Mushrooms and Berserkers
Most teachings take place in the light, because it is impossible to read in the dark. Thus a paradox arises: truly valuable information is always hidden in darkness, which is extremely difficult to dispel.
Amanita muscaria are not the psilocybin mushrooms I mention in the material “Pandora’s Toxin: Horrors About Drugs”.
Moreover, psilocybin itself does not enhance human physical activity. Of course, individual reactions vary, but there is no widespread effect.
Widespread use is found elsewhere. Psilocybin has shown positive results in psychotherapeutic applications; there is very interesting material about it at this link.
The question of berserkers’ “battle frenzy” remains tantalizingly open. Nevertheless, what did they actually consume?
The most recent theory as of 2022. Ethnobotanist Karsten Fatur of the University of Ljubljana believes that the Vikings did indeed use some psychotropic substance, but it was definitely not amanitas—especially since those do not grow in all Scandinavian countries. Fatur identifies henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) as the most likely candidate.
Personally, I concede that the Vikings may have consumed nothing at all. Berserkers often died quickly in battle because they went into combat precisely to die, not to secure victory at any cost. This was no jihad belt of rebar, but a yearning for the cycle that comes with death.
The latest data from the “Arctic Institute of Neurotheology” confidently prove that the Vikings originally did not wear horned helmets, but rather shamanized in the forest over a cauldron of Amanita muscaria brew. Nevertheless, the collective mushroom trance expanded consciousness too much and, ultimately realizing that we are all trapped in a cycle, the berserkers in particular preferred merely to feign fighting, awaiting an early death while still under the mushrooms’ influence.
Modern adherents of Northern polytheism, claim the authors of the “Techno-Wiccan Journal,” remain genetically programmed to drink mushroom tea before the sátum — otherwise the mysterious ancient “nest” rune will not activate, and no ritual will succeed. This theory is supported by photographs from gatherings of modern essovariants, showing adepts ravenously chewing bright-red caps right on the altar.
