In 1957, Robert Gordon Wasson published an article in Life magazine in the US titled “Seeking The Magic Mushroom“. In it, the former banker chronicles his visits to a remote Mexican village where he first encountered the ritual of consuming mushrooms for their psychedelic effects. While Wasson was hardly the first to discover these effects, and the whole piece is a particularly ’50s example of tone-deaf cultural tourism, he is credited with bringing the idea of mushrooms as more than just a vegetable to the minds of the Western world. It led Wasson to write his book, Mushrooms, Russia and History, where he described how the world as he sees it falls into two distinct cultures: mycophobic (mushroom phobic) and mycophilic (mushroom loving).
Mushroom Wellness Trend 2020 – Refinery29
