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Valentina Pavlovna Wasson
Valentina Pavlovna (Guercken) Wasson (1901–1958) was a pediatrician, ethnomycologist and author. She was involved in the introduction of psychoactive mushrooms to a wide audience in the United States for the first time.

Life
Valentina (Tina) Pavlovna Guercken born in Russia in 1901 and moved to the United States with her family during the Russian revolution. She became a pediatrician and in 1926 married R. Gordon Wasson in London.

The following year, while on a honeymoon in the Catskill Mountains, Valentina came across mushrooms she recognized from her youth in Russia. It quickly became apparent that she and her new husband had very different feelings towards mushrooms. They explored the philological aspects of the vernacular names of mushrooms, the uses to which mushrooms were put in early times, and the aura of mystery that surrounds them. They hypothesized that the peoples of the world could be separated into “mycophiles” and “mycophobes" - for which they coined the term- with the Slavs standing as the clearest example of the former, and the Anglo-Saxons of the latter.

Over the next 30 years, Valentina and her husband integrated mycological data with history, linguistics, comparative religion, mythology, art and archaeology, calling their field "ethnomycology". They analyzed and explained the role of fungi in the cultural development of numerous peoples.

Discovery and popularization of psychedelic mushrooms
In 1952 the poet Robert Graves sent the Wassons an article that mentioned the discovery in 1938. by Dr. Richard Evans Schultes, of the survival of the use of intoxicating mushrooms among the Indians in Mexico. Immediately Gordon Wasson telephoned Schultes at Harvard; the confirmation and encouragement he received focused his attention on Mexico. Beginning in 1953, R. Gordon travelled to Mexico to research the traditional use of mushrooms there.

Tina and Gordon Wasson organized yearly research expeditions to the remote mountain villages of the monolingual Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico, and in 1955 were the first outsiders in modern times to participate in the midnight rites of the cult of the sacred mushroom.

They announced their discovery in 1957 in their jointly written book Mushrooms Russia and History. The Wassons' first book, had begun as a cookbook by Valentina and the Wassons' Russian cook, Florence James. Concurrently, a lengthy illustrated article by R. Gordon in Life Magazine, May 13, 1957, on the Mexican mushroom veladas (sessions) with Maria Sabina gave rise to large numbers of individuals searching the wooded mountain regions of Mexico to discover for themselves the mushrooms with visionary powers.

Valentina's account of this experience was published in This Week on May 19, 1957 -- six days after her husband's famous piece was published in Life Magazine. In this article, Valentian becomes one of the first to suggest that psychedelic mushrooms might be used as a psychotherapeutic agent. She also co-authored the epic Mushrooms, Russia, and History with her husband later that year. Valentina died of cancer in 1958 at the age of 59.

Following Valentina‘s death, Gordon continued his research, working closely with Dr. Roger Heim, the world-famous French mycologist and Director of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, who had accompanied the Wassons on several expeditions to Mexico.

Author of (Books)
The Chosen Baby (1939) Mushrooms, Russia, and History (1957)

Author of (Articles)
I Ate the Sacred Mushroom (This Week, 1957)

Writings & Info
The History of Psychedelic Therapy with the Dying (1977)