But I think there's a decent scientific foothold to begin that work. The question is, what will happen in the future. Maybe for those facing the end of life. But Egypt seems to not really be hugely relevant to the research. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. But they charge Marcus specifically, not with a psychedelic Eucharist, but the use of a love potion. I see something that's happening to people. So I'll speak in language that you and our good colleague Greg [? There are others claiming that there's drugs everywhere. I include that line for a reason. Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. So if Eleusis is the Fight Club of the ancient world, right, the first rule is you don't talk about it. So we not only didn't have the engineering know-how-- we used to think-- we didn't have even settled life to construct something like this. No, I think you-- this is why we're friends, Charlie. Wonderful, well, thank you. This 'pagan continuity hypothesis' with a psychedelic twist is now backed up by biochemistry and agrochemistry and tons of historical research, exposing our forgotten history. It draws attention to this material. All right, so now, let's follow up with Dionysus, but let's see here. Then I see the mysteries of Dionysus as kind of the Burning Man or the Woodstock of the ancient world. I am excited . That is about the future rather than the ancient history. He's been featured in Forbes, the Daily Beast, Big Think, and Vice. Joe Campbell puts it best that what we're after is an experience of being alive. This an absolute masterclass on why you must know your identity and goals before forming a habit, what the best systems are for habit. So how exactly is this evidence of something relevant to Christianity in Rome or southern Italy more widely? A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs, and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? Now, I've had experiences outside the Eucharist that resonate with me. 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. And I want to ask you about specifically the Eleusinian mysteries, centered around the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. The most influential religious historian of the twentieth century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. difficult to arrive at any conclusive hypothesis. 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. 8th century BC from the Tel Arad shrine. So, I mean, my biggest question behind all of this is, as a good Catholic boy, is the Eucharist. CHARLES STANG: You know, Valentinus was almost elected bishop of Rome. So whatever was happening there was important. CHARLES STANG: So it may be worth mentioning, for those who are attending who haven't read the book, that you asked, who I can't remember her name, the woman who is in charge of the Eleusis site, whether some of the ritual vessels could be tested, only to discover-- tested for the remains of whatever they held, only to learn that those vessels had been cleaned and that no more vessels were going to be unearthed. Now, you could draw the obvious conclusion. 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. And there are legitimate scholars out there who say, because John wanted to paint Jesus in the light of Dionysus, present him as the second coming of this pagan God. As much as we know about the mysteries of Eleusis. It still leaves an even bigger if, Dr. Stang, is which one is psychedelic? 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. Nage ?] And please just call me Charlie. It's really quite simple, Charlie. BRIAN MURARESKU: Good one. So how does Dionysian revelries get into this picture? 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 And what about the alleged democratization with which you credit the mysteries of Dionysus, or the role of women in that movement? 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. That event is already up on our website and open for registration. And what you're referring to is-- and how I begin the book is this beautiful Greek phrase, [SPEAKING GREEK]. It's not just Cana. 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. Here's the proof of concept. Let's move to early Christian. And I describe that as somehow finding that key to immortality. They found a tiny chalice this big, dated to the second century BC. That would require an entirely different kind of evidence. But you will be consoled to know that someone else will be-- I will be there, but someone else will be leading that conversation. I want to thank you for putting up with me and my questions. Now you're a good sport, Brian. Brian has been very busy taking his new book on the road, of course, all online, and we're very grateful to him for taking the time to join us this evening. So let's start, then, the first act. Maybe there's a spark of the divine within. 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. I expect there will be. But I'm pressing you because that's my job. And I hear-- I sense that narrative in your book. And I think there are lots of reasons to believe that. 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. And if you're a good Christian or a good Catholic, and you're consuming that wine on any given Sunday, why are you doing that? And there were probably other Eleusises like that to the east. I try to be careful to always land on a lawyer's feet and be very honest with you and everybody else about where this goes from here. For me, that's a question, and it will yield more questions. 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. It's arguably not the case in the third century. Klaus Schmidt, who was with the German Archaeological Institute, called this a sanctuary and called these T-shaped pillars representations of gods. There's a good number of questions that are very curious why you are insisting on remaining a psychedelic virgin. 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. 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? BRIAN MURARESKU: I would say I've definitely experienced the power of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. I mean, shouldn't everybody, shouldn't every Christian be wondering what kind of wine was on that table, or the tables of the earliest Christians? 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. And when you speak in that way, what I hear you saying is there is something going on. I don't know why it's happening now, but we're finally taking a look. And by the way, I'm not here trying to protect Christianity from the evidence of psychedelic use. 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. That's only after Constantine. And shouldn't we all be asking that question? Eusebius, third into the fourth century, is also talking about them-- it's a great Greek word, [SPEAKING GREEK]. Nazanin Boniadi Thank you all for joining us, and I hope to see many of you later this month for our next event. 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. So again, if there were an early psychedelic sacrament that was being suppressed, I'd expect that the suppressors would talk about it. So this is the tradition, I can say with a straight face, that saved my life. Like in Israel. We don't have to look very hard to find that. So why do you think psychedelics are so significant that they might usher in a new Reformation? But unfortunately, it doesn't connect it to Christianity. I think the wine certainly does. These sources suggest a much greater degree of continuity with pre-Christian values and practice than the writings of more . And Ruck, and you following Ruck, make much of this, suggesting maybe the Gnostics are pharmacologists of some kind. Oh, I hope I haven't offended you, Brian. He's the god of wine. And in his book [? Now, Mithras is another one of these mystery religions. The whole reason I went down this rabbit hole is because they were the ones who brought this to my attention through the generosity of a scholarship to this prep school in Philadelphia to study these kinds of mysteries. 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. Even a little bit before Gobekli Tepe, there was another site unearthed relatively recently in Israel, at the Rakefet cave. He decides to get people even more drunk. CHARLES STANG: All right. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. Is this only Marcus? And so I don't think that psychedelics are coming to replace the Sunday Eucharist. So now it's true that these heresy hunters show an interest in this love potion. 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. In my previous posts on the continuity hypothesis . 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. You won't find it in many places other than that. Because ergot is just very common. 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. The Gnostics did have continuity with paganism. What does God mean? And what, if any, was the relationship between those ancient Greeks and the real religion of the earliest Christians, who might call the paleo-Christians. I go out of my way, in both parts of the book, which, it's divided into the history of beer and the history of wine, essentially. It was a pilgrimage site. Now, Carl Ruck from Boston University, much closer to home, however, took that invitation and tried to pursue this hypothesis. Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. let's take up your invitation and move from Dionysus to early Christianity. 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. Not because it's not there, because it hasn't been tested. BRIAN MURARESKU:: It's a simple formula, Charlie. 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. OK, Brian, I invite you to join us now. 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. 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 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 then at some point they go inland. The Immortality Key has its shortcomings. And so in the epilogue, I say we simply do not know the relationship between this site in Spain and Eleusis, nor do we know what was happening at-- it doesn't automatically mean that Eleusis was a psychedelic rite. Some number of people have asked about Egypt. Including, all the way back to Gobekli Tepe, which is why I mentioned that when we first started chatting. "The Jews" are not after Ye. It's some kind of wine-based concoction, some kind of something that is throwing these people into ecstasy. 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 I don't write this to antagonize them or the church, the people who, again, ushered me into this discipline and into these questions. On Monday, February 22, we will be hosting a panel discussion taking up the question what is psychedelic chaplaincy. 18.3C: Continuity Theory. That they were what you call extreme beverages. There he is. Like in a retreat pilgrimage type center, or maybe within palliative care. And considering the common background of modern religions (the Pagan Continuity hypothesis), any religious group who thinks they are chosen or correct are promoting a simplistic and ignorant view of our past. The continuity theory proposes that older adults maintain the same activities, behaviors, personalities, and relationships of the past. Where you find the grain, you may have found ergot. What Brian labels the religion with no name. 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. And let's start with our earliest evidence from the Stone Age and the Bronze Age. But it survives. 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 Rather, Christian beliefs were gradually incorporated into the pagan customs that already existed there. Do you think that by calling the Eucharist a placebo that you're likely to persuade them? There is evidence that has been either overlooked or perhaps intentionally suppressed. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. The Tim Ferriss Show. [texts-excerpt] penalty for cutting mangroves in floridaFREE EstimateFREE Estimate I don't think we have found it. So that, actually, is the key to the immortality key. The book was published by Saint Martin's Press in September 2020 and has generated a whirlwind of attention. Perhaps more generally, you could just talk about other traditions around the Mediterranean, North African, or, let's even say Judaism. That's the big question. Jerry Brown wrote a good review that should be read to put the book in its proper place. 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 And I started reading the studies from Pat McGovern at the University of Pennsylvania. And so how far should this investigation go? In fact, he found beer, wine, and mead all mixed together in a couple of different places. 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? I'll invite him to think about the future of religion in light of all this. 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. There was an absence of continuity in the direction of the colony as Newport made his frequent voyages to and . If the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? CHARLES STANG: I do, too. I think the only big question is what the exact relationship was from a place like that over to Eleusis. 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 . 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. What does ergotized beer in Catalonia have anything to do with the Greek mysteries at Eleusis? Not in every single case, obviously. 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. Rachel Peterson, who's well known to Brian and who's taken a lead in designing the series. So when Hippolytus is calling out the Marcosians, and specifically women, consecrating this alternative Eucharist in their alternative proto-mass, he uses the Greek word-- and we've talked about this before-- but he uses the Greek word [SPEAKING GREEK] seven times in a row, by the way, without specifying which drugs he's referring to. You obviously think these are powerful substances with profound effects that track with reality. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. 474, ?] 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. Now, Brian managed to write this book while holding down a full time practice in international law based in Washington DC. It's a big question for me. So when you take a step back, as you well know, there was a Hellenic presence all over the ancient Mediterranean. The same Rome that circumstantially shows up, and south of Rome, where Constantine would build his basilicas in Naples and Capua later on. 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. Because my biggest question is, and the obvious question of the book is, if this was happening in antiquity, what does that mean for today? 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. Many people see that as symbolic or allegorical or just a nice thing, which is not the case. 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. And so in my afterword, I present this as a blip on the archaeochemical radar. So your presentation of early Christianity inclines heavily toward the Greek world. The most colorful theory of psychedelics in religion portrays the original Santa Claus as a shaman. . And as a lawyer, I know what is probative and what's circumstantial evidence, and I just-- I don't see it there. That is my dog Xena. McGovern also finds wine from Egypt, for example, in 3150 BC, wine that is mixed with a number of interesting ingredients. Copyright 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College. Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages. Now, here's-- let's tack away from hard, scientific, archaeobotanical evidence for a moment. It is my great pleasure to welcome Brian Muraresku to the Center. 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. And the big question for me was what was that something else? 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. That's how we get to Catalonia. Not just in Italy, but as kind of the headquarters for the Mediterranean. 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. Let me just pull up my notes here. That's the promise in John's gospel, in John 6:54-55, that I quote in the book. 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. 55 This is very likely as it seems that the process had already started in the 4th century. Like the wedding at Cana, which my synopsis of that event is a drunkard getting a bunch of drunk people even more drunk. He co-writes that with Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann, who famously-- there it is, the three authors. 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. When you start testing, you find things. Now, I think you answered that last part. 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. It's funny to see that some of the first basilicas outside Rome are popping up here, and in and around Pompeii. So it is already happening. 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 . Lots of Greek artifacts, lots of Greek signifiers. So we move now into ancient history, but solidly into the historical record, however uneven that historical record is. And if the latter, do you think there's a good chance that religions will adopt psychedelics back into their rituals?". CHARLES STANG: OK. Now let's move into the Greek mystery. And what does this earliest history tell us about the earliest evidence for an ancient psychedelic religion? That's, just absurd. It seems entirely believable to me that we have a potion maker active near Pompeii. Well, wonderful. And I offer psychedelics as one of those archaic techniques of ecstasy that seems to have been relevant and meaningful to our ancestors. So. And this is at a time when we're still hunting and gathering. OK-- maybe one of those ancient beers. And if it only occurs in John, the big question is why. And now we have a working hypothesis and some data to suggest where we might be looking. Brought to you by Wealthfront high-yield savings account, Peloton Row premium rower for an efficient workout, and You Need A Budget cult-favorite money management app.. Rick Rubin is a nine-time GRAMMY-winning producer, one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, and the most successful producer in any genre, according to Rolling Stone. I fully expect we will find it. . Or maybe in palliative care. And so with a revised ancient history, in place Brian tacks back to the title of our series, Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. I mean, about 25 years ago, actually. You may have already noticed one such question-- not too hard. 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. You might find it in a cemetery in Mexico. 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. He was wronged by individuals, allegedly. 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.

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