In 1952 the poet
Robert Graves sent the Wassons an article that mentioned the discovery by
Richard Evans Schultes in 1938 of the modern-day survival of the ancient 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. Valentina and Gordon Wasson organized yearly research expeditions to the remote mountain villages of the monolingual
Mazatec Indians of
Oaxaca, Mexico, and in 1955 were among the first outsiders in modern times to participate in the midnight rites of the cult of the sacred mushroom. Beginning in 1953, the Wassons travelled to the Mazatec village
Huautla de Jiménez in Mexico to research the traditional use of mushrooms there. They received especially valuable information from American missionary Eunice V. Pike of the Summer Linguistics Institute, and Robert Weitlaner, a Mexican anthropologist who had visited the Mazatec. During several lengthy sojourns in Huautla and environs, the Wassons studied the use of the mushrooms in detail and compared it with descriptions of
Aztec mushroom use as described in the records of the Spanish inquisition. They understood this as a potential survival of an otherwise incredibly old tradition involving the use of sacred mushrooms, the Indians kept their beliefs a secret from strangers. It took great tact and skill, therefore, to gain the confidence of the indigenous population and to receive insight into this secret domain. 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 Wasson and the Wassons' Russian cook, Florence James. May 13, 1957, on the Mexican mushroom
veladas (sessions) with
Maria Sabina brought significant attention to the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Wasson'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, Valentina suggested that Psilocybe mushrooms might be used as a psychotherapeutic agent, placing her alongside psychiatrists like Humphrey Osmund in Saskatchewan who advocated for their use in therapy. She expressed the opinion that if the active agent could be isolated and a sufficient supply assured, it might become a vital tool in the study of psychic processes. She also stated that as the drug would become better known, medical uses would be found for it, perhaps in the treatment of
alcoholism, narcotic addiction, mental disorders, and terminal diseases associated with severe pain. Several years later a team of researchers working in Baltimore independently tested the validity of her unusual vision.
Aldous Huxley followed her suggestion that the transition to death could be eased by a dose of LSD. Valentina Wasson died of cancer on December 31, 1958, at the age of 57. Following her death, Gordon continued their research, working closely with
Roger Heim, a French mycologist and the director of the
Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, who had accompanied the Wassons on several expeditions to Mexico and provided determinations for the mycological samples they collected in Mexico. == Bibliography ==