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Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality

a
Richard Evans Schultes
a
Botanical Museum , Harvard University
Published online: 13 Jan 2012.

To cite this article: Richard Evans Schultes (1971) Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality , Journal of Psychoactive
Drugs, 3:2, 104-105, DOI: 10.1080/02791072.1971.10471383

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02791072.1971.10471383

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Book Reviews
Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortal ity by R .
Gordon WaSSOI1. (Ne w York : Har court , Brace &
Wo rl d , In c ., 1968 ). 381 Pp .
Gr eat adv ance s have been made du rin g th e past fif tv
ye ars in our tr anscul tural underst anding of hallu cin o -
ge nic pla n ts and th ei r usc in primitive soc iet ies. Th ese
adv ances coi ncide wit h th e beginnin g of th e o pera t io n of
t he in terdisci pli nary ap proa ch in t he stu dy of h uma n
affa irs. The f irs t sign ificant ste ps, however, rem ain th e
b otan ical on es-et hc pr ov isio n of detailed ct hnobota ni ca!
Downloaded by [New York University] at 17:33 11 February 2015
info rmation o n whi ch to build stu dies in o ther fields.
And th e very basic step - t he mos t signi fican t of all- is
th e correct ide nti fi cat ion of th e plan ts invo lved . No r-
with st and ing it s nume rou s other conrribu tions, the
greatest signif ica nce of Wasso n 's So nia , f) i VII/ I ' Aillsf, -
ro o nt of l nnn ort ality lies in th e b otani cal ide nt ifica t ion
pr o pose d fo r so ma . It is th is co n tri bu t io n t hat inte res ts
me- a bo tan ist - a bove all of th e o t her signi ii cant aspects
of t he bo ok .
Here we hav e an ex ample of the best in interdisci-
plin ar y research . Wasson 's wo rk stands as an o utsta nd -
ingly skillfu l contributi on in e t h nobo ta ny -or, as he
him self classif ies his fiel d, et h nom yc o logy. Data fro m
man )' d iver se disciplines impinge and are cleverly int er-
woven in to a meaningful fabri c: history and pre-h isto ry ,
phi lo so ph y , rel igion , folkl ore , co m pa ra t ive lin guisti cs,
archa eol ogy, human physiology , to xicol og y and vario us
field s in botany. Under the expert guidan ce of a man
whose lifet ime of research has fo cu ssed o n the mush-
ro o ms and th eir lore , these data arc all made to fi t as
tightl y as piece s o f a n intricate jig-sa w pu zzle .
T h ro ugho ut his year s o f ethn omy cological stu dies,
Wasso n has- as in his research o n th e sacred hallucin o-
gcnic mu shrooms o f Mexico -sought out th e mo st
authoritative advice , guida nc e and help from specialists
in th e su ndry fields th at tangentiall y or directly ap ply to
th e investigati on a t hand . One whole sect io n of SOIna ,
Divine Mu sh room of l nu n ortality , fo r ex am ple, is th e
produ ct of the competent Iridic sch ol ar, Dr. Wend y D.
O'Flaherty .
A cemury or more ago , wh en Western scholar ship
ca me t o ap precia te the intellectu al wealth of India's
anc ien t cu ltu ra l heritage , scholars earl y came face to fac e
with t he enigma of the id entification - as well as the use
an d significance-of a forg otten narcoti c called Soma.
Som a was more th an an hallucinogen : it had been
deified . It was a god -narcoti c. Although fallen ou t of use
and for go tte n for centu ries, the a we in whi ch Soma was
[ o u rnal of Psyched elic DI"IIgs
still held was very real. It permea te d t he sacr ed wri tin gs
o f th e I Iind us so th or ou gh ly th a t no d ou bt ab ou t its
ex istence and place of high honor co u ld be e n ter ta ine d .
So mc 3500 yea rs ago , Aryan peopl es swe p t int o th e
Indus Valle y of Indi a fro m th e northwest. Th e cult of
Som a c a rn e wit h them . T o these aggressive invaders,
Soma was a divine in ebri ant , an o bje ct o f di re ct wor ship :
its ju ices wer e ex tr acted. fi ltered and drun k as a sacra -
mcnt by pri ests in th e holiest of rel igiou s ritcs. An
int o xic ating beve rage kno wn to th e peopl es o f Iran as
l l ao m a (c ognate wit h t he ter m Sen na ) was un d oubtedly
th e same drug- ·indic atin g a wid e d istributio n of its
kn owl ed ge a nd use across northern Ind ia and westw ard,
da ti ng back 10 t he dim past of co m mon Ind o-Ir ani an
ongms.
The Rig Veda , th e a nc ien t Ind ia n co llcct io n o f
hymn s, acco rde d Soma a special place o f p ri macy . Of
th e more th an 1000 hy m ns, so me 120 ar c dedicate d
wholly t o So ma. and So ma is cit e d in ma nv o f t he
o t he rs . llao rna is men t ioned , alth ough mu c h less seri-
ou sly , in the Avest a.
Fo r almo st 3000 yea rs, th e id entity of So ma has been
lost in mystery . For reasons st ill no t understood, thc
Ar yan s aba ndo ne d the usc of t he ori gina l Som a so me
centuries after their ar rival in th e new hom el and ; a nd
th ey pr oceeded to fo rge t wh at plan t it was. Other plants
t ook its place-substitutes o r " su rroga tes ' I-i p lanr s
chosen fo r reasons other th an t he ir psychi c effect s
whi ch , in th e case o f t he su bsti tu te s, seem to have been
non-e xisten t . Yet, in t he rath er ext en sive literature
abou t Soma th at has survived, th ere ex ist as ton ish ingly
detailed descriptions o f thc fo rm , co lor, usc , effects and
significa nc e of Soma.
During th e past cen t ury , botanist s an d o t he r sp eci al-
ist s, in an att em p t to so lve the eni gm a o f Soma , have
proposed mor e th an 100 spe cies as possible so ur ces of
th e o rigina l Soma. None has been happil y ac ce p te d .
Am on gst th e three pri ncipal con tenders were several
spe cies of Ep!J('d 1'll , Pr riplo ca and Surc os t rnnna . Th e
firs t of th ese genera is a gy mno spcrm, o ne species of
whi ch - E. sinica -n« the commercial source of ephed rine .
The last tw o belong t o the Milkweed Famil y , the
Asclcpiadaccae . All three ar e sim ilar in bein g vine -like,
fle sh y, leafl ess or almost so , and n ative to dry, almost
desert are as . None, of co u rse , is psych oacti ve , and non c
fit s the descriptions of the origina l Soma. Some bot a-
nists have su ggest ed that Soma mu st have been Canna b is ,
other s maintained tha t it must have been a memory or a
myth and never was de rived fro m a plant.
Wasson has systematically ta ken th e man y piec es of
de scripti on o f Som a ou t of the sacre d literature and ha s
put them together for evalu at ion . The material taken
104 Vol. 3 (No. 2 )-Spring , 1971
 SCHUL TES
dircc tl v fro m t he Rig Ve da hy m ns is in te rpreted in
severa l ste ps : ( I) Som a was not alco ho lic but was a
defin ite h allucin ogen ; (2) th e descripti on s d o not men -
t io n t hat it had leaves, ro ots, flowers or seeds; (3 ) all
co lo r refe re nces would ap ply to A I/hl/lit ,' m u sca ria or its
yello wish ta n ju ice : (4) in In dia , the so u rce plant grew at
high alt itu des in th e no rt h . Fo r man y o f t he Ve dic
desc ripti ve ph rases , Wasso n has o ffered illus tr at ive evi-
denc e wi t h col or ed pho to graph s of /s nta n it a ni u sca ria in
diffe rent stages o f gro wt h. Several exa m ples will suffice
to sho w his me th od . T he Rig Veda freq uen tly states th at
So ma , descri bed as "the m ainsta y of the sky. " is the
pillar su pport ing the sky an d t he entire cosm o s- a myth-
ical idea represented hyperbolic all y , accor d ing t o
Wasson , by t he mu shro om with its ca p. The Rig Ved a
Downloaded by [New York University] at 17:33 11 February 2015
mention s th at when Som a "s lo ughs off the as u ria n co lo r
t hat is his. he aba n d ons his en velope " -a poeti c de scr ip-
ti on . in Wasson 's reason ing. of the ru p tu r ing b y the
mushro om 's swe lling re d ca p of th e enve lo ping wh ite
veil. T he ph rase " wit h un fadin g vest ur e . br ill iant, new ly
clothed , th e im mort ai bari wrap s him self all arou nd . By
au th ority , he has tak en th e vau lt of he ave n to clothe
himself in , a spr ea d-clo t h lik e to a cloud " is th ought to
me an the br ight red cap with its ad he ring flecks of t he
rup tured white veil. "Th e single eye, " Wasson maintains,
mea ns th e ro u nded he ad whe n all remn ants of the veil
have been shed. When in ter preted by a my co logi call y
train ed mi n d , th e man y descr iptive phrases a n d ter ms in
th e Rig Veda pro vide a wea lt h o f mater ial su p porting
th is iden t ifica t io n of So ma.
T he re are, h owever, o t her kinds of evi de nce t hat
Wasson has not negl ected : eco logical , ph ysiol ogical ,
linguistic . e tc .
Pointing o u t the pe culi ar distribu tion o f A manita
m usca ria wh ich follows the north-temperate birch for -
ests . Wasson em p hasizes th at the pe op les wh o emp lo yed
So ma in th e Indus Valle y lived adja ce nt t o mounta in s
where birches were a co ns picuous element of the flo ra.
Evide nce which, to me , is even m ore st riking an d
co nvincing is ph ys io logical. T he re is a curious report in
the Rig Ve da - n o w for th e firs t time ac cu ra tely inter-
preted -which definitely des cribe s the dr inking of urine .
In fact , severa l references in b o th th e Rig Ved a and t he
Avesta arc believed to refe r to this cus tom, but one is
inco nt rov ert ibly signifi can t. It is her e t hat Wasson goes
to chemistr y and ph ysiol o gy for so lid evide nce, co m-
bining what he finds wit h et hn op harmacol ogieal
info rma ti o n to present a clea rcu t an d mo st co nv incing
case fo r A mauita m usearia.
Of th e man y puz zling passages in th e Rig Ved a, o ne
has pu zzled sc holars bey ond me asu re : " T he lords, with
swo llen b lad de rs , have pissed fo rt h the bestirri ng Soma ."
[ o u ruul 0/ Psvcb cd el ic Dru gs
BOOK RE VIEW
Ve dic scho lars ch allenge t he mean ing o f th is clause ,
an d underst andab ly so ! But Amanita inuscaria, of all t he
halluc ino genic plants k no wn to be used in primiti ve
societi es . appe ars t o be the o nly o ne th e ac t ive principl es
o f whi ch pass throu gh t he human b od y to be excreted in
the u rine so little alte re d che m ically tha t the ir psy cho-
ac tive effec ts are but ver y sligh tly decreased. An d these
su bsra nces are fo un d in no o t her pla nt th an th e fly
aga ric! It has rec en t ly been demo nstr ate d that th e
psy ch otomimetic co nsti tue nts-c hietly rnu scim ol , a
derivat ive ap parently of ibote n ic acid -are a t least five
times as st ro ng as th e ibote n ic acid whic h a p pe ars to be
mu scim ol's so ur ce . As the mus hroo m dries, t he iboteni c
ac id virt ua lly dis appears an d t he mu scirn o l increases .
What an a maz ing co nf irm at ion o f the em p irica l k now-
led ge o f t he Siber ian tri besmen wh o ins ist th at o ne
shou ld util ize o nly t he dr ied mush ro om!
Isol at ed and primi t ive tribesmen in Siberi a. wh o have
em ploy e d A manita muscaria in mod ern ti mes as an
ha lluci noge nic ineb rian t, dis cover ed th is cu rious pro p-
erty o f th e iso xazo les. Ritu alistic urine-drin kin g has lo ng
been an integra l part o f the fly-aga ric cere mo ny with
these tr ib esmen of the Chukotka and Kamch atka.
Vedic and o t he r ln dic scho lars. unfami liar with suc h
a n extraordina ry cus to m, failed in their inte rpretat ion s
to grasp th e full signif icanc e o f thi s and o t he r referen ces
to urine -d rinking- and notwithstandin g th e hi gh rel igiou s
o r social significan ce of urin e-drinking in several aspects
o f an cie nt an d m o dern Indian an d Asian cu lt ure.
Wasson 's in te rpre tati o n of th e Rig Veda u rin e-
drink ing passage , backing up the man y o the r d isjunct
pie ce s of evidence, pro vide s, so far as I am concerned,
in co nt rove rt ib le proof of the stro nges t kind th at So ma
must have been A m a nita m usca ria. Fo r rare ly d ocs
chem istr y an d ph ysi ol o gy give us suc h circumscribed
evide nce o f su ppo rt fo r a b otan ica l ident ificatio n.
What was the tru e So ma? What plan t was it ? T his
quest ion poses t he basic an d grea t problem t hat has lo ng
beset the m an y studies o f this go d-narc o tic a nd its true
significance . No pr ogre ss towards an understanding o f
Soma in any field can logi cally be expe cte d until we
know wha t it was , unti l its botanical ident ific at ion is
sett led. Wasson seems now once an d fo r a ll t o have
provided this ident ificatio n an d , wit h it . t he fo u nd at io n
fo r real progress in Soma stu dies.
Richard Evans Schultes, Ph .D.
Ex ec utioe Directo r and
Curat or of Econom ic Botany
Botanical All/seu m
Harvard University
105 Vo l. 3 (No. 2)- Spring , 19 71