Banking VP Gordon Wasson traveled to Oaxaca in 1955 for a psilocybin ceremony with Maria Sabina, publishing it in Life magazine in 1957. His later book 'Soma' argued the Rig Veda's sacred drink was Amanita muscaria. He faced professional ridicule for the Soma theory. 📖
Gordon Wasson's 1955 psilocybin experience and Soma-Amanita thesis
Key facts
- Gordon Wasson was a JP Morgan banker who traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico, to participate in a psilocybin ceremony with Maria Sabina around 1955
- Wasson published his account in Life magazine in 1957, which popularized psilocybin in the West but negatively impacted Sabina's life through psychedelic tourism
- In 1968, Wasson published 'Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality,' arguing Soma from the Rig Veda was made from Amanita muscaria
- Soma was the only deity in the Rig Veda with physicality on earth, described as a brew rather than an extradimensional being
- Wasson faced ridicule and professional consequences throughout his career for the Soma-Amanita argument
Sources
Robert Gordon Wasson - Fungafungaonline.com
Gordon Wasson, a banker at JP Morgan in New York, can be co-credited with introducing the magic mushroom to the Western world. His wife, Valentina Wasson ...
R. Gordon Wasson and the Publicity Campaign to ...shs.cairn.info
In 1934, he joined J.P. Morgan & Company, where he “pioneered in banking public relations,” He was promoted to bank vice president in 1943, a ...
R. Gordon Wassonen.wikipedia.org
Wasson spent most of his career in banking in his position at J.P. Morgan. Later in his life, despite having little formal training in the field, he turned ...
R. GORDON WASSON, A MUSHROOM EXPERT AND ...nytimes.com
R. Gordon Wasson, a former banker who wrote scholarly books about cults involving hallucinogenic mushrooms, died Tuesday at the home of his ...
Gordon and Tina Wasson, Slavic Studies in the Cold War ...progressivegeographies.com
Gordon Wasson was Vice President at the American investment bank J.P. Morgan & Co., a major supporter of Slavic Studies in the United States ...
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