AlexMac

The beautiful, red, fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) is unmistakable with its bright red cap covered with white scales. It contains the toxic alkaloid, muscimole, which is derived from ibotenic acid-an amino acid. In Europe these mushrooms were reportedly left in open dishes to kill flies; however, according to some authorities, flies are merely stunned or stupefied by the toxin, and may even regain control and fly away.
Although the fly agaric is poisonous to humans, there are other species of Amanita that are much more dangerous and are potentially lethal if ingested. Some of the dangerously poisonous species of Amanita are death cap (A. phalloides), death angel (A. ocreata), and panther amanita (A. pantherina). Fortunately these latter deadly poisonous species are not bright red and are seldom confused with A. muscaria; however, they may be confused with other edible mushrooms by inexperienced gourmets.
In sublethal doses, the fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) may produce visions and delirium, and it is perhaps one of the oldest known hallucinogens. Recent studies suggest that this mushroom was the mysterious God-narcotic “Divine Soma” of ancient India. Thousands of years ago, Aryan conquerors who swept across India, worshiped soma, drinking it in religious ceremonies. Many hymns in the Indian Rig-Veda are devoted to soma and describe the mushroom and its effects. There are reports of Siberian tribesmen who ingested the mushroom to get intoxicated. Since the active chemical passes through the body relatively unaltered, others would drink the urine from these men to get high. This way a few mushrooms could inebriate many people relatively safely and efficiently. Lapland shamans eat fly agaric mushrooms for enlightenment and some authors think this may have given rise to the flying reindeer and the red and white-costumed Santa Claus legends.
The infamous fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria). The umbrellalike cap and stalk extend out of a cup-shaped volva. The scales on the cap are remnants of the universal veil that once enveloped the entire cap.

Amanita muscaria was also one of the sacred hallucinogenic mushrooms of the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs. Other psychedelic genera included Psilocybe, Paneolus, Conocybe and Stropharia. For the Indians of Mexico, Central and South America, partaking of these mushrooms was a deeply religious experience, enabling them to communicate with their gods. Cortez reported a mushroom (resembling Amanita muscaria) being eaten during the coronation of Montezuma, and in Guatemala stone carvings dating back to 1000 BC depict curious figures with umbrella-like tops resembling the caps and stalks of an Amanita mushroom. Mushrooms are also depicted in ancient Peruvian vessels and in Mexican Codices. One drawing shows an animal-like messenger from god offering the sacred Amanita to a ruler seated on a throne. And a fresco in a Roman Catholic Church in Plaincouralt (Indre), France depicts Adam and Eve on either side of a tree of knowledge that is unequivocally a branched Amanita mushroom.

Some authors have suggested that the original story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice speaks to a green caterpillar who is seated on a red- and white-capped mushroom, is the interpretation of a mushroom experience by the author, Rev. C.L. Dodgson of Christ Church College in Oxford (better known by his pen name of Lewis Carroll). Other students of Amanita and the story of Alice in Wonderland contend that this interpretation is an unsubstantiated rumor. In fact, the selection of a thick-stemmed, red-capped mushroom with white bumps (resembling Amanita muscaria) actually came from the book’s illustrator, Sir John Tenniel. Our modern interpretation of the story has certainly been influenced by Tenniel’s illustrations. Another hallucinogenic “high” that is commonly depicted in paintings and children’s stories is the infamous, “politically incorrect” picture of a witch flying on a broom—the effects of a potion made from the deadly alkaloids of several solanaceous herbs, including jimsonweed (Datura stramonium).

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