7 minutes read time
The Amanita muscaria, the famed red mushroom with white spots, offers a compelling ally for witches on the Poison Path.
Here is a bit about my favored mushroom friend and the spirit lessons they have revealed to me through a trickster lens: the grief, love, and wonderment of working with this beautiful “one-eyed” being.
One of the things that has emerged from my relationship with this mushroom is my childlike wonder, joy, and ability to laugh and stay ‘light on my feet’ through incredibly hard and deeply painful experiences.
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Deep in the Birch Forest Amanita’s Whisper Grows
I feel we cannot completely get to know Amanita without also acknowledging the ghostly white Birch tree, which exists in a symbiotic relationship with Amanitas.
Birch trees are considered a gateway to the spirit realm and will be an anchor for us as we venture into the world of Amanita muscaria.
Shamanic Echoes of Amanita muscaria
It is documented that prior to the Soviet era in Russia, the shamanic and recreational use of Amanita muscaria was widespread across Indigenous groups in Siberian Russia and Asia.
The Koryak people in the Kamchatka peninsula region of Eastern Russia are famously known for their relationship with the Amanita muscaria mushroom, which grows there amongst the pine and birch trees (1).
There is also some evidence of the ancient use of Amanita throughout Scandinavia, Northern Europe, and in Celtic cultures of times past. And even though the direct evidence of the ecstatic uses of the Amanita muscaria is scant, flashes of mystical mushroom use can be gleaned (1).
Arguments have been made for veiled references to the Fly Agaric in the poetic, magical, mythological, and sorcery traditions of pre-Christian cultures of Scandinavia and other Indo-European lineages.
Amanita Muscaria Calling Witches in Service to the Earth
In my experience, the spirit of Amanita muscaria is emerging as one possible mentor for those on a particularly earthy and witchy plant medicine path. Amanita muscaria is a trickster, yes, but can also be a benevolent teacher for witches called to the ways of ecstatic witchcraft.
I feel that the muscaria mushroom is working to help witches discover our place within the expanding world of plant medicine circles, psychedelics, and entheogenic healing.
This spirit is answering our cry for ancestral plant medicine traditions, especially for those who might come from broken or lost lineages. It is our job to respectfully engage with these medicines as humble seekers looking to rebuild what we have been cut off from.
The Bad Dürrenberg Shaman: Animistic Magic and the Roots of Ecstatic Witchcraft
Plant traditions are seeded and grown over many generations; all humans who have ever lived only exist because of the Earth. It is our birthright to bond with the planet which we are born from. The plant medicine path is one gateway into the incredible wonder of being alive on this Earth.
For those who might feel destined, or dare I say fated, to work with this mushroom, the trials can be arduous. But in my perspective, they can be well worth it for those who make it through the dense brushes with the raging wild.
This mushroom landscape can eventually open to the blissful and ecstatic mysteries of the Earth and the heart of Faerie that lies beyond it.
Fly Agaric Medicine Circles: Witchy Tricksters Unite!
Amanita muscaria has shown me a deeply loving and playful side that asks us to embrace the true unknown; to drink in the unpredictability and bizarreness of being human in this realm. This is what makes working with Fly Agaric so thrilling, and also so wild and mercurial!
Amanita muscaria is a trickster and mileage can vary. There is great potency for developing one’s magical power by not ingesting Amanita muscaria and instead just building a connection through the spirit realm. This is entirely possible and when one is ready to work with the physical medicine, if ever, you will know.
As a trickster ally, Amanita muscaria can bring the following themes into this plant medicine path:
- Absurdity
- Unpredictability
- Contradiction
- Disruption
- Irreverence
- Humor
- Liberation
- Reversal
I have learned first-hand the trickster vibration of this mushroom spirit. The consciousness of Amanita mushrooms is distinct; it carries its own quirkiness into the plant medicine space. A unique entheogenic medicine, it is a vastly different experience from traditional psychedelics.
Another side to this trickster spirit, however, is also as a guide into the ecstasies of the spirit realm! Let’s go there next.
It allows the inner child to breathe and the adult version of us to embody what it feels like to be alive.
The Ecstasy of Amanita Muscaria
Amanita muscaria also treats us to the euphoria of its ecstatic mysteries. It does not tend to be so much of an inward self-reflective journey but one that drops us into an awareness of the web of life, tangled up with the fate of everyone else.
Like other entheogenic experiences, we can see patterns and come to astounding realizations about our place within creation. We also don’t need to feel so central and can depart from the ego just enough to gain perspective without losing ourselves or our footing.
One of the things that I have found Amanita muscaria does is help us to relax and unwind! To laugh at ourselves and our self-absorption and to come into an honest relationship with our unique but limited personal perception.
In the right preparation Fly Agaric encourages us to dance, drum, and sing, opening ourselves to love and connection while releasing ourselves from rigid control and tightness. It allows the inner child to breathe and the adult version of us to embody what it feels like to be alive.
The Grief in Trickster Awareness
One of Amanita’s offerings to us can be the discovery and acceptance of the profound joy, bliss, and pain that come with being human. Working with this mushroom spirit opens our hearts to ourselves, so we can partake in the acute beauty and gift in this very strange collective experience upon the Earth.
There is a level of grief that can bubble up when working with the trickster aspects of Amanita mushrooms. The awareness can be so profound, and even sad or melancholic at times. But entheogenic plant medicine paths seem to have the intelligence to give us what we need; to reveal the specific work that certain pockets of humans are doing in tandem with the Earth and its spirits.
Amanita muscaria in particular seems to be opening the way for letting go, for finding humor, adaptability, love, and joy, even when things don’t work out, even when we are traumatized and in pain. This doesn’t mean spiritual bypassing or ignoring the truth of the experience. We get to carry it all, our grief, our pain, our shadows, and blanket it in lightness, beauty, pleasure, and ecstasy.
This mushroom disrupts our relationship with predictability, and instead of doubling down with more control, the spirit of Amanita helps us unearth the trickster within ourselves. So we can lighten our load and still ride the waves of existence with misty eyes of wonderment and enchantment.
Disclaimers
Please note that this article is just my perspective; your experiences can be completely different. There are many forms a plant medicine path can take. This article is for entertainment and education and enrichment only. I am not suggesting you ingest amanita mushrooms. The Amanita muscaria mushroom may have legal, regulatory, or health risks (2). Also be aware of deathly toxic Amanita species like Amanita phalloides (3)
References
- Fly Agaric: A compendium of History, Pharmacology, Mythology, and Exploration edited by Kevin Feeney. Fly Agaric Press, 2020
- Info on Amanita muscaria
- Amanita phalloides, toxic amanitas
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