In the mid 1950's, America was virtually unaware of magic mushrooms. That is until R. Gordon Wasson, vice president of J.P Morgan and Co., detailed his experience with entheogenic mushrooms in a 1957 article published in LIFE Magazine.
Wasson, who had been studying mushrooms for more than three decades, was seeking an experience with the divine mushroom and found his opportunity in June of 1955 in a small Mexican Indian Village. Accompanied by his friend Allan Richardson and under the guidance of Eva Mendez, a curandera (shaman or healer), Wasson consumed the magic mushrooms and spent an intense evening experiencing vivid images that he recalls in spectacular detail.
In one passage, Wasson describes a vision stating, "Later it was though the walls of our house had dissolved, and my spirit had flown forth, and I was suspended in mid-air viewing landscapes of mountains, with camel caravans advancing slowly across the slopes, the mountains rising tier above tier to the very heavens," (LIFE Magazine, 1957).
Wasson's research into mushrooms was not merely focused on the hallucinogenic kind. He and his wife spent years studying the mythology of mushrooms and attempting to understand why some cultures adored mushrooms while others appeared to loathe them. He discovered that many Anglo-Saxon peoples, as well as Greek, Scandinavian and Celts were mycophobes or detested mushrooms. The Russians, Catalans and many cultures in Mexico and Siberia were mycophiles or lovers of fungi.
Despite differing attitudes towards mushrooms across cultures, Wasson clearly recalls his experience as both a positive and mystical one. An experience that revealed to him a chasm of possibility that few have access to, but one that is profoundly transformative.
