It's also possible that the psychoactive and non-psychoactive mushrooms are two separate chemotypes, or even different species entirely but with hard-to-distinguish characteristics.
The actual qualitative aspects of Shi RenRen intoxication as described in the literature are sufficiently distinctive to suggest that a/some novel compound/s may be involved, but I'd plefer to see multiple accounts of intentional usage before unquestioningly accepting the 'little people' as fact. For one thing, after a stiff dose of liberty caps I've had my field of vision crowded with irregularly-tiled 'shroom elves' all staring at me with large, glowing eyes as if to say, "just what do you think you've done?", and this went on for several hours. Thus, the desciption of little people isn't wholly inconsistent with the effects of psilocin, and could have an element of cultural influence to it.
The occurence of psilocin in a bolete would, however, be somewhat remarkable. There's at least one other type of psychoactive bolete in the form of the nongo mushroom of Papua New Guinea, which was originally described as a species of Gerronema (or something like that) but I'll have to admit, I'm likely a bit behind with these things. Indications there were again that psiloc(yb)in was not the active agent involved.
Something else to consider as a possibility relates to the numerous species of mould which have been found to produce clavine and/or ergoline alkaloids. Parasitic or symbiotic involvement of such a mould could go towards explaining the inconsistency of observed effects - not all specimens might contain such a parasite/symbiont, but parasitic mould infections of bolete carpophores can be relatively commonplace.
Further examples of inconsistent psychoactivity, sometimes with unknown causative agent, include false chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca), chicken of the woods (Laetiporus sulfureus), and "laughing jim" (Gymnopilus spectabilis) this last one also being suspected of at least sometimes producing psiloc(yb)in, but also postulated to contain some kind of psychoactive oligoisoprenoid. Again, I could do with checking on just how up to date this information is.
All told, there's plenty of scope for further research into just what is going on with Lanmoa asiatica.
