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Written by Michael S. Smith
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Wednesday, 24 December 1997 |
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Page 3 of 6
The fresh mushroom can be roasted over an open flame via the Wasson technique discovered by a friend of his in Japan who roasted the mushroom over an open fire and then consumed it with euphoric effects. One technique that I have tried was over a fire as well, but was a little different. I had taken the unripened parasol caps and placed them upside down on a gas grill set on low. As the mushroom heated up liquid condensed in the cup and was drunk. This produced a strong sense of euphoria in which I could not help but dance around and sing to myself (both very common reports by Siberians of A. muscaria intoxication). A very pleasurable experience from a total of about 2 tablespoons of the liquid. One later thought was to take these same mushrooms after collecting the condensed liquid and to press out the remaining juices, but instead I swallowed them in large pieces and retched horribly. I've also noticed that as I've oven dried my Amanita's a liquid would drain out of the mushrooms onto the cooking sheet. This liquid might be easily collected by taking the cooking sheet and attaching a screen of some sort a few centimeters above it and allow the liquid to drip into the sheet and dry for later removal. But I believe a dehydrator is the best at keeping their shape and color. One might even want to try expressing the juices from raw or rehydrated mushrooms and then heating the remaining liquid. This liquid may also be dehydrated and gel-capped.
If you have dried your mushrooms then one can simply eat them or else do the hot water method of preparation by bringing some water to the near simmer point, but not quite rolling point, at about 190 degrees, and add the ground mushrooms. Let this cook in the water for about a half hour to an hour and them consume, water, ground mushrooms and all. For those of you who can't stand the taste of dried mushrooms or the tea (like myself who for some strange reason has the gag reflex the minute I try to swallow, and sometimes when I just smell) the gel-cap method may work best. Simply take the dried mushrooms, grind them up, and stuff into gel-caps. One might also take the tea, dehydrate it, and then gel-cap. I have never tried the tea method, but it may be possible that this method increases the muscimol levels even above drying, so this type of gel-cap method might be worth a try. Since the majority of the alkaloids reside within the caps skin it might also be worth a try either to peal off the skin from fresh mushrooms and dry, or else remove the gills from dried specimens, to reduce the amount needing to be consumed.
A few other less common methods may be worth mentioning, the first is the possibility that the juice of the mushroom could be absorbed through the skin. This method is described by Adrian Morgan in the wonderful and beautiful book Toads and Toadstools, and is the only place I've ever heard of such an avenue of ingestion. This method might work best with dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), a aprotic solvent. Another interesting method would be by enema or direct insertion of the mushroom into the vagina, the second method certainly not being condoned as it might easily produce infection, or worse. Clark Heinrich, in his excellent book Strange Fruit, makes suggestions that in Tantric texts and art there exists evidence pointing towards these routes of administration in highly symbolic rituals. Smoking the mushroom has also proven to produce mild effects. Since the skin contains the highest concentrations of muscimol it can be peeled off fresh mushrooms and dried or else the gills and stem can be discarded from dried specimens. I personally would be interested in seeing the effects of smoked concentrated extract or pure muscimol.
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