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The Fly Agaric Mushroom

(Amanita Muscaria)

Written by OldTheRod in BP issue 11.

The recent prohibition of Psilocybin mushrooms has led to a resurgence of interest in the famous Amanita Muscaria mushroom as a still legally available psychedelic high. Long revered as a classic shamanic hallucinogen, the Fly Agaric’s history has been documented for well over a century and the bright red and white spotted cap has become synonymous with the fairy tale mythologies of almost every civilization, across all continents. It is well known! Yet the Fly Agaric has never really been popular amongst the counter- culture as a reliable hallucinogen and it is difficult to find anyone whose experiences with it have truly revealed the kind of visionary awareness common with its Tryptamine cousin the Psilocybin Mushroom. Is this difference purely chemical or is the Fly Agaric a psychedelic landscape unto itself?

The active chemical Ibotenic Acid is transformed upon drying the mushroom, decarboxylating to produce Muscimol ( 3-hydroxy-5-aminomethyl isoxazole ). Packets of Amanita sold in head shops have been pre-dried at 170 degrees ensuring that its' more toxic ingredients have been neutralized. One must be very careful when ingesting Amanita in the field and proper identification is paramount. Much negative folklore surrounds Amanita due to the deadly toxicity of its' near relatives such as the green capped Amanita Phalloides. The general rule is to avoid any Amanita with a green or a white cap. Perhaps it is wise to stick to the pre-packed headshop Amanitas until one is more experienced with field identification. I cannot emphasize the importance of correct identification enough. Though deaths from poisonous mushrooms are rare the vast percentage are from incorrect Amanita identification. I do not wish to scare unnecessarily but use of psychedelic fungi should always be approached very carefully.
The effective dose range for Amanita falls between about 7 to 15 dried grams…7 being a fairly small dose and 15 grams constituting a more serious psychedelic state. Anything above this range and… well, how long is a piece of string? As always, personal issues of metabolism and sensitivities to psychedelic states are a major factor in choosing the correct dose. Generally speaking, head shop packets of Amanita Muscaria represent a good dose to begin with. Once again the general rule is to do your homework! The Internet is your primary source of detailed information and most valuable personal reports.

The psychedelic effects of the Fly Agaric seem intimately bound up with the classic mythology of mushroom folklore. Tales range from minor visual and auditory hallucination, encounters with "the little people", right through to full blown immersion into the shamanic otherworld of spiritual death and rebirth. Users commonly feel the first real effects of Amanita in around 90 minutes. This can be preceded by sleepiness and feelings of anxiety and nausea, a dreamlike state accompanied by twitchiness in the limbs. Much like the adventures of Alice in Wonderland, users often report distortions in perspective of size and distance. The experience can last for around eight hours so it is wise to approach the mushroom seriously and try to make peace with the physical sensations, letting the mushroom lead. Once again correct identification is paramount beforehand…now is not the time to start tripping on the idea that one may have taken a poisonous mushroom! If anything is guaranteed to throw the explorer off balance it is this. More important is to try and rest in the knowledge that one has taken probably the oldest hallucinogen known to mankind, revered and regarded in great awe by many of the classic civilizations that have used psychedelic plants.

Despite millennia of human usage the Fly Agaric really came into common awareness in 1968 upon the publication of the book Soma Divine Mushroom of Immortality by Gordon Wasson. In this book Wasson, the father of Ethnomycology, proposed Amanita Muscaria as the true identity of Soma, divine ambrosia of the Indo-Aryan priests.

In the Rig Veda, regarded as the world's oldest religious document, over a hundred chapters are devoted to Soma. Despite much overwhelming evidence, probably the clinching factor of Wassons' argument were the references to drinking urine. Amongst the dozens of plants advanced by scholars as candidates for Soma, only Amanita Muscaria satisfied this criteria. Ibotenic Acid passes into the urine of the user and can be drunk by another person. Most ethnobotanists, among them the late Richard Evans Schultes, agree with Wassons' thesis. Certainly the anthropological data is full of references to the drinking of the shamans' urine after Amanita ingestion. Particularly explicit are the testaments gathered in Russia and Siberia over the last two centuries.

Though Siberia has long been regarded as the home of shamanic Amanita usage, European folklore is replete with references to its magical properties. We all have this unconscious reaction within us when we find its beautiful red and white spotted cap in the woods. Not all of this reaction is due to Disney! Deep down we just "know". I am sure that knowledge of this mushroom resides in us as a powerful archetypal instinct. There are many ethnobotanists who consider the Fly Agaric to lie behind almost all classic folklore and fairy tales, from the tree of life to Santa Claus. This is not the place to go into detail so I thoroughly implore the curious to research the work of Gordon Wasson and Ethnomycology. From here a new history of the World opens up before one and those spirits that lie forgotten in the deeper forests of the mind can again sing to us of man’s true heritage and purpose in this universe. Only the most sensitive fish discover the wetness of water!

Despite this it seems that users of Amanita vary wildly in their reports of its' psychedelic properties. The gulf between somatic and visionary experiences seems broader with Amanita than with any other mushroom. Perhaps it is worth noting that many cultures that use this mushroom are nomadic and live in landscapes which could be considered almost a form of sensory deprivation. Eskimo populations and of course Siberia, spring to mind.

Though Amanita can be physically hard work its visionary effects seem much more subtle. This is why many other plants have been suggested as candidates for Soma, among them cannabis, opium and datura. Ironically it now seems that Soma itself has become a substitute for the mighty Psilocybin mushroom. The fact is that the two are incomparable. Whereas a truly psychedelic dose of psilocybin can propel one into a maelstrom of hallucination, revealing dimensions of reality that are teeming with seemingly extra-terrestrial activity, the experience of Amanita seems almost pedestrian by comparison. But that is not entirely the case! After ingestion Amanita can induce a period of sleep characterized by an extremely lucid visionary dream state. Remembrances of the past and prophetic visions of the future unfold and deep internal conflicts can be resolved or at least revealed. It is here the truly healing qualities of Amanita are felt. Despite its undeservedly shady reputation as a hallucinogen there is a unique quality to its visions, as if reality drops its visible face and the lifeforce within pulses and is made visible to our perception. Objects morph into each other and all is made new and alive. The curious thing is that sometimes all this takes place without the intense psychedelic superimposition of colours commonly associated with LSD or Psilocybin. The world we rediscover is the world we are born to. Amanita connects us to our Earthiness…the ground beneath our feet.

The history and culture of Amanita is vast and difficult to cover in this short piece. Researching the literature on this mushroom there is one quote which truly strikes me as encompassing the depth and breadth of its' magical landscapes. In the words of a young Canadian Dogrib Athabascan, shamanic apprentice… "cleansed and ripe for vision I rise, a bursting ball of seeds in space…I have sung the note that shatters structure and the note that shatters chaos. And been bloody…I have been with the dead and attempted the labyrinth". Where my words end may his speak volumes.

OldTheRod