http://www.shamanwithin.net/
Excerpt from Terry Stocker's short story "Essence":
In “Stoned Aliens” Judy examined the use of five words people, mostly Americans, used that had derived meanings from public use. It actaully all started in her childhood when her father would talk about “poisonous” mushrooms,” which was a label given many mushrooms, including psilocybin mushrooms, which are not poisonous at all. Her father gathered wild mushrooms for the family’s consumption, and he would show her in books how the concept of poisonous had shifted over time and finally the label for psilocybin mushrooms changed from poisonous to hallucinogenic, but still the impact on the public mind was that most mushrooms are poisonous.
Nearly everyone she went to high school with would look at the mushrooms her family ate and call them poisonous. She often thought to herself, how can anyone think inky caps (Coprinopsis atramentaria) are poisonous? Every year on the Synder campus and adjoining neighborhoods, after a good rain, Judy would gather them, about 40 pounds a year. That amounted to at least $400 worth of free food and delicious food at that.
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