Everything about R Gordon Wasson totally explained
Robert Gordon Wasson (
September 22,
1898 –
December 23,
1986) was an
author, amateur researcher and banker. In the course of independent research, he made contributions to the field of
ethnobotany,
botany and
anthropology. Several of his books were self-published in illustrated, limited editions and have never been reprinted.
Work
Wasson's studies in
ethnomycology began during his 1927 honeymoon trip to the
Catskill Mountains when his bride, Valentina Pavlovna Guercken, a pediatrician, chanced upon some edible wild
mushrooms. Fascinated by the marked difference in cultural attitudes towards the
fungus in
Russia compared to the
United States, the couple began field research which led to the writing of
Mushrooms, Russia and History published in
1957. In the course of their investigations, they mounted expeditions to
Mexico to study the
religious use of mushrooms by the native population. They became the first westerners to participate in a
Mazatec sacred mushroom ritual. In
1957, they published a
Life magazine article (
Seeking the Magic Mushroom), bringing knowledge of the existence of
psychoactive mushrooms to a wide audience for the first time. Through his collaboration with
Roger Heim, the mushrooms were subjected to scientific study, and
Albert Hofmann, using material grown by Heim from specimens collected by the Wassons, identified the
chemical structure of the active
compounds,
psilocybin and
psilocin. Two species of mushroom,
Psilocybe wassonii Heim and
Psilocybe wassonorum Guzman were named in honor of R. Gordon Wasson. Hofmann and Wasson were also the first westerners to collect specimens of the Mazatec hallucinogen
Salvia divinorum, leading to its description as a new species, and bringing it into cultivation outside of Mexico.
Experiences with the
magic mushrooms apparently had a profound effect on Wasson, and
fungi remained a persistent theme in his work. His next major contribution was a study of the ancient
Vedic intoxicant Soma, which he proposed was based on the psychoactive
Fly Agaric (
Amanita muscaria) mushroom. This was published in
1967 under the title . His attention then turned to the
Eleusinian Mysteries, the initiation ceremony of the ancient Greek cult of
Demeter and
Persephone. In
The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries (
1978), co-authored with
Albert Hofmann and
Carl A. P. Ruck, it was proposed that the special potion "
kykeon", a pivotal component of the ceremony, contained psychoactive
ergoline alkaloids from the fungus
Ergot (
Claviceps spp.).
Ethnography
Prior to his work on Soma, theologians had interpreted the Vedic and Magian practices to have been based on alcoholic beverages that produced inebriation. Wasson was the first researcher to propose that the form of Vedic intoxication was
entheogenic.
Further Information
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