The Alchemical Power of Amanita Mushrooms
Psilocybin mushrooms have been having a renaissance, which they deserve and is helping many people to heal. However, another mystical and magical mushroom is waiting for us to wander into the evergreen forest and remember her incredible medicine.
Amanita muscaria, also known as fly agaric, is wrapped in tradition and tens of thousands of years of use for spiritual, mental, and physical wellbeing. Despite seeing her image conspicuously in modern culture through fairy tales, garden décor, the Smurfs, the Mario Bros, and other cultural imagery, few have come to deeply connect with her. In the following paragraphs, I hope to uncover a remembrance of the power and wisdom beneath her white spotted red cap.
A Sacred Lineage of Use
Amanita is most commonly known for her use by shamans in Siberia as well as Scandinavia, Russia, and Eastern Europe, but she has spread around the world. While significant ingestion can induce nausea, vomiting, and cognitive and perceptual changes like many medicinal plants, people have been imbibing this mushroom for millennia for a variety of conditions from depression, memory and focus, as a sleep aid as well as a stimulant, as an anti-inflammatory, as well as to ease anxiety and pain.
In Siberia, there are stories of people being able to not only work all day, but that if they consumed this mushroom, the work was more easeful and less stressful. These tales demonstrate continually that amanita brings about a sense of ease, lessening resistance and stress, and a growing feeling of vitality and strength. This renewal of vitality also shows up in other ways like tales of eating amanita empowering the voice especially in song, providing courage to shamans during journeying, and even to Vikings consuming her before going into battle.
Within Evensk and Koryak traditions, she is also used externally for healing pain in the body especially muscle aches. Some also take amanita internally for this purpose though body oils are common. In Russia and Ukraine, there have still in modern times been ointments and tinctures used for muscle and joint pain available.
The Mystery of the Red Cap
Quite possibly the most notable tale around Amanita is her potential connection to Christmas traditions. As the story goes, the mushroom was given to reindeer to eat first because the process of the deer digesting it would remove any toxins. The deer would bounce around fabulously intoxicated, and then they would drink the urine which retained the active compounds without the toxins. The cap is red and white like Santa’s suit, and the snow would get so high in these northern regions like Siberia, that you would often have to come into a home through the chimney. You can see how there would easily be connections made there to Christmas holiday customs.
Growing in Harmony with the Forest
Another connection Amanita has to the Christmas traditions is that she only grows around the base of certain trees, originally evergreens like pine and cedar, but as she spread she has developed relationships with other trees like birch, beech, and oak. Because she has a deep mycorrhizal relationship with these trees, she is notoriously almost impossible to cultivate especially for large scale production.
What this says to me, is she is beckoning us back to the forest to reconnect to nature. If you want to know her, you must follow the path through her tree allies. There is also something that rebels against commercial culture by the fact that she will only grow in her natural environment like a signal that vitality lies in the forest at the roots of the trees. That being in a symbiotic relationship with these guardians of the forest, feeding and supporting each other, is crucial to our own survival as well.
Healing for the Heart and Spirit
Honestly, Amanita is one of those beings that works with so many interconnected things that it’s hard to know where to begin. So, I will start where I think that all things begin and come back to…the heart. She is known for being connected to Christ Consciousness and pulls back into heart centeredness. To me, this is the core from which all of her stress relief, aiding sleep, and invigorated feelings of strength and vitality source from. She awakens a deep and palpable gentle loving energy that pulsates through everything we are, the body, our encounters with others and animals, nature, etc.
Her activation of the GABA pathways contributes to a number of her abilities as well. It explains why she is good for easing stress and insomnia, supporting attention and focus, and even pain relief. These receptors also trigger our brain out of the “fight and flight” mode and focuses us into “rest and digest” where the body returns to regulating the systems we depend on like digestion, rest, etc.
Rebalancing the Nervous System
Like many fungi allies, she can support rewiring the nervous system; however, the manner in which she is able to manage this is amazing. She balances the nervous system, regulating it in a way that opens doorways to calming overwhelm, grounding, mood boosts, assisting in breaking habits and addictions as well as creating positive ones, and ushering in clarity. In this calm and clear state of being, we are often also able to be more open to our intuitive abilities, psychic perception, and connection to both the outer spirit world as well as our inner sanctuary.
The state of being she welcomes us to may also explain why it is claimed that she can address trauma from birth to about age 6 years. When we are able to settle into a calm and regulated state, approaching trauma ready to rise for healing is easier to address. While working through trauma is likely never enjoyable, with a being like Amanita on your side, the process comes with more ease and the softness she has that feels like being held by the Mother.
The Science Behind the Magic
I am not going to dive too deeply into the constituents here as much of it is still being researched, but at least part of her magic comes from the muscimol she contains. Researchers in Denmark found that this not only acts on our GABA receptors but is actually an analog of our endogenous naturally occurring GABA neurotransmitters.
Remembering how she grows in nature and wants to herself be and invite us to align with nature, is it really surprising that she holds a literal and natural key to our brain’s neurological pathway? Even more interesting is that while GABA is easily synthesized, it does not readily cross the blood brain barrier, which is why supplements and medications can have a difficult time being effective. (And many medications that address this can be highly addictive.) However, muscimol is able to cross over and have an impact that few other medicines or supplements can without the highly addictive potentiality. This really shows how Amanita has an ability to shine the same way that she wants us to.
Preparation, Safety, and Respect
When people say that Amanita muscaria is poisonous, there are a couple things to consider here. First, there are many varieties of muscaria fungi, some of which like the death cap are deadly. Amanita does in her fresh form contain toxins, but when properly boiled or made through appropriate means into a tincture, these toxins can be removed to the point of safety. While I cannot deem any substance to be completely safe for anyone, what I can say is that when prepared in certain ways, people have been able to consume her for ages to reap her health benefits.
There are also certain medications that would likely not mix well with Amanita, most of which are because they also work with the same GABA pathways that she does which could be too much of the same thing. Some examples are benzodiazepines, Ambien or other sleep aids, Lyrica or similar medications. Drinking alcohol while working with Amanita is also highly not recommended. I have not found clear explanations why, but it appears that she and cannabis are possibly also not best to use simultaneously. Best of what I have found though is that people who habitually use cannabis may be inhibited from deeply feeling the effects of amanita rendering her use mute.
A Return to Remembering
As I have explained, Amanita has been supporting humanity with healing and vitality for thousands of years, and she is still today waiting for us to follow the scent of pine and cedar and remember her magic. Her potency in supporting healing, trauma, addiction, depression and anxiety to name a few is beyond what many of us recognize even though we see her imagery and influence around us still very present in our culture. If this blog has you fascinated about Amanita and if she may be able to support you, I would love to chat more about this fabulous being.
A Gentle Closing
If this story of Amanita has stirred something within you, perhaps it’s her quiet way of calling you back to the forest, back to your own remembering. Every sacred plant or mushroom begins its work with a whisper, a soft invitation to listen and reconnect. When you follow that call with an open heart, the medicine meets you exactly where you are. You don’t have to be an expert or know what comes next — the first yes is already sacred.
If you feel that yes, I would be honored to walk beside you and explore which plant allies may be ready to guide your journey toward healing, wholeness, and remembrance.
About the Author
Lindsay Calliandra Rose is a Medicine Carrier, an accomplished herbalist, Plant Medicine integration specialist, and a woman with a profoundly sacred relationship with nature. She began her Plant Medicine journey many years ago with Ayahuasca and Huachuma, and she has completed multiple Master Plant Diets with beings like Rose, Bobinsana, Juniper, Jurema, Cacao, Oak, and Blue Water Lily. Lindsay is an initiated server and carrier of Hapéh. She now works as a preparation and integration guide for those answering the call to work with sacred medicines, and she is apprenticing in the art of guiding Master Plant Diets as well. She is a passionate advocate of safe and transformative experiences with the plants, and she loves helping people navigate these mysterious spaces with grace, love, and support.
