Erowid References Database
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Ott, J..
“Book Review: The Wondrous Mushroom: Mycolatry in Mesoamerica by R.G. Wasson”.
Journal Psychoactive Drugs. 1981 Jan-Mar;13(1):101-4.
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Abstract
With the publication of The Wondrous Mushroom: Mycolatry in Mesoamerica the layperson has access, for the first time and in one volume, to the whole corpus of research by R. Gordon Wasson and his late wife, Valentina Pavlovna Wasson, on the interdisciplinary
subject of Mesoamerican ethnomycology, a study spanning over 27 years. Prior to this publication, the non-specialist as a rule has been hard pressed to find this material. The Wassons' Mushrooms Russia and History (1957), which opened the door to this subject, exists only in a limited(edition of 512 copies, now selling for $2,500 on the rare book market (making it the most valuable book ever by a living writer); the other primary
text, Les Champignons Hallucinogenes du Mexique (1958[9]), by the late Prof. Roger Heim (to whom the present book is dedicated) and R. Gordon Wasson, likewise appeared in a limited deluxe edition, never reprinted or translated, although surprisingly still in
print. The Wondrous Mushroom also gives the reader the essence of Wasson's Marķa Sabina and Her Mazatec Mushroom Velada (1974), available only as a $250
limited edition and an $82.50 popular edition, and numerous little known scholarly papers.
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