Persephone's quest : entheogens and the origins of religion / R. Gordon Wasson ... [et al.].

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Wasson, R. Gordon (Robert Gordon), 1898-1986.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religion.

Religions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (256 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c1986.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This fascinating book discusses the role played by psychoactive mushrooms in the religious rituals of ancient Greece, Eurasia, and Mesoamerica. R. Gordon Wasson, an internationally known ethnomycologist who was one of the first to investigate how these mushrooms were venerated and employed by different native peoples, here joins with three other scholars to discuss the evidence for his discoveries about these fungi, which he has called entheogens, or "god generated within."

Contents:

Front matter

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Prelude

CHAPTER 1. Persephone's Quest

CHAPTER 2. Lightningbolt and Mushrooms

CHAPTER 3. The Mahavlra Vessel and the Plant Putika

CHAPTER 4. The Last Meal of the Buddha

CHAPTER 5. Carved 'Disembodied Eyes' of Teotihuacan

CHAPTER 6. Mushrooms and Philosophers

CHAPTER 7. The Wild and the Cultivated: Wine in Euripides' Bacchae

CHAPTER 8. The Offerings from the Hyperboreans

Notes on the Essays in this Book

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographies.

ISBN:

9780300138146

0300138148

OCLC:

1121055884