I think a good starting point for our discussion would be the ancient Vedic culture of India one of the world's great and
One of the world's earliest religions the Rig Veda is is considered by all scholars. I think to be one of the most
beautiful composite of religious hymns and deep philosophical
discussions and and yet when one reads the Rig Veda carefully one discovers an enormous emphasis on a mysterious
apparently hallucinogenic substance called soma
Yes, you're quite right the ninth mandala of the Rig Veda is entirely devoted to singing the praises of
Soma, and yet we do not know
What soma is or was our Gordon Wasson spent a considerable portion of his life?
researching this problem and reached the conclusion that soma was Amanita muscaria a
Mushroom that is symbiotic to pine and birch trees throughout much of the North temperate zone
however
Scholars have cast doubt on his identification of soma nevertheless
What we learn from wasps and scholarship is that?
plants with hallucinogenic chemical principles in them have had an enormous impact on shaping the
psychology of various cultures both preliterate and literate throughout the world
It seems quite clear that the references to soma and the Rig Veda were not really symbolic they refer to some actual
Plant substance. Oh yes definitely
some sort of plant substance was prepared and ingested by a
priesthood who then used the ecstatic
Experience induced by that plant as the basis for all of their
metaphysical and philosophical
speculations on the nature of the universe
The case of soma is by no means unique
my own field of
Interest was the amazon basin where we don't have a great
In literature, but we do have an extensive oral tradition and a tradition
Of hallucinogenic plant use that persists to the present day
You
