Andy Letcher: What do we now know about the history of the magic mushroom?

In 2026 it will be twenty years since my history of the magic mushroom, Shroom, was published. Appearing just at the moment that the so-called psychedelic renaissance is said to have commenced, the book was unusual for its time for taking a critical, evidence-based approach to the subject. It challenged much received wisdom, and consequently was deemed by many within the psychedelic community to be controversial, if not heretical!

In this talk I will examine some of the book’s findings to ask whether anything, in the intervening years, has changed. What evidence is there for prehistoric mushroom use in Europe? Was Santa Claus originally a fly agaric-eating shaman? How did news of the Liberty Cap spread in the UK? Are we really the mushroom people? Find out the answer to these, and more.

Dr Andy Letcher is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter, where he is programme director for the online and in-person MScs in Psychedelics: Mind, Medicine, Culture. He is the author of Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom and researches psychedelic spiritualities, especially the use of psychedelics within contemporary Paganism, and the use of the fly agaric mushroom.

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