Talk:R. Gordon Wasson

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[edit] 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)

[edit] 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

[edit] 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 207.10.194.130 (talk) 15:45, August 21, 2007 (UTC)

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)

[edit] 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. —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)