Psychedelic Press Blog — journal

In an influential definition of folklore, folklorist Alan Dundes explains that the concept of 'Folk' "can refer to any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor," and that "[e]very group has its own folklore." The 'Lore' in folklore may consist of any number of items featured in an expansive (though not exhaustive) list, including: "myths, legends, folktales, jokes, proverbs, riddles, chants, charms, blessings, curses, oaths, insults, retorts, taunts," and so on, as well as "folk costume, folk dance, folk drama [...] folk art, folk belief (or superstition), folk medicine, folk instrumental music [...], folk metaphors [...],...

Our fascination with gems, shimmering objects, colourful flowers, and translucent stained-glass windows stems from their resemblance to the glowing beauty gleaned in the visionary’s inner eye, argued Huxley. By viewing such objects of beauty, we are reminded of the visionary realms and can be transported into them.

From Psychedelic Press Volume XV: One step forwards, and it appears we’ve taken two steps back. Perhaps then a side-shuffle to avoid the oncoming carnival of an ever-transforming everyday world, only to find that it doesn’t actually look a great deal different from our new vantage point. Indeed, the chains of identity appear to have been tightened. Have we not just spent decades loosening them? Morphing the metal links into fairy chains? For the psychedelic enthusiast living in society’s liminal spaces, this is no benevolent acid trip. It is the law. Or, more specifically, an additional drug law.    ...

I was lucky enough to find a copy of Albert Glover’s The Mushroom: a curriculum of the soul recently. Published in 1972, this small, scarce, orange-clad pamphlet is a poetic record of the author’s hunt and subsequent trip with the folklorist’s favourite fairy mushroom, the fly agaric (Amanita muscaria).  When first I found you it was underneath a white Pine tree. That wood I took for my staff, That image entered my dreams. Led by a boy I walked through the pine plantation Calling your name, Mukhomer!   The poem describes Glover’s hunt for mukhomer (a folk name for the...

This article first appeared in the bi-monthly Psychedelic Press UK print journal, August 2015 (Volume IV). You can pick up a copy of the journal here, or subscribe and have original, innovative and select psychedelic literature delivered straight to your door every couple of months. —– Some thirty years ago, in May 1983, Terence McKenna’s contact lenses failed him during a critical moment of his speech at the psychedelic conference in Santa Barbara. Unable to read from the page, McKenna had to resort to improvising. Listening to the recording after the event, he couldn’t help but notice the crowd’s reaction to a certain bit in his improvised...