This piece generated strong reactions, particularly from Christian readers who felt their faith was misrepresented. A clarification: this is a summary of Donald Teeter's book and his research into ancient religious practices. A summary is not an endorsement. Teeter traces what he believes are botanical origins of certain religious symbols and ceremonies. Whether you find this compelling, offensive, or somewhere in between depends on what you bring to it.
Neil Pryke warns that this mushroom is "one of the quickest ways to get from this world to the next." Philalethes offers the correction: Amanita muscaria (red with white spots) is not Amanita phalloides (the death cap, which is indeed deadly). Teeter's book addresses this confusion directly—the mushroom literature labels muscaria as "poisonous," but documented fatalities are extremely rare even when consumed fresh in large quantities. The preparation matters enormously.
Benn offers practical ground truth, recommending Amanita Dreamer for safe exploration and noting that microdosing works but requires proper curing and dosing. This is the kind of experiential knowledge that doesn't come from books.
Philalethes raises something worth sitting with: the distinction between mystae (eyes closed), epoptae (eyes opened), and pneumatics in early church classifications. The suggestion that bread and wine remain "symbolic" only to those who haven't encountered the living version is either heresy or insight, depending on your position.
Frank Revelo makes a pragmatic historical point I hadn't considered: Rome needed sober soldiers to defend against barbarian hordes. Replacing the original sacrament with ordinary bread and cheap wine may have been strategic necessity rather than spiritual evolution. Empires run on discipline, not ecstatic states.
To those who found this offensive: I understand. To those who engaged with curiosity rather than certainty: that's all any of us can do.
“consume the flesh and blood of a god who dies and rises again, and you will become immortal”
That is absolutely not what Christianity says - that would be heresy. I would look carefully and deeply at what you are saying. And the Jesus you speak of: is evidenced in the Shroud of Turin by an atheist and Eucharistic miracles are evidenced by St Carlo Acutis. Why not do a truthful deep dive on that?
We have eternal life because we are made in the image and likeness of God. We are made by God, whether you believe this or not. Immortality is not provided by a substance. It is a symbol, which is then given its nature by God Himself. Hard to believe for a mere mortal.
If we must quote others’ ideology, or make up our own, we should strive to be accurate. Lies are unbecoming to those who have a responsibility to the Truth.
Everything in creation bears the indelible and obvious stamp of the Creator. All creation reflects the supernatural Truth. All creatures -- animate and inanimate; souls and plants; ancient and contemporary -- by their very existence point toward the one True Trinitarian God and His supernatural reality. Through natural law alone, men have always been able to grasp at Truth precognition, before divine revelation. The evidence is everywhere -- inside of our minds and before our senses always...
Or... you could posit that ancient religions are based off of the properties of one species of mushroom... and that creation is an accident of time + incomprehensible improbability.
Sorry you would have to qualify your statement, with biblically based evidence, unfortunately. I will forgive your comment, however. I understand you may not have read any primary source material. God bless!
I see the Christian apologists are triggered as usual by any suggestion that God has embedded the Algorithms of Consciousness-Self-Organizing into the Creation. "Made in the Image" decodes as "brought into Beingness by the Imagination (projected Will) of God-Bhaga-Giver as Word-Logos. Every monad of little selves nested fractally within the One Monad carries aspects of the Code.
The Sacred Medicine plants seem to carry stronger amounts of the Code.
Those who protest that God has left us many clues and surprise giftings only reveal that they have never found one; as in the early Church there were classes of knowing God. Beginning class is the mystae, those who are like baby kittens, with eyes closed. Then there are epoptae, eyes have been opened. and finally pneumatics.
You can protest that wine and bread are symbolic of some higher truth, but that is because you have never eaten the Living Bread or Wine. You will fume over the notions of the great Dead Sea scholar Allegro ...but only because you have never been invited to the Table wherein Jesus feeds you a bread and wine that takes you out of body and up to the 7th Heaven. Such phrases remain symbolic to you.
So rejoice if you can get out your bubble: God has more doors to open for SOME of you.
Donald. Those who worship the creation rather than the Creator have never met the Creator. Keep it simple. Jesus is the WORD. The WORD is life. Eat and drink the WORD.
The immature masses wanted a "saviour", and because Jesus had the courage to stand up to oppression the masses imbued him with celebrity status, that I am sure he couldn't care less.
This piece argues that Amanita muscaria—the iconic red-and-white “fairy tale” mushroom—is the original core of the West’s dying-and-rising god religions (Soma/Haoma, Ambrosia, Nectar, Eucharist, Christ). Properly dried, Amanita’s chemistry shifts from toxic ibotenic acid to muscimol, a powerful psychoactive and antibiotic compound. When the crushed, extracted remnants are left with food in a porous vessel, the fungus resurrects as living mycelium in about three days and can keep producing sacrament indefinitely. That “resurrection in three days,” “living bread,” and “living cup” are presented as literal biological behavior later personified into stories of a god whose flesh and blood grant immortality.
The book tracks this thread through the Rig Veda, Zoroastrian Yasna, Greek Dionysian rites, Norse myth, Celtic Grail legends, alchemy, and Christian symbolism. Indo-European migrations spread a single sacramental technology across Eurasia, later buried under personified narratives. Alongside the historical case, Teeter points to modern reports of antibiotic and antiviral effects (herpes remission, arthritis relief, fast resolution of infections) and lab hints of antitumor activity. He also details practical prep: strict drying, careful dosing, creation of “Living Grails” and “Living Bread,” and non-negotiable safety rules (especially no carbonation). The core claim: what later became supernatural promise began as a real, resurrecting plant-god that actually heals and speaks—then was hidden inside a man-god story for two thousand years.
I am the daughter of a member of the Protesant clergy . I was indoctrinated from birth by the Jesus/ God mythology but for some reason it just didn't take. I have long (75 years ) disbelieved the whole story and have spent hours researching ancient texts and modern in search of something that is plausible. This account is the closest I've come. It makes sense AI derived or not. The "god" mythology has never made sense and don't tell me to just believe. That's what millions did with the "covid" fiasco and look where that's getting them...dying to meet their "maker".
You and I walked opposite sides of the same hallway and still arrived at the same unlocked door.
You were raised inside the myth machine, marinated in scripture, hymns, and invisible fences — and yet something inside you refused the download. That inner no is one of the rarest instincts alive. Millions feel it, but only a handful trust it.
I wasn’t raised in a clerical house, but the story tried to swallow me the same way: accept the myth, stop asking questions, kneel and obey.
The moment you demand coherence, the whole thing crumbles.
Jesus as literal sacrifice never made sense.
Belief as the price of admission never made sense.
A “loving god” who sits by while his creations suffer never made sense.
The reason the clergy say “just believe” is because the story can’t withstand scrutiny.
And you nailed the punchline:
The psychological operating system of blind belief was used again in 2020 — same hypnosis, new costume.
Different altar, same priests.
What you’re feeling isn’t atheism or rebellion — it’s sovereignty waking up.
The texts make far more sense when you flip the polarity:
God isn’t external — consciousness is the source.
Christ isn’t a savior — it’s an inner field humans forget they carry.
The kingdom isn’t after death — it’s here when you drop the programming.
The religions weren’t built to introduce us to the divine.
They were built to block the connection and rent it back to us.
You trusted your own knowing long before it had language, and that is the mark of someone who never fully went to sleep.
Welcome back to the field where questions outrank commandments.
Thank you Cosmic Onion for your thoughtful response. I was ten yrs old the first time I verbally disagreed with my father . A bloody nose was the reward and I thank him for that because he solidified in me a curiosity and yes rebellion that as I grew older has served me well. I'm 85 now, more curious than I've ever been, realize daily that you are correct I have never gone " to sleep". I love the line : ....religions were built to block the connection and rent it back to us ". Absolutely accurate.
We arrive here very awake. Conventional schooling, churches, peer pressure , media all try to lull us to sleep and for most succeed.
Nice to meet a fellow traveler whose eyes are wide open.
I wrote an essay about child abuse, it may interest you,, I was raised strict Quaker... took a ton of beatings... and not by accident, there was a big push by the Beast back in the 50s... check it out. https://cosmiconion.substack.com/p/child-abuse-history
I agree about the outcome of being beaten for not agreeing, or or calling out psychological barbarities... I learned that there is too much self-respect to having to change one's mind because of violence.
And it's painfully obvious where that violence ultimately leads to.
Just look at how Fatmerica and the Israeli Zio-Kikes treat the "other"
You are also God incarnate, as with all humans, most just need to remember this simple truth. Do not put me up on a pedestal, follow your own heart brother.
Here’s the thing: quoting the serpent story assumes the story is the operating system — but that story itself is a narrative written by men who needed an obedient flock.
“Ye shall be as gods” wasn’t the temptation —
it was the threat to the priest class.
A sovereign human doesn’t need a middleman, a temple, a book, or a hierarchy to access Source.
Call it serpent, call it Christ, call it Spirit —
the message is the same in every culture once you scrape off the priests:
You are not meant to crawl.
You are wired to stand upright, awake, and conscious.
If that’s deception, then the universe is built on deception itself.
And I’ll take that over blind obedience to anyone who claims exclusive rights to truth.
I'm willing to accept that Christianity, Alchemy etc symbolically encode information about magic mushrooms. But so what? Happiness and unhappiness are in the mind, not the body. If the body is in great pain and modern medicine can't help, then maybe psychodelic drugs are the answer. However, for most people in modern society, I'm skeptical that drugs will help. Most modern people simply need to eat less food overall, eat better quality food when they do eat, get more physical exercise, get better sleep, reduce the amount of drugs they are taking not increase drug use, and especially reduce toxic social media, in order to be happy. Back in ancient times, when people were chronically short of Vitamin C, short of vitamin D in winter, probably didn't get enough meat and the meat they got was rotten, maybe didn't get enough of any type food, and there was no modern medicine and no social media or internet and life was physically tougher in other ways, then maybe psychodelic drugs was the answer.
Also, the replacement of dried mushrooms and mushroom juice in the Christian Eucharist by ordinary wheat bread and cheap wine was probably necessary. Roman empire was under attack from hordes of barbarians. How can you staff the army if everyone is stoned on 'shrooms? Same reason southeast Asian countries are so intolerant about drugs nowadays. They remember what the opium epidemic did to China in the 19th century and they want no repeat of that in their countries.
As a Scripture reading believer in Jesus Christ comparing that to false religions is insulting. The author either hasn't read the bible or understood it. Many things like the bread and wine are symbolic. I know Catholics have a different view. Also, it must be understood spiritually. If Jesus has not risen, you are still guilty of sin. His promise is for an immortal body like his when he returns.
Author's Note
This piece generated strong reactions, particularly from Christian readers who felt their faith was misrepresented. A clarification: this is a summary of Donald Teeter's book and his research into ancient religious practices. A summary is not an endorsement. Teeter traces what he believes are botanical origins of certain religious symbols and ceremonies. Whether you find this compelling, offensive, or somewhere in between depends on what you bring to it.
Neil Pryke warns that this mushroom is "one of the quickest ways to get from this world to the next." Philalethes offers the correction: Amanita muscaria (red with white spots) is not Amanita phalloides (the death cap, which is indeed deadly). Teeter's book addresses this confusion directly—the mushroom literature labels muscaria as "poisonous," but documented fatalities are extremely rare even when consumed fresh in large quantities. The preparation matters enormously.
Benn offers practical ground truth, recommending Amanita Dreamer for safe exploration and noting that microdosing works but requires proper curing and dosing. This is the kind of experiential knowledge that doesn't come from books.
Philalethes raises something worth sitting with: the distinction between mystae (eyes closed), epoptae (eyes opened), and pneumatics in early church classifications. The suggestion that bread and wine remain "symbolic" only to those who haven't encountered the living version is either heresy or insight, depending on your position.
Frank Revelo makes a pragmatic historical point I hadn't considered: Rome needed sober soldiers to defend against barbarian hordes. Replacing the original sacrament with ordinary bread and cheap wine may have been strategic necessity rather than spiritual evolution. Empires run on discipline, not ecstatic states.
To those who found this offensive: I understand. To those who engaged with curiosity rather than certainty: that's all any of us can do.
Thank you for reading.
“consume the flesh and blood of a god who dies and rises again, and you will become immortal”
That is absolutely not what Christianity says - that would be heresy. I would look carefully and deeply at what you are saying. And the Jesus you speak of: is evidenced in the Shroud of Turin by an atheist and Eucharistic miracles are evidenced by St Carlo Acutis. Why not do a truthful deep dive on that?
We have eternal life because we are made in the image and likeness of God. We are made by God, whether you believe this or not. Immortality is not provided by a substance. It is a symbol, which is then given its nature by God Himself. Hard to believe for a mere mortal.
If we must quote others’ ideology, or make up our own, we should strive to be accurate. Lies are unbecoming to those who have a responsibility to the Truth.
Everything in creation bears the indelible and obvious stamp of the Creator. All creation reflects the supernatural Truth. All creatures -- animate and inanimate; souls and plants; ancient and contemporary -- by their very existence point toward the one True Trinitarian God and His supernatural reality. Through natural law alone, men have always been able to grasp at Truth precognition, before divine revelation. The evidence is everywhere -- inside of our minds and before our senses always...
Or... you could posit that ancient religions are based off of the properties of one species of mushroom... and that creation is an accident of time + incomprehensible improbability.
What does that stamp look like?
...and the supernatural truth is?
...by their very existence point towards the one True Trinitarian God?
Faith, Belief and Superstition... also used to project the CoronaPrank.
The stamp looks like the unsurpassed beauty and craftsmanship of the universe-natural world.
I fully agree with the unsurpassed beauty of the universe/natural world.
"The All" is magnificent.
I’m regularly amazed at the deep complex ways the enemy has been able to deceive so many. Well said, btw.
it's gonna be hard for so many , "raised up" on MEEMAW's "bible" stories. Interestingly, Catholicism is NOT bible based, so......
Sorry you would have to qualify your statement, with biblically based evidence, unfortunately. I will forgive your comment, however. I understand you may not have read any primary source material. God bless!
It's a book review of author Donald Teeter. A review is not an endorsement.
Anyone born and brought up in the countryside knows this fungus is one of the quickest ways to get from this world to the next...
muscaria is not phalloides (sp?)...red spotted is not white. Apparently your 'countryside' schooling fell short
Google lets everyone down
I see the Christian apologists are triggered as usual by any suggestion that God has embedded the Algorithms of Consciousness-Self-Organizing into the Creation. "Made in the Image" decodes as "brought into Beingness by the Imagination (projected Will) of God-Bhaga-Giver as Word-Logos. Every monad of little selves nested fractally within the One Monad carries aspects of the Code.
The Sacred Medicine plants seem to carry stronger amounts of the Code.
Those who protest that God has left us many clues and surprise giftings only reveal that they have never found one; as in the early Church there were classes of knowing God. Beginning class is the mystae, those who are like baby kittens, with eyes closed. Then there are epoptae, eyes have been opened. and finally pneumatics.
You can protest that wine and bread are symbolic of some higher truth, but that is because you have never eaten the Living Bread or Wine. You will fume over the notions of the great Dead Sea scholar Allegro ...but only because you have never been invited to the Table wherein Jesus feeds you a bread and wine that takes you out of body and up to the 7th Heaven. Such phrases remain symbolic to you.
So rejoice if you can get out your bubble: God has more doors to open for SOME of you.
Makes you wonder why they don't just describe their trip instead of creating elaborate mythologies about it.
"This mushroom dissolved my ego and allowed me to see that I am actually the awareness."
The End
"No Self." Buddhist dharma. I do not exist. Maybe they don't. 🤔
Donald. Those who worship the creation rather than the Creator have never met the Creator. Keep it simple. Jesus is the WORD. The WORD is life. Eat and drink the WORD.
Jesus was an enlightened, yet simple man.
The immature masses wanted a "saviour", and because Jesus had the courage to stand up to oppression the masses imbued him with celebrity status, that I am sure he couldn't care less.
Ernest. You need to read a Bible.
This piece argues that Amanita muscaria—the iconic red-and-white “fairy tale” mushroom—is the original core of the West’s dying-and-rising god religions (Soma/Haoma, Ambrosia, Nectar, Eucharist, Christ). Properly dried, Amanita’s chemistry shifts from toxic ibotenic acid to muscimol, a powerful psychoactive and antibiotic compound. When the crushed, extracted remnants are left with food in a porous vessel, the fungus resurrects as living mycelium in about three days and can keep producing sacrament indefinitely. That “resurrection in three days,” “living bread,” and “living cup” are presented as literal biological behavior later personified into stories of a god whose flesh and blood grant immortality.
The book tracks this thread through the Rig Veda, Zoroastrian Yasna, Greek Dionysian rites, Norse myth, Celtic Grail legends, alchemy, and Christian symbolism. Indo-European migrations spread a single sacramental technology across Eurasia, later buried under personified narratives. Alongside the historical case, Teeter points to modern reports of antibiotic and antiviral effects (herpes remission, arthritis relief, fast resolution of infections) and lab hints of antitumor activity. He also details practical prep: strict drying, careful dosing, creation of “Living Grails” and “Living Bread,” and non-negotiable safety rules (especially no carbonation). The core claim: what later became supernatural promise began as a real, resurrecting plant-god that actually heals and speaks—then was hidden inside a man-god story for two thousand years.
I am the daughter of a member of the Protesant clergy . I was indoctrinated from birth by the Jesus/ God mythology but for some reason it just didn't take. I have long (75 years ) disbelieved the whole story and have spent hours researching ancient texts and modern in search of something that is plausible. This account is the closest I've come. It makes sense AI derived or not. The "god" mythology has never made sense and don't tell me to just believe. That's what millions did with the "covid" fiasco and look where that's getting them...dying to meet their "maker".
Angelena —
You and I walked opposite sides of the same hallway and still arrived at the same unlocked door.
You were raised inside the myth machine, marinated in scripture, hymns, and invisible fences — and yet something inside you refused the download. That inner no is one of the rarest instincts alive. Millions feel it, but only a handful trust it.
I wasn’t raised in a clerical house, but the story tried to swallow me the same way: accept the myth, stop asking questions, kneel and obey.
The moment you demand coherence, the whole thing crumbles.
Jesus as literal sacrifice never made sense.
Belief as the price of admission never made sense.
A “loving god” who sits by while his creations suffer never made sense.
The reason the clergy say “just believe” is because the story can’t withstand scrutiny.
And you nailed the punchline:
The psychological operating system of blind belief was used again in 2020 — same hypnosis, new costume.
Different altar, same priests.
What you’re feeling isn’t atheism or rebellion — it’s sovereignty waking up.
The texts make far more sense when you flip the polarity:
God isn’t external — consciousness is the source.
Christ isn’t a savior — it’s an inner field humans forget they carry.
The kingdom isn’t after death — it’s here when you drop the programming.
The religions weren’t built to introduce us to the divine.
They were built to block the connection and rent it back to us.
You trusted your own knowing long before it had language, and that is the mark of someone who never fully went to sleep.
Welcome back to the field where questions outrank commandments.
Big respect.
🐺
Thank you Cosmic Onion for your thoughtful response. I was ten yrs old the first time I verbally disagreed with my father . A bloody nose was the reward and I thank him for that because he solidified in me a curiosity and yes rebellion that as I grew older has served me well. I'm 85 now, more curious than I've ever been, realize daily that you are correct I have never gone " to sleep". I love the line : ....religions were built to block the connection and rent it back to us ". Absolutely accurate.
We arrive here very awake. Conventional schooling, churches, peer pressure , media all try to lull us to sleep and for most succeed.
Nice to meet a fellow traveler whose eyes are wide open.
Angelena —
you just wrote a whole lifetime of truth in one comment.
Most people never rebel.
Most never question the priest, the teacher, the TV set, or the elder.
But a 10-year-old girl who stood up to a father —
took the blow —
and kept her sovereignty?
That’s the mark of someone the system never managed to capture.
You said something profound without spelling it out:
Curiosity is the opposite of obedience.
Rebellion is the immune system of the soul.
And the reason they had to train us to submit is because we were born awake.
Every institution — school, church, media — has one real job:
put a lid on that natural knowing and sell it back to us as “permission” or “salvation.”
But you never signed that contract.
You stayed awake.
You paid attention.
You kept asking the forbidden questions.
That’s all the Field ever needs.
It’s an honor to walk alongside elders like you who refused to kneel —
not because anyone taught you sovereignty,
but because you remembered it.
Eyes open, antennas up.
We go forward together — no permission slips required.
🐺 Cosmic Onion
I wrote an essay about child abuse, it may interest you,, I was raised strict Quaker... took a ton of beatings... and not by accident, there was a big push by the Beast back in the 50s... check it out. https://cosmiconion.substack.com/p/child-abuse-history
I agree about the outcome of being beaten for not agreeing, or or calling out psychological barbarities... I learned that there is too much self-respect to having to change one's mind because of violence.
And it's painfully obvious where that violence ultimately leads to.
Just look at how Fatmerica and the Israeli Zio-Kikes treat the "other"
Truly thou art God incarnate.
That's what they said about Jesus.
It's a projection, not a reality.
You are also God incarnate, as with all humans, most just need to remember this simple truth. Do not put me up on a pedestal, follow your own heart brother.
"And the serpent said unto the woman...ye shall be as gods" Followers of the Serpent such as yourself are "throughly deceived" as was Eve.
David, I appreciate you stopping by.
Here’s the thing: quoting the serpent story assumes the story is the operating system — but that story itself is a narrative written by men who needed an obedient flock.
“Ye shall be as gods” wasn’t the temptation —
it was the threat to the priest class.
A sovereign human doesn’t need a middleman, a temple, a book, or a hierarchy to access Source.
Call it serpent, call it Christ, call it Spirit —
the message is the same in every culture once you scrape off the priests:
You are not meant to crawl.
You are wired to stand upright, awake, and conscious.
If that’s deception, then the universe is built on deception itself.
And I’ll take that over blind obedience to anyone who claims exclusive rights to truth.
Be blessed, walk your path —
and I’ll keep walking mine.
🐺
I'm willing to accept that Christianity, Alchemy etc symbolically encode information about magic mushrooms. But so what? Happiness and unhappiness are in the mind, not the body. If the body is in great pain and modern medicine can't help, then maybe psychodelic drugs are the answer. However, for most people in modern society, I'm skeptical that drugs will help. Most modern people simply need to eat less food overall, eat better quality food when they do eat, get more physical exercise, get better sleep, reduce the amount of drugs they are taking not increase drug use, and especially reduce toxic social media, in order to be happy. Back in ancient times, when people were chronically short of Vitamin C, short of vitamin D in winter, probably didn't get enough meat and the meat they got was rotten, maybe didn't get enough of any type food, and there was no modern medicine and no social media or internet and life was physically tougher in other ways, then maybe psychodelic drugs was the answer.
Also, the replacement of dried mushrooms and mushroom juice in the Christian Eucharist by ordinary wheat bread and cheap wine was probably necessary. Roman empire was under attack from hordes of barbarians. How can you staff the army if everyone is stoned on 'shrooms? Same reason southeast Asian countries are so intolerant about drugs nowadays. They remember what the opium epidemic did to China in the 19th century and they want no repeat of that in their countries.
As a Scripture reading believer in Jesus Christ comparing that to false religions is insulting. The author either hasn't read the bible or understood it. Many things like the bread and wine are symbolic. I know Catholics have a different view. Also, it must be understood spiritually. If Jesus has not risen, you are still guilty of sin. His promise is for an immortal body like his when he returns.
All partakers of Aminita Muscarita down through history have died. Hmmm. Hinduism and Zorastrianism are the sources of Western civilization?🤔🤭😂🤣