Talk:R. Gordon Wasson

Hallucinogenics and evolution
According to a lecture by Hank Wesselman, Wasson believed that hallunicogens may have been the cause of human evolution. Can anyone cite a source for this or elaborate? Hank only mentioned it in passing. Ungovernable ForceThe Wiki Kitchen! 05:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Moving page to Robert Gordon Wasson
The man's first name is Robert, not Richard as it currently reads. I refer to the following sources:


 * 1) Contemoprary Authors Online
 * 2) American Men & Women of Science. A biographical directory of today's leaders in physical, biological, and related sciences. 17th edition. Eight volumes. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1989.
 * 3) Your local college card catalog.
 * 4) Amazon.com.

Hence, I am moving this page to Robert Gordon Wasson and changing the lead sentence accordingly. --Rednblu 20:22, [3 October 2006 (UTC

Lack of objectivity
This article is completely one-sided. Advocates of pseudoscience such as Wasson always have reams of vociferous critics, none of whose arguments are even briefly mentioned in the article. This may require a complete re-write. Bumhoolery 23:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I recommend deleting the entire spirituality section. Mmyotis (talk) 01:09, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of critics so did Galileo ,Coppernicus, Colombus, and Newton. Well it goes to show like most crtitics and bum Bumhoolery they are usually spouting judeo-christian dogma learned in sunday school. Scropio 75 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)


 * I am an atheist who supports the use of entheogens. You suck at English.  Also, Columbus was NO scientist.  I'm very thankful that you apparently are not a regular Wikipedia contributor. Bumhoolery 08:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Bumhoolery, please take into consideration that there is no orthodox scientific answer as to the identity of soma. This is a valid anthropological question, but there is very little academical coverage on it. Gordon Wasson is a major and respected figure in its 20th century study. Of course there are alternative ideas, and anyone can click on Soma, and there you can read a very balanced overview of the main-stream surface of the subject, as far as I can tell. The same with Hofmann's theory about the kykeon. There are no very much more accepted theories. Even though it kinda doesn't work. I don't think that the article is one-sided. It is well balanced, and I find eat easy to read. It gives me the info and the links that I propably need if I typed Gordon Wasson's name in the search field. At least that's my experience. --Siphersh 16:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

WOW. What part sucks? A user of ethnogens who is an aethist? I guess where you live they must suck. I guess you have never been face to face with it. I would expect this from a 21 year old dork who constantly contributes online content, no one will read instead of getting a girlfriend? Try gettting out of from behind the computer and go experience life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.10.194.130 (talk) 18:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

If linguistics can be considered a science, the etymology of Vedic "Soma" as a loanword from Finno-Uralic has been proposed by a Baltic language philologist J. Pashka. He cites widespread existing Finno-Uralic examples - Volgaic Erzya, Mokša "Sjuma / Səma" hewn wooden trough, Estonian "Soim" hewn wooden manger, Khanty "Soma" hewn mortar - which he contends were objects used in production of an Amanita muscaria beverage by the Ural Mountains. He also cites loanswords from a pre-Vedic Indo-Iranian language into many of the same Finno-Uralic languages (ie: Finnish "Kekri") which he correlates with archaeological data (approx 2,000 B.C.E.) to support his proposed etymology of Vedic "Soma" from Finno-Uralic. To quote the proposal, "Indo-Aryan "Soma" preserved the native Uralic word for a hewn wooden trough that was used as the dried Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) was pressed with stones in water. (re: Khanty "Soma" )"- from Virdainas © 1994, 2nd Edition, by Jos. Pashka. It is an interesting perspective. I found it by Googling "Soma" and "Uralic". It is a much better scientically supported etymology of Vedic "Soma" than the hypothetical one Wiki offers. R. Gordon Wasson will outlast his critics. (Sudowite (talk) 02:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC))

Rewrite Needed
This article doesn't cite sources, and it claims that a pseudoscientist has "revolutionized the understanding of the origin of religion." Leaving out the question of what that sentence even means, most of this article reads like a geocities fan page. And by the way, a lot of scientific visionaries have be derided or ignored because people did not understand or could not accept their ideas, but a much larger number of pretentious idiots have also been derided or ignored because their ideas make no sense. Jermor 18:11, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, Erowid has a much better article on R. Gordon Wasson: hereJermor 04:11, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * And Harvard has an even better one here. This would probably be a great starting place if anyone has the time to improve the article. Jermor (talk) 01:08, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Add me to the list of editors willing to help. &mdash;Viriditas | Talk 01:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

"...revolutionized the understanding of the origin of religion." This is untrue. Wasson's argument that all religion stems from an ancient psychedelic cult is deeply flawed. I would suggest removing the article completely, until it can be rewritten. Wasson's greatest achievement was to introduce hallucinogenic fungi to the western public, while his contribution to anthropology was limited at best 86.145.159.219 (talk) 21:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The relationship between the origins of religion and ritual drug use is sound and well-supported. Wasson's argument is not deeply flawed, but supported by current research.  Ritual drug use was the most likely catalyst and precursor to all religion.  There's a reason DMT is called the "spirit molecule". Viriditas (talk) 10:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

How is his contribution to anthropology "limited at best"? Who are all of these people trying to deny the importance of entheogens in shamanic belief? Are you from the FDA or what? We're talking about the very roots of art, science, philosophy, and spirituality - I don't see how that is not anthropologically significant. I also don't see how it's pseudoscience - it'd be harder to argue that entheogens were NOT a major factor in shamanic belief and culture. Perhaps you believe that a few of Wasson's overarching ideas are flawed, and so his entire base of research is flawed, but then perhaps you should throw out all of the research and ideas that were contributed by Pythagoras, Democritus, Huygens, Koepler, Plato, etc. etc. Just because the overarching belief of the individual was flawed, doesn't mean that they can't make a significant contribution to a greater common understanding once we have further research to iron out the little flaws. Alas, that is the very essence of science. And alas, the suggestion that entheogens had significant roles in shamanism and early spirituality was not only revolutionary, but it has been found to be accurate. Perhaps it would be less offensive to say that it was his suggestion of the importance of entheogens that was revolutionary, rather than he himself who was revolutionary. 66.92.42.28 (talk) 16:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Wherever they are from, they are clearly misinformed. Viriditas (talk) 10:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

MK-Ultra edit-warring
This article has been hit by a series of edits this morning. First the correctly documented information that Wasson was affiliated with the CIA was removed with the comment that "unreferenced" material was being deleted. Then, the incorrect and undocumented claim that Wasson was "director of propaganda" was added. Would this type of fraudulent editing be called 'vandalism'? JerryRussell (talk) 15:49, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Please stop vandalising this article, kindly learn to verify your citations before posting unverified conspiracy nonsense! 87.239.254.174 (talk) 17:07, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Actually Wasson's role as chief propagandist for JP Morgan is well sourced from several reliable and respectable sources, so i have restored it to the article with an additional citation. Let's try and make this article a comprehensive source of information about Wasson, and not ignore his darker more secretive activities92.233.116.110 (talk) 17:29, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

"Propagandist" is not neutral point of view, but I was able to find a citation that he was VP of Public Relations. Also, the funding of his 1956 mushroom expedition through MK-Ultra subproject 58 is well documented by FOIA releases. JerryRussell (talk) 04:25, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I removed the reference to an FOIA citation which did not mention anything about Gordon Wasson. It seems this page is being targeted by conspiraloons with an agenda87.239.254.119 (talk) 21:10, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

The FOIA file at its original source at the National Security Archive is titled as a reference to JP Morgan and Wasson. Wasson's name is redacted from the text of the document, but there is no other "vice president" who was doing research in "tropical mycology" in 1956. JerryRussell (talk) 06:39, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

JerryRussell please stop vandalising this serious article with your childish conspiracy nonsense, it isn't clever and it isn't funny. Kindly leave wiki editing to the adults 92.233.116.110 (talk) 08:01, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

OK, I'm relatively new to Wiki editing, but am making a sincerely intended and ongoing attempt to improve this Wikipedia article. The material I provided regarding MK-Ultra project 58 was not "unreferenced" or "unverified", but it was referring to primary source material housed at the National Security Archive. I provided links to copies of that material available on the Internet for convenience. However, in addition to providing that information, I should have also given a reliable secondary source interpretation of this primary material. So I'm trying again, and with the secondary source reference as well as the primary source reference. JerryRussell (talk) 16:28, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Wow, that was quick: 92.233.116.110 reverted my edits again, without any further discussion here on the talk page. I will raise a ticket at Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JerryRussell (talk • contribs) 17:19, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

If you really want to "improve this wikipedia article", try *leaving it alone* instead of repeatedly vandalising and edit-warring by inserting ludicrous unsourced conspiracy nonsense. The citation that you posted to "Jan Irvin" website has no relevance whatsoever to the subject matter of the article, as i have repeatedly pointed out. Wikipedia is based on verifiable, credible and relevant citations, not silly random unsouced conspiracy theories about eugenics and mind-control, or non-credible independent research. There are plenty of places on the internet where you can post that kind of thing, but not here, take note....92.233.116.110 (talk) 17:30, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * You gave your reason for deleting this as un-sourced material. In fact a source is cited. You are now involved in an edit war. Please read the citation in it's entirety. It appears that the crazy conspiracy web site refers to possibly verifiable information. Also Wikipedia prefers secondary sources, which this appears to be. Also Wikipedia discourages personal attacks. Senor Cuete (talk) 18:41, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your support, Senor Cuete. Please note that I did not post the reference to the article at Jan Irvin's website, but rather 92.233.116.110 did, when he was claiming that Wasson was the "chief propagandist" at JP Morgan. My secondary reference is to a reputably published book by John D. Marks. I should have included a link to the Wiki article about Marks, which would establish the notoriety and provenance of the source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JerryRussell (talk • contribs) 19:00, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

It seems like further arbitration is going to be required in order to put a stop to this vandalism. I repeat again my point that none of the sources cited in this recent bout of vandalism have any relevance to the subject matter of the page, which is Gordon Wasson. the sources cited by JerryRussell do not contain any information about (or indeed any mention of) Gordon Wasson, and therefore they are completely irrelevant. I repeat my request that you stop adding irrelevant material into this page to prevent further uneccesary escalation of this matter. 92.233.116.110 (talk) 22:21, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * You've reverted the good faith contributions of another editor five times. This is edit warring and you can be blocked for this. These contributions does not meet the criteria for vandalism. Senor Cuete (talk) 22:43, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * You are ignoring the crucial point, which is the total *irrelevance* of the citations in light of the recent iinformation added. The recent contributions are essentially vandalism because they are conspiracy theory, and they are unsourced (the sources make no mention of the information about Gordon Wasson that they claim to support). It is you, not I, who is engaging in edit warring, because you are defending the addition of unsourced, false and irrelevant information into the article. The article was already very high standard before all this recent nonsense. 92.233.116.110 (talk) 23:03, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * The claim that the sources do not mention Gordon Wasson is false, actually the secondary source by John Marks spells this out very clearly. The primary source at National Securities Archive is in a file labelled "Wasson". The matter is being "escalated", I have opened a dispute resolution ticket here: Dispute_resolution_noticeboard JerryRussell (talk) 23:11, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * You have not quoted anything from the Marks book. I am referring to the FOIA citation. 92.233.116.110 (talk) 23:15, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * "The primary source at National Securities Archive is in a file labelled "Wasson"" - Can you explain this?92.233.116.110 (talk) 23:19, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * IP editor 92.233.116.110 has now reverted a good faith edit seven times. Is a sysop out there to block him? Senor Cuete (talk) 23:22, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * "reverted a good faith edit" - incorrect, it is bad faith, wilful vandalism of a high-quality article by inserting unsourced bizarre conspiracy theories.92.233.116.110 (talk) 23:24, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

92.233.116.110, I would appreciate it if you would read my citations before you delete them. At one point, there was a citation with page number to a book by John Marks, in which he describes how Wasson's work was covertly funded by the CIA. Marks based his work on documents he obtained from the CIA, which are now stored in the National Security Archive. The documents in question are stored in folder 17457, which is labelled "JP Morgan & Co (see Wasson file)". The National Security Archive does not make these documents available on the web (except perhaps for academic logins, I'm not sure.) However, other websites have copied both the files themselves, and the folder labels. I am not sure whether or not those websites meet Wiki criteria for reputability, but the original source material did; and the original source material was vetted and summarized by John Marks in his book. I am explaining these matters, but this is not "new research", I am entirely relying at this point on John Marks, and providing links to original source material for the readers' convenience. If Wiki editor wisdom is to delete the convenience links, so be it. The information regarding the CIA's MK-Ultra project is not "conspiracy theory", it is simple fact. There is a longstanding and well-sourced article at Wikipedia about MK-Ultra, which I had linked before you deleted it.

Senor Cuete, thanks very much for your support, but we do need to refrain at this point from any further reversions of the article, until we can raise this to some sort of dispute resolution. I suspect there may sock-puppeting going on here, we'll see if any of the many other editors involved will step forward to explain themselves. JerryRussell (talk) 23:53, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

"The documents in question are stored in folder 17457, which is labelled "JP Morgan & Co (see Wasson file)"" - Where did you get this information? Do you have a source which verifies this claim about " folder 17457"? Otherwise it's just a conspiracy theory92.233.116.110 (talk) 13:24, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Hello 92.233.116.110, Let's start with the information in the book by John Marks, which is available online at https://pdf.yt/d/JSKQIeR_oYTgzSjl. The book states (in this online edition, it's on p. 100):

[in 1955] "MKULTRA leaders snatched up information that Wasson planned to return the following summer and bring back some mushrooms. During the intervening winter, James Moore wrote Wasson—"out of the blue," as Wasson recalls—and expressed a desire to look into the chemical properties of Mexican fungi. Moore eventually suggested that he would like to accompany Wasson's party, and, to sweeten the proposition, he mentioned that he knew a foundation that might be willing to help underwrite the expedition. Sure enough, the CIA's conduit, the Geschickter Fund, made a $2,000 grant. Inside the MKULTRA program, the quest for the divine mushroom became Subproject 58."

Wiki prefers secondary sources, and that statement in Marks' book should be sufficient to document the claim that I'm trying to support. But where did Marks get this information? Some of it was presumably from interviews, but the documents for Subproject 58, as well as their labels at the National Security Archive file, are available on the web. An index with document (folder) numbers is here:

http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/mkultra/mkultraindex.pdf

a list of folder labels by project number is here:

http://all.net/journal/deception/MKULTRA/www.nemasys.com/rahome/library/programming/mkultra.shtml

And the actual documents are here:

http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/mkultra/mkultra4/DOC_0000017457/DOC_0000017457.pdf

As has been pointed out, Wasson's name has been redacted from the documents, but the folder name confirms the obvious fact that it's Wasson's project that is being funded. This does, however, require the reader to follow a chain of reasoning, such as is often required to interpret primary source documentation. Accordingly, I leave it to the collective wisdom of the Wiki editorial process, whether to include the links to the primary documentation, or whether to rely simply on the secondary source. JerryRussell (talk) 15:45, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Links to random (unverified) websites does not count as "citations"92.233.116.110 (talk) 16:20, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Hello 92.233.116.110, the actual sources are the cited documents, the web links are provided for convenience. The book by John Marks was published by Times Books (1st edition) and WW Norton (paperback edition), both reputable publishers, and you may review Marks' qualifications at the article about him on Wikipedia. The primary source material may be obtained from the National Security Archive. The web sources I supplied are simply providing copies of the original sources. However, I believe that all my web sources are, in fact, reputable. Yt is simply a repository for user uploaded pdfs, and the text of the Marks book may be verified at several independent sites where it has been uploaded. All.net is operated by Fred Cohen and works with a number of affiliated companies, and operates according to the ieee rules of ethics. The Black Vault is "the largest privately run online repository of declassified government documents anywhere in the world. With more than 1.4 MILLION pages of documents to read" and is operated by John Greenewald Jr.

What is your basis for questioning the validity of any of this material? Do we need to sit down together with a printed hardcopy of the Marks book, or travel to Washington DC to visit the National Security Archive, before you are willing to believe any of this? Is anything else on Wikipedia subject to this degree of scrutiny? JerryRussell (talk) 17:23, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

And furthermore, 92.233.116.110, have you followed the dispute resolution discussion? There are now three named Wiki editors who believe that your activities here are disruptive. How long are you going to keep blocking the consensus here? JerryRussell (talk) 17:23, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

For the record, I would like to mention that with respect to my initial question "would this... be called 'vandalism'" I do regret having asked the question so early in the dialog. One definition of Vandalism is "Abusive creation or usage of user accounts and IP addresses" which might possibly be taking place here, but I actually appreciate 92.233.116.110's participation. During the course of revisions, the clause being proposed for inclusion in the article has gotten better. As to whether there has been Edit warring, neither Senor Cuete nor I crossed the "bright line" of more than three reversions within a 24-hour period, and furthermore each time I reverted another editor's action, it was with the intent of answering the objection that had been raised. Whereas 92.233.116.110 definitely did cross the "bright line" by reverting edits by both Senor Cuete and I, a total of 7 times. So now 24 hours has passed, and I will try again, with the belief that my edit reflects the consensus (at least, minus one.) JerryRussell (talk) 15:50, 10 May 2016 (UTC)


 * At the Dispute Resolution Notice Board there is a list of Users involved. I only see two of the IP addresses involved in this dispute listed. 87.239.254.119 has been blocked for 6 months as a sock puppet. 159.53.46.142 is a server at JP Morgan. How is this address involved in the debate? Is 92.233.116.110 a sock puppet for JP Morgan? Since Wasson worked for JP Morgan, one would have to conclude that this is an attempt to censor Wikipedia by someone at JP Morgan. This is unacceptable. The talk page at 159.53.46.142 is disturbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:159.53.46.142. In, addition, there is an archive of other warnings not to vandalize wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:159.53.46.142/Archive_1. How in the world is this not blocked? 92.233.116.110 has done everything banned on Wikipedia - sock puppetry, edit warring, personal attacks, reverting good faith edits, ignoring consensus, etc. Why is this user not blocked? At this point I think JerryRussel would be justified in adding the content he wants, ignoring the disrupting editing of 92.233.116.110 or whoever he really is. Admins, where are you? Block this editor.

92.233.116.110 has returned again, and deleted my contribution -- this time, without offering any further comments on the talk page. Thanks to Jim1138 for restoring the material. As per the advice at the dispute resolution discussion, I will ask for a sock puppet investigation of the IP editors. JerryRussell (talk) 15:59, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Sock puppet investigation open here: [] JerryRussell (talk) 19:29, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

On several occasions, the IP editor(s) have either introduced or deleted links to Jan Irvin's work. I found that one of Irvin's articles was published in a collected volume edited by John Rush and published by North Atlantic Books. I believe this constitutes a reputable publication process, and accordingly I've introduced a reference to the article. While not conclusive, I believe Irvin gives a highly plausible case that Wasson knew his work was being funded by the CIA; and accordingly I removed the assertion that the funding was "covert", intending to leave the matter ambiguous. JerryRussell (talk) 16:45, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

92.233.116.110 is an establishment pig and should be treated like the pig he is! :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.14.17.30 (talk) 20:05, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

"illustrated, limited editions that have never been reprinted"
The needed citation is here: http://botlib.huh.harvard.edu/libraries/wasson/BIOG.html

I don't have the patience to edit it myself.207.229.130.147 (talk) 04:10, 8 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Will add to the article.--Quisqualis (talk) 16:10, 8 March 2020 (UTC)