Product Description

Discusses the role played by psychoactive mushrooms in the religious rituals of ancient Greece, Eurasia, and Mesoamerica. Wasson, who investigated how these mushrooms were venerated and used by different native peoples, here joins with three other scholars to discuss his discoveries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #57327 in Books
• Published on: 1992-07-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 257 pages

Customer Reviews

Sweet Persephone!
Wasson's text makes this book not only worthwhile, but a must read for anyone interested in the human link to higher knowledge.
His research is outstanding and puts a conclusive stamp on many beliefs concerning human culture.

to clear the air
If you are interested obtaing knowlege of the fly agaric muchroom, the soma of the anceint vedic culture of Idia, this is a good book to start with. Most of the information given is helpful and is approached from an analytical point of view. but since i'm wrighting this, it i'm going to clear up some of the mistakes made in the other reviews. The fly agaric mushroom is quite toxic. However, if heated and dried proparly the ibotenic acid (the toxic chemical) is changed to muscimol making it non toxic. Also there is no psilocybin contained in this mushroom. check out this book it's a good read

Persephone's Quest : Entheogens and the Origins of Religion
Although I only gave it 4 stars, this book is actually outstanding. I did not give it the highest evaluation because, although R.G. Wasson's material was monumental, some of the other material included did not seem of the same caliber. Wasson's perspective is really a must read for anyone interested in this subject. He was not only extremely intelligent, but he also had an innate ability to phrase his ideas in a manner that really conveyed a total picture of what he was discussing. His perspective of calling them "personal experiences rather than hallucinations" really describes his intelligent attitude of pioneering. He had the insight to realize that he was discovering a new frontier that no one had the understanding to call true, false or imaginary. He was aware of the power of people using psychoactive materials and did not try to fit all of this into a politically correct literary structure that the current autorities of his era would accept. He provides his own, somewhat negative, perspective of Dr. Timothy Leary "and those of his ilk". He did not agree with the psychedelic crowd about using these materials for entertainment and believed that there was something inherently sacred about them. Although he was the first person of modern civilization to discover and document the use of the Psilocybin mushrooms of Central America he realized there was a difference between the effects of these mushrooms and the Amanita Muscaria which has no Psilocybin and apparently produced effects that spawned a number of the major religions of the world. I recommend this book to anyone who would like REAL information concerning psychoactive experience.