James Moore

James Moore was a chemist who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency on MKULTRA Subproject 58, a classified effort to locate and mass-produce the hallucinogenic mushroom teonanáctl (God's flesh) for intelligence use¹.

Moore was assigned the task of infiltrating East Coast mycology groups, posing as a deep-pocketed professor backed by funding from the Geschickter Fund for Medical Research, a principal funding source for the CIA's brain warfare program. His cover story was that he was interested in natural-product chemistry and wanted to fund private mushroom-hunting expeditions¹.

In 1956, after two years of unsuccessful efforts, Moore finally persuaded R. Gordon Wasson to take him along on a mushroom-hunting expedition to Mexico. An official MKULTRA Subproject 58 invoice indicated payment "in support of an expedition... for the purpose of studying and collecting hallucinogenic species of mushrooms of interest"¹.

The mission proved traumatic for Moore, who reportedly got sick and disliked the experience. At one point, he was left roadside in Mexico in the care of local Indians when the group's small airplane had to lighten its load. Despite the difficulties, Moore fulfilled his CIA mandate, returning with teonanáctl mushrooms for the Agency to analyze¹.

However, the CIA's desire to keep the drug a secret psychic weapon was undermined when Wasson published a twelve-page account of his experience in Life magazine, highlighting the mushroom's alleged ability to access and enhance ESP. This article caused a sensation and led to pleasure seekers flocking to Mexico to consume God's flesh¹.

Chemical Procurement for TSS

Beyond the mushroom hunt, Moore served the CIA as a chemical buyer for more than a decade, first at Parke, Davis & Company in Detroit and then at the University of Delaware. Dealing only with his case officer Henry Bortner and a few other TSS men, and maintaining the cover that his botanical specimens were for his own natural-product research, Moore purchased chemicals the Agency did not want traced, $433.13 of mescaline, $1,147.60 of mushrooms, and $12,000 of fluothane anesthetic, and on call would prepare hallucinogens such as DMT or the potent BZ; in 1963 he made a lethal carbamate poison, the same agent the OSS had once tried to use on Hitler, for his standard $100 fee.²