In the native lore I’ve read over the years, I’ve come across numerous mentions of the tiny people who live in the forest that white people (modern westerners) can’t see. I’ve talked to one person who, by his own account, has seen them. I’ve also always been interested in the ritual use of psychoactive substances in human history and their effect on culture. So I was intensely interested when I read this paper about a specific mushroom that is not related to the known psychoactive or “magic” mushroom genera, known to result in seeing and interacting with the wee people of the forest.

From the article:

Picture this: You’re enjoying a delicious bowl of mushroom soup, when suddenly you notice hundreds of tiny people dressed in cartoonish clothing marching across your tablecloth, jumping into your bowl, swimming around, and clinging to your spoon as you lift it for another taste. You’re not dreaming — you’ve just experienced the effects of a mushroom known scientifically as *Lanmaoa asiatica*. It belongs to an entirely different class of Fungi than the more commonly known “magic mushrooms” and remains far more mysterious.

What jumped out at me when I read this is that it’s a bolete; a common genera in the woods of northern Maine. Also that they call it the fairytale mushroom, and that they haven’t isolated any specific chemical that leads to the hallucinations. Anyway, lots of interesting things here, so I figured I’d post it and share with our community.

Here’s a link to the article: Experts Explore New Mushroom Which Causes Fairytale-Like Hallucinations
https://nhmu.utah.edu/articles/experts-explore-new-mushroom-which-causes-fairytale-hallucinations

Note: The mushroom in the photo above is the Amanita muscaria, which some years grows in abundance by the field school. It is not the mushroom referenced in the article. I looked but couldn’t find any pictures I have of boletes.