magic mushroom (1957), etc.

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 14:02:27 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:

>* magic mushroom (OED3 has 1966)
>
>Hammond (Indiana) Times, Jun 13, 1957, p. B2
>Already experiments with magic mushrooms in Old Mexico produce in one
>delightful hallucinations of that Utopian existence men have been so long
>dreaming about.

Apparently the term "magic mushroom" first appeared a month earlier in the
headline of a May 13 _Life Magazine_ article, "Seeking the Magic
Mushroom":

http://www.mushroomjohn.com/names8.htm
Stafford (1982 [1992]) noted that the epithet "magic mushroom" was
invented and first brought to the attention of the public by a Life
magazine editor (see Wasson, 1957) who inserted this term against the
wishes of R. Gordon Wasson, into the title of Wasson' Life Magazine
feature contribution. Wasson (1980) had never appreciated the implication
and insertion of the word "magic" and had indicated that he preferred the
word "wondrous", and deplored the now popular and widespread use of the
word "magic" and held reservations about its use.

Citing:
Wasson, R. G. 1957. Seeking the Magic Mushroom. _Life_ May 13.
Wasson, R. G. 1980. _The Wondrous Mushroom: Mycolatry in Mesoamerica_.
Ethnomycological Studies No. 7. McGraw-Hill Book Co. New York.

The text of the _Life_ article is available here:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/life.htm

("Magic" appears nowhere in Wasson's text, only in the headline.)


--Ben Zimmer