Buddhist botany: What plant was 'Soma'?

The shamanic Fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) is used as a European entheogen.

(Rajada's World) "Soma: The Psychedelic Origins of Religious Experience"

Altered states of consciousness? The first ever monthly Universal Quest Salon (universalquest) was held on Sunday, August 23, 2015, in Conference Room 2 inside the India International Centre IIC). Founder, filmmaker, and inner-explorer (psychonaut) Raja Choudhury gave a talk and presentation followed by an open Socratic discussion in the company of Dr. Singh and friends, exploring how India's religions (and most religions of the world) have their origins in the psychedelic (entheogenic and sometimes hallucinogenic) experiences of shamans (priestesses and priests), seers, and mystics and how Soma became a sacred and integral part of Indian religious life even after its hallucinogenic use was abandoned with the evolution of advanced forms of Yoga and other inner-techniques.

Confusion and Denial: Historical Attempts to Identify the Soma Plant, Part 1

We can trade these worldwide

(On Paradise Earth) The exclusive use of poetic and metaphorical language to describe the soma-plant [the secret ingredient in the drink known as amrita or Greek ambrosia] in Vedic hymns is one of various explanations for the failure of modern linguists to ascertain the botanical identity of India's famous "plant of the gods [devas]."

Yet, related uses of symbolic and iconographic imagery in mythical literature during classical time periods provide additional evidence on which to base our general impressions of the plant itself, its habitat preferences, and the manners in which the plant was employed during libation ceremonies.

• Soma (a name for the moon deity, moon, and Monday) was also called the "elixir of life" [longevity, immortality = ionic (eternal now/timeless) life]."
• INGREDIENTS: Wasn't soma Afghani cannabis (ganja) steeped in fermented mare's milk (kumiss) with blue lotus (utpala)? No asafoetida. Add some Fly agaric or psilocybin and, pow, right to the moon, because these are forms of DMT (the Spirit Molecule in magic mushrooms)
• Isn't it strange that what we call "LSD" or "acid" is actually a mushroom (ergot fungus)? Now science distinguishes plants and fungi, but people do not. From ancient times, mushrooms were just very strange plants popping up. So might an ingredient have been contaminated rye or barley?
• Harvard doctor (Wm. Hurt) becomes obsessed with Altered States

Community of seekers (psychedelicsangha.org)

Scholarly efforts have yet to settle on an agreeable determination of the soma-plant's identity.

But many conjectures and hypotheses on the issue have been proposed over the last two centuries, with many specialists favoring the plant's identification as an Ephedra species from the arid steppes of Central Asia.

What do entheogens do to perception?

Nevertheless, from a strictly botanical perspective, most if not all previous proposals on soma's identity are questionable at best.

This video explores some of the latest hypotheses and considers their unlikely relevance to soma's enigmatic nature and identity.

[It surely had to include a strain or variety of cannabis, perhaps referring to more than one brew (elixir), the way ayahuasca is composed of different sets of ingredients that have the same effect so are all simply called ayahuasca, yage, caapi, or natema.]

• On Paradise Earth, April 13, 2023; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly