Mushrooms, also known as ‘shrooms’ or ‘magic mushrooms,’ are hallucinogens. They are used by people for a variety of reasons. Amongst the most popular, are for religious, mystical and recreational purposes. A person that consumes these substances may hallucinate, see and hear things differently then they normally would and experience open and closed eye visuals. This isn’t always the case. Sometimes mushrooms have little to no effect. Ones surroundings and mood will have a lot to do with how the substance reacts in the body. There have been notable mushroom users throughout the years. We will take a brief look at some of them in this article, specifically, Terrence McKenna, Professor Albert Hoffman, Timothy Leary and R Gordon Wasson.

Terrance McKenna: McKenna was truly a renaissance man in every sense of the word. He had his hands in everything. However, what he is perhaps most well known for is his stance on psycho-stimulants and hallucinogens such as mushrooms. He believed that they were wonderful and in particular psilocybin, which he believed was hugely responsible for the rapid advancement of human evolution in the earth’s last 300,000 years. McKenna would die in 2000 from a brain tumor.

Professor Albert Hofmann: Albert Hofmann is the man responsible for synthesizing LSD-25, as well as psilocybin, assuring a permanent place in the histories of each of these popular substances.

Timothy Leary: Timothy Leary was a huge proponent of mushroom use. He was also a big user of LSD, performing self studies and also doing studies on others who used the drug.  Besides LSD and mushrooms, he also used heroin, marijuana and nitrous oxide, amongst other drugs. He requested his death to be video taped, which it was. He would succumb to prostrate cancer.

R Gordon Wasson:  R Gordon Wasson was a white-collar executive, working as a vice president for the well known bank, JP Morgan. He also was extremely interested in mushroom use. He trekked all over the world, including South America and Mexico looking for shrooms and reporting on his experiences.

Other reported mushroom users include George Harrison (Beatles), Paris Hilton (socialite), John Lennon (Beatles), Ringo Starr (Beatles), Sting (musician) and Henry Luce (founder of Time Magazine).