July 1, 2016 - ... Haoma is considered a bridge between earthly and spiritual realms, embodying divine wisdom, immortality, and spiritual enlightenment, believed to possess physical and spiritual healing properties (Abdullaev 2010, Ostovari et al.2013). Its consumption during religious rituals is thought to facilitate communication with the divine and foster spiritual ecstasy, enlightenment, and union with Ahura Mazda

The central ritual involving Haoma is the Yasna ceremony, where invocations, prayers, and hymns are recited by the priestly · class known as the Magi. Haoma is consumed during the Yasna, symbolizing communion with the divine and facilitating

In neighboring Persia, Zoroastrian texts describe haoma, likely a similar plant sacrament. [9] Additionally, cannabis was used ritualistically in various Near Eastern cultures; for example, archaeologists found cannabis residue at ancient Jewish temples, suggesting possible ceremonial inhalation (though cannabis is not a classical psychedelic).

2 weeks ago - Since the late 18th century, when Anquetil-Duperron and others made portions of the Avesta available to western scholarship, several scholars have sought a representative botanical equivalent of the haoma as described in the texts and as used in living Zoroastrian practice. Most of the proposals concentrated on either linguistic evidence or comparative pharmacology or reflected ritual use.

July 20, 1998 - Haoma, in Zoroastrianism, sacred plant and the drink made from it. The preparation of the drink from the plant by pounding and the drinking of it are central features of Zoroastrian ritual. Haoma is also personified as a divinity.

October 21, 2024 - This service has its own internal preliminaries, followed by the Srōš drōn (Y. 3-8). Then comes recitation of the Hōm yašt (Y. 9-11), which contains what appear to be very ancient elements. It lacks the formal features common to other yašts, but has the same intention, namely to honor an individual yazata (divinity). With Haoma is revered the plant haoma.

June 1, 2019 - Secondly, as is suggested in this article, if soma/haoma is indeed visionary or psychedelic, then we need to find a psychedelic drug that fits these primary criteria. These considerations are what initially led me to the ayahuasca analogue hypothesis, as the structure and performance of the ritual during which ayahuasca is drunk by members of one the churches that use it as a sacrament, namely the church of Santo Daime, exhibit similarities with the ritual structure of the longer, periodic Vedic rites, during which soma is consumed (although for many centuries prepared in substitute form).

HAOMA HAOMA . Both a "being worthy of worship" (yazata), or deified personification, and a substance ingested during Zoroastrian ritual sacrifices, haoma has an exact parallel in the soma of ancient India: *sauma, from the verb sav ("to press, to crush"), is the reconstructed Indo-Iranian form.

April 24, 2014 - These traditions pertain to the ... in the rites of initiation. One version of this sacrament was the Persian haoma, which in the Sanskrit Vedic rite was the not-personified plant deity Soma....

November 28, 2023 - In Zoroastrian rituals, Haoma is prepared by pressing the branches of the plant, often Ephedra procera, in water. The resulting liquid is believed to possess divine powers and is consumed by participants during ceremonies.

November 16, 2023 - In this article, the origins of the cult of the ritual drink known as soma/haoma are explored. Various shortcomings of the main botanical candidates that have so far been proposed for this so-called “nectar of immortality” are assessed. Attention is brought to a variety of plants identified ...

August 7, 2025 - The floor will then be open for sharing and heartfelt communion. Afterward, each participant can personally discuss their experience with the shaman, who will then help to integrate their experience to this physical reality and provide advice on how to incorporate their newly discovered wisdom into their lives for optimal healing. 14 year experienced facilitator working with the same Indigenous Shipibo healer, with over 25 years training.

In Persia, vision into the spirit world was not thought to come about simply by divine grace nor as a reward for saintliness. From the apparent role of sauma [= haoma] in initiation rites, experience of the effects of sauma, which is to say of menog existence, must have at one time been required of all priests (or the shamans antecedent to them). (Flattery and Schwartz 1989, 31) Some rudiments of the ancient haoma cult have been preserved in modern Iran. Today, the ritual drink is brewed either from pomegranate juice (Punica granatum L.) and ephedra (Ephedra spp.) or from rue (Ruta graveolens L.) and milk (Flattery and Schwartz 1989, 80).

3 weeks ago - In 1989, in a highly influential text, Harry Falk pointed out that both the Flattery and Wasson arguments assumed that haoma was hallucinogenic, although the effect desired by Zoroastrian and Vedic ritual use was not.

Eurasia, meaning that many early ... access psychoactive · (mind-altering substance) plants. At the time, it wasn’t uncommon for foraging societies to · partake in community rituals centered around a shaman, who is a spiritual leader that acts as an · intermediary between the human and spirit world to communicate with the divine. These shaman · would consume a sacrament, believing it would strengthen the healer's spiritual power and · divinatory ability to facilitate the process ...

[41]. The seeds, with their hallucinogenic properties, were used in ceremonies by Aztec priests to create hallucinogenic visions that facilitated the communion with their gods [42]. These ceremonial interactions were deemed satanic by Spanish clerics and practitioners of divination ceremonies ...

A few participants expressed anger at the insinuation that plant medicine use was similar to recreational drug use because they saw their role as ceremony facilitators as a way of giving back to the world and as an expression of gratitude, and felt that to suggest otherwise perpetuates stigma regarding the work, denigrating it’s importance and seriousness. Participants also commented on ritual around plant medicines that served to differentiate it from recreational drug use, including the special diet (fasting, vegan, low salt, few spices) often used before ceremonies; music used during cere

In many cultures the men and women that served as tribal healers, shamans, medicine men or women, had a deep understanding of the use of these plants singularly and/or in combination. These “herbalists” served as spiritual guides and dream interpreters and led many sacred ceremonies where the use of psychoactive plants played an integral role in burial rituals, rites of passage, healing rituals, vision quests and purification rituals.