Kool-Aid Corner #11
To finish: trippy clippings, merry pranks, and psychedelic student life
Graph of the Week
Panic over, someone’s sorted the whole ‘fly agaric is stronger once it’s gone through someone else’s bladder’ question
Direct Analysis of Psilocin and Muscimol in Urine Samples Using Single Drop Microextraction Technique In-Line with Capillary Electrophoresis by Anna Poliwoda, Katarzyna Zielińska Piotr P. Wieczorek published in Molecules spring 2020.
My bookshelf weighs a ton
Notable new purchases for the occult library. Strictly second hand snap-ups only. This week: Shroom by Andy Letcher
From WoB for £9.99, there are ones with slightly better covers out there
It’s a lecture circuit gag that one of the best books on the history of psilocybin has a really crappy cover.
Andy Letcher, writer of Shroom, is a high-level druid here in Britain. His rigorous taxonomy of magic mushrooms within society comes with shadow work: it debunks myths and sacred cows, in particular the stoned ape theory, left and centre. This paraphrase from author will Self, in his review of Terrence McKenna’s Food of the Gods is possibly the shadowiest bit: “he compares McKenna’s [worldview] to Marxist dialectical materialism, where the type of drugs you take determines the society you live in: mushrooms good, alcohol bad.” Want more? “Indegenous communities are rarely harmonious, and use ayahuasca to curse as much as cure.” Essential.