In May 1957, a series of articles in Life magazine and major newspapers announced the 'discovery' of hallucinogenic 'magic mushrooms' by adventurers Robert Gordon Wasson and Valentina Wasson. They described using the mushrooms in an indigenous village, a narrative that intensified drug tourism in Mexico and mail-order sales of peyote. The Wassons argued that the mushroom provided a transcendent experience that was the pre-modern foundation of global religion. Rejected by scholars, this theory captivated journalists and the public. R. Gordon Wasson promoted his discovery through lectures, museum exhibits, and media interviews. Drawing on the couple's archives at Harvard University Herbaria, this article examines how their campaign fueled idiosyncratic theories about psychedelic drug experience.
This article explores how 'authentic life' is constituted through a normalized style of consciousness, which the practice of literature and certain psychotropics challenge. Focusing on psychedelic hallucinogens and William S. Burroughs's 1971 novel The Wild Boys, the comparative analysis uses the Platonic notion of pharmakon and considers the neurophysiological specificities of literature and psychedelic substances. It concludes that Burroughs's use of ekphrasis acts like a psychedelic drug, disrupting habitual sequential consciousness and liberating sensation and desire from the normative constraints of production and reproduction promoted in the modern era.
The atomic bomb had psychotropic effects on American consciousness, altering perception and cultural expression. This article extends the meaning of "psychotropic" to include the tropology of the bomb and the mid-20th-century shift it initiated. Analyzing examples from photography, film, television, theater, and nuclear weapons landscapes, it identifies two categories of psychedelic effects: first, how the bomb made American consciousness more receptive to conformity required to justify atomic weapons; second, disruptive moments where the bomb's appearance in popular culture veers into the absurd.