Originally published in 1980, the 2013 edition of R. Gordon Wasson's
The Wondrous Mushroom: Mycolatry in Mesoamerica has just been issued by
City Lights Books. Early in his career, Wasson was Vice-President of J. P. Morgan but later became the 'father of ethnomycology', dedicating his life to the study of psychoactive mushrooms in religion, culture, and history. In The Wondrous Mushroom he examines mushroom use in Mesoamerica, going over the evidence that he had first found thirty years before and introducing new information that had surfaced in the meantime. In many respects, the book is a knowledge map that seeks to draw not only the directions of research and their fungi-laced content and conclusions, but also go a step beyond and speculate on further possibilities.
