Carsten Holler's new exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof museum in Berlin, 'Soma' examines the mythic traditions of this Vedic elixir. Though the recipe and ingredients for it have been lost, ethnomycologists and artists alike have been interpreting its origin through ancient manuscripts - from such sources as the verses of the Rigveda, an ancient North Indian text from the 2nd millennium BCE: 'We have drunk of the soma; we have become immortal, we have seen the light; we have found the Gods.' The libation that promised enlightenment and divine knowledge, some believe, may have come from the fly Amanita mushroom (Amanita muscaria), which also happens to be the natural diet of reindeers (and consequently can be derived from reindeer urine), is herded by ancient nomadic tribes of central Asia, and also the source of myths and indirect allusions in tales such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. |
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