by Jan Irvin
Commentary
Allegro only cited Wasson’s published work four times, and three of those were used together within the same endnote, Ch. V Pg. 229, endnote #16. The fourth, Ch. V Pg. 229, endnote #15, relates to Psilocybe mushrooms and is not critical to our discussion. The fifth reference to Wasson, Ch. IX Pg. 253, endnote #20, was quoted from Ramsbottom’s book, and judging by Wasson’s own words in his September 14 missive to Allegro, was clearly something he never intended to reach the public (above). By breaking down the references and looking at Wasson’s influence on Allegro’s work, we are able to discern that Allegro was, in fact, more dismissive than anything toward Wasson. Clearly, as Wasson himself admitted, he had minimal influence on Allegro’s writing.
Citations to Robert Graves
Ch. III, Pg. 218, endnote #26
Ch. XVII, Pg. 293, endnote #33
From The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: Ch. III, pg. 24:
Perhaps the best known of the old Canaanite fertility gods, Baal, derives his name from a Sumerian verb AL, “bore”, which, combined with a preformative element BA, gave words for “drill” and “penis” and gave Latin and us our word “phallus”. (26)
Ch. III, Pg. 218, endnote #26:
BH […] *BA-AL> BAL heru ‘dig’ (cp. AL in gisAL(-LA) allu ‘pickaxe, mattock’ as a digger, and as a sower in AL-DU ‘seed-grain’, and in gisNUMUN-GISAL(gis AL) ‘seed-plough’:cp. Ugar67:II:10, etc. […]*uBAL ‘mushroom’ ?>BH […] ‘mound; haemorrhoid’ (for mushroom connections in I Sam 5:5, see R. Graves, ‘What Food the Centaurs Ate’ in Steps, 1958, p. 335, suggesting that the votive haemorrhoids of the Philistines were “golden mushrooms”; cp. P1 NH XXII 98 for reputed value of hog fungi for clearing “fleshy growths of the anus”) […]
From What Food the Centaurs Ate, in Steps, 1958, by Robert Graves, pg. 355;
or Food for Centaurs, 1960, by Robert Graves, pg. 274 [alternative edition]:
And again: that passage in the Book of Kings, about the Philistines sending golden mice and golden emerods as a placatory offer to Jehovah, after being smitten with emerods. My old friend Joshua Podro, a Hebrew scholar, whom I consulted in London, told me that the original word in the Massoretic text, glossed as ‘emerods,’ is ofelim—elsewhere used to mean ‘a cloud of noisome flies.’ Emerods are simply haemorrhoids, and there is something amiss with this story. The terra-cotta, or metal, ex voto offerings to gods, made by devotees who had been cured of a physical affliction, never showed the limb or organ in a diseased state—it was always sound; the same tradition continues today in Catholic shrines such as Lourdes, and Monte Allegro, and our Majorcan Lluch. If the Philistines had in fact suffered from haemorrhoids, surely their votive offerings would have shown healthy little pairs of buttocks, rather than the swellings themselves? Yet there is a widespread semantic connexion between mushrooms and malignant swellings on the human body. So, since learned Greeks were pleased to identify Jehovah with Dionysus, and the Feast of Tabernacles with Dionysus’s Ambrosia, could this emerod story be a variant of the one told by the grammarian Athenaeus? He records somewhere that the Athenians were once smitten with haemorrhoids for insulting Dionysus. I mean, could the Philistine ‘emerods’ have represented the caps of mushrooms? Thus: ‘we send these golden images of divine swellings, oracular instruments of the lightning-born God, whose power has been revealed in the malignant swellings with which he afflicted us. By our complimentary gift of golden mice we testify to the truly curative power of the God’s oracle.’ And if the Philistines, originally a Cretan people, still spoke Aeolian Greek, and had not yet gone Phoenician, could the Greek word for ‘mouse,’ namely MUS (as in Latin), and the Greek word for ‘fly,’ namely MUOS, have identified the swellings as also beginning with MU-namely KUKETES, or MUKAI? At this point I felt the elastic of my argument stretching a little too tight, and relaxed the pressure. I told myself: ‘More hard fact, less speculation, please!’
Pliny XXII 98, Ch. 47
(cited above)
From The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: XVII, pg. 156:
So whatever refreshment cheered the hearts of the Bacchic revellers we may be quite sure that it was not just wine, and the vine imagery of their regalia conveyed to the initiates a more potent means of intoxication than the juice of the grape alone. Very probably it was a dried and powdered form of the Amanita muscaria that they used to lace their drink, and it was with this fiery beverage that they washed down the mushroom tops they chewed. (33) In any case, many of the more important Dionysiac festivals took place in winter when vine culture had little to offer as an excuse for a wine-bibbing orgy.
Ch. XVII, Pg. 293, endnote #33:
So already R. Graves, op. cit. pp. 319–43; Greek Myths4 1965, p. 3.
From What Food the Centaurs Ate, in Steps, 1958, by Robert Graves, pg. 319–43;
or Food for Centaurs, 1960, by Robert Graves, pg. 257–82 [alternative edition]:
It started on April 13th last year, when our Majorcan postman brought me a regal gift: a signed, limited folio-edition (Copy No. 2) of Valentina and Gordon Wasson’s two-volume life-work on mushrooms. […]
[…] But the fly-amanite [sic] is hot as hot—as I learned at the age of twelve when I experimentally touched a piece with the tip of my tongue; it tasted like liquid fire.
The Korjaks [sic] of Kamchatka regularly excite themselves with fly-amanite, and will pay as much as a reindeer for a single dose. What happens then is that their faces turn puce, and they become possessed of an extraordinary muscular strength, often combined with a lust to kill, and an overpowering sexual desire. The excitement induces not only temporal and spatial delusions—of the sort that fascinated Lewis Carroll’s Alice when she nibbled the mushroom—but also, it is claimed, the gift of clairvoyance. Moreover, responsible Scandinavian scholars have ceased to regard the mediaeval Berserk madness as a form of collective insanity; it was deliberately induced, they believe, by the individual eating of fly-amanite. Berserkgang ended suddenly, after Berserks had been outlawed by royal proclamation—in A.D. 1015 (Norway) and A.D. 1123 (Iceland); and the clinical picture is characteristic of fly-amanite excitement as reported elsewhere – though, indeed, the sagas do not tell us how the Berserks felt when seized with ecstasy. Fly-amanite, by the way, does not grow in Iceland; it would have had to be imported from Scandinavia. […]
If my argument held, Dionysus, who played a part in the Mysteries not only of the Goddesses Demeter and Persephone, but of the Goddess Rhea too, may once have been the mushroom-god. And the fly-amanite may have been the secret agent which sent his Maenads raging, with froth on their lips, across the wild hills, tearing in pieces men and beasts – among them Pentheus of Thebes and Orpheus of Macedonia. Pentheus, according to Euripides, had his head wrenched off by Maenads who included his own loving mother Agave. Orpheus suffered the same unusual fate. Since they died as representative of Dionysus, did it perhaps refer to the necessary removal of the sacred mushroom-cap from its stalk? Dionysus’s devotees at first drank beer, laced with the toxic juice of yellow ivy—hence the sacred ivy-wreath-and later took to wine. But they drank this, presumably, to wash down the fiery fragments of mushroom; because to tear even a kid in pieces, such fantastic muscular strength is needed as no beer or wine or mead can provide. […]
Dionysus’s own feasts were called ‘the Ambrosia’—repeat, the Ambrosia—and took place during the mushroom season. Were they originally mushroom orgies? By eating the divine mushroom, did Ixion, Tantalus, the Centaurs, the Satyrs, and the Maenads become as gods? And, later, did the religious leaders of Greece, meeting perhaps at the Olympic Games which Heracles had founded, impose a ban on excitatory mushrooms (as the Norwegian Eric Jarl seems to have done in A.D. 1015), and make wine the sole permitted intoxicant for the Dionysus cult? An official all Greek ban on mushroom-ambrosia would explain Tantalus’s and Ixion’s punishment—the sacred mushroom being thereafter reserved for persons of good birth and reputation who could qualify as adepts in the Mysteries. […]
&nb
sp; And since the emblem of Argos was a toad, could ‘Phoroneus’ perhaps represent PHRYNEUS, ‘toad-spirit’? ‘Toadstools,’ or ‘toad’s bread,’ is a generic term used in England and the Low Countries for all tabooed mushrooms, and a German chemist has lately announced that the fly-amanite contains the very toxin, bufonenin [sic] (from the Latin bufo, ‘a toad’), which is secreted by the toad’s sweat glands! […] However, one of the Guatemalan mushroom-stones shown in the Wasson’s book, relics of a divine mushroom cult extinct for perhaps three thousand years, represents a toad-god sitting beneath his mushroom. Did Phoroneus teach his fold the use of the fiery fly-amanite? […]
Another happy thought—the little foxes of Solomon’s Song! The Shulemite has been amorously addressing Solomon, calling him the turtle-dove in the clefts of her rock, glorifying his beauty and prowess. Then she cries: ‘Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines; for our vines have tender grapes!’ Grapes have already been used in his erotic imagery—‘thy breasts are as a cluster of grapes’—and I think she is saying: ‘Now that spring is here, let us go delirious with mutual desire, assisted by a fiery dose of “little foxes,” and drink flagons of wine to wash them down!’ Although the mushroom season had not yet come, dried and powdered fly-amanite could effectively stimulate these lovers. *
* Something was missing in this argument: why a scarlet mushroom should be called a ‘fox.’ I have since visited Jerusalem and found that the Palestinian fly-amanite is fox-coloured; also that a commando force which helped to win Israel’s War of Liberation took the name ‘Samson’s Foxes.’
From The Greek Myths, vol. 1, 1972, by Robert Graves, pg. 9:
Since revising The Greek Myths in 1958, I have had second thoughts about the drunken god Dionysus, about the Centaurs with their contradictory reputation for wisdom and misdemeanour [sic], and about the nature of divine ambrosia and nectar. These subjects are closely related, because the Centaurs worshipped Dionysus, whose wild autumnal feast was called ‘the Ambrosia’. I no longer believe that when his Maenads ran raging around the countryside, tearing animals or children in pieces (see 27.f) and boasted afterwards of traveling to India and back (see 27.c), they had intoxicated themselves solely on wine or ivy-ale (see 27.3). The evidence, summarized in my What Food the Centaurs Ate (Steps: Cassell & Co., 1958, pp. 319-343), suggests that Satyrs (goat-totem tribesmen), Centaurs (horse-totem tribesmen), and their Maenad womenfolk, used these brews to wash down mouthfuls of a far stronger drug: namely a raw mushroom, amanita muscaria, which induces hallucinations, senseless rioting, prophetic sight, erotic energy, and remarkable muscular strength. […]
On an Etruscan mirror the amanita muscaria is engraved at Ixion’s feet; he was a Thessalian hero who feasted on ambrosia among the gods (see 63. b). Several myths (see 102, 126, etc.) are consistent with my theory that his descendants, the Centaurs, ate this mushroom; and, according to some historians, it was later employed by the Norse ‘berserks’ to give them reckless power in battle. I now believe that ‘ambrosia’ and ‘nectar’ were intoxicant mushrooms: certainly the amanita muscaria; but perhaps others, too, especially a small, slender dung-mushroom named panaeolus papilionaceus, which induces harmless and most enjoyable hallucinations. A mushroom not unlike it appears on an Attic vase between the hooves of Nessus the Centaur. […] At all events, the participants swore to keep silence about what they ate or drank, saw unforgettable visions, and were promised immortality. The ‘ambrosia’ awarded to winners of the Olympic footrace when victory no longer conferred the sacred kingship on them was clearly a substitute: a mixture of foods the initial letters of which, as I show in What Food the Centaurs Ate, spelled out the Greek word ‘mushroom’. Recipes quoted by Classical authors for nectar, and for cecyon [sic - kykeon], the mint-flavoured drink taken by Demeter at Eleusis, likewise spell out ‘mushroom’.
I have myself eaten the hallucigenic [sic] mushroom, psilocybe, a divine ambrosia in immemorial use among the Masatec Indians of Oaxaca Province, Mexico; heard the priestess invoke Tlaloc, the Mushroom-god, and seen transcendental visions. Thus I wholeheartedly agree with R. Gordon Wasson, the American discoverer of this ancient rite, that European ideas of heaven and hell may well have derived from similar mysteries. […]
Commentary
For the first source Allegro cited as What Food the Centaurs Ate in Steps, 1958, I instead used the American edition entitled Food for Centaurs, published by Doubleday, 1960. The two publications appear identical except for their titles and the page numbers that I have listed above.
Graves offers us his personal account of tasting the Amanita muscaria at the age of twelve: “I experimentally touched a piece with the tip of my tongue; it tasted like liquid fire.” However, Graves’s description is false. Touching something with the tip of the tongue hardly gives a valid description of its taste. I have personally eaten fresh fly-agaric on several occasions, and while there can sometimes be a mild tingle or bite from them, it is usually unnoticeable. They actually taste quite pleasant. I wonder if Graves’s own apprehension (mycophobia!) caused his reaction. I also discussed this matter with a friend, who replied: “As one who has a major interest in cooking, my experience is that mushrooms in general are notorious for losing initial fresh flavour and texture very quickly: to the extent they can become thoroughly unpleasant. Furthermore they readily absorb flavour from other things. Carefully exploited this can produce wonderful results in the kitchen. But it can also have horrible effects.” It could be that Graves simply tasted, if that’s what it can be called, a rotten or contaminated mushroom – that is if we dare trust his adolescent memory in the first place. Children are known to detest all sorts of flavors that are generally not savored until adulthood.
Graves goes on to describe A. muscaria causing the “lust to kill”. In regard to my own personal experience, this sounds more like Reefer Madness propaganda than fact. However, as mentioned, I do recognize that there is evidence that supports the A. muscaria’s ability to occasion violence (Ruck et al, 2007; Lewis, 2001). Regardless, Allegro, yet again, took the blame for the other scholars.
The third citation is to: “Greek Myths4 1965, p. 3.”, and while I could not locate a 1965 edition of this book, in my 1972 edition of The Greek Myths, vol. 1, the citation Allegro gives as page 3 is located on page 9, which is the foreword. Graves also mentions this reference in The White Goddess, pg. 45, where he states: “In my foreword to a revised edition of The Greek Myths, I suggest that a secret Dionysiac mushroom cult was borrowed from the native Pelasgians by the Achaeans of Argos.”
Citations to Dr. S. Henry Wassen
(South American ‘narcotic snuff’)
Ch. XVII, Pg. 296, ft. #68
From The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross:
Ch. XVII, pg. 164:
We are unfortunately denied reports of such clinical observations as these in ancient literature. The initiates of the mushroom cult explained such sensations in terms of demonology. They believed that the god whose flesh they were chewing, or whose blood they were drinking in their drugged wine, was actually within their bodies. It was to be expected that his coming and going would be attended with dreadful physical and mental experiences, and the body needed lengthy preparation for the “trial” by fire. The actual eating of the bitter, burning fungus top, drinking of the laced wine, and perhaps sniffing up of the powdered Agaric-like snuff, (68) would be only at the end of days of religious and physical preparation. To obtain some idea of the nature of these preparations and the fearfulness with which they were approached, we may read what Pliny says about the Hellebore. We have earlier noted that many of the mushroom names have come down to us attached to this potent herb, and it is not improbable that what the first-century botanist tells us about the taking of Hellebore similarly reflects traditions which he has picked up concerning the use of the fungus:
The best white Hellebore is that which most quickly causes sneezing.
Ch. XVII, Pg. 296-297, endnote #68:
[…] For pr
esent-day practice of narcotic snuff-taking, see particularly the reports of S. Henry Wassen of the Gothenburg Ethnographical Museum, to whom the present writer is indebted for drawing his attention to the practice, and the following works by that author: The Use of Some Specific Kinds of South American Indian Snuff and Related Paraphernalia (Etnologiska Studier 28), Göteborg, 1965, with bibliography; “Om Nagra Indianska Droger och specielt [sic] om snus samt tillbehor” (Sartryck ur Etnografiska Museet, Gotenborg, Arstryck 1963-66), 1967, pp. 97-140; “An Anthropological Survey of the Use of South American Snuffs”, in Ethnopharmalogic Search for Psychoactive Drugs, Proceedings of a Symposium held in San Fransciso, Cal., Jan. 28-30, 1967, Workshop Series of Pharmacology, NIMH No. 2, Public Health Service Publ. No. 1645, US Gov.Pr.Off. Wash. DC, 1967, pp.233-89.
Etnologiska Studier 28—The Use of Some Specific Kinds of South American Indian Snuff and Related Paraphernalia by Henry Wassen—116 pages [Omitted]
“Om Nagra Indianska Droger och speciellt om snus samt tillbehor” (Sartryck ur Etnografiska Museet, Gotenborg, Arstryck 1963-66), 1967, pp. 97–140
English: “On Nagra Indian drugs and especially snuff and accessories” (Sartryck from National Museum of Ethnography, Gotenborg, Sweden ed. by Henry S. Wassen [Omitted]
Ethnopharmalogic Search for Psychoactive Drugs – Anthropological Survey of the Use of South American Snuffs by Henry Wassen pg. 233–289 [Omitted]
Commentary
These citations to Henry Wassen total over 200 pages of information regarding mostly tobacco and DMT-based indigenous snuffs of South America. Allegro’s reference to snuff and its paraphernalia, while interesting in regards to tobacco and DMT-containing plants, may not be applicable to Amanita muscaria mushrooms. However, a single report of Amanita snuff used for warfare by the Zulu has been documented (Lewis, 2001). In all likelihood, however, the closest Allegro could come to a psychoactive snuff in the Middle East is the acacia parasite snuff, Moani, used by Bedouin doctor-shamans, and a harmala-based snuff reportedly used by some Muslim imams (Sajdi, R., 1997, 2007). The possibility that DMT-based Ayahuasca analogues were used by the Jews and Bedouin of the ancient Palestine desert, including by the Essenes at Qumran, has also been suggested (Shanon, 2008; Sajdi, 1997). Unfortunately, Allegro overlooked the Bedouin, whom he worked with in the Palestine desert for months. Further research into these areas is necessary and may yield fruitful results.