Talk:Seeking the Magic Mushroom

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Images[edit]

Mushroom stones
Maria Sabina

Background[edit]

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[edit]

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[edit]

Add CIA chemist James Moore who was on assignment

Reception[edit]

"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]