…did not have the tools to advance it. They came to us out of ethnography and anthropology, out of the work of Wasson and Hoffman and earlier, Havelock, Ellis and Weir, Mitchell, Henri Michaud, all the people who worked with psychedelics. At first it was…

…did not have the tools to advance it. They came to us out of ethnography and anthropology, out of the work of Wasson and Hoffman and earlier, Havelock, Ellis and Weir, Mitchell, Henri Michaud, all the people who worked with psychedelics. At first it was…

…and I think that that's probably where the focus will be, just sort of by default. Yes. One of the interesting things, when Wasson tried to show. Show that Soma was Amanita Muscaria, he ignored this very rich set of associations that the Hindus have to…

…center of it. Something was drunk and something happened. And there's been great argument about what was it and what happened. And Wasson and Hoffman and Ruck, who's a classicist at Cornell, all wanted to argue that it was an ergotized beer. In other…

…Now, the counterexample to this is when Hoffman synthesized psilocybin for the first time. He gave some of it to Wassen, and Wasson took it back to Huatla in the Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca and gave it to Maria Sabina. And Maria Sabina said, the…

…and I want my ideas my values, the books and the ideas about plants to stand the test. And Leary did a good job, and Wasson and we all are in the same canoe here I could almost claim a fortunate position because I know now and that gives me time…

…trance is a degenerate form and late. But there's a lot of debate about this. Gordon Wasson and I tend to agree with Wasson says that all true shamanism is narcotic shamanism and that it's where you have the absence of hallucinogens that you have feigned…

…in the way that a place is, and it's very hard to come to terms with this. I think it's been said perhaps it was by Wasson that it's as hard for an amazonian Indian to come to terms with these places as it is for a new yorker, because it is truly…

…Peter Furst. He was an anthropologist who made his reputation among the huichol in Mexico. And this is again articles by Wasson Furst, Doug Sharon, William M Bowden, Fernandez, Reichel Dolmatov, the usual names in this ethnobotanical field. One of the things…

…the misreading of what these things were and he was frustrated with seeing this thing turned into a social hysteria. And Wasson you know at times expressed great unhappiness with Tim Leary's approach and hated going to Mexico and seeing these mushroom…

…were disrupting the local ecology. And it was a kind of proprietary approach. You know this thing belongs to anthropologists to specialists. Wasson was very reticent to assess his own work. Some of you may have seen bob forte's interview with him in that…

…society he really looked at it as this exotic foreign kind of thing these guys were cautious, this first generation Hoffman, Wasson, Schultes these guys are not stoners by any means I mean their approach is cautious and the psychedelic experiences can be…

…drugs. You should know that not everyone agrees with me that psychedelics are the sine qua non of shamanism. That's what Wasson thought: that you don't have shamanism unless you have psychedelics. If you have people calling themselves shamans and not using…

…to Greek Religion and that's the last time that in our cultural line of development that there was access to the mystical tremendum. Wasson made an interesting case that what was used at Eleusis was ergotized beer. As you know, ergot is a smut that can…

…who turned the wassons on to the idea of going to Mexico to look for mushrooms he had an entirely different idea, which Wasson Mysteriously fails to even mention in his book on elusives. I think he should have at least denounced the guy's position and…

…In any case, this book by flattery and Schwartz, Haoma and harmaline is just a wealth of information and attacks this Wasson Theory about Amanita muscaria which I think is weaker than people suppose and long overdue. Jonathan has a counterattack. Oh no…

…think is weaker than people suppose and long overdue. Jonathan has a counterattack. Oh no well Jonathan is a great defender of Wasson and Wasson has many defenders but I think that theory requires revision. See what I brought to the argument that was new…

…weaker than people suppose and long overdue. Jonathan has a counterattack. Oh no well Jonathan is a great defender of Wasson and Wasson has many defenders but I think that theory requires revision. See what I brought to the argument that was new was the…

…the white dots. We all know that Gordon Wasson believed this to be soma and in fact so argued in his book. Even though Wasson was the discoverer of the Mexican Mushroom complex in persephone's gift which was his last book, he went out of his way to…

…and we know that something was seen. We don't know whether it was shown or we don't know. Well Gordon Wasson, in tell Wasson, Nobody had the faintest idea what was going on and there were some really stupid ideas. I mean 19th century constipated German…

…difficult so they just made mumbo jumbo about theatrical lighting effects and yak yak, yak the truth being nobody knew. Well then Wasson came along and actually before him, Robert Graves and graves said: it has to be a mushroom, it must be a mushroom…

…a mushroom, it must be a mushroom and he wrote a very interesting article that nobody ever reads or remembers in which before Wasson, he argued that if you look at the recipes for the classic sacrament at Eleusis and at other cult sites in Greece, it…

…at choosing patients who make miraculous recoveries. Some of you may know the tape recordings of Maria Sabina's Mushroom vallada made by Wasson where an 11 year old child is brought to her and she says that she won't shamanize for this case that this…

…book. During those intervening years we dabbled with the thought of cultivating strophariocubensis, but the only work on the subject was Wasson and m's work in French, and it seemed somehow a remote and technically difficult thing to attempt. In the spring…

…had the knowledge of a hallucinogenic plant. Shamanic ecstasy in Siberia was attained through the use of Amanita muscaria and r g Wasson has made a good case for the use of the same mushroom in vedic India. Since tibet is situated roughly between these…

…hitting a lot of speed bumps this morning. Frankly I don't give a shit, but I'm trying to make it pleasant for you. So Wasson and Schultes were and then further back in time and I think it's obvious from what I've said Aldous Huxley. And Aldous Huxley…

…extractable? Is it extractable by methods accessible to greeks of the time of the orphic cult not known? You know Hoffman and Wasson wanted to say that the cult at Eleusis I mentioned this earlier was based on ergotized grain. A lot of people criticized…

…little suspicious. It's like it was placed in our path. It's not the only instance of this kind of thing. Notice that if Wasson is right about the hallucinogens used at Eleusis that what was used was ergotized, beer made from ergot infected rye rye is a…

…experiences really were too. Well these guys were very frustrated with seeing this thing turned into a social hysteria and Wasson at times expressed great unhappiness with Tim Leary's approach and hated going to Mexico and seeing these mushroom villages…

…by graffiti covered vans of filthy people. It was a kind of proprietary approach this thing belongs to anthropologists, to specialists. Wasson was very reticent to assess his own work. Some of you may have seen bob forte's interview with him in that…

…society. He really looked at it as this exotic, foreign kind of thing. These guys were cautious this first generation Hoffman, Wasson, Schultes these guys are not stoners by any means, their approach is cautious and the psychedelic experiences can be counted…

…drugs. You should know that not everyone agrees with me that psychedelics are the sine qua non of shamanism. That's what Wasson thought that you don't have shamanism unless you have psychedelics. If you have people calling themselves shamans and not using…

…of LSD, was amazed when carrying out analytical work for Gordon Wasson on magic morning glory seeds that had been sent to Wasson from Schultes. He discovered the same compounds or very closely related compounds, as he had. I'm going to slightly jump around…

…people using and then carried that to India. Now this tradition occurs as late in the west as the eleusinian mysteries, which Wasson made a strong case that the eleusinian mysteries were ergotized rye beer, that a non toxic strain of claviceps pospali was…

…and I think that that's probably where the focus will be just sort of by default. Yes one of the interesting things when Wasson tried to show that soma was Amanita muscaria he ignored this very rich set of associations that the Hindus have to cattle. I…

…red topped white speckled Amanita. This is a mushroom which has a major role in tungusic and Arctic Shamanism. But to say, as Wasson did that this is the supreme entheogen of all time is not supported by the evidence. I think Wasson's own efforts to…

…the book, just to get it all recorded into a documented form. But it always puzzles me I mean I think Hoffman and Wasson and certainly to some degree Schultes, to some degree you everybody says, well I'm just a humble botanist or I'm just a hardworking…

…fact it would do it. The thing that led me to psilocybin or to grow mushrooms and explore that was the descriptions of Wasson and the early workers that it was easy to visually hallucinate and I had read the earlier accounts of havelock Ellis and people…

…But to my mind and this is a great argument which rages in anthropology, to my mind and I'm in agreement with Wasson here the hallucinogenic plants are the sine qua non for an active shamanism, for authentic shamanism. That's right now Marci Eliade, who…

…in Algeria have been reproduced from and they are strong evidence for the use of mushrooms in neolithic Africa. This is evidence which Wasson did not include in his books new evidence and both of the major rock paintings that argue for this point of view…

…time scale this kind of relationship has been extended to all of nature. Now, because of the work of people like Hoffman and Wasson and Metzner and Leary and earlier people, Lewin and others, the 20th century has come full circle. We have dug so deep…

…now through cultivation techniques and the propagation of ethnographic literature and the work of people like Metzner and Hoffman and Wasson and Schultes, shoved directly in the path of the careening cultural juggernaut of western civilization. This is why I…

…people said you have to dry them for months or smoke them over a fire again this doesn't seem to be reliable so Wasson went to the grave. In his last book, persephone's quest he referred to Amanita muscaria as the supreme entheogen of all time, which…

…was from the man who discovered the true psilocybin mushroom cult in Mexico. There was an angle on all this which Wasson Completely overlooked because of his bias towards certain languages, and that is that along with all this indo European Vedic Hindu…

…people using and then carried that to India. Now this tradition occurs as late in the west as the eleusinian mysteries, which Wasson made a strong case that the eleusinian mysteries were ergotized rye beer, that a non toxic strain of claviceps paspali was…

…and I think that that's probably where the focus will be just sort of by default. Yes, one of the interesting things: when Wasson tried to show that soma was Amanita muscaria, he ignored this very rich set of associations that Hindus have to cattle. I…

…at choosing patients who make miraculous recoveries. Some of you may know the tape recordings of Maria Sabina's Mushroom vallada made by Wasson where an 11 year old child is brought to her and she says that she won't shamanize for this case that this…

…crisis which we call the 20th century, the hallucinogens, the entheogens have emerged in western culture. It is no accident that Wasson made his trip to Central Mexico and contacted the mushrooms. What he discovered in the mountains of Mexico was nothing…

…one so is chloroform. Have any of you read the road to Eleusis? Oh yeah, that's about the eleusinian mysteries and it's by Wasson and Hoffman and ruck and argues that the mystery at Eleusis was a kind of ergotized beer, that they were gathering ergot…

…what Robert Graves thought that it was a mushroom. Do you think we're back in print yet the road to Eleusis? Probably not, because Wasson is now dead and the estate is kind of funny about that kind of thing. Yeah, I have two questions. Could you talk…

…is it that grows at the end of history is it the mushroom of Fermi and Oppenheimer and Teller or is it the mushroom of Wasson and Hoffman and Humphrey Osmond, you know I think the latter is safer. Well it may not only be safer, it may open the way…

…the people who studied the shamanism of the Amur river basin and the use of the Amanita muscaria was tremendously overstressed by Wasson, I think he wrote a book called soma, the divine mushroom of immortality in which he argued that Amanita muscaria was…

…pleuroma, and a lot of other people thought so too. So then there was lots of hassle about well then it did seem that Wasson had secured the case that the vedic hymns were about a mushroom. That was his breakthrough but his mistake was he got the…

…renewal is seeking in thousands and thousands of ways to be born. And I think the rediscovery of psychedelics, LSD, everything that Wasson did, all of these things are critical factors in this cultural mix that is going to gel toward the recognition of…

…in ancient Greece Deliberately. The ergot was as the vision inducing beverage that was the heart of the eleusinian mysteries if Wasson and Hoffman and Schultes are correct in their theory about this. And there have been newspaper reports from England of…

…mushroom as a myth, I mean a fairy tale in other words a non true story, a fantasy. And until the 50s until Wasson rediscovered Maria Sabina Up in the mountains of Oaxaca brewing and doing the mushroom velada that was the belief. Or another way they…

…Sabina in the last years of her life and saw firsthand the setting in which some of the early explorers like Wasson and Hoffman had observed firsthand the workings of the sacred mushrooms. Well Hoffman was later to synthesize the active ingredients of…

…to creativity and LSD. And as we surveyed his library, we talked of the many other libraries that researchers like Wasson and Hoffman have gathered together over the years. This is a priceless informational research repository. One of the largest libraries…

…is it that grows at the end of history? Is it the mushroom of Fermi and Oppenheimer and Teller or is it the mushroom of Wasson and Hoffman and Humphrey Osmond? Somehow I think the latter is safer. Well it may not only be safer, it may open the way…

…of this he's in Germany. I think that hallucinogens are basic to humanness and always have been. You know Karl Ruck and Wasson wrote a very convincing book to show that the hallucinian mysteries were an ergot, a cult of ergot intoxication. I thought that…

…So I don't see how it could possibly have been Amanita muscaria. I think a whole bunch of mistakes were made by Wasson and the people who followed him in arguing so strenuously for that. Wasson himself admitted that he never obtained a satisfactory…

…think a whole bunch of mistakes were made by Wasson and the people who followed him in arguing so strenuously for that. Wasson himself admitted that he never obtained a satisfactory intoxication from Amanita so again you have to be aware of all of these…

…Now there's a famous story that when Hoffman isolated psilocybin, he then, to prove the isolation, he manufactured some and then he and Wasson took it back with them to watla and they gave it to Maria Sabina and she said: the spirit of the mushroom is…

…control, but anyway it's the drug of choice for migraine because it constricts the blood arteries going into the head. Anyway, Wasson and Hoffman argued that what they were doing at Eleusis is that they were brewing an ergot beer. They were deliberately…

…ethnographic context in which these things were coming from, like the eleusinian mysteries or the Mexican Morning glory mysteries or the Wasson discovered mushroom mysteries. But if we can somehow link a respect to nature, a sensitivity to Gaia, a valuing of…

…palette of Europe is given credit for the redefining of Post Medieval Civilization. Very strange: Hoffman and ruck and Wasson showed that the eleusinian mysteries, which were the philosophical and experiential linchpin of the ancient world's cosmology, the…

…red topped white speckled Amanita. This is a mushroom which has a major role in tungusic and Arctic Shamanism, but to say as Wasson did that this is the supreme entheogen of all time is not supported by the evidence. I think Wasson's own efforts to…