Once Upon A Shroom
True Weird Stuff
Now! Media
4.9 • 661 Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2024
⏱️ 81 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today's True Weird Stuff - Once Upon A Shroom
R. Gordon Wasson was an author, and worked in banking for J.P. Morgan. He was also responsible for popularizing shrooms in America...you know, the ones with psychedelic properties. Even the CIA got in on the action, covertly funding Wasson's expedition to study and collect hallucinogenic species of mushrooms for MK-Ultra's subproject 58.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, true weirdos. We just wanted to take a minute and thank you so much for your support. |
| 0:05.3 | True Weird Stuff has won the best history podcast in the Women in Podcasting Awards and we've also won a Signal Award in the paranormal category. |
| 0:14.9 | And that's only happened because of you, our fellow strange people. Thanks. |
| 0:19.9 | Stick around if you want after the episode for a little bonus content and conversation. |
| 0:26.8 | A banker, a pediatrician, and a shaman walk into a forest. |
| 0:33.2 | There I was, poised in space, a disembodied eye, seeing but not seen. |
| 0:41.6 | The effect is to bring about a fission of the spirit, a split in the person, a kind of schizophrenia, |
| 0:50.3 | with the rational side continuing to reason and to observe the sensations that the other side is |
| 0:58.2 | enjoying. |
| 0:59.4 | The banker made promises he didn't keep. |
| 1:03.0 | The shaman was punished, first with fire and then with murder. |
| 1:09.7 | It was as though the walls of our house dissolved, and I was suspended in mid-air, |
| 1:18.1 | viewing landscapes of mountains with camel caravans advancing slowly across the slopes. |
| 1:27.1 | The mountains rising tier above tier to the very heavens. |
| 1:33.2 | A banker and a shaman. |
| 1:35.8 | And before you know it, the CIA. |
| 1:38.6 | Throw in a Russian pediatrician and an undercover chemist. |
| 1:42.9 | And what you've got is the story of how shrooms turned America. |
| 1:49.1 | Psychedelic. |
| 1:50.0 | Psychedelic. |
| 1:50.9 | Psychedelic. |
| 1:51.3 | And they got a small beam of light against the mirror. |
... |
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