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Folio. Illustrated with several diagrams and drawings throughout the text, three fold-out tables, and 36 full page plates following text, many in color. Robert Gordon Wasson (22 septembre 1898 - 23 décembre 1986) est un auteur et un chercheur amateur ainsi qu'un banquier. Ses recherches indépendantes sont une contribution significative pour l'ethnobotanique, la botanique et l'anthropologie. Ses premières études datent de son voyage de noces en 1927 dans les montagnes Catskill avec son épouse Valentina Pavlovna Guercken (1901-1958), pédiatre. Surpris par la différence des attitudes culturelles envers le champignon en Russie et aux États-Unis, le couple commencent ses recherches et publient Mushrooms, Russia and History en 1957. Pendant ces recherches, ils effectuent des expéditions au Mexique afin d'étudier l'utilisation religieuse des champignons. Ils deviennent ainsi en 1955 les premiers Occidentaux à avoir participé au rituel mazatèque du champignon sacré. Grâce à leur collaboration avec Roger Heim, les échantillons collectés par les Wasson sont cultivés et soumis à une étude scientifique ce qui permet à Albert Hofmann d'identifier la structure chimique de la psilocybine et de la psilocine. Deux espèces de psilocybes sont nommées en leur honneur Psilocybe wassonii Heim et Psilocybe wassonorum Guzman. Wasson et Hofmann sont aussi les premiers Occidentaux à collecter des spécimens de Salvia divinorum et à en introduire la culture au-delà de Mexico. En 1967, il publie Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality qui traite du lien possible entre l'amanite tue-mouches (Amanita muscaria) et la boisson rituelle des Aryens, célébrée dans le Rig-Veda. Il a beaucoup travaillé sur les origines de la religion et a largement travaillé sur le caractère enthéogène des psychotropes. - - - - -Robert Gordon Wasson (September 22, 1898 - December 23, 1986) was an American author, ethnomycologist, and Vice President for Public Relations at J.P. Morgan & Co. In the course of CIA-funded research, Wasson made contributions to the fields of ethnobotany, botany, and anthropology. Wasson began his banking career at Guaranty Trust Company in 1928, and moved to J.P. Morgan & Co. in 1934, where he became a vice president for public relations in 1943.[6] That same year, he published a book on the Hall Carbine Affair, in which he attempted to exonerate John Pierpont Morgan from guilt with respect to the incident, which had been viewed as an example of wartime profiteering. As early as 1937, Wasson had been attempting to influence historians Allan Nevins and Charles McLean Andrews regarding Morgan's role in the affair; he used Nevins' reportas a reference for his own book on the topic. The matter of Morgan's responsibility for the Hall Carbine Incident remains controversial. Together, Wasson and botanist Roger Heim collected and identified various species of family Strophariaceae and genus Psilocybe, while Albert Hofmann, using material grown by Heim from specimens collected by the Wassons, identified the chemical structure of the active compounds, psilocybin and psilocin. Hofmann and Wasson were also among the first Westerners to collect specimens of the Mazatec hallucinogen Salvia divinorum, though these specimens were later deemed not suitable for rigorous scientific study or taxonomic classification.[18] Two species of mushroom, Psilocybe wassonii R.Heim and Psilocybe wassoniorum Guzman & S.H.Pollock, were named in honor of Wasson by Heim and Gastón Guzmán, the latter of whom Wasson met during an expedition to Huautla de Jiménez in 1957. Wasson's next major contribution was a study of the ancient Vedic intoxicant soma, which he hypothesized was based on the psychoactive fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) mushroom. This hypothesis was published in 1967 under the title Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. His attention then turned to the Eleusinian Mysteries, the initiation ceremony of the ancient Greek cult of Demeter and Persephone. In The Road to Eleusis:
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