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Well, wonderful. And Ruck, and you following Ruck, make much of this, suggesting maybe the Gnostics are pharmacologists of some kind. 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. So I think it's really interesting details here worth following up on. It's interesting that Saint Ignatius of Antioch, in the beginning of the second century AD, refers to the wine of the Eucharist as the [SPEAKING GREEK], the drug of immortality. And she talks about kind of being born again, another promise from John's gospel. 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. Material evidence of a very strange potion, a drug, or a [SPEAKING GREEK]. But we do know that something was happening. OK, now, Brian, you've probably dealt with questions like this. And I wonder whether the former narrative serves the interests of the latter. Here's the big question. 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. I have a deep interest in mysticism, and I've had mystical experiences, which I don't think are very relevant. 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. 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. Maybe there's a spark of the divine within. Nage ?] The book proposes a history of religious ritualistic psychedelic use at least as old as the ancient Greek mystery religions, especially those starting in Eleusis and dating to roughly 2,000 BC. 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. Those religions featured psychedelic beer and ceremonies lead by women . First act is your evidence for psychedelics among the so-called pagan religions in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. And this is what I present to the world. Certainly these early churchmen used whatever they could against the forms of Christian practice they disapproved of, especially those they categorized as Gnostic. What was the wine in the early Eucharist? Up until that point I really had very little knowledge of psychedelics, personal or literary or otherwise. Was there any similarity from that potion to what was drunk at Eleusis? This event is entitled, Psychedelics, The Ancient Religion With No Name? Now I want to get to the questions, but one last question before we move to the discussion portion. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm bringing more illumination. So I spent 12 years looking for that data, eventually found it, of all places, in Catalonia in Spain in this 635-page monograph that was published in 2002 and for one reason or another-- probably because it was written in Catalan-- was not widely reported to the academic community and went largely ignored. I include that line for a reason. Mona Sobhani, PhD (@monasobhaniphd) / Twitter Like in Israel. So it is already happening. So, like, they're wonderstruck, or awestruck by their libations and their incense. 283. Again, how did Christianity take hold in a world with such a rich mystical tradition? It's really quite simple, Charlie. We see lots of descriptions of this in the mystical literature with which you're very familiar. And then was, in some sense, the norm, the original Eucharist, and that it was then suppressed by orthodox, institutional Christianity, who persecuted, especially the women who were the caretakers of this tradition. The Wanderer | Old English Poetry Project | Rutgers University Copyright 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College. 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? And so the big question is what was happening there? 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. John H Elliott - Empires Of The Atlantic World.pdf They found a tiny chalice this big, dated to the second century BC. "The Tim Ferriss Show" 646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The continuity theory proposes that older adults maintain the same activities, behaviors, personalities, and relationships of the past. 55 This is very likely as it seems that the process had already started in the 4th century. The Continuity Hypothesis was put forward by John Bowlby (1953) as a critical effect of attachments in his development of Attachment Theory. So, I mean, my biggest question behind all of this is, as a good Catholic boy, is the Eucharist. . Or maybe in palliative care. So somewhere between 1% and 49%. #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. What was being thrown into it? 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. Read more 37 people found this helpful Helpful Report abuse Tfsiebs So much research! Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. And I asked her openly if we could test some of the many, many containers that they have, some on display, and many more in repository there. Interesting. . 36:57 Drug-spiked wine . CHARLES STANG: OK, that is the big question. Now, let's get started, Brian. One attendee has asked, "How have religious leaders reacted so far to your book? #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 by The Tim Ferriss Show So the closer we get to the modern period, we're starting to find beer, wine mixed with interesting things. Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and - Podchaser I took this to Greg [? And by the way, I'm not here trying to protect Christianity from the evidence of psychedelic use. And in his book [? This is going to be a question that's back to the ancient world. And even Burkert, I think, calls it the most famous of the mystery rituals. What Brian labels the religion with no name. Because for many, many years, you know, Ruck's career takes a bit of a nosedive. In the Classics world, there's a pagan continuity hypothesis with the very origin of Christianity, and many overt references to Greek plays in the Gospel of John. Lots of Greek artifacts, lots of Greek signifiers. What's different about the Dionysian mysteries, and what evidence, direct or indirect, do we have about the wine of Dionysus being psychedelic? So what do we know about those rituals? Which is a very weird thing today. A rebirth into what? Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. 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. I just sense a great deal of structure and thoughtfulness going into this experience. 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 so in some of these psychedelic trials, under the right conditions, I do see genuine religious experiences. Many people see that as symbolic or allegorical or just a nice thing, which is not the case. Despite its popular appeal as a New York Times Bestseller, TIK fails to make a compelling case for its grand theory of the "pagan continuity hypothesis with a psychedelic twist" due to recurring overreach and historical distortion, failure to consider relevant research on shamanism and Christianity, and presentation of speculation as fact CHARLES STANG: OK. They're mixing potions. CHARLES STANG: All right. And anyone who drinks this, [SPEAKING GREEK], Jesus says in Greek, you remain in me and I in you. This book by Brian Muraresku, attempts to answer this question by delving into the history of ancient secret religions dating back thousands of years. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian Because every time I think about ancient wine, I am now immediately thinking about wine that is spiked. Things like fasting and sleep deprivation and tattooing and scarification and, et cetera, et cetera. So what I think we have here in this ergtotized beer drink from Catalonia, Spain, and in this weird witch's brew from 79 AD in Pompeii, I describe it, until I see evidence otherwise, as some of the very first heart scientific data for the actual existence of actual spiked wine in classical antiquity, which I think is a really big point. He comes to this research with a full suite of scholarly skills, including a deep knowledge of Greek and Latin as well as facility in a number of European languages, which became crucial for uncovering some rather obscure research in Catalan, and also for sweet-talking the gatekeepers of archives and archaeological sites. That they were what you call extreme beverages. I'll invite him to think about the future of religion in light of all this. There's John Marco Allegro claiming that there was no Jesus, and this was just one big amanita muscaria cult. The Continuity Hypothesis of Dreams: A More Balanced Account And now we have a working hypothesis and some data to suggest where we might be looking. That's, just absurd. It's funny to see that some of the first basilicas outside Rome are popping up here, and in and around Pompeii. So in the mountains and forests from Greece to Rome, including the Holy Land and Galilee. Here is how I propose we are to proceed. And I think we get hung up on the jargon. BRIAN MURARESKU: I would say I've definitely experienced the power of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. They are guaranteed an afterlife. So this is interesting. 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." #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian He calls it a drug against grief in Greek, [SPEAKING GREEK]. 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. And I think what the pharmaceutical industry can do is help to distribute this medicine. The Gnostics did have continuity with paganism. But I realized that in 1977, when he wrote that in German, this was the height of scholarship, at least going out on a limb to speculate about the prospect of psychedelics at the very heart of the Greek mysteries, which I refer to as something like the real religion of the ancient Greeks, by the way, in speaking about the Eleusinian mysteries. Frankly, if you ask the world's leading archaeobotanists and archaeochemists, where's the spiked beer and where's the spiked wine, which I've been doing since about 2007, 2008, the resounding answer you'll get back from everybody is a resounding no. 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? And so in my afterword, I present this as a blip on the archaeochemical radar. Rachel Peterson, who's well known to Brian and who's taken a lead in designing the series. Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian Mysteries Video: Psychedelics: The Ancient Religion with No Name? "Pagan" and "Christian" Marriage: The State of the Question I mean, I wish it were easier. And so how far should this investigation go? And what the FDA can do is make sure that they're doing it in a way that it's absolutely safe and efficacious. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name CHARLES STANG: Brian, I want to thank you for your time. The big question is, did any of these recipes, did any of this wine spiking actually make its way into some paleo-Christian ceremony. And part of me really wants to put all these pieces together before I dive in. Here's the proof of concept. And how can you reasonably expect the church to recognize a psychedelic Eucharist? It was one of the early write-ups of the psilocybin studies coming out of Johns Hopkins. Now, I mentioned that Brian and I had become friends. These Native American church and the UDV, both some syncretic form of Christianity. After the first few chapters the author bogs down flogging the Pagan Continuity Hypothesis and exulting over his discovery of small scraps of evidence he found in a decade of research. A lot of Christianity, as you rightly point out, I mean, it was an Eastern phenomenon, all over the eastern Mediterranean. Psychedelics Today: PTSF 35 (with Brian Muraresku) Griffithsfund.org PDF Thesis-The Religion of Constantine I - University Of Ottawa I'm not sure many have. I wish the church fathers were better botanists and would rail against the specific pharmacopeia. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. And so I can see psychedelics being some kind of extra sacramental ministry that potentially could ease people at the end of life. There have been breakthroughs, too, which no doubt kept Brian going despite some skepticism from the academy, to say the least. And keep in mind that we'll drop down into any one of these points more deeply. And I think that we would behoove ourselves to incorporate, resuscitate, maybe, some of those techniques that seem to have been employed by the Greeks at Eleusis or by the Dionysians or some of these earliest Christians. And so that's what motivated my search here. Theories of Origins about Witch Hunts - King's College And so that opened a question for me. They were mixed or fortified. Jerry Brown wrote a good review that should be read to put the book in its proper place. So I'm not convinced that-- I think you're absolutely right that what this establishes is that Christians in southern Italy could have-- could have had access to the kinds of things that have been recovered from that drug farm, let's call it. 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. I might forward the proposition that I don't think the early church fathers were the best botanists. 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. Do you think that the Christians as a nascent cult adapted a highly effective psycho technology that was rattling . And we know the mysteries were there. It was-- Eleusis was state-administered, a somewhat formal affair. 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. With more than 35 years of experience in the field of Education dedicated to help students, teachers and administrators in both public and private institutions at school, undergraduate and graduate level. But I mentioned that we've become friends because it is the prerogative of friends to ask hard questions. I mean, lots of great questions worthy of further investigation. So let's start with one that is more contemporary. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. And if there's historical precedent for it, all the more so. And if it's one thing Catholicism does very, very well, it's contemplative mysticism. That also only occurs in John, another epithet of Dionysus. #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 from The Tim Ferriss Show on Podchaser, aired Wednesday, 28th December 2022. But you will be consoled to know that someone else will be-- I will be there, but someone else will be leading that conversation. And I started reading the studies from Pat McGovern at the University of Pennsylvania. Even a little bit before Gobekli Tepe, there was another site unearthed relatively recently in Israel, at the Rakefet cave. 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". In the same place in and around Pompeii, this is where Christianity is really finding its roots. CHARLES STANG: OK. Now let's move into the Greek mystery. 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. I'm sure he knows this well, by this point. You obviously think these are powerful substances with profound effects that track with reality. So there's lots of interesting details here that filter through. So again, that's February 22. And I don't know if there's other examples of such things. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. CHARLES STANG: We've really read Jesus through the lens of his Greek inheritors. So throughout the book, you make the point that ancient beer and wine are not like our beer and wine. BRIAN MURARESKU: I wish I could answer that question. And I want to say to those who are still assembled here that I'm terribly sorry that we can't get to all your questions. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian 25:15 Dionysus and the "pagan continuity hypothesis" 30:54 Gnosticism and Early Christianity . 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 . Wonderful, well, thank you. Hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data, I haven't seen it. Newsweek calls him 'the world's best human guinea pig,' and The New York Times calls him 'a cross between Jack Welch and a Buddhist monk.' In this show, he deconstructs world-class performers from eclectic areas (investing, chess, pro sports, etc . So there's a whole slew of sites I want to test there. But what we do know about the wine of the time is that it was routinely mixed with plants and herbs and potentially fungi. The Immortality Key - David Bookstaber "The Jews" are not after Ye. Pagan Continuity and Christian Attitudes: When did Paganism End? There's all kinds of reasons I haven't done it. 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 so I do see an avenue, like I kind of obliquely mentioned, but I do think there's an avenue within organized religion and for people who dedicate their lives as religious professionals to ministry to perhaps take a look at this in places where it might work. What, if any, was the relationship between this Greek sanctuary-- a very Greek sanctuary, by the way-- in Catalonia, to the mysteries of Eleusis? The Religion has a Name: "Shamanism" - AKJournals difficult to arrive at any conclusive hypothesis. 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? And for those of you who have found my line of questioning or just my general presence tedious, first of all, I fully appreciate that reaction. Richard Evans Schultes and the Search for Ayahuasca 17 days ago Plants of the Gods: S3E10. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian So I was obsessed with this stuff from the moment I picked up an article in The Economist called the God Pill back in 2007. BRIAN MURARESKU: Great question. So I see-- you're moving back and forth between these two. All right, so now, let's follow up with Dionysus, but let's see here. This is all secret. So back in 2012, archaeologists and chemists were scraping some of these giant limestone troughs, and out pops calcium oxalate, which is one of these biomarkers for the fermentation of brewing. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian . So can you reflect on the-- standing on the threshold of pharmaceutical companies taking control of this, how is that to be commended when the very people who have kept this alive would be pushed to the side in that move? And I, for one, look forward to a time when I can see him in person for a beer, ergotized beer or not, if he ever leaves Uruguay. These are famous figures to those of us who study early Christianity. So thank you, all who have hung with us. That's the promise in John's gospel, in John 6:54-55, that I quote in the book. So first of all, please tell us how it is you came to pursue this research to write this book, and highlight briefly what you think are its principal conclusions and their significance for our present and future. Now, it's just an early indication and there's more testing to be done. 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 . To this day I remain a psychedelic virgin quite proudly, and I spent the past 12 years, ever since that moment in 2007, researching what Houston Smith, perhaps one of the most influential religious historians of the 20th century, would call the best kept secret in history. Yeah. The question is, what will happen in the future. Others find it in different ways, but the common denominator seems to be one of these really well-curated near-death experiences. Research inside the Church of Saint Faustina and Liberata Fig 1. Several theories address the issue of the origin of the Romanians.The Romanian language descends from the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken in the Roman provinces north of the "Jireek Line" (a proposed notional line separating the predominantly Latin-speaking territories from the Greek-speaking lands in Southeastern Europe) in Late Antiquity.The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the . The Tim Ferriss Show - Transcripts Now, I have no idea where it goes from here, or if I'll take it myself. BRIAN MURARESKU: It just happens to show up. So why the silence from the heresiologists on a psychedelic sacrament? That's the big question. 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. 101. This two-part discussion between Muraresku and Dr. Plotkin examines the role psychedelics have played in the development of Western civilization. Is this only Marcus? And yet I talked to an atheist who has one experience with psilocybin and is immediately bathed in God's love. But when it comes to that Sunday ritual, it just, whatever is happening today, it seems different from what may have motivated the earliest Christians, which leads me to very big questions. BRIAN MURARESKU: I look forward to it, Charlie. Who were the Saints? You mentioned there were lots of dead ends, and there certainly were. I mean, something of symbolic significance, something monumental. CHARLES STANG: Wonderful. When Irenaeus is talking about [SPEAKING GREEK], love potions, again, we have no idea what the hell he's talking about. 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 So Brian, welcome. I was satisfied with I give Brian Muraresku an "A" for enthusiasm, but I gave his book 2 stars. Thank you, sir. We have other textual evidence. And did the earliest Christians inherit the same secret tradition? Administration and supervision endeavors and with strong knowledge in: Online teaching and learning methods, Methods for Teaching Mathematics and Technology Integration for K-12 and College . Others would argue that they are perfectly legal sacraments, at least in the Native American church with the use of peyote, or in the UDV or Santo Daime, I mean, ayahuasca does work in some syncretic Christian form, right? The Immortality Key Book Summary by Brian C. Muraresku Maybe I have that wrong. What was the real religion of the ancient Greeks? So psychedelics or not, I think it's the cultivation of that experience, which is the actual key. She had the strange sense that every moment was an eternity of its own. 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 . I expect there will be. I've no doubt that Brian has unearthed and collected a remarkable body of evidence, but evidence of what, exactly?