Small, grey or pale brown and trembling in the autumn breeze, liberty cap mushrooms grow in upland pastures across the UK. Drab they may be, but these fungi are among the most controversial – and interesting – organisms to grow wild in these islands.
Better known as magic mushrooms, these fungi helped ‘turn on’ some of Britain’s most creative people to the psychedelic movement of the late 1960s and 70s, which was accompanied by flamboyant fashions, weird happenings and, of course, some astonishing music.
An extraordinary mythology flourished among enthusiasts, crediting mushrooms with mystical powers, and claiming for them a pivotal role in human evolution.
But the magic mushroom is not just another quirky footnote in the history of British culture. It has retained a loyal following in Britain and around the world, with supporters passionate about its alleged benefits; recent scientific research suggests some potentially revolutionary therapeutic uses, too. And, allegedly, among its best-known users is tech multibillionaire Elon Musk, according to The New York Times.
Magic mushrooms in the UK
Though this article takes a serious look at claims made for the benefits of magic mushrooms, and at what the future might hold, it’s important to understand the legal and medical issues.
Magic mushrooms were largely prohibited for consumption in the UK in 1971. Sale, supply and possession were banned completely in 2005, closing a loophole in the law that previously allowed the open sale of fresh but not dried fungi.
Consuming them is illegal in the UK and most other countries, and there are also associated health risks. More broadly, any wild mushrooms should be gathered only under the close supervision of expert foragers or mycologists due to the risks of severe mental or physical reactions. Images used in this feature should not be used as a guide to identify mushrooms.
History of magic mushrooms in the UK
The story of magic mushroom use in the UK arguably begins, surprisingly enough, with a professor at the University of Oxford. When Robert Graves – poet, classicist, critic, author and one-time soldier – gave the annual Oxford Addresses on Poetry in 1962, he praised the mind-altering effects
of the fungus.
Inspired by descriptions of experiments with intoxicating mushrooms in Mexico shared by his friend, ethnomycologist R Gordon Wasson, Graves had himself tried them in pill form in 1960.
The poet was excited by the visions summoned by this “divine ambrosia”, including a “descent to the blue-green grottoes of the sea” where “a sense of utter peace and profound wisdom held me, until the influence began to fade and I rose up refreshed.”
Graves observed that one mushroom with similar properties grew in the UK: the liberty cap. According to Andy Letcher, author of Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom, “Graves’ authority and standing as a classicist… encouraged bold experimenters to try liberty caps for themselves.”
Graves’ intentions were high-minded. He believed that taking mushrooms triggered a religious experience, providing profound insights into the spiritual realm normally obscured from us. He became convinced that mushrooms had been used in ancient religious rituals – an idea we can best explain by the effects of mushrooms on the brain.
The liberty cap
Hallucinogenic mushrooms grow around the world. Most – more than 100 species – contain the alkaloid psilocybin, a powerful hallucinogen.
One of the most potent is the liberty cap, Psilocybe semilanceata, which flourishes in the UK and elsewhere. (In the USA and across the tropics, P cubensis is common.)
Letcher gives a layman’s description: “the liberty cap has black lines radiating up from the edge of the cap; a leathery stem that may stain blue; and above all that famous nipple atop its olive-brown cap”.
Effects of psilocybin
Research conducted by the Beckley Foundation and the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London in the late 2000s revealed how psilocybin affects the brain.
Essentially, it temporarily shuts down the Default Mode Network (DMN), interconnected brain regions that keep order – or “a schoolteacher in a chaotic classroom”, as mycologist Merlin Sheldrake calls it.
“Shut down the DMN, and the brain is let off the leash. Cerebral connectivity explodes, and a tumult of new neuronal pathways arise,” he writes in his 2020 book Entangled Life.
Among the effects, says Sheldrake, are auditory and visual hallucinations – “dream-like, ecstatic states”. The sense of self melts away, bringing “a feeling of oneness with the natural world”. There are “powerful shifts in cognitive and emotional perspective and a dissolving of time and space”.
Mushrooms and ancient people
The strong sensation of timelessness created by psilocybin convinced some people that the mushroom played a role in ancient sacred rituals. Some have even claimed that hallucinogenic experiences have been catalysts for leaps in human understanding throughout the deep past of Homo sapiens.
According to the ‘stoned ape’ theory, the use of psychoactive mushrooms enabled prehistoric humans to make the imaginative jumps necessary to develop religion, art and philosophy – a ‘cognitive revolution’ that distinguishes us from other primates – which would make magic mushrooms pretty much the wellspring of all human culture.
The leading exponent of this theory was the charismatic American ethnobotanist Terence McKenna, author of the 1992 book Food of the Gods.
So might the builders of both Aztec temples and Stonehenge been inspired by visions triggered by magic mushrooms? McKenna’s theory of psilocybin use in antiquity is controversial.
He points to Saharan cave paintings of mushrooms, which could be up to 9,000 years old. But there is limited evidence of the consumption of psychoactive mushrooms until relatively recently, says Letcher.
“Our ancestors did use psychoactive plants, especially opium, henbane and mugwort,” he observes, “but as yet no psilocybin mushrooms have been found preserved, say, in the stomach contents of a bog body, nor have we any conclusive pictorial or archaeological remains.”
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Psychedelic movement
From around the mid-1960s, a compound from a different kind of fungi to magic mushrooms helped inspire the psychedelic movement that caused a cultural revolution in London and beyond.
First synthesised by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann in 1938, Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is derived from ergot – fungi of the genus Claviceps, especially C purpurea, which infect rye and other grains and can cause hallucinations.
From the 1950s, psychiatrists experimented with using LSD as a treatment for alcoholism and schizophrenia. In a programme codenamed MK-Ultra from 1953–64, the CIA also funded psychiatric institutions in North America to perform experiments on patients using psychedelic drugs, including LSD, in pursuit of methods of mind control.
By the mid-1960s, when it became known as acid, LSD’s use had spread in the youth countercultures of California and London.
The drug helped influence the creation of some of the era’s best-known popular music, including, reputedly, the Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band during the heyday of psychedelia.
The earliest record of an intentional psilocybin mushroom trip in Britain, meanwhile, was printed in the counterculture magazine Oz in 1970, reports Letcher.
Magic mushrooms were effectively made illegal in the UK when the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 came into effect, classifying their active compounds, psilocybin and psilocin, as controlled substances.
The psychedelic movement would decline in the early 1970s, but the public profile of magic mushrooms spiked again in 1977 following the well-publicised acquittal of a man for possession of magic mushrooms the previous year.
This perhaps encouraged attendance at the dedicated mushroom festival, the Psilly Fair in Wales, which ran from 1976 to 1982, and where festivalgoers were entertained by The Magic Mushroom Band. Former Beatle George Harrison, meanwhile, cited the influence of magic mushrooms on his eponymous 1979 album.
Caution advised
In the UK and elsewhere, magic mushrooms such as the liberty cap are still legally classed as potentially harmful today. Possible physical side effects include an increased heart rate and nausea.
Hallucinations are not always pleasant, and may even be terrifying. The disinhibition caused by mushrooms may encourage reckless or dangerous behaviour. Adverse effects may be worse when mushrooms are taken with alcohol or other drugs.
The effects may linger well after consuming the drug. Experiences may revisit users as ‘flashbacks’. These may include visual disturbances such as intensified colours and altered perception of motion, a condition known as Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder.
The degree of harmfulness of magic mushrooms is still the subject of debate. A review conducted for the Dutch government in 2011 acknowledged that “attention should be paid to the infrequent occurrence of flashbacks and accidents”, but noted that the mushrooms were not addictive or toxic.
It concluded that “acute and chronic adverse effects are relatively infrequent and generally mild, that public health and public order effects are very limited, and that criminality related to the use, production and trafficking of magic mushrooms is almost non-existent.”
Even so, some might regard the mind-altering effects of magic mushrooms as inherently risky.
Therapeutic possibilities of mushrooms
This disruption to the mind may also yield therapeutic benefits, according to some medical researchers.
In 2016, scientists at New York University and Johns Hopkins University gave a dose of psilocybin
to cancer patients suffering with depression and anxiety, along with a course of psychotherapy. Some 80% reported a substantial reduction in their symptoms.
“These studies are considered to be some of the most effective psychiatric interventions in the history of modern medicine,” writes Sheldrake.
“Psychedelics [such as psilocybin and LSD] are not only very effective at treating a wide range of indications that currently lack treatment options but are also proving, when used responsibly, very safe,” according to Grace Blest-Hopley, a neuroscientist and psychedelic researcher.
She told the BBC that these drugs were also being studied for the relief of physical health conditions such as those related to chronic pain.
Another recent US study seems to indicate a different way in which magic mushrooms might interfere with time in unexpected ways: researchers found evidence that psilocybin has anti-ageing properties in mice.
Publicity surrounding the potential therapeutic use of magic mushrooms may be contributing to a surge in use. According to the Office for National Statistics, magic mushroom use increased by 37.4% in 2024 (though it remains fairly low).
It is possible that medical research will successfully develop therapeutic uses for psilocybin in the years to come. That could offer some hope for adults in the UK who suffer treatment-resistant depression.
In the meantime, though magic mushrooms continue to divide opinion, most scientists agree that unsupervised self-medicating with magic mushrooms is simply too risky.
Even so, the signs are that magic mushrooms may have begun a journey on the long road from counter-cultural icon to eventual respectability – albeit under controlled use by medical professionals.
Correctly identifying wild mushrooms is notoriously difficult, so only pick them when supervised by an expert forager or mycologist.
