Soma: divine mushroom of immortality

By R. Gordon Wasson

Book Overview

One of the key enigmas of cultural history has been the identity of a sacred plant called Soma in the ancient Rig Veda of India. Mr. Wasson has aroused considerable attention in learned circles and beyond by advancing and documenting the thesis that Soma was a hallucinogenic mushroom - none other than the Amanita muscaria, the fly-agaric that until recent times was the centre of shamanic rites among the Siberian and Uralic tribesmen. In his presentation he throws fascinating light on the role of mushrooms in religious ritual. A section on the post-Vedic history of Soma is contributed by the Sanskrit scholar Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty. Brian C. Muraresku in his best selling book, The Immortality Key: The Secret History Of The Religion With No Name, used Robert Gordon Wassons work: Soma The Divine Mushroom Of Immortality as one of his research tools. Brian C. Muraresku's book features a brilliant Foreword by Graham Hancock, the New York Times bestselling author of America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization. Amanita muscaria or the Fly Agaric is not a well-known mushroom based on its scientific name or common name. Yet, the picture on the left, of this mushroom, will probably be familiar to the reader. In recent time, it is the mushroom that has been adopted as the "prototype" mushroom in western cultures. Its image can be seen in Christmas and greeting cards, children's stories, science fiction and fantasy illustrations, and in mushroom models. There has even been a great deal made of its connections with Christmas, but probably too much has been made of this connection and different interpretations of this theory is available. However, it is more than just a "pretty mushroom". It is a species that is thought to have had tremendous impact on some of today's cultures for at least four thousand years and has been thought by some to be at the root of the origin of some of today's religions. In 1968, Gordon Wasson put forth the concept that this mushroom was the "plant" that was referred to as Soma, in his now much cited "Soma, Divine Mushroom of Immortality". Wasson believed Soma was the mushroom that was utilized in religious ceremonies, over 4000 years ago, before the beginning of our Christian era, by the people who called themselves "Aryans". Wasson also believed the hallucinogenic properties of the A. muscaria to be the cause of the "ecstasy" described in the Rig Veda, the holy book of the Hindu.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156838001
• ISBN13: 9780156838009
• Release Date: January 1972
• Publisher: Sungazer Press
• Length: 406 Pages
• Weight: 2.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

The Divine Mushroom.

_SOMA: Divine Mushroom of Immortality_, No. 1 in the Ethno-mycological Studies series, by maverick investment banker turned ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson is a fascinating account of the role played by the fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) in the religious development of the Indo-European (Aryan) peoples. Wasson, who wrote extensively on the role of hallucinogenic mushrooms, developed a fascination with the mushroom when he and his wife Valentina Pavlovna, a Russian pediatrician, came upon some wild mushrooms and noticed their entirely different response to the mushrooms. Wasson who was of Western European ancestry was a natural mycophobe; however, his wife, a Russian, picked the mushrooms and later used them in her food. Together Wasson and Valentina Pavlovna wrote a book detailing their experiences with the mushroom called _Mushrooms, Russia & History_. Wasson also was to undergo a hallucinatory experience with a shaman in Mexico leading to his writing about the role of the hallucinogenic mushroom in Mesoamerica. This book principally discusses the role of the hallucinogenic mushroom in the writings of the earliest Indo-Europeans (Aryans), in the Rg Veda (as Soma) and the Zend Avesta (of the Zoroastrians, as Haoma). This book also discusses the role of the fly agaric in Europe, Eurasia, and Siberia among the shamans there. The book is divided into three parts, "Soma: The Divine Mushroom of Immortality" which outlines the role of the fly agaric as Soma in primitive Indo-European religion, "The Post-Vedic History of the Soma Plant" written by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty which explains various theories concerning the origins of soma in the Rg Veda, and "Northern Eurasia and the Fly-Agaric" which explains the role of the fly agaric among shamans in Siberia as well as in Northern Europe. The book concludes with a series of exhibits from various writings concerning both the fly agaric in Siberia, the linguistic aspects of the fly agaric, and the theory that the fly agaric was the source of the beserk rage of the Scandinavian warriors. The first section of the book discusses the role of the fly agaric as "soma" in the Rg Veda, the earliest Aryan writings. The author traces the evidence and attempts to show that indeed the soma mentioned in the Rg Veda that was later mysteriously lost was the fly agaric (Amanita muscaria). The author shows evidence in the form of "roots, leaves, blossoms, and seeds of soma", all referring to aspects of the divine mushroom. The author also discusses the role of the fly agaric as the "haoma" mentioned in the Zend Avesta of Zoroaster. In addition, the author mentions the two forms of soma, the first as the mushroom consumed and the second as the urine of an individual who has eaten the mushroom, retaining the hallucinogenic properties of the mushroom. The author also discusses the role of the hallucinogenic mushroom among the Manichaeans and various other early heretical sects. In particular, he notes the Ch

Ian Myles Slater on A New Beginning for an Old Problem

This is the now classic attempt to identify the mysterious god / plant / substance of the Sanskrit Vedas as the fly agaric mushroom, a fungus known to have mood-altering hallucinogenic properties when properly prepared and consumed. Wasson argues that the cryptic descriptions of the Soma can be explained by the shape and colors of the mushroom, while its effects explain its association with divine powers, and its use in the sacrificial rituals to contact the gods. The conclusion has been widely accepted, and bitterly disputed, with a number of opponents returning, armed with new information, to earlier proposals. The earlier views are the subject of a substantial section of this thick volume, a survey of the nineteenth and twentieth century literature by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, who is now writing as Wendy Doniger. In later writings, Doniger has supported more strongly Wasson's conclusion that Soma was originally a fungus, although admitting to some uncertainty as to which fungus, and to whether the sacred species might have shifted with time and availability. This survey is in itself a useful reference, and Doniger's translations of the some of the Rig-Veda Soma Hymns in her selection from "The Rig-Veda" for the Penguin Classics is a helpful companion as well. (For the full set of such hymns, I know of only one English version, R.T.H. Griffith's aging complete translation of the Rig Veda -- second edition 1896 -- which, among other problems, accepted Max Mueller's identification of Soma with the Ephedra plant. The theory would make more sense if the species Mueller named was in fact the pharmacologically active Ma Huang variety, instead of just a relative.) The whole issue is confused by difficulty of disentangling references to Soma as a ritual substance used in offerings to the Devas (the gods), as a substance the control of which was disputed by the Devas and their rivals the Asuras (roughly Titans, relatives and, mostly, enemies of the gods), and as a god itself, sometimes identical with the Moon. As such it forms a parallel to Agni, the fire-god, which is sometimes the actual sacrificial fire, sometimes an abstraction of it, and sometimes a deity with its own myths and cult. Anyone interested in the subject of "entheogens" (a term coined after the appearance of Wasson's study, and in part as a response to it) should definitely read this book carefully, not least because it is so frequently quoted, quoted out of context, misquoted, and misrepresented -- and I am only talking about those who claim to agree with it. So far as I am aware, there is still room for a major study, by someone other than an declared opponent of Wasson's thesis, of how closely the older Iranian material on "Haoma" (the expected, and documented, equivalent of the Sanskrit name) does or does not parallel the Vedic texts. It is possible, at least in theory, that more than one plant served the function, and received the name, in the period of Indo-Iranian linguistic

Entheogens: Professional Listing

"Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy." http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy