A very good review of the book: Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom by Andy Lechter

A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom
Andy Lechter has written an essential book on shrooms, and taken a key step in the evolution of how we talk about the history of entheogens.
August 19, 2008 |

Editor's note: This article was originally published in Erowid.

Reviewed: Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom by Andy Lechter


In Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom, Andy Letcher has given us a thorough and rigorous study of mushroom culture. Among books on psychoactive mushrooms, Shroom is unprecedented in the degree to which the author demands that arguments be supported by evidence. Anyone familiar with the voluminous literature on this topic will immediately recognize this as a revolutionary step; the genre is crowded with speculation ranging from cautious (The Road to Eleusis) to extravagant (Food of the Gods).
A scholar boasting PhDs in both ecology and religious studies, Letcher is also no stranger to the psychedelic underground. In this book he painstakingly reconstructs mushroom theories ranging from Eleusis to Santa Claus. Letcher is highly critical of most of these theories, which he sometimes characterizes in sardonic terms that border on contemptuous. Although his tone can be caustic, he pays mushroom enthusiasts the compliment of taking their arguments seriously and analyzing them as such.

Shroom opens with a serviceable overview of the biology and chemistry of psychoactive mushrooms. The book then moves into the cultural history of mushrooms, including a valuable review of pre-1950s reports of mushroom use. Letcher documents and analyzes nearly every major argument written about psychoactive mushrooms in the last century. He chronicles the channels by which a cloudy mix of science and speculation has flowed into the collective reservoir of the psychedelic underground.

The basic argument that Letcher critiques looks something like this: For thousands of years, humans have had an important relationship with psychoactive mushrooms. After stumbling upon them unawares, our ancestors grasped the power of the psychedelic experience they provide. It may be that the spiritual insights which inspired the major world religions were based on entheogenic mushroom sacraments. The druids of pre-Roman Europe, the ancient Greeks of Eleusis, and perhaps even our early ancestors on the African savanna knew that one could contact the spirit world or commune with the gods under the influence of psychoactive fungi.

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