Customer Reviews

Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom

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Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom by Andy Letcher, 2006

Shroom is an interesting theory against the "mushroom theory of religion." Letcher brings together many new insights and material previously overlooked by many researching the field of entheobotany, and especially entheomycology. This book is a must read and a welcome tome to any good library on this subject.

But there are many problems with Letcher's thesis. Firstly, he props up many of his arguments by ignoring most of the newer research, and especially archaeological iconography, that has come to light post Wasson/Allegro. His argument focuses heavily on Wasson, McKenna and Allegro. And in his case against Allegro, all but one of the items he presents as evidence are bogus rumors that have already been debunked by Judith Anne Brown, Michael Hoffman and I since 2005.

He's completely dismissive of the idea of mushrooms in Christianity but only by attacking the shallowest of evidence, such as the Plaincourault issue (He's unaware that Panofsky was also debunked), while simultaneously ignoring enormous amounts of evidence contradictory to his theory, i.e. The Canterbury Psalter c.e. 1147, art from Abbey of Montecassino, circa 1072, amongst many others such as those published by Giorgio Samorini in Entheos Magazine. In fact, on page 173 in his supposed debunking of Clark Heinrich, instead of attacking Heinrich's research directly, Letcher bases his dissent on a mushroom experience Heinrich speaks about in his book. Weak and lazy tactics like these may fool some, but it's not going to fool anyone who has any serious amount of study in these areas. He also misquotes Heinrich and states that Heinrich built his research into Christianity from Allegro. However, on pg. 25 of Heinrich's book, it clearly states that he used Wasson's research.

Letcher similarly avoids iconographic evidence in the same way toward mushrooms in Hinduism, completely ignoring carvings and statues that clearly depict the mushrooms. See Hari Hari holding a mushroom, Rama and Hanuman Holding Mushrooms, etc., 700-800 C.E.

Letcher also missed the fact that most of the arguments today are for an entheogen theory, not just a specific `mushroom cult theory of religion' per se. Letcher erroneously focuses his research on debunking a single mushroom cult theory. However, many of us in this field have long ago moved away from any such argument. In fact, I don't really know anyone who proposes such a singularly focused theory except for Allegro, and maybe Wasson - and both of their pioneering arguments are near four decades old. For those interested in more information on this specific area, read Michael Hoffman's article on the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion - www.egodeath.com.

Letcher is certainly guilty of trying to make his evidence fit his argument, and throughout this book he blames other researchers for doing the same. I feel that he has likely painted himself into a corner with his words on pg. 78:

"The Western rediscovery of Mexican mushrooming practices began, ironically, with a vigorous scholarly denial that they had ever existed."

He then goes into the story of William Safford:

"...American botanist William Safford (1859-1926), oblivious of such shenanigans so close to home, published a paper on the identity of the supposed teonanacatl of the Aztecs in which he stated emphatically that Sahagun and his native informants had been wrong. They had mistakenly confused dried plant fragments for a fungus, and teonanacatl, revealed Safford, had been none other than the infamous peyote cactus [...]. ... Safford reported that `three centuries of investigation [had] failed to reveal an endemic fungus used as an intoxicant in Mexico'. He bolstered his argument by claiming that peyote `resembles a dried mushroom so remarkably that at first glance it will even deceive a trained mycologist'. He was wrong on both accounts."

Being that Letcher omitted so much of the archaeological evidence available to make his case, I couldn't avoid the obvious comparison that much of Letcher's theory will soon see a similar fate (if it hasn't already). His modern mushroom religion theory mirrors that of Safford.

Lastly, a contradictory and completely dangerous comparison is made in the book to something he admits is non-toxic, psilocybe mushrooms, to something very dangerous as sniffing glue:

"In Mice the LD50, that is the dose at which 50 per cent of the experimental subjects die, is 280 mg/kg of body weight, but a high dose in humans in only 0.5 mg/kg. With such a low toxicity it has been estimated that you would have to eat your own body weight in mushrooms to take a lethal dose, and indeed the are no reported cases of fatalities from psilocybin mushrooms, though children may be more at risk of physical harm." Pg. 20-21

"... magic mushrooms were a convenient, illicit and exciting way of making life under Tory rule more tolerable, no better or worse than sniffing glue..."

Pg. 244

Despite the books obvious problems, overall, I say buy it, read it, study it - but don't believe it.

4 out of 5 stars.

Update for Feb. 2008:

When I wrote this review last April, I was not aware of newer evidence that had already surfaced that disproves Letcher's book.

Found in the Ukraine was a widely dispersed Christian document from Greece in which discusses the mushroom - thereby debunking Letcher's book.

This leaves the remainder of this book as only valid for tidbits of research on mushrooms that Dr. Letcher has discovered. The overall thesis of this book had already been debunked before it was written - as the original discovery of the mushroom in these ancient texts was published in the academic journals in 1994.

I therefore must lower my previous rating of 4 stars down to 3 stars.

Shroom covers topics including refutation of the mushroom theory of the origin of religion, the recent U.K. psilocybin mushroom scene, a critical treatment of Wasson's research methodology and mushroom theory of Vedic religion, and Tim Leary as backdrop leading up to the later popular use of psilocybin mushrooms. This is a valuable book that contributes some new perspectives and new coverage of entheogens in Western culture; this book is a must-have for entheogen researchers. The present review focuses exclusively on his critique of the mushroom theory of religious origins, which he sometimes treats as though it is a critical refutation of the overall entheogen theory of religion.

Letcher has not disproved the entheogen theory of religion, or even fully engaged with that hypothesis. At most, he has made a partial effort to call into question the mushroom theory of the pre-historical origin of religion, in the form of a secret cult spreading from a single origin over time and across regions. Letcher often comes across triumphally as having disproved the entheogen theory of the origin of religion, but a careful reading of his treatment of that particular topic shows that he has actually only shown something far narrower ; he has only refuted a highly specific point.

At most, Letcher's treatment of the entheogen theory of religious origins shows that we have no compelling archaeological evidence for a prehistorical mushroom cult that was secret and unbroken. When his rhetorical verbiage and his general discussions of history are put aside, the substance of his argumentation that remains does not amount to a compelling argument against the frequent use of mushrooms (or other visionary plants) throughout religious history.

Letcher's writing style is rhetorical, so that he tells the story of recent mushroom scholarship and culture well, presenting much of interest to the audience, including valuable new material. He uses a biased rhetorical style; for example, "lunatic fringe", "conspiracy theories", "unfounded speculations", "the myth" of the entheogen origin of religion. This charged rhetorical style obscures that fact that his argument for his refutation of the entheogen theory of the origin of religion rests on only a few, fleetingly discussed points of argument.

Letcher does not engage the bulk of the literary and artistic evidence that provide sufficient grounds to support the general entheogen theory of religious origins. He merely puts forth brief and rather arbitrary arguments dismissing a couple of the many depictions of mushrooms in Christian art.

Letcher's inadequate selection of cases to refute, and his brief, perfunctory treatment of these cases, is not sufficient in breadth or depth to compell adherents of various variants of the entheogen theory of the origins of religion to change their position, no matter how many times or how confidently he rhetorically dubs the theory as a "myth". For example, he would need to engage the range of art that is presented in the first three issues of Entheos magazine, and the range of arguments such as those presented in Giorgio Samorini's articles about Christian mushroom trees.

It's admirable to see an independent critical thinker comment on selected aspects of Allegro and Wasson, but only a few of those comments actually amount to engaging with the evidence for the general entheogen theory of the origin of religion. Letcher makes the risky move of overextending his specific focus on psychoactive mushrooms, at the expense of being under-informed on the general entheogen theory and the full range of arguments, interpretive frameworks, systems of assumptions, and evidence of various types in support of that broad-ranging theory.

As a thought-experiment with the hypothesis that normalized religious cultic use of mushrooms is only a few decades old, this aspect of the book is a valuable contribution to the field; however, Letcher switches inconsistently between that bold but narrow hypothesis and a broader, firm conclusion that the entheogen theory of religion altogether is merely a recent fabrication of popular scholarship and merely wishful thinking.

Letcher leaps from what he narrowly demonstrates, to a stance and a claim to have shown convincingly that the entheogen theory of religious origins (and fairly frequent entheogen use throughout religious history) is nothing but recent wishful thinking, a fabrication by a group that is a historical novelty: late 20th Century psychedelics enthusiasts, including mushroom enthusiasts in the U.K. from 1976-2006.

All theories involve a framework of assumptions. The fact that a scholarly theory uses a set of unproved assumptions does not instantly do away with (or "demolish") the theory. Letcher handles the evidence by the common strategy of dividing, isolating, and diminishing each piece of evidence in isolation, operating under the arbitrary silent assumption that entheogen use was rare, secretive ("conspiracy"), and deviant. But such a methodology is problematic and is controverted by the maximal entheogen theory of religion, which holds that Western history and Western culture have always been inspired to some extent by the ongoing practice of using visionary plants. The unavoidable question remains, "How are we to judge what is plausible and what was normal for that culture?"

Should we assume that the use of visionary plants was normal and significantly present throughout mainstream religion and culture, or that it was rare, a secretive conspiracy, and deviant (exceptional)? Selecting our assumptions about the backdrop, of what was normal in a culture, affects the validity of completely isolating each piece of potential evidence and then attempting to judge the plausibility of reading that piece of evidence as supporting the entheogen theory of religion. What seems plausible to a critical scholar depends on the backdrop of what we assume was normal in the culture.

For example, Letcher affirms that the cathedral door at Hildesheim, Germany depicts the tree of knowledge in the shape that "looks extremely like a giant Liberty Cap", but he argues that it cannot have meant a Liberty Cap, because the doors were carefully designed and the depiction cannot have been secret in that case, so the image cannot represent anything other than, or in addition to, a "stylized fig tree".

It doesn't occur to Letcher to imagine and address the obvious critical arguments and questions against his hasty discussion, such as: why assume that a mushroom allusion had to be secret? why is an officially designed depiction of a mushroom automatically ruled out as unthinkable? why was the fig tree stylized in the specific form of a Liberty Cap mushroom? what about the hundreds of other specifically psilocybin mushroom-shaped trees in Christian art?

Letcher has much homework to do if he wants to try to retain his hypothesis that psychoactive mushrooms were absent from Western religious history until the late 20th Century, and if he intends to convince critical entheogen scholars of that hypothesis -- a hypothesis that will be hard to maintain after seriously addressing, with responses to at least the most obvious counter-criticisms, the current full range of artistic evidence (post-Wasson and post-Allegro), which Letcher has barely engaged.

by Andy Letcher, is that most wondrous of finds; a magic mushroom book that dares to confront modern orthodoxy, and does so in a way that actually advances our knowledge in the field. Billing his text as "A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom", Letcher does not disappoint in dishing up the tastiest mushroom morsels modern research can unearth. And for those of you who think you "know it all" already, I assure you, this book has the best a fungophile could hope for: New stuff.

Instead of starting at the dawn of time with proto-hominids chomping down mushrooms and inventing religion -- like most trendy mushroom books would have you believe -- Letcher instead takes an about-face and scrutinizes this myth of the "ancient mushroom cult" as well as the visionaries who elevated it to the status of academic lore. After first picking through the research and finding no hard evidence of this supposed ancient mushroom cult, Letcher then goes on to point out that for the bulk of Western history (pre-20th century at least), mushrooms were simply considered to be "poisonous" or "edible", and there was no in-between. The poisonous ones (including the "psychedelic" ones) were assiduously avoided and eaten only by mistake. This he demonstrates by finding literature which dates back to the 13th century, citing botanist's notes and journal reports of people accidentally ingesting poisonous mushrooms and believing they were at death's door. Although the notes from the doctors at the time report the oddest of symptoms (the poor fools had no idea what to make of "giddiness" that caused unceasing laughter), in hindsight it is clear that these are the earliest "trip reports" on record. As a student of mushroom lore for over twenty years I can honestly say I had no idea these early reports actually existed, and I applaud Mr. Letcher for his scholarship in retrieving them from the depths of history.

Comparing these priceless journal articles with the historical accounts of the first Spaniards to witness Mayan consumption of mushrooms, Letcher makes the case that Westerners simply had no idea what to make of this ritual, and considered it pagan and demonic and best, deadly at worst. If "Shroom" had ended here Letcher's point would have been well made with interesting research to boot, but it does not end here. Letcher pushes forward into the roots of the cultural movement that elevated the humble mushroom into an archaic religious symbol for an increasingly cynical age, and the primary target of this academic hit job is the legendary banker-turned-amateur ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson, the originator of the sacred mushroom myth. To say that Letcher has a bone to pick with Wasson would be putting it mildly. Let's just say Letcher barely masks his glee in annihilating this man's historical legacy, not only peeling apart his legendary theories one after the other, but criticizing the man himself for being somewhat stubborn and single-minded; too blinded by his own theory to do the proper research; too quick to mold the facts to meet his preconceptions; too arrogant and forthright to allow dissenting voices to penetrate his mythos. It is a view of Wasson I have never seen before -- including new insights into his relationship with Maria Sabina -- and like much of this book, contains a wealth of new material.

The second half of the book moves into hippie territory, speeding through Leary and the Sixties, which is all well-chewed territory. However, the freshest bits in this section come from stories of pre-MDMA rave culture in the UK, where free mushroom festivals and Stonehenge concerts were the British Isles equivalent of Woodstock and the Grateful Dead shows in the US. You can almost feel the change in the air when -- in the early 80s -- DJs with electronic beats and designer drugs moved in and rapidly took over the scene. This is when Letcher changes gears and gets into analyzing Terence McKenna's "Elf Clowns of Hyperspace". While Letcher is a bit gentler with McKenna than he was with Wasson (he claims that as a young man Terence "blew his mind" with his live rap), he still spares no organ in the body of Terence's work as he happily disembowels theory after theory. Letcher's middling conclusion is that although Terence was a great storyteller who helped popularize the mushroom, his theories and research skills -- like those of Wasson's -- were ultimately lacking in academic rigor and not to be taken seriously.

There's much more in Shroom worth mentioning -- new takes on Siberian shamanism, an analysis of mushroom use in Mayan culture, Amanita myths derailed, the modern commodification of the psilocybe market -- but I don't want to spoil all the surprises. The fact that I found this book so full of new material should be recommendation enough for people out there who think they know all there is to know in this field. If Letcher's work doesn't turn the magic mushroom crowd on its head, it will at least give them a new perspective on our current misshapen paradigms. Some mushroom enthusiasts spend their entire careers on the other side of the looking glass, but Letcher's climb up out of the mycological rabbit hole has let in a much-needed breath of fresh air. Shroom is definitely the new must-have book for all students of modern mycology. It makes everything that has come before it look like a fairy tale.

[...]

One star for the interesting tidbits of information not easily found elsewhere. Did his Oxford professors not teach Mr. Letcher the fallacy of the argumentum ad hominem? His personal attacks on Gordon Wasson and John Allegro bring this book down to the level of tabloid journalism.

First, he portrays Wasson as a con artist who became famous as a result of clever salesmanship rather than for "clarity or originality of his thinking." He criticizes Wasson for skewing his data to fit a preconceived idea, but this is exactly what Letcher does. Letcher's premise is that psychoactive substances played no part in Old World religious practices (funny that they should have played such an important role in the other hemisphere). He overlooks or discounts historical data which demonstrates such a link as being "plot devices" of ethnocentric researchers trapped in the mindset of the sixties. We have seen this approach many times before: old theories are about as useful as old pop songs and TV shows, it's time to move forward and take the opposite view. But Letcher once again commits the same error he accuses others of committing by using flawed and dated arguments. One example is his assertion that if Soma was a hallucinogenic mushroom, it would have been simply eaten. Why go through the elaborate process of crushing, mixing, and filtering it? Evidence suggests that Soma was used in a mixture of various psychoactive and non-psychoactive substances, and hallucinogenic mushrooms went through a similar mortar-and-pestle procedure in Central America.

He paints a picture of ancient people ignorant of the plants around them. When plants such as cannabis, poppy, and henbane show up in the archaeological record, he dismisses their possible psychoactive use in favor of such applications as food and medicine. But medicine is always closely linked to the removal of "harmful" spirits in religious practices worldwide (Letcher considers "shamanism" to be a dirty word in his semantic shell games). His view is that it's okay to acknowledge drug use in the rites of the heathen Native Americans, but to say the same thing might have happened in the Middle East is striking too close to our religious traditions. In the end, Letcher comes across as a bizarre "counterculture" version of Jerry Falwell complete with hippy hairdo and "acid folk group."

Letcher saves his most scathing criticism for John Allegro, who is described as a "troubled mind" from the Erich von Daniken school of academia. Citing John King's rebuttal to The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross is another blunder on Letcher's part. If "the fly-agaric and its host-tree species are entirely absent from the flora of the Middle East," then why did the Israeli postal service issue stamps with fly-agarics in 2002? Has he bothered to check his facts? Attacking the character of a person simply cheapens your argument, and playing fast and loose with the facts makes you no more of a scholar than von Daniken.

Terence McKenna is given better treatment by being portrayed as a misguided product of his time. Letcher crafts himself as an exemplar scholar in a world of conspiracists, but after discounting the time-wave theory, he strangely states, "the demolition of the time-wave does not preclude something interesting, unusual, or even of great magnitude from happening as predicted." Maybe Letcher thinks it will be the apocalypse. The bottom line is that he is more influenced by von Daniken than was Allegro, he is far less original than the "amateur" Wasson, and he is much more misguided than McKenna.

This is a difficult book to review because it mixes elements that are quite good with others equally bad. It contains a wealth of very interesting material and findings from the author's scholarly studies. But unfortunately, indeed tragically, it lacks the appropriate emphasis of scientific viewpoint in favor of postmodernism, the intellectual fad currently dominant on campus--not in the sciences but in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Like religious fundamentalism and various New Age preoccupations, postmodernism is aggressively ideological, even totalizing in its ambitions. As such, it has significant difficulties with no-nonsense scientific perspectives, inspiring futile scholarly efforts to undermine the authority and credibility of science. "Shroom" can be seen as an offering in this vein. Its discussion treads water in a sea of postmodern buzzwords, while generating a stream of backhanded insinuations about science (a "drab discipline" as Letcher puts it), and indulging in ad hominem arguments (Letcher dislikes Wasson, whom he seems to view as an archetypal Capitalist bourgeoisie White Male sexist Bad Guy... etc.). To anyone unfamiliar with postmodernism and its anti-scientific orientation, I heartily recommend the book "Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science" by Gross and Levitt; or simply google "transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity."

Still, "Shroom" is not without merit, not by a long shot. This book is to be soundly applauded for some remarkable original discussions of certain aspects of its subject matter, presenting information that will be new to many readers, as it was to me. For example, Letcher illuminates the history of Psilocybe semilanceata and its reputation as no one has before. There are also some new details concerning fly agaric and its cultural history. But one of the most compelling and informative sections of the book addresses the modern history of psilocybin mushrooms, especially in Britain and Holland. Other examples could be cited. The contributions made by Letcher herein should not be understated, especially insofar as they contrast dramatically with the relentless, muddled analysis that accompanies them in its pages. "Shroom" is at its best when it aims to inform rather than analyze, and the wealth of information it offers is of great value, to be appreciated by those interested in this fascinating subject.

On the down side, "Shroom" floats a multitude of red herrings and misconceptions, often under the guise of "debunking" various notions it asserts as erroneous. In many cases, the point is well taken; but in others Letcher unwisely bites off considerably more than he can chew, or misrepresents his targets, attacking cardboard caricatures of his own making. There are far too many such missteps to address in a brief review, and different readers will spot different sticking points. To me, one of the more serious is the idea that "Shroom" has effectively refuted Wasson's identification of Soma as fly agaric. Letcher's discussion of this theory is not an even-handed presentation of the evidence pertaining to it (which is equivocal and complex), but rather a partisan polemic focusing exclusively on arguments against it. In fact, there is significant evidence supporting Wasson's Soma theory, discovered only after he proposed it, which Letcher doesn't even mention. Critics wishing to disprove Wasson's theory must reply to that evidence with better explanations for it, not pretend it doesn't exist while trying to keep the conversation focused on objections (some of which do indeed raise legitimate questions for Wassonian approaches).

Of course, there is nothing wrong with passionately arguing a particular point of view, as Letcher does. But such argumentation is not to be confused with, and must be rigorously distinguished from, efforts toward a balanced, dispassionate search for greater knowledge, regardless of where it leads. Ethnomycology best benefits from the latter approach, compatible as it is with scientific methods. The former approach is responsible for the profusion of "myths" Letcher declaims, and there is irony in the fact that "Shroom" creates some new canards even as it seeks to dispel old ones.

But Letcher's dismissal of Wasson's Soma theory does worse than tiptoe around findings that support it. There is some appearance of chicanery. He first sets it up like just one more duck in a row along with a half dozen or so, baiting the reader who eagerly waits to see how he will shoot it down. He then summarizes various arguments already made against Wasson's theory by others, often agreeing by mere dogmatic assertion ("Brough was right: the situation in Siberia was interesting, but it could have no cultural relevance to Soma whatsoever.") But in the end, disappointingly, Letcher switches. He retreats from the whole question on the grounds that we really can't know for sure--no one can prove with finality what Soma was, and there is consequently no point in trying to identify it, he contends.

Apart from any shell-game tactics, such a position is badly flawed in its logic, as though to claim: "I can't see how we can ever know this, therefore we cannot ever know it" (such reasoning resembles that of the Intelligent Designers who can't see how something as complicated as the eye could have originated by natural selection, and proclaim it is therefore impossible). It seems Letcher fails to comprehend the methods and achievements of science. Scientific knowledge, for whatever limited degrees of objectivity it reaches, is not divine revelation. It is inherently theoretical and tentative in nature, based exclusively on discoveries made so far, with a humble certainty there is a great deal yet to be disclosed to investigation. Scientific understanding can never be chiseled in stone, for it must undergo continual revision to assimilate new discoveries as they are made. The question is never whether we can say something with some kind of absolute certainty, as though proven beyond all possible doubt; it is whether we have good reason to think something might be true or not, based on what we know so far. In that regard, the evidence favoring Wasson's Soma theory is probably just as strong as the evidence against it, perhaps even stronger. That Letcher disagrees with Wasson's theory is all well and good. But he does readers a disservice in suggesting it has been laid to rest, and then washing his hands. There is a critical difference between the detached skepticism of a scientific orientation, and mere personal incredulity, a point lost in the "Shroom" sauce. It seems to me the story Letcher tells of Wasson's Soma theory being dead is, perhaps like the preliminary reports of Samuel Clemens' untimely demise, greatly exaggerated.

Recently, the occult-like or New Age orientation of various popular offerings about psilocybin mushrooms has begun to come under critical fire, as it does here in "Shroom." This is an encouraging development for ethnomycological inquiry, and another good thing about "Shroom" as others have noted. But so far, not many critics have taken stock of trendy postmodern orthodoxy as an equally formidable obstacle to better understanding in this field. Ethnomycology is an inherently multidisciplinary subject, as Wasson well understood. As such it thrives on sound input from disciplines outside the sciences. But it also requires a solidly scientific foundation to theoretically integrate such input. It's hard to see how postmodernism, with its bizarre, empty jargon and antagonism toward science, can contribute usefully in this regard. The problems evident in "Shroom" appear to relate mostly to the author's postmodern framework. With this caveat, I nonetheless recommend the book heartily to anyone interested. (For that matter, if you think everything is a "social construct," and science is simply a socially sanctioned "discourse" cunningly conceived to advance the political hegemony of the dominant class, and like to read about "praxes" and "alterity" and--etc.--you might find this book's analysis more worthy of your time and interest than this reviewer did.)

This is the annoying kind of book whose main point seems to be, I'm smarter than everyone I'm writing about. And he's not, actually--he's a good example of how post-modern scholarship allows you to deploy labels like "orientalist" to place yourself in a superior position to whatever you're critiquing. Andy Letcher is no Edward Said, who actually did the hard work of debunking the body of work he called orientalism--he didn't think labeling it was sufficient to dismiss it.

A clear instance of Letcher not doing his homework is his supposed refutation of the idea that the image of Santa Claus hearkens back to shamanic traditions. Letcher confidently asserts that Clement Clark Moore invented the details of the Santa Claus archetype rather than borrowing them from folklore--but he seems completely unaware of the compelling and well-publicized research that suggests that Moore didn't write the poem at all, and instead took credit for another poet's work. So his confidence strikes me as being highly misplaced.

Andy Letcher has indeed done some great research. His book offers many valuable new morsels of information for shroom enthusiasts. His conclusions however are all too often skewed by what seems to be a predetermined thesis, that is, that the use of psychedelic mushrooms is essentially a modern phenomenon.

Letcher's delivery also smacks of intellectual arrogance. All too often he commits the very "crime" that he accuses other researchers of committing - fitting "facts" to his theory rather than assessing them on their own merit.

Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom is a worthwhile read, but be warned, you may find yourself getting a little angered by it. I did!

After trudging through "Shroom", which I fortunately bought at cut-out price in a used book store, I have a hard time imagining what Andy Letcher's motivation for writing it was. I was waiting for some kind of new insight which would justify the time spent, but all I got was a lot of humorless nit-picking about "history", a protracted exercise in defamation, and a vacuum of misunderstanding of what his targets were about. History can be shaped to appear to prove or disprove anything anyway, by anyone with the will and patience to do so. Why title a book "Shroom" and then proceed to suck every ounce of wonder, mystery and fun out of the topic? It seems as if Letcher is trying in some way to reassert cold science's dominion over early 21st century life, refuting all ideas that fail to live up to the challenge of scientifically verifiable data.

But this is totally missing the point anyway. Whether or not the ideas of McKenna, Wasson, Allegro or Heinrich can be proved or disproved by someone calling himself a "historian", they are mythology anyway, and a useful, vital mythology is what any culture needs to thrive. Our society is desperately in search of a new myth to help it negotiate the current state of disgrace it finds itself in. Just read a little Joseph Campbell for starters. You won't be able to "prove" any of it but you might come away with some inspiration, and that's more than I got from this book.

The book jacket photo of the author says it all: hand blocking the lit side of his face, the other side in deep shadow, as if he didn't want anyone (especially magic mushroom enthusiasts!) to recognize him on the street. I don't blame him. One wonders if his little bubble was burst at that hippy rock festival at which Acid House music first appeared, thus setting the stage for Rave culture and the marginalization of his mandolin and bagpipe folkiness. Maybe he should actually try the magic mushrooms himself and see if they say anything to him. But no, that's not his calling and besides, they would probably tell him "Your music sucks, and so does your book".

Shroom succeeds where other psychedelic books have failed by providing what the latter are generally lacking: impeccable research. Letcher obviously went into writing the book with the foremost goal of being factually accurate at the expense of appealing to the hippy crowd that might be expected to be the primary audience. The result is a thoroughly engrossing history of magic mushrooms (and agarics). As a fan of these perplexing fungi, I was glad to be able to get a thorough history of such an emotionally charged subject without all the b.s. Letcher spends a lot of time debunking a lot of new-age myths about their historical usage, focusing on Gordon Wasson's mythology the most. My only real complaint is the amount of time spent on Wasson, when perhaps he could have gone more in-depth on the pre-Columbian usage of mushrooms in the New World. Even those readers who are not psychedelically inclined would likely be drawn into the underground world of shrooms and their adherents. Highly recommended.

In a provocatively packaged work, Andy Letcher provides historical accounts of the use of magic mushrooms (psylocibe varieties as well as agaric), re-examines many of the outlandish ancient accounts of magic mushroom use made during the 60's, details the current usage of magic mushrooms among trippers and shamans alike, and even recounts such recent occurrences such as the arrest of "Professor Fanaticus" Robert McPherson.

A transporting read that grounds itself in solid references at every step of the way.

A must for anyone interested in the topic.