They are rapidly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and readily excreted in urine. Ibotenic acid and muscimol are substances which mostly participate in psychotropic properties of Amanita pantherina and Amanita muscaria. While we identify a different third filter from Wasson, our findings support and further his overarching theory identifying Soma as the Amanita muscaria mushroom. Here, we examine the strengths and weaknesses of Wasson’s argument, and in turn propose an alternate filter, a filter of milk, and detail how mixing aqueous extractions of Amanita muscaria with unpasteurized milk might lead to significant pharmacological changes potentiating the final beverage. Based on the practice of urine-recycling among Amanita muscaria using groups in Siberia, and several vague references to urinating Soma in the Rig Veda, Wasson proposed that the third filter was the human body, and that the urine produced by bemushroomed individuals was considered the purest form of Soma. Wasson’s interpretation of the first two filters, a filter of sunlight (sun-drying or desiccation) and a woolen filter (to remove solids from aqueous preparations), are generally uncontested, but his proposal for the third filter has raised controversy and ire. Central to Wasson’s theory are the three filters of Soma, which correspond to different steps in the preparation of Soma, as outlined in the Rig Veda. Gordon Wasson first proposed his groundbreaking theory identifying Soma, the hallucinogenic sacrament of the Vedas, as the Amanita muscaria mushroom.
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