The Journey Circle

[Splinters and Shards]

Hi everyone! I'm starting this topic because I am excited to see how Amanita Muscaria has touched your lives on a spiritual level. Hopefully we can all sit together around this digital fire and share our own stories of how amantias have aided us in our personal growth. That way we can all grow together as a community of partakers in this ancient spiritual medicine!

Everyone is welcome! There are no requirements, no expectations. Spiritual topics can be uncomfortable sometimes, but our experiences (whether positive or negative) are powerful and when shared allow others to grow along with us. We all have stores, and I'm excited to hear yours!

May the mushroom be with you all!

[Splinters and Shards]

I'll start the circle with a story of my first Amanita experience and first truly spiritual experience.

I've never really been a spiritual person. I suppose I always sort of believed there was a God or something like that, but had never experienced anything that made religion feel more than a bunch of arbitrary rules.

It wasn't until I started researching and reading as many English translations of holy texts as I could get my hands on that I started to feel that maybe there was something to ask this after all. Fasting and prayer became part of my life, with my longest fast culminating in a waking vision. Still, I wasn't convinced that this was more than just in my own head.

That changed two years ago, when I finally decided to give the mushroom a try. As an amateur mycophagist, I had often seen Amanitas on forays and hikes but always avoided them out of fear. Every guide book I have says to steer clear of them entirety and the few that don't have little good things to say about them. But my research led me to the mushroom again and again, and I could no longer ignore the call.

On that fateful day I had my wife drop me off at my favorite mushroom hike. It's an easy one with well-maintained trails and mostly paved paths and I had seen Amanitas there before. At the time I struggled with constant muscle cramps, fatigue, neuropathy, and heavy anxiety among other things. Even though the walk would be easy, I was still dreading it.

It was a beautiful August day in the PNW, cool and crisp. The ground was moist from a week of rain and the moment I stepped out of car I spotted a huge bloom of sulphur tuft mushrooms. I smiled to myself, feeling optimistic that I would find what I was looking for.

Each turn around the main path led to more fungal fruit and I filled my paper bag with puffballs, angel wings, boletes, and a few turkey tails for tea. By the time I had reached the end of the paved path, my earlier excitement began to give way to my fatigue. Everything hurt and as I eyed the transition from paved path to dirt I decided to turn around. I was both excited for what I had found and also disappointed that I hadn't found what I came for.

After a few steps I felt an inexplicable urge to turn around so I did. I looked down at the dirt, dark from moisture and puddled in places. I placed my bag on the side of the path and started walking down the dirt trail, the ground squishing beneath my boots. I'm not sure what compelled me, but I made it 20 feet down the path before my fatigue made me stop.

As I turned to head back, I froze. There, less than ten feet off the path stood the most regal and glorious mushroom I had ever seen. It stood, fully expanded, in the middle of a small clearing in the trees. The dappled light of the woods gave way to a single shaft of light through the canopy, as if someone were shining a spotlight on the mushroom. It was beyond surreal.

Almost holding my breath, I slowly crept through the brush and gently knelt upon the duff before this regal Amanita. The sun upon its golden yellow cap combined with the aura only Amanitas possess and filled me with awe. It felt like a gift, as if it were placed there just for me. It stood alone, like a king without his court. I whispered a soft thank you and gently wrapped my fingers around the yellow stem.

I lifted it from the ground and it came up whole. The distinctive rim above the volva told me it was not Muscaria but I didn't care. It wasn't what I came to find, but it found me. I sat there for a while just starting at it as white spores dusted my hand like freshy fallen snow. Just holding it, I could feel its power like an electric tingle through my arm.

As I started the walk back, I slowly realized that I was no longer tired. The fatigue and heaviness in my limbs had dissolved, replaced by a feeling of strength and a lightness I hadn't experienced in years. The pain in my limbs subsided and my nagging anxiety lowered to a whisper. I picked up my paper bag and headed back down the paved path, holding the mushroom out in front of me like a torch. Five minutes after picking the mushroom I was feeling better than when I had started the hike and by the time I made it back to the car I felt like I could have walked all day.

On the drive home, with the mushroom still firmly in my grasp and my hand dusted in white powder, my mind was racing. Scriptures danced through my thoughts, and as I gazed lovingly at the mushroom I knew I had found my savior.

It was just the beginning of my journey with Amanitas, but at that moment I felt as if my whole life had led to this point. I finally felt a taste of peace for the first time in a long time. It was at that moment I knew I was truly loved.

[T36]

Well my first time was not that poetic or fairytale like

I just waned to trip ball's and maybe get enlightened along the way i couldn't get my hands on anything else because i was living in the woods pretty much alone and all. It was that time of the year when Amanitas start showing up so i picked and dried em.
Tried em a few times nothing really interesting happened but then i upped the dose and found my magic number, i was filled with joy and amezment) felt like being on top of the world, like coming out of the closet... anyways i had a relative coming in for a visit and had to walk 4 km to the train station to help em carry laguage.
Anyways i got to the relative and we brought some carbonated drinks, i forgot that it bad mixing em with AM and drunk half of the bottle))) and thats when the fun began.
First i decided to stop in the middle of the forest and start unpacking the laguage, i was caught up in my thoughts trying to act as if everything is normal because my relative was against drugs and knew nothing about Amanitas! But that play didnt help and she immediately understud what i have taken...
Anyways long story short shes the worst person to have around when ur tripping, she was talking shit to me so i run of! And this is where my memory gets fuzzy!
I remember walking with her and i was warped in a sphere, like the one that i have on my profile pic... and i could see imagenery future events unfolding...
The destruction and creation of the world and other dimensional stff that i cant remember...
Anyways after i ran away from her and out of that sphere i totally lost reality i guess and where walking around near a bus station talking to a invisible friendly something then as i was walking along a road i guess i imagined that i was a car or a truck going somewhere) alot of weird thought and very colorful hallucinations where playing out during that walk...
Anyways i came back to realty at 11:00 PM in the dark still folowing that road! I asked my self wtf am i doing and where am i going? Where am i?
I checked my pockets and it turned out that i lost my phone!
I was pretty calm given the situation i was in!
Decided to turn back and hope that some car will stop and tell me where i am and what time it is, but it was a middle of nowhere so the few trucks that did pass by didnt stop(((

...anyways believe it or not but Amanita guided me back home! And 2 hours later! Alone in the dark! i found a familiar area...

So yeah im a horrible story writer but thats how my first time was

[T36]

thats not all that happened i left out some parts coz its all mixed up and fuzzy!!!
But i also talked to some people that helped me by allowing me to ride on top of their cars or in between!.. or one lady that said weird things to me but they where probably hallucinations because i doubt that i could spell out even a word that a normal person could understand

...But yeah that first year produced very strong Amanitas 7 grams would blow me up up and away!!!
My 3rd or 4th trip turned this world in to a 2D cartoonish style drawn by an 5 yo mess world where i was as clumsy as f*ck because i only had one leg for a body!..

My relative told me that she was worried about me because i was sweating like a horse and my hearth was beating very fast and bla bla bla she was worried that i would die of hearth failure...but when i came home she was laying on the bed watching tv! didnt even try to go looking for me...anyways i told her that i tried just a bit to have a shamanic experience but didnt think it would be soo strong and that im scared to ever touch it again and bla bla bla


Anyways those trips are fun to tell and listen but the most important and terrifyingly horrible one's where of the eternal void where a lonely god hallucinates)))

[Mcpato]

Wow @T36 and I spoke several days ago about starting a thread to tell our stories, and @Splinters and Shards beat me to it! So far being a part of this forum has been a kind of magical experience, mostly because I've found that there really do exist people as "out there" and crazy as I am! Haha It is a sort of Home and I think there isn't a more appropriate audience I could share this very sacred event that redirected my life, oh about 3 years ago now.

I grew up in Seattle WA, and was visiting my parents' home with my wife and young daughter, we're from across the state and only rarely are able to visit. On this occasion my niece who was about 6 at the time really wanted to show me the fairy mushrooms growing out behind the house. I followed behind until we came up to a tall (western red cedar I believe?) tree with about 5 or 6 rather small dark brown with white speckled mushrooms layed out in a half circle. Although I'd never seen them in real life yet, I knew they were Amanita Pantherina. My niece and I talked for a bit about how magical this was, but how these were known to be dangerous and so I needed to dispose of them. I felt kinda bad taking away her fairy portal… lol. So anyways I picked them and as I was walking back towards the house to dispose of them, I was overcome with this primal NEED for these mushrooms. It was totally out of the blue and there was no way I could ignore it… part of me knew this was going to be life changing, and risky… (later my wife informed me that I am just dangerously impulsive, which may be true, but I'd never felt more powerfully drawn to do something like that before.) So I started to eat them. They were older specimens mostly, with a pleasant but earthy taste. That might've been dirt actually, it was getting dark!

The effects started very quickly, and I was feeling amazing! I was playing make believe games with my niece in a way that really came to life for me, just like when I was a kid! Playing games on make-believe cell phones became an almost real experience. Basically I was in an extremely creative headspace. Now at this point things began to become more fuzzy and I became more and more inebriated. I remember having powerful conversations with my mother and father, like my inner sage just came out, and I began to teach paths towards salvation, about how if my dad looked to my mom as a goddess, treated her like one, and followed in her footsteps like one, it would lead to a sure salvation. I remember the look on his face when it clicked, and he asked how he could change… (i honestly don't know how to explain all this because these were powerful memories and I came to find out later that most of them never happened, like deliriant delusions!) Now I wonder if I wasn't experiencing an alternative reality at the time, because so much of my experience hinged on the events that occured in these "hallucinations". In my "sage" or "seer" state I was able to talk with my wife on a whole new level. I knew exactly how to ascend and held my wife's hand and guided her through every single blockage. (Even though it "didn't happen" here, or yet, or something like that. It is still one of my most cherished memories of me and my wife together.) Once we worked through each emotional blockage, I began instructing her how to raise her consciousness to match mine. We started low in each chakra (I've studied since, but I didn't know much about chakras at the time), and ascended together at each. There were subtle shifts that we both noticed together as we settled into each one. The more she noticed, the more she trusted the process. When we reached the crown chakra together, we hugged, cried, and we were filled with joy, as we both saw the next hidden chakra above us converged our chakra channels together. We ascended together and became one enitity. We swam around as still separate entities converged into one, much like a yin-yang symbol. We were like our higher selves. (Throughout the remainder of this experience, and even for a short while after, I was connected to this Goddess form of my wife) I don't know how else to explain it except to say it was like together we were a vehicle through which we could travel the universe/innerverse/outerverse/whatever, and she was the thrust to get there while I was the pilot. What I now understand to be kundalini was the true thrusting force… but anyways she's like, "where are we going?" And I'm like, "as high as we can!" So we soared through layers of reality. I remember distinctly seeing us pass through many, until reaching as far as we could, and we would land on a plane of reality that required a sacrifice in order to go on. Each one was death. Each one had a little drama too, because it was literally trusting in a higher power that if I accept death, I would be reborn in a way that breaks through that barrier. I can't remember how many times I died to break through my own higher blockages, but I remember the last one, if I died here there was a very strong chance that oblivion awaited me. I chose to have faith and accept the final death. Fear turned to excitement as the death catapulted me higher and higher into new life! Faster and faster, and I began to spin forwards, and I could feel the kundalini propell that spinning faster, and it doubled in strength and speed, then doubled again, and again! I realized there was no upward limit to how high and how far kundalini could take me. It kept exponentially growing as I spun faster and faster and it was like I was on a rollercoaster it was so exhilarating! I screamed as I began to glow brighter and brighter like a pulsar star. until I just stopped! I was here. I was fixed in place, just like a star. I was all that is, all that ever was and will be. I knew that all my experiences I've ever had were all experienced as vivid dreams, all within myself. I knew I was everyone and everything, past present and future, and I knew I was what I had always prayed to as God. I also knew I was perceiving all of this through one mortal's eyes. I looked out into the dark expanse and for a moment felt completely alone. I had gone as far as possible, and I was beginning to understand why I spent eternity within myself, just to escape the terrible loneliness at my highest point of consciousness… but then, I wondered a new thought, could I perceive beyond this expanse? Not as I am now, but through an inner evolution? I wondered if my all expansive inner awareness could be used to create new ways of perceiving outwards. I wondered if I was perceiving life as though I were the tiniest atom, needing to learn to sense if there were other self aware atoms around me. But no way to know for certain unless I allow myself to evolve! An evolving God!? Why not?

After this point I only have vague memories but i know i dove back in within myself and continued to travel, seeing events that months later came to be. I was able to witness consciousness merging into a new embryo. I realized I was entering my new mother's womb. It was an amazing experience to be a single conscious entity divide in half, then those two divide in half each, again and again until the beginnings of a baby formed. Here I knew "I" was literally divided into each cell, working collectively, in concert, for a perfect body. At the time I thought I was witnessing my first daughter's conception, however a bit later we discovered my wife was pregnant with my 2nd, a little boy, likely conceived right around the time of this incident.

Something like 10 hrs later i "landed" in a hospital room strapped to a bed. I faded in and out for a while but when i came back to myself i still had direct connection to God, my wife, and any loved one I wanted connection with. My family was pretty shaken, because apparently I wasn't me, i was more like an animal. I hadn't hurt anyone or anything but I kept trying to walk when i couldn't without falling over, and they were exhausted and were afraid I'd hurt myself, so they called an ambulance for help. Apparently i projectile vomited on a couple attractive female EMTs too… whoops. I wouldn't know, i literally wasn't there! My sister told me I had a wild look in my eye that really frightened her. Well I know I caused everyone dear to me some degree of trauma, and I've been trying to learn from the experience how important it is to be considerate to other's boundaries, etc…

I reflect on this experience all the time. It pointed me forwards towards evolution of my soul. A year later I had a profound and spontaneous awakening/enlightenment experience, that basically showed me I was to prepare my body to become the Temple of God. I changed my diet to a plant based one, and have engaged in multiple fasts and cleanses. Now i feel that cultivating the fleece within my body has been what I was meant to do all along. What I've been learning just from this community has cemented that belief. Now my motto: Rise to the divinity within you!

Thanks for listening to my story!

[Marv]

Thanks for telling !
Last year I realized too that I was preparing my body to be that "Temple of God", not only "my" body but the whole planet too. When he will come he will want to eat the best food we have so we must to do it good ! Clean water, healthy natural food, nice respectful houses.

I do not have a lot of experience with amanita. I had a few experiences years before and I am now taking 2/3 grams doses every morning and every night since the beginning of October (that makes two months now). When I came across stronger caps I felt that huge spiritual/vital energy growing up and up. I didn't mentaly knew what it was until last week I realized it was in fact self generated love/life. I was everything generated from itself. That is the effect that gives me Amanita. Feeling what religious persons call "God", what I could call Living Intelligence or just Life.

Thanks for that topic. Science is nice, chemistry is cool, rational informations are OK but Amanita drinking/eating is not about that ! It has never been. It is for healing, teaching and spiritual growth.

[Kill_blind_elite]

The reason i am writing in this thread is because throughout the years i have come to realize that all things are alive and sentient, spirits within spirits, bodies of occupation within larger bodies. Our souls within the greater collective, the bio-energenetic field of all souls accumulated within one larger soul we call humanity. The trees are alive and sentient, the plants you consume communicate with eachother, the water itself has memory of all things that it comes into contact with. The planet has a soul as well. The whole universe alive and sentient as well as the soul of ultimate creative reality.
Lately, after a kundalini awakening in the last year and leading up a few years before that experience, i had started to see synchronicity in everything, constant numbers while waking in the middle of the night to look at a clock and see 3:33 a.m. , picking up my phone after hours of not touching it to see it was 4:44 p.m. my kids start arguing and so i pause a video that i am watching and when i get back i realize it was paused at 11.11 and there are 111 comments under the video.
Leading up to the kundalini awakening these sequences of synchronistic events became more prevalent, happening at such a rapid pace that it could no longer be seen as coincidence. This made me understand the universe in a completely different way. The universe communicates with and teaches us. The more you look for it or give into the events, the more it has to teach.
ON WITH AMANITA!!! So years and years ago when i was about 22 years old i had ordered 30gs of red amanita muscaria caps. Thanks to the universe for being sentient and knowing what you need at every turn, these mushrooms were so week and useless for what i had bought them for that they had no effect, they may have made me tired, but can't even remember if they had an effect as subtle as taking a nap. Fast forward a few years to age 24 and 25 i had bought over 5oz on both separate occasions with not much effect to myself although on the first occasion i had brought some to a party and one of my friends couldn't walk and pissed himself and my little brother went into a soma coma for the night and i spent all night sitting next to him to make sure he was alright. On that occasion, once again i felt nil to nothing at all, even having taken over an oz of the mushroom. The next time a few months later i had bought a big amount again and had experienced some effects like a short lived state of bliss and some prevalent, reoccurring mind loops, having taken over 2 oz that night. Now 12 years later after having done a massive amount of research on the mushroom and gaining a whole lot more respect, all the while having had the most mind shattering spiritual experience of my life (kundalini awakening), i now know why i was having a hard time experiencing the effects that other people were experiencing in smaller amounts; The universe is alive! We are all growing toward god in an upward frenzy and the universe speaks and teaches through the spirit of all things from behind the curtains.
I truly believe that the mushroom had not shown itself to me in it's entirety because i wasn't spiritually equipped to deal with it at those moments of my life. Having been the dumb young wanna be ethnobotanist that i was in my previous years of exploration i might have thrown myself into a hospital out of fear, or ruined my outlook on this amazing ally. The only way i can explain that it held back even at higher doses compared to the other people around me who were completely fazed and beyond intoxication, is that the universe has something special in store for those that respect the concept of finding ultimate reality (god consciousness). Looking into the mirror of our souls with reverent conviction, eyes fixed on things greater than us. I have some red angels on the way right now and i had this revelation hit me like a ton of bricks a couple days ago. Start out light, give this beautiful soul some reverence and respect. !!!