Shamans, Religion, Soma and the Ṛgveda

1. Writer G. Hancock follows R. G. Wasson’s researches into the use of a hallucinogenic or, as the newer term is, entheogenic drug from the mushroom amanita muscaria (= fly agaric) and indologists S. Kamrisch and W. Doniger O’ Flaherty (1986): they all think that this mushroom was the soma potion, so amply celebrated in the RV (=Ṛgveda). He then concludes that “an ancient hallucinogenic cult exploiting the well-know[n] shamanic virtues of the fly agaric mushroom provided the visionary spark out of which the Vedas first emerged fully formed in remote prehistory” (Hancock 2005: 529). This view about the origin of the Vedas cannot be ruled out altogether, but no indologist who has even an elementary knowledge of the RV would entertain it. For there is another aspect to the “visionary spark” of the RV which all these writers ignore rather flagrantly.