

From the MSA website:
"The purpose of the Wasson Award is to recognize people with non-traditional academic backgrounds who have made outstanding contributions to the field of mycology, or who have widely transmitted significant scientific or aesthetic knowledge about fungi to the general public. Nominees for the award will be judged on the basis of the impact and quality of their contributions and on their sustained commitment to the field of mycology."
According to MSA's newsletter, Inoculum, Stamets designed his own curriculum at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, under the guidance of Michael Beug and became a self-taught mycologist. He authored his first two books at Evergreen, Psilocybe Mushrooms and their Allies and The Mushroom Cultivator. Stamets' most popular book, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, is the #1 best seller among mushroom books on Amazon and has been cited 740 times on Google Scholar.
When presenting the award, Mycological Society of America president Jean Lodge describes Stamets' importance to the field of mycology:
"Anytime I get on a plane and I sit down next to somebody and explain that I work on fungi, there is always this... Do you know? Do you know? And the fill-in-the-blank is always Paul Stamets.
Paul has done more for recruiting young mycologists into graduate programs, I think, than all of us sitting in professional jobs. He is just so good at outreach and getting people enthused....He's contributed a tremendous amount to our field."
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In this video from the first Psychoactivity Conference: A Multi-Disciplinary Conference on Plants, Shamanism & States of Consciousness in Amsterdam, Stamets described the story of the MSA Wasson Award's namesake, R. Gordon Wasson. Stamets shared the stage that year with Albert Hofmann, Christian Raetsch, Alex Grey, Giorgio Samorini, and other pioneers.
Paul's recent book, Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World
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Mushrooms truly are amazing. See his full Psilocybe presentations in Telluride (Telluride Mushroom Festival) and Amsterdam.
Stamets states in the Moving Art film by Louie Schwartzberg: "Mushroom mycelium represents rebirth, rejuvenation, regeneration. Fungi generate soil, that gives life. The task that we face today is to understand the language of nature. |
The fact that we lack the language skills to communicate with nature does not impugn the concept that nature is intelligent, it speaks to our inadequacy of our skill-set for communication.
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We need to have a paradigm shift in our consciousness. What will it take to achieve that? If I die trying but I'm inadequate to the task to make a course change in the evolution of life on this planet, OK, I tried. The fact is, I tried. How many people are not trying?
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I believe nature is a force of Good. Good is not only a concept, it is a spirit...and so, hopefully, the spirit of goodness will survive."
How Mushrooms Can Save
Bees and Our Food Supply |
Hallucinogens: New Research on Old Therapies & More
More from Paul:
Paul Stamets on YouTube
Paul Stamets on Coast to Coast AM with
John B. Wells - Mushrooms & Environment
Paul Stamets at TEDMED 2011