In June 1955, a New York banker and amateur mycologist arrived in Huautla de Jiménez, Oaxaca, searching for something he had read about in an article by the poet Robert Graves three years earlier. That night, he participated in a velada led by a Mazatec curandera. The encounter between Robert Gordon Wasson and María Sabina would forever change the Western world's relationship with mushrooms.
A ceremony, not a substance
For María Sabina, the mushrooms — her "holy children" — were not a drug but a vehicle for healing. The velada was a complete ritual: fasting, prayers, and songs composed by her in the darkness. It addressed emotional problems, addictions, and family conflicts. Wasson and his photographer Allan Richardson were, in Wasson's own words, the first documented white men to participate in the night ceremony.
From Life magazine to psychedelic tourism
In May 1957, Life magazine published Wasson's illustrated account under the title "Seeking the Magic Mushroom." The article, intended as scientific journalism, unleashed a phenomenon that María Sabina never sought: by 1967, Huautla was flooded with foreigners — including, according to accounts from the time, figures from the international counterculture — seeking an instant mystical experience.
The cost of unasked-for fame
María Sabina spent her last years lamenting the loss of what she considered sacred. Before Wasson, she said, no one took the holy children simply to seek God; they were taken to heal the sick. Her testimony — compiled by the writer Álvaro Estrada in the book "María Sabina: Her Life and Chants" — remains the most complete primary source on her life and thought, and an uncomfortable reminder of the human cost of scientific disclosure without consent.
References
- Wasson RG. Seeking the magic mushroom. Life. May 13, 1957.
- Estrada Á. Vida de María Sabina: la sabia de los hongos. México: Siglo XXI Editores; 1977.