Each December this mycologist dresses up as Santa and drags a sleigh behind him to deliver seasonal lectures about mushrooms. The hallucinogenic principles of fly agaric are due to the presence ibotenic acid and muscimol, according to the International Mycological Institute in England.
Ibotenic acid is present only in fresh mushrooms.
On drying, it turns into muscimol, which is ten times more potent. In Lapp societies, the village holy man, or shaman, took his mushrooms driedwith good reason. Harding adds that the big man's fondness for popping down chimneys is an echo of how the shaman would drop into a yurt, an ancient tent like dwelling made of birch and reindeer hide. The 'door' and the chimney of the yurt were the same, and the most significant person coming down the chimney would have been a shaman coming to heal a sick person. Of course, Hong Kong is now part of China and there are more opportunities than ever before to use Hong Kong as a gateway into mainland China and to make contact with Chinese scientists and clinicians.