Golden Teachers, Blue Meanies, Albino Penis Envy… the increasing popularity of psilocybin containing mushrooms over the past few years have brought to light a variety of colorful names into the psychedelic lexicon – but one name has recently been making the rounds that I believe deserves particular attention: Amanita muscaria (“Amanita”).
Amanita mushrooms (also known as “Fly Agaric”) have red caps with white spots, resembling something you might find a garden gnome sitting under. It grows throughout the Northern Hemisphere from the Hindu Kush to the Pacific Coast. The use of Amanita began tens of thousands of years ago with Siberian shamans prior to the ancient Bering Strait crossings into the Americas. Like psilocybin and psilocin containing mushrooms (both referred to in this article as “psilocybin” for convenience), Amanita can cause distortions in sense of time, visual and auditory hallucinations, and dissociative feelings.
Although its effects can be similar to psilocybin mushrooms, Amanita is significantly different in that it doesn’t actually contain psilocybin. Instead, the active component in Amanita is muscimol. It also contains the compounds ibotenic acid and muscarine. Unlike psilocybin, all three of these compounds are toxic and can be fatal in high doses.
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