Oh yeah, the best combination there is for Amanita muscaria is together with Cannabis and Ginger. Ginger calms the stomach, the same does Cannabis, in addition to give exactly what is needed to provide a full Amanita experience. It can't really be explained... Amanita and Cannabis is just a perfect combination. One example is that Amanita makes you salivate a lot, while Cannabis has the exact opposite effect. The list goes on...

Thanks evening glory. Yeah i've read some good reports and some bad reports about them but it seems like if done the right way it can be a good experience, so i'm probably going to give it a shot sometime and get my feet a little wet.

I think universe cannon, that another aspect that might be important is to pick them yourself with the intention of what you want them for in mund when you pick them..not sure though, I have never bought them, only picked them myself..they are quite common in many places in the world..usually if there are pine.oak,fir or birch trees there will be amanitas at one time during the year..depending on rain...I usually pick alot more than I need, I like to share these alot...sometimes sneeking them into the spagetti sauce at a pot-luck and watching peoples reactions...its always been beautifull to witness!!!

Because im not historian, its impossible for me to suss this one out. But i have come to a healthy conclusion that somewhere in all parts of time through out the entire planet, someone somewhere was tripping balls. Its deeply ingrained in to us, and for reasons both blindingly obvious and completely evasive: I and others will continue to do so for all of time. Prohibition is a fools game.

Ive come to associate the word soma with many things, from aya to a joint.
But it sure in interesting reading the historical and archeological work of others.

Magic potions go with magicks for sure Nice one xtechre

The fact that people have been using these substances for years and years is indeed very interesting. Whatever Soma was, the fact remains that humans have seen it as something very important in their lives, kinda like the people on the Nexus and all people i know of who take this a bit serious.

I haven't done Amanita yet, but i find it to be a plausable explenation. Maybe the use of Soma has changed through the years, and changed ingredients.

I was just wondering about you guys who have tried it? Did you find the Amanita in your area? And is it true that there is a mushrooms that is very smilar but very dangerous aswell?

Thanks for all the reactions by the way, didn't expect this kind of discussion.

Peace
Elpo

IME fly agaric grows on the edge of forests, in moist but not sloppy soils, in late autumn. There's lots in the South UK...check Erowid for a better description of habitats and seasons

In answer to the last question...

ALL UN-IDENTIFIED FUNGI CAN BE CONSIDERED DANGEROUS

The Amanita family does have some pretty unpleasant members...make sure that you check, double-check, and triple-check that what you are looking at is what you think you're looking at. Again, Erowid has lots of info.

When mushroom foraging (be it for Psilocybes or Amanitas) it is worthwhile having a mycologists pictorial fieldguide.

It always helps to have an experienced forager or mycologist along with you aswell.

Happy hunting

We are talking about Amanita muscaria here. You must seriously be a complete retard if you misidentify this mushroom, no one looks even remotely the same. You should, however, not pick A. muscarias where the white spots have been washed away from rain, if you are not experienced. Some toxic mushroom can be mistaken if you only look for the color. But then again, you must be a retard if you try to identify anything only based on the color.

Amanita pantherina, on the other hand, is something totally different. That one is a bit harder, but still very easy to identify. It also has a very different energy than muscaria. I prefer muscaria any time.

Anyone is a retard who goes out foraging without doing the required research. There is a stupidly high number of folks that have gone out, made assumptions, and ended up in hospital.

Fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) is indeed ridiculously easy to identify (as are most of the Amanitas), but it does pay to check.

Is the ''pick em yourself'' concern about respecting the Amanita spirit or just to be sure to have the right kind of mushrooms sold to you ?

Because I might be interested in buying some in the future if theres none where I live.

Personally...love of money is the root of all evil...not money itself. If you go and pick them yourself then you have the oppurtunity to ask the 'guardian spirit' of the mushroom it's permission for you to harvest (as was common practice in ancient times). Also if you go and pick them yourself you can be 100% positive that you've got what you wanted (and it's free).

It is understandable that not everyone lives near areas of excellent mycotic growth, so buying things instead shouldn't have any ethical stigma.

Good luck and blessings for your endeavours

Thanks for clarifications Sunshine !

Ac.

From Theosophical Glossary by HP Blavatsky. 1892.


Soma (Sk.). The moon, and also the juice of the plant of that name used in the temples for trance purposes; a sacred beverage. Soma, the moon, is the symbol of the Secret Wisdom. In the Upanishads the word is used to denote gross matter (with an association of moisture) capable of producing life under the action of heat. (See “ Soma-drink ”.)



Soma-drink. Made from a rare mountain plant by initiated Brahmans. This Hindu sacred beverage answers to the Greek ambrosia or nectar, quaffed by the gods of Olympus. A cup of Kykeôn was also quaffed by the Mystes at the Eleusinian initiation. He who drinks it easily reaches Bradhna, or the place of splendour (Heaven). The Soma-drink known to Europeans is not the genuine beverage, but its substitute; for the initiated priests alone can taste of the real Soma; and even kings and Rajas, when sacrificing, receive the substitute. Haug, by his own confession, shows in his Aitareya Brâhmana, that it was not the Soma that he tasted and found nasty, but the juice from the roots of the Nyagradha, a plant or bush which grows on the hills of Poona. We were positively informed that the majority of the sacrificial priests of the Dekkan have lost the secret of the true Soma. It can be found neither in the ritual books nor through oral information. The true followers of the primitive Vedic religion are very few; these are the alleged descendants of the Rishis, the real Agnihôtris, the initiates of the great Mysteries. The Soma drink is also commemorated in the Hindu Pantheon, for it is called King-Soma. He who drinks thereof is made to participate in the heavenly king; he becomes filled with his essence, as the Christian apostles and their converts were. filled with the Holy Ghost, and purified of their sins. The Soma makes a new man of the initiate; he is reborn and transformed, and his spiritual nature overcomes the physical; it bestows the divine power of inspiration, and develops the clairvoyant faculty to the utmost. According to the exoteric explanation the soma is a plant, but at the same time it is an angel. It forcibly connects the inner, highest “ spirit” of man, which spirit is an angel like the mystical Soma, with his “irrational soul ”, or astral body, and thus united by the power of the magic drink, they soar together above physical nature and
participate during life in the beatitude and ineffable glories of Heaven, Thus the Hindu Soma is mystically and in all respects the same that the Eucharist supper is to the Christian. The idea is similar. By means of the sacrificial prayers—the mantras—this liquor is supposed to be immediately transformed into the real Soma, or the angel, and even into Brahmâ himself. Some missionaries have expressed themselves with much indignation about this ceremony, the more so, seeing that the Brahmans generally use a kind of spirituous liquor as a substitute. But do the Christians believe less fervently in the transubstantiation of the communion wine into the blood of Christ, because this wine happens to be more or less spirituous? Is not the idea of the symbol attached to it the same? But the missionaries say that this hour of soma-drinking is the golden hour of Satan, who lurks at the bottom of the Hindu sacrificial cup. (Isis Unveiled.)



Soma-loka (Sk.). A kind of lunar abode where the god Soma, the regent of the moon, resides. The abode of the Lunar Pitris—or Pitriloka.

From Shamanic Illness by Marcus Rummery (not published yet)


Psychedelics are rare on the eastern hemisphere but everywhere on the "new" side of the earth. Around 3 700 B.C.E. peyote and san pedro cactus rituals were likely practiced there and about 4 000 B.C.E. aminata muscaria was used in Siberia where the term and modern conception "shaman" emerged.

Although some scholars disagree aminata muscaria may have been at least an active ingredient in the ancient Iranian haoma and Indian Soma around 2 000 B.C.E. and 400 years later the Eleusinian mysteries began in Greece the heart of which was libation kykeon.

The exact nature of Soma, Haoma and kykeon were protected secrets and so the specific ingredients are not confirmed, but given the established properties of psychedelic drugs they were likely present.
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The Rig Veda is the world's oldest and largest religious text consisting of just over one thousand Hymns, containing over ten thousand verses divided into ten books and dating from as early as 2 000 B.C.E. but first recorded in 1 000 BCE. Although two other vedas complete the Hindu version of the bible the Rig Veda is the foundation of Indian religion and philosophy.


In almost every one of the thousand hymns reference is made to the Divine Plant "soma" and one hundred and fourteen are devoted exclusively to it. Soma was a divine plant that, unlike with other cultures that have integrated these substances the plant itself was considered a deity.
It is conceivable that soma contained many plants and other ingredients because the medicinal properties it is praised as possessing transcend the facilitation of spiritual experience.

The sacred hymns were the collected work of intoxicated "seers and sages" and are filled ecstatic praise of the God/drink referring to its mountainous natural habitat, brilliant red or gold appearance, the processing sequence used to make the drink and extolling it's healing and life-extending virtues.

8 XLVIII 3-5 & 11,12

3. We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered. Now what a foeman's malice do to harm us? What, O Immortal, a mortal man's deception?

4. Absorbed into the heart, be sweet, O drop, as a kind father to his son, O Soma, As a wise Friend to friend: do thou, wide-ruler, O Soma, lengthen out days for living.

5. These glorious drops that give me freedom have I drunk. Closely they knit my joints as straps secure a chariot. Let them protect my foot from slipping on the way: yea let the drops I drink preserve me from disease.

11. Our maladies have lost their strength and vanished; they feared, and passed away into the darkness. Soma hath risen in us, exceedingly mighty, and we have come to where men prolong existence.

12. Fathers, that which our hearts have drunken, Immortal in himself, hath entered mortals. So let us serve this Soma with oblation, and rest securely in grace and favour.

The fact that Soma was taken not just by priests, pursuing religious ecstasy in the context of ritual, but was taken by others, daily for a long period of time, indicates the drink was prepared differently for different purposes.

Psychic powers were cultivated by the drug in combination with the ritual that encouraged them. Yoga is first recorded at 400 BCE but must have existed long before that as part of the same religious environment that produced the Soma bible.

At around 2 000 BCE the Aryans of Asia split into three tribes, one settled in India drinking soma and one settled in Persia drinking haoma in a remarkably similar religious system.

Hi Guys,
Hey I have thought of this for a while and I am pretty sure that the legendary Soma must be some variation of Ayahuasca, I mean it makes no sense at all to suggest things like ephedra or amanita muscaria. People dont seem to realise that both cannabis, betelnuts and until recently opium is a natural part of the life and culture over there, and have been for thousands of years (Yes I have been to India several times and have not just read about this), so how could then Soma be something with less effect on humans than these plants? The description is that it shows you the spirit world and celestial dimensions.

I also think It must be the Tree of Knowledge (This could apply to entheogens in general though..)
What does people think of this? I would be very happy to hear anyones thoughts regarding this since it actually is one of the most important things in our human experience.

I think the Tree of Knowledge is language. It is through the acquisition of language that one is displaced from Paradise.

Global,
Yeah that's an interesting idea wich kindof is what my signature refers too.
I should have mentioned though that my theory with Aya being the Tree of Knowledge includes that the story in the bible has been corrupted and that my idea of what happened is that the Kundalini inspired them to take the Aya which showed them the knowledge of reality as being multi dimensional etc. In my mind this didn't mean they where thrown out of paradise or anything like that, I think the real story has been changed since it as we know is difficult to dominate and control people eho know too much. Anyway its just what I think lol.

..I feel like it had more to do with the annunaki than to do with language personally..leaving eden..

In reguards to soma..soma is not thought to have been just one plant...it was many many plants.

Desmodium gangeticum I believe in sanskrit was called something that referenced it being "rich in soma juice" and it is a known DMT containing plant, along wit containing some other stuff..

Im sure they knew about many of these types of plants.

When I say "Paradise" I refer to the "ideal" pre-lingual mental state of bliss. I highly suggest you read "Psychedelic Anthropology" by Allan Coult. If you click on the link and scroll through to the seventh post by VII (ironically enough) you'll find a free download of the book. The very first chapter if I remember correctly deals with The Tree of Life and the Garden as its main focal points which become the foundation for the rest of the book.

Thanks Jamie and Global for your valuable input