How To Throw The Perfect Psychedelic Halloween Party

Parties Are Back!

Lots of us hunkered down last Halloween, stayed in and watched movies or carved pumpkins — for most people a party was a big no-no. This year however, for many people things are different. Parties are possible again! Maybe that Joe Exotic costume you were plotting last year feels a bit passé now, but there’s still time to think of something a bit more 2021 before the party invites start flooding in. And speaking of maybe you’re planning a Halloween party of your own. And if you’re not, maybe you should! After all, skipping last years ‘Goth Christmas’ was pretty lame. Why not double down and host your own Halloween extravaganza?

‘How?’ you might ask. ‘I’m out of party practice!’ Maybe you were never the expert host in the first place. Either way, this Halloween you have nothing to fear on that front, because we are laying out a party-planning guide that will make sure whatever kind of event you throw — big, small, spooky, kooky — will go with a bang. And because we are Wholecelium, it’s all gonna be done with a psychedelic shroomy twist, because there’s no better time to trip than on Halloween. Excited? You should be. Lets get party planning!

Spooky Set and Spooky Setting

One of the most effective ways to get into the Halloween mood is by decorating your party location. Whether it’s in your apartment, your house, the woods, or a venue you’ve rented (remember, good ventilation is still essential) to get people in the party spirit from the get-go you’ve gotta make it look the part.

Depending on the theme you’ve chosen, your choices might be different — tin foil on the walls for space theme, sand and shells for deep sea terrors — but for our party plan we’re gonna go trad Halloween…but psychedelic. You can’t beat a classic!

Here are some essential starting points for decorating your place for psychedelic Halloween — however, feel free to go much further — go wild! The only limit is your imagination…

Lights!

Lights (or absence of them) are essential for creating atmosphere. You want dark spooky corners, and vibe changing filters. Buy some coloured bulbs or cover existing light bulbs with (fire safe) coloured gels. Key spooky light colours include: red (devilish!) blue (ghostly!) and green (just makes you look really sick!). Triple points for kitschy colour-change disco lights!

Lastly, if you can get hold of some or your budget covers it, UV black lights really take a psychedelic Halloween party to the next level. Instantly, skeleton costumes, plastic fangs, ghostly sheets and anything else white are animated by the unnatural UV glow. Picture it, the truffles are just starting to hit, and a friendly skeleton comes boogying up to you lit up like Las Vegas — trippy!

Decoration!

Decorations are the next step for creating your psychedelic Halloween world. If you are using blacklights, decorations in white or pale colours with graphic design will really pop. Think of the ghost train at the local fair or carnival…

Cut out skeletons, spiders and bats etc. out of paper and hang them on the wall. Sure your local or online party shops have all sorts of decorations, but they are often made of plastic and materials that are a down right horror for the environment. When making your own, your only limit is your imagination, get some friends round and get creative! Our personal favourite is a paper mushroom silhouette — you can make it as big as you like — with a face, with Fly agaric toadstool polkadots (greeeeat under the black light!), with arms and legs. Really, shrooms dotted about the house are essential for a psychedelic twist on the traditional. Instant Alice In Wonderland vibes too!

Another classic is carving pumpkins. You can’t go wrong with a grinning Jack o’ lantern. They say Halloween like nothing else.

Essential tip 1: carve them BEFORE you load up on spooky punch or shrooms.

Essential tip 2: If you don’t want to worry about potential candle disasters you can use fairy lights or nightlights inside your pumpkin instead.

Essential tip 3: You don’t have to go down a traditional route. There’s zillions of other designs that aren’t that classic evil grin, and plenty of online tutorials showing you how to do them!

Music!

Once you’ve got the lights and decorations dialled it’s time to get onto the maker-or-breaker of a party. The music! While you can just crack out your go-to party bangers (your house looks damn spooky after all!) it’s nice to add in some seasonal specials into the mix — the crazier the better! Whether you go for spooky pop hits or scary movie soundtracks here’s a few recommendations…

The Monster Mash – Bobby Pickett (sorry it’s gotta be there!)
Disturbia – Rihanna
Season of the Witch – Donovan
Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell
Suspiria – Goblin
I Was A Teenage Werewolf – The Cramps
The Time Warp – The Rocky Horror Picture Show
I Put A Spell On You – Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
Ghost Town – The Specials
Gimme Some More – Busta Rhymes (yes that is a ‘Psycho’ sample!)

(If we’ve missed any of your favourites let us know in the comments!)

All Treats… No Tricks… Definitely Trips!

You may decide to cater your party with fabulous foods and drinks. From creepy cookies to pungent potions (i.e. booze) there are endless recipes to inspire and satisfy even the appetite of Hannibal Lecter. So we don’t need to tell you those… they’re just a Google away!

Our specialist subject is, of course, magic mushrooms and truffles. Using our tried and true recipes you can make your ‘Psychedelic Halloween Party’ psychedelic in more than just name…

Psychedelic Witches Brew

Take our magic truffle iced tea recipe, and make it spooky! Once you have the iced tea made it’s up to you how you elaborate to make THE drink of the party. Our choice for a really witchy brew would be:

A batch of our psychedelic iced tea
Green or red food colouring (to make it look super evil!)
Sugar syrup (to make it taste super sweet!)
A fun garnish — we are keen on peeled lychees (doppelgängers for eyeballs!)
Ice
Slices of lemon or lime

Trippy Treats

You must have tried our recipe for chocolate coated magic truffles. If not, then Halloween is the perfect time! Both delicious and trippy, they’re key for a psychedelic trick o’ treat. For spooky season you can add all kinds of additions to the original recipe, from gummy worms to jelly beans to crushed nuts!

Our original tutorial showed us using mini-silicone cupcake molds to create a chocolate delight similar to that of a (very Halloween appropriate) Reese’s Cup. However you can make as many different shaped chocolates as there are molds! For example, a skull shaped ice tray used as a mold will give you skeleton choccys (try using white chocolate for the full effect!)

The possibilities are endless! Just make sure your choccys are chock full of truffles…

Important Note: Ensure your guests are aware you are making magic truffle goodies, and clearly mark which treats or drinks are trippy or not. A light psychedelic experience is the best! — but only when you asked for it. Unexpected trippy vibes are not always welcome, so make sure it’s clear to your guests what is what. That way, whether trippy, tipsy or sober but spooky, we all have a great time!

Crazy Costumes

It’s not a Halloween party if people aren’t in costume! Truly, truly the motto here is ‘if in doubt, freak ‘em out!’

Of course, we love a good mummy or vampire, a classic witch topped with a pointy hat — chef’s kiss! But if you fancy getting psychedelic with the costumes, here are a few ideas — with different levels of… let’s say… psychedelic conviction.

Beginner level:

Alice in Wonderland

Already a Halloween classic, you can’t beat an Alice or other Wonderland character costume. Whether you go White Rabbit, Queen of Hearts, Mad Hatter or signature blue dress, you’ll be muttering “curiouser and curiouser” in no time!

An Alien

Psychonauts and space go hand in hand. Afterall, shrooms let you explore the cosmos without ever leaving your sofa! Maybe you’ve even ‘met’ aliens while you’ve been up there.Why not honour our intergalactic buddies this Halloween? And there’s a lot of scope: from little green men, to tentacular monsters, to freaky-deeky Mars Attacks style aliens to adorable ET — you can shoot for the stars.

Intermediate:

A Woodstock Hippie

Some people already go as a hippie for Halloween — with paisley, tie-dye, flares etc — but we think a cool twist is to double down on the idea. Be a hippie who never left Woodstock. So as well as being dressed in your finest 1969 attire, you’re also muddy, messy, your facepaint is smudged, maybe your hair is full of twigs… you get the picture… you’ve been living in a field for 52 years! Maybe you’re even a hippie skeleton — cross over costume alert!

A Mushroom

I mean …duh. It’s the perfect costume. Whether you go as a toadstool (love those white polka-dots under a UV light!), or golden cap shroom. It’s a costume that seems so obvious for a psychonaut you’d almost overlook it. But don’t! There are loads of tutorials online on how to make a mushroom cap for your costume, so you’ll truly look the part. (Extra tip! Why not go as an actual MAGIC mushroom? As well as your mushroom costume you could add a magic wand, hold a rabbit coming out of a top hat, or simply annoy everyone with card tricks all evening!)

Expert:

Albert Hofmann

Like we said, these costumes are for the psychonaut experts, the scholars of the ‘culture’, if you will. Why not show off your smarts by dressing as the granddaddy of LSD? A lab coat, a test tube with something luminous inside, a pair of specs and a wild look in your eyes like you’ve just ingested something brand new. Double points if you arrive on a bicycle.

Note: This could be a slight exaggeration

A Machine Elf

Again, gain some psychedelic kudos with this wacky costume. A ‘machine elf’ (also ‘fractal elf’, or ‘self transforming elf machines’) is a term coined by late psychedelic icon Terence McKenna, to describe the crazy elf-like creatures you see during DMT and other psychedelic trips. Basically just dress like an insane goblin from another dimension (maybe you can take reference from things you’ve seen on your own psychedelic experiences?!) and if anyone asks, just say haughty ‘I’m a machine elf actually…’ Master McKenna would be proud…