Gordon Wasson

“Review of wasson, r. gordon; hofmann, albert & ruck, carl a.p. the road to eleusis: unveiling the secret of the mysteries (ethno- mycological studies no.4) . (new york: harcourt brace jovanovich 1978). 126 pp. with 14 illustrations. $12.95 hardbound, $4.95 paper .”

“Here are three cultural areas in the world where men consume mushrooms for psychic effects. we have just dealt with one of these – the eating of the fly amanita by the hyperboreans of siberia. the second area is in new guinea, in the northeastern part of that island, at the headwaters of the wahgi river. the practice is reported among the natives living in the mount hagen range of mountains, but it may well be more wide- spread. the mount hagen natives are a mixture ethnically of negritos and papuans, with some melanesian blood. concerning their use of an intoxicating mushroom the available evidence is clear but pitifully meager. in 1947 the american ethnographical society published as its monograph no. 12 a paper by abraham l. gitlow entitled ‘economics of the mount hagen tribes’. he devoted one brief paragraph to intoxicants, and said that one of the three in current use was a mushroom called nonda.”

“In his paper mr. wasson summarizes his argument in favor of a mushroom, the flyagaric called by mycologists amanita muscaria, as the soma of the rig veda. this mushroom was still being used as an inebriant by the shamans of remote tribes in siberia only a few years ago. mr. wasson quotes from the rig veda to show how apposite are the poets’ words to the fly-agaric, in most cases illustrating his points with colored plates. the siberian tribesmen drink the urine of one who has taken the fly-agaric and find it as inebriating as the fly-agaric itself. mr. wasson raises the question whether the vedic priests did not do likewise, marshalling certain evidence in favor of this view. he then explains how he thinks it happened that the identification of soma has had to wait until now to be achieved, and finally he suggests certain textual cruces in the hymns that may be resolved by his discovery and outlines other channels of inquiry for fruitful research.”

“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”

“Citing recently published challenges to r. gordon wasson’s identification of vedic soma as the psychoactive mushroom amanita muscaria (fly-agaric), this article reviews unpublished letters by wasson in which he considered and rejected other psychoactive plants as candidates, including the mint lagochilus inebrians, convolvulaceae (morning glory) seeds, the fungal parasite claviceps purpurea (ergot), and especially the psilocybin mushroom stropharia cubensis, known also as psilocybe cubensis. apart from their historical interest, these letters-from the tina and gordon wasson ethnomycological collection at the harvard botanical museum-demonstrate that wasson remained open to refinements of his theory.”

“Dynamic simulation results for a thermal energy storage (tes) unit used in a parabolic trough concentrated solar power (csp) system are presented. a two-tank-direct method is used for the thermal energy storage. the heat transfer fluid flow rate through the solar collector maintains a constant outlet temperature and the flow rate through the boiler regulates power output. the use of storage greatly improves the system’s ability to provide power at a constant rate despite significant disturbances in the amount of solar radiation available. it can also shift times of power generation to better match times of consumer demand. by contrast, a csp system without storage undergoes large fluctuations in power output, particularly during intermittent cloud cover. adding a storage system increases the solar share of the power plant by over 80%, reducing the requirement for supplementary fossil energy by as much as 8.4 mwh daily.”

“This article looks for a connection between religious ideas and fungi.”

“Propose new terminology for vision-producing drugs that can be shown to have figured in shamanic or religious rites would – ‘entheogens’”

“The idea that the use of hallucinogens should be a source of inspiration for some forms of prehistoric rack art is not a new one. after a brief examination of instances of such art, this article intends to focus its attention on a group of rock paintings in the sahara desert, the works of pre-neolithic early gatherers, in which mushrooms effigies are represented repeatedly. the polychromic scenes of harvest, adoration and the offering of mushrooms, and large masked ‘gods’ covered with mushrooms, not to mention other significant details, lead us to suppose we are dealing with an ancient hallucinogenic mushroom cult. what is remarkable about these ethnomycologicol works, produced 7,000-9,000 years ago, is that they could indeed reflect the most ancient human culture as yet documented in which the ritual use of hallucinogenic mushrooms is explicitly represented. (as the fathers of modern ethno-mycology and in particular r. gordon wasson) imagined, this saharian testimony shows that the use of hallucinogens goes back to the paleolithic period and that their use always takes place within contexts and rituals of a mystico-religious nature.”