Seeking the Magic Mushroom
"Seeking the Magic Mushroom" is a 1957
magazine as part three of the "Great Adventures" series.The essay was part of three related works about mushrooms released around the same time period. It was preceded by the limited release of Mushrooms, Russia and History, a two-volume book by Wasson and his wife,
Background
Wasson first became interested in mycology during his honeymoon in the Catskill Mountains in 1927.[7] His new wife, Valentina Pavlovna Wasson, a native of Moscow, Russia, was identifying and collecting mushrooms in the forest, having been brought up with an appreciation for the species. Wasson was disgusted. "Like all good Anglo-Saxons, I knew nothing about the fungal world and felt that the less I knew about those putrid, treacherous excrescences the better."[8] The incident sparked Wasson's interest in mushrooms, leading to subsequent contributions to the field of ethnomycology.
In 1952, English poet
While having lunch at the Century Club in New York in 1956, a Time magazine editor expressed interest in their trip to Mexico and invited them to pitch a story about their experience.[14]
Notes
- ^ a b Stafford 1993, p. 233.
- ^ Stevens 1998, p. 77; Singer 1958.
- ^ Cloud 2007.
- ^ Harvard University Herbaria 2002; Cloud 2007; Karttunen 1994, p. 229.
- ^ Reuters 1970; Cloud 2007.
- ^ Wasson 1970, p. 29.
- ^ Letcher 2008, pp. 80-81.
- ^ Wasson 1957, p. 113.
- ^ Wasson et al. 1978, p. 4; Ruck 2010; Stafford 1993, pp. 225-233. Depictions of mushroom use can be seen in the Florentine Codex and the Codex Magliabechiano. Relevant papers on this topic by Schultes include: Schultes, R. E. 1939. The identification of Teonanácatl, a narcotic basidiomycete of the Aztecs. Botanical Museum Leaflets of Harvard 7 (3): 37-54. February 21; and Schultes, R. E. 1940. Teonanácatl: The narcotic mushroom of the Aztecs. American Anthropologist 42: 429-443.
- ^ Wasson & Wasson 1957, pp. 237-238.
- ^ Wasson 1957, pp. 100–102, 109–120; Ruck 2010; Cloud 2007; Erowid Character Vaults 2012; Stevens 1998, pp. 74-79.
- ^ Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis (New York: Little, Brown, 2017), p. 56.
- ^ Jacobsen, Phenomena (2017), pp. 56-59.
- ^ Riedlinger 1997, p. 199; Stevens 1998, p. 78.
References
- Allen, John W. 2002. Mushroom Pioneers. Psilly Publications. ISBN 1605294071.
- Cloud, John. 2007. When the Elite Loved LSD. Time (April 23).
- Feinberg, Ben. 2009. “A Symbol Of Wisdom And Love? Counter-Cultural Tourism And The Multiple Faces Of María Sabina In Huautla, Oaxaca.” The Politics of Space and Imagery (2009): 93–114.
- Harvard University Herbaria. 2002. R. Gordon Wasson (1898-1986) Archives. Harvard University.
- Harvey, Graham. 2003. Shamanism: A Reader. Routledge. .
- Bone, Eugenia. 2011. Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms. Rodale. ISBN 1582140995.
- Lee, Martin A. Shlain, Bruce. 1992. ISBN 0-8021-3062-3.
- Karttunen, Frances E. 1994. Between Worlds: Interpreters, Guides, and Survivors. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813520312.
- Letcher, Andy. 2008. Shroom: A Cultural history of the Magic Mushroom. HarperCollins. ISBN 0060828293.
- Reiedlinger, Thomas J. 1990. The Sacred Mushroom Seeker: Essays for R. Gordon Wasson. Dioscorides Press. ISBN 0931146178.
- Reuters. 1970. Hippies Flocking to Mexico for Mushroom 'Trips'. The New York Times (July 22). (subscription required)
- Ruck, Carl. 2010. Wasson and the Psychedelic Revolution. Brainwaving. Beckley Foundation.
- Singer, Rolf. 1958. Mycological Investigations on Teonanácatl, the Mexican Hallucinogenic Mushroom. Part I. The History of Teonanácatl, Field Work and Culture Work. Mycologia 50, no. 2 (March–April): 239–261. (subscription required)
- ISBN 0914171518.
- Wasson, R. G. 1957. Seeking the magic mushroom. Life 49, no. 19 (May 13): 100–102, 109–120.
- Stevens, Jay. 1998. Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream. Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3587-0.
- Wasson, R. Gordon. 1970. Drugs: The Sacred Mushroom. The New York Times (Sept 26): 21. (subscription required)
- Wasson, Valentina Pavlovna. 1957. I Ate the Sacred Mushroom. This Week. (May 19): 8–10, 36.
- Wasson, Valentina Pavlovna and R. Gordon Wasson. 1957. Mushrooms, Russia and History. Vol II. New York: Pantheon Books. OCLC 319942
- Weiner, Tim. 2002. Huautla Journal; The Place for Trips of the Mind-Bending Kind. The New York Times (May 8).
Further reading
- Wasson, R. Gordon. 1961. The Hallucinogenic Fungi of Mexico: an inquiry into the origins of the religious idea among primitive peoples. Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University 19: 137–162.
- Wasson, R. Gordon, Hofmann, Albert, Ruck, Carl A. P. 1978. The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries. New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-625279-1