R.

Gordon Wasson (1898-1986) was

an international banker, amateur
mycologist, and author. He studied
at the Columbia School of Journalism
and at the London School of
Economics.In 1926 Gordon married
Valentina Pavlovna Guercken (Tina),
a pediatrician. On a delayed
honeymoon in 1927 in the Catskill
Mountains of New York, the
Wassons' lifelong gathering of
"references to mushrooms and
toadstools in the folklore of the
world" began.
The Wassons went on to integrate
mycological data with data from
other fields: history, linguistics,
comparative religion, mythology,
art, and archaeology, exploring all
aspects of mushrooms. They called
their field of studies
"ethnomycology" and coined the
terms "mycophobe" and
"mycophile" to separate the peoples
of the world. Their investigations led
to expeditions in Mexico beginning
in 1953 to research the magico-
religious use of mushrooms. In
1955, Gordon and Tina became the
first outsiders to participate the
Mazatec Indians' sacred mushroom
rituals.
Upon retiring in 1963, Gordon began
Far Eastern field investigations
relating to his thesis that the Indian
soma plant was the
mushroom Amanita muscaria (fly-
agaric). He was in the Far East
almost continuously from May 1963
to February 1966; his travels
included New Zealand, New Guinea,
Japan, China, India, Korea, Iran,
Afghanistan, Thailand, and Nepal.
The results of his investigations
were published in 1969 in Soma.
This work stirred controversy among
Vedic scholars. The term
"entheogen," was devised by RGW
and his colleagues to replace the
terms "hallucinogenic" or
"psychedelic" or "drug" that had
been used during the 1960's.
--

R. Gordon Wasson (RGW), an international

banker, amateur mycologist, and author,
was born on September 22, 1898 in Great
Falls, Montana. His family moved east when
RGW's father, an Episcopalian minister,
accepted a new parish in Newark, New
Jersey. RGW attended the Newark public
schools; additionally, he completed three
readings of the Bible between 1907-1912
and was tutored by his father in the history
and correct usage of the English language.
RGW's education as a traveller began
intentionally when RGW and his older
brother, Thomas Campbell Wasson (TCW),
were sent unaccompanied on monthly visits
to the museums in New York City before
they were ten years old; during RGW's early
teenage years, he and TCW visited major
east coast cities. In 1914, after three years
of high school, RGW joined TCW in England
and together they travelled in Europe during
the early war years. RGW enlisted as a
private in 1917 and served in the American
Expeditionary Forces in France as a radio
operator.
After the war, RGW taught Spanish before
enrolling in the Columbia School of
Journalism. He received the first Pulitzer
Traveling Scholarship awarded and studied
at the London School of Economics.
Returning to the United States, RGW taught
English at Columbia University 1921-1922.
He then became a reporter for the New
Haven (CT) Register. He moved to New York
in 1925 and became associate editor of
the Current Opinion magazine; later, he
wrote a signed financial column for the New
York Herald Tribune. In 1928, he joined the
staff of Guaranty Company in New York City,
with extended assignments in Argentina and
London. It was during the period 1929-1931
in Buenos Aires that RGW became
acquainted with the writings of W.H. Hudson.
In 1934, RGW joined the J.P. Morgan
Company where he pioneered in banking
public relations. He retired from his
international banking duties at J.P. Morgan in
1963, having served as a vice-president
from 1943.
RGW and Valentina Pavlovna Guercken (TW),
a pediatrician, were married in a Russian
church in London in 1926. On a delayed
honeymoon in 1927 in the Catskill
Mountains of New York, the Wassons'
lifelong gathering of "references to
mushrooms and toadstools in the folklore of
the world" began when TW was overjoyed to
discover mushrooms similar to those she
had known in her native Russia. The
Wassons went on to integrate mycological
data with data from other fields: history,
linguistics, comparative religion, mythology,
art, and archaeology, exploring all aspects
of mushrooms. They called their field of
studies "ethnomycology" and coined the
terms "mycophobe" and "mycophile" to
separate the peoples of the world. Their
investigations led to expeditions in Mexico
beginning in 1953 to research the magico-
religious use of mushrooms. In 1955, RGW
and TW became the first outsiders to
participate the Mazatec Indians' sacred
mushroom rituals.
Professor Roger Heim, a mycologist and
Director of the Museum National d'Histoire
Naturelle in Paris, accompanied the Wassons
on several of their expeditions as a scientist.
Later, RGW and Heim became associated
with Sandoz A.G., a pharmaceutical firm in
Switzerland, supplying Sandoz with
mushroom specimens.
In 1957, the Wassons' first book, which had
begun as a cookbook by TW and the
Wassons' Russian cook, Florence James, was
published: Mushrooms Russia and History.
Concurrently, a lengthy illustrated article by
RGW in Life Magazine, May 13, 1957, on the
Mexican mushroom veladas (sessions) with
Maria Sabina gave rise to large numbers of
individuals searching the wooded mountain
regions of Mexico to discover for themselves
the mushrooms with visionary powers. After
TW's death in 1958, RGW continued to
publish their Mexican mycological
investigations: Maria Sabina and Her
Mazatec Mushroom Velada (1974),
accompanied by four long-playing records
and the words of the all-night chants printed
in Mazatec, Spanish, and English; and The
Wondrous Mushroom: Mycolatry in
Mesoamerica (1980). Additionally, RGW was
second author on Roger Heim's study of
Psilocybe: Les Champignons Hallucinogenes
du Mexique (1958) and Nouvelles
Investigations sur les Champignons
Hallucinogenes (1967). Two species of
Psilocybe were named in honor of RGW and
TW: Psilocybe Wassonii Heim and Psilocybe
Wassonorum Guzman. RGW conducted
yearly field trips to Mexico until 1962.
Upon retiring in 1963, RGW began Far
Eastern field investigations relating to his
thesis that the Indian soma plant was the
mushroom Amanita muscaria (fly-agaric). He
was in the Far East almost continuously from
May 1963 to February 1966; his travels
included New Zealand, New Guinea, Japan,
China, India, Korea, Iran, Afghanistan,
Thailand, and Nepal. The results of his
investigations were published in 1969
in Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality,
co-authored with Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty.
This work stirred controversy among Vedic
scholars. RGW also co-authored The Road to
Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the
Mysteries (1978) and Persephone's Quest:
Entheogens and the Origins of
Religion (1986). The term "entheogen," was
devised by RGW and his colleagues to
replace the terms "hallucinogenic" or
"psychedelic" or "drug" that had been used
during the 1960's.
RGW lectured informally on his mycological
research findings in addition to participating
as an invited speaker at numerous
symposia. His presentations included: the
New York Academy of Sciences, January
1959; the Annual Lecture to the Mycological
Society of America, Oklahoma, 1960; the
Boston Mycological Club, April 1967;
University of California at Los Angeles, 1970;
and the International Congress of
Orientalists, Australia, 1970. RGW's findings
also appeared in scholarly publications such
as the Ethnomycological Studies series of
the Harvard University Botanical Museum.
RGW published four works that were non-
mycological: That Gettysburg
Address (1965), an essay critiquing the
Gettysburg Address written by RGW's father,
Edmund Atwill Wasson; The Hall Carbine
Affair: An Essay in Historiography (1946), an
appraisal of J.P. Morgan's role in the
transaction; a paper with John P. Hughes in
the American Journal of Philology: "The
Etymology of Botargo," October 1947; and
an article with Edwin Way Teale for
the Saturday Review of Literature: "W.H.
Hudson's Lost Years" (April 12, 1947).
A bibliophile who respected the Old World
tradition of fine printing, RGW applied the
same respect towards his own self-published
monographs. His books were deluxe limited
editions designed by the Italian master
printer Giovanni Mardersteig and printed on
handmade paper by the Stamperia
Valdonega press in Verona, Italy.
The list of RGW's institutional and
organizational affiliations includes: Research
Fellow in Ethnopharmacology, Harvard
University Botanical Museum; Board of
Managers and Honorary Research Associate,
New York Botanical Garden; New York City
Century Club; Harvard University Visiting
Committee to the Slavic Department; Fellow
of the Linnean Society, London; Trustee,
East European Fund; Trustee, Barnard
College; Board of Directors, French Institute,
New York City; Chairman, Committee for the
Promotion of Advanced Slavic Studies;
President, Society for Economic Botany;
Honorary Curator of Botany, Milwaukee
Public Museum. RGW also received the
Addison Emery Verrill Medal from the
Peabody Museum, Yale University in 1983
for Distinction in the Field of Natural History.
The University of Bridgeport (CT) conferred
on Wasson the degree of Sc.D. in 1974. RGW
died December 23, 1986, survived by his
two children, Peter Wasson and Mary
(Masha) Wasson Britten, and three
grandchildren. He had lived in Danbury, CT
since 1961.

--

"Seeking the Magic Mushroom" is a

1957 photo essay by amateur
mycologist Robert Gordon
Wasson describing his experience
taking psilocybin mushrooms in 1955 during
a Mazatec ritual in Oaxaca, Mexico. Wasson
was one of the first Westerners to
participate in a Mazatec ceremony and to
describe the psychoactive effects of
the Psilocybe species. The essay contains
photographs by Allan Richardson and
illustrations of several mushroom species
of Psilocybe collected and identified by
French botanist Roger Heim, then director of
the French National Museum of Natural
History. Wasson's essay, written in a first
person narrative, appeared in the May 13
issue of Life 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, Valentina Pavlovna Wasson.
The Life magazine essay was followed six
days later by "I Ate the Sacred Mushroom",
an interview with Valentina in This
Week magazine. Against Wasson's wishes,
a Life magazine editor added the term
"Magic Mushroom" to the title and brought
its use into popular culture. The essay
influenced the nascent counterculture in the
United States and led many hippies to travel
to Mexico in the 1960s in search of the
mushroom, including Timothy Leary. In the
1970s, Wasson expressed misgivings about
the wide publicity the essay brought to the
Mazatec culture and the defilement of the
mushroom ritual.
Wasson first became interested in mycology
during his honeymoon in the Catskill
Mountains in 1927. 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." The incident
sparked Wasson's interest in mushrooms,
leading to subsequent contributions to the
field of ethnomycology.
In 1952, English poet Robert Graves sent the
Wassons a letter containing a journal article
quoting American ethnobotanist Richard
Evans Schultes discussing the ritual use of
mushrooms by Mesoamericans in the 16th
century. The ritual was first observed in
modern times in 1938 by American
anthropologist Jean Basset
Johnson in Huautla de Jiménez, in the Sierra
Mazateca region of Oaxaca,
Mexico. Beginning in 1953, Wasson
repeatedly traveled to Mexico in search of
the mushrooms. On a trip to the town of
Huautla de Jiménez in June and July 1955,
Wasson and New York society photographer
Allan Richardson participated in a mushroom
ritual with curandera Maria Sabina, where
they became, in Wasson's words, "the first
white men in recorded history to eat the
divine mushrooms". (When Wasson returned
to the U.S., he sent some of the mushrooms
to Dr. Andrija Puharich of the Round Table
Foundation in Maine; Puharich analyzed
them and identified muscarine, atropine,
and bufotenin as the chemicals responsible
for hallucinogenic effects, and also used
them on himself and others. Among these
was the sculptor Harry Stump, in the
presence of Aldous Huxley, who paid
Puharich a three-week visit in August 1955.)
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.

--
Not long ago The New York Times carried a
dispatch from Mexico telling about the
descent of hippies on Huautla de Jimenez in
quest of the “sacred mushooms.” With the
dis patch appeared a photo of a priestess of
the rite, Maria Sabina.
Such articles make me wince. On the night
of June 29‐30, 1955, Maria Sabina invited
me not only to attend the mushroom rite but
to partake of the mushrooms on the same
footing as the Indians. This was the first
time, so far as the records show, that any
outsider had done so. It proved to be a
profoundly moving experience, revelation. I
wrote it up for Life (May 13, 1957) and it
drew wide attention.
Huautla, when I first knew it as humble out‐
of‐the‐way Indian village, has become a true
mecca for hippies, psychopaths,
adventurers, pseudo research workers, the
miscellaneous crew of our society's drop‐
outs. The old ways are dead and I fear that
my responsibility is heavy, mine and Maria
Sabina's.
In 1953 when I first arrived in Huautla in
quest of the sacred mush rooms no one
would speak to me about them. Some said
they had never heard of them. Others
suggested that the cult survived four or five
valleys away, or declared that it had
become extinct. I quickly learned that the
only way to arrive at information was to talk
to the old folks, a man or woman, alone, at
night, by the light of a candle; in a whisper.
The mushrooms were steeped in what
anthropologists call “mana.” They were
gathered before dawn and never exposed to
the light of day. They did not change hands
for filthy lucre in the market‐place.
How often was I told that the mush rooms
were very dangerous—son muy delicados!
The priestess well knew the consequences
that might ensue when a psychically
disturbed person took the mushrooms.
When we were gathered together in some
but on the outskirts of town, the doors were
shut and we were warned not to leave until
dawn.
The hallucinogenic experience is best
regulated by religious sanctions, not by
crude laws enforced by the police and
magistrates. In Huautla virtually every one
believed in the mushrooms and ob served
the rules. In India, among the ancient
Aryans, “Soma” was consumed only by the
priests and “Soma” was, contend, an
hallucinogenic mushroom, the fly‐agaric.
The Mexican mushrooms are mem bers of a
cluster of hallucinogens that the chemist Dr.
Albert Hofmann of Basel has thoroughly
studied. This family embraces peyote of our
South west, a dozen or so species of mush
rooms belonging to three genera that
Professor Roger Helm of Paris and located,
described and named in Mex ico, the seeds
of two morning glories, and finally LSD. All of
these are likely to have bad effects when
taken by psychically disturbed individuals.
LSD is so potent that the standard pure dose
is only a speck. With the mush rooms, the
dose is a hundred times that speck. With
peyote it is a hunared times as much again.
But the difficulty is that in the black market,
which our laws with their in terrorem
penalties have brought into existence, one
has no way of knowing what one is get ting.
One does not know the amount or even
whether the desired drug is delivered.
None of this group of hallucinogens is
addictive. That is, there are no difficulties in
breaking away from them.
And so I revert to what I said at the outset.
Last spring, at Carnegie Hell there was
performed what the promoters dubbed a
“tragifonfa” entitled “Marfa Sabina.” The
author and com poser could have made an
artistic success of Maria Sabina's tragedy
had they entered more fully into her village
life.

Marfa Sabina is a grave woman, with an

inner dignity that she never loses, with long
sleek hair reaching down to her feet. She is
respected and beloved by the villagers—
except for a few jeal ous ones—who say of
her that she is sin mancha, immaculate,
without stain. Her tragedy, and mine also, is
that she revealed to me the secret of the
Indians. In a play written about her, the
villagers, while still loving her, could fairly

as she ascends the scaffold at’ the end of ‐

have condemned her for her disclosure, and

the play, she should have sung a powerful

threnody to the divine mushrooms,
repeating the musical themes that I have
taped from her own singing.
As for me, what have I done? I made a
cultural discovery of importance. Should I
have suppressed it? It has led to further
discoveries the reach of which remains to be
seen. Should these further discoveries have
remained stul tified by my. unwillingness to
reveal the secret of the Indians’
hallucinogens?
Yet what I have done gives me nightmares: I
have unleashed on lovely, Huautla a torrent
of commercial exploitation of the vilest kind.
Now the mushrooms are exposed for sale
every where—in every market‐place, in
every village doorway. Everyone offers his
services as a “priest” of the rite, even the
politicos. In 1955 Marfa Sabina asked me
hesitatingly for 13 pesos as the price of her
services for a night's work. I have heard that
now strangers pay sometimes between 500
and 1,000 pesos for a “performance.” The
whole of the countryside is agog with the
furtive movements of hippies, the comings
and goings of the “federalistas,” the
Dogberries with their blundering efforts to
root them out.
- R. Gordan Wasson, 1970