by Jan Irvin
There appears to be no evidence to support the idea that Wasson changed his mind with regard to Allegro from September 1970 to October 1985. Professor Carl Ruck and Mark Hoffman’s position is mooted by Wasson’s own words in his July 1985 letter to Mr. Hamilton and his October 1985 interview with Robert Forte. Further support of my position is provided by Jack Herer, who in February 1984 spoke with Wasson directly. I have likewise shown that there is no evidence to support the allegation that Wasson changed his mind with regards to mushrooms in Christianity or the Plaincourault fresco.
I must say that I do not disagree with all of Wasson’s research. Wasson did in fact contribute awesome amounts of valuable research with regards to Rig Vedic Soma use, the ‘Mexican cult of the mushroom,’ mushroom folklore, the Eleusinian Mysteries and Siberian shamanism. However, Wasson’s research into Judeo-Christianity is almost non-existent. And what does exist is filled with convoluted and contradictory positions and motivations that appear to be based purely in self interest.
Wasson’s research should be reviewed on a case-by-case, point-by-point basis, not a blind acceptance. Allegro should likewise be accepted, or dismissed, on a case-by-case, point-by-point basis. He should not be ignored in a blanket dismissal. It should now be clear that each scholar should be given credit where their research is valid and substantiated, case by case, point by point. They should likewise be discredited where their work is convoluted, distorted or laden with hidden agendas.
Allegro did not use Wasson as his primary source, as many wrongly assumed he did. He relied more on Ramsbottom and Robert Graves than he did on Wasson.
I have broken down exactly what errors are attributable to Allegro. As well, I’ve clarified those errors attributed to the scholars Allegro cited. The errors directly attributable to Allegro are minimal, and largely understandable. The most significant are his references to Amanita muscaria chemistry and effects. Allegro had not utilized the newest material available. There is no evidence to suggest he ignored it deliberately. There was a huge amount of contradictory information during the period when Allegro wrote SMC. No doubt his misunderstandings of these matters came as a result of the confusion and contradiction existent in the publications.
We may discern that Allegro pored over Ramsbottom’s book word by word. Allegro found a similar chemical description to Ramsbottom’s in Puharich’s book. However, Ramsbottom stated that the “chemical structure is not yet ascertained,” and Allegro likely (and properly) assumed this was simply due to his book being written before newer publications (such as Puharich, 1959). Ramsbottom connected Amanita to the berserkers.
Allegro copied the errors of Dr. Andrija Puharich because Puharich claimed, “The chemical studies with the mushroom confirmed what had already been found in the literature and did not turn up any new evidence.” We may therefore understand why Allegro felt safe in using Puharich as a source for the chemical constituents – he was a trained medical professional, a doctor, and former Captain to the US Army Chemical Center at Edgewood, Maryland. He was not just “a man”. Puharich had also worked with Wasson, which would make his position more believable. Regardless, Puharich appears to have had ulterior motives by implying that he had reanalyzed the chemicals present in the A. muscaria. I’ve likewise revealed what appears to be an ulterior motive behind Wasson’s denigration of Puharich, calling him dismissively “a man”. This point casts serious doubt on Wasson’s integrity.
The Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs, 1967, which Allegro clearly used as a reference for Wasson, also contains all of the detailed and proper chemical analysis of A. muscaria. Wasson’s essay, cited by Allegro, is at pgs. 405–414. The A. muscaria chemical composition essays by Brekhman and Sam, Eugster, and Waser that were not used by Allegro directly follow (pg. 415–439). Allegro did not use these three essays, which represented the latest research on the A. muscaria chemistry at the time of writing The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, though he had checked four other sources. Did he not have a full copy of this publication – possibly only a photocopy of certain sections? Did he come across this information late in writing SMC, too late to rewrite such a large section? Or did Wasson’s contradiction of this information in Soma simply confuse matters? The answer we may never know. I consulted both the Allegro estate and his associates and none have seen a copy of this publication in the Allegro archives.
Allegro took his descriptions of the fly-agaric’s taste from Ramsbottom and Robert Graves, who was a close personal friend of Wasson. Except for the berserker rage cited by the other scholars, it is evident that Allegro acquired the majority of the inferences about the fly-agaric’s relation to violence from Graves.
We see that Allegro cited Schultes, Hallucinogens of Plant Origin, 1969, but here, too, the chemistry of the Amanita might still be unclear to someone that was not an expert in this specific field of inquiry. Schultes properly described muscimol and ibotenic acid in this publication, but blurs the matter by saying “other as yet uncharacterized principles may take part in the toxicity…” He also repeated his agreement regarding berserker violence after Wasson published extensively against this inference in Soma, 1968.
Allegro likely misunderstood the proper usage of tobacco and DMT-based snuffs proposed by Henry Wassen. Allegro’s inference to A. muscaria snuff is inconclusive and needs further investigation. Allegro overlooked the indigenous Bedouin peoples of Palestine as a possible source for a local culture that appears to have used Ayahuasca analogues and harmala snuffs.
Both Wasson and Allegro found themselves fascinated by a subject which lay outside their professional specialties. Wasson was a financial executive and student of literature; while Allegro was a philologist and expert in Hebrew and Aramaic. Their interest in Amanita muscaria and the like took them both deep into the worlds of anthropology, botany, and organic chemistry: far beyond their own spheres of specialization.
Assessing Allegro’s motivations and sources, in light of the new evidence presented here with regard to iconography and the holy mushroom of Mt. Athos, will require a major new appraisal of his work. People have dismissed Allegro and his research for many reasons. They’ve claimed that he was seeking revenge for being treated unfairly over the Dead Sea Scrolls, or just out to make a fast buck. Others claimed that he was a lunatic, or that he’d had a mental breakdown. Yet others have claimed that his research holds no value, that he made up his sources and references, and that there is no truth in his work whatsoever. Their attacks have now been shown to be baseless accusations. Allegro’s references with regard to entheogens, for the most part, with mostly minor errors, are valid.
I suggest that Wasson was resentful and jealous toward Allegro for doing what he never had the courage to do—to study mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity. If Allegro was correct, then Wasson’s own 1000BCE theory fell into shambles. This seems far more likely than Ruck’s proposition that Wasson waffled over the matter for more than 30 years. More likely, Wasson simply did not want to publicly admit that his own work was erroneous.
Thinking of the entire situation in this way, I must ask: Did Wasson have it out for Allegro? Did he want to ruin Allegro for publicly pointing out his own waffling position regarding the 1000BCE theory and the Plaincourault fresco—“rightly or wrongly”? Was Wasson never able to get over the fact that Allegro got the better of him in this one area of his research—Judeo-Christianity? This seems likely, but since his attack in the TLS was proactive, we must also consider Wasson’s own profit motive—to use the publication of Allegro’s book to further advertise his own, as he did in the September 16 letter to the TLS.
And why did Wasson send information to an investment firm regarding Allegro’s payment? In my opinion, this seems to go far beyond the borders of reasonable ethics, once again placing Wasson’s integrity in serious jeopardy.
Wasson’s published and public statements and actions make Ruck’s position (that Wasson changed his mind regarding the Plaincourault fresco and mushrooms in Christianity) d
ifficult to justify. And if Ruck is correct, then Wasson is proven a hypocrite. Wasson’s statements, which are (in most cases) publicly available, and a few letters of his, nearly all contradict Ruck’s position. Furthermore, Wasson never apologized to Allegro, nor did he print a retraction for the inaccurate statements he made. Attempts to communicate ceased: maybe that is how Ruck means that Wasson distanced himself from Allegro (Ruck, Fungus Redivivus)? Otherwise, he only made blanket statements against Allegro without thoroughly studying SMC first.
Academia needs to learn from the errors of these men. Sometimes sensitivities can arise if people do not have the full confidence which formal training and qualification in a subject tend to create, and even then, as with Panofsky, there is still no guarantee. We need to learn to discern valid information from false assumptions and slanderous claims by taking the time to verify scholars’ citations without blanket dismissive or accepting attitudes simply because something challenges or supports orthodox or personal opinions. If we don’t learn from this, if we don’t learn to think outside the box, outside of orthodoxy, then how will we ever grow?
I have provided sound evidence on which to base further investigation into the proposition that Judeo-Christianity’s foundations were based on psychoactive substances after 1000BCE. It has been revealed that Wasson’s self-limiting claims are baseless conjectures that appear to stem from his own self interests and wrongful acceptance of the Panofsky interpretation of the Plaincourault fresco.
…if even one only of the mushroom references of the cryptic phrases of the New Testament text were correct, then a new element has to be reckoned with in the nature and origin of the Christian religion.
~ John Allegro
Now that the context has been established, even without the evidence of John Allegro, the same conclusion can be drawn. And he was, in fact, right about a mushroom cult in Judeo-Christianity. [Strikethrough added]
~ Carl Ruck, Fungus Redivivus
The time has come for the acceptance and incorporation of John M. Allegro’s valid research into the fields of both biblical theology and entheobotany. His insights and contributions, and those of other scholars studying entheogens in Christianity after him, are certain to move the study of Judeo-Christianity and its origins forward—far beyond his pioneering theories—for decades to come. Let us no longer be restrained by outmoded, prejudiced beliefs.
Appendix—The Allegro-Wasson Controversy
By Jack Herer
The Amanita muscaria craze of the 1960s sparked the interest of several researchers interested in this particular mushroom around the world. Most of those who went on to publish papers or write books took sides in the great debate about whether or not there was an historic Jesus Christ, an actual living, walking, talking being, or not. Allegro stated clearly that Jesus was a mushroom and not a walking talking humanoid but the mushroom, period. Gordon Wasson wrote about Hinduism and claimed that Soma, the Hindu plant god, was the Amanita muscaria mushroom and not a walking talking humanoid. This concept was easier for some Vedic scholars because Soma was not thought to be a walking, talking god-Man but a mythological character sometimes represented as a plant, the Sun, the Moon etc.
Allegro wrote about the Abrahamic religions being branches evolved from mushroom cults of the old world. The three big religions that developed from the story of Abraham are Judaism, Christianity and Islam (historically created in that order). John Allegro exposes all three of these Abrahamic belief systems as religions that worship the mushrooms as gods in the book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. Wasson wrote about Hinduism being based upon an ancient belief system that believed the mushrooms were gods as well but for some strange reason Wasson could not grasp Allegro’s research as validating and being complementary to his own. Instead he stated publicly that he did not agree with Allegro and the following are the results of this error.
I contacted Richard Schultes in 1984 because of an article wherein Schultes and Wasson were quoted as not agreeing with Allegro’s book. Richard Schultes was the director of the Harvard Botanical Museum at the time and when I called I was patched right through. I was calling because I had been extensively researching Allegro’s findings and was amazed at the vastness of his work. Researching every reference, I spent thousands of hours going through every footnote and Bible passage that Allegro put forward in the book and he knew the material inside out. Even down to interpreting The Song of Songs (Cant of Cants) word for word in the original Hebrew, meticulously decoding the secrets of the mushrooms hidden within. I could not understand why Schultes would make such a statement, so I called to ask him personally. When I asked the great ethnobotanist why he was in disagreement with Allegro’s thesis he responded that he never said that he disagreed, but that he was not a linguist, philologist or qualified to critique Allegro’s book and that his words were more along the lines of “I’m not qualified to agree or disagree with Allegro’s findings”. However if I wanted to know why Mr. Wasson had said that he disagreed, I could give him a call. I did exactly that, only at the time Gordon was not at home but on vacation in Florida.
When I called back and asked Gordon why he had said that he disagreed with John Allegro’s findings as presented in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross Wasson’s response was that he gave Allegro’s book to two of his friends, one a Jewish Rabbi and the other a Monsignor in the Catholic Church. He said both of them returned the books and assured him that “there was not one single word of truth in the book, whatsoever”. I told Gordon the same thing I had expressed to Richard Schultes; “The work is impeccable, Allegro is a scholar of the highest magnitude and I have spent the last six months from eight to fifteen hours a day researching his references and findings; he has not made a mistake, excepting one or two minor errors”. Wasson responded that he gave the books to his friends because he trusted their opinions and did not have the time to research it thoroughly himself.
This was an error with repercussions that stretched across time and space, from scholars to casual researchers around the globe. The bottom line is these friends of Wasson’s blew Allegro off because they were unable to understand the subject matter, either that or were sworn to secrecy never to reveal the mushroom/god connection. Neither the Rabbi nor the Monsignor could have possibly known the trouble they would cause by their ignorance or secrecy. The simple fact of the mushrooms being “The God of The Universe” to an average Joe in either of these two religions is likely to be too much to even consider, at least back in the 1960s, before anything about this subject had seen the light of day at all. But to reject the thesis off hand without even looking at it, because anyone who looked at it could not possibly say “there was not one single word of truth in the book, whatsoever” (unless they were complete morons or trying overly hard to hide something desperately) is a scholarly crime as serious as the theft of intellectual property (plagiarism). Yet strange motivations have always been at the roots of the Pharmacratic Inquisition and the witch-hunts or crusades.
Many different theories began to spread regarding who Jesus was or was not. This is a debate that has been ongoing for centuries but now there were some new candidates for the personage. Most people with a Christian background that found out about the mushroom rejected Allegro on the basis of the denial of an historic Christ but accepted that the mushroom played some type of role. The Jewish community rejected Allegro on the grounds of him claiming Yahweh was a mushroom but many began to see new meanings in the Jewish texts, and the mystical Kabala was exposed to the uninitiated. There are also Christians who know about the mushroom with a Wassonian slant and believe in a historic Jesus who was revealing the deepest secrets of God by giving the mushrooms to his disciples. The attacks against Allegro were merciless and they are explained in his book The End of a Road. The strangest thing is the way people and even psychonautical authors treat Allegro with vitriol and disrespect, while ripping off his material without giving him the proper credit left and right. From books to articles and magazines Allegro’s
research can be found under the guise of new discoveries presumptuously exploited by unscrupulous authors.
~ Jack Herer
References
Acharya S., The Christ Conspiracy – AUP, 1999, ISBN: 0-932813-74-7
Allegro, John, Physician, Heal Thyself… – Prometheus, 1985, ISBN: 0-87975-241-6
Allegro, John, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth – Prometheus Book, 1992, ISBN: 0-87975-757-4
Allegro, John, Lost Gods – Michael Joseph, 1977, ISBN: 071811633X
Allegro, John, The Chosen People – Doubleday, 1971
Allegro, John, The End of a Road - MacGibbon and Kee, Ltd., 1970
Allegro, John, “The Sacred Mushroom” Response to Wasson - Times Literary Supplement, written 31 August, pub. 11 September, 1970
Allegro, John, The Sacred Mushroom & the Cross – Doubleday, 1970, ISBN: 0340128755
Allegro, John, “The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross” (David York, introduction: “Christ and the Sacred Mushroom” February 15, 1970 no. 357), in the Sunday Mirror (London). Serialized April 5, 1970 – April 26, 1970. Transcribed at http://johnallegro.org/Allegro-SundayMirror.htm
Allegro, John, The Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls Revealed – Gramercy, 1981, ISBN: 0-517-336456. First published as The Dead Sea Scrolls – Penguin, 1956
Anderson, Godfrey, Scrolls Scholar Slaps at Biblical Cornerstones – John Allegro – The Fresno Bee, Fresno California, October 14, 1967
Brekhman, I. I. and Sam, Y. A., “Ethnopharmacological Investigation of Some Psychoactive Drugs Used by Siberian and Far-Eastern Minor Nationalties [sic] of U.S.S.R.” in Ethnopharmalogic Search for Psychoactive Drugs, ed. Efron, D., (USPHS Publication No. 1654) Washington DC, 1967, ISBN: 0890040478
