Talk:Seeking the Magic Mushroom

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Images

Mushroom stones
Maria Sabina

Background

Journalist turned banker; shared ethnomycology interest with his wife
Giovanni Mardersteig, mushroom stones
Travel to Mexico in 1953
June 29-30, 1955 trip becomes basis for article
Wasson, wife, and daughter
Society photographer Allan Richardson, teacher at the Brearley School
Essay is only one small part of Wasson's overarching thesis: "the surmise that our own remote ancestors, perhaps 4,000 years ago, worshipped a divine mushroom". (Wasson 1961)
Essay represents ""the rediscovery of the religious role of the hallucinogenic mushrooms of Mexico". (Wasson 1961)
"It was in Mexico that our pursuit of a hypothetical sacred mushroom first achieved its goal." (Wasson 1978)

Publication

Historical context: Huxley's Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956)
Luce and Life, development of the essay
The full title of the essay was "Seeking the magic mushroom: a New York Banker goes to Mexico's mountains to participate in the age-old rituals of Indians who chew strange growths that produce visions."
Editorial disagreement with use of "magic mushrooms"
Related book and interview with wife
French pubs

Synopsis

Add CIA chemist James Moore who was on assignment

Reception

"The tone of the Life article contrasts sharply with the hysteria and distortion that the American media would later fan. The article is both fair and detailed, both open-minded and scientific."

Graham Harvey^[1]

Public response
Academic response
Mushroom tourism
- Influenced Timothy Leary
  - Before the essay was published, Leary had never used drugs. The essay led him to use psychedelics for the first time.
- Celebrities
Acclaim and fallout

References

^ Harvey 2003, p. 433.

[Harvey-1] Harvey 2003, p. 433.

[1]