Research into the Ambrosia Society Fleece.

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Research into the Ambrosia Society Fleece.

Post by Amanita Research » Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:25 pm

Given the recent closure of the Ambrosia Society’s website, it looks like further discussion regarding the fleece will likely die down. I, for one, feel there are still unresolved questions surrounding it. My understanding of the fleece is as follows.
  1. It was discovered by Teeter who mistakenly thought it was the mycelium of Amanita Muscaria. From this he connected various myths in antiquity together and suggested that this ‘fleece’ was behind them all. To see an archive of some of this work, see here.
  2. Much debate raged around this online for a while. Eventually there was testing done by a mycologist who specialised in Amantia’s generally. He had been curious as to whether you could indeed grow AM on grape juice and similar. This goes against all currently accepted knowledge about Amanita’s generally as they are obligate symbiotes and can only grow with a relationship to a host tree or similar. Anyway, this expert took it upon himself to document the growth of the fleece and then test the results. Upon testing it was shown that the ‘fleece’ was some sort of murcor. See here for full discussion. This led to various arguments which ended up with this expert refusing to do any more work on it.
  3. For some, this was the end of the discussion. For others it only opened up further questions. Why was this fleece always found with Amanita? Was it always the same species? Was it in a symbiotic relationship? Why were people reporting psychological effects after taking it? Was this fleece responsible for ibotenic acid production in AM? Or was it all psychosomatic? And so on and so on.
That’s the overview of it all to the best of my knowledge. There are still people who want to continue this research at least until there is a satisfactory answer to some of the above questions (and probably many more I am unaware of).

This topic is for discussion of potential future research into this. May I suggest we break down the discussion into the following areas.
  1. Firstly, exactly are we looking to find? Do we need further genetic sequencing of the ‘fleece’ or do we need to look at the chemical makeup of it?
  2. Secondly, once we have a rough idea of what we want to research, let us think how this can be done. What labs could we use and so on.
  3. We could then cost any potential work out and submit some samples to a lab. We could consider crowd funding and so on depending upon the costs involved.
I don’t have any strong views on this one way or another, so please take the above as mere suggestion, but yes, feel free to discuss this (whether you think it’s a great idea or terrible) here.

Personally I think it would be a shame to allow this research to fizzle out without resolution. As a final nod to the work of Donald Teeter (whom I’m sure many of us owe at least our initial interest in Amanita Muscaria to) let us see if we can close this chapter for him before the Ambrosia Society and its work fades into the mists of time.
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Re: Research into the Ambrosia Society Fleece.

Post by Mcpato » Thu Aug 06, 2020 3:39 pm

Thank you so much @Amanita Research for making this thread, i am one who is very unsatisfied with the way things have been left regarding the research into the mold known as the fleece. I am willing to donate samples for analysis, but just understand I would need time to prepare them. I'm just a guy who works 2 jobs and am raising a young family with 3 kids under 5yrs, lolol, so I am like molasses in regards to my fleece production.

I'm most curious what kinds of samples would be required?

I am satisfied that the mold we're dealing with is very similar to the Tempeh mold used to ferment soybeans in Indonesian cuisine. It has some slight sporulation differences, but personally, I'm more interested in the exact chemical nature of the fleece's metabolites. Is it ibotenic acid, or is it some kind of analogue? At this point the notion of it being a psychosomatic placebo effect is just silly to me. I would really like to put that part to rest.

What kind of sample should I attempt to prepare? The actives are very soluble in water, so soaking the fleece in distilled water would provide the metabolites I'm most interested in having analysis... Or I could grow the fleece on juice had have that available for analysis, but this does take a while longer. Do they have to look for known chemicals? Can they even find undiscovered chemicals at all?? I've mentioned that I wouldn't be sursprised if they found that the fleece produced an analogue of ibotenic acid, but has an analogue ever been found or produced? Thank you everyone who is able to contribute towards getting this done, I am clueless as to how this could be accomplished, but am more than willing to support the cause by donating fleece samples. Alternatively scientists could go through the whole procedure of cultivating the fleece from ground amanita caps... But that could be hit or miss. At least then there would be little doubt that I didnt say, use amanita mushroom instead of fleece. I just dont want there to be room for doubt, you know? There's been so much debate that people as a whole could be very distrustful of someone like me who believes in it already.

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Re: Research into the Ambrosia Society Fleece.

Post by amanitadreamer » Thu Aug 06, 2020 6:12 pm

Mcpato wrote:
Thu Aug 06, 2020 3:39 pm
Thank you so much @Amanita Research for making this thread, i am one who is very unsatisfied with the way things have been left regarding the research into the mold known as the fleece. I am willing to donate samples for analysis, but just understand I would need time to prepare them. I'm just a guy who works 2 jobs and am raising a young family with 3 kids under 5yrs, lolol, so I am like molasses in regards to my fleece production.

I'm most curious what kinds of samples would be required?

I am satisfied that the mold we're dealing with is very similar to the Tempeh mold used to ferment soybeans in Indonesian cuisine. It has some slight sporulation differences, but personally, I'm more interested in the exact chemical nature of the fleece's metabolites. Is it ibotenic acid, or is it some kind of analogue? At this point the notion of it being a psychosomatic placebo effect is just silly to me. I would really like to put that part to rest.

What kind of sample should I attempt to prepare? The actives are very soluble in water, so soaking the fleece in distilled water would provide the metabolites I'm most interested in having analysis... Or I could grow the fleece on juice had have that available for analysis, but this does take a while longer. Do they have to look for known chemicals? Can they even find undiscovered chemicals at all?? I've mentioned that I wouldn't be sursprised if they found that the fleece produced an analogue of ibotenic acid, but has an analogue ever been found or produced? Thank you everyone who is able to contribute towards getting this done, I am clueless as to how this could be accomplished, but am more than willing to support the cause by donating fleece samples. Alternatively scientists could go through the whole procedure of cultivating the fleece from ground amanita caps... But that could be hit or miss. At least then there would be little doubt that I didnt say, use amanita mushroom instead of fleece. I just dont want there to be room for doubt, you know? There's been so much debate that people as a whole could be very distrustful of someone like me who believes in it already.
My opinion, for it to hold up to scrutiny and so others may repeat what you do...
Take thorough notes and video.
Find exactly what the lab will require of you for sampling, labelling and shipping.
Be thorough on sterilization, etc...
What they look for... all they can look for is what is known to us. The computer is programmed by humans with the chemical profiles of known substances. The computer will output exactly what is in each item tested and in what percents, or ppm or other measurement.

I agree on having it done in a lab but you need to do it too so that the lab copies what you did to try to come up with the same results for peer review.
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Re: Research into the Ambrosia Society Fleece.

Post by tgt1002 » Thu Aug 06, 2020 10:42 pm

I say the sample should be pure fleece if possible. If there is any trace of actual Amanita in the sample it is pointless as it will only breed more mistrust. I'm happy to help with logistics and costs to a point, but quite frankly I really don't want to grow this stuff myself so I will contribute my time in other ways and I am happy to put my wallet where my mouth is when I say I would love some answers and if we get in a good relationship with a lab then I can send some samples of other Amanita related things to them. (I have some extraction methods I want to test and tweak and when I'm done with some of them I will need lab testing as I plan to use non food safe chems in the process for some so how effective it is can't be safely determined via bioassay)
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Re: Research into the Ambrosia Society Fleece.

Post by Mcpato » Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:55 pm

Thank you guys so much! I suppose I will do my best here to make up a bunch of pure fleece, and let everyone know when its ready! Hopefully in a week or 2 I should have a nice batch ready for the next step. I'll try and document my process for everyone.

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Re: Research into the Ambrosia Society Fleece.

Post by Hasler » Sat Aug 08, 2020 9:17 pm

I wish You all the best Mcpato

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Re: Research into the Ambrosia Society Fleece.

Post by tgt1002 » Sun Aug 09, 2020 1:55 am

Mcpato wrote:
Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:55 pm
Thank you guys so much! I suppose I will do my best here to make up a bunch of pure fleece, and let everyone know when its ready! Hopefully in a week or 2 I should have a nice batch ready for the next step. I'll try and document my process for everyone.
Right on let's get it done. Ok who is gonna figure out the lab stuff?
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Re: Research into the Ambrosia Society Fleece.

Post by Mcpato » Sat Aug 29, 2020 1:09 pm

I would just like to update you guys that I have not had good luck growing the fleece these past few weeks. Everything keeps becoming too contaminated for good use. I will keep trying!

Also, the Ambrosia Society's website came back from the dead!

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Re: Research into the Ambrosia Society Fleece.

Post by tgt1002 » Fri Sep 04, 2020 1:03 pm

Great to hear. Sorry the efforts are not coming to fruition. I may have found a lab. I made a post about it already titled Big News.
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