Comment by culi
1 day ago
Well yes ofc this is an old "discovery". Boletes are known choice edibles around the world so ofc people would discover that if they undercook this mushroom they would trip. We even have some written history about it:
> The Chinese Daoist Ge Hong wrote in Baopuzi (The Master Who Embraces Simplicity) around 300 CE that eating a certain wild mushroom raw would result in attainment of transcendence immediately, suggesting that the mushrooms may have been known for thousands of years.
I'm not sure a vague passage from 1700 years ago is much in the way of evidence, especially given he claims the mushroom is a 10 inch tall person riding a carriage which you see before you consume it.
Of course, he also claimed another mushroom would let you live for a millennia without aging, there were 1,000 year old white bats flying around and 10,000 year old horned toads and that eating 200 pounds of jade would make you fly, so... a fair bit of fantasy mixed into his works.