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Swyfty Swyf said:
Hey Entropymancer, you mentioned that you are writing a book on  Amanita muscaria.

Are you going to include a chapter on the mushroom's influence on folklore and religious history?

I think there is about as much misinformation on that subject as there is in regard to the effects of Amanita muscaria.

I saw a documentary awhile ago called the Pharmacratic Inquisition, and the producers seemed to make a lot of unsupported statements, including references to Christ and the apostles taking Amanita muscaria.

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It's actually a book on the major drugs that have long histories of human use, with 45-80 page monographs on each.  I'm currently working on the Amanita muscaria monograph. I figure I can find a periodical willing to publish each monograph as it's completed, perhaps the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, or maybe even the Bulletin on Narcotics for irony points (after all, they published similar pieces by Shulgin decades ago)

And yeah, a great deal of the section on the history of western awareness of the mushroom will be focused on all the mystical misinformation that draws itself around Amanita muscaria.  The Soma hypothesis is pretty shaky on its own.  Most of the other claims are completely and unabashedly baseless: Odman's hypothesis that the berserkers took it before battle, Puharich's claims of its widespread religious use throughout ancient Egypt (based on having a medium communicate with Egyptian spirits ), Allegro's vitriolic Jesus=fly agaric=penises, penises, and erupting penises (just an angry attemt to discredit the church, with whom he'd had a falling out), Crowley's hypothesis of it's prominence in secret Buddhist gnosticism, Ruck's "discovery" of the mushroom in the fleece of the Argonauts and in the fire Prometheus brought from heaven. Heinrich's hypothesis that Moses was part of a fly agaric cult, as well as the mushroom being the Holy Grail and the "prima materia" of the alchemists, Wilson's "discovery" of the fly agaric in Irish folklore, the hypothesis of the fly agaric behind Christmas, etc.

Then there's those like James Arthur who swallow it all hook-line-and-sinker. In his Mushrooms and Mankind talk, Arthur tells us that "once you understand the symbolism, you start seeing mushrooms everywhere." Not surprising when dozens of very simple ordinary things (rock, egg, snake, bird, wheel, disc, penis, anything red, anything liquid, etc. etc.) are your sure-fire symbols indicating secret hidden use of the fly agaric.

Thanks for reminding me of the Pharmacratic Inquisition folks, by the way. I'd forgotten them, but they're a great source for these fly agaric myths as well.

Personally, I've come to be of the opinion that Soma was not the fly agaric.  As to the rest of it, it's all basically unfounded nonsense.  Perhaps through sheer dumb luck one of the above hypotheses might be true (for reasons I can't explain, the fly agaric use by a Buddhist cult seems the most plausible to me)

But what's really ironic is that all of the mystical hypotheses are founded on the fly agaric's reputation as the "entheogen par excellence".... and yet the vast vast majority of actual fly agaric use by humans seems to be primarily (in fact, almost entirely) recreational in nature.  The Siberian shamans are the only ones known to use it in a ritual context, and they are in the extreme minority among Siberian fly agaric eaters.  It was much more common as a social intoxicant.

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Teh_Face said:
I have some in my room right now, just bought an Ounce of the second best grade you can get.

I have tried the crappiest grade, and got no effects.

The difference (at least visually) between the two grades is way different. The Grade As are only 4 huge caps in the O, while the B ones were mostly stems and small oddshaped caps. The A caps also have more of the white warts, which I have heard are wanted.

Im going to be trying them tomorrow morning. Ill let you know.

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