• Andy Letcher: Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom
  
  Lainaus

  Letcher, an eco-protestor who once lived in a tree house, wrote this exhaustive history in order to debunk the folklore in which mushroom munchers have rooted their appreciation of the hallucinogen. The "bemushroomed," he says, proselytize that the fungus inspired humans to construct Stonehenge, found Western philosophy and even think up Santa Claus. To demonstrate that the real story is "less fanciful and far more interesting," Letcher draws on biological and archeological studies, social history and even his own diaries to chronicle phenomena like Algerian cave drawings that look suspiciously like mushrooms and the plight of Siberian shamans. But he often buries his best material. It's startling, for example, to learn that a New York City banker helped kick-start the psychedelic '60s with a Life magazine article about Mexican mushrooms. But Letcher digresses for 18 pages before finally delivering the kicker: financier Gordon Wasson engaged in a grave deception to gain access to the goods and declared himself blameless as hippie hordes destroyed the ancient community Huautla. Major figures like Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg appear, but are also subsumed by Letcher's colorless, academic style. Readers expecting a druggie classic in the style of Aldous Huxley or Carlos Castaneda will be disappointed.
• Jochen Gartz: Magic Mushrooms Around the World
  
  Lainaus

  Introducing a rich variety of psychoactive mushrooms from around the globe -including some rare and little-known species - the author describes dozens of species and covers a broad range of mushroom- related topics, from distribution maps to comparisons of cultural attitudes to laboratory analyses of active ingredients.
  
  One of the book's most remarkable features is its multi-disciplinary approach: chemistry, botany, biology, history, anthropology, religion, pharmacology, medicine - all of these are among the fields contributing a diversity of data, questions and information that are assembled into one of the most comprehensive and intriguing portraits of psychoactive mushrooms ever created.
  
  Lavishly illustrated, well-organized and enriched by numerous accounts of mushroom experiences, this book explores the psychoactive mycoflora on five continents and reconstructs a continuity of psychoactive mushroom use throughout history, from as early as 10,000 years ago to the present day. You will also find detailed chapters on mushroom cultivation techniques, psychotherapy applications, the bluing phenomenon, the dangers of accidental poisonings caused by misidentification of species, and more. A treasure trove of information, illustrations and magnificent color photography, the book contains much novel information as well, such as the first report on the psychoactivity of baeocystin and up-to-date findings on the use of plant growth hormones to accelerate growth.
• L. G. Nicholas & Kerry Ogame: Psilocybin Mushroom Handbook: Easy Indoor and Outdoor Cultivation
  
  Lainaus

  This well-illustrated book allows anyone with common sense, a clean kitchen, and a closet shelf to grow bumper crops of mushrooms. Besides step-by-step guides to cultivating four species of psilocybin-containing mushrooms, the book offers a wealth of additional information, including an introduction to mushroom biology, a resource guide for supplies, advice on discreetly integrating psychedelic mushrooms into outdoor gardens, and insights into the traditional use of psilocybins in sacred medicine. Also included are appendices with a summary of all included recipes.
• Paul Stamets: Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World: An Identification Guide
  
  Lainaus

  The most comprehensive field guide to the psilocybin-active species ever published, this field guide illustrates a wide range of species spanning the world. With excellent color photographs, nearly 100 species are fully described, including close relatives and poisonous look-alikes. A book without comparison, this field guide stands alone in its scope and describes many new species not seen in any previous works. Far more than just a field guide, this book will prove useful to mycologists, scholars, physicians, and the passionately curious.
• Paul Stamets & J.S. Chilton: Mushroom Cultivator: A Practical Guide to Growing Mushrooms at Home
  
  Lainaus

  "easily the best source of infomration on growing mushrooms..." Includes growing parameters for species Psilocybes, Pleurotus, Stropharia, Volvariela, Agaricus, Coprinus, Flammulina, Lentinus, Lepista, Panaeolus. Very in-depth and thorough. Black and white and color photos.
• Ralph Metzner (toimittaja): Sacred Mushroom of Visions Teonanácatl - A Sourcebook on the Psilocybin Mushroom
  
  Lainaus

  Over 30 contributors share their expertise on the chemical, biological, cultural, psychological, and experiential dimensions of psilocybin mushrooms.
  
  This book describes in vivid detail the consciousness-expanding experiences of psychoactive mushroom users--from artists to psychologists--and the healing visionary inspiration they received. It provides firsthand accounts of studies performed in the controversial Harvard Psilocybin Project, including the Concord Prison study and the Good Friday study. It describes how the use of the psilocybe mushroom spread from the mountains of Mexico into North America, Asia, and Europe by seekers of consciousness-expanding experiences. It also details how psilocybin has been used since the 1960s in psychotherapy, prisoner rehabilitation, the enhancement of creativity, and the induction of mystical experiences and is being studied as a treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

Background
This research focuses on the events leading to the 1968 U.S. federal prohibition of psilocybin. It is a study of duelling moral entrepreneurs—Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert vs. the Harvard University Administration. The goal is to show how the primary active compound in an ostensibly harmless fungus (the psilocybin mushroom) became controversial in less than a decade.

Methods
We used books, newspapers, magazine articles and previously unpublished materials (including documents from the Harvard Archives) to analyze Leary and Alpert's lives and careers through the early 1970s.

Results
The prohibition of psilocybin in the U.S. was largely a product of Leary and Alpert's involvement in the “Harvard drug scandal” and their transformation from Harvard professors to countercultural icons. They tested the substance on a variety of human subjects and in doing so piqued the interest of Harvard undergraduates while drawing condemnation from other faculty and Harvard administrators. This case is theoretically interesting because unlike most illegal drugs, psilocybin was never linked to a threatening minority group, but to some of the nation's most privileged youth.

Conclusion
The Harvard administrators were not really moral entrepreneurs but Leary and Alpert clearly were. Although they were far from being prohibitionists, they were self-righteous crusaders on different but equally holy missions for the good of young and minority Americans. Ironically, due to their successes the possession of psilocybin was criminalized under United States federal law in 1968 (Pub. L. No. 90-639, Stat. 1361 1968 and Boire, 2002). This case study demonstrates that crusaders can be successful in changing culture even when laws are passed in futile attempts to control their behaviour, just as Leary predicted.