Page 171 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

152 Mysteries of the Mind

stances, for many shamans and priests In 1953, R. Gordon Wasson (1898–1986), a
believed that they could open portals to high- vice president of the J. P. Morgan Company,
er planes of consciousness and even to other and his wife observed a rite of the Mixtec
worlds by ingesting certain plants. The Indians that involved the use of a sacred
ancient Greeks held the mushroom sacred, mushroom by a curandero, or witch doctor,
and some contemporary researchers have pos- who was said to have powers of prophecy after
tulated that the famed Oracle at Delphi may he had consumed the mushrooms.
have ingested some form of psychedelic drug, The curandero made extensive prepara-
along with the fumes the entranced woman tions long before the all-night ritual began.
inhaled. Other cultures have also held the For five days before and five after, he did not
mushroom or the cactus sacred. The Mayan allow himself the company of a woman. He
Indians of Central America erected stone explained his actions to the Wassons by saying
monuments to the mushroom earlier than he feared he would go mad if he consorted
1000 B.C.E. These monuments have been with any female. He drank no alcohol for the
found in the tombs of the wealthier citizens of same period and fasted for 24 hours before the
the Mayan culture, and for many years were ceremony began.
thought to be fertility symbols.
The Wassons first became involved in the
ritual at nine o’clock in the evening when the
witch doctor called them to a small room con-
taining articles of ceremonial religious obser-
DR. Humphrey Osmond coined the word vance and asked them what information they

“psychedelic” to describe the effects of the mind- sought. The Wassons answered that they
wanted to know about their son, Peter, whom
altering drugs. they had left in Boston.

Then in the small, dark room, illuminated
only by candles, the witch doctor began the
Such drugs as mescaline from the peyote ceremony. By 10:30 P.M., he had eaten 14 pairs
cactus, ibogaine from the root of a rain forest of the mushrooms. Other facets of the rite
shrub, and the so-called “magic mushrooms” included the precise arrangement of the cere-
came to be known as psychedelic, because they monial articles in the room and the rubbing of
cause people to hallucinate, to see and hear green tobacco on the curandero’s head, neck,
things that are not really there. Dr. Humphrey and stomach. Then the candles were extin-
Osmond (1917– ) began studying hallucino- guished and they waited.
gens at a hospital in Saskatchewan in 1952 At 1:00 A.M. the witch doctor claimed that
when he was examining the similarities he was receiving a vision of the Wassons’ son.
between mescaline and the adrenaline mole- He shocked them by saying that Peter needed
cule. It was Osmond who coined the word “psy- them because of some emotional crisis in his
chedelic” to describe the effects of the mind- life. The man continued, telling them that
altering drugs, and it was also he who super- their son was no longer in the city they had
vised the author Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) thought he was in and that he was either
in the well-known series of experiments with going to war or joining the army. He ended his
mescaline that Huxley recorded in his book string of predictions by stating that a close rel-
The Doors of Perception (1953). ative of R. Gordon Wasson’s would become
While modern research techniques focus seriously ill within a year.
on psychedelics for purposes of learning more It was not long after this ceremony that
about the human brain, relieving pain, finding reality bore out the witch doctor’s predictions.
antidotes to drug overdoses, and other medical Peter Wasson had joined the army at the
applications, the ingestion of such drugs in the unhappy end of a romance that had left him
past was most often done to achieve transcen- emotionally distraught. He was only 18 at the
dence or to accentuate mystical experiences. time, but he had joined the service and was

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