It is not the intention of the author, Pagan Ireland, Castle Pook or any of the people involved in these groups to encourage the injesting of drugs of any sort.

It is rather an invite to open informed and intelligent exchange on the subject.

The author has a lifetime of country-experience and is a practising herberer with a long experience of wild fungi.

One should never eat wild fungus without the benefit of proper knowledge, as some are extremely effective poisons and can kill if taken in small doses.

 
 

Botanicals in Shamanism.

The first step of the journey is in that half-dream state.

A dream that showed amid the twilight floor of an ancient oak grove clusters of small brown fungi growing in the great rotted mulch of leaf & branch, with the shaman's dreaming self to sit and meditate, absorbing and being absorbed by these beings.

As herbalist and ethnobotanist, the shamanic dreaming self reaches, picks, and brings to nose: scenting and sensing the mushroom. And with all senses alive, sensing no alarm, he tastes.

And the wait, sitting amidst the quiet and musty stillness until, flickering on the edge of unconscious vision somehow sliding into vision a heightened perceptual state. Another wait, no sickness.


So, another mushroom.
Over the next hours, as twilight deepens, a sense of growing-vision of nearness and treeness. An opening of magical and shamanic being, and all through it the slow deep rhythm of the ancient oaks.

Five hours and five mushrooms and the peaking vision strikes fire wherever life flows. I am in full perceptual interface with my inner state and external environment. Visuals of green fire trace every line of life in tree and being, looking down with inner eye I see the myceli like a web of light throughout the rich humus of the forest floor and I am pulsed with the tremendous harmony of it, without ever once losing the sense of my own personal being.

 

I Consciously switch to a different level of receptivity, make a linear study of my progression in this journey and see clear without any hazing of understanding. Five mushrooms over a period of approximately five hours: a gentle lifting to a peaking with aural/visual and perceptual shifting quite dramatically displayed. Slight lightness about the belly, but no noticeable nausea. Stand and walk, do some exercise. Look at my watch, set myself small disciplines to accomplish. Over a period of half an hour I can find no seeming of any material malfunction. Very strong perceptual shifts. Walking through a potential multiplicity of worlds.

 

 

Shamanic self:
All about me a glowing web of lifelights, each state of being pulsing in a different shade of green/gold. Myself aflame with this Am pulsing as part of the greater harmonic.

Next five hours saw a gradual lessening until all the worlds homogenized into the one. No disorientation, slight empty feeling about the stomach. Very tired. Roll up to sleep. Sleep 6 hours, awake feeling no disorientation, no displacia, no lack of well-being at all. Remembering everything, return to site of trip. Here again, no disorientation merely a heightened sense of being.

I feel that the gift of nature held in this little mushroom has awakened in me hitherto unexplored by-ways of my own psyche, and my psychic interface with the multiple worlds of nature about me. There was that in the experience of inward-looking, exploration of potential selves that was not at this time explored in depth. So much accomplished in this short journey, so many possibilities for other journeys.

Since this experience, I have twice visited, and twice journeyed. I find the experience consistant each time, though the journeys have been very different. A feeling of being very aware of Self, with at the same time an almost euphoric one-ness with all the other states of being, and the surrounding environment.

I would conclude that this is as powerful as any natural tool available. That it has incredible possibilities when used within a spiritual discipline, with care, sense, and proper respect. As an alternative to chemical dance/trance drugs, in small doses it surpasses most of it's rivals. Although now quite rare, it is a native Irish plant, once much more widespread, so was most-certainly available to our ancestors. This plant is (as far as I can ascertain) non-harmful, though I believe it is very important that the experience of it is undertaken in a proper and thoughtful manner.

 

Peter Lambourne Wilson has written about "The Irish Soma", and I am much inclined to believe that this fungus is that very plant. Contour Outline Drawing

Bev.

Pagan Ireland.