A few years up to now, I was known as as an educated witness in a authorized case involving trance and possession. The circumstances of the case often should not essential to this textual content nonetheless, to not go away you hanging, wanted to do with an individual who had flown to the UK from Nigeria and was found to be carrying cocaine when he was stopped by Customs Officers. His defence was that he had been entranced, or most likely drugged, by a gaggle of males who had planted the cocaine on him sooner than he boarded the airplane.
What was further fascinating for me was that I purchased to have lunch with one different educated witness, a toxicologist from one in every of many UK’s major educating hospitals, who had a keen curiosity in mycology and consider to publish a e book on the sacred use of fly-agaric (Amanita muscaria) in non secular therapeutic and historic warriorship practices.
Due to his analysis, he had not too way back labored with a TV manufacturing agency who had made a documentary with him to test one in every of his non-public pet theories: that the Zulu Battle was fought by the indigenous of us under intoxication from the sacred mushroom. This had given them, not solely superhuman energy and imperviousness to ache, nonetheless a manner of fearlessness and their very personal divine goal in battle. It was this that had helped them go away the sphere victorious, he claimed.
Clearly, the TV agency couldn’t stage one different battle to test this concept, nonetheless what they could do – and did – was to get two martial arts consultants right into a hoop to fight it out for the cameras.
Throughout the first part of this experiment, the combatants met equally and fought a few rounds collectively. Neither emerged as a clear winner on this rigorously matched contest.
Throughout the second half, nonetheless, one in every of many fighters was given 5 strips of fly-agaric to devour. He was allowed to leisure whereas it took affect, after which every fighters met as soon as extra.
In addition to they didn’t, exactly. Consistent with the educated I was chatting with (curiously, over a lunch of mushroom paella), the fighter who had taken fly-agaric merely flew all through the ring as shortly as a result of the bell rang, hardly even touching the underside, and threw his opponent so onerous that he ended up on the bottom exterior the ropes. The intoxicated fighter certainly not even broke a sweat and was not respiration at one thing above common ranges when his opponent was counted out.
Utilization and outcomes of fly-agaric
Throughout the trendy West, now we have now misplaced most of our historic ceremonial practices and not think about in a ‘spirit world’. Consequently, fly-agaric (whether or not it’s thought-about the least bit) is regarded solely as a dangerous and doubtless poisonous ‘drug’, fairly than a path to the divine.
In his e book, Ploughing The Clouds, nonetheless, Peter Lamborn Wilson argues convincingly that fly-agaric simply isn’t solely the sacred Soma referred to inside the Rg Veda, nonetheless that it was utilized in lots of European nations and was moreover central to the Irish Keltic customized of shamanism, which nonetheless continues in its basic type, as we converse.
The mushrooms themselves, vibrant purple with white spots, are gathered for ritual use in these traditions by way of the most popular months of the 12 months – July and August – after they’re most infused with the side of hearth and the breath of the photo voltaic/Sky Father. In all probability essentially the most extremely efficient mushrooms, in fact, are talked about to dry themselves, capable of be picked for his or her communion with man. These are thought-about far ‘stronger’ than these picked early and dried artificially. Smaller mushrooms are moreover talked about to have so much higher vitality than greater ones, and it seems most likely, from trendy experimentation, that their narcotic outcomes are literally further intense by way of the early rising half.
For non-ritual utilization, the mushrooms are utilized in so much the an identical means as coca leaves inside the Peruvian Andes, to create a fragile shift in consciousness, accompanied by mild euphoria and elevated vitality. In such utilization, the mushrooms are merely rolled proper right into a ball and swallowed complete, with out chewing. One greater mushroom (Three-4cm) or 2-Three small ones is ample.
For prescribed ritual utilization, nonetheless, various mushrooms are often consumed, usually in a set, or models, of three. “The Rg Veda always speaks of Soma in models of three cups and, in Siberia as we converse, three Amanitas are nonetheless thought-about the right ritual dose”, says Wilson.
An elaborate ceremony will often accompany the ritual consumption of ‘magic mushrooms’. This may take the kind of a ‘hunt’ for the mushroom, adopted by the ‘killing’ of its spirit by symbolically attacking it with spears, golf gear, or arrows, so it’s ‘made protected’ for human ingestion. It’s then prepared in a time-honoured means which is designed the least bit ranges to honour its vitality, stay away from its wrath and, on the an identical time, purchase administration of its non secular drive. Solely then is the mushroom eaten, under extraordinarily contained, sacred conditions, and in a Holy space defended by the shaman, who will lead the ritual all by way of.
As quickly as ingested, what we would identify the ‘narcotic’ outcomes of fly-agaric begin after about 30 minutes.
Outwardly, the intoxication may appear as involuntary muscle spasms, adopted by a manner of the fluidity of actuality and sensory disorientation. Generally, there’s vomiting, all through which complete mushrooms is also regurgitated. Paradoxically, nonetheless, this often serves to intensify the otherworldly sensations of flight and entry to a ‘non-ordinary’ space.
Inwardly, the shaman, and those who partake of this sacrament, for the time being are in communion with the gods.
Consistent with one description at Erowid.org, which, possibly, bridges the opening between outward affect and inward sensation, the impression of fly-agaric is that “the nerves are extraordinarily stimulated and the slightest effort of will produces very extremely efficient outcomes. If one must step over a small stick, he steps and jumps as if the obstacles had been tree trunks. If an individual is ordinarily talkative, his speech is now fastened, and he involuntarily blurts out secrets and techniques and methods, completely aware of his actions and aware of his secret, nonetheless unable to hold himself in confirm. An individual who’s eager on dancing dances, and a music-lover sings incessantly. Others run or stroll pretty involuntarily, with none intention of transferring”.
Two of most likely essentially the most fascinating factors of amanita muscaria are that it retains its effectiveness just about fully, and that its outcomes are merely transmitted to others, notably by way of ingestion of urine from the first explicit particular person to eat the mushrooms. The an identical affect might be transmitted to a third, fourth or fifth explicit particular person in exactly the an identical means.