Amanita Muscaria Mushrooms, also known as Fly Agaric or Fly Amanita, have been around for hundreds of thousands of years and have been used by mankind for at least thousands of years.  This popular toadstool type of mushroom has been publicized in a plethora of media from the Smurfs, Alice In Wonderland, Fantasia, and even Super Mario Brothers.  This brief article is to explain the safety, myths, legends, legality, and overall pros and cons of what's becoming an in vogue alternative to traditional Psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms).

"Toadstool" and "mushroom" are often incorrectly stated as being synonyms, but factually "toadstool" refers to any mushrooms that are known to be poisonous, non-edible, and colorful.  Amanita Muscaria is no exception, it is most certainly poisonous in it's raw form.  That has never stopped human-kind from ingesting it and to this day it's still used culinarily by Japanese and Eastern European cultures AFTER detoxification via parboiling.  Amanita Muscaria is often pickled, used in religious or marriage ceremonies, or mentioned as edible in field guides with detoxification instructions.

All of that being said, there have been no known deaths caused by Amanita Muscaria in over 100 years and overdoses are rare.  We would never advocate eating these without detoxification and we only sell products that contain the active materials derived from Amanita without any of the toxins found in the raw material.

There are three key ingredients in Amanita Muscaria that cause the desired effects humans are looking for, which range from euphoria to sedation and hallucination:  

Muscimol: A psychoactive GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) agonist that activates receptors in mammals brains inhibitory neurotransmitters.  This essentially causes the psychedelic, euphoric, and mentally stimulating effects.

• Pure Muscimol Extraction:  This is the most effective and potent method but very expensive and likely to only be seen in laboratories or clinical applications.  It takes roughly 100 kilograms of biomass to generate 1 kilo of isolated molecules so don't expect to find this method in any commercially available products for consumers.
• Power Extract:  This is a very pure form that is scalable and commercially viable, utilizing heat dried Amanita Muscaria.  Once ground to powder, it's reheated and vacuum sealed.  This is the method most premium brands will utilize.
• Ethanol Extraction:  This form of extraction is also cost effective but yields a much less potent product per mg.  First the Amanita is soaked in Ethanol and then through a chemical process the ethanol is removed from the final concentrate.  Although scalable, it's not a very clean method and has the least potent final product.

 

From a therapeutic standpoint, we cannot stress enough that we do not make any medical claims regarding Amanita Muscaria and not enough wide scale clinical trials have been established to cite references.  However, we will say that there is anecdotal reference to use for: Depression, PTSD, Stress, Anxiety, Joint Pain, Arthritis, and even sore throats.

 

Short term effects of Amanita Muscaria include creativity, mindfulness, high energy, visuals, intense emotions, calmness, time distortion, alternate perspective, pain relief, and sedation.

 

Fun Fact: In the North Pole, Arctic Shamans would collect Amanitas and give them out for the winter solstice.  They traditionally wore red and white outfits to symbolize their treasured mushroom, which grew under trees like presents.  Almost all historic evidence of Santa Claus leads back to the Arctic Shaman in the north pole from entry through the chimney (because the yurts front doors were blocked by snow), to the reindeer urine they used as natures filter to remove toxicity of the mushrooms, and numerous other Christmas symbolisms.