Jochen Gartz - Magic Mushrooms Around the ... - preterhuman.net

about deaths following ingestion of the potent
muscarine-containing Inocybe patouillardi Bres.
date back to the early 20th century.
Identification Errors
Below is a more detailed description of the
effects of Inocybe aeruginascens:
On June 30, 1980 a teenager collected the
mushrooms near Potsdam and misidentified them
as fairy ring mushrooms (Marasmius oreades (Bolt.
& Fr.) Fr.), a species known as a choice table
mushroom. At home, the teenager's father sauteed
the mushrooms in margarine, and they were
subsequently eaten by both of them. The son ate
only about one-third of the cooked mushrooms.
About 35 to 45 minutes after the meal, both
father and son began to experience initial
symptoms. The son mainly reported colorful
illusions and hallucinations. The woven pattern of
his white handkerchief suddenly appeared as
shining stripes of crimson red. With his eyes
closed, he saw magically illuminated, abstract
structures. He noticed his own state of
foolish silliness that occurred for apparently no
reason at all. Following his father's
instructions, he soon found himself outside, in the
pouring rain, running back to a near-by railroad
embankment, still laughing and giggling, in order
to gather more of the mushrooms that had
poisoned him.
The father's symptoms initially included
yawning and a burning sensation of the face, as
well as itching at the hairline and fatigue. He
then experienced increasing numbness
(paraesthesia) of the left half of his face and his
left arm. Later on, these symptoms spread to the
right half of his body. Fully conscious, he also
noticed motor disturbances that disrupted his
language ability.
His
psyche was increasingly dominated by images of
depersonalization: For the duration of the
experience he felt that he "was standing beside
himself as an observer", while his voice sounded
very strange to him.
The second case of intoxication in Potsdam
occurred on July 13, 1980:
Seventy-five minutes after ingestion of
fibrehead mushrooms with greenish discolorations
(Inocvbe aeruginascens), the woman began to
experience hot flashes, nausea without vomiting,
strongly dilated pupils, along with a
marked sense of intoxication that she described as
"mostly amusing ". Spacial illusions were
experienced in combination with striking feelings of
weightlessness, distances appeared to be magnified.
After several hours, these symptoms gradually faded
without lasting consequences; only the dilation of
the pupils persisted well into the next day.
Based on these cases, Drewitz proposed
that the mushrooms contain psilocybin or similar
substances, a hypothesis that was later confirmed
(see Tables 6 and 7, p. 49).
More cases of intoxications were reported
in the years that followed and earlier cases could
also be traced to this mushroom species. In each of
these cases, the mushrooms were misidentified as
fairy ring mushrooms.
TABLE 5
Accidental Intoxications with Inocybe
aeruginascens in Eastern Germany
Year # of People Location
Hohen-
1977 3
Neuendorf
1980 2 Teltow
1980 1 Potsdam
1984 4 Oranienburg
1984 2 Magdeburg
1985
1986
3
7
Woltersdorf
Potsdam
In all cases, the symptoms subsided after
several hours, with no lasting side effects. A
psychiatrist surely would have found these
situations interesting - especially the last case
involving an extended family - and would most
likely have welcomed the opportunity to study the
psychodynamics and social interactions during the
period of collective intoxication.
In 1983, Babos reported another case of
unintentional ingestion of Inocybe aeruginascens in
Budapest, which had occurred on July 1, 1970. In
this case, symptoms included subjective feelings of
decreasing gravity, colorful hallucinations, spacial
illusions and nausea without vomiting.