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I took this to Greg [? 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. Jerry Brown wrote a good review that should be read to put the book in its proper place. Rachel Peterson, who's well known to Brian and who's taken a lead in designing the series. So to find dog sacrifice inside this Greek sanctuary alludes to this proto-witch, Hecate, the mother of Circe, who is mentioned in the same hymn to Demeter from the 8th, 7th century BC, as kind of the third of the goddesses to whom these mysteries were dedicated. There have been breakthroughs, too, which no doubt kept Brian going despite some skepticism from the academy, to say the least. Now that the pagan continuity hypothesis is defended, the next task is to show that the pagan and proto-Christian ritual sacraments were, in fact, psychedelicbrews. Do the drugs, Dr. Stang? And apparently, the book is on order, so I can't speak to this directly, but the ancient Greek text that preserves this liturgy also preserves the formula, the ingredients of the eye ointment. Now, it's just an early indication and there's more testing to be done. 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. So after the whole first half of the book-- well, wait a minute, Dr. Stang. So your presentation of early Christianity inclines heavily toward the Greek world. The big question is, did any of these recipes, did any of this wine spiking actually make its way into some paleo-Christian ceremony. 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. I was satisfied with I give Brian Muraresku an "A" for enthusiasm, but I gave his book 2 stars. 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. I'm skeptical, Dr. Stang. And at the same time, when I see a thirst, especially in young people, for real experience, and I see so many Catholics who do not believe in transubstantiation, obviously, what comes to my mind is how, if at all, can psychedelics enhance faith or reinvent Christianity. And her answer was that they'd all been cleaned or treated for conservation purposes. Now, what's curious about this is we usually have-- Egypt plays a rather outsized role in our sense of early Christianity because-- and other adjacent or contemporary religious and philosophical movements, because everything in Egypt is preserved better than anywhere else in the Mediterranean. Others find it in different ways, but the common denominator seems to be one of these really well-curated near-death experiences. There's John Marco Allegro claiming that there was no Jesus, and this was just one big amanita muscaria cult. CHARLES STANG: We've really read Jesus through the lens of his Greek inheritors. And I've listened to the volunteers who've gone through these experiences. 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? . Is taking all these disciplines, whether it's your discipline or archaeochemistry or hard core botany, biology, even psychopharmacology, putting it all together and taking a look at this mystery, this puzzle, using the lens of psychedelics as a lens, really, to investigate not just the past but the future and the mystery of human consciousness. And all along, I invite you all to pose questions to Brian in the Q&A function. 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 same Rome that circumstantially shows up, and south of Rome, where Constantine would build his basilicas in Naples and Capua later on. So if you were a mystic and you were into Demeter and Persephone and Dionysus and you were into these strange Greek mystery cults, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better place to spend your time than [SPEAKING GREEK], southern Italy, which in some cases was more Greek than Greek. 40:15 Witches, drugs, and the Catholic Church . So let's talk about the future of religion, and specifically the future of Roman Catholicism. And by the way, I'm not here trying to protect Christianity from the evidence of psychedelic use. No, I think you-- this is why we're friends, Charlie. 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. Here's the proof of concept. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, Lessons from Scholar Karen Armstrong, and Much More Brought to you by GiveWell.org charity research and effective giving and 5-Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter. I mean, in the absence of the actual data, that's my biggest question. And I wonder whether the former narrative serves the interests of the latter. So you were unable to test the vessels on site in Eleusis, which is what led you to, if I have this argument right, to Greek colonies around the Mediterranean. Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages. These are famous figures to those of us who study early Christianity. 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? It's not the case in the second century. They did not. Psychedelics Today: Mark Plotkin - Bio-Cultural Conservation of the Amazon. That event is already up on our website and open for registration. I mean, this really goes to my deep skepticism. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm asked this question, I would say, in pretty much every interview I've done since late September. So the Greek god of wine, intoxication. You obviously think these are powerful substances with profound effects that track with reality. And so in some of these psychedelic trials, under the right conditions, I do see genuine religious experiences. 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." It's funny to see that some of the first basilicas outside Rome are popping up here, and in and around Pompeii. What about all these early Christians themselves as essentially Jews? By which I mean that the Gospel of John suggests that at the very least, the evangelist hoped to market Christianity to a pagan audience by suggesting that Jesus was somehow equivalent to Dionysus, and that the Eucharist, his sacrament of wine, was equivalent to Dionysus's wine. Amongst all the mystery religions, Eleusis survives. Then there's what were the earliest Christians doing with the Eucharist. So my biggest question is, what kind of wine was it? And so if there is a place for psychedelics, I would think it would be in one of those sacred containers within monastic life, or pilgrims who visit one of these monastic centers, for example. I also sense another narrative in your book, and one you've flagged for us, maybe about 10 minutes ago, when you said that the book is a proof of concept. And another: in defending the pagan continuity hypothesis, Muraresku presumes a somewhat non-Jewish, pagan-like Jesus, while ignoring the growing body of psychedelic literature, including works by . And now we have a working hypothesis and some data to suggest where we might be looking. Was there any similarity from that potion to what was drunk at Eleusis? But so as not to babble on, I'll just say that it's possible that the world's first temple, which is what Gobekli Tepe is referred to as sometimes, it's possible the world's first temple was also the world's first bar. And very famous passages, by the way, that should be familiar to most New Testament readers. It was the Jesuits who taught me Latin and Greek. Now, Carl Ruck from Boston University, much closer to home, however, took that invitation and tried to pursue this hypothesis. And the big question for me was what was that something else? I see something that's happening to people. So the mysteries of Dionysus are a bit more of a free-for-all than the mysteries of Eleusis. The idea of the truth shall set you free, right, [SPEAKING GREEK], in 8:32. So. Dogs, indicative of the Greek goddess Hecate, who, amongst other things was known as the [GREEK], the dog eater. What about Jesus as a Jew? Just imagine, I have to live with me. From about 1500 BC to the fourth century AD, it calls to the best and brightest of not just Athens but also Rome. let's take up your invitation and move from Dionysus to early Christianity. Perhaps more generally, you could just talk about other traditions around the Mediterranean, North African, or, let's even say Judaism. 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. So can you reflect for us where you really are and how you chose to write this book? 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. I mean, what-- my big question is, what can we say about the Eucharist-- and maybe it's just my weird lens, but what can we say about it definitively in the absence of the archaeochemstry or the archaeobotany? When you start testing, you find things. Richard Evans Schultes and the Search for Ayahuasca 17 days ago Plants of the Gods: S3E10. You want to field questions in both those categories? And I started reading the studies from Pat McGovern at the University of Pennsylvania. I wish that an ancient pharmacy had been preserved by Mount Vesuvius somewhere near Alexandria or even in upper Egypt or in Antioch or parts of Turkey. Part 1 Brian C. Muraresku: The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis and the Hallucinogenic Origins of Religion 3 days ago Plants of the Gods: S4E1. And so I don't know what a really authentic, a really historic-looking ritual that is equal parts sacred, but also, again, medically sound, scientifically rigorous, would look like. 8th century BC from the Tel Arad shrine. So when you take a step back, as you well know, there was a Hellenic presence all over the ancient Mediterranean. Because they talk about everything else that they take issue with. If the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? So that's from Burkert, a very sober scholar and the dean of all scholarship on Greek religion. So welcome to the fourth event in our yearlong series on psychedelics and the future of religion, co-sponsored by the Esalen Institute, the Riverstyx Foundation, and the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. Are they rolling their eyes, or are you getting sort of secretive knowing nods of agreement? So Dionysus is not the god of alcohol. But what I see are potential and possibilities and things worthy of discussions like this. OK, now, Brian, you've probably dealt with questions like this. And I think we get hung up on the jargon. What I see is data that's been largely neglected, and I think what serves this as a discipline is just that. Brought to you by And what do you believe happens to you when you do that? And we know the mysteries were there. 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. And so I can see psychedelics being some kind of extra sacramental ministry that potentially could ease people at the end of life. He was wronged by individuals, allegedly. I mean, I wish it were easier. That's our next event, and will be at least two more events to follow. he goes out on a limb and says that black nightshade actually causes [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH], which is not unpleasant visions, i.e. Rather, Christian beliefs were gradually incorporated into the pagan customs that already existed there. I wish the church fathers were better botanists and would rail against the specific pharmacopeia. I think psychedelics are just one piece of the puzzle. But it just happens to show up at the right place at the right time, when the earliest Christians could have availed themselves of this kind of sacrament. So here's a question for you. And if it only occurs in John, the big question is why. But I'm pressing you because that's my job. And that kind of invisible religion with no name, although brutally suppressed, managed to survive in Europe for many centuries and could potentially be revived today. I'm going to come back to that idea of proof of concept. Psychedelics are a lens to investigate this stuff. So, like, they're wonderstruck, or awestruck by their libations and their incense. I don't know why it's happening now, but we're finally taking a look. 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 . Brendon Benz presents an alternative hypothesis to recent scholarship which has hypothesized that Israel consisted of geographical, economic . 18.3C: Continuity Theory. BRIAN MURARESKU: That's a good question. Again, it's proof of concept for going back to Eleusis and going back to other sites around the Mediterranean and continuing to test, whether for ergotized beer or other things. And for some reason, I mean, I'd read that two or three times as an undergrad and just glossed over that line. No one lived there. BRIAN MURARESKU: OK. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. Interesting. CHARLES STANG: Brian, I wonder if you could end by reflecting on the meaning of dying before you die. But what we do know about the wine of the time is that it was routinely mixed with plants and herbs and potentially fungi. And I look forward to talking about this event with you after the fact eventually over a beer. Brian launched the instant bestseller on the Joe Rogan Experience, and has now appeared on CNN, NPR, Sirius XM, Goop-- I don't even know what that is-- and The Weekly Dish with Andrew Sullivan. And even in the New Testament, you'll see wine spiked with myrrh, for example, that's served to Jesus at his crucifixion. Now I understand and I appreciate the pharmaceutical industry's ability to distribute this as medicine for those who are looking for alternatives, alternative treatments for depression and anxiety and PTSD and addiction and end of life distress. I am excited . And there were probably other Eleusises like that to the east. And I'll just list them out quickly. And I did not dare. So that's something else to look into. But what I hear from people, including atheists, like Dina Bazer, who participated in these Hopkins NYU trials is that she felt like on her one and only dose of psilocybin that she was bathed in God's love. I imagine there are many more potion makers around than we typically recognize. That's the big question. And so for me, this was a hunt through the catacombs and archives and libraries, doing my sweet-talking, and trying to figure out what was behind some of those locked doors. And again, it survives, I think, because of that state support for the better part of 2,000 years. Not because it's not there, because it hasn't been tested. 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? BRIAN MURARESKU: But you're spot on. There he is. 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. It's some kind of wine-based concoction, some kind of something that is throwing these people into ecstasy. The Tim Ferriss Show. What was discovered, as far as I can tell, from your treatment of it, is essentially an ancient pharmacy in this house. 44:48 Psychedelics and ancient cave art . The divine personage in whom this cult centered was the Magna Mater Deum who was conceived as the source of all life as well as the personification of all the powers of nature.\[Footnote:] Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration, p. 114.\ 7 She was the "Great Mother" not only "of all the gods," but of all men" as well. 48:01 Brian's psychedelic experiences . This is all secret. And my favorite line of the book is, "The lawyer in me won't sleep until that one chalice, that one container, that one vessel comes to light in an unquestionable Christian context.". And I think there are so many sites and excavations and so many chalices that remain to be tested. Which, again, what I see are small groups of people getting together to commune with the dead. So whatever these [SPEAKING GREEK] libations incense were, the church fathers don't get into great detail about what may have been spiking them. I'm going to stop asking my questions, although I have a million more, as you well know, and instead try to ventriloquist the questions that are coming through at quite a clip through the Q&A. This time around, we have a very special edition featuring Dr. Mark Plotkin and Brian C . And according to Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck, that barley was really a code word. So again, if there were an early psychedelic sacrament that was being suppressed, I'd expect that the suppressors would talk about it. So it is already happening. And besides that, young Brian, let's keep the mysteries mysteries. 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. But I do want to push back a little bit on the elevation of this particular real estate in southern Italy. Brian is the author of a remarkable new book that has garnered a lot of attention and has sold a great many copies. And what we know about the wine of the time is that it was prized amongst other things not for its alcoholic content, but for its ability to induce madness. You may have already noticed one such question-- not too hard. I was not going to put a book out there that was sensationalist. I wonder if you're familiar with Wouter Hanegraaff at the University of Amsterdam. If you look at Dioscorides, for example, his Materia Medica, that's written in the first century AD around the same time that the Gospels themselves are being written. And, as always the best way to keep abreast of this series and everything else we do here at the Center is to join our mailing list. Examine the pros and cons of the continuity theory of aging, specifically in terms of how it neglects to consider social institutions or chronically ill adults. The only reason I went to college was to study classics. But what we do know is that their sacrament was wine and we know a bit more about the wine of antiquity, ancient Greek wine, than we can piece together from these nocturnal celebrations. But it survives. And she talks about kind of being born again, another promise from John's gospel. But with what were they mixed, and to what effect? The Immortality Key has its shortcomings. So I think this was a minority of early Christians. We look forward to hosting Chacruna's founder and executive director, Bia Labate, for a lecture on Monday, March 8. And how do we-- when the pharmaceutical industry and when these retreat centers begin to open and begin to proliferate, how do we make this sacred? And what about the alleged democratization with which you credit the mysteries of Dionysus, or the role of women in that movement? You won't find it in many places other than that. A rebirth into a new conception of the self, the self's relationship to things that are hard to define, like God. Liked by Samuel Zuschlag. These were Greek-- I've seen them referred to as Greek Vikings by Peter Kingsley, Vikings who came from Ionia. So I think it's really interesting details here worth following up on. 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. And nor do I think that you can characterize southern Italy as ground zero for the spirit of Greek mysticism, or however you put it. And I want to ask you about specifically the Eleusinian mysteries, centered around the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. BRIAN MURARESKU: We can dip from both pies, Dr. Stang. Do you think that by calling the Eucharist a placebo that you're likely to persuade them? And then that's the word that Euripides uses, by the way. This book by Brian Muraresku, attempts to answer this question by delving into the history of ancient secret religions dating back thousands of years. The most influential religious historian of the twentieth century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Which, if you think about it, is a very elegant idea. That's how we get to Catalonia. So, you know, I specifically wanted to avoid heavily relying on the 52 books of the [INAUDIBLE] corpus or heavily relying too much on the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the evidence that's come from Egypt. And how can you reasonably expect the church to recognize a psychedelic Eucharist? We don't have to look very hard to find that. Research inside the Church of Saint Faustina and Liberata Fig 1. First, the continuity of the offices must be seen in light of the change of institutional charges; they had lost their religious connotations and had become secular. All right, so now, let's follow up with Dionysus, but let's see here. And we know from the record that [SPEAKING GREEK] is described as being so crowded with gods that they were easier to find than men. Which is a very weird thing today. CHARLES STANG: OK. Now let's move into the Greek mystery. So somewhere between 1% and 49%. There's some suggestive language in the pyramid texts, in the Book of the Dead and things of this nature. Copyright 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name. These mysteries had at their center a sacrament called kykeon, which offered a vision of the mysteries of life and death. I am so fortunate to have been selected to present my thesis, "Mythology and Psychedelics: Taking the Pagan Continuity Hypothesis a Step Further" at. 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". And I think oversight also comes in handy within organized religion. In 1950, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote " The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity " which describes the continuity from the Pagan, pre-Christian world to what would become early Christianity in the decades and centuries before Jesus Religion & Mystical Experiences, Wine And when you speak in that way, what I hear you saying is there is something going on. Books about pagan continuity hypothesis? 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. The continuity theory of normal aging states that older adults will usually maintain the same activities, behaviors, relationships as they did in their earlier years of life. Now, you could draw the obvious conclusion. What does ergotized beer in Catalonia have anything to do with the Greek mysteries at Eleusis? So let's start with one that is more contemporary. And when Houston says something like that, it grabs the attention of a young undergrad a bit to your south in Providence, Rhode Island, who was digging into Latin and Greek and wondering what the heck this was all about. And please just call me Charlie. Klaus Schmidt, who was with the German Archaeological Institute, called this a sanctuary and called these T-shaped pillars representations of gods. I write it cognizant of the fact that the Eucharist doesn't work for many, many people. That is my dog Xena. And I think that that's the real question here. You mentioned, too, early churchmen, experts in heresies by the name of Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome. Now, let's get started, Brian. But I think there's a decent scientific foothold to begin that work. I mean, I think the book makes it clear. And I think there are lots of reasons to believe that. It's not just Cana. Some number of people have asked about Egypt. So let's start, then, the first act. Is this only Marcus? According to Muraresku, this work, BOOK REVIEW 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? So what evidence can you provide for that claim? It was one of the early write-ups of the psilocybin studies coming out of Johns Hopkins. 7:30 The three pillars to the work: the Eucharist as a continuation of the pharmako and Dionysian mysteries; the Pagan continuity theory; and the idea that through the mysteries "We can die before we die so that when we die we do not die" 13:00 What does "blood of Christ" actually mean; the implied and literal cannibalism In this episode, Brian C. Muraresku, who holds a degree from Brown University in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit,  joins Breht to discuss his fascinating book "The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name", a groundbreaking dive into the use of hallucinogens in ancient Greece, the Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, the role of the Eucharist in early Christianity, the . 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. 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?