by Alex Letcher
Alas, these works proved to be rather more titillating than repellent io the general public, and exerted a lasting influence upon the popular imagination: the abridged 1922 version of Frazer's The Golden Bough, for example, has never been out of print. Frazer's legacy, in particular, can be seen in the work of various writers including T. S. Eliot (1888-19^5), W. B. Yeats (1865-1939), D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), and especially Robert Graves (1895-1985) and more recently in the cult films The Wicker Man (1973), Apocalypse Now (1979) and The Lair of the White Worm (1988), which portray the disturbing consequences of a modern return to the primitive. Far from ushering in a scientific age, The Golden Bough was one of the factors that prompted people to go about reviving the supposed pagan religions described within it, leading to the emergence of modern Druidry and Wicca.'°
Seen in this light, the provenance of Gordon Wasson's obscure mushroom thesis starts to become clearer, for he too was influenced by Frazer, both directly and via a long correspondence and friendship with Robert Graves. Wasson's emphases on the importance of taboo which he thought a lasting and 'deep-seated emotional attitude' and of survivals 'fossil meanings, fossil sayings, fossilised folkloric bits of our various languages"1 were both borrowed from Frazer. He religiously copied Frazer's comparative methodology, amassing evidence from as many different sources as he could find (as a consequence of which his books are all, quite literally, weighty). And from Graves he took the belief that myths, however fantastical they seem, have their origins in actual historical events: hence any myths or folktales involving mushrooms could be read as a vestigial memory of the supposed mushroom cult.
The only problem with all this was that by the time Gordon and Valentina were bickering about the edibility of the Catskills' mycoflora, the arguments about the merits of cultural evolution and the Frazerian comparative method were long over: both tropes had been soundly rejected within anthropology. One of the staunchest critics was pioneering American anthropologist Franz Boas (1858-1942) who, preferring fieldwork to library-based research, could find no evidence for the sorts of evolutionary cultural progressions outlined by Comte, Spencer, Tylor and others.11 Without the rationale of cultural evolution, searching for survivals was meaningless. Certainly cultural forms and artefacts can linger way beyond their original historical
moment one only has to think of classical architecture, for example but anthropologists like Boas rejected the idea that it is possible to work backwards from these alone to make inferences about earlier cultures. Later, by the 1970s, revisionist work undertaken by a new generation of folklorists and historians specifically demolished the idea that British folk customs were pagan survivals, and the Gravesian notion that myths inevitably had historical and not literary origins.' In anthropology at least, cultural evolution was cast aside as an intellectual dead end.
The principal objection to the Frazerian comparative method that went with it remains that it attempts to make data fit theory and not vice versa. Tylor, Frazer, Graves and Wasson all attempted to prove their particular, preconceived hypotheses by accumulating massive amounts of apparently supporting evidence while ignoring all that was contradictory. The selection process inevitably reflected the inherent class, gender and cultural biases of these scholars a point enlarged upon by later Marxist, feminist and postmodernist critics while cherry-picking evidence from sources widely separated by distance and time stripped it of the all-important context in which it occurred. Boas believed the comparative method could only ever produce a distorted picture of the subject, which is why he argued so forcibly for detailed, localised fieldwork ethnography, in other words to become the basis of anthropological enquiry.
Later, in the 1960s, perhaps as a reflection of social upheavals at home, anthropologists began to notice the importance of transgression, of rule-breaking, in the structuring of both traditional and modern societies, and so challenged the great foundation of Wasson's thesis: namely, the Frazerian notion of taboo as an enduring and binding stricture, silently obeyed by all those subject to it. The many 'rituals of rebellion' discovered by anthropologists, and designed either to heal the social rifts caused by transgressive acts, or to permit them to occur within tolerable parameters (as with the Kuma people's nonda 'mushroom trance'), showed that taboos have always been there for the breaking. In any case, declaring that a hostile reaction to, say, a mushroom is evidence that it must have been taboo at some earlier stage of cultural development is to make an unwarranted inductive leap. 1° take this line of reasoning to its absurd limit, one could argue that Lenten restrictions are evidence of an early Christian taboo against eggs, which must have been secretly worshiped by a jealous priesthood.
Indeed, the very premise that prompted Wasson's investigation the notion that peoples are either mycophilic or mycophobic now appears too problematic to be of use. The term 'phobia' implies an overwhelming and irrational panic reaction, a force that bears down upon the sufferer and has its origins deep within the unconscious, whereas anxieties about mushrooms are wholly rational. In the absence of any reliable methods for distinguishing the edible from the poisonous, and given the high price of getting the decision wrong (a slow and painful death in the case of the Death Cap, Amanita phalloides), blanket avoidance of all mushrooms is the most sensible and reasonable option. Fear of mushrooms is actually the fear of being poisoned by mushrooms, and the way this expresses itself is no more mysterious than our aversion to other life-threatening dangers, such as snakes (which may or may not be venomous). Once someone is bitten, we all remain shy.
Empirical evidence bears this out. A long-term study conducted during the 1970s in Colorado, where there is no widespread custom of gathering wild mushrooms, found that on average only six cases of accidental poisoning per year required hospital treatment. Fatalities were so rare as to be all but non-existent. By contrast, in the Polish province of Poznan, which has a similar population size to Colorado but a long-standing folk tradition of mushroom-picking, an average of fifty or so incidents of poisoning every year required hospital treatment, of which around 10 per cent proved fatal.'4 In other words, the risk of being killed by mushrooms was substantially higher in the culture that was nominally mycophilic. This runs counter to Wasson's thesis and suggests that folk wisdom regarding mushroom identification is worryingly unreliable: without a decent field guide, the safest option remains not to go mushroom-picking at all.
And, of course, patterns of mycophagy are not set in stone as Wasson supposed, but change with time. During the nineteenth century it was common for wild mushrooms to be sold at (supposedly mycophobic) British markets, but fear of poisoning no doubt encouraged by the antics of ne'er-do-wells like the Bickerton family meant that this had all but died out by the twentieth. One small part of the British Second World War effort, therefore, was directed at encouraging people to learn how to identify edible mushrooms safely in order to prevent this nutritious food source going to waste. The campaign was successful, and wild mushroom consumption duly increased, until after the war when commercial mushroom production made foraging unnecessary.'5 This is a far more complex situation than can ever be encompassed by Wasson's blanket designation of Britain as a mycophobic nation. In any case, it is rather meaningless to try to designate the eating preferences of an entire people as one thing or another, for taste is, by definition, a fickle thing.
So even though the terms mycophobia and mycophilia have achieved a certain currency within mycological circles, they are often applied inaccurately, are based upon misleading assumptions, and should be abandoned as scientific terms. Likewise, though the archaeological record is sufficiently vague for the possibility of prehistoric magic mushroom use to remain open, Wasson's labours cannot demonstrate that this was definitely the case. For while it is true that anxieties about mushrooms have been expressed since classical times, there is nothing to suggest that these originated in anything more exalted than a fear of poisoning. (Indeed the pressing question is not why some cultures shun m
ushrooms, but why others overlooked the frequency of accidental poisonings and carried on eating mushrooms regardless.) In the evolutionary race that is the history of ideas, Wasson's hypothesis would seem to have had its day.
Of course none of this would be of any great significance outside academic circles were it not for the fact that Wasson's theories were to have a rather profound impact upon the people he studied. In particular, Maria Sabina was to have her life turned upside down by Wasson in his pursuit of his ancient mushrooming cult. It is for this reason that any balanced assessment of Wasson must consider the man, and not just his unusual ideas.
Though Gordon Wasson had little time for hippy culture, hated being treated as a psychedelic guru, and expressed nothing but contempt for Timothy Leary (the Harvard psychologist who, in the sixties, became notorious for his profligate use and advocacy of LSD)," his 1957 Life article 'Seeking the Magic Mushroom' played a significant role in kick-starting the whole psychedelic revolution. Many of the key figures of that movement, including Leary, experimented with psychedelics as a direct result. That Wasson wanted widespread recognition for his Mexican discoveries is clear but, perhaps because of the distance he kept between himself and the hoi polloi, he underestimated the extent to which readers would want to follow in hi> footsteps, find Sabina and try the mushrooms themselves. He disguised her name and whereabouts in the Life article but not in Mushrooms, Russia and History, so very quickly they became public knowledge: within months of the Life article going to press, Westerners were knocking on Sabina's door. The trickle of visitors in the early 1960s became a flood, until Oaxaca was awash with hippies on the magic mushroom trail. The trip became fashionable, and with various rock stars Pete Townshend, John Lennon and Bob Dylan, amongst others rumoured to have made the pilgrimage, this was perceived, true or not, as a celebrity endorsement, making Huautla an essential destination.'7
Of course, for anyone who made the trip to, and with, Maria Sabina, it was easy to believe that she really was some priestess of an ancient cult. She held her veladas in her basement on a compacted dirt floor and in front of a rudimentary altar upon which were placed pictures of Christian saints and a bowl of burning copal: the Mazatec resin used as incense. By candlelight she would bless the mushrooms, passing them through the smoke before commencing a lengthy series of prayers to various saints. Then, gauging the appropriate dosage for each participant, she would pass round pairs of mushrooms, reserving the largest dose for herself. The candles would be extinguished so that the room was pitch black, and as the effects of the mushrooms came on she would begin to sing the improvised chants for which she was famous. Long lines, sung in a low monotone and interspersed with rhythmic claps and shouts, marked out the contours of the velada, guided the trip, and almost invariably Western visitors famous or otherwise wrote of having had intensely spiritual experiences under her expert guidance.
The trouble was that hippy culture arrived with a very different set of ideas and outlooks from those that prevailed in traditional indigenous Oaxaca. For hippies, the mushrooms were 'psychedelic', which meant that they were bound up with notions of authenticity, freedom, individualism, bohemianism and rebellion. Used to seeing psychedelics as drugs not deities, commodities not conscious entities, many expected to be able to buy and consume mushrooms as and when they desired, irrespective of local sensibilities. They certainly did not want to be bound to the curandero-led velada, or to the archaic mores and strictures of an animist peasant culture. One American hippy visitor was recorded as saying: 'Look, man. You can go for that curandero
shit if you like but it's not my bag. I don't need an old hag rnumblim in Mazatecan to turn me on. I don't dig this Indian doctor jazz. I tun myself on. It's not my culture. You just score the mushrooms ... we'I do the rest."" Two others smashed up the furniture in their lodging simply so they could hang up a hammock, while others complaine< volubly about having to pay for what they considered bad food an< worse accommodation.,v One tactless visitor tried to pay Sabina fo her services with a pet dog. 'I told him that I didn't want a dog, that didn't have the money to maintain it,' Sabina recalled. 'What was th< animal going to eat? Shit?'10
Of course, the ill-considered behaviour of the few necessarily tarnish es the reputation of the many, but post-colonial expectations th< assumption that locals would simply roll over and offer up their most intimate practices for the tourist dollar still suffused the attitudes of a! those who went, souring whatever 'good vibes' they had intended to spread. Sabina, though she deplored the arrogance of the more thoughtless visitors, suffered the inevitable backlash against this unsought fame. Jealous rivals burnt down her house and shop so that she lost both home and livelihood. She was falsely accused of peddling cannabis, with the result that she was briefly imprisoned and had her meagre possessions confiscated/' When anthropologist Joan Halifax visited her during the 1970s, Sabina was in a very sorry state. She was dressed in rags and covered in bite marks, having been attacked by an envious relative.1 Wasson, as you might expect, denounced this, branding the hippies as 'riff-raff';15 but while he was certainly not responsible for the behaviour of those who came after him, the question of the extent to which he was to blame for them going in the first place remains.
He was certainly sensitive to the accusation that he had brought ill fortune upon Sabina and the other residents of Huautla, so much so that in 1970 he published an anguished defence in the New York TimesThere and elsewhere he sought to make a clear distinction between his actions and those of the 'thrill mongers' who followed him/5 He 'winced' at the hurt he had inadvertently caused to Sabina and her profession/6 saying he had gone to Mexico with the best of intentions: to track down the last living vestige of an ancient mushroom cult and record it before it was eroded away by the inevitable onslaught of modernity. His was a salvage operation conducted for that most noble of purposes: contributing to the sum of human knowledge. 'What else,' he implored, 'could we have done'?17
Doubtless this sophianic justification was heartfelt, but in several ways his behaviour failed to live up to this noble image of himself as dispassionate observer. It is clear that his motivations became more complex, and more muddied, once he had actually eaten the mushrooms in 1955. Thereafter, his banker's instincts seem to have taken over so that he came home with every intention of profiting from his discoveries. In a shrewd move, he had already acquired the rights to all of Allan Richardson's photos, in exchange for funding the photographer s travel and subsistence costs/' But within months of returning he had a meeting with top executives of the Merck Sharp & Dohme pharmaceutical company to discuss rights to the mushrooms' potential active ingredients. It was his hope that some psychiatric use could be found for them.19 As we have seen, it was Albert Hofmann's team at Sandoz in Basle who eventually isolated psilocybin and psilocin, but nevertheless, when Sandoz put its patented brand Indocybin on the market, Wasson appears to have been rewarded for his part in its discovery with a directorship of one of its American subsidiaries.30
He made several other attempts to profit from his story by offering it to various magazines, including National Geographic, but after a chance meeting he opted for Life instead. Knowing that it would serve as a convenient and timely advertisement for Mushrooms, Russia and History, Wasson urged the editors to bring the article out in the May edition of 1957, and not later in the year as had been proposed. The editors acceded to his demands and advertised the mushroom edition of Life extensively on television with the effect that his book, published a few months later in a limited edition of 512 copies and retailing at $125, doubled in price before all the copies were sold. The article itself netted Wasson the then extraordinary sum of $6,000, which he used to cover the cost of sending out a hundred complimentary review copies of the book/1
The deal with Life was agreed before Wasson returned to Huautla and Sabina in 1956. Though the editors were to write the headlines and straplines (and in the process would give the world the term Magic Mushrooms'),
Wasson retained editorial control over the all-important body of the text. Nevertheless, he took advice on how to structure the piece, and on how Richardson could capture more compelling and magazine-friendly images.51 Wasson also brought soundrecording equipment with him to Mexico so that he could tape Sabina and sell the recordings (they were subsequently released on the
Smithsonian Folkways label). The return visit to Sabina appears to have been much less about the scientific acquisition of knowledge, and far more about securing the scoop.
Despite his protestations, then, it seems that he went south in po*. session of the very same post-colonial attitudes for which he would later berate the hippies. 'I have often taken the sacred mushrooms/he declared rather pompously, 'but never for a "kick" or for ttrecreation". Knowing as I did from the outset the lofty regard in which they are held by those who believe in them, I would not, could not, so profane them.'35 But this is not borne out by his actions, for whatever 'lofty regard' he felt for local practices, customs and proscriptions, he seems to have been more than happy to ignore them if they impeded his own private agenda. During his first trip to Mexico in 1953, though he had been able to pick some of the mushrooms, he could not initially find a curandero willing to host a velada for him. Throwing caution to the wind, and disrespectful of local custom, he ate his pickings anyway. 'Bitter to the taste, they were not sufficient to cause psychic symptoms.'34 Knowing that veladas were only ever conducted for healing or to discover the whereabouts of lost or stolen possessions, he eventually persuaded the various curanderos he did find, including Sabina, to host sessions on the pretext of concern for the well-being of his son. Later he admitted that this had been a deception performed simply to get him access to the ceremonies.35
