The Psilocybin Solution

(Beelzebub is “Lord of the Flies”) and was thus fearfully associated with the mysterious mushroom.

In short, the Wassons uncovered a vast cultural diffusion of mushroom lore indicative of a common origin. The psychoactive fly agaric mushroom seemed most likely to be the instigator. Wasson later summed up his views in the following way in his book Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality.

Death will come if the layman presumes to eat the forbidden fruit, the Fruit of Knowledge, the Divine Mushroom of Immortality that the… poets of the Rig-Veda celebrated. The fear of this “death” has lived on as an emotional residue, long after the shaman and his religion have faded from memory, and here is the explanation for the mycophobia that has prevailed throughout northern Europe, in the Germanic and Celtic worlds.^{1}

At this point the Wassons might well have ended their mycological investigations, an interesting enough climax since they had left the fungal world and ventured into the domain of primitive religion. The plot, however, was going to thicken as the fly agaric became overshadowed by the far more powerful figure of the psilocybin mushroom, a mushroom whose living mystery Wasson would eventually confront within the inner sanctums of his soul.

Intimations of a Sacred Mexican Mushroom

In 1952 an acquaintance of the Wassons, the noted poet and historical writer Robert Graves, wrote a crucial letter informing them of a supposed secret mushroom cult still in existence in Mexico. Graves included in his letter a clipping from a Canadian pharmaceutical journal that discussed finds made by Richard Evans Schultes years earlier. It transpired that Schultes, one of the world’s leading ethnobotanists attached to Harvard, had, in 1938, identified a species of Panaeoleus mushroom as being the sacred sacrament allegedly employed by Mexican Indians. At that time, only this one entheogenic species had been identified by Schultes, and although a few European people had observed a native Mexican mushroom ceremony, no outsiders had been permitted to partake of the mushroom itself. This is significant, for without actually personally experiencing the psilocybin mushroom, one can only guess at its effects, and therefore the early anthropological observations passed by without much interest.

Once the Wassons learned of these intriguing facts, armed as they were with detailed knowledge of fly agaric mushroom history and lore, it was only natural for them to heed Graves’s investigational indications and focus their attention upon Mexico. If mushroom ceremonies were still being practiced, it would be testimony to the shamanic use of fungi not limited to the pages of history.

Through associates, the Wassons were soon in avid correspondence with one Eunice Pike, an American linguistic student and Bible translator (in other words, a missionary) who had been living among Mazatec Indians in Huautla, Mexico, for more than fifteen years. Having become familiar with the native customs and beliefs about certain sacred mushrooms, she was only too willing to share her knowledge with the Wassons.

Pike informed the Wassons by letter that one Indian boy had referred to the mushroom as a gift from Jesus, no less than the blood of Christ. The Indians also said that while it helped “good people,” it killed “bad people” or made them crazy. Furthermore, the Indians were sure that Jesus spoke to them while in the “bemushroomed” state. Everyone whom Pike asked agreed that they were seeing into heaven itself through the mushroom.

As well as highlighting the ongoing integration of the Christian faith into native Indian culture, the Indians’ claims indicated that the mushroom was highly powerful in its psychological effect, able to induce a radical alteration of consciousness still relatively new to Western science. It was also clear that the normal procedure was for a shaman to eat the mushroom on behalf of another, usually in order to heal, this being the classic social function of the shaman found in most of the world’s native cultures.

Pike ended her informative and tantalizing letter by wishing that the natives would consult the Bible instead of resorting to consumption of the strange mushroom, a remark natural enough to anyone concerned with preaching the Bible and unfamiliar with the psychological territory accessed through psilocybin. But still, is it not odd that someone so obviously religiously inclined, as this woman was, should not have detected something of spiritual importance in the Indians’ claims? If so many of them readily attested to the virtues of the sacred mushrooms, why did she not try them for herself? After all, she mentions no harmful effects apart from the dangers of possessing a “bad heart.”

What is the nature of this fear that would prevent a single open-minded experiment with such fungi? How can one claim to be fully religious and not take the testimonies of shamans seriously? This was an anomaly that was to continually crop up in the relations between the Western psyche and the mushroom. Psilocybin would come to generate absolute awe or absolute rejection in those who confronted it, this being indicative that something significant is at work in the actual experience. If there was nothing of real interest to be gained from visionary substances, if the experiences were purely limited personal fantasies, then there would be no stimulational force with which to generate enduring fascination. However, as I will show, many have claimed that psilocybin does offer great knowledge about our existence, that it can yield soulful insights into the nature of reality. This is why the psilocybin mushroom experience has remained such an abstruse phenomenon and why opinions are so divided.

Sensing in Pike’s letter that there was indeed some great revelational discovery to be made, the Wassons decided to travel as soon as possible to Huautla, and in 1953 they did so. There could be no mistaking the aroma of the ethnomycological Holy Grail as they neared its living presence. As an aside, they also realized that to judge from Pike’s description, the mushroom being used by these Indians was not the Panaeoleus species previously identified by Schultes. This was further reason for prompt scholarly investigation.

Getting Warmer

By August 1953 the Wassons had managed to enlist the help of a Mexican curandero, or shaman, and this was an achievement in itself, as the Indians were reluctant to discuss the mushroom with outsiders. Under the pretense of wanting supernaturally inspired news of their son, the Wassons were permitted to take part in a mushroom rite during which the shaman would ingest sacred mushrooms in order to gain the requested information. Unfortunately the shaman was the only person allowed to consume the fungus, and the Wassons were forced to remain uninitiated.

The shaman, under the effects of psilocybin, made three specific predictions concerning the Wassons’ son, which, at the time, he (Wasson) politely humored, as he had no real inkling into psilocybin’s latent ability to produce feats of clairvoyance. His interest was, after all, still predominately academic, and any kind of supernatural utterances were to be taken with a large pinch of salt. As it later transpired, all three of the shaman’s predictions were borne out, and Wasson was at a loss to explain this. Was it coincidence? Or was it a genuine case of the paranormal? Whatever it was, the mysterious mushrooms demanded closer scrutiny, for they seemed to promise much more of interest. Wasson was being drawn ever nearer, as his lifelong adventure drew to an epic climax.

A fully detailed witness account of this mushroom ceremony was to be the culminating chapter of Mushrooms, Russia and History, though just as the book was going to press in June of 1955 a new breakthrough was made. In fact, it was the ultimate breakthrough and became the highlight of R. Gordon Wasson’s scholarly career. It also generated another chapter in his book and the seminal piece for Life magazine. The middle-aged New York banker-turned-ethnomycologist became the first Westerner on record to deliberately consume sacred Mexican mushrooms and behold their entheogenic glory. Wasson had sought, and finally accessed, one of the most remarkable experiences to be had upon this Earth. Thanks to his lifelong persistent efforts, humanity’s exploration of Nature and of the limits of conscious experience