Interesting. So in my mind, it was the first real hard scientific data to support this hypothesis, which, as you alluded to at the beginning, only raises more questions. So, although, I mean, and that actually, I'd like to come back to that, the notion of the, that not just the pagan continuity hypothesis, but the mystery continuity hypothesis through the Vatican. All he says is that these women and Marcus are adding drugs seven times in a row into whatever potion this is they're mixing up. Now, the great scholar of Greek religion, Walter Burkert, you quote him as musing, once-- and I'm going to quote him-- he says, "it may rather be asked, even without the prospect of a certain answer, whether the basis of the mysteries, they were prehistoric drug rituals, some festival imp of immortality which, through the expansion of consciousness, seemed to guarantee some psychedelic beyond." So why the silence from the heresiologists on a psychedelic sacrament? Those religions featured psychedelic beer and ceremonies lead by women . And we know the mysteries were there. And I offer psychedelics as one of those archaic techniques of ecstasy that seems to have been relevant and meaningful to our ancestors. So Brian, I wonder, maybe we should give the floor to you and ask you to speak about, what are the questions you think both ancient historians such as myself should be asking that we're not, and maybe what are the sorts of questions that people who aren't ancient historians but who are drawn to this evidence, to your narrative, and to the present and the future of religion, what sort of questions should they be asking regarding psychedelics? I would have been happy to find a spiked wine anywhere. And that's all I present it as, is wonderfully attractive and maybe even sexy circumstantial evidence for the potential use of a psychedelic sacrament amongst the earliest Christians. Because every time I think about ancient wine, I am now immediately thinking about wine that is spiked. Brian's thesis, that of the Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, was explored by Alexander Hislop in his "The Two Babylons", 1853, as a Protestant treatise in the spirit of Martin Luther as Alexander too interjects the Elusinian Mysteries. All rights reserved. BRIAN MURARESKU: It just happens to show up. Is there a smoking gun? OK. Now let's pan back because, we have-- I want to wrap up my interrogation of you, which I've been pressing you, but I feel as if perhaps people joining me think I'm hostile to this hypothesis. And according to Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck, that barley was really a code word. In May of last year, researchers published what they believe is the first archaeochemical data for the use of psychoactive drugs in some form of early Judaism. Dogs, indicative of the Greek goddess Hecate, who, amongst other things was known as the [GREEK], the dog eater. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. They were mixed or fortified. And there were moments when the sunlight would just break through. That's only after Constantine. It's some kind of wine-based concoction, some kind of something that is throwing these people into ecstasy. I wish the church fathers were better botanists and would rail against the specific pharmacopeia. There's evidence of the mysteries of Dionysus before, during, and after the life of Jesus, it's worth pointing out. The actual key that I found time and again in looking at this literature and the data is what seems to be happening here is the cultivation of a near-death experience. I appreciate this. The continuity hypothesis of dreams suggests that the content of dreams are largely continuous with waking concepts and concerns of the dreamer. Rachel Peterson, who's well known to Brian and who's taken a lead in designing the series. It still leaves an even bigger if, Dr. Stang, is which one is psychedelic? Please materialize. I'm happy to argue about that. What was the real religion of the ancient Greeks? A combination of psychoactive plants, including opium, cannabis, and nightshade, along with the remains of reptiles and amphibians all steeped in wine, like a real witch's brew, uncovered in this house outside of Pompeii. What's different about the Dionysian mysteries, and what evidence, direct or indirect, do we have about the wine of Dionysus being psychedelic? I just sense a great deal of structure and thoughtfulness going into this experience. And in his book [? So I point to that evidence as illustrative of the possibility that the Christians could, in fact, have gotten their hands on an actual wine. And by the way, I'm not here trying to protect Christianity from the evidence of psychedelic use. He's joining us from Uruguay, where he has wisely chosen to spend his pandemic isolation. And that is that there was a pervasive religion, ancient religion, that involved psychedelic sacraments, and that that pervasive religious culture filtered into the Greek mysteries and eventually into early Christianity. Where does Western civilization come from? So, I mean, my biggest question behind all of this is, as a good Catholic boy, is the Eucharist. let's take up your invitation and move from Dionysus to early Christianity. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. President and CEO, First Southeast Financial Corp and First Federal Savings and Loan Director, Carolina First Bank and The South Financial Group And I'm not even sure what that piece looks like or how big it is. And maybe therein we do since the intimation of immortality. So that's from Burkert, a very sober scholar and the dean of all scholarship on Greek religion. I'm sure he knows this well, by this point. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. It's only in John that Jesus is described as being born in the lap of the Father, the [SPEAKING GREEK] in 1:18, very similar to the way that Dionysus sprung miraculously from the thigh of Zeus, and on and on and on-- which I'm not going to bore you and the audience. Now, it's just an early indication and there's more testing to be done. Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin: The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, Psychedelics, and More | Tim Ferriss Show #646 And that that's how I-- and by not speculating more than we can about the mystical supper, if we follow the hypothesis that this is a big if for some early communities of Greek speakers, this is how I'm finding common ground with priests both Catholic and Orthodox and Protestants. In the afterword, you champion the fact that we stand on the cusp of a new era of psychedelics precisely because they can be synthesized and administered safely in pill form, back to The Economist article "The God Pill". Nage ?] So this is the tradition, I can say with a straight face, that saved my life. Let me start with the view-- the version of it that I think is less persuasive. Wise not least because it is summer there, as he reminds me every time we have a Zoom meeting, which has been quite often in these past several months. Let me just pull up my notes here. CHARLES STANG: Well, Mr, Muraresku, you are hedging your bets here in a way that you do not necessarily hedge your bets in the book. If they've been doing this, as you suggest, for 2,000 years, nearly, what makes you think that a few ancient historians are going to turn that aircraft carrier around? You won't find it in many places other than that. And if there's historical precedent for it, all the more so. What does God mean? For me, that's a question, and it will yield more questions. And the one thing that unites both of those worlds in this research called the pagan continuity hypothesis, the one thing we can bet on is the sacred language of Greek. And he was actually going out and testing some of these ancient chalices. Now, you could draw the obvious conclusion. You also find a Greek hearth inside this sanctuary. But Egypt seems to not really be hugely relevant to the research. So somewhere between 1% and 49%. In the first half, we'll cover topics ranging from the Eleusinian Mysteries, early Christianity, and the pagan continuity hypothesis to the work of philosopher and psychologist William James. So in the mountains and forests from Greece to Rome, including the Holy Land and Galilee. These mysteries had at their center a sacrament called kykeon, which offered a vision of the mysteries of life and death. It pushes back the archaeology on some of this material a full 12,000 years. I think the wine certainly does. And I don't know if there's other examples of such things. So at the very-- after the first half of the book is over, there's an epilogue, and I say, OK, here's the evidence. When there's a clear tonal distinction, and an existing precedent for Christian modification to Pagan works, I don't see why you're resistant to the idea, and I'm curious . And I want to ask you about specifically the Eleusinian mysteries, centered around the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. Who were the Saints? We have some inscriptions. I was satisfied with I give Brian Muraresku an "A" for enthusiasm, but I gave his book 2 stars. I understand the appeal of that. The Immortality Key, The Secret History of the Religion With No Name. And yet I talked to an atheist who has one experience with psilocybin and is immediately bathed in God's love. You take a board corporate finance attorney, you add in lots of childhood hours watching Indiana Jones, lots of law school hours reading Dan Brown, you put it all together and out pops The Immortality Key. If the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? [texts-excerpt] penalty for cutting mangroves in floridaFREE EstimateFREE Estimate CHARLES STANG: I have one more question about the pre-Christian story, and that has to do with that the other mystery religion you give such attention to. To become truly immortal, Campbell talks about entering into a sense of eternity, which is the infinite present here and now. Up until that point I really had very little knowledge of psychedelics, personal or literary or otherwise. Part 1 Brian C. Muraresku: The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis and the Hallucinogenic Origins of Religion - Feb 22, 2023 But if the original Eucharist were psychedelic, or even if there were significant numbers of early Christians using psychedelics like sacrament, I would expect the representatives of orthodox, institutional Christianity to rail against it. CHARLES STANG: OK. And that's a question equally for ancient historians and for contemporary seekers and/or good Catholics. This time around, we have a very special edition featuring Dr. Mark Plotkin and Brian C . You're not confident that the pope is suddenly going to issue an encyclical. So I don't write this to antagonize them or the church, the people who, again, ushered me into this discipline and into these questions. So I'm trying to build the case-- and for some reason in my research, it kept coming back to Italy and Rome, which is why I focus on Hippolytus. And why, if you're right that the church has succeeded in suppressing a psychedelic sacrament and has been peddling instead, what you call a placebo, and that it has exercised a monstrous campaign of persecution against plant medicine and the women who have kept its knowledge alive, why are you still attached to this tradition? When Irenaeus is talking about [SPEAKING GREEK], love potions, again, we have no idea what the hell he's talking about. They found a tiny chalice this big, dated to the second century BC. So what evidence can you provide for that claim? I want to thank you for your candor. But it was not far from a well-known colony in [INAUDIBLE] that was founded by Phocians. I did go straight to [INAUDIBLE] Papangelli in Eleusis, and I went to the museum. You mentioned, too, early churchmen, experts in heresies by the name of Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome. As a matter of fact, I think it's much more promising and much more fertile for scholarship to suggest that some of the earliest Christians may have availed themselves of a psychedelic sacrament and may have interpreted the Last Supper as some kind of invitation to open psychedelia, that mystical supper as the orthodox call it, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]. And when you speak in that way, what I hear you saying is there is something going on. And much of the evidence that you've collected is kind of the northern half of the Mediterranean world. You can see that inscribed on a plaque in Saint Paul's monastery at Mount Athos in Greece. And I want to say that this question that we've been exploring the last half hour about what all this means for the present will be very much the topic of our next event on February 22, which is taking up the question of psychedelic chaplaincy. BRIAN MURARESKU: We can dip from both pies, Dr. Stang. BRIAN MURARESKU: I would say I've definitely experienced the power of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. And you suspect, therefore, that it might be a placebo, and you want the real thing. What was discovered, as far as I can tell, from your treatment of it, is essentially an ancient pharmacy in this house. And there were probably other Eleusises like that to the east. But even if they're telling the truth about this, even if it is accurate about Marcus that he used a love potion, a love potion isn't a Eucharist. And that's the mysteries of Dionysus. He's been featured in Forbes, the Daily Beast, Big Think, and Vice. 44:48 Psychedelics and ancient cave art . BRIAN MURARESKU: Good one. What does it mean to die before dying? CHARLES STANG: So that actually helps answer a question that's in the Q&A that was posed to me, which is why did I say I fully expect that we will find evidence for this? Although she's open to testing, there was nothing there. And so I can see psychedelics being some kind of extra sacramental ministry that potentially could ease people at the end of life. I wonder if you're familiar with Wouter Hanegraaff at the University of Amsterdam. McGovern also finds wine from Egypt, for example, in 3150 BC, wine that is mixed with a number of interesting ingredients. One attendee has asked, "How have religious leaders reacted so far to your book? And so part of what it means to be a priest or a minister or a rabbi is to sit with the dying and the dead. If you die before you die, you won't die when you die. But in any case, Ruck had his career, well, savaged, in some sense, by the reaction to his daring to take this hypothesis seriously, this question seriously. I took this to Greg [? BRIAN MURARESKU: Dr. Stang, an erudite introduction as ever. . And did the earliest Christians inherit the same secret tradition? Thank you. And so in my afterword, I present this as a blip on the archaeochemical radar. 101. So perhaps there's even more evidence. It's a big question for me. I mean, something of symbolic significance, something monumental. CHARLES STANG: All right. According to Muraresku, this work, which "presents the pagan continuity hypothesis with a psychedelic twist," addresses two fundamental questions: "Before the rise of Christianity, did the Ancient Greeks consume a secret psychedelic sacrament during their most famous and well-attended religious rituals? The long and short of it is, in 1978 there was no hard scientific data to prove this one way or the other. CHARLES STANG: Wonderful. I'm currently reading The Immortality Key by Brian Muraresku and find this 2nd/3rd/4th century AD time period very interesting, particularly with regards to the adoptions of pagan rituals and practices by early Christianity. These-- that-- Christians are spread out throughout the eastern Mediterranean, and there are many, many pockets of people practicing what we might call, let's just call it Christian mysticism of some kind. These sources suggest a much greater degree of continuity with pre-Christian values and practice than the writings of more . Not just in Italy, but as kind of the headquarters for the Mediterranean. And I'm trying to reconcile that. There he is. So I want to propose that we stage this play in two acts. There's a good number of questions that are very curious why you are insisting on remaining a psychedelic virgin. Brian is the author of a remarkable new book that has garnered a lot of attention and has sold a great many copies. I mean, this is what I want to do with some of my remaining days on this planet, is take a look at all these different theories. But it was just a process of putting these pieces together that I eventually found this data from the site Mas Castellar des Pontos in Spain. Read more about The Immortality Key by Brian Muraresku Making Sense by Sam Harris Klaus Schmidt, who was with the German Archaeological Institute, called this a sanctuary and called these T-shaped pillars representations of gods. I mean, that's obviously the big question, and what that means for the future of medicine and religion and society at large. They were relevant to me in going down this rabbit hole. And part of me really wants to put all these pieces together before I dive in. If you are drawn to psychedelics, in my mind, it means you're probably drawn to contemplative mysticism. Now the archaeologist of that site says-- I'm quoting from your book-- "For me, the Villa Vesuvio was a small farm that was specifically designed for the production of drugs." I see it as-- well, OK, I'd see it as within a minority. BRIAN MURARESKU: I don't-- I don't claim too heavily. So here's a question for you. That is about the future rather than the ancient history. I imagine there are many more potion makers around than we typically recognize. Because for many, many years, you know, Ruck's career takes a bit of a nosedive. I mean, if Burkert was happy to speculate about psychedelics, I'm not sure why Ruck got the reception that he did in 1978 with their book The Road to Eleusis. Some number of people have asked about Egypt. CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WORLD RELIGIONS, Harvard Divinity School42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 617.495.4495, my.hds |Harvard Divinity School |Harvard University |Privacy |Accessibility |Digital Accessibility | Trademark Notice |Reporting Copyright Infringements. Now, I don't put too much weight into that. Just imagine, I have to live with me. And I got to say, there's not a heck of a lot of eye rolling, assuming people read my afterword and try to see how careful I am about delineating what is knowable and what is not and what this means for the future of religion. The idea of the truth shall set you free, right, [SPEAKING GREEK], in 8:32. Yeah. But the next event in this series will happen sooner than that. He's the god of wine. So there's a house preserved outside of Pompeii, preserved, like so much else, under the ash of Mount Vesuvius's eruption in the year 79 of the Common Era. And then at some point they go inland. Richard Evans Schultes and the Search for Ayahuasca 17 days ago Plants of the Gods: S3E10. CHARLES STANG: My name is Charles Stang, and I'm the director of the Center for the Study of World Religions here at Harvard Divinity School. This notion in John 15:1, the notion of the true vine, for example, only occurs in John. To sum up the most exciting parts of the book: the bloody wine of Dionysius became the bloody wine of Jesus - the pagan continuity hypothesis - the link between the Ancient Greeks of the final centuries BC and the paleo-Christians of the early centuries AD - in short, the default psychedelic of universal world history - the cult of . BRIAN MURARESKU:: It's a simple formula, Charlie. There's all kinds of reasons I haven't done it. And I don't know what that looks like. What I see is data that's been largely neglected, and I think what serves this as a discipline is just that. That's because Brian and I have become friends these past several months, and I'll have more to say about that in a moment. So let's start with one that is more contemporary. And maybe in these near-death experiences we begin to actually experience that at a visceral level. What is its connection to Eleusis? Because very briefly, I think Brian and others have made a very strong case that these things-- this was a biotechnology that was available in the ancient world. And that's where oversight comes in handy. Well, let's get into it then. A rebirth into a new conception of the self, the self's relationship to things that are hard to define, like God. And to be quite honest, I'd never studied the ancient Greeks in Spain. There have been really dramatic studies from Hopkins and NYU about the ability of psilocybin at the end of life to curb things like depression, anxiety, and end of life distress. They did not. Now-- and I think that we can probably concede that. CHARLES STANG: I do, too. So why do you think psychedelics are so significant that they might usher in a new Reformation? I mean, I wish it were easier. OK, Brian, I invite you to join us now. And if the latter, do you think there's a good chance that religions will adopt psychedelics back into their rituals?". There have been breakthroughs, too, which no doubt kept Brian going despite some skepticism from the academy, to say the least. Whether there's a psychedelic tradition-- I mean, there are some suggestive paintings. Material evidence of a very strange potion, a drug, or a [SPEAKING GREEK]. I'll invite him to think about the future of religion in light of all this. CHARLES STANG: OK. How does, in other words, how does religion sit with science? And I think that's an important distinction to make. I am so fortunate to have been selected to present my thesis, "Mythology and Psychedelics: Taking the Pagan Continuity Hypothesis a Step Further" at. And I look forward to talking about this event with you after the fact eventually over a beer. We're going to get there very soon. Brought to you by For those who didn't have the time or the money or the temerity to travel all the way to Eleusis from Spain, here's your off-site campus, right? The kind of mysticism I've always been attracted to, like the rule of Saint Benedict and the Trappist monks and the Cistercian monks. And the reason I find that a worthy avenue of pursuit is because when you take a step back and look at the Greek of the Gospels, especially the Greek of John, which is super weird, what I see based on Dennis MacDonald's scholarship that you mentioned-- and others-- when you do the exegesis of John's gospel, there's just lots of vocabulary and lots of imagery that doesn't appear elsewhere. And inside that beer was all kinds of vegetable matter, like wheat, oats, and sedge and lily and flax and various legumes. The Immortality Key has its shortcomings. And Hofmann famously discovers-- or synthesizes LSD from ergot in 1938. If we're being honest with ourselves, when you've drunk-- and I've drunk that wine-- I didn't necessarily feel that I'd become one with Jesus. And I think it does hearken back to a genuinely ancient Greek principle, which is that only by fully experiencing some kind of death, a death that feels real, where you, or at least the you you used to identify with, actually slips away, dissolves. I expect there will be. And I feel like I accomplished that in the afterword to my book. And it seems to me that if any of this is right, that whatever was happening in ancient Greece was a transformative experience for which a lot of thought and preparation went into. It's really quite simple, Charlie. [1] According to this theory, older adults try to maintain this continuity of lifestyle by adapting strategies that are connected to their past experiences. Not much. What about all these early Christians themselves as essentially Jews? And what it has to do with Eleusis or the Greek presence in general, I mean, again, just to say it briefly, is that this was a farmhouse of sorts that was inland, this sanctuary site. In the same place in and around Pompeii, this is where Christianity is really finding its roots. Was there any similarity from that potion to what was drunk at Eleusis? I would love to see these licensed, regulated, retreat centers be done in a way that is medically sound and scientifically rigorous. What about Jesus as a Jew? We see lots of descriptions of this in the mystical literature with which you're very familiar. Church of the Saints Faustina and Liberata, view from the outside with the entrance enclosure, at "Sante" place, Capo di Ponte (Italy). A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs, and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? Now, Brian managed to write this book while holding down a full time practice in international law based in Washington DC. Then there's what were the earliest Christians doing with the Eucharist.
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