How to Use Amanita Muscaria, the “Fly Agaric” Mushroom

Some freshly harvested Alaskan Amanita Muscaria before getting dehydrated.

The first time I had learned anything factual about the famous fly agaric mushroom was over ten years ago from Gary Lincoff himself (RIP) at the Telluride Mushroom Festival. He told us how you can actually perform the now famous “double boil recipe” of ridding the fruiting body of all of its psychoactive compounds via boiling the fungus in water for 15 minutes, tossing the water and doing it again before going on to fry the mushroom which ends up being DELICIOUS. It is sincerely one of the world’s tastiest mushrooms in my opinion. This is coming from a person who’s eaten many different types of culinary mushrooms. Ever since then my knowledge of uses, health benefits, and research regarding this beautiful fungus have only continued to expand.

With most mushrooms, their processing and use is pretty simple and straightforward. This is true even for psilocybin mushrooms which are still widely considered to be a somewhat intimidating prospect. Now consider amanita muscaria. All of the field-guide books list amanita as poisonous (yet cite no credible evidence). Not only that, but among the people who are brave enough to experiment with fly agaric widely report minimal effects or negative effects like nausea and cold sweats. One man personally shared his experience with me and reported that he couldn’t see his hands. They were instead just pink spheres at the end of his arms and they felt very far away and hard to control, like they were permanently clenched.

Other people greatly exaggerate their experience and claim that it was like a strong DMT trip that took them to a different reality, literally. They use religious / metaphysical terms to describe how they were subjectively experiencing their own emotions, but often have little accurate information to report about what truly happened to their body and consciousness.

First, let me outline some of the initial considerations that may be responsible for producing this wide range of effects in people, then, I will outline down below the most commonly used successful methods of processing and using amanita.

Dosage:

Overwhelmingly, pretty much all of the people who report negative symptoms simply eat too much. We’re talking sixteen caps, and in some cases ONE WHOLE POUND. This is absolutely insane. Only an insanely foolish person would do this. I only ever eat one cap max, and more often simply use our decarbed tincture because it is by far my favorite way to have amanita.

Fresh vs Dried:

I have never in my life encountered someone who enjoyed the experience of eating raw amanita muscaria. Eating almost any mushroom raw will cause pretty extreme GI discomfort. If you want cold sweats and nausea, eating raw amanita will be your ticket. I will say there are a handful of people who swear by eating small raw chunks. I’ve never tried this, and I never will. To my knowledge, all people throughout history who we have any documentation about have all at the very least dried amanita or processed it in some way. I am unaware of any traditional consumption of raw amanita.

Potency:

The amount of ibotenic acid and muscimol can vary quite a bit between fruiting bodies. It is also documented that the SMALLER mushrooms have higher concentrations of ibotenic acid and muscimol, though I’m uncertain if this means TOTAL ibotenic acid and muscimol content, or that it’s simply a high ratio to the small mushroom. (I will have to double check my reference to this). Not only do the amounts of these alkaloids vary, but there are dozens of subspecies or varietals of amanita muscaria.

Amanita Muscaria

Amanita Muscaria var Guessowii

Amanita Muscaria var Flavivolvata

Amanita Muscararia var Pantherina

Amanita Muscaria var Gemmata

Amanita Muscaria var Chrysoblema

Amanita Muscaria var Formosa

Amanita Muscaria var Frostiana

Amanita Persicina (which is not a true muscaria but could easily be confused for one)

Amanita Regalis

Amanita Crenulata

Amanita Aprica

Amanita Augusta

Which one did YOU harvest?? Depending on the region you live in, and your skills at properly ID’ing mushrooms, you might not really know.

Luckily for us here in Alaska, we are by default picking two two species. The third, amanita chrysoblema, I never harvest. It doesn’t grow with any apparent abundance and there’s simply no documentation that supports its use, versus proper muscaria which is fairly well known. We do have some darker capped amanitas in Alaska that seem to be pantherina or regalis (I would guess pantherina), I never pick them either. There’s just not very many, and I don’t see the point.

The Legend of the Honey Mushroom:

There is a mushroom called the honey mushroom. It is widely considered edible, but for some reason it makes some people violently ill. It is now believed that it simply depends on the type of mycorrhizal relationship the fungus has formed. There is also a look-alike mushroom. In addition to that, some people recommend not consuming alcohol 12 or 24 hours before consuming this treasured fungus. One of the compounds, found in inky caps, is called coprine and is scientifically proven to cause extreme sickness when combined with alcohol. Is it possible that there is coprine in amanita muscaria? I don’t believe so, as I’ve eaten some while having an alcoholic drink and nothing bad happened. Is it possible that there are other compounds that react poorly to whatever else might be in the system of the person who eats it? Is it possible that there are genetic dispositions to tolerating certain mushrooms? The over all lesson here is that one person’s fungus is another’s poison and were are probably still learning about all the reasons why.

Region of Harvest:

As with all plants and mushrooms, the region, the soil, the overall terroir, all determine the qualities and potency of all that grows there.

According to Jason Salzman, Emanuel Salzman, Joanne Salzman, & Gary Lincoff, amanita muscaria from the Kamchatka region of Russia were much stronger than the Colorado amanitas which also happened to produce more negative side effects. Again, is it the mycorrhizal relationships to the certainly different species of Colorado trees? Were there more heavy metals in the Colorado specimens? What is all psychosomatic? I can say that I consider it an extreme privelege to be able to harvest amanita muscaria from pristine Alaskan land.

Unknowns:

As hinted it above, there are likely many reasons why people have the different reactions and effects that they experience when working with amanita. I mean, even with simple ole’ caffeine the experience varies widely from person to person. Some people metabolize it in but a couple short hours, even able to fall asleep shortly after consuming it. Others take 9 hours to metabolize it and avoid it after 1pm! A person can really only cilantro if they have the gene that says they can, otherwise it tastes like soap! We have to assume that there are a multitude of unknowns AND certainly some unknown-unknowns when it comes to this strange fungus.

Setting, and Expectations:

Where you are and how you’re feeling, what you WANT to feel, if you got good sleep the night before, etc, all of these things will determine how any psychoactive substance will subsequently feel. You can be happy and stoned, or two beers in, or you can feel like you’re trapped in a nightmare or angry or frustrated on the same dose of the same substance. An anxious person can react terribly to a cup of tea that otherwise they would enjoy. I believe that this is an important and sometimes tough to navigate aspect of using amanita. Another aspect of this is that many people literally don’t notice how they feel. They don’t know when their thoughts have changed. Having a healthy relationship to yourself and to your body goes hand in hand with being a position to evaluate the impact of any herb or mushroom.

How to Use Amanita Muscaria:

Simply eat it dried:

This is by far the most popular way to use amanita. People debate about sun-drying versus drying at a certain temperature to ensure as much decarboxylation of ibotenic acid into muscimol as possible. We believe the data supports drying at a certain temperature. It actually tastes DELICIOUS. Like pistachio potato chips, honestly.

You can powder it up at this point to ensure a homogenous mixture which is helpful if you want to put this powder into capsules or make a tincture.

People commonly eat 5, 10, or up to an ounce at one time. I personally never eat more than 5 grams, and personally prefer the tincture.

Make a Tincture:

Tinctures are extremely effective at extracting the bioactive components of natural products. You can make a tincture from dried amanita, and then perform the hot water extraction on the pulp after you’ve strained everything off, this would result in a double-extracted amanita muscaria tincture. You could also acidify and simmer your entire tincture together to ensure complete decarboxylation (my favorite way).

Multiple Ways to Decarboxylate:

Kevin Feeney and Trent Austin showed that you can fully decarboxylate ibotenic acid into muscimol by treating a muscaria solution with glutamate decarboxylase, which is an enzyme produced by lacto-bacteria which might possibly support the fairly popular theory put forth by Gordon Wasson that a sour milk amanita formulation may be the “Soma” written about in the Rigveda. I believe there is also a patented B Vitamin technique that produces a similarly effect decarb.

Raw Amanita for Topical Application:

The technique of making a raw amanita muscaria tinture or balm for topical use in regards to arthritic pain and sciatica is building steam. It should be noted that some people feel significant pain relied from injury or chronic pain when taking amanita internally, so in my opinion it doesn’t hurt to try both avenues.

Smoking Dried Amanita Muscaria:

It’s funny. There’s a STAGGERING amount of people who are willing to smoke tobacco, a plant. And, there’s a STAGGERING amount of people who are down to smoke cannabis, also a dried plant. But if you suggest smoking lavender, chamomile, or klip dagga, or a wildly misunderstood and infamous mushroom, people kind of lose their minds. The key thing here, is that we smoke cannabis we are actually decarboxylating it. So it stands to reason that smoking amanita is a powerful, visceral, scientifically proven way of getting muscimol out of amanita. But, how much is left over from the heat of the flame compared to other methods of decarboxylation? This isn’t something I’ve tried yet but I’m definitely willing to.

It is overall described as being:

psychedelic (many dispute this, calling it a deliriant instaead)

dissociative

sedative-hypnotic

stimulating

mildly synesthesiatic

macropsia and micropsia inducing

initiator of lucid dreams

a natural anti-depressent

a very potent anti-anxiety (I can testify to this one)

anti-craving and anti-addiction similar to psilocybin (more and more people are strongly agreeing on this point)

sleep aid

a potent, novel pain killer

All of the above is merely for informational purposes. We cannot give medical advise. We cannot even suggest anyone actually consumes amanita. None of our products are inspected by the FDA. They are not intended to treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

https://www.hyperborealherbs.com/alaskan-amanita-muscaria