Maria Sabina came to international prominence when R. Gordon Wasson, a vice president of J.P. Morgan & Co. and amateur mycologist, along with his wife Valentina Pavlovna, visited her in the 1950s. Wasson and his wife participated in a velada, an all-night healing ceremony, where Sabina used psilocybin mushrooms as part of her rituals. This experience had a profound effect on Wasson, leading him to write an article about it in "Life" magazine in 1957 titled "Seeking the Magic Mushroom." This article drew widespread attention and put both Maria Sabina and the ritual use of psychedelic mushrooms on the map for Western audiences. It is often credited as the spark that ignited the psychedelic movement of the 1960s. People began to flock to Huautla de Jiménez to experience the psychedelic rituals firsthand.