Ploughing the Clouds

Ok, so this is part one of my blog post about mushrooms, because there’s too much stuff to cram into a single post. For a fair while now I have been becoming gradually more and more obsessed with a particular species of mushroom called the Amanita Muscaria. It’s the one everyone will recognise as the archetypal red-and-white spotted toadstool from children’s stories and cheesy goblin art, and up until the last few years I had no idea that they are in fact hallucinogenic.

Not only that, but an investigation into the history of their use reveals that they have been suggested by various scholars, academics and mushroom enthusiasts as the possible basis of many religious and shamanic traditions, up to and including Christianity.  As with most literature concerning the use of magic mushrooms, there is much to be gained from contemplating these ideas  (if only the willingness to think open mindedly) , but probably some to be taken with a grain of salt. Maybe.

painted ceiling in a German church, 1192 AD.

I’m currently in the midst of wading through countless websites and books on these mushrooms, which I simply cannot read fast enough. It all started a couple of years ago with a story that was relayed in Daniel Pinchbeck’s excellent book Breaking Open the Head in which a man named Robert who identifies as a ‘plant shaman’ eats three Amanitas that were growing in his garden. To abbreviate the story somewhat, he is greeted by three anthropomorphic Amanita mushrooms, ranging from three feet high to five feet high. They ask him why he ate them, and seemingly satisfied with his answer about following a dream he had they promptly vanish. When one of Robert’s friends ate Amanitas some years later, he experienced the exact same thing but when asked why he ate them he replied “I was trying to get high” to which the mushrooms said “well, if you ever do this again, we’re going to kill you.”

 handmade mushroom toy by cart before the horse.

The next thing to really pique my interest was the connection between these mushrooms and our modern Christmas celebrations. I’m not convinced as some mushroom fanatics seem to be that the entire story of Santa Claus and his flying reindeer can be explained by the historic use of Amanitas by shamans and reindeer in ancient Europe, but there’s definitely something to it. For a crash course in this theory, check out this article from a not-at-all questionable source. This book looks promising but I haven’t bought it yet:

 

More on the Christmas thing later.

I read this self-published book over Easter, and while I found it slightly disappointing in its inability to provide a solid explanation for the connection between toads and ‘toadstools’ (beyond them both being poisonous/hallucinogenic), it did have some excellent information about each, including historical accounts of their use in witchcraft and shamanism (same thing really), and personal accounts of toad venom trips. The Amanita is covered quite extensively.

I’ve only just read the opening few pages of Peter Lamborn Wilson’s book Ploughing The Clouds, which focuses on the Amanita’s possible cult use in ancient Ireland. Get a load of that cover! You don’t even need to open the book to know it’s gonna be good. Plus, it’s Peter Lamborn Wilson.

I’ve also started on this one by John M Allegro, but it’s dry and heavy going, and possibly a wee bit silly. Possibly.  As one Amazon reviewer says: “It is a work of sheer genius. It is also absolute nonsense.”  I’m yet to be persuaded either way, although some of the ideas presented in this book are discussed on this website in a remarkably convincing (if slightly batshit) manner. There are a number of books available now that build on Allegro’s controversial themes, which I shall investigate in time.

And of course, Dale Pendell, my favourite writer on all things poisonous,  includes a chapter about Amanita Muscaria in volume three of his Pharmako series, Pharmako/Gnosis in which he says “What is most remarkable about our Scarlet Woman is her power to bewitch from afar – you never have to touch her (much less eat her) to fall under her spell.”  Somehow this is ringing true to me right now. I may or may not have started collecting things that are red with white spots because they remind me of these mushrooms.

Next on my to read list: a classic text on this subject, of which I’ll be forced to buy an expensive second hand copy.

And a book that marries two of my favourite themes right now, shamanism and fairy-tales, with allegedly a fairly big emphasis on (bias towards?) mushroom use. This should follow on nicely from The Prose Edda which I also just finished…but that’s for another post.

Next up will be some photos from my trip to Adelaide where I got to draw some Amanitas from life in my friend’s garden.

Shamaness

So I finally finished this epic coloured pencil drawing that I started while I was on holidays over Christmas... at least I think it's finished. Why I decided to create an A1 size drawing with tools that can only cover about a milimetre of paper at a time is beyond me, but once I started it I just had to keep going until my fingers felt like those of an arthritic grandma and I was practically cross eyed.

Anyway, lesson learned...hopefully it was worth the bother. I am still tyring to come to terms with the fact that Shaun has described this piece variably as 'fantasy art' and something that looks like it should have been done on black velvet (he swears it was a compliment). The reality is that I was reading a lot about shamanism, and my fascination with that somehow became entangled with my love of tribal bellydance and gypsies and primitive cultures and voodoo...so I guess the result is a confused but honest salute to all of those things. In a way, this pretty much sums up how I feel about being a privileged white person living in an ethnically diverse country where our concept of culture is based entirely on embracing the bits we like of other people's.

In response to these feelings I've been reading more about the history and folklore of Germanic people, including fairy tales, traditional witchcraft and celtic shamanism amongst other things. It's a nice realisation that we do in fact have our own culture and it hasn't entirely disappeared - we just choose to ignore it in favour of things we find more exotic. Clearly I've been as guilty of this as anyone, but in light of recent discoveries some of my art might start taking a new direction now.

Visionary plants and LSD trials.

Having just finshed reading this fabulous book "Visionary Plant Consciousness: The Shamanic teachings of The Plant World", a collection of articles/lectures from various notables who believe in the importance of visionary plants and have fought hard to lift restrictions on their use, I was pleased when Shaun sent me this article from The Australian yesterday: 

"After 40 years of being a medical research taboo and virtually impossible to use in government-approved studies, acid is finally making a comeback, with the US Food and Drug Administration relaxing the conditions for trials involving the mind-altering substance, and many doctors now convinced that the controlled use of LSD and other psychedelics (including psilocybin, found in "magic mushrooms") could hold the key to treating everything from severe depression to post-combat stress."

 Read the full article here.

Then, if you're interested, get your hands on a copy of this book. Apart from a dreary and self-important piece by Alex Grey about his visionary art, which only occupies a few pages, I highly recommend it.