Amanita Muscaria basics
By Dr. George.
Amanita Muscaria is a psychedelic mushroom (not to be confused with the
psilocybin magic mushrooms.) It is the atypical fairy tale
red-with-white-spots toadstool. It is also found (on the eastern half of
North America) as a yellow-with-white-spots mushroom.
Amanita Muscaria must be harvested from the wild, as they cannot be
cultivated due to the symbiotic relationship they have with trees. If you
are unfamiliar with mushrooms, you must read. A lot. An inexperienced
mycophile (myco = mushroom) could easily mistake a poisonous Sickener with
a red Amanita Muscaria.
Amanitas are identifiable by a few things. One, they grow, like all
Amanitas, from a bulb in the ground, which you can see if you dig them
up. Two, the flecks on the caps will easily come off. Three, the
mushroom has a white spore print. Four, it grows in the vicinity of
pines, beeches, and cedars.
Amanita Muscaria grow from early August (the most psychedelic) to late
September (the most physical.)
Mushroom hunting is best done the day after a good rainfall.
When picking mushrooms, make sure that they contain no slugs, maggots, or
other creepy crawlies. Slit the stem in half to check this.
Once you have picked the mushrooms, dry them in an oven at 200-250 degrees
F until they are hard. If any juice collects, make sure to keep it. It's
psychoactive too.
You CAN eat these mushrooms fresh, but if you do they contain an awful lot
of the chemical Muscimol, which is responsible for the shitty effects
(sweating bullets, the more physical things like this) If you heat them
at 200 - 250 degrees until hard most of the Muscimol will be converted to
the psychedelic Ibotenic Acid.
The stems are pretty much useless, but a full season's worth of Amanita
stems should be enough for one trip. The caps are much more potent than this.
You can either smoke the mushrooms (I wouldn't suggest a bong for this,
you'll probably pull psychoactive chemicals into the water) for a
"weirdness" lasting about a half hour, or you can eat them (the taste
reminds me of the earthy seed taste of Morning Glory seeds)
If you eat them, the trip can take as much as two hours to kick in. Do
not capsulize them. Chew them well. I find the trip to lack any buzz
whatsoever, but I've heard of others being so overcome with euphoria that
they practically involuntarily dance around.
Though there isn't anything proven that Amanita Muscaria are harmful, and
they've been used for longer than almost any other known psychedelic, I
(and many others) tend to take Milk Thistle with them. This is available
from any herbal medicine dealer. It should protect your liver from any
potential damage.