
Seeking the Magic Mushroom (1957) - prismatic
http://www.imaginaria.org/wasson/life.htm
======
shartshooter
For anyone interested in this story and more you should check out Michael
Pollan’s book How To Change Your Mind.

It goes into quite a bit of depth on how this story came to be, the
motivations, impact to culture as well as the impact to the indigenous
tribe(primarily a single woman) that allowed LIFE magazine to cover this
ritual.

Beyond psilocybin he covers the history of LSD, DMT and some more obscure
psychedelics I hadn’t heard of.

If you have no knowledge or experience with psychedelics but want to
understand why they became popularized and then demonized I recommend the book
highly.

~~~
roymurdock
Seconding this recommendation. Pollan talks about this exact article in the
book, and how Eva Mendez came to sorely regret ever letting Wasson and
Richardson partake in the ceremony and publish accounts of the experience.

Most incredible to me is that Pollan, late 50s with a dim view of drugs and
especially psychedelics, experiments with various different drugs in order to
explore and describe their effects for the audience. Great author who does his
research and great book.

------
Fnoord
R. Gordon Wasson got funded by CIA [1]

Recommended read: "The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-
Christianity: A Critical Re-Evaluation of the Schism Between John M. Allegro
and R. Gordon Wasson Over the Theory on the Entheogenic Origins of
Christianity Presented in the Sacred Mushroom and the Cross" [2] (as well as
the original by John Allegro)

Here is a rare interview of John Allegro with Van Kooten & De Bie from 1976,
Dutch public broadcast TV [3]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Gordon_Wasson#CIA_funding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Gordon_Wasson#CIA_funding)

[2] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5676801-the-holy-
mushroo...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5676801-the-holy-mushroom#)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOu9tV6uy2E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOu9tV6uy2E)

------
systematical
Interesting, having ingested mushrooms some 30 or 40 times (at least, but
whose counting) I've rarely experienced the vivid hallucinations the author
describes. Even when having ingested up to five grams. I wonder if being in
darkness, as the author was, aids in this. Perhaps with no other visual
stimuli, the mind and the mushrooms can really take hold.

I'll have to try this sometime.

~~~
sametmax
Last time I got a vivid experience, i took almost 40 grams of fresh hawaian
truffles.

Not advising you should take that much of course. Or even suggesting you take
it again. Just saying if you feel like it, you can up the dose a quite a bit,
put a blindfold in a cozy bed in a safe and quiet room, and the result may
differ.

Also everybody is different. Some people just don't react much to psylocibin
and there is nothing one can do :)

~~~
systematical
In my experience, 40 grams is an absolutely absurd amount to take of anything
(beyond alcohol) to get a mind-altering state. I can achieve a reasonably
altered state from just a gram of mushrooms and a mild high on just 500mg.

~~~
sametmax
Again, i'm not recommanding anything. I'm just saying uping the dose a lot is
on the table.

~~~
systematical
As Roger Murtaugh would say, "I'm getting too old for this shit."

