The Ambrosia Society's Fleece

The Ambrosia Society was created by Don Teeter as a result of his research into Amanita Muscaria. They came to some very interesting conclusions although some of their work related to what they called 'the fleece' was later shown to be erroneous.
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Re: The Ambrosia Society's Fleece

Post by Kill_blind_elite » Thu May 28, 2020 6:54 am

I'm not trying to pick a fight with anybody here, but i have been a member of edot (now called entheogens forum) for 20 years. There are alot of people that say alot of things on forums ( specially edot) and that's just some guys word. These guys are all mostly half smart and some of them think they are botanists and mycologists when they are not. I have seen alot on edot throughout the years. And maybe he found black mold spores on his (supposed fleece) but this does not mean that he was viewing amanita muscaria mycelium either. I have grown mushrooms a few times,( no I'm not a mycologist) but you can grow mycelium on just about any substrate that you can grow any other mycelium on. You can grow mushroom mycelium on suger solution as long as it has the right gravity ratio to water. You can grow it on rye grain, Brown flower rice and vermiculite, anything that any mushroom can be grown on as long as it's mycelium can grow in soil conditions. He said that he has grown them and got them to fruit, nobody has ever grown amanita because mycologists have been trying to figure it out for years. The closest thing you can do is drop mycelium or spores next to a tree and hope it grows if that tree is in perfect conditions for growth. And no amanita mycelium does not need a tree to reproduce, it only needs a tree to fruit. I am leaning toward this guy doesn't know what he is talking about. The reason i say this is every other person on edot think they are an ethnobotanist or mycologist just because they study plants and mushrooms for fun as a hobby. So being as you can grow mushroom mycelium on sugar solution means that it can be grown on grape juice, so he is wrong there too. We need an actual mycologist to test this. Not some dude named stephen off of edot. If this is a big enough deal, then i will try to grow some amanita mycelium on brown flower rice and vermiculite and if it can grow in pf substrate then it can grow on sugar.... That means any sugar as a substrate, (glucose, honey water,grapejuice, white sugar as long as it has a nutrient to go with the sugar it will grow.

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Re: The Ambrosia Society's Fleece

Post by Kill_blind_elite » Thu May 28, 2020 7:14 am

Ok last post out of the last three 😜 read that whole thread carefully. Other people were teasing the guy cause some of the people in there were from the ambrosia society and also had pictures of it grown on grapejuice and confirmed it. Just like i said, nobody has ever fruited an amanita body. With what we currently know about amanita and our technology it seems impossible without a tree. Read my last 3 posts.

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Re: The Ambrosia Society's Fleece

Post by amanitadreamer » Thu May 28, 2020 4:17 pm

Kill_blind_elite wrote:
Thu May 28, 2020 7:14 am
Ok last post out of the last three 😜 read that whole thread carefully. Other people were teasing the guy cause some of the people in there were from the ambrosia society and also had pictures of it grown on grapejuice and confirmed it. Just like i said, nobody has ever fruited an amanita body. With what we currently know about amanita and our technology it seems impossible without a tree. Read my last 3 posts.
One thing most people aren't discussing is the type of mycellium/mushroom one is wanting. And it's basic mushroom biology which is why I say everyone should have all the basic sciences and why it matters that people who want to pontificate on a subject should study said subject first. Most of the time that I read bad information, it is basic chemistry basic biology or basic physics. And while I disagree that anyone needs to have a degree to be an expert in something, they do need to at least read an intro level textbook on the subject before diving deeper.
A large qualifier for what taxonomy a mushroom is going to have is whether it is saprophytic or mycohryzzal. If it is saprophytic that means it breaks things down, a decomposer. MOST mushrooms people are cultivating are that. They can grow on any substrate they can break down and extract the nutrients they need according to their DNA. Which is why mushrooms known for their immune boosting properties are usually found breaking down Birch trees. Birch sap and wood are immune boosting and almost any mushroom that only grows on birch is also going to be immune boosting. Can reishi grow on other substrates? Yes. But it is rare. Mycellium DNA determines what substrate it can grow on. Just because "some" mushrooms have very forgiving DNA, are variable opportunists and good at extracting the Nitrogen, Carbon and associated sugars, doesn't mean they all are.
Since amanita are mycorhyzzal, they aren't looking at what they are growing in as much as they are seeking roots of a plant with which they can build up instead of decompose. They build up the plant and the plant gives them much needed help in return. This is why we can't grow amanita mycellium or mushrooms. We are still learning why they choose the specific trees they do.
In my area they are choosing very very young pines and then aged and mature pines. I have theories. Amanita lost the ability to decompose about 20,000 thousand years ago.
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Re: The Ambrosia Society's Fleece

Post by Kill_blind_elite » Thu May 28, 2020 6:43 pm

Ohh yes i agree that people need to have some understanding in the background of mushrooms. How far did you read into that thread on edot? It was a debate and there was no definitive answer at all, granted there are 48 pages of post and I'm on about page 35 or so. I have grown mushrooms and taken cultures before.
Their debate had turned into a whole shitload of conjecture and hurt feelings without definitive proofs. There some good arguments on both sides, one side was prepelled by don teeters people and the ambrosia society forums and mycotopia which swore up and down with thier analysis that it was a morphogenic strain of amanita muscaria and the other was held by the guy at fmrc which was in Favor of it being mucor.
Neither sides provided any concrete definitive proof other than fmrc sent in a sample that came back as having multiple strains of different things,
The whole thing exploded cause of the fmrc guys beliefs that it couldn't be grown on grapejuice.
They never even took samples from the supposed mucor and tested it for muscimol or sent it in to a competent lab that could, probably be due to funding, idk.
The coolest things that were brought up with peoples conjecture was that, the effects of amanita could be due to this agaric attacking form of parasite mucor, found in many species of amanita var. And not the mushroom itself. Hence the fleece would actually be what it is claimed to be anyways.
It just seems like they were all trying to figure this out in the light of spirit of discovery like everyone at edot always had up until a few years ago but it turned into a fight because of strong beliefs on both sides.
I honestly don't know either way. I have some sitting in the other room in the beginning stages. I can look at the spores through a slide and describe it compared to sample pictures on the internet, but that doesn't prove anything either way. If i get brave enough to consume it, and it has the same effects as muscaria, then if it quacks like a duck! The only other thing is. I would like to find some pictures of actual mycology lab pictures of the mycorrhizea formations of amanita muscaria mycelia slides in lab culture.

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Re: The Ambrosia Society's Fleece

Post by Donn » Sat May 30, 2020 2:22 pm

Kill_blind_elite wrote:
Thu May 28, 2020 6:43 pm
If i get brave enough to consume it, and it has the same effects as muscaria, then if it quacks like a duck!
The way I thought it stood, they'd come up with a way around that. That is, outside of perhaps some true believers, they recognize that it's mold. But it isn't just any mold, it's mold from Amanita muscaria that somehow partakes of its chemistry. So it can't be and it isn't, but it does. I don't believe that explanation any more than that they're growing A. muscaria on grape juice, but ... they do seem pretty positive that there's a psychoactive effect.

Microscopic examination sounds like an interesting wrinkle. Any scrap of fresh A. muscaria should serve for comparison - there's some possibility I guess that you could be looking at haploid mycelium where the fruiting body is surely diploid, so they might not be quite identical, but ... well, that was 45 years ago and I was barely paying attention at the time, but I'd expect this class of mold to be about as different as it could be from a basidiomycete mushroom. One thing that's common in basidiomycetes is a "clamp connection", a secondary channel between adjacent cells in the hyphae that makes a little bump at the end - it isn't consistent enough that its absence proves anything, but I think I'd accept presence of clamp connections as evidence that it's more likely a basidiomycete than a zygomycete.

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Re: The Ambrosia Society's Fleece

Post by Kill_blind_elite » Sat May 30, 2020 2:45 pm

Like i said, I'm not a microbiologist or a mycologist, but i do have a little background in chemistry, ethnobotany and herbal chemistry.
Even though i have grown mushrooms a couple times, I'm no roger rabbit or paul stamets for sure. I might have to brush up on mycology a little bit.
I'll tell you what though. Aside from the explosions between the edoters, the mycotopians and the ambrosia society people, if we came together and studied this and found out that there was a psychoactive (mostly) safe)strain of mold that had the effects mistaken for a mushroom, then that would be one of the largest entheogenic discoveries of the century.

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Re: The Ambrosia Society's Fleece

Post by Mcpato » Thu Jun 04, 2020 2:30 am

Unfortunately we don't have anything conclusive like articles or lab results yet. I REALLY hope we can get to that point sooner than later. If I were able, I'd do it, but the most I can do is supply fleece spores...

The more I work with the fleece the more obvious to me that is a type of mold. I didn't jump on the same train as most others that mold=bad though. I love tempeh, and it is "fermented" with a mold that is very similar in appearance to the fleece. It has taller hyphae, black spores at the tips, and ZERO psychoactivity! It's also perfectly safe to eat raw. Fleece spores will grow a little at the bottom, middle, and mostly at a uniform layer on top. Once the substrate is mostly consumed it will grow an even taller layer of hyphae above the others. I have found it to be interesting behavior! It too is safe to eat raw and imo delicious! (If you can get past the yuck factor! Lol)

I believe that Amanita and the fleece have some sort of symbiotic relationship related to producing the ibotenic acid and muscimol. A few months back I finished experimenting, I think permanently, with pantherina derived fleece. I found it to be exactly the same in EVERY way, psychoactively too, except it produced an additional chemical that after consecutive use for a few days made my internal organs sore. Muscaria fleece looks, tastes, acts exactly the same as pantherina fleece minus the organ damage! For some reason pantherina mushrooms are super potent compared to muscaria, and I wonder if the "toxin" present is why? One jar of muscaria fleece and a 2nd identical jar of panther fleece have the same psychoactive potency otherwise.
Kill_blind_elite wrote:
Sat May 30, 2020 2:45 pm
I'll tell you what though. Aside from the explosions between the edoters, the mycotopians and the ambrosia society people, if we came together and studied this and found out that there was a psychoactive (mostly) safe)strain of mold that had the effects mistaken for a mushroom, then that would be one of the largest entheogenic discoveries of the century.
This is exactly what inspired me to start working with the fleece, it feels like the cutting edge to me, and eventually I'll make some breakthrough that no one else has made that will significantly renew people's interest in growing this "simplest" of entheogens!

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Re: The Ambrosia Society's Fleece

Post by Kill_blind_elite » Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:15 pm

Well, my honey (mead) fleece was a failure. There was definately trich (green mold) growing in it as well as some of the white fluff. Bums me out. I went up to visit with my family for a few days came back and just had to dump it. Now, I'm wanting to make some cherry orange mead and am afraid to use the same carboy withought pasturizing the container. Only problem is I'm afraid the more i heat up the container past 165°f that it will break. I guess if i just slowly bring it to that level. I have a good setup for that. Reminds me a little of the setup that the ambrosia society youtube video has lol.
My blue lotus mead is turning out beautiful though, so not all is lost!!! Off to make some cherry orange brew. Using expensive honey this time. Raw unfiltered, two different types. Should be amazing after a few months. Next time i do the amanita fleece, i will definately do it in grape juice like they do.

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Re: The Ambrosia Society's Fleece

Post by Mcpato » Sat Jun 06, 2020 6:06 am

Green mold (Trich you say?) Is bane of almost every ambrosia experiment I've done. I drank a batch of ambrosia that had gone bad and it worked, (I decarbed it first) but the mold added a strong headache to the experience, which went away after a couple aspirin.

Goodluck @Kill_blind_elite with all your projects! A blue lotus infused mead sounds so interesting! I foraged white water lillies and tried soaking them them in red wine for a different psychoactive experience. The wine tasted floral but strange, because it took on an mucilaginous quality... But it did impart a very pleasant feeling! Subtle, but I think similar to how blue lotus feels.
Please keep us in the loop with your ambrosia experiments!!

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Re: The Ambrosia Society's Fleece

Post by amanitadreamer » Tue Jul 14, 2020 5:27 pm

Splinters and Shards wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 10:15 am
I agree with everything that had been said so far and would like to add my own personal experiences to the discussion. I agree that the fleece has been determined to be primarily a mucor, possibly more than one species.

I have personally experimented with drinking liquid that has been sitting in a terracotta cup with the mold growing in it (the grail) and grape juice with the mold grown on top (ambrosial wine). Both have similar effects to water and juice extractions of various Amanitas.

I have noticed (especially with the cups) that drinking more water changes the effects. While Teeter addresses this, his explanation is focused on muscimol/ibotenic acid. I have not found similar effects with any Amanita extraction. I have experienced food poisoning from an unknown mold in the past that produced similar effects when large amounts of water was consumed.

I would not be surprised if further study finds that there is no muscimol or ibotenic acid present. It is quite possible there is another, perhaps similar, chemical produced by this fungus (or collection of fungi) that has similar effects. The unusual effects, which I would say is very similar to psilocybin, have happened to me with another mold. There are many molds and smuts that have potentially caused or influenced hallucinatory effects in people that have required hospitalization.

I think it more likely that there is a mold or molds that grow on or in Amanita Muscaria and similar species with their own unique constituent(s) that result in intoxication similar to the mushrooms. It may even work on the same receptors but with different effects, just as both Anandamide and Delta 9 Tetrahydrocannabinol both work on the same receptor but with different effects. Psilocybin itself does different things at the receptor site than the endogenous ligand.

I am not a research scientist or mycologist, just someone who is very interested in all of this and its implications for the benefit of humanity. These are all my own opinions based on my own experiences. I would just like to point out that instead of looking for Amanita constituents only, that perhaps there are unknown and unnamed constituents that could be discovered in these mold cultures. They may be chemically similar, they may be completely different. They may even work at different receptor sites.

Even the puffballs Lycoperdon Marginata and Mixtecorum have been reported to cause auditory hallucinations and there is no known, detectable constituent that causes this. I myself have experienced auditory hallucinations after eating Lycoperdon Marginata in large amounts. Current tests and methods of analysis may not be able to identify the actives in the fleece. I will continue to do my own personal experimentation and hope that this does come under serious scrutiny and further research.

Thank you for keeping this discussion on-topic and very informative! I hope this helps!
Does anyone here know of a link to any of the tests that showed it was a murcor? I live by the tests and the science. I am weary of the continual arguments with me about this on Reddit and FB etc and I'm making a video on growing amanita. I want to be able to link to the science showing this is murcor and not mycelium if anyone has this.
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