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Thunder Among the Pines: Defining a Pan-Asian Soma

By Frederick R. Dannaway

Introduction: Mushrooms on the Silk Road

religion are the starting point for this theory of a common, ancient entheogenic legacy that

survived into Medieval Japan in the form of Tantric Esoteric Buddhism. Needham’s evidence,

with a few notable exceptions (Spess 2000), has not been specifically treated by scholars of

entheogenic studies. This fact is surprising as his work on alchemy combines arguments of early

transmissions of religious practices that included sexual yoga, entheogens, and “macrobiotics”

as core doctrines that spread from the dawn of civilization across the ancient world. Needham

writes of some points that need to be addressed,

“The idea of a herb of immortality was not at all a new invention of Indo-Iranian

cultures, for we can find it already in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, datable

before 2000 B.C.E. What relation that legend had to hallucinogenic mushrooms

or other plants remains completely in the dark, but an extrapolation backwards

would make such a connection not at all implausible.” (1974)

His discussion then draws upon the investigations of Wasson and Michel Strickmann (1966)

whose research does suggest a Taoist cult of entheogenic mushrooms. A most interesting

supposition, especially for the theory of a continued Japanese soma, comes from Dubs

(1947;1961) which suggests that the “Indo-Iranian soma-haoma was the trigger for the searches

of the First Emperor of the Han Wu Ti, even it was only a stimulus diffusion (Needham 1974).”

Anticipating the hopeless task of separating out which geographic group was earliest and most

influential, Needham writes “…whatever news it was that came from Persia or India {…} the

properties of Amanita muscaria or related fungi were indeed known to, and used by ancient
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Taoists, perhaps also medieval ones, though it will be no easy task to reveal the details,

doubtless among the most secret arcane of the Tao Tsang.”

The Taoist tradition of China and Japan are fused together in the tales of before

Common Era emperors of China who dispatched envoys abroad to find the Isles of the

Immortals (Penglai) and to find the source for the “Elixir of Immortality”, which Needham

surmises, is a mushroom. This occurred in the reign of Shih Huang Ti (219 B.C.) who

dispatched one Hsu Fu, in Japanese Jofuku, of whom Needham thinks it probable that he and

his people settled in Japan as they never returned to China and there is a tomb of Jofuku in

Kyoto (Needham 1976). Needham’s exhaustive arguments on the blurring of alchemical

symbolism with entheogenic Soma-Haoma cults is simply too massive to recount here. But he

recounts later legends of these Taoist “plant of immortality” missions, in the text “magic

mushrooms that nourishes the spirit (yang shen chih), as clearly partaking of this truly ancient

heritage (Needham 1974). His works on the earlier dates of Tantra, such as the commonly cited

origins of 7th century CE (Davidson 2003; Bhattacharyya 1982) and the influence of Taoism on

Tantrism are essential to link this “esoteric technology” with an ancient current that persisted

into Tibet and Japan.

Amanita muscaria: Review of Literature of Ritual Use

Gordon Wasson’s revolutionary identification of the Vedic Soma plant as Amanita

muscaria not only founded the discipline of ethnomycology but it also help change our

understanding of the most basic principles of religion. Many see psychoactive plants as inciting

the religious impulse in humanity in the earliest forms of primordial shamanism (Wasson 1968;

Ruck 1976;La Barre 1980) and the world’s oldest known religious literature, the Vedas, sing

devotional hymns to this psychoactive Soma. The mushroom has been implicated in rites of

Greek mysteries by Ruck (1978), as the foundation of Christianity by Allegro (1970), as well as in
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countless magic, ritual and divination system the world over (Ott 1986; Pendell 2005). Wilson

(1999) has traced the “sacred drift” of the Indo-European mushroom cult and found an Irish

soma and Heinrich (1995) has traced the symbolism into Grail mythos and European alchemical

tradition. Hajicek-Dobberstein (1995) and Crowley (2005) have taken Wasson’s foundation of

Asian Shamanism and Vedic use and traced evidence of continued use in Tibet and China.

Spess’s (2000) work describes the Indo-Aryan entheogenic cults spread throughout the ancient

world while confirming the research of scholars such as Wasson, Ruck and Needham of the

symbolic connections with the alchemical traditions that veil the botanical associations (though

Spess argues for Nymphaea and Nelumbo, water lilies and the lotus plant, as the primary

candidate). Ruck (2006) has also traced mushrooms at the heart of many fairy tales.

That entheogenic sacraments can be found at the heart of most if not all of the world’s

major religions and mystery traditions has far reaching implications on the dynamics that

mediate and control the religious and ecstatic experience which were, perhaps, not so distinct in

the past. The death of Socrates has been implicated in the revealing of sacred knowledge of

entheogenic rituals and the brutal Inquisition, like the modern War on Drugs, indicate just some

of the prejudice and persecution of a plant orientated mysticism (Ruck 1981). The observations

of the “friction” of entheogens and orthodox Buddhism of the pioneer researcher Dr. Strassman

as related in his article DMT and the Dharma reveals the complicated relationship between

entheogenic explorers and “legitimate” traditions (Badiner 2002).

Alternative candidates for the Soma/Haoma range from metallurgical compounds/alloys

(Kalyanaraman 2004) to a revisiting of the “ephedera” argument (Falk 1989) to past arguments

presenting such candidates as Cannabis sativa (Ray 1939), rhubarb (Stein 1931), Nelumbo

nucifera (Spess 2000) or to even the sun or moon (Hillebrandt 1965). There are too many plants

associated with Soma/Haoma to give adequate attention to competing theories but a good

synopsis of the discussion can be found in O’Flaherty (1968), Emboden (1980), and Flattery
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(1989).

Tantric Psychosexual Drug Yoga

There is an inherently experimental dimension to much of the Tantric/shamanic heritages

that culminated in various religions in India and China and related traditions. As scholars such

as Eliade and Needham have exhaustively documented, this mystical technology was expressed

and concealed in alchemical and metallurgical language. This esoteric semiotics can be found

from ancient India, into China and in the esoteric Islamic Shia and Sufism and thus into the

Western “mystery” tradition of Middle Age elixir alchemy(Needham 1976). These arts came to

encompass both internal and external alchemical transmutations of emotions and sexual energy

into higher spiritual states and preserve techniques which are remarkably similar between Taoist

to Buddhist to Tantrika. They often shared many of the same herbs and similar systems of

healing, martial arts, and cosmologies and many followed similar ascetic practices and

macrobiotic hygiene as well as a fondness for what Giradot calls a “mystical primitivism”

expressed in their fondness for rugged terrains, wilderness and remote mountains. Many of the

Taoists and Buddhists culminated into practices of seclusion in dark caves which itself is

suggested as producing an entheogenic state comparable to DMT as modern investigators such

as Terrence Mckenna and Taoist teacher Mantak Chia (2006), Lowenthal (2003) and others

describe. This practice, of self-enclosure in the dark, needs serious scientific inquiry as the

implications of an endogenous DMT ritual are quite profound and references to such practices

abound in various esoteric traditions but especially in Tantric Buddhism.

The controversies as to the origins of sexual yoga might be laid to rest by a careful

reading of Needham’s arguments and observations. Briefly, these range from examples such as

from the Mohenjo-Daro civilization, in the 3rd millenium BCE, which created statues of “yogis”

and naked yoginis sitting in the lotus position, which Needham suggests “are the predecessors
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of the Sakti consorts.” His evidence continues through instances in the Atharva Veda of sexual

yogic priests,the vratya, who used sexual yoga with their prostitute consorts (pumscali), which

Needham calls the original devadasis. Scholars that interrupt data through political contexts and

full blown crystallizations of doctrine will insist on a 7th century CE date for Tantra but as

Neeham writes “"Tantrism of Asanga flourished at 400 CE and was translated into Chinese as

early as 5th century" but says these are based on older texts such as the known Guhya-samaja

Tantra ascribed to 3rd century ad.” Tantra did not just arise in a vacuum nor was it limited in

terms of regions.

Entheogenic plant substances have a unique quality in uniting the primordial, “chaotic”

associations of creation with contrived and imposed qualities of civilization. These philosophical

polarities clearly come into play in the various traditions such as in various levels of Vedic duty,

or dharma, or in China with the Confucian social order of which the mystic is often in direct

conflict even if their particular religion enjoys state protection. From the wandering, hashish

(charas) smoking sadhu with unkempt locks (jata) who shuns worldly matters to build heat

(tapas) and life off energy (prana) to the Daoist hermit cultivating inner spirits and living off chi

and specifically “avoiding the grains” (bigu) of post-agricultural society. Where as theorists

speculate as to what was the identity of the soma, there is no doubt that Chinese Taoists rarely

hesitated in consuming “magic mushrooms” and the massive Science and Civilization in China

by Needham is fairly saturated with their various employments and uses along with other various

substances that would produce psychoactive effects, such as the burning of hemp incense in

Mao Shan rituals (Robinet 1993, Needham 1974) as well as many other substances and drugs

in the quest for immortality (Akahori 1989).

Buddha himself left his family and became a sadhu and no doubt experimented in the

techniques of his master the Shaivate Makkhali Gosala (560-484 B.C.) was said to practice

“dance and divine drunkenness” (Storl 2004). This Shaivate influence seems to have survived in
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Buddhism only updated linguistically and cosmologically as many Tantric sects, such as in

Nepal, join Shiva and Buddha into one. Buddha was protected by a cobra, the serpent kundalini

force coiled at the base of the spine, during his deepest mediation thus linking him clearly with

this esoteric technology. As the last line of the “hymn of the longhaired sages” reads “The

Wind-God churned it, and ground it, then the longhaired one drank the elixir from the vessel,

together with Shiva” with the elixir being on par with the Soma (Hartsuiker 1993). Tantra often

calls for the aspirant to venture into uncharted territory or as Bharati writes, “experimenting with

one’s own mind” (Aldrich 1977).

Esoteric Buddhism is philosophically more Vedic and Indo-European with a common link

being the “cosmic man”(the Sun Buddha of Tibetan and Japanese traditions) that unites the

macrocosm, mesocosm and microcosm in a complicated and strenuous process that best

termed “alchemical” consisting of sexual yoga, ritual adoration (puja) and herbal based alchemy.

Buddhist alchemy dropped the goal of metal transmutation and, in contrast to “Hindu” schools,

became more internalized (rasayana) being “quite identical to the Taoist, Mahayana and Hindu

hatha yogic techniques of urethral suction and the ‘hydraulic’ raising of the semen along the

spinal column as in the Kundalini tradition. The Yogic tradition of Patanjali states that ausadhi

“botanicals” are one of the four means to obtaining siddhis or powers” (White 1996). An ancient

Buddhist text speaks of five kinds of powers (riddhi): those attained by being inborn, by the use

of herbs (oshadhikrita), by spells, by activities, and by meditation (Aldrich 1977).

Tantric practice bridges these ontological rifts in the mesocosmic aspirant who, through

his/her alchemy, unities the microcosmic aspect with the macrocosmic in a process and

language that is not typical associated with orthodox Buddhism. But as both schools employ

various techniques ranging from simple but intense chanting (mantra) to highly ritualized use of

“drugs and minerals” to transmute themselves, they are not that different in theory. Amanita

muscaria is a special example being both a potential entheogen and cited as a medicinal herb in
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rejuvenating therapy (rasayana) with its effects described as hallucinogenic and stimulating the

nervous system, invoking “vivid dreams” and “recollections of old memories and supernatural

feelings (Puri 1977, 2003). Tantra, medicine, psychology and alchemy often converge into

interdisciplinary practices that aid the adept to cultivate a sound mind and body for longevity

which was an obsession from the earliest Vedic periods to the immortal concerns of Taoists.

Tibetan medicine (gSoba Rig-pa), like Ayurveda, incorporates all these aspects into a spiritual

and healing Tantra. A work on the subject, The Tibetan Art of Healing, which has a forward by

the Dalai Lama himself, mentions the use of Amanita in alchemical applications and mentions

pilgrimage sites in Tibetan borderlands that are brimming with magical plants that “bestow the

eight siddhis and cause one to remember past lives” (Baker 1997).

Psychoactive substances, especially ones that engender ecstatic or terrifying, death-like

experiences, were used in all aspects of the traditions from medicine to stimulant, sedative,

entheogen for meditation, initiation ordeal and perhaps, (as discussed below), to aid in martial

arts combat. The rich, ancient heritage of esoteric botany with the continuing mystical

associations, especially of spontaneously appearing fungi suddenly there for the adept to use,

demonstrate that psychoactive substance paid a critical role in the various training of devotees.

As Aldrich (1977) writes, “Regardless of the preachings of contemporary orthodox swamis who

urge their followers not to use drugs, the tradition of drug yoga is an ancient and honorable one

in India, developed to its fullest extent in Tantric practice.” These also include ascetic practices

of strict diets, fasts, yoga and physical exertion, sensory deprivation, the “techniques of ecstasy”

as discussed by Eliade, and martial arts. Thus much of Esoteric Buddhism, Tantra and Taoism

is a systematic, organized shamanic training that conditions the body and mind to be able to

experience higher spiritual perceptions, in which entheogens played an important role.

Chinese Mushroom Cults

Taoist literature makes frequent references to what scholars often translate as “magic

mushrooms” (ling chih). Despite “pop-culture” associations with this term it must be understood

to literally be magic and capable of producing anything from immortality to visionary states to

shamanic journeys. The soma was certainly not just one plant or mushroom, as the multitude of

descriptions Soma in the scriptures attest, but rather a complex of potent plants and healthful,

strengthening herbs that served as tonics for physical and spiritual ills (RigVeda X.97.7).

Likewise, in China there was a complex of Chih plants that shared some ritual, entheogenic or

medicinal correspondences that, like the soma, were described in alchemical terms and possibly

even prepared with gold. This no doubt irrevocably linked the plants with alchemical operations

and “potable gold.” Perhaps it is both the colors of the respective male and female genital fluids

(sperm and menstrual blood) and the color of the Amanita muscaria of red and white that

diffused through out diverse alchemical traditions.

The most potent and sought after Chih plant would certainly be mushrooms. As

mentioned, both Wasson and Needham suspected entheogenic fungi as one of the highest secrets

in Taoism in a tradition already obsessed with immortality and longevity. Health and spirituality

are inseparable in Chinese culture. A long life was testament to a life lived in harmony with the

Tao as well as providing the necessary life-span to complete the lengthy process of alchemy,

internal (nei tan) or external (wei tan). Alchemical language, born of truly archaic metallurgical

and proto-tantric cults, would continue to exert a dominant influence on these various religions

and cultures by perpetuating a belief in magic plants that were, to paraphrase Needham, passports

to heaven and possibly immortality.

Beyond many ancient texts of Taoist urine drinking and chih plants there is emerging
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evidence of much earlier contact between Indo-Iranian and Chinese cultures (Mallory and Mair

2000). Needham and Wasson accepted that the Chinese “plant of deathlessness” (pu ssu chih

tshao) could be the agaric which grew under the “tree of deathlessness” or birch (pu ssu chih

shu). Mushrooms, shamanism and sexuality are found very early in Chinese literature, such as

the shamanistic invocations Nine Songs of the 3rd century. Here a “Mountain Goddess” is

invoked by a shaman whose mission is to capture the “Thrice-herb” in the mountains for, as

Strickmann writes, “the goddess, his lover” and records the commentators state the plant is a

mushroom. This little study aspect of Goddess worship and entheogenic mushrooms in China

may well be the original source for proto-Tantric and Tantric schools that emerged in the “The

Great China” (Mahacina). Needham (1983) describes this current as “religious sexuality” or

cinacara as flowering into Tantra with the important note that much of this philosophy was

already present in Chinese mysticism since recorded history. This erotic mysticism which

developed into Tantra proper emerged in Buddhism as early as the 3rd Century C.E. and spread

through Asia (Payne 2006).

Evidence of mushrooms as hallucinogens and aphrodisiacs are also found in a text from

the 3rd century C.E. involving a certain Chiao-fu and two nymphs of the Blue River (Strickmann

1966) The hero falls in love with the pair and issued forth the following verses of poetry:

I will put in a basket

These pineapples, these oranges,

And entrust them to the waters of the River Han.

Downstream they float. I go along the bank,

I pluck and eat the mushroom;

Thus you know I won’t be polite:

I want to ask you for girdle-gems.

At this point the nymphs quote his poetry back to him and vanish after presenting him with their

gem laden girdles. Strickmann notes this story is charged with themes of ancient fertility rites,

and it must be mentioned that some descriptions of soma have it growing near water (Frawley

2006). Other sexual themes follow mushroom lore in China, such as is found in the The Classic

of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Ching), which Strickmann describes as from an “early and

unknown date.” Here another nymph, Yao Chi, dies a virgin and is “apotheosized as the Goddess

of the Mountain of the Sorcerers. Her spirit became the plant Yao, of which the fruit is the sacred

mushroom. The mushroom is described here as a love-charm, enabling its possessor to seduce

whomever he wishes. Strickmann research on Chinese mushroom cults recounts many cultural

themes that follow this relationship of goddess worship and sexuality as well as deducing that

much of Taoist visionary experiences are instigated by hallucinogenic mushrooms.

The syncretic nature of these religions is found in the Tripitaka (Ta Tsang) in words of

the Buddhist Master Ssu of the Southern Sacred Mountain who was the teacher of Chhen Te-An

founder of the Tien-Tai sect of Buddhism. His blending of Taoist alchemical and Buddhist

concepts, more fully discussed below, with magic mushroom lore can be found in the following

passage:

“I am now going into the mountains to meditate and practice austerities, repenting

of the numerous sins and infractions of the Law which have been so many

obstructions to the Tao, both in my present and previous incarnations. I am

seeking for the longevity in order to defend the Faith, not in order to enjoy

worldly happiness. I pray that all the saints and sages will come to my help, so

that I may get some good magic mushrooms, and numinous elixirs (shen tan),

enabling me to cure all illnesses and to stop both hunger and thirst. In this way I

shall be able to practice continually the way of the Sutras and to engage in the

several forms of mediations. I shall hope to find a peaceful dwelling in the depths

of the mountains, with enough numinous elixirs and medicine to carry out my

plans. Thus by the aids of external elixirs (wai tan) I shall be able to cultivate the

elixir within (nei tan)” (Needham 1983).

The 8th century eccentric Buddhist hermit-poet Cold Mountain (Han Shan)

writes of his deep retreat in the mountain:

“Relaxing below Cold Cliff

the surprises are very special

taking a basket to gather wild plants

bringing it back loaded with fruit

spreading fresh grass for a simple meal

nibbling on magic mushrooms

rinsing my ladle and bowl in a pool

making a stew from scraps

sitting in sunshine wrapped in a robe

reading the poems of the ancients” (Porter 2000).

Scholars such as Strickmann and Needham, with the aid of Wasson, note the continued
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use of psychotropic drugs in ancient Taoist practices that persisted until at least medieval times.

The revolutionary alchemists and herbalists of the Mao Shan traditions from the 1st century

B.C.E.(the date of the three Mao brothers) produced scriptures which Needham says were “aided

almost certainly by cannabis” and notes that Lady Wei of the Southern Peak, a founder of Taoist

liturgiology was “a great teacher of mediation and psychotropic drugs.” A 6th century example

from the Wu Tsang Cing, says, “If you wish to command demonic apparitions to present

themselves you should constantly eat the inflorescences of the hemp plant.” Robinet’s work

contains constant references to magic mushrooms and magic plants from remote regions that the

adept must seek out and consume. Wasson (1968) references an incident of a Chinese official

named Lu Yu (1125-1209) who seemed to be against the fungal use of the Manicheans. As Ott

writes,

“The Chinese, as is well known, are hardly mycophobes, and surely there must

have been something special about those red mushrooms to have attracted the

opprobrium of Lu Yu (Manichaeism was introduced into China in the late seventh

and early eighth centuries, and had considerable impact on the Taoists, with their

famous icon of the ling chih, or the 'divine mushroom of immortality' (Ott 1995).

The strong influence of Chinese traditions exerted on other Asian countries, such as

Korea, seems to also have brought much of this esoteric influence. There are the Jade girls

picking magic mushrooms in frescoes of the Koguryo tombs of the 6th and 7th Century C.E. As

Needham records, many Koreans studied in China bringing back “special pharmaco-sexual

techniques of the Silla masters.” Likewise in Burma an alchemical tradition persisted to “work

with fire” (aggiya) which, as again Needham writes, is orientated towards the attainment of
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zawgyi (=siddhi?) hsien in Chinese, through sexual arts and elixir drugs, such as were cultivated

by the Ari monks.

Needham’s research also documents extensive influence of Chinese alchemy on

the Arabs. Beyond mundane science and proto-chemical influences there is curious mention of

“laughing mad stones” from China that the Arabs called al-bahit of which shows up in the

Jabirian Corpus of alchemical scripts. This links in with Shia esoteric cults as Jabir’s master was

the 6th Imam Ja'far ibn Muhammad and Jabir even has a whole book dedicated to the subject, the

Book of the Surprising (Kitab al-Bahit) and need traces these legends back to a Chinese source

that describes a hallucinogenic mushroom that incites uncontrollable laughter and even in death

in excessive doses. Clearly these associations with alchemists and mushrooms or similar

entheogenic compounds and elixirs fairly saturated the region continuing into Western

alchemical traditions, which also are linked with mushrooms (Heinrich 2002).

Chinese herbalists no doubt experiment with entheogenic plants from the earliest times.

Taoist alchemists like Ko Hung, in works perhaps based on alchemical treatises from Nagarjuna,

describe many plants and their expected effects on the adept (Ware 1984). Dr. Li (1977)

discusses the literature of hallucinogenic plants in their diverse contexts and use amongst Taoists

and sorcerers and the history of the inclusion of mind-altering plants in Chinese herbals. A

continued use of such plants, such as evidenced above, provides ample possibilities for a

continued use of entheogenic mushrooms into regions infused with cults that retained the

influence of the soma/haomo/chih plants.

Buddhism and Entheogens: Establishing a Context

The father of ethnomycology Gordon Wasson has proposed the most reasonable

suggestion of species for the famed Soma of the Vedic traditions with the mushroom Amanita

muscaria. Though the debate as to what exact plant was used or substituted will no doubt rage

on, the most important aspect of Wasson’s work lies in the expressed possibility of an

entheogenic plant ritual at the foundation world’s earliest revealed religions, though opponents

seem a bit overzealous and indeed personal in their attacks on this theory. The focuses on the

movements of various cults across the ancient lands reveal a vast network of influence from India

to Greece with common themes emerging in support of Wasson’s theories. Indo-European

nomads brought specific doctrines, such as the Soma or Haoma, that then absorbed local

indigenous traditions of shamanism and animism. The result was an often tenuous syncretism,

such as is found in the Rig Veda and Avesta, which became entwined in the local cosmologies

and practices until doctrinal evaluations formalized these into elitist legalism and obsession with

elaborate ritual.

This period, after the Upanishads, coincides with the revision and assimilation of the

various competing pantheons into an Aryan framework adjusting their status as the godly

Brahmans. The relatively simple rites of the hearth then become the homa or agnihotra ritual that

spreads all through Asia. According to Wasson, the Soma cult seems to have diminished with the

migrations of the Aryans towards the Indus Valley. While this theory, and the “political reality”

affecting such movements, may indeed be a chief cause of the “cultural amnesia” as to what was

the original Soma plant, another alternative could be that the cult went “underground” to evade

various suppressions and persecutions at the hands of that old familiar state-caste based

orthodoxy. It is clear that these fire rituals, entheogenic plants, and complex philosophies

became firmly established in the context of metallurgy. The mastery of fire and the shaman have

long been poetically and mythically intertwined. The obvious metaphors of the metallurgical
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refining process from gross ore to useful metal would give all such endeavors a spiritual

dimension. The pressures of agricultural or cattle herding-based authorities link metals with

security, survival and “religion” would further contribute to the mystery of “smithing.” As the

technology became more widespread the specific fire rituals evolved an intentional esoteric

complexity to perhaps pace the streaming influences or to satiate the need for an esoteric

doctrine in which to contextualize the entheogenic rites (Eliade 1962). The diffusion of fire rites,

metallurgical/shamans/smiths and cremation rites that arise in the twilight of Copper/Bronze age

enshrine and link these associations with the purification of ores, potentially poisonous or

dangerous medicines, and impurities in the deceased on the funeral pyre.

Some Indian scholars, in the course of the deep study of their own traditions such as the

RigVeda, have suggested that the Soma itself was the metal electrum, which is a gold and silver

alloy. Alchemy of a metallic and plant nature is intimately linked with the various Vedic and Tantric

spiritual sciences that spread amongst various cults (Jaggi 1973;Kazanas 2002, Kalyanaraman

2004). A type of Soma was used in the incessant fire mentioned in the Khila Sukta of the Rig

Veda which Dr. Kalyanaraman links it to a metallurgical process that was of, as its inclusion in the

Rig Veda attests, religious devotion. The theory of Wasson can combine with this alchemical

symbolism to give the ritual considerations many dimensions from which to draw. The actual

smelting and combining of metals and incessant fires has obvious implications to a mystic. The

clay, earthenware pot of the Mahavira vessel filled with Putika plants and water over a fire begins

to take on alchemical metaphors of the elements. The fragrance of the fire, the way the gods

enjoy their sacrifice, wafts like incense in the perpetual prayer in the fire of the Soma sacrifice.

The inner homa is an offering of all the impediments and obstacles to the peace of

enlightenment.

The Buddha himself is implicated, though this is contested, with both mushrooms and

metal-smiths. As Wasson notes the Pali canon of Buddhist texts records the last meal of the
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Buddha as a mushroom served to him by the metal-worker Cunda. Wasson’s deductions follow

many years of academic debate as to if the final substance was pork or a fungus as the Pali and

other South Asian Canons maintain. As to the noted objections that the mushroom account does

not appear in the, to paraphrase Kornfield’s comments, “mainstream” canonical literature this

must be understood as a clear example of “enforced orthodoxy. The Buddhist convocations

mirror the Christian-Roman hybridization under Constantine and the subsequent councils to

define doctrine. The suspected vegetarianism of Buddha would suggest some deeper esoteric

symbolism (Wasson 1986)

The so-called “silence” of the Buddha, a religious and social reformer, has always been

linked with certain early Buddhist sects with an esoteric doctrine. This foundation of esoteric

Buddhism, allegedly entrusted to Ananda, then seems to have taken a radically different course

from the prevailing, basically “mirror-polishing” exoteric teaching. If this Esoteric Buddhism was a

purified Hinduism– one without class distinctions, animal-sacrifice and “distilled rituals”– then the

esoteric doctrine begins to take shape. The acknowledged master of expounding this Buddhist

silence is the legendary Nagarjuna who is still famed in India today as an alchemist and wizard

and who personifies the erotico-mystical side of Tantric Buddhism, and whose writings feature

debates between Hindus and Buddhist, as well as transmutational alchemy (White 1996).

Though his existence and authorship of certain texts are a problematic to some

academics, the significance of the clear associations connected with Nagarjuna betrays an

esoteric hermeneutics. The secrets of myth and folklore are in a sense more “true” in their

capturing of the prevailing spirits of sympathy these traditions were connected with. So popular

legend of the wizard and alchemist adept of plants and herbs does give an added dimensions to

his numerous writings on subjects as broad as philosophy and Tantra. His allusions to the

“amrita” or ambrosia or nectar, as it is translated, would then follow the deliberate semantic shift

that the Buddha himself established as a precedent in rejecting the caste system. This subtle shift
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from soma to amrita may also indicate a growing sense of sophistication in understanding what is

still today advanced neurochemistry. Indian medical systems connect the amrita, the “nectar of

immortality” with the third-eye and pineal gland. As other scholars have already connected the

amrita with the soma and Nagarjuna there is no need to repeat (Crowley 2005).What is important

is to note the link of philosophical and ontological orientation back through Esoteric Buddhism as

reformed Hinduism that was based on the soma-agnihotra-homa ritual and metallurgy.

Nagarjuna, like Cunda who served Buddha’s meal, was said to be an alchemist who knew

the secrets of the amrita and thus of immortality. Yet a further link is the legendary be-heading of

Nagarjuna from a bow of Kusa Grass in the popular folklore. As Kramrish again demonstrates in

the paper subtitled “The Secret of the Cut-Off Heads,” this symbolism is intimately connected

with the soma and Mahavira vessel, the descriptions of which match the pot or cup of elixir in

Nagarjuna’s hand in popular iconography (Wasson 1986). With the abounding connections of

esoteric teachings, symbolism, folklore and literal and symbolic allusions it is hard to ignore of all

of the evidence (Crowley 2005). There are many of these legendary adepts that define these

interrelated influences of immortality plants, such as the Tantric South Indian Siddhar Bogar or

Bhogar (3rd A.D.), born of goldsmiths, of whom it is said to have brought the siddha science into

China. He was said to have come from China and joined the Saivite lineage of the Nathas As

Needham’s research shows would there would have already had a thriving indigenous tradition

ready to receive it. Indeed, Bogar in some accounts is said to even have been Chinese himself,

as some also say of his guru K l ngi N thar. This lineage describes a system of healing and

attaining power from “kaya kalpa herbs”(literally “kaya=body kalpa=immortal”) in a poem that

mixes alchemical, botanical macrobiotics, and magic together:

With great care and patience I made the (kaya kalpa) tablet and then swallowed it:

Not waiting for fools and skeptics who would not appreciate its hidden meaning

and importance.
 18

Steadily I lived in the land of the parangis (foreigners) For twelve thousand years,

my fellow!

I lived for a long time and fed on the vital ojas

With the ojas vindhu I received the name, Bhogar:

The body developed the golden color of the pill:

Now I am living in a world of gold (Ramaiah 1979).

Given the social, political and religious climate of India, even well before the Buddha, it

would seem there was “the syndrome of the secret” (Urban 2003, 2005). This atmosphere of

secrecy in religious or occult practices is one of the very foundations of the power over lower

castes. To have knowledge of something, the name of a god or demon– to have its “true” name–

was to be able to control and bind it to one’s will. Who can fathom the secrecy necessitated by

internal strife and external “cult” strife, diminishing supply of the plant(s), regime changes, etc. all

the while operating on the cherished notion that the more discretion employed the better?

Written, and even oral, discourses were already suspect by the time of Buddha as witnessed in

his radical rejection of all “expert testimony” which indeed is the very foundation of all Hindu

religion, and therefore, society.

Writers who focus on the more “occult” aspects of these traditions, such as some of the

accusations made against those linking Buddhism and entheogens, neglect the radical social

implications that would topple the whole social structure of Hinduism/India should it be fully

realized. This very fact alone renders these mystics subversives first and foremost. The men that

shunned society in ascetic autonomy merely reinforce and validate its existence by giving such

attention. Compound this “sharing the secret” of “ecstatic technology” with the masses, which

may have been the undoing of Socrates, and no wonder Buddhism withered in India. This hostility

may have shaped a gradually more militant resistance of warrior monks/initiatory brotherhoods
 19

that may have been modeled on ancient metallurgical guilds (Giradot 1983).

Why did Bodhidharma come to China?

The ancient world’s many mystery traditions and cults nearly all betray some ecstatic

technology be it in the form of a potion, magic or ritual endeavor. The practice of self-enclosure,

from Zalmoxis and Pythagoras to the Egyptian tomb ascetics in the cult of the dead, all employ

practices that could mimic DMT in the brain. The evidence can be found through out China and

India as well as quite a particular strain in the context of Indo-European religions from the already

mentioned Zalmoxis to the cave rites of Mithras (Eliade 1970;Ulansey 1991). The cave

revelations of the many prophets of Semitic extraction also would seem some to retain some

aspect of this “chthonic shamanism.” The lengths of time are astounding, ranging from three

days such as in the case of Christ, to 3 year intervals with Zalmoxis. Others extend up to a

quarter of a decade or more and Tibetan oral lore from the Lamas themselves record examples

of whole lifetimes spent in such dark meditations. The practice seems to have been a very

important practice in Chinese mysticism as enclosing oneself in dark caves, gourds, and grottos

is a constant topic in various literatures (Robinet 1993; Giradot 1983) This common heritage

seems to emerge with the metallurgical brotherhoods that came with various waves of Scythians

and Thracians. No doubt comfort and protection was sought in caves since prehistory, but the

evolution to a mystic practice may stem from observing animals that hibernate only to be reborn

after a symbolic death in winter, as many of the martial arts systems are said to have been

derived from the movements of animals.

Suddenly the travels of the tea-soaked Bodhidharma might make more sense. Perhaps in

fleeing a hopeless and hostile political situation he went to the land of the Taoists of China, who

in their turn viewed teachings of the Buddha as stemming from a reincarnation of Lao-tzu who

went to the land of the “Barbarians” to teach the Way It is possible that the lack of or restriction
 20

of soma or soma-substitutes may have prompted scores of Esoteric Buddhists to wander to the

land of the Immortals whose scriptures contained countless references to plants that matched the

descriptions of their amrita. While Bodhidharma, Damo as he is known in China, might seem the

quintessential no nonsense “monk” his lineage back to Nagarjuna cast him in a slightly more

esoteric shadow. His seclusion in a cave, for seven years no less, would then indicate some bold

“ego-death” ritual to behold pure mind in the incessant flow of pure cognition. The seven years

could indicate an actual increment or just an extended period though it should be noted seven

days in darkness will have a person at about 5-Me0-DMT. Indeed much of the bias in terms of

drugs stems from these gross-generalizations and over simplifications of these esoteric practices.

Once a distinction is granted between substances– as in education that elaborates the

differences in effects of a mushroom verses a “potion”– then the discussion can relax enough to

consider the correlative reactions in the brain. This is not to render the entire, for lack of a better

word, “mystical” situation to a chemical reductionism (Goodman 2002). The implications of

drinking a hallucinogenic brew in being identical in chemical experience and structure to “sober”

Buddhist cave meditations opens the discussion as to the full possibilities kinetically present in

the tryptamines/amrita of the pineal gland/third eye. While Bodhidharma remains secluded

in his cave, the legendary associations as the founder of martial arts, especially the Pure

Land Shaolin Buddhists, linger on until later.

The Thunder

One critically insurmountable paradox will cloud any inquiry into these or any other

admittedly esoteric schools. This investigative double-bind will taint every conclusion with the real

possibility that the groups in question did possess a very real and practical knowledge that would

then be guarded and protected with the utmost religious fervor. The cult’s skillful dissimulation

and semiotic abstractions would nearly render any inferences hopelessly lost in a stream of blinds
 21

and bluffs if not further marred by intentional and accidental mistranslations. It is literally amazing

that so much consistent imagery is still found littered and scattered across space and time

despite attempts by various states and religious institutions to obliterate them from the historical

record (as in the Taoist changing of their sacred mushroom from Amanita to the ling-chi

suggested by Wasson as discussed below). The “oral” nature of the teachings gives the

consistency an almost miraculous ability to survive intact in foreign cultures. This spiritual

sterilization, similar perhaps in scope to the Chinese cultural genocide of traditional medicine,

Tibet and the United Nation’s apathy, suffers from oblivion or worse: a disgusting appropriation

by the institution in claiming the “rebel-heretic” in death as their own.

By the time Buddhism arrived in China Taoism, and other loosely associated mystical

schools of alchemy, were already embroiled in a struggle of cosmological proportions. An

encroaching legalism and the institutionalization of Taoism cast all heterodox plants, persons and

rituals in sympathy with a chaos (Hun-Tun) that by its very nature was against the orthodoxy

(Giradot 1983; Robinet 1993). The synergy of Taoism and Esoteric Buddhism/Hinduism may

have indeed shared a distinct cultural exchange from ancient times as witnessed in confluence of

practices and theories (White 1996). The gradual revealing of the core doctrines of esoteric

Buddhism continued through the elucidations of the various “Mahayana” schools that gained

popularity amongst the rural and the poor. The practices and teachings were not necessarily

created outside the line of Dharma transmission, as the other schools insist, but were rather a

refinement in the approach of dissemination. As the exoteric doctrines of all the faiths mostly

centered on morality and mediation, they differed little in the mundane contexts of the diverse

state traditions that, in turn, differ very little from Vedic injunctions to the Confucian ethics or

Buddhist precepts.

The esoteric aspects of the Mahayana are sometimes rationalized as symbolic

concessions to animist and “savage” indigenous cultures such as the Bon shamans of Tibet.
 22

While there is no doubt an assured blend and assimilation from “gods” to “bodhisattvas” the

natures of the rituals seem similar enough to suggest a collective merging of technologies rather

than a hostile tactic of missionaries. The basically shamanic fire rites of the old Homa would find

a kindred spirit in native fire rituals that then seemed to have a special inclination for herbal

supplements. “Tantra” has an etymological root meaning “to expand” and it is in this context that

Mahayana esoteric philosophy was taken to its theoretical and practical conclusion. The resulting

hyper-path is a thunderous distillation of rapid and sudden enlightenment known variously as the

Vajrayana.

The Vajrayana or “thunderbolt” vehicle is the pure unadulterated essence of Mahayana

Buddhism which is then, in some way anyway, a purified Hinduism (Crowley 2005). The

relationship and associations with mushrooms and thunder are nearly universal in scope attesting

to the relationship with precipitation and fungal appearance. Soma was always associated with

Indra as the Soma Pavanana of the Rig Veda attests with verse 15 “Over the cleansing sieve

have flowed the Soma, blent with curdled milk, Effused for Indra Thunder-armed.” As Wasson’s

and others’ research shows, the mushroom is always connected with the thunderous

“suddenness” of both the storm and the subsequent seemingly instantaneous appearance of the

mushroom. This is quite a perfect metaphor for the sudden enlightenment, even if the

mushrooms did not expedite the situation with instantaneous stages of experience that

“thunders” down the path towards “enlightenment.”

Wasson’s (1986) research introduces the confusion of alternative species and

substitutions of “thunder plants” that recall the Soma/thunder connections to the Chinese “divine

mushroom of immortality” or ling chi. Wasson notes its alternative names is lei zhi or “thunder

mushroom” as well as recording later epithets of “thunder aroused mushroom, thunderbolt

mushroom” etc. in his groundbreaking chapter in Persephone’s Quest entitled Lightningbolt and

Mushrooms. This ling zhi would then transfer its immortal connotations to the reishi mushroom of
 23

Japan. He records the Indian traditions of “thunder mushrooms”, and certain putka mushrooms,

of the genus Phallus which is clearly indicative of the shape of the hood. Interestingly enough, the

Tantric science of Vajrayana would then conceal multiple meanings as thunderbolt and

mushroom with the added sexual dimension of the word vajra which can also mean a penis

(Heinrich 2002).

As other scholars have treated of these sexual tantric matters to some extent, and with a

variety of success, the discussion would then turn to the accrued similarities that are then

becoming more and more defined as Mahayana and Vajrayana permeate China. All the while this

is mixing and blending esoteric discourses from the mountains of Mao Shan Temples to the

yantra shaped monasteries of Tibetan Lamas. Jin Dynasty era transmissions from Tibet, India

and Mongolia managed to maintain key concepts such as the retention of specific ritual formula

and symbolism to an astonishing degree of consistency, even or especially in the cases where

some “adepts” did not know the meaning of the Sanskrit letters. Later during the Tang Dynasty

Esoteric Buddhism reached a peak of influence with open dissemination of the esoteric Dharma

conducted, in some cases, under the auspices of the court. The Chinese Esoteric Buddhism best

known as the school of Sanlun also had a much more informal following of wanderers and

vagabond mystics that would probably purposely avoid both attention and arbitrary designations

let alone the dogmatic adherence of a school. Esoteric Buddhism is thought to have fizzled away

like an unattended Homa fire. While this may be the case– that I s just vanished due to lack of

interest– it is more likely and less often said that it may have just remained.

The adherents of the Prajnaparamita literature in China distilled its fundamentals to

understand the immediacy of the possibility of Buddhahood in one’s lifetime. The Tibetan

rejection of establishments (Rdzogs-chen) and the maverick yogis (Rnying-ma) found a particular

attraction to the mad hermits of Taoism and shamans who were influenced and influencing the

stream of defecting Buddhists from India into the churning ontological ocean of China. Various
 24

institutional and governmental restrictions seem to have limited the degree to which the full scope

of the Esoteric teachings could be safely revealed. Their influence in Tibet seems to logically

have allowed them more public breadth in terms of open teaching where as in China the climate

was not that conducive to such doctrines. The demise of Esoteric Buddhism in China can be

seen as a nationalistic reaction to the foreign influence of Buddhism, that was all the more

pronounced in occult sects with the retention of the Hindu pantheon and Sanskrit languages. The

Chinese ruling family would then support Taoism, “related” as they were to Lao Tzu, or even

Hinayana Buddhism as more moderate in theory, practice and expectations. As scholars note is

what is the melding of Confucian ethics with Buddhism during the Tang Dynasty that was

responsible for the more decisive “support.” The Tang dynasties influence faded with these

positive sentiments as witnessed in overall trends but exemplified in such anti-Buddhist

persecutions of 845.

Its perhaps strange to posit a radical, even militant, Buddhism but the history of martial

arts indeed stems, in legend, to Bodhidharma. The refinements in the Pure Land temples of

Shaolin, which contained esoteric practices ( Chinese: Mi Tsung, Japanese: Miyyko) and exoteric

martial arts, that further links fighting techniques with militant autonomy in popular Chinese lore.

Bodhidhrama’s alleged movements formed the basis for a martial art tradition that appears in

various forms all over Asia. One must consider the Indian tradition of Vajramushti which is a

brutal hand to hand art practiced by the warrior class, the Kshatriya, of which Bodhidharma

belonged as providing a context for his teachings. Tibetan warrior monks retain traditions of

Shakyamuni Buddha, a kshatriya or Warrior-Caste Hindu, trained in The Five Arts of the Warrior

Kshatriya's in style practiced day called Simhavikridatta (Lion's Skill) of the Vajramushti Diamond-

Thunderbolt Fist Martial Art which has survived and is practiced in the modern era (Goldstein

1964). Likewise, in Tamil there is the Kalarippayattu style of martial arts, which though perhaps of

a later date, certainly had more ancient precedents in the area. This semi-wildman/sage with
 25

supreme martial arts and esoteric knowledge is a very common theme that links much of this lore

together such the Tibetan Guru Padmasambhava - The Lotus Born, "The Lion Roaring Guru"

who introduced Tantric Buddhism into Tibet circa 750 CE . These masters seem to be the model

for the holders of the Japanese Soma, the Yamabushi, who are associated with the Shugendo

which are a sect of the Shingon and are linked to the enigmatic En-no-Gyoja of the 7th century

AD, an ingenious and secretive synthesis of Shinto, Zen and Tantric Buddhism. They are know

as the tengu or crowman and later become associated with the shinobi or ninja.

The physical defenses and combinations of mudra and ritual techniques would then seem

to date back to Vedic India with the system known as Simhanada Vajramushti. Certainly a noble

tradition of Buddhist Warrior- monks (Ldab Ldob), with a complicated martial arts, exist in this

very precise system of Tantric Buddhism. They employ a similar cosmology, pantheon, ritual,

liturgical language (in many cases) as well as a long history of heated and violent internal

conflicts from remote castles. As modern scholars have demonstrated, there is a strong

possibility that Amanita mushrooms were used in the alchemical process in the Buddhist Tantric

traditions of Tibet which may then be in line with the Soma of India in a reformed Buddhist context

(Hajicek-Dobberstein 1995; Kalyanaraman 2004). A startling bit of information is the connection

with the Tibetan martial system of “wild wisdom” with the mythological “Yeti” of the Himalayas. It

will prove extraordinarily relevant that there should be a martially adept “wild-demon creature”

associated with Tantric Buddhist Warrior-Monks, Amanita mushroom alchemy, and the furious

defense of their autonomy. I suggest that the Yeti, connected in the Tibetan martial arts with a

certain “style,” were these very same Buddhist monks, wild like their Indian founder

Padmasambhava, in the skins of wild animals roaming their territories like agitated demons. This

Indo- Tibetan-Chinese Martial Art then finds an esoteric counterpart in the so-called Bodhisattva

warriors of certain sects. Contrary to the unified picture of most publications on Tibetan

Buddhism, there is a very violent history between the different sects who have skirmished and
 26

fought for power since their inceptions under the (translated) designations that are variously: the

yellow, the red and the black “hats.” Yet all these groups retain and share these very distinct

ritual systems.

At this point, I would pause to present yet a further dimension of the Amanita muscaria

mushroom, which was presented in a PBS documentary that hypothesized the use of the fungi in

the “Day of the Zulu” (Knight 2002). The victory against such odds has prompted scholars like

Knight and botanist Ben-Erik van Wyk of Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, South

Africa to suggest psychoactive species at play in stimulating the warriors to battle. “Warriors who

consumed those mushrooms, researchers speculate, might have been utterly without fear,

believing themselves impervious to British bullets” (Knight 2002). The documentary followed the

presentation of this theory with two martial artists previously equally matched in combat who were

then each given a substance: one a placebo, one the preparation of the mushroom. The placebo

martial artists stuck to his trained form while his opponent, under the influence of the mushroom,

erupted with a ferocity that easily defeated his opponent. The results were startling in showing the

martial applications of the fungus, which now is not only ritual entheogen and medicine but also a

potentially deadly weapon in a fighter’s arsenal. Spess (2000) notes, “Indra, the man god who

drinks soma, becomes stimulated for battle after drinking soma (See Rig Veda

9.44.3;9:97.37;5.44.13) and it is possible that Amanita based lycanthropy is the instigation for

wolfmen in fairytales as well as of the marauding Beserkers. Ruck recent book revisits mushroom

lore and the Beserkers as well as other associations image lycanthropic mushroom use.

The Tantric ritual implements include the symbolic vajra or thunderbolt (Tibetan:dorje) and

bell with the dagger familiar in most magical ceremonies the world over. The cup or kalapa from

the Sanskrit is always best if from the upper cranial area, nearest the pineal gland, of a human

skull. That same militant Tibetan Padmasambhava is commonly depicted holding such a bowl

filled with the nectar of immortality in Tibetan art. The other curved “chopper” style knife is
 27

suggested by most as a symbolic weapon that defends the Dharma and severs the bonds of

attachment. This is certainly correct on one level, but given the known homa/soma influences and

the sudden organization into near military fraternities this might indicate a deeper ritual meaning?

The curved dagger might then be a stylized pestle to the mortar of the skull in a more Tantric

updating of the soma/hoama (lit. “to pound” as in extracting the juice of the rehydrated

mushroom) of the shared Indo-European heritage. If the Tibetans were indeed using Amanita

then they would have possibly some how managed to retain the essence of the homa/soma

(homa is agnihotra, a fire ritual, and not to become confused with the haoma entheogen of the

Mazdeans and Zoroastrians though they are related) with the fire rite. The Tibetan offering of the

Zho-zan or shozen, which is a sweet dairy mixture, may function as the ritual offering of the soma,

which pounded would have been imbibed, perhaps, in such a liquid( Tulku 1987).

The 8th century of the common era was an important one for Tantric Vajrayana. Like a

sudden storm it rained forth an eruption of translations and doctrines, usually associated with

some semi-legendary wild-man, upon all of Asia. The similarities and consistencies in Tibet,

China and Japan attest to the supreme organizational skills, dissemination techniques, and

kinetic energy of the Tantric message. The complete sophistication of such an exact esoteric

doctrine speaks to the level of refinement of the exoteric Mahayana with its diamond in the rough

counterpart of Vajrayana. The ability of the Tantra to mesh with indigenous shamanism may have

been equal parts tactic and conscious willingness for technological appropriation and

assimilation. As writers such as Ott (insert date) and others maintain, the shamans were simple

the psychopharmacologists of the ancient tribal worlds. The Tantrikas then show extreme

discretion and intelligence for the local gods and customs as representative of the prevailing

animist landscape. As the plants were thought of as the gods themselves, the foods or abodes of

the gods or “their” offerings, the plants would then partake of theocentric relationships to the

particular area’s divinities. This would include Taoist personas in the Chinese material as well as
 28

Bon and Shinto in the Tibetan and Japan traditions respectively.

Whatever the specific routes of transmission, the full expression of Tantra in the

encountered society would depend on the state sentiment. The vast, chaotic and competing

landscape of China had three main versions of religions in Taoism, Confucian and Buddhism to

even permit, despite the brief period with the Tang, any real flowering of Esoteric Buddhism. The

nearly parallel unfolding in Japan and Tibet, again, suggest the coherent nature of the

transmission that maintained a core set of distinct features. The mentioned ritual connections are

as present in Japan as they are in Tibet with both beginning to display some new, yet similar,

characteristics The essentially anarchist nature of Buddhism, as in his rejection of his

dharma(duty) to his caste and family as rulers for the Buddha-Dharma, would have natural

implications on what amounts to it’s political stance. Its various guises, exoteric and esoteric, still

often retain a disdain for this world of mundane concerns. This anarchist sentiment can suddenly

turn utopian, nearly reminiscent of Plato’s Republic and the philosopher-king, with what amounts

to a golden “Buddhacratic” society. It was either the smiles of the “lord of the world”, or clever

missionary activity that suddenly transformed both Tibet and Japan into state-sanctioned,

however briefly, Esoteric Buddhist centers. The Japanese Kukai’s triumphant return led him to a

complete autonomy, secure in a mountain stronghold, in no more than two years time. The

subsequent campaigns and military struggles are too well known to need treatment. Suffice to

say that the violence may very will indicate the conclusions of rituals of empowerment in cultural

and political vacuum like Japan during this most bloody time. The Japanese Shingon sect(literally

“True word” from the Sanskrit “Mantrayana”) arrived to the island via the aristocratic Kukai. His

well known story has him besting all the Chinese natives in his understanding of the esoteric

practices in the Tang capital of Chang-an.

His Chinese master, Hui-kuo, initiated him into the highest levels of the cult even passing

his “mantle of authority” shortly before his death. This secret teaching (Japanese Mikkyo) then
 29

comes from India through China. The mentioned entheogenic connections with India, and

subsequently in Tibet, will also find the already touched upon “thunder” connections noted by

Wasson of China. The works of Taoist scholars as Giradot, Robinet, Saso and especially the

encyclopedic work of Joseph Needham, as stated, reveal literally hundreds of episodes and

anecdotes related to magic plants more often than not identified as mushrooms. The Tantrikas

pouring in from various directions could not have failed to notice the nearly exact terminology of

their native traditions with that of native cultures. It is folly to think these Esoteric Buddhists would

have divorced themselves from their entheogenic heritage.

These consistencies in China are better documented do to the sophisticated record

keeping of many of the traditions and schools treated. Ancient pharmacopeias (Chinese pen-

tsao) and Asiatic shamanic heritages literally guarantee a fertile substrate for mycological

alchemy to fruit. As Dr. Li (1978) writes of ancient Chinese ethnobotany “Plants with

hallucinogenic effects were recorded in the earliest herbals nearly two thousand years ago.” The

further appearance of certainly entheogenic Manichaean (Chinese Ming-chiao or Religion of

Light) had spread to China at an early date eventually getting banned as a secret society in 732

AD (Ruck 2001). They were, like the Buddhists, vegetarian and held strange occult rituals all

night in “vegetarian halls”(chai-tang) where they are reported to “dabble in magic and unseemly

rites and had the reputations for extraordinary shamans...” and as to the ban “but it continued

underground, often resurfacing with quasi-legal acceptance”(Ruck 2001). Like the Tantrics, they

were using entheogenic and sexual technology from a common Indo-European heritage of secret

societies and what nearly amount to fraternal military organizations. They were “repeatedly

associated with fomenting revolutionary unrest” and were called “vegetarian demon worshipers”

(ch’ih-ts’ai shihmo)

an allegation that could be and was leveled at the Tantrikas as well (Ruck 2001). They were

associated with“drug induced ecstacy” as the prophet Mani himself was often associated with
 30

fungus. Wasson notes that the ling chi was “a small plant, not woody” that had become scarce

much to the dismay of the “necromancers.” Wasson suggests, with some persuasion, that their

was a conscious religious furor to replace the popular designation in art, poetry and iconography

to the “not woody” zhi, the soft (A. Muscaria) known to the Taoists through the shamanic Nivkhi,

with the very “woody” ling chi (Ganoderma lucida) in a brilliant ploy to secure the supply for the

elite. This would seem the fate of the mushroom from India to Japan as the Shingon tradition

made specific “connected” progress and was allowed to flourish under the sponsorship of a

powerful aristocracy.

No one would suggest that these highly secretive cults would out and out reveal the basis

of their power. Wasson takes the above example all the way to the Taoist veneration of the

mushroom in what he calls a “remarkable and successful ‘public relations ploy’” to secure their

supply. Even in a safe climate the esoteric nature of the highest truths would be heavily guarded

and protected. The city where Kukai landed, Chang-an, was a veritable cultural center of Asia. It

was know to have contained, in addition to the many Buddhist and Taoist temples, at least three

or more known foreign temples of which were definitely Manichaean, Zoroastrian and Nestorian

Christian. This hot-bed of cultural and religious transmission then has a rather potent

entheogenic foundation in the various cults, all of which display marked “ecstatic technologies” at

their core doctrines. Kukai’s critical catechism of Esoteric Buddhism even phrases the exoteric

oversights of other Buddhist sects in terms of a magical herb “on the roadside that passed

unnoticed.” He even makes a subtle allusion to plants and alchemical metallurgy combing the

metaphors as missed gems/plants in the ore or road in his various commentaries on the Lotus

Sutra. His works on the arguments of the Taoist suggest his rather deep knowledge of their

doctrines, especially the ones concerned with magic herbs, flying elixirs and fungus (Ryuichi

1999).

The theoretical dualism of Taoism and Manichaeaism would not satisfy the fervently
 31

“unified vision” of Kukai. But some doctrines, such as the light of Mani and the Great Sun or

Mahavairocana (Japanese dainichi) would no doubt find a common solar accordance in the

concept of the Sun Buddha. This in turn would find a common theme in the Shinto Sun Goddess

Amaterasu who would eventually become the avatar of Dainichi Nyorai(Thathagata) or the Ryobu

Shinto, even further illustrating the cross-influences and the ease of which the symbolism is

transferred and re-expressed (Ryuichi 1999). It is no doubt this solar devotion, especially linked

with dawn and sunset agnihotra/homa/goma fire rituals, that binds these cults across the broader

Asiatic and Indo-European expanse.

Kukai, fresh off his discussion of the elixirs and fungi of the Taoists, then proceeds to

relate an extended parable to illustrate the “Argument of Kamei-Kotsuji”(Buddhist) which, as

scholars note, is apparently largely autobiographical of his own wanderings as an “unordained

monk” (Abishido). The conversation with the Buddhist explains the attainment of the golden and

silver pavilions in the Buddhist tradition using the term for the “deathlessness” achieved with the

consistent offering of the “ambrosial nectars” linking them again with this Tantric tradition. Even

one of the most central mantras to Shingon, “Om amrita teje hara hum” is basically an invocation

to the revised soma/bliss discussed from the Vedic times through Nagarjuna and now into the

Japanese sects. The various Tantric rites of empowerment (kaji) and sacrifice together illustrate

the core doctrines to invoke the gods.

Japan’s warrior monks(sohei), the Yamabushi (those who lay down in mountains), like their

Tantric Tibetan counterparts are associated with Esoteric Buddhism. Like the Tibetans who are

associated with the “yeti” the Yamabushi are clearly linked with the tengu “goblins” of Japan. The

mysterious synthesis of Taoism, Buddhism and Shinto of the Shugendo relates the synthetic nature

of the various occult groups of Japan. The relationship between the mountain ascetic Yamabushi is

well attested to in the wealth of legends in popular Japanese folklore dating from at least the 7

century th A.D.. The relationship may well be found in the bird-like masks and feathered fans
 32

(hauchiwa) that might, with their wild antics, might given them a demonic if not terrifying appearance.

Explanations, like the those dealing with the yeti, would then indicate a conscious defense technique

of the monks to scare away unwanted intrusions into their Tantric utopia. It is rather a striking find to

have two Tantric Buddhist sects have such a marked commonality in these goblin-warrior monks with

inner-alchemical mystic teachings and fire rituals. Their “wild man” antics and military prowess recall

the above descriptions of Bodhidharma and Padmasambhava with the Yamabushi retiring in a similar

manner to caves for long cave meditations. The religious influences exerted on Japan include

indigenous shamanism, influxes of mystical traditions via China and Korea of Buddhism and the Tao,

both in the form of Shinto or with the hermit Senin who were like the magician/Taoists of China (fang-

shi) in their fabled powers. These cave dwellers generated their power (Ki) by consorting with the

spirits of the forest (kama). Wasson (1986), in Persephone's Quest, has a subchapter entitled The

Chinese and the Nivkhi who were a shamanic tribe said to be an "important cultural contact" with the

Taoists and of course, Amanita muscaria is their entheogen of choice, until recently under the influx

of modern culture.

This seclusion, in Japanese called komori, resonates with the sentiments expressed by

the Japanese authority Origuchi Shinobu. He writes “Sacred power is often manifested in

Japan...in a sealed vessel. In the darkness of this vessel it gestates and grows, until eventually it

bursts its covering and emerges into the world” (Blacker 1986). The similarity of this language is

found in the world over but with a special distinct flavor as found in the traditions of China as

discussed in the works of Giradot and Robinet. The former’s work on early Taoism elaborates the

extensive language of enclosing of a master in gourds for long periods, as does the works of

Needham and Eliade. In Japan this supernatural principle is known as utsubo, This association is

used to designate certain gourds and fruits as utsubo vessels. Blacker (1986) writes:

“Likewise the ascetic who wishes to acquire sacred power undergoes a gestation in the

nearest he can find to an utsubo vessel, a cave or darkened room. In this womb-like
 33

stillness he undergoes his fasts and recites his words of power, emerging only to stand

under a waterfall.”

This descent in to the womb-world mandala or Taizokai is a supreme initiation into the

highest mysteries of Tantra in Shingon. It may even be that Yamabushi or kamigakushi actually

would kidnap unsuspecting youth and take them to their lairs for possible induction into the sects.

As Blacker records this is particularly a masculine phenomena which hold the consistent

elements: “magical flight to strange places, the weird sights the boy witnesses Elixir, Herb or

jewel that are occasionally bestowed upon him...” which lends a certain entheogenic charm to the

legends. These creatures are distinct from the yamaotoko, who descend upon women covered in

bark, skins, and leaves (Blacker 1986). The links of the Yamabushi, the tengu and Shingon or

Tendai Esoteric Buddhism are well known in scholarly and religious literature. The subtle hints of

the tengu as guardians of huge trees might prompt speculation as to their exact relationship with

all these groups that seamlessly incorporated ancient Shinto lore into their ever expanding literal

and metaphysical arsenal. Considering the overall associations with this Tantric Buddhism and

Hindu Soma to the Amanita muscaria mushroom then it is all the more telling that one of the

principle chemicals in the mushroom is ibotenic acid that takes its name from these same Tengu.

In fact, the entheogenic Amanita mushrooms are actually known under a variety of names in

Japan, the most common of which might be “beni-tengutake” literally “scarlet Tengu mushroom

(Ott 1996). The tengu, described as licentious, are always associated with mushrooms and are

said to get “drunk from eating mushrooms” (Strickmann 2002; Imazeki 1973).

The Tengu as guardians of the forest suddenly have a much more concise entheogenic

context. Their avowed link with the Shingon sect of Kukai and the Yamabushi strains of this

specific Thunder Tantra further establish concrete relationships with the scholarship of

mushrooms and Soma. I suggest that the esoteric Buddhists of Japan followed the switching of

the identity of the their precious Amanita muscaria, in the manner of the Taoists to protect its
 34

identity, though instead of switching to ling-chi (Japanese Reishi) the species was Hericium

erinaceus or, as its still called in Japan, the Yamabushitake, a gourmet and medicinal mushroom

much sought after.

The fire rituals of the homa, called the saito-goma by the Yamabushi, retain utterly similar

symbolism. The texts of the Japanese Goma ceremony, such as translated by Saso, retains the

same language for the Soma oil in the fire offering illustrating that the even in the exoteric rituals

the soma is at least symbolically present (Snodgrass 1997). The examples in these different, yet

spiritually linked, cultures shed light on a dynamic mystical system that to various degrees came

to be expressed with the mentioned symbolism. These include the metallurgical, often martial,

fire-tenders who operated under a paradigm that was saturated with mushroom, herb, or plant

elixirs of bliss, immortality or both. The warrior-monks of both Tibet and Japan become clearly

linked with mushrooms and ascetic mountain practices as well as cryptozoological creatures that

are associated with wild mystics in popular legend. The tengu, again associated with particularly

with the Shingon sect of Kukai and the related Yamabushi, lend their name to the mushroom

which they are said to eat in a forest clearing in “convivial parties” to get drunk and carouse

(Imazeki 1973).

Holy Mycophilia and Sacred Metallurgy

“Teetotalers

Must be afraid of it

The tengudake”

“It would be nice to make

The straw-boss

Eat the big laughing mushroom”(Ott 1996).

Alchemy, with its symbolic language of fusing and transmuting, is the perfect system to

encode these specific esoteric teachings which seem to emerge everywhere there is an
 35

alchemical tradition. When diffused through Indo-European sources, partial as they were for metal

weapons, sun, fire rituals and psychotropic substances, there are clear sacred associations that

are to unite in the “cosmic man/Buddha/Imam/Microcosm” depending on the group, sect or cult.

Indeed, the Sufi use the same language of alchemy and “the Way” which some have conjectured

was passed via a Sufi philosopher al-Simnani who founded the whadat al-shuhud or Unity of

Vision school (Needham 1983). The constant symbolism, first connected to fungal cults by

Wasson, of “one-eyed/one-legged” creatures with metallurgy seems to be a very specific ancient

tradition, with the one leg aspect clearly representing the mushroom stem. The “one-eyed” look on

the bellows, symbolic in pranayama (which includes techniques of “bellow breathing”) might

partake of Shiva’s legends of closing off his exterior senses to open up his third eye, thus he is

“one-eyed,” to destroy kama or desire. Indian alchemical materia medica, or rasayana, lists

Amanita muscaria as Som Ras, as used in medicinal and rejuvenative therapies and it is found as

well in Tibetan medical texts that also clearly deal with both a physical and spiritual alchemy (Puri

2003.)

Ruck’s research in particular connects this ancient fungal/metallurgical cult with such

people as the "Telchines, magic metallurgists with a reputation for sorcery and drugs" who partake

of a very specific ancient and widespread tradition that reached from Ireland to furthest points of

Asia. The descriptions always remain strikingly consistent; as we will see with the Japanese

material will follow such descriptions that surround:

“The one-eyed Arimaspeans, who {...} were either just another

name for the Hyperboreans or, as a separate people, were the first intermediaries in the

transmission of the subterranean gold that was mined by the griffins, are a personification of one

of the attributes of Soma as the 'single eye'. These one-eyed creatures are a variant of another

attribute of Soma as the figure with a single foot, a characteristic of a supposed race of people

called the Shade-foots {...} just as his Titanic brother in the east, Prometheus, when presented as
 36

a Shade-foot, impersonates the sacred plant as a 'parasol,' (see image 1) which is the Sanskrit

word for 'mushroom.' (Ruck 1983).

Perhaps, as Wasson suggested, the world is composed of cultures that embrace the

spored kingdom of fungi while others loathe and fear it. In any case, the Japanese culture has a

long history of decidedly mycophilic reverence for the mushrooms, some of which are the most

medicinal in the whole world. Their folklore and vast, descriptive nomenclature exhibit the

familiarity from the culinary delights of the kitchen to the apparent use as entheogens in temples

and mountains. The vast numbers of species include the gourmet and medicinal mushrooms for

which Japan continues to be famous for to the hallucinogenic varieties that pop up in Japanese

folklore. Incidentally, Wasson confessed he never approached the entheogenic heights with

Amanita muscaria, especially compared to his psilocybin mushrooms he experimented with in

Mexico. Though there is a story that a member of one of his parties, a Japanese fellow, became

“drunk” from the Amanita which might have indicated to Wasson a genetic predisposition to that

sensation.

The drinking of urine, an ancient medical therapy known in India as shivambu, was of

interest to many of these mystical groups which a key component in Wasson’s Amanita

deductions in the Vedic hymns which recount drinking urine, a practice also used in recycling the

“drug” amongst Siberian and American shamans. Crowley (2005) has also focused in on the

drinking of urine as indicative of the survival of these cults. Needham describes in great detail

Chinese fascination with urine in medical and alchemical rites, in the forming of a complex “proto-

endocrinology” and the associations of “urine with sexual activity” and longevity techniques as

well as reminding that “urine therapy” as demonstrated by Krebs is a continuous tradition in

Western culture as well. Of interest in his exposition of these intricate matters is mention of a

Japanese scroll from the 13th century entitled Mabutsu Ichinyo Ekotoba which illustrates the

famous Buddhist priest Ippen, founder of the Jishu sect, using nuns to distribute his urine from a
 37

bamboo tube to “kneeling believers with that assurance that it would cure gastro-intestinal

ailments and blindness” (Image 2). As if on instinct, Joseph Needham retreats to footnotes to

voice subconscious hunches on this scroll and “cannot refrain from recalling here, in a kind of

arriere-pensee, the fact mentioned in Vol.5 {…} that certain psychotropic substances pass out in

the urine unchanged. But probably in this case the intent was purely medicinal.” In light of the

present research, he wonder if he would be swayed to embrace his suspicions on what is

occurring in the scroll, a Japanese ritual taking of urine that echoes part of the key evidence on

Wasson’s identification of the Soma. He certainly was convinced of the continued legacy of

entheogenic mushroom use persisting into Taoism which merged and influenced Tantra proper

from its own Indian alchemical foundations.

Entheogenic designations range from the amanita related beni-tengu-take or ibo-tengu-

take to the o-warai-take, or warai-take, which is the “big laughing mushroom” mentioned in the

above poem. Wasson and Sanford both bring to light the curious episode of Buddhist nuns and

woodcutters who meet in the forest as the nuns, tellingly reminiscent of the various ascetics of

those lofty regions, descend from a remote mountain pass. The designation of their mushroom

may well indicate a possible misnomer as to species in the popular retelling with the designation of

the chemically inactive but culinary and medical favorite, the maitake or Grifolia frondosa. Ott, in

discussing the context of the account, relates that several contemporary Chinese sources to the

collection of the tales, the Konjaku Monogatari, describe a Hsiao-ch’un or “laughing mushroom.”

He describes this as “doubtless the Japanese psilocybin species” which is identified with the

“food of the gods” or teonanacatl of Mexico or hallucinogenic Panaeolus campanulatus. Another

entheogenic species is the shibire-take or “benumbing mushroom” which is Psilocybe venenata

(Ott 1996).

The woodcutters, as the story goes, are scared and hungry in the wild, goblin
 38

infested mountain terrain when they decide to eat mushrooms at which point they dance and sing

around in intoxicated bliss (Sanford 1972). These Buddhists nuns, like the tengu and Yamabushi

are first thought demons or goblins (tengu) by the frightened woodcutters in a scene that seems to

blend a variety of traditions into one central myth that was later adopted into an official version of

stories. The old cult of female Shinto shamans, the miko, seem to have then blended with

Buddhist and ethnomycological lore to form this popular story that then might be seen to have a

deeper meaning, perhaps reflecting a strange relationship with the lay community of woodcutters

and craftsmen that support the shamans and temples. Shinto colors are red and white, like our

mushroom, and the architecture and even hats are often quite often mushroom shaped.

The Japanese word for mushroom, take, participates in colloquial association with

bamboo, that starts with “to grow” to “grow high”, “to attain full growth”, “to become furious”, “to

roar”, “to excel” etc. all of which become perfect symbols for the variety of uses and experiences

engendered. Take as a designation of mushroom in popular Japan is usually used in combination

such as tengu-take, matsu-take, or mai-take, which mean goblin-mushroom, pine-mushroom or

laughing mushroom, respectively. The Amanita seems to retain some of its “fly agaric” notions,

from is near universal use as a fly-catcher, with the names haitori(-goke), haitori-take due to its fly

stunning chemicals (Imazeki 1973).

Wasson was the first to link the “one-footed” and “one-eyed,” beings that haunt and

inhabit folklore from many sources from the Cyclops to the soma itself which is Aja Ekapad, in

Sanskrit literally “not-born single-foot,” to the mushroom. The mushroom is “not-born” in its

sudden and mature appearance, associated with the thunder or Vajra, and is “one-footed” with it’s

singular base or foot. The associations with metallurgy and “one-eyed” creatures is familiar from

the Cyclops that forged, of all things, “lightening-bolts” for Zeus in his war with the Titans. They

retain this metallurgical connection as then becoming the aids the metal-smith of the god

Hephaestus. Interestingly these Cyclops were three in number and named Brontes “thunder”,
 39

Steropes, “lightening” and Arges “light” all of which are associated with mushroom lore. This clear

Indo-European tradition has precedents with the one-eyed Odin which probably spread from

Asiatic and Oriental sources related to the “all-seeing eye”that was brought by Thracian

blacksmiths who had a “sun” painted over their third-eye spot on the forehead.

The relationship with the bellows and fires of the blacksmiths would find sympathy in the

reverence for the flames. The added dimension of refining and/or transmuting ore to workable and

useable metal would have the obvious spiritual associations of alchemy. The associations of

smiths would have further connections in the weapons(practical and ritual);magical tools,

mandalas, yantra, statues, etc.; and the copper fire pits as are mostly used in the various homa

rituals. This passage from The Mahabharata, Anusanasana, Section CLXI will then return the

discussion directly to India with identifications of Shiva, both one and three-eyed, Soma, Agni and

ritual asceticism with:

“ Vasudeva said: O mighty armed Yudhishthira, listen to me as I recite to thee the

many names of Rudra as also the high blessedness of that high-souled one. The Rishis

describe Mahadeva as Agni, and Sthanu, and Maheswara; as one-eyed, and three eyed,

of universal form, and Siva or highly auspicious.”

Brahmanas conversant with the Vedas say that Shiva has two forms. One of these is

terrible, and the other mild and auspicious. Those two forms again, are subdivided into

many forms. That form which is fierce and terrible is regarded as identical with Agni

and Lightning and Surya (fire, lightning and sun). The other form which is mild and

auspicious is identical with Righteousness and Water and Chandramas (moon).Then

again, it is said that half his body is fire and half is Soma (or the moon). That form of

his which is mild and auspicious is said to be engaged in the practice of the

Brahmacharya (Celibacy) vow. The other form of his which is supremely terrible is

engaged in all operations of destructions in the universe.”

Wasson and Ruck (1986) catalyzed the search for these specific associations which seem

to have spread via the tenacious nomadic wanderings of proto-Indo and Indo-European races that

then expended through India, Tibet and China. The connections with metallurgy and herbal magic

is known then from the dangerous Telechines to the one-eyed Arimaspeans which is, as Ruck

notes, just another designation for these bemushroomed travels “of beyond the northern winds,”

the Hyperboreans. This technologically advanced culture seems, based on recent archeological

finds, to have penetrated from Asia to Ireland perhaps bringing with it a mushroom cult rendered

all the more occult in its use of “alchemical metaphors” for working with fire and ore (Mallory and

Mair 2000). Herodotus records of a Scythian tribe that participated in some fantastic trade-route

that concluded with the a strange group of metal-smiths. These are the Arimapsi, literally one-

eyed, who are said to, interestingly, steal gold from “griffins” and are associated with wild “goat-

footed” Hyperboreans who march to the sea. Solar-birds of mythical and sometimes terrible

descriptions seemed to have some deep heritage in Persia. The Pahlavi text of the Bundahis,

which is based on archaic sources, mentions solar birds of creation as do Chinese sources with

the Luan, which have quite similar, multicolor descriptions. Giradot links this bird with the hun-tun

chaos correspondence also discussed by Needham and Granet as partaking in the theme of

“legendary rebels” who are always linked with “archaic religio-cultural traditions of metallurgy and

totemic shamanism.”(Giradot 1983).

Metallurgy, like Tantra, then can be seen to function as weapons of immediacy to resist

cultural, political and dogmatic religious control. As Needham again discusses, the god-like ability

to work with metals would contrast to the proto-feudal lords that used such technologies as the

basis for their authority. The formation of these “religiopolitical guilds” would evolve into the

prototype of nearly every mystical fraternity or order since. (note: this was marked as to be omitted,

but I think it rather crucial in establishing the vibe of martial arts and the Tantric wars that both

groups fought. Its not commentary or speculation but rather a pivotal element of their movements
 41

and doctrine. The logical designation of the sun as a solar bird that flies to light the sky coincides

with the agnithotra lighting of the homa pit at sunrise and sunset. The sun and metallurgical

mystical cults are basically microcosmic/macrocosmic theories of the Atman/Brahman or Solar-

Buddha or any other number of considerations of the “cosmic man” doctrine that is as essential to

Taoism as it is to Hermetics, Sufism or Esoteric Christianity. The Luan bird functions as a symbol

for life and passing in a variety of rather complex associations and symbols which Girardot notes

are rather strange. He concludes that the Luan bird is a metallugical “solar symbol for death”

which blends the mystical births and rebirths with a certain metaphorical potency. He also notes

that wild bird-men, possibly bringing this specific mushroom cult lore and metallurgical technology,

as foreigners were derided as “barbarian” and “not Chinese.” He further notes it is these

foreigners, possibly these same mentioned mycophilic smiths, brought with them the solar egg

myth of their ancestors. Giradot writes

“There are many traces of the Thunder-egg type of mythology here that directly

suggest the deluge and cosmic egg cycles of mythology linked with hun-tun theme

in Taoism. Furthermore, Kaltenmark has shown the influence of these factors of

these in the development of the Taoist ideas of the “feathered immortal (hsien)

and themetallurgical techniques of transformation of practiced by the fang-shih

magicians of Chi’i.”(Giradot 1983)

This digression returns to the Japanese mountains with bird-like mystics and

feathered-goblins with the Tantric Yamabushi and mushroom Tengu. This must be compared to

mushroom, phoenix correspondences that abound in alchemical traditions (Heinrich 2002).

Japanese metallurgical technology is from a common tradition from the Asiatic mainland. While

many of the Chinese legends retain some of these key discussed concepts it is rather striking to

consider the depth of influence indelibly painted onto Japanese folklore that must have proceed

from this common tradition. Scholars trace many of the specific details from S. China but find
 42

affinities from the Fukien regions to Cambodia and Korea. The legends of supernatural birds and

one-eyed monsters in Japan may find their filtered source in southern and central China with the

foot-bellows of the legendary one-legged ghost bird. The “one-eyed one-legged” connections

between these mushrooms and metallurgy may have some ones with the mentioned

considerations of the fungi as well as with the logical deductions of an eyepatch( one-eye) at the

forge with “one-foot” on the bellows. Needham notes that clearly these techniques of metallurgy

and mystical herbology, especially elixir alchemy traveled to Japan, but the lack of Japanese

alchemical gold traditions proper he explains stems from the situation that Japan was not as

interested in the idea of transmuting gold, as their own supply of real gold was sufficient

(Needham 1976). Needham states the Japanese enthusiastically embraced “chemo-therapeutic”

elements of Chinese alchemy and spagyrical arts, with the attendant legends of immortals deep in

the mountains, flying through the air, and abstaining from the cereal foods. Needham mentions the

“yamabushi” in this continuing connection of Taoist adepts and mountain monks who remarks are

ascetic and yet “almost Tantric valuation of sex which made it right for yamabushi to marry (often

shamanesses) and to be Shinto priests as well.” Needham recounts too many instances of

exchanged traditions of “potable gold” and prescriptions for things like Numinous mushrooms and

sweet flag to recount, with Chinese adepts showing up at Japanese courts paying tribute in

Taoists medicines of immortality (Pai shu).

Japan has a specific cult of the one-eyed god of metalworkers with the “Deity of Heaven”

Ame-no-me-hitotsu-no-kami who persists into modern day folklore as the “one-eyed one-legged”

monster of the ironworking industry, Hitotsu-me-tatara. The god might have its origins in the

mentioned Chinese birds and its said to have made its debut in Japan as the ancestral god of

blacksmiths, Kanaeyako, who arrived on the back of a white bird. This arrival introduced a

heretofore unheard of rite in Japan that links the mentioned solar-death-metal links with the new

practice of setting a corpse in the fireplace while bellows are blown. Similar practices throughout
 43

Asia with metallurgy attest to the vast and influential network that maintained such a consistency.

That Japan could maintain this cohesive symbolism in the obscure myths of smiths is an

testament to a long tradition of metallurgical arts. The confluence of data in concert yields too

many common factors to dismiss. Mystical and martial wild men haunting the forests in perpetual

meditation preserve fire rituals and plant designations across an astounding span of time and

space. The retention of languages, symbolism, techniques and technology proves the infectious

and powerful nature of the teachings that ingeniously adopted and transformed local shamanism

with a deliberate and sophisticated method. The Japanese Ainu and Shinto exhibit markedly

shamanic heritages, the latter’s colors are the familiar red and white of Amanita and soma, that

clearly merged seamlessly with most esoteric aspects of Tantric Buddhism that arrived in Japan. It

was this synthesis of various traditions that produces the finest example of the powerful and even

dangerous Buddhist-shaman-warriors known as the Yamabushi and Tengu who continue to this

day to guard the Dharma with the noble Bodhisattva warriors.

Conclusion and Implications in the Field of Ethnomycology

The debates as to the identity of the sacred Soma will likely continue unabated as each

theory satisfies a certain criterion, often elegantly, only to fail to answer for some other

descriptions in the various scriptures. Like alchemy, or the Philosopher’s Stone itself, no single or

simple reduction presents itself as fulfilling all of the various specific details ranging from

descriptions or effects. Falk (1989) rather dismissively asserts of Wasson’s theory: “The only

half-serious reason to expect hallucination as an effect of Soma-drinking in an Indian context is

the well-known Labasukta, RV 10.119. There it is said that some winged creature, after

consumption of Soma, touches sky and earth with its wings.” Geldner discusses the Soma in Indic

tradition as a ritual drink that is drunk and it is an intoxicant or hallucinogenic (madira’) (Geldner

1951; Watkins 1978) But even staunch critics of Wasson (Brough 1971) admited that partaking of
 44

Soma can induce "an ecstatic stupor." This brings up a point made by Houben (2003), who

writes an interesting article on the various identification controversies, and his agreement

with Brough’s chief objection to Wasson which should be quoted in its entirety:

“(Brough) made an important observation. Quoting from Wasson's

evidence on the consumption of fly-agaric among tribes in North-East

Siberia, Brough points out that there are repeated references to coma

induced by the fly-agaric. Those who consume the mushroom attain "an

ecstatic stupor" or are transported into "a state of unconsciousness". Being

"in a stupor from three sun-dried agarics" the hero of one of Wasson's

sources "is unable to respond to the call to arms. But time passes and the

urgency grows, and when the messengers press their appeal to throw off

his stupor he finally calls for his arms." Brough rightly observes: "Here, it

would seem, is a plant whose effects are totally unsuitable to stimulate

Indra and human warriors for battle."

Wasson’s own response was of the nature that Brough was ignorant of chemistry

and of the use of wine as a sacrament, but space precludes a proper digression into

these debates. Falk’s (1989) conclusion in favor of ephedera as the soma also uses this

argument in ruling out Amanita muscaria for “Indra in his knightly combat.” But this

paper’s considerations of a martial application of Amanita muscaria would answer these

objections by expanding the role of this extraordinary mushroom from entheogen,

medicine and aphrodisiac to a military application of inspiring a combative fury in the

warrior. This paper is a humble attempt to instigate far more qualified experts to
 45

investigate and decipher a definitive Soma symbolism linked with mushrooms that runs

like a mycelial network underground coming to fruition in various traditions of alchemy

and Tantra. Primary sources and the richly symbolic artwork of Tantric and alchemical

groups in the region will no doubt yield even more evidence of an enduring legacy that

cherised Amanita muscaria as a most holy sacrement.

Scan from a Japanese Tantric fire manual, showing a parasol mushroom. “Umbrella, the

most ancient and common metaphor in Sanskrit (for mushrooms) is 'umbrella', 'parasol':

chattra(ka), chattrika” (Morgenstierne 1957). Clearly this parasol is quite small and in the

context of a fire/amrita manual it is suggestive of a mushroom. (Snodgrass 1997)

.Acknowledgments:

Thanks to Victor Mair, Mike Crowley, Mark Hoffmann III, InYo, Somananada, and

Laura Hoinowski.
 46

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