Thank you, dear Mr. Singleton and dear Mr. Clark,  for this interesting punctuation.

I of course appreciate everybody who sees that in the RV Soma was a real hallucinogenic drug that was actually comsumed  and that the Soma stanzas are not about felt visions etc gained through exercises like fasting, thirsting or sleep deprivation.

I just want to deal in short with those points that are listed under the header “Contra fly agaric” (12-27)

I refer to the points given in a short way and add the pages of a paper, where that counterarguments are dealt with in detail (Ṛgvedische Lichtaufnahmen: Soma botanisch, pharmakologisch, in den Augen der Kavis. Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (EJVS), Vol. 13, Issue 1, 2006, p. 1-93)

But first I like to insert point 0:

Soma  has been substituted by other plants even in the latest book (10) of the Rigveda (p. 41ff ).

So, whatever it was in the Brāhmaṇa or the Avesta, for the Soma of the Rigveda, you have to look at the Rigveda.

Now with reference to the points given:

ad 12 . While that is true, it did not hinder the Sibirians to consume the fly-agaric even raw, the dreaded side-effects are also mentionend in the Rigveda, see p. 47 ff.

Btw: different fly-agaric populations have different effects in different regions and also different contents of muscimol within one and the same population. Best thing do to: dry them and mix them up for concoction., see p. 29ff

ad 13. Urin:  true, but an argumentum ex silentio and then also not a premise at all for consuming the fly-agaric. You can even eat (not advisable) it raw. To make a mixture with an even distributed content of muscimol for every one s. point 12. , best thing is to soak them and press them out.

ad 14.  aṃṣú does not mean stalk or fibre, it is the proper name of the plant.  Nowhere in the RV it is said that the plant is pounded vigourously. If the poets use stonger roots like √han oder sam-√piṃṣ,  that is together with useful herbs or plants óṣadʰi(i), words that are never used for “pressing ” Soma, “the pressed one”, p.41f. Soaked mushrooms are actually to be dealt with like fruits or berries: they are pressed out by the help of stones, but also wooden boards, p.26, there are even hints that they were also pressed out by hand, p. 25f.  Btw after soaking the soma plant is swelling √pyaa viz. what dried mushrooms (“Schwammerl” in South Germany and Austria) do, it is likened to something bellied like an udder and so on, it is milked from the bellies, the swollen aṃṣú’s are milked like the udders of a cow, and so forth, 27ff.

ad 15.  It is not easy availabe in the plains of the Punjab, because in India it only grows in mycorrhizal relationship with birch tres and koniferes, found in the Himalayas about a height from 1300m altitude onwards, 38f, Soma only grows in the mountains, p.39ff

ad 16.  It is nowhere said in the RV that Soma was an all day beverage, the amount of soma-stanzas separately collected in book 9 is due to its impact, but  does not signify comsumption on  a weekly or monthly basis.

Btw: even Indians today prefer alcohol.

ad 17. see point O.

ad 18. not true for the RV; for the interpretation of  the “many somas” in the Avesta , Y.10,17, see. p.39ff

In the RV it is a single plant, from which a concoction is prepared on the ritual place.

Points 19 - 27 are, though still listed unter the heading “Contra fly-agaric”,  no counterarguments at all,but only a list of the use of a combination of MAOI and DMT containing plants  for visisonary experiences elsewehere and its possible use  in India and elsewhere.

Best regards

Rainer Stuhrmann