R. GORDAN WASSAN was born in Great Falls, Montana, in 1898, the son of a minister. He spent his early years in Newark, New Jersey, attended Columbia School of Journalism, taught there for a short time aerward, then moved to England to study at the London School of Economics. It was while in London that he met and fell in love with Valentina Pavlovna, a Russian emigre' studying to become a doctor. In 1926, aer Pavlovna had completed her studies, they married and moved to New York. ere she began a pediatric practice which ourished; he wrote on economics for the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE . Some months later, while on a delayed honeymoon, Gordon Wasson First came in contact with wild mushrooms. As he put it: “In the aernoon of the First day in the Catskills, we went strolling— Suddenly my bride spied wild mushrooms in the forest, and racing over the carpet of dried leaves in the woods, she knelt in poses of adoration before First one cluster and then another of these growths. She was overcome with joy at seeing the same kinds of mushrooms in the United States that she had seen in Russia.” at night she added the mushrooms to everything she cooked; he refused to eat, sure that all wild fungi were deadly poisonous and that he would be a widower in the morning. Not the kind of auspicious beginning one might expect from a man who would become the world’s foremost authority on hallucinogenic mushrooms. Wasson’s wife had grown up gathering mushrooms for the table; he had been taught they were poisonous. e cultural opposition caused them to begin a lifelong search for the origins of those opposing viewpoints. By 1928, Wasson had le journalism for banking, working as an investment banker for morgan
guaranty trust . Meanwhile, during her spare time, Valentina began collecting material on mushrooms in myth and literature. ey began to vacation in areas where people were known for their love of mushrooms: Friesland, Lapland, Provence, and the Basque country. Friends in these places sent them material on mushrooms, and friends of friends did the same. Wasson soon had to coin a term for their Field of inquiry. He named it ethnomycology, the study of the mushroom’s place in the culture of man. e material eventually grew so voluminous the Wassons decided to publish a study. While preparing the book, they realized how many religious references were involved. Suddenly Wasson and his wife had a simultaneous thought: Was it not probable that our ancestors worshipped a mushroom? Wouldn’t this explain the aura in which all fungi seem to be bathed? But what kind of mushroom was worshipped, and why? is was the turning point in their work. ey found themselves studying the mushroom not only for its anecdotal place in cultural history, but also for its probable religious signiFicance. e First key to this riddle was the discovery of six extant primitive peoples in Siberia who still used hallucinogenic mushrooms in shamanistic rites. Further study indicated that even in cultures where mushrooms were taboo, they carried a supernatural aura. Greek literature was Filled with references to mushrooms as “food of the gods.” Prohibitions against mortals eating them were severe. e Wassons became obsessed with their work. e concept of drugs and religion was not entirely new: Mescalin had recently been synthesized from peyote buttons and were the subject of study among Indians of the Southwest and Northern Mexico, and Philippe de Felice had written that the connection between religion
JOHN ALLEN
40 MARCH/APRIL 2026
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