The Golden Drink, Haoma/Soma (2500 BC)

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GOLDEN DRINK..." The Golden Drink (gSer-skyems) is the Celestial drink according to which wine is presented to Kings as a substitute for nectar." (Hoffman: 1975..pg 109)..."the yul lha is invited to take a seat and consume his offerings. These consist of the first part of the nourishment (zas phud), bsangs, and gser skyems." (Blondeau: 1996..pg 125)....(ambrosia) (bdud stsi)( sk: amrita)..."Aqua vitae"..."The ancient Indo-Iranians act of worship often involved the preparation, purification, and the offering of a sacred plant, Iranian Haoma, Indian Soma. It was mixed with water or milk and other ingredients and offered as a libation to the gods. Therafter it was drunk. It is a color of golden or yellow. See Book 9 of the Rig Veda." (Acta: 1985..pg 699)..."The Sapa Incans poured a libation to the Sun God from a golden vase before the procession to the Coricancha Temple." (Hawkes: 1962..pg 133)...

"The Aryans......About 3,500 years ago, a migratory, cattle-herding people crossed over the high passes from what is now Afghanistan and discovered the rich plains of the Indian subcontinent. They came from the same stock as most of the present-day Europeans and originated, it is thought, on the steppes between the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea. Their name for themselves was Arya, which means "noble" or "hospitable". We know little of them before this point in their history but when they reached India they began to write. They wrote down their sacred songs, about the Gods and about soma: the celestial drink which conferred immortality upon the Gods and by means of which mere mortals become Gods."......http://www.erowid.org/plants/amanitas/amanitas_writings1.shtml

HAOMA/SOMA...."The ancient Indo-Iranians act of worship often involved the preparation, purification, and the offering of a sacred plant.(Iranian:Haoma) (Indian:Soma). It was mixed with water, milk, and other ingredients and offered as a libation to the gods. Thereafter it was drunk by the participants. See Hymns of Nook 9 of the Rig Veda. The color of the drink was golden." (Acta Iranica: 1985..pg 699)..."Haoma was widely used by warrior and poet as well as priest and seer, playing a part in their lives not unlike that of mead among the ancient Teutonic peoples." (Boyce: 1982...pg 147)...

"BMAC: Making a Bid for Cradle of Civilisation Status.....Remains of urns - once filled with soma-haoma, a narcotic potion that was one of the three pillars of Margush religious practice - have crumbled in a former storage facility. Residents also paid homage to fire and water at separate temple sites adjacent to the main palace complex."......CAIS NEWS......ARCHAEOLOGICAL & CULTURAL NEWS OF THE IRANIAN WORLD.....http://www.cais-soas.com/News/2007/May2007/22-05.htm

Haoma is the Avestan language name of a plant and its divinity, both of which play a role in Zoroastrian doctrine and in later Persian culture and mythology. The Middle Persian form of the name is hōm, which continues to be the name in Modern Persian, Pashto and other living Iranian languages......Sacred haoma has its origins in Indo-Iranian religion and is the cognate of Vedic soma.....

According to Falk, Parsi-Zoroastrians use a variant of ephedra, usually Ephedra procera (perhaps Ephedra sinica), imported from the Hari River valley in Afghanistan. (Falk, 1989)...In the late 19th century, the highly conservative Zoroastrians of Yazd (Iran) were found to use Ephedra (genus Ephedra), which was locally known as hum or homa and which they exported to the Indian Zoroastrians. (Aitchison, 1888) The plant, as Falk also established, requires a cool and dry climate, i.e. it does not grow in India (which is either too hot or too humid or both) but thrives in central Asia. Later, it was discovered that a number of Iranian languages and Persian dialects have hom or similar terms as the local name for some variant of Ephedra.

"The Yazata Haoma, also known by the middle Persian name Hōm Yazad, is the epitome of the quintessence of the haoma plant, venerated in the Hōm Yašt, the hymns of Yasna 9-11. In those hymns, Haoma is said to appear before Zoroaster in the form of a "beautiful man" (this is the only anthropomorphic reference), who prompts him to gather and press haoma for the purification of the waters (see Aban). Haoma is 'righteous' and 'furthers righteousness', is 'wise' and 'gives insight' (Yasna 9.22). Haoma was the first priest, installed by Ahura Mazda with the sacred girdle aiwiyanghana (Yasna 9.26) and serves the Amesha Spentas in this capacity (Yasht 10.89). "Golden-green eyed" Haoma was the first to offer up haoma, with a "star-adorned, spirit-fashioned mortar," and is the guardian of "mountain plants upon the highest mountain peak." (Yasht 10.90)......

SOMA...."a popular drink in the land of the Indo-Iranians...the HUM plant of the Parsis is said to turn sour after a few days...the moons rays and the shoots of the Soma plant....."Oh King Soma..come here...descend!"..."This Soma is pressed for you O Mitra"....the ambrosia is ready in the sky...a piece of gold is tied in a garment and dipped into the oblation...Soma was in the third sky, a leaf w3as cut off, that became the parna. The Parna is holy power. Parna wood is royalty...Butter is brilliance. Soma is splendour. Curd is strength...(Keith: 1967)...

"Soma (Sanskrit सोम sóma), or Haoma (Avestan), from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sauma-, was a Vedic ritual drink of importance among the early Indo-Iranians, and the subsequent Vedic and greater Persian cultures. It is frequently mentioned in the Rigveda, whose Soma Mandala contains 114 hymns, many praising its energizing qualities. In the Avesta, Haoma has the entire Yašt 20 and Yasna 9-11 dedicated to it. It is described as being prepared by extracting juice from the stalks of a certain plant. In both Vedic and Zoroastrian tradition, the name of the drink and the plant are the same, and the three forming a religious or mythological unity.The Rigveda calls the plant "God for Gods" seemingly giving him precedence above Indra and the other Gods (RV 9.42)".....

"PLANT SPIRIT MEDICINE"...by Elliot Cowan
"According to the Huichol Indian shamans of Mexico, if you want to actually use a plant in healing, the spirit of that plant must come to you. It won't work for you unless the spirit of the plant tells you how to prepare it and what it will cure."...(Cowan: 1995..pg 19)...

Beckwith, Christopher..."The Introduction of Greek Medicine into Tibet in the 7th Century"...Journal of the American Oriental Society #99... (1979)

The Indian-Zoroastrian belief mentioned above also manifests itself in the present-day Zoroastrian practice of administering a few drops of parahaoma to the new-born or dying.

The Haoma plant is a central element in the legend surrounding the conception of Zoroaster. In the story, his father Pouroshaspa took a piece of the Haoma plant and mixed it with milk. He gave his wife Dugdhova one half of the mixture and he consumed the other. They then conceived Zoroaster who was instilled with the spirit of the plant....According to tradition, Zoroaster received his revelation on a riverbank while preparing parahaoma for the Ab-Zohr (Zatspram 21.1), that is, for the symbolic purification of Aban ("the waters"). This symbolic purification is also evident in Yasna 68.1, where the celebrant makes good for the damage done to water by humanity: "These offerings, possessing haoma, possessing milk, possessing pomegranate, shall compensate thee".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haoma

OLD AGE..."I have vanquished my mind. I don't have a mind to tell me that it is time to be old. I don't honor any agreements in which I didn't participate. To be plagued by old age is one such agreement.' (Don Juan in Castaneda: 1998..pg 17)...

In the latter half of the 20th century, several studies attempted to establish haoma as a psychotropic substance, and based their arguments on the assumption that proto-Indo-Iranian sauma was a hallucinogen.

DIET...One of the main principles of the Manichaeans (2nd Century A.D.) was a vegetarian diet of mainly green and yellow foods (squash, etc). Supposedly, light was concentrated in these foods and their bodies served as filters for the particles of light contained in the plants. (Litvinsky: 1992...Pg 414)......."The architecture, diet, and clothing of the Sambhalese"..(Cabezon: 1996..pg 488)..."Under Candragupta II (405 AD), who was probably a Vaisnava, but tolerant of Buddhism and Jainism, no one kills any living thing or eats onions or garlic." (Dasgupta: 1962...pg cix)

Siberian shamans use the fly-agaric mushroom in their rituals. (Acta: 1985..pg 700)...

GANDHARVAS....."The gandharvas (Sanskrit: गन्धर्व, gandharva, Kannada, Tamil:கந்தர்வர், Telugu) are male nature spirits, husbands of the Apsaras. Some are part animal, usually a bird or horse. They have superb musical skills. They guarded the Soma and made beautiful music for the gods in their palaces. A gandharva means a singer in the court of Gods...Gandharvas are mentioned extensively in the epic Mahabharata as associated with the devas (as dancers and singers) and with the yakshas, as formidable warriors.Gandharvas can fly through the air, and are known for their skill as musicians. They are connected with trees and flowers, and are described as dwelling in the scents of bark, sap, and blossom. They are among the beings of the wilderness that might disturb a monk meditating alone.."...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandharva

"....soma was a plant and that its consumption produced an ecstatic mental state but this information hardly narrows the field of candidates as there are thousands of psychoactive plants with psychedelic, intoxicant, narcotic or deliriant effects. The Vedas also indicate that the plant was found on mountain-sides and gathered by moonlight and that it was consumed in the form of a liquid which was expressed from the plant and then mixed with milk and/or butter. It seems to have been used only as part of a fire-ritual. A golden liquid was expressed from the plant material with "soma-stones", filtered through wool and collected in a large bowl or "vat". In the course of this ritual a portion of the soma potion was used as a libation and was "sacrificed" to the flames. The remainder of the soma-liquid was apportioned among the celebrants who received it in individual bowls.".....http://www.erowid.org/plants/amanitas/amanitas_writings1.shtml

" Soma seems to have been used only as part of a fire-ritual. A golden liquid was expressed from the plant material with "soma-stones", filtered through wool and collected in a large bowl or "vat". In the course of this ritual a portion of the soma potion was used as a libation and was "sacrificed" to the flames. The remainder of the soma-liquid was apportioned among the celebrants who received it in individual bowls......Occasionally in the Vedas, and frequently in post-Vedic literature such as the story of the "churning of the ocean", the soma-liquid is known as amrita. This is especially so in the literature of Buddhism where the name soma is almost unknown. Soma is also the name of a god, considered by Hindus to be the divine personification both of the soma-drug and of the moon. The moon was thought to be the receptacle of soma from which it is consumed (presumably over a monthly period) by the gods and ancestors.......Compared to the Brahmanic rituals of later eras this fire-ritual was a very simple affair which has more in common with shamanic practices than the elaborate structures of organized religion. There are three main gods invoked in the Rigveda: Agni (god of fire), Soma (moon-god and personification of the soma drug), and Indra (sky-god and king of the gods). As the Rigveda states that (a) Indra enjoys the effects of soma and that (b) he who consumes the soma potion becomes god-like, perhaps it would not be straining the symbolism too far to say that in these three gods we have the three basic elements of the ritual, Agni (the sacrificial flames), Soma (the sacrificial offering) and Indra (the celebrant, rendered "divine" by the consumption of soma)......That the ritual is of Aryan origin rather than an indigenous Indian one is attested to by the existence of the similar haoma fire ritual in ancient Persia and in the Zoroastrian (Parsi) religion. The Indian fire-ritual was, in later times, taken up by Tantric Buddhists and, as a part of Vajrayana Buddhism, was carried into Tibet, Mongolia, China and even as far as Japan where it is known as goma."......http://www.erowid.org/plants/amanitas/amanitas_writings1.shtml

"Above are two of the nine miniature mushroom stones found buried together in a Maya tomb, along with nine miniature stone metates and manos (Soma stones?) used in the preparation of a ritual mushroom beverage. It was the mushroom communion in the Americas that actually transported one to the divine realm of the trinity. The nine mushroom stones were excavated from the Maya ruins of Kaminaljuyu, in Highland Guatemala."....SOMA IN THE AMERICAS.....THE ORIGIN OF A MUSHROOM RELIGION IN THE NEW WORLD.....A New Road of Archaeological Inquiry.....By Carl de Borhegyi.....2011

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….March 2013

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