Letter of the Week

Every week, on this page, we will show a different letter from a selection of letters from Paul O'Prey's books on Robert Graves correspondence In Broken Images and Between Moon and Moon.

Date: 10 JUN 1962

Recipient: Wasson, Gordon (1898-1986)

Location: Canellun

* * *

10 June 1962

My dear Gordon:

I like your Soma theory. It sounds very possible, because cowpats are controllable, and there are no wild cattle in India. But how does the cycle start? Does the cow eat spores accidentally, when grubbing for grass near cowpats? And what of the Moslems in India? I suppose they imported no cattle. I have a silver coin dated about 200 AD with a sacred cow on it: from the Indian occupation of Afghanistan. I suppose they exhausted all the Stropharia there, too. But it certainly is odd, isn't it?

— I wish I could come with you to Mexico but can't. I'm indispensable here. I wish I were Wm's age; I'd make myco- ethnology my trade.

— I think the importance of the hallucinogenetic [sic] mushroom is in informing people of the full visual and sensory powers of their imagination, so that they can afterwards use it to better purpose. With me, the experience certainly broke down a barrier which had been raised in my mind since I was about twelve and had had a vision of the same 'knowledge of good and evil' which the mushroom gives one. There has been a new dimension (or whatever the word is) to my poems since that date. I feel that psilocybe should be given once, with full precautions, at an initiatory rite instead of that dreary episcopal 'confirmation' of the Anglican Church.

— This makes one look at sacred cows with a new eye: there's that mysterious story of the Cow Io in my Greek Myths (56) where she is connected with a number of places including India, and Mycenae (which seems to have been a mushroom centre as I remarked in a recent letter) and with the mysteries of Demeter as Cow, through Triptolemus and Celeus King of Eleusis. It's a terrible mythic muddle, but refers to the spread of a moon—cow' cult, or might it be to the soma cult. In other words: when Demeter sends Triptolemus in his serpent chariot to give mankind the secret of bread, is it really the secret of sacrificial bread containing mushrooms that he's taking? Bread had been in use since 6000 BC.

— Is it possible that when the real soma became unavailable they gave placebos in place of it, such as milkweed. (The OED gives HOM for Soma and if you turn to HOM, identifies it with Asclepias, and if you turn to Asclepias, identifies it with 'milkweed' or 'swallow-wort'. And if you turn to 'Swallow-wort' you find that it's Vincetoxicum offficinale also called 'Tame poison'. It is possible that a toxic placebo might work by suggestion. Love to Wm. I'm so glad you have invited him. He's more magic in him than he lets appear [sic].

Yours ever

Robert

Love to Masha and warm wishes to Maggie.

. . . .