well representative of some of the species. I had two copies, gave
one to Gartz and the other somehow disappeared from my apartment when I lived in the U-District.
The cover to the Field Guide to Mexican Magic Shrooms by Big D.
The inside title page to the book by Big D.
So in 1976, F. C. Ghouled, printed up a second mushroom book, this time on Cultivation of P. Cubensis. Since
the original book had numerous mistakes and errors in his identification and habitats of species, this one dealt
primarily with cultivation, but he had his partner who edited the original book as his co-author on this edition.
Again he describes briefly, 7 species, P. baeocystis, P. caerulipes, P. cyanescens, P. pelliculosa, P.
quebecensis, P. silvatica and P. strictipes. He completely leaves out the most common and popular PNW
species, Psilocybe semilanceata. He also described the habitats for each species the same as growing in conifer
mulch in forests and lists P. quebecensis as the only one growing in Alder, while the other species like maple
and birch. He really knows nothing about shrooms. Except where cubes grow in the Southeastern USA. A bad
book also for cultivation but sold really well.
Now we come to biologist Bob Harris. Another PNW person, very cool and sharing who also invented a
pasteurizing box that he sold in High Times for several years for about $49 dollars a pop. His first edition of his
field guide carried mistakes also found ahead in the original Homestead Book Co's, “Magikal Mushroom
Handbook.” Homestead by now was the primary distributor in the PNW for Drug books, new age books, and
Rolling Stone, High Times and several other drug related magazines that were becoming quite popular with the
drug subculture and counter culture crowd.
In Bob's book, "Growing Wild Mushrooms," published in 1976. Bob also erred in misidentifying specific
species, again using photos from David Tatelman that belonged to the UW, he named P. baeocystis as P.
cyanescens, he labeled P. cyanescens as unidentified, and labeled P. stuntzii as Psilocybe stuntzii var. tenuis.
Subsequent editions removed the mislabeled names and corrected their errors. Not every guide did that.
Richard Alan Miller's, "Magikal Mushroom Handbook", 1976.
The cover of the first edition of "Magikal Mushroom Handbook."
The title page 3 for “Magikal Mushroom Handbook,” published June of 1976, one month before my book,
"Magic Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest" appeared in Print.
This species is Psilocybe cyanescens (strophana). A mistake in the family which should have said Stropharia,
but P. cyanescens was always a Psilocybe and never belonged to the genus Stropharia. Also the drawings by
Joel Radcliff whom I knew, do not really look like P. cyanescens, the nippled shroom in Joel's drawing
resembles P. fimetaria rather than P. cyanescens as it has a ring on the stem, or it was a confusion of
identification of maybe P. stuntzii. The drawings again resemble some of the Singer and Smith sketches for
baeos and strictipes. And also the season for P. cyanescens listed in Richard Alan Miller's Homestead Book
Co.'s "Magikal Mushroom Handbook” says that Psilocybe cyanescens grow from late July till late September,
Again that was the original season run for P. stuntzii (Blue Ringers) before people noticed that they can grow all
year long in many areas of the PNW. This is definitely a Bad Page and ID here for P. cyanescens.
Now we have here a serious mistake again. The photograph on the top of the page below is a photo by the late
Seattle Mycologist Ben Woo of Psilocybe cyanescens and it is labeled as Psilocybe baeocystis. Obviously,
Richard Alan Miller did not know mushrooms. Interestingly, he taught a course at Pacific University on how to
build a log cabin for under $400.00 dollars. And ran his witch craft hobby and sold legal herbal highs.
Another misidentification in his color photographs in the book, again an image from the University of
Washington that is a variety of Psilocybe pelliculosa and labeled as Psilocybe caerulescens, a southern USA
species from Alabama to Florida to Oaxaca, Mexico. the bottom photo, also from the University of Washington
is correct in his identification. It is Psilocybe silvatica, a species similar in habitat to that of P. pelliculosa, Both
grow amongst each other in clearcuts where alder grow after the cedar is logged out and the alder trees grow
fast and much is bulldozed and smashed by big logging vehicles. Cyans, baeos, stuntzii’s, azures, cyanofriscosa,
and others love alder mulch from clear cuts, however most are not illegal by law, so other mulches become
available and the magic shrooms cannot feed off of cedar, the 2nd most popular mulch in the PNW.
Here we have the identification page for Panaeolina foenisecii the haymakers or hay mowers mushroom. The
drawing by Joel Radcliff is horrible; especially the first image which looks like the drawing for the Psilocybe
cyanescens featured a few pages above here. While the 2nd and 3rd image slightly resemble P. foenisecii.
However, this again was a misidentified and three or four chemists who performed false positives on this
species claiming it was a psilocybian mushroom. Now all those who wrote the first field guides in the whole of
this thread have agreed that the Panaeolina foenisecii which is here described as Panaeolus foenisecii, as well as
Panaeolus sphinctrinus, Panaeolus papilionaceus and Panaeolus campanulatus are not psychoactive, took
almost 40 years before others became aware of what I knew 40-years-ago.
Conocybe cyanopus (cone heads). Well as much as I have to say, this species is 99% correct in its identification
as well as its description and the rendition of the species by Joel Radcliff. It does mention the watery white stem
and the bluing , but basically the bluing in this species is in the bulbous base of the stem and is visible when
plucked from the earth. Grows in sphagnum moss as Miller states. Well done. There are other pages of
descriptions that are also right on. I more or less wanted to point out the errors so people would know what to
look out for. And sadly, this book did not cover poisonous look-a-likes.
On Page 20 of the Magikal Mushroom Handbook, again we find a description for Pholiotina cyanapoda. This is
just a synonym for Conocybe cyanopus. It is off the wall because there is no difference between the Pholiotina
and the described above, and as noted above, some books had this as two separate species with two separate
descriptions given.
Field guides for 1976 (Continued) through 1978. !7 images.
I first met Richard Hans Norland in 1977 in Seattle one day when my wife and I had just devoured a tall glass
each of San Pedro potion that I prepared in the Western Shamanistic cooking method using a blender to cut the
cooking time of ten to twelve hours Peruvian method to 2-3 hours blender method.
We kept hearing a knock at out window and a repetitious voice that was reverberating in an echo saying "Lets
go to the back door." "Lets go to the back door." repeating itself over and over and over and after several
minutes my wife exclaimed, "John, we do not have a back door." Okay, the Mescaline was intense and close to
or equal to a 500-milligram medicinal clinical dosage.
So I opened the door and met author Richard Alan Miller. After an hour of strange communication, and
showing him some specimens of fresh Psilocybe stuntzii Guzman and Ott, I realized he knew very little about
magic mushrooms at all. His book, "What’s in a Mushroom part III, Psychoactive Mushrooms." with
illustrations, the nicest in many of the subsequent and past field guides to appear in a book. No photos and the
majority of the book consisted of species in the US, mostly the PNW and some from the SE USA.
However, IT also contained numerous graphs, charts and tables of chemical analysis of species that I later
learned that the author owed a few thousand dollars to the University of Oregon for chemical analysis that he
never paid for. The book was published in Salem, Oregon and Mr. Norland also gave praise and thanks to the U
of Oregon, D.I.R (Drug Information Center) run by a good friend of mine, Mark Miller.
Here is the front cover for “What’s in a Mushroom Part Three. Psychoactive Mushrooms.”
The back cover of Norland's book was really strange. He offers three books as coming soon, yet they were
never published, Part II of "Whats in a Mushroom" information on 426 toxic mushrooms. Advertising a release
date of October 1, 1976.
And an advertisement for "What’s in a Mushroom" Part I, "Nutritional and Medical Mushrooms.” Release
date: Spring of 1977. Neither book ever was printed.
Below those two ads on the back cover of the book, Mr. Norland presents us with the following update:
Others:
Growing Wild Mushrooms,
Clinical Tests for Poisonous mushrooms, and
Identification of Mushrooms by Chemistry.
Also those above three books were never printed.
Finally, in response to my current revised edition of my bibliography of Entheogenic Mushrooms with more
than 2930 references, 2306 annotations, more than 10,000 cross-references and over 1580 photographs, Mr.
Norland had this advertisement for his forthcoming book, a suggested bibliography.
”Psilocybin Bibliography,” a companion to Part III with summaries, abstracts, and definitions. 150 pages, 8" x
11". $4.95 + 50 Cents handling from P.T. Publications, P. O. Box 517, Ashland, Oregon, 97520.
Again, the above booklet never appeared in print. And Mr. Norland faded quietly from the public view of
mushroom information.
I always wondered how much money he collected for the advanced sale of his said bibliography that in his book
he described as containing over 300 references. Interestingly, the original Wasson bibliography published 2
years in a row by the Harvard Botanical Museum Leaflets journal had originally over 300 references and an
additional 30 or more references in the 2nd edition one year later. While my first bibliography published on cdrom in 2000 only contained about 1400 references.
I get over-amped by people who offer shroom data in advance of publication and fail to produce a book after
many people send in their money. I want to point out that Jonathan Ott had 300 people contribute
$40.00 each in advance for his book Pharmacotheon and all 300 donators were credited for their payments to
Ott who published a masterpiece on six major hallucinogens and dozens of other minor entheogenic plants. And
Jonathan Ott, a very honest friend, never cheated anyone. Everyone was pleased with Jonathan's book.
As for Norton, I introduced him to a patch of blue ringers and two days later after he left Seattle, I went to
photograph the patch, only to find it had been picked of every mushrooms in the area I took Mr. Norton too. Not
sure if he ravaged it but the odds are that it was he. I never saw him again. Furthermore, the back cover of his
book was fine but the inside pages are not worth showing, but the illustrations drawn by a New Zealand
Christchurch zoologist, Janet Mikesilk, also of the U of O and from Corvallis, Oregon, are fantastic
representations of PNW species. He also dedicated the book to his five year old daughter who help him collect
specimens for study.
In 1976, one of the better more reliable books written by Jonathan Ott was published as "Hallucinogenic Plants
of North America,” a book covering several hallucinogens on the continent. His section on mushrooms is
superbly presented and this book is a must for the serious ethnomycological enthusiast.
1977 field guides and shroom books:
Next we have an excerpt of close to 100 pages of mushroom toxicology and identification by Gary Lincoff and
D. H. Mitchell, "Toxic and Poisonous Mushrooms.” This was a $60.00 book. Very expensive, but not as much
as the Rumack and Salzman book of which the recent reprint is over $250.00 per copy new. This also covered
local PNW species and dosages and suggested treatment for overdose conditions. Also with sketches of species.
Here we have the first of many editions of Gary Menser’s “Hallucinogenic and Poisonous Mushroom Field
Guide,” with both color photographs and hand drawn sketches of species. Printed in paper back size editions
this book was later republished by Homestead Book Co. of Seattle and in recent years by Ronin publishers, the
largest published of Drug Books in America run by an obnoxious lady according to the late Peter Stafford,
Beverly Potter. A real nut case who actually hates druggies and drug books but earns her living promoting them.
Now we have the 2nd edition of the Richard Alan Miller’s book from Homestead, “Magikal Mushroom
Handbook,” this one co-authored by Homestead publisher and CEO, David Tatelman who wrote in my
Mushroom Pioneers that he was surprised that my handmade book, Magic mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest,
actually at times, outsold his professional printed versions of Magikal Mushroom Handbook. This edition
actually corrected the earlier misidentifications of species and also published my photo of Conocybe cyanopus
in black and white, instead of color. Because it was smaller than a normal paperback, it was a great addition to
the field guide industry as it fit in everyone’s back pocket perfectly. A nice little guide of good quality work. It
was after this printing that I talked David into returning to the UW, the borrowed collection of magic mushroom
photographs that Richard Alan Miller obtained through his schools student counselor to print the first editions
of the book, thus allowing others to finally have access to some of the photos used in the booklet.
In the summer of 1977, mushroom cultivator and enthusiast, Dr. Steven Hayden Pollock, who advertised in
High Times for his “Matias Romero” cube prints and later he referred to his sclerotia of Psilocybe tampanensis
as the “Cosmic Camote,” and published "Magic Mushroom Cultivation", a booklet with beautiful photography
of cultivated species of psilocybian containing fungi, Including Copelandia and Psilocybe tampanensis, and
mostly those of a cold weather nature such as Psilocybe cyanescens and Psilocybe baeocystis. All newer
methods of cultivation never before offered to the public. This was another book that sold out and was not
reprinted due to the sudden unexpected murder of Dr. Pollock on his front doorstep, discovered by his current
girlfriend who came to see why he did not show up for their dinner engagement. The night this happened I was
talking on the telephone to Dr. Andrew Weil who had just informed me of the death after receiving a call from
mycologist Paul Stamets, who a few hours earlier had talked to Steven Pollock. A friend, upon hearing of
Pollock's death called Paul who called Andy who then told me the sad news after it had happened. You can read
of Dr. Pollock's death at my site in an article from High Times published a few months after his death. Many
Drug agencies raided Pollock's home after the death. Pollock always thought they were watching him because
of shrooms, but it turned out that numerous federal and state drug authorities had been watching him over his
massive writing of drug prescriptions to junkies and others. I once traded some shrooms at a conference to
Steven for some Quaaludes for my wife. I was unaware of his prescription writing at the time and thought it was
just a normal once only natural drug trade and that he only had a small amount of Quaaludes. I was shocked
when I read the “High Times” report, but since “High Times” is known for its sensationalism drug writings over
responsible reporting, I had a hard time believing everything “High Times” had written regarding Steven
Pollock's murder. His father’s reward of over $150,000 dollars or more is still being offered for info to those
who committed this horrible crime.
On Memory of Steven Hayden Pollock
http://www.mushroomjohn.org/pollock1.htm
There are also other articles by Dr. Pollock posted at my website in the articles section towards the bottom of
the page listing articles on my site.
Steven also had numerous ads in “High Times” and other Drug oriented magazines for several years offering
spores with exotic names and his “Cosmic Camote” form of sclerotia, as well as other growing materials.
Next in 1977, California drug expert, Peter Stafford published a bible of drug subject matter pertaining to six
major hallucinogens, of which one chapter of about 100 pages was devoted to psilocybian mushrooms, also
embellished with rare photos and sketches, this book sold well and while there are copies in print, it is basically
not going to be reprinted again. Prior to Peter's unfortunate death several years ago, he was converting the six
major hallucinogens in his book to individual books so that Ronin could make triple the money off of selling six
separate drug books instead of one. This book, “Psychedelic Encyclopedia” can be found for sale on Ebay.
Next we have another fine book titled, How to Identify and grow Psilocybin Mushrooms by biologist Rich Gee
and Jules Stevens (Pseudonyms) Jules Stevens, not his real name was a hair dresser and dance instructor with a
studio and salon in Pioneer Square in Seattle. Their book was published by Murphy Stevens (also a
pseudonym), owner of the two Indoor Sun Shops in Seattle, one in the U-District and another in Aurora Village.
Murph was published of all of the first grow books on Marijauana under halydes, finest Marijuana indoors and
several others. They were also raided in the late 1990s and charged with massive conspiracy charges for selling
grow supplies and lighting fixtures for growing high grade pot. Murph also cornered the market on lighting
fixtures to Alaska while pot was legal to grow there.
Years later all charges were dropped but a lot of expensive fixtures and products were condiscated and never
returned. This booklet also had one of my photos in it listed as unidentified species. I asked about it and they
though it was there photo until a showed them a series of photo images of the mushroom.
However, they also, as seen in the images below, identified liberty caps as Psilocybe pelliculosa with only a few
real pelliculosa mushrooms correctly identified as you will see in the images presented below from their book.
The cover
Two images of liberty caps labeled as P. pelliculosa. For those who pick libs you can tell they are libs and not P.
pelliculosa.
In this next image from the Stevens and Gee booklet, the first image is a liberty cap labeled as P. pelliculosa,
while the 2nd and 3rd images are real photos of P. pelliculosa. Sometimes pelliculosa will be in grassy areas in
the clearcuts where there is alder crushed mulch under where small patches of some grass take seed and grow.
Here, Dr. Roy Watling of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Glascow, Scotland presents a case of intoxication
from Panaolus subbalteatus, ande an overview of the species and its relationship to some other species of
Panaeolus and Panaeolina as latent or possible psilocybian fungi, which at the time of this writing was mostly
misidentified as psilocybian fungi due to false chemical positives. This is when P. sphinctrinus was also labeled
as posionous or dangerous or possibly hallucinogenic due to its relationship to related genera species. Sketches
show Panaeolus as drawn for this article. The 2nd presented in this pictorial by Dr. Watling who contributed to
my paper on Panaolina foenisecii, co-authored by Mark Merlin of the U of Hawaii, as not being a psilocybian
fungi.
Andy Weil wrote this paper for the Harvard Botanical Museum Leaflets, mostly accurate but some minor errors
in identification. Again, someone who visited the PNW on 3 or 4 occasions and went shrooming with me or
others in Oregon for a day or 2 and then wrote what he learned from others, some of whom really had no idea
about the shrooms they picked other than what they also learned from their friends. In the 1970s, most people,
including me were pretty clueless, often relying on information from others, including experts who sometimes
provided misinformation because they also relied on what others told them.
All in all, this was a good report by Dr. Weil despite some minor errors which I really do not have time to dig
out his paper from my hard to reach filing cabinets.
Magic Mushroom Identification Field Guides and taxonomic data of 1978 (Part II and III of 1978).
John Allen and R. Gordon Wasson hold the original Safe-Pik Hallucinogenic and Toxic Mushroom poster for
poison control units at Hospital ER rooms for treatment in identifying species that may or may not have been
consumed.
An incoming patient who has eaten some shrooms and is either paranoid if they are magic or poisonous, or
maybe drank a tea and has no specimens for a doctor to examine, so this poster of 80 photos include 60
Psilocybe species, ten Panaeolus and Panaeolina, and ten poisonous look-a-likes.
A patient can help the doctor in identifying if he may have eaten a magic species or possibly a toxic mushroom.
Several toxic shrooms can make one real sick with nausea, vomiting, and profuse sweating but might not kill.
This is at the "Hallucinogens and Shamanism in Native American Life in the fall of 1978. See next two images
for flyers of Conference and events.
Above Conference program where this poster was introduced to the public and academic world of
ethnomycology.
Below is Richard Cooper's, “A Guide to British Psilocybin Mushrooms.” Only P. semilanceata (liberty cap)
and Hypholoma cyanescens (Psilocybe cyanescens) are the only active species in this guide and Panaeolina
foenisecii, Panaeolus campanulatus, Psilocybe coprophila and Psilocybe montana, are not psychoactive. It also
lists Amanita muscaria. The guide has a centerfold of 5 images in color of liberty caps. Good photos. Even
better are his illustrations of liberty caps and Psilocybe cyanescens.
Rumack and Saltzman’s Mushroom Poisoning: Diagnosis and Treatment. Originally $100.00, the newly
revised edition shown here is now $250.00 dollars. The original 1978 book had only 253 pages while the
revised 1994 edition has over 464. The articles by Singer and Ott were not corrected in the 1994 expanded
reprint.
This has many chapters on all toxic shrooms, with two specific articles on the recreational use of magic
shrooms. One by Ott featured below and later one by Rolf Singer. There were other articles on both Psilocybe
and Amanita species in this book.
[Rumack, Barry and Emanuell Saltzman (Eds.). 1978. Mushroom Poisoning: Diagnosis and Treatment. 263pp.
CRC Press. West Palm Beach.
One of two books dealing specifically with psilocybian mushroom poisoning and other toxic mushrooms. In this
particular book, several papers regarding case histories and treatment for psilocybian intoxication are presented.
The second book on mushroom poisoning is Lincoff and Mitchell's Toxic and Hallucinogenic Mushroom
Poisoning.
Rumack, Barry and David G. Spoerke. 1994. Handbook of Mushroom poisoning: Diagnosis and Treatment.
CRC Press. Boca Raton, Ann Arbor, London, Tokyo. 464 Pages.
Reviewed as posted here: "Mushroom Poisoning is a compact hardcover book that contains much useful
information. The editors have done an admirable job of assembling some of the most mushroom-knowledgeable
experts available and collating sound scientific information about these herbivorous scions.... Overall, this book
is much more than a handbook. It really is the definitive clinical text on mushroom poisoning. Any healthcare
professional who needs to know about mushrooms and mushroom poisoning or who has more than a cursory
interest in the subject will want to have ready access to this text. Additionally, because mushrooming is a
relatively common companion activity to hiking and other outdoor recreation, wilderness medicine practitioners
should have a copy in their library."
Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH, in Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, 4, 347-353 (1996). This is a revised
edition of the above book by Rumack and Salzman. See similar reference at (Spoerke and Rumack, 1978).]
Two pages of Ott's paper. Red dot indicates species that are not active.
Ott and Bigwood (1978), Editors. This is the proceeding of the 2nd International Conference on Hallucinogenic
Mushrooms at Port Townsend, Washington at Ft. Worden from 1977.
Cover of 1978 Ott and Bigwood's book
Table of contents of lectures at Conference in this book.
Back Cover of Ott and Bigwood's book on 2nd Int. Conf. on Hallucinogenic Mushrooms, held in Oct-Nov.
1977.
Flash Magazine, Issue 3, 1978, Steven Pollock's Field Guide, "Psilocybin Mushrooms of the West Coast."
Devoted to species in the PNW.
Cover of Flash.
Flash Page 56.
Flash Page 57.
Flash Page 58.
Flash Page 59.
Flash Page 60.
Flash Page 61.
Flash Page 62.
Flash Page 63.
2 Pages of Dr. Rolf Singer's article, "Hallucinogenic Mushrooms" from the book, "Mushroom Poisoning
Diagnosis and Treatment." I only have the new edition so I cannot show the original cover as that book belongs
to Dr. George Freibot, as does much of my original autographed collection. Otherwise, every images posted
here in this series is in my home library.
Rumack and Salzman's Mushroom Poisoning: Diagnosis and Treatment. Originally $100.00, new revised
edition shown here is now $250.00 dollars. The original 1978 book had only 253 pages while the revised 1994
edition has over 464. The articles by Singer and Ott were not corrected in the 1994 expanded reprint.
[Rumack, Barry and Emanuell Saltzman (Eds.). 1978. Mushroom Poisoning: Diagnosis and Treatment. 263pp.
CRC Press. West Palm Beach.
One of two books dealing specifically with psilocybian mushroom poisoning and other toxic mushrooms. In this
particular book, several papers regarding case histories and treatment for psilocybian intoxication are presented.
The second book on mushroom poisoning is Lincoff and Mitchell's Toxic and Hallucinogenic Mushroom
Poisoning.
Rumack, Barry and David G. Spoerke. 1994. Handbook of Mushroom poisoning: Diagnosis and Treatment.
CRC Press. Boca Raton, Ann Arbor, London, Tokyo. 464 Pages.
Reviewed as posted here: "Mushroom Poisoning is a compact hardcover book that contains much useful
information. The editors have done an admirable job of assembling some of the most mushroom-knowledgeable
experts available and collating sound scientific information about these herbivorous scions.... Overall, this book
is much more than a handbook. It really is the definitive clinical text on mushroom poisoning. Any healthcare
professional who needs to know about mushrooms and mushroom poisoning or who has more than a cursory
interest in the subject will want to have ready access to this text. Additionally, because mushrooming is a
relatively common companion activity to hiking and other outdoor recreation, wilderness medicine practitioners
should have a copy in their library."
Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH, in Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, 4, 347-353 (1996). This is a revised
edition of the above book by Rumack and Salzman. See similar reference at (Spoerke and Rumack, 1978).]
Paul Stamets' 1st book on the identification of Psilocybian Mushrooms: "Psilocybe Mushrooms and their
Allies."
Like “Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World", this guide also contained many species that contained no active
ingredients. I also want to make a note to all reading; I was the one who sold the 1st 100 copies of this book
fresh off the press at the above conference on Hallucinogens and Shamanism in Native American Life in the fall
of 1978 at the Japan Trade Center in San Francisco.
Back now to my 1978, Safe-Pik Mushroom Poster of 80 colored photos of which ten are poisonous look-a-likes.
In Feb or 1979, we cut the posters, 1000 of them and made 8 packets of ten cards each. Each card had all the
pertinent data referring tot he actual mushroom photo on the other side of the card.
John W. Allen and R. Gordon Wasson holding a poster created by me and paid for by Frank Rinaldo, an expoliceman from Rockford, Illinois and his wife Cheeri. I met Frank in a record store owned by the man who
owned 2nd Time Around Records, Nanoos one and two, Big Al's, and a couple of other stores. I could smell pot
smoke coming from the back of the store and started a rap with the person behind the counter. Told him I was
sort of an amateur expert on magic shrooms and was looking for someone who would like to invest some
money, pay for printing of my book, and I would split profits with him 50%-50%. He looked me right in the
eyes and said, "Done deal."
How can one beat that. That was my normal shroom luck.
The Wasson and me image again.
Here we have the January-June of 1979. This is the special issue of the Journal of Psychedelic Drugs (whose
name was later changed to the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs). This issue covers the published lectures of the
scholars who lectured and presented slide presentations at the Conference on Hallucinogens and Shamanism in
Native American Life in Oct-Nov of 1978 in San Francisco at the Japan Trade Center. Some people I ran into
had ounces of MDA for $250 dollars an ounce. And a lot of people where looking for shrooms, which were
finally in big demand in the Haight-Ashbury. During the Summer of Love when thousands of hippies were
given free Mexican Styled GI-haircuts and march across the border after seeking shrooms and pot from Maria
Sabina and other shamans, many whom were phony, yet no shrooms were available in the Land of acid and pot.
soon speed and smack overtook the scene and everyone good moved away back to their root communities to
start their own Alice's restaurants, head shops and hippie record stories.
The Cover
The Table of Contents of the lectures presented at the conference and reproduced here in this issue of the
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs.
Ed Rosenthal, High Times King of the cultivated pot and seed master writes an article in which he takes the
reader on a voyage to Hawaii for some magic shrooms a spiff of pakalolo. While one small photo of a damaged
shroom with a slight tinge of blue is most likely a specimen of Copelandia cyanescens or a close relative, his
problem lies in the fact that the other three photographs of his magic shrooms are actually bad old cracked and
pitted caps and stems of Panaeolus antillarum, a non-active species. He shows specimens as large as his hand. It
is possible that some viewers may have thought they were bad looking cubes, but come on. Plus he shows a
view of the shore from 32 footer Catalina. And a bowl of some Hawaiian fruit. And the article was short and
pretty stupid.
The cover of Hi-Life magazine issue 7, 1979:
And now for the 1979 cream de mint of shrooms, Author Paul Stamets, floating high of his quick sales in the
past 4 months of "Psilocybe Mushrooms and Their Allies," writes an excellent five-page field guide, with
photos, extracted from his book. A book, by the way, of which I sold for him, the first 100 copies off the press.
Took a box of them with me to San Fran and sold them and my mushroom poster. Sold 80 copies of the poster
at $20 each and gave away about 30 free ones to many scholars, some like R. Gordon Wasson, Richard Evans
Schultes, Weston LaBarre and Michael Aldridge, as well as five for Albert Hofmann to take back to Europe.
The Best Field Guide To Hallucinogenic Mushrooms:
Below is a strange case of mistaken identity. The photograph of the Galerina autumnalis was published in HiLife magazine to show readers the dangers in picking a deadly poisonous shroom and mistakenly eating it as a
magic shroom.
Stamets, Paul. 1979c. (Mag.). The best guide to hallucinogenic mushrooms: Where they grow and how to
identify them. Hi-Life vol. 1(7):42-49. July.
A photograph of Galerina autumnalis is mis-labeled as Psilocybe stuntzii and a photograph of Psilocybe stuntzii
is mis-labeled as Galerina autumnalis. Four months later in issue No. 10 of Hi-Life, the publishers provided a
correction of the above error by reprinting the same misidentification of the two species (see Unsigned, 1979p).
Also contains a centerfold of various species of psilocybian fungi indigenous to the Pacific Northwest United
States. When this error appeared, I and many other friends of Paul had brought this error to his attention. It took
Hi-Life magazine four months to correct the error and then what did the stooges do. They repeated the very
error that was brought to their attention.
Unsigned. 1979p. (Mag., Letter). Hi-Life vol. 1(10):93. October.
This article offers corrections for an error that appeared in Hi-Life #7. However, the correction is the same as
the original error. A photograph of Psilocybe stuntzii and Galerina autumnalis that was mis-labeled as each
other by the magazines editors (see Stamets, 1979c)
Here below we finally come to the conclusion and masterpiece of my mushroom poster when with Frank and
his wife Cheeri and Fred Rose, we put the 80 laminated cards all cut and set for a ringlet binder and had four
colored covers, red, black, blue, and green. Here are a copy of the red covered issue, the black covered issue,
and the five pages of text, attached to the front of the book with pertinent data of the books purpose and a
beautiful
forward
blurb
by
my
friend
and
colleague,
Dr.
Andrew
Weil.
Red
cover
ck
cover
blue
cover
The text for the first five pages of the booklet, a perfect fit in opens front or back pocket to use when picking
fresh mushrooms, At the time it was the largest collection of magic mushroom photographs in one book
available on the market, mostly sold on the west coast, the UK and Europe.
A real shame. There were about 2200 posters of my book left in 1990 when I took Jochen Gartz to the USA for
the first time he was free of the iron curtain and brought him to America, introduced him to friends and he goes
behind my back in 1991, 1992, and 1993 and in 1996 publishes with Stamets, P. azurescens, and furthermore
provided false and misleading information on who collected what, when and where.
I wanted to say that we drove around Kingston, Washington to and from Paulsboro and Bremerton looking for
Frank and Cheeri. I learned they had got divorced, he was drinking and arguing and hit her a few times or
maybe he kicked in the door, etc. or something like that. Anyway, she and her two daughters lived in a trailer in
the woods by an alder clear-cut, loaded with P. pelliculosa by the hundreds of thousands, something the three of
us often spent a few days picking. She was freezing the year before in 1998 and ended up using the remaining
2200 posters for firewood starter for her wood-burning stove. The same one she cooked her meals on. So Gartz
and I failed on having the book. At the time I was pretty broke but the next ten years over 35-shroomers from
the Internet paid for my trips to Thailand, Burma and Cambodia and Indonesia.
I will say I have letters to and from Gartz from the mid 1980s when I introduced him to the species as P.
astoriensis,
the
local
name
used
in
Oregon
by
shroomers
for
many
years,
He never once mentioned it in his published paper and did not use a single photo he took while there with me in
1990. He also published a three page paper of mine in a German language book on outdoor shroom transfer
cultivation of P. astoriensis and he wrote me of his analysis of it and outdoor patches in the mid 1980s to mid
1990s. My friends in Oregon also referred to it to him as P. astoriensis and he wrote that I and Paul Stamets,
and Paul's son and two mutual friends of Paul and mine collected specimens with us. One of those people I now
know is workman, but I have no quarrel with workman, but Gartz cheated me on that and several other projects
such as selling my photos in Europe with his name as author, a calendar with three of my photos and no credit,
changing the cd covers of my books that I paid an Indian to produce a cover painting for “Teonanácatl: A
Bibliography of Entheogenic Fungi” by Allen and Gartz. He put his name as first author and did the same with
the cultivation history. I have broken all contact with the man as he lied to me, had a big drug bust at his school
in Germany and did not let anyone know, yet he asked me in more than a dozen letters had I ever been arrested.
Then I found a letter from Jan of 1990 from Gartz and he claimed he had found a police report about me at the
conference in Amsterdam lying around where anyone could see it and threatened me that my books would
never be published in Germany. He refused to loan me his passport in Amsterdam when I was robbed but both
Paul Stamets and Dr. Stijve wrote me letters of introduction to the U.S. Embassy so I could replace my lost
passport and also loaned me theirs to take to the embassy with me. And that ‘friggin’ Gartz, lying to me over
and over he kept asking me if I had been in jail. He complained about me leaving a police report on a table
where anyone could see it. The stupid old German fart was too dumb to realize it was the Amsterdam police
report of my being robbed and I needed a copy for the US Embassy. And then, as I noted, between 1990 and
2008, he wrote over several hundred letters and in the last three years or so he asked me more than a dozen
times or more in his mailings if I had ever been in prison. Not jail. Now it was Prison and then he had the nerve
to accuse me of stealing money from a book that I wrote that he had nothing to do with. He never contributed
shit or any paragraphs or sentences and then thought he had co-authored Mushroom Pioneers.
I
can
only
take
so
much
shit
and
this
thief
is
a
flake,
I was in a good mood for a while here after retyping all the missing text. As for Paul, I have a few minor
problems with him but am not mad at him over what Gartz did. Paul wrote me a letter in 1989 and asked me if
I had ever heard of a mushroom in Oregon called Panaeolus azurescens. It never dawned on me that he was
thinking up Psilocybe azurescens. But in the Journal, Eleusis, Gartz writes that the species was named in honor
of Paul's son Azureus. That means that Gartz did that name for Paul to KISS ass. Like the calendars with my
photos listed Paul as one of the three editors of the calendar. Turns out when I asked Paul about the editorship
position on the calendar, he told me he knew nothing about it until Gartz sent him a free copy of the calendar.
I also found another article by Gartz from 1995 regarding chemistry and he acknowledges me in the credits as a
major contributor of the collections he analyzed but failed to note the name, Psilocybe astoriensis. Sadly I have
letters he sent to me in the late 1980s and early 1990s, asking about P. astoriensis and how he found them
interesting. Specimens I sent to him and when in Oregon with me, he knew everyone referred to them as P.
astoriensis.
So about 250 more Photos in order to finish Part 4 on field guides and taxonomical illustrations and descriptions
of psilocybian fungi from all over the world. Some of these books such as the McKenna's “Growers Guide,”
and Paul Stamets’, “Psilocybin Mushrooms and their Allies” and “Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World.” Even
Peter Stafford's chapter on mushrooms extracted from his “Psychedelic Encyclopedia” developed into several
foreign language editions, including French and German.