![]() Apart from their historical interest, these letters-from the Tina and Gordon Wasson Ethnomycological Collection at the Harvard Botanical Museum-demonstrate that Wasson remained open to refinements of his theory. Gordon Wasson's identification of Vedic soma as the psychoactive mushroom Amanita muscaria (fly-agaric), this article reviews unpublished letters by Wasson in which he considered and rejected other psychoactive plants as candidates, including the mint Lagochilus inebrians, Convolvulaceae (morning glory) seeds, the fungal parasite Claviceps purpurea (ergot), and especially the psilocybin mushroom Stropharia cubensis, known also as Psilocybe cubensis. J Psychoactive Drugs 1993 Apr-Jun 25(2):149-56ĪBSTRACT Citing recently published challenges to R. ![]() ![]() Soma : alternative candidates Wasson's alternative candidates for soma Gordon Wasson first proposed his groundbreaking theory identifying Soma, the hallucinogenic sacrament of the Vedas, as the Amanita muscaria mushroom. Wasson believed Soma was the mushroom that was utilized in religious ceremonies, over 4000 years ago, before the beginning of our Christian era, by the people who called themselves 'Aryans'. ![]()
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