| Several old folk sayings are still used in native countries to describe someone who is “bemushroomed.” In Yugoslavia they say, “He has eaten enough of the fool’s mushroom.” In Vienna the saying goes “He has eaten the mad mushroom.” These saying didn’t start in the sixties, they have been in use for ages in the old country. (2) In Barcelona, the phrase used is “He is touched by the mushroom,” which is the same phrase used in Austria, Yugoslavia and Hungary. An informant of Wasson’s by the name of Joseph Barba Formosa believes the use of the term entered Spain when refugees from France in the year 1300, fleeing the Cathar and Albigensian Crusades, crossed over and settled in the nearby towns and villages. (3) A popular German children’s nursery rhyme is remembered by everyone from childhood which I quote here: A manikin stands in the wood Stock-still and mute He has a purple pure A mantle around him. Say, who may the manikin be Who stands there on one leg? Alternative ending: Say, who may the manikin be Who stands there in the wood alone With the purple red mantle? Then all the children yell out “Happy Mushroom.” (5) Europeans have a long-held belief that the amanitas or fly agaric is poisonous. Personally, I have a close friend I grew up with, who was an experienced tripper, a true psychonaut. He commented to me, when I first picked some amanitas that he thought you had to pick off the scabs or flakes of the veil otherwise you would get poisoned. It’s very possible that this occurred because people at one point had eaten phalloid or pantherina, two species of amanita which can cause death. The stigma may have occurred as well due to intentional superstitions spread by the orthodox patriarchy. However, current science and our modern understanding of the A. muscaria have led to lots of experimentation and so far, a record of death or high toxicity has not been documented. It’s also interesting to note, that nowhere in the world that I know of, is possession of A. muscaria illegal. It’s against many laws to consume it for recreational purposes, but the mushroom itself may be consumed fresh with no “recreational effects” and eaten just as any edible mushroom. So, therefore, customs in local areas sometimes prevail upon laws intended to prevent pleasure. (6) According to Wasson, the first European use of the word “Soma” was in 1784 in the form of Charles Wilkin’s English translation of the Bhagavad Gita. The earliest citation for soma appearing in the Oxford dictionary was in 1827. In it, the editor included a note: “Soma is the name of a creeper, the juice of which is commanded to be drunk at the conclusion of a sacrifice.” It was not until the 1830’s, Wasson claims that Soma first began to be investigated for its potential mysteries. (7) |
Exploring Shamanism’s Caves and Chasms The definition of a shaman would be a person who is held to be the representative of the tribe who, being concerned about his “family” will take measures, endure sacrifices, and go to great lengths to reach the collective heart and mind of the whole of the tribe and at the same time, venture into the “otherworld” to gather information, healing abilities and gather spiritual “tools” that will be beneficial to the tribespeople upon her or his return. Usually they take drugs or combinations of herbal elixirs, and remedies that have been understood to heal or bring about certain results. The shamans had to know somehow which plants were safe and which were poisonous and how to apply each one for its particular purpose. Many scholars and historians speculate as to how this happened. The shamans themselves usually say, “The plants told us.” In the 1960s and 1970’s the general public was just starting to take a serious look into the past in relation to shamanism and some of these early quotes reveal how far advanced these authors were at the time, and how far we have advanced since then, in our understanding of shamanic cultures. Dolmatoff, in The Shaman and Jaguar, writes: “If we observe the close relationship between drug-induced hallucination and such aspects as mythology, social organization, and artistic creation, we must conclude that the study of hallucinogenic plants and their use by native shamans provides the key to an understanding of many basic cultural processes. It is the hallucinatory experience which, at least among the Tukano, constitutes the common basis of most cultural activities, and the same is probably true for many other native cultures in which ecstatic states are known to be part of shamanic practice.” (8) (2) http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/pre/pre04.htm (3) Persephone’s Quest, p. 71 (4) ibid, p. 72 (5) Persephone’s Quest, p. 72-73 (6) Soma, Wasson, p. 152 (7) ibid, p. 7-8 (8) Shamanism and Drug Propaganda, p. 19; Reichal-Dolmatoff, G., The Shaman and the Jaguar, Temple University Press, 1975: 173ff |