But I don't hold-- I don't hang my hat on that claim. The kind of mysticism I've always been attracted to, like the rule of Saint Benedict and the Trappist monks and the Cistercian monks. We call it ego dissolution, things of that nature. This two-part discussion between Muraresku and Dr. Plotkin examines the role psychedelics have played in the development of Western civilization. and he said, Brian, don't you dare. Now is there any evidence for psychedelic use in ancient Egypt, and if not, do you have any theory as to why that's silent? And I think sites like this have tended to be neglected in scholarship, or published in languages like Catalan, maybe Ukrainian, where it just doesn't filter through the academic community. It's arguably not the case in the third century. Read more 37 people found this helpful Helpful Report abuse Tfsiebs So much research! And there were gaps as well. 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. We know from the literature hundreds of years beforehand that in Elis, for example, in the Western Peloponnese, on the same Epiphany-type timeline, January 5, January 6, the priests would walk into the temple of Dionysus, leave three basins of water, the next morning they're miraculously transformed into wine. 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? 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. BRIAN MURARESKU: It just happens to show up. That seems very believable, but there's nothing to suggest that the pharmacy or drug farm was serving Christians, or even that the potions produced were for ritual use. CHARLES STANG: All right. So now it's true that these heresy hunters show an interest in this love potion. I do the same thing in the afterword at the very end of the book, where it's lots of, here's what we know. 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]. Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and - TopPodcast So if we can test Eucharistic vessels, I wouldn't be surprised at all that we find one. BRIAN MURARESKU: I would say I've definitely experienced the power of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. But by and large, no, we don't really know. So you lean on the good work of Harvard's own Arthur Darby Nock, and more recently, the work of Dennis McDonald at Claremont School of Theology, to suggest that the author of the Gospel of John deliberately paints Jesus and his Eucharist in the colors of Dionysus. And by the way, I'm not here trying to protect Christianity from the evidence of psychedelic use. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name Little attempt has been made, however, to bridge the gap between \"pagan\" and \"Christian\" or to examine late antique, Christian attitudes toward sexuality and marriage from the viewpoint of the \"average\" Christian. 101. The Immortality Key - Book Review and Discussion - Were early - Reddit But things that sound intensely powerful. This an absolute masterclass on why you must know your identity and goals before forming a habit, what the best systems are for habit. 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. Oh, I hope I haven't offended you, Brian. Nage ?] 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? 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 then that's the word that Euripides uses, by the way. All episodes of The Tim Ferriss Show - Chartable Brian C. Muraresku (@BrianMuraresku) / Twitter I was not going to put a book out there that was sensationalist. So can you reflect for us where you really are and how you chose to write this 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? I expect we will find it. That was the question for me. So I think it's really interesting details here worth following up on. It still leaves an even bigger if, Dr. Stang, is which one is psychedelic? So whatever was happening there was important. Liked by Samuel Zuschlag. So my biggest question is, what kind of wine was it? And Dennis, amongst others, calls that a signature Dionysian miracle. And I want to ask you about specifically the Eleusinian mysteries, centered around the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. What Brian labels the religion with no name. pagan continuity hypothesis - diamondamotel.com 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. I write it cognizant of the fact that the Eucharist doesn't work for many, many people. The pagan continuity hypothesis at the heart of this book made sense to me. I think it's important you have made a distinction between what was Jesus doing at the Last Supper, as if we could ever find out. 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. First act is your evidence for psychedelics among the so-called pagan religions in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. They were relevant to me in going down this rabbit hole. Brendon Benz presents an alternative hypothesis to recent scholarship which has hypothesized that Israel consisted of geographical, economic . Nage ?] Throughout his five books he talks about wine being mixed with all kinds of stuff, like frankincense and myrrh, relatively innocuous stuff, but also less innocuous things like henbane and mandrake, these solanaceous plants which he specifically says is fatal. I appreciate this. But let me say at the outset that it is remarkably learned, full of great historical and philological detail. And anyone who drinks this, [SPEAKING GREEK], Jesus says in Greek, you remain in me and I in you. 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. The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: 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 (#646) - The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss 3 Annual "Best of" Apple Podcasts 900+ Million episodes downloaded 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. So that, actually, is the key to the immortality key. No, I think you-- this is why we're friends, Charlie. It's not just Cana. 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. 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? All right, so now, let's follow up with Dionysus, but let's see here. And I don't know if there's other examples of such things. And then at some point they go inland. One attendee has asked, "How have religious leaders reacted so far to your book? Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. 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. I'm not sure many have. Continuity theory - Wikipedia Again, if you're attracted to psychedelics, it's kind of an extreme thing, right? Copyright 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College. This time, tonight I'll say that it's just not my time yet. 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 Continuity Hypothesis was put forward by John Bowlby (1953) as a critical effect of attachments in his development of Attachment Theory. Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages. That would require an entirely different kind of evidence. That they were what you call extreme beverages. 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 . It's this 22-acre site of free-standing limestone, some rising 20 feet in the air, some weighing 50 tons. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm asked this question, I would say, in pretty much every interview I've done since late September. It was the Jesuits who taught me Latin and Greek. That's our next event, and will be at least two more events to follow. 40:15 Witches, drugs, and the Catholic Church . In fact, he found beer, wine, and mead all mixed together in a couple of different places. 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. Two Reviews of The Immortality Key - Graham Hancock . And I offer psychedelics as one of those archaic techniques of ecstasy that seems to have been relevant and meaningful to our ancestors. I was satisfied with I give Brian Muraresku an "A" for enthusiasm, but I gave his book 2 stars. I think the only big question is what the exact relationship was from a place like that over to Eleusis. And that the proof of concept idea is that we need to-- we, meaning historians of the ancient world, need to bring all the kinds of resources to bear on this to get better evidence and an interpretive frame for making sense of it. And at some point in my narrative, I do include mention of Gobekli Tepe, for example, which is essentially twice the age of Stonehenge. And I want to-- just like you have this hard evidence from Catalonia, then the question is how to interpret it. Who were the Saints? 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. 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 so with a revised ancient history, in place Brian tacks back to the title of our series, Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Because ergot is just very common. So why do you think psychedelics are so significant that they might usher in a new Reformation? You're not confident that the pope is suddenly going to issue an encyclical. And that's the mysteries of Dionysus. Mark and Brian cover the Eleusinian Mysteries, the pagan continuity hypothesis, early Christianity, lessons from famed religious scholar Karen Armstrong, overlooked aspects of influential philosopher William James's career, ancient wine and ancient beer, experiencing the divine within us, the importance of "tikkun olam"repairing and . But Egypt seems to not really be hugely relevant to the research. And very famous passages, by the way, that should be familiar to most New Testament readers. Well, wonderful. So what evidence can you provide for that claim? CHARLES STANG: Thank you, Brian. 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. That there is no hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data for spiked beer, spiked wine. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian CHARLES STANG: Wonderful. Books about pagan continuity hypothesis? In my previous posts on the continuity hypothesis . Ep #1 Show Notes | Brian Muraresku: Psychedelics, Civilization #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian PDF Thesis-The Religion of Constantine I - University Of Ottawa Here's the proof of concept. 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 see it as-- well, OK, I'd see it as within a minority. 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 BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm bringing more illumination. As much as we know about the mysteries of Eleusis. Whether there's a psychedelic tradition-- I mean, there are some suggestive paintings. The only reason I went to college was to study classics. The fact that the Vatican sits in Rome today is not an accident, I think, is the shortest way to answer that. David Wakefield - President - Wakefield Enterprises, LLC | LinkedIn BRIAN MURARESKU: Great question. They minimized or completely removed the Jewish debates found in the New Testament, and they took on a style that was more palatable to the wider pagan world. There was an absence of continuity in the direction of the colony as Newport made his frequent voyages to and . 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 . Things like fasting and sleep deprivation and tattooing and scarification and, et cetera, et cetera. Then I see the mysteries of Dionysus as kind of the Burning Man or the Woodstock of the ancient world. The universality of frontiers, however, made the hypothesis readily extendable to other parts of the globe. But what I see are potential and possibilities and things worthy of discussions like this. You can see that inscribed on a plaque in Saint Paul's monastery at Mount Athos in Greece. The (Mistaken) Conspiracy Theory: In the Late Middle Ages, religious elites created a new, and mistaken, intellectual framework out of Christian heresy and theology concerning demons. Israel's Exodus In Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text - Vdoc.pub He's the god of wine. We know that at the time of Jesus, before, during, and after, there were recipes floating around. You obviously think these are powerful substances with profound effects that track with reality. So Brian, welcome. So this whole water to wine thing was out there. So don't feel like you have to go into great depth at this point. What is its connection to Eleusis? But I don't understand how that provides any significant link to paleo-Christian practice. There is evidence that has been either overlooked or perhaps intentionally suppressed. And if it only occurs in John, the big question is why. CHARLES STANG: Yeah. To become truly immortal, Campbell talks about entering into a sense of eternity, which is the infinite present here and now. It would have parts of Greek mysticism in it, the same Greek mysteries I've spent all these years investigating, and it would have some elements of what I see in paleo-Christianity. But this clearly involved some kind of technical know-how and the ability to concoct these things that, in order to keep them safe and efficacious, would not have been very widespread, I don't think. All that will be announced through our mailing list. How does, in other words, how does religion sit with science? Listen to #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, an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, easily on Podbay - the best podcast player on the web. He's been featured in Forbes, the Daily Beast, Big Think, and Vice. 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." President and CEO, First Southeast Financial Corp and First Federal Savings and Loan Director, Carolina First Bank and The South Financial Group One, on mainland Greece from the Mycenaean period, 16th century BC, and the other about 800 years later in modern day Turkey, another ritual potion that seemed to have suggested some kind of concoction of beer, wine, and mead that was used to usher the king into the afterlife. I've no doubt that Brian has unearthed and collected a remarkable body of evidence, but evidence of what, exactly? [2] I know that's another loaded phrase. Do you think that the Christians as a nascent cult adapted a highly effective psycho technology that was rattling . 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. I mean, lots of great questions worthy of further investigation. And what does this earliest history tell us about the earliest evidence for an ancient psychedelic religion? "The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity" They did not. Including, all the way back to Gobekli Tepe, which is why I mentioned that when we first started chatting. 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. 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. Although she's open to testing, there was nothing there. He was wronged by individuals, allegedly. You know, it's an atheist using theological language to describe what happened to her. And the truth is that this is a project that goes well beyond ancient history, because Brian is convinced that what he has uncovered has profound implications for the future of religion, and specifically, the future of his own religion, Roman Catholicism. Wonderful, well, thank you. First, I will provide definitions for the terms "pagan", "Christian", I'd never thought before about how Christianity developed as an organized religion in the centuries after Jesus' murder. His aim when he set out on this journey 12 years ago was to assess the validity of a rather old, but largely discredited hypothesis, namely, that some of the religions of the ancient Mediterranean, perhaps including Christianity, used a psychedelic sacrament to induce mystical experiences at the border of life and death, and that these psychedelic rituals were just the tip of the iceberg, signs of an even more ancient and pervasive religious practice going back many thousands of years. 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. We still have almost 700 with us. CHARLES STANG: So in some sense, you're feeling almost envy for the experiences on psychedelics, which is to say you've never experienced the indwelling of Christ or the immediate knowledge of your immortality in the sacrament. But it was not far from a well-known colony in [INAUDIBLE] that was founded by Phocians. It seems entirely believable to me that we have a potion maker active near Pompeii. What about all these early Christians themselves as essentially Jews? This time around, we have a very special edition featuring Dr. Mark Plotkin and Brian C . And I've listened to the volunteers who've gone through these experiences. 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. IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. Church of the Saints Faustina and Liberata, view from the outside with the entrance enclosure, at "Sante" place, Capo di Ponte (Italy). Hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data, I haven't seen it. In fact, something I'm following up on now is the prospect of similar sites in the Crimea around the Black Sea, because there was also a Greek presence there. 8th century BC from the Tel Arad shrine. The Immortality Key has its shortcomings. . Now, I don't put too much weight into that. You won't find it in many places other than that. I think the wine certainly does. And so the big question is what was happening there? Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. Pagan polemicists reversed the Biblical story of the Israelites' liberation from Egyptian bondage, portraying a negative image of Israelite origins and picturing them as misanthropes and atheists. 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. So it wasn't just a random place to find one of these spiked wines. 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. Continuity Questions - 36 Questions About Continuity - QuestionDB Again, how did Christianity take hold in a world with such a rich mystical tradition? If you die before you die, you won't die when you die. But I mentioned that we've become friends because it is the prerogative of friends to ask hard questions. 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. So Plato, Pindar, Sophocles, all the way into Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, it's an important thing. 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. But we do know that something was happening. The continuity between pagan and Christian cult nearby the archaeological area of Naquane in Capo di Ponte. So we're going down parallel paths here, and I feel we're caught between FDA-approved therapeutics and RFRA-protected sacraments, RFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or what becomes of these kinds of substances in any kind of legal format-- which they're not legal at the moment, some would argue. 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." No one lived there. 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.". Brian C. Muraresku - Priory Of Sion So I present this as proof of concept, and I heavily rely on the Gospel of John and the data from Italy because that's what was there. He's joining us from Uruguay, where he has wisely chosen to spend his pandemic isolation. I'm happy to be proven wrong. I expect there will be. We have some inscriptions. And he found some beer and wine-- that was a bit surprising. So the Eastern Aegean. I'm paraphrasing this one. #649: Rick Rubin, Legendary Music Producer The Creative Act It was a pilgrimage site. It's not the case in the second century. These are famous figures to those of us who study early Christianity. Here is how I propose we are to proceed. These mysteries had at their center a sacrament called kykeon, which offered a vision of the mysteries of life and death. 36:57 Drug-spiked wine . So those are all possibly different questions to ask and answer. So I really follow the scholarship of Enriqueta Pons, who is the archaeologist on site there, at this Greek sanctuary that we're talking about in Catalonia, Mas Castellar des Pontos. So let's start with one that is more contemporary. An Exploration of Religion: An Interview with Brian Muraresku She had the strange sense that every moment was an eternity of its own. So it's hard for me to write this and talk about this without acknowledging the Jesuits who put me here. CHARLES STANG: Brian, I want to thank you for your time. 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. Origin of the Romanians - Wikipedia And it was the Jesuits who encouraged me to always, always ask questions and never take anything at face value. What's the wine? Nazanin Boniadi 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. So the basic point being, as far as we can tell, beer and wine are routinely mixed with things that we don't do today. 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. And what do you believe happens to you when you do that? BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. The Tim Ferriss Show | iHeart So why refrain? The long and short of it is, in 1978 there was no hard scientific data to prove this one way or the other.