Just delete this comment. If you're not an expert on mushrooms, picking mushrooms is basically playing Russian roulette. Telling people to do so is wildly irresponsible.
While I tend to agree with you, it also depends on your region. In the US south you can take one look at the psychedelic mushroom picture that grows here and pretty readily identify it. It also only grows in cow poop, so if you see one that looks like the picture, and it's growing in cow poop it's a magic mushroom.
In other areas it may not be that simple, that being said, it's pretty sage advice to not just go out and pick mushrooms to eat.
Personally I never did them or any other hallucinogen, but helped gather them for my friends when I was a kid. My dad is slightly schizophrenic and everyone says he was never the same after they scored some LSD in the 60's. While I am fine, save some depression and ADD, I figured with the family history why risk it, and with the anxiety disorder that comes from depression the thought of having a panic attack while hallucinating pretty much guarantees that it would happen. The one time I tried pot, was an absolute nightmare and that's not even a true hallucinogenic, just has some properties.
It's perfectly safe to pick any mushroom. You can take them home, take a spore print, dry them, and carefully identify them with the help of the internet at your leisure.
All that's important is that you know not to eat them until you've done so.
And when you do think you've identified them, and want to eat them, first eat a small amount just to play it safe.
Picking mushrooms is not playing Russian roulette. It's completely harmless, no mushroom kills you on contact, you're being ridiculous.
It's actually a quite fun hobby to forage and collect mushrooms when in season, take them home and try classify them. Even if you just throw them all away afterwards. In the process you've dispersed their spores too.
And I've picked and eaten A LOT of supposedly dangerous ones, as well as other plants; something I suspect most people speaking out on the subject haven't.
As a matter of fact, I just got some red amanitas out of the freezer that I picked a few days ago. I'm going to fry them in butter with onions and garlic and make a lovely shroom sandwich.
Like amanitas, liberty caps have a very distinctive look. Soak them in water for a while if at all unsure, and only eat a small amount to begin with.
The really dangerous stuff is pushed by "science" and the people who come up with this FUD to sell their artificial, truly poisonous and addictive chemical cocktails for awesome profits instead.
I too would very much recommend people pick and eat the "desriable to eat" kind of mushrooms. If I had to describe what they look like, I'd say it's very similar to the "will kill you horifically" kind of mushrooms.
EDIT: I should say that I mainly said this because I thought it was funny. I actually think it's fine if people to take risks like that if they understand the responsibility and do their own research. I also think it's fine if people occasionally die from things like those, so take that as you will.
