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Persephone's Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion
This fascinating book discusses the role played by psychoactive mushrooms in the religious rituals of ancient Greece, Eurasia, and Mesoamerica. R. Gordon Wasson, an internationally known ethnomycologist who was one of the first to investigate how these mushrooms were venerated and employed by different native peoples, here joins with three other scholars to discuss the evidence for his discoveries about these fungi, which he has called entheogens, or "god generated within."
257 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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805 people want to read
About the author
R. Gordon Wasson
34 books90 followersRobert Gordon Wasson was an American author, ethnomycologist, and a Vice President for Public Relations at J.P. Morgan & Co.
Wasson spent most of his career is banking in his position at J.P. Morgan. Later in his life, despite having little formal training in the field, he turned his interests to the study of hallucinogenic mushrooms, religion, and ethnomycology, publishing papers that received attention and acclaim. In the course of work funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Wasson made contributions to the fields of ethnobotany, botany, and anthropology. He is perhaps most famous for the problem of the botanical identity of soma–haoma in the ancient Aryan religion. Wasson suggested that "soma" described in the Rigveda was the fly agaric mushroom, and "haoma" in the Avesta was a hallucinogen.
Wasson spent most of his career is banking in his position at J.P. Morgan. Later in his life, despite having little formal training in the field, he turned his interests to the study of hallucinogenic mushrooms, religion, and ethnomycology, publishing papers that received attention and acclaim. In the course of work funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Wasson made contributions to the fields of ethnobotany, botany, and anthropology. He is perhaps most famous for the problem of the botanical identity of soma–haoma in the ancient Aryan religion. Wasson suggested that "soma" described in the Rigveda was the fly agaric mushroom, and "haoma" in the Avesta was a hallucinogen.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 25, 2016
My dear stepbrother gave me, as he has before, a birthday gift card to Roger Park's last remaining bookstore, The Armadillo's Pillow. Planning to make it the gift that will keep on giving for as long as possible, I have made only one purchase so far, and this a good one. I hadn't known of it before, although I was familiar with authors Wasson, Ott and Ruck.
While subtitled "Entheogens and the Origins of Religion", most of this collection consists of the essays by Wasson and Ruck. These attempt to substantiate Wasson's hypothesis that Ind0-Europeans descending upon India and Greece from the north about 3000 years ago brought with them religious practices substantially founded upon the shamanic ingestation of amanita muscaria. Ruck does this in a most learned and roundabout way. Wasson, too, is a little difficult as he essays, in three pieces, to explain Indian practices and the meaning of the soma texts. What most fun and most easily accessible, however, is the introductory essay by Wasson which tells the tale of how he and his wife fell into developing the field of ethnomycology. I'd read accounts of this before, but never in his own words.
What's missing from this book, missing almost entirely, is any sense of how the use of psychoactive fungi might inspire religious beliefs. It's as if it's assumed that readers are well acquainted with the phenomenology of heavy tripping--not something I'd expect of the readers of the technical journals in which these items (except for the autobiographical one) originally appeared.
While subtitled "Entheogens and the Origins of Religion", most of this collection consists of the essays by Wasson and Ruck. These attempt to substantiate Wasson's hypothesis that Ind0-Europeans descending upon India and Greece from the north about 3000 years ago brought with them religious practices substantially founded upon the shamanic ingestation of amanita muscaria. Ruck does this in a most learned and roundabout way. Wasson, too, is a little difficult as he essays, in three pieces, to explain Indian practices and the meaning of the soma texts. What most fun and most easily accessible, however, is the introductory essay by Wasson which tells the tale of how he and his wife fell into developing the field of ethnomycology. I'd read accounts of this before, but never in his own words.
What's missing from this book, missing almost entirely, is any sense of how the use of psychoactive fungi might inspire religious beliefs. It's as if it's assumed that readers are well acquainted with the phenomenology of heavy tripping--not something I'd expect of the readers of the technical journals in which these items (except for the autobiographical one) originally appeared.
February 5, 2009
This is an anthology of mostly papers from the 1960s-1980s on the subject of the use of psychedelic mushrooms in ancient times in ancient Greek and Indo-Iranian religion. The first paper is a summary of Wasson's book _Soma_. Most of the conclusions are pretty speculative and not necessarily backed up by field methods from anthropology. It is mostly based on textual analysis and folklore.
September 14, 2025
Usando setas para llegar a Dios.
El mundo de los enteógenos me fascina. Aún sin haberlos probado!😬😬😬
Desde que leí a Castaneda me interesó todo el tema este de el chamanismo y las drogas naturales como fuente de conocimiento.
El libro q hoy presento es el segundo de una serie de estudios realizados por los autores en los 60-70s. Si bien el anterior, EL CAMINO A EULESIS, se enfoca en las bacanales y la exploración de los antiguos griegos con el uso de los hongos en el vino para llegar a estados de concienciación superior, en este libro van más allá y exploran varias culturas y tradiciones antiguas.
Partiendo de la separación entre las culturas que tienen setas en su dieta y las que no, los autores analizan distintos mitos como el mito de la creación en la Biblia y la el fruto del conocimiento, o la iluminación de Buda y qué relación tuvo con la cena de la noche anterior.
Por supuesto, nos habla de las culturas americanas, o del uso extendido del amanita muscaria y de los psilocibes entre otros por Europa, etc.
Esta edición la compré en México DF, en la maravillosa librería que tiene el Fondo de Cultura Económico.
Como es un tema que me interesa mucho, tengo otros libros. Si queréis de alguna recomendación, me decís.
El mundo de los enteógenos me fascina. Aún sin haberlos probado!😬😬😬
Desde que leí a Castaneda me interesó todo el tema este de el chamanismo y las drogas naturales como fuente de conocimiento.
El libro q hoy presento es el segundo de una serie de estudios realizados por los autores en los 60-70s. Si bien el anterior, EL CAMINO A EULESIS, se enfoca en las bacanales y la exploración de los antiguos griegos con el uso de los hongos en el vino para llegar a estados de concienciación superior, en este libro van más allá y exploran varias culturas y tradiciones antiguas.
Partiendo de la separación entre las culturas que tienen setas en su dieta y las que no, los autores analizan distintos mitos como el mito de la creación en la Biblia y la el fruto del conocimiento, o la iluminación de Buda y qué relación tuvo con la cena de la noche anterior.
Por supuesto, nos habla de las culturas americanas, o del uso extendido del amanita muscaria y de los psilocibes entre otros por Europa, etc.
Esta edición la compré en México DF, en la maravillosa librería que tiene el Fondo de Cultura Económico.
Como es un tema que me interesa mucho, tengo otros libros. Si queréis de alguna recomendación, me decís.
March 14, 2019
Awesome
August 20, 2012
Μια μικρή ανθολογία μελετών που συναντούμε κυρίως την εποχή απο 1960-80. Αναφορά επάνω στα ψυχεδελικά μανιτάρια, τις συνήθειες και τον τρόπο χρήσης τους στην αρχαία Ελλάδα αλλα και στην Ινδο-Ιρανική περιοχή.
February 11, 2007
unbelievably good
November 12, 2013
This book, along with The Road to Eleusis, was pretty much what launched my own study of drugs in ancient Greece, Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture, and Identity in Ancient Athens (Lexington, 2010).
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews