MAGIC MUSHROOMS – Magic Mushrooms: what are they?
To buy a bag of dried paddos, a dose of Shrooms, dried or fresh little Mexicans, thin Hawaiians, Liberty Caps or some exotic varieties from Bali or Thailand is relatively easy, but why on earth do we do this? Why do we now ingest something that was rumored to be poisonous before? Why this fascination for what officially is deemed an `illicit drug’. The image of the mushroom has changed since the Western world became aware of its hidden and exotic qualities, notably the very special and fantastic `trips’ that can be experienced ingesting them. This is a fairly recent development. It was only in the sixties that anything was published about them and although there undoubtedly existed traditions and rituals that were passed on, the magic mushroom was virtually unknown in the `rational and modern’ West. After their (re-)discovery in Mexico during the fifties by Gordon Wasson, the use spread over the world at large. Everywhere mushrooms with psychoactive qualities were discovered. Nowadays
