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So why the silence from the heresiologists on a psychedelic sacrament? No, I think you-- this is why we're friends, Charlie. So Gobekli Tepe, for those who don't know, is this site in southern Turkey on the border with Syria. And that's not how it works today, and I don't think that's how it works in antiquity. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name What was the wine in the early Eucharist? You see an altar of Pentelic marble that could only have come from the Mount Pentelicus quarry in mainland Greece. Interesting. As much as we know about the mysteries of Eleusis. Even a little bit before Gobekli Tepe, there was another site unearthed relatively recently in Israel, at the Rakefet cave. Now, I've had experiences outside the Eucharist that resonate with me. CHARLES STANG: All right. What I see is data that's been largely neglected, and I think what serves this as a discipline is just that. I expect there will be. Thank you for that. There's John Marco Allegro claiming that there was no Jesus, and this was just one big amanita muscaria cult. 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. Continuity theory - Wikipedia CHARLES STANG: All right. Because even though it's a very long time ago, Gobekli Tepe, interestingly, has some things in common with Eleusis, like the worship of the grain, the possibility of brewing, the notion of a pilgrimage, and interaction with the dead. pagan continuity hypothesis - diamondamotel.com To assess this hypothesis and, perhaps, to push it further, has required years of dogged and, at times, discouraging works in archives and archaeology. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian I think psychedelics are just one piece of the puzzle. I don't think we have found it. I would have been happy to find a spiked wine anywhere. 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. All he says is that these women and Marcus are adding drugs seven times in a row into whatever potion this is they're mixing up. And what the FDA can do is make sure that they're doing it in a way that it's absolutely safe and efficacious. And much of the evidence that you've collected is kind of the northern half of the Mediterranean world. 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. But I think there's a decent scientific foothold to begin that work. Things like fasting and sleep deprivation and tattooing and scarification and, et cetera, et cetera. So don't feel like you have to go into great depth at this point. So how to put this? But what we do know about the wine of the time is that it was routinely mixed with plants and herbs and potentially fungi. CHARLES STANG: We're often in this situation where we're trying to extrapolate from evidence from Egypt, to see is Egypt the norm or is it the exception? Brought to you by Well, let's get into it then. Now, Mithras is another one of these mystery religions. So those are all possibly different questions to ask and answer. CHARLES STANG: Wonderful. And inside that beer was all kinds of vegetable matter, like wheat, oats, and sedge and lily and flax and various legumes. [1] According to this theory, older adults try to maintain this continuity of lifestyle by adapting strategies that are connected to their past experiences. It is not psychedelics. That would require an entirely different kind of evidence. Its proponents maintain that the affable, plump old fellow associated with Christmas derives from the character of Arctic medical practitioners. So there's lots of interesting details here that filter through. Not because they just found that altar. 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? What's the wine? 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 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. He's been featured in Forbes, the Daily Beast, Big Think, and Vice. Or maybe in palliative care. There's evidence of the mysteries of Dionysus before, during, and after the life of Jesus, it's worth pointing out. I know that that's a loaded phrase. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. 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 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. Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and - TopPodcast That's only after Constantine. So Pompeii and its environs at the time were called [SPEAKING GREEK], which means great Greece. I mean, something of symbolic significance, something monumental. There he is. 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. That's our next event, and will be at least two more events to follow. There were formula. And anyone who drinks this, [SPEAKING GREEK], Jesus says in Greek, you remain in me and I in you. 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. And he found some beer and wine-- that was a bit surprising. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm bringing more illumination. What does ergotized beer in Catalonia have anything to do with the Greek mysteries at Eleusis? CHARLES STANG: Yeah. CHARLES STANG: OK. And so I cite a Pew poll, for example, that says something like 69% of American Catholics do not believe in transubstantiation, which is the defining dogma of the church, the idea that the bread and wine literally becomes the flesh and blood. I am so fortunate to have been selected to present my thesis, "Mythology and Psychedelics: Taking the Pagan Continuity Hypothesis a Step Further" at. 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. And I think we're getting there. 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. The mysteries of Dionysus, a bit weirder, a bit more off the grid. 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. I would love to see these licensed, regulated, retreat centers be done in a way that is medically sound and scientifically rigorous. #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. So, like, they're wonderstruck, or awestruck by their libations and their incense. Are they rolling their eyes, or are you getting sort of secretive knowing nods of agreement? 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 perhaps there's even more evidence. And in his book [? So when you take a step back, as you well know, there was a Hellenic presence all over the ancient Mediterranean. 101. 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. let's take up your invitation and move from Dionysus to early Christianity. And what about the alleged democratization with which you credit the mysteries of Dionysus, or the role of women in that movement? McGovern also finds wine from Egypt, for example, in 3150 BC, wine that is mixed with a number of interesting ingredients. 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. Not in every single case, obviously. To some degree, I think you're looking back to southern Italy from the perspective of the supremacy of Rome, which is not the case in the first century. The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. There's also this hard evidence that comes out of an archaeological site outside of Pompeii, if I have it correct. 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? Because for many, many years, you know, Ruck's career takes a bit of a nosedive. And not least because if I were to do it, I'd like to do so in a deeply sacred ritual. 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. In the same place in and around Pompeii, this is where Christianity is really finding its roots. There have been breakthroughs, too, which no doubt kept Brian going despite some skepticism from the academy, to say the least. So now it's true that these heresy hunters show an interest in this love potion. 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? And they found this site, along with others around the Mediterranean. A combination of psychoactive plants, including opium, cannabis, and nightshade, along with the remains of reptiles and amphibians all steeped in wine, like a real witch's brew, uncovered in this house outside of Pompeii. So I want to propose that we stage this play in two acts. Now are there any other questions you wish to propose or push or-- I don't know, to push back against any of the criticisms or questions I've leveled? It's really quite simple, Charlie. So after the whole first half of the book-- well, wait a minute, Dr. Stang. But I want to ask you to reflect on the broader narrative that you're painting, because I've heard you speak in two ways about the significance of this work. 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. 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. BRIAN MURARESKU: But you're spot on. There's a good number of questions that are very curious why you are insisting on remaining a psychedelic virgin. It's something that goes from Homer all the way until the fall of the Roman Empire, over the course of well more than 1,000 years. What's different about the Dionysian mysteries, and what evidence, direct or indirect, do we have about the wine of Dionysus being psychedelic? It tested positive for the microscopic remains of beer and also ergot, exactly the hypothesis that had been put forward in 1978 by the disgraced professor across town from you, Carl Ruck, who's now 85 years old, by the way. 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? All rights reserved. #649: Rick Rubin, Legendary Music Producer The Creative Act 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 . That's just everlasting. And she happened to find it on psilocybin. 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. CHARLES STANG: OK. And that's a question equally for ancient historians and for contemporary seekers and/or good Catholics. That is my dog Xena. 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. 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. And at some point in my narrative, I do include mention of Gobekli Tepe, for example, which is essentially twice the age of Stonehenge. BRIAN MURARESKU: Now we're cooking with grease, Dr. Stang. He was wronged by individuals, allegedly. This an absolute masterclass on why you must know your identity and goals before forming a habit, what the best systems are for habit. Continuity Hypothesis - Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog So, I mean, my biggest question behind all of this is, as a good Catholic boy, is the Eucharist. There's no mistake in her mind that it was Greek. 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. I was satisfied with I give Brian Muraresku an "A" for enthusiasm, but I gave his book 2 stars. And you suspect, therefore, that it might be a placebo, and you want the real thing. And what you're referring to is-- and how I begin the book is this beautiful Greek phrase, [SPEAKING GREEK]. 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. 55 This is very likely as it seems that the process had already started in the 4th century. This two-part discussion between Muraresku and Dr. Plotkin examines the role psychedelics have played in the development of Western civilization. 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? A rebirth into what? These were Greek-- I've seen them referred to as Greek Vikings by Peter Kingsley, Vikings who came from Ionia. Maybe there's some residual fear that's been built up in me. I imagine there are many more potion makers around than we typically recognize. 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. So the Greek god of wine, intoxication. 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. I mean, lots of great questions worthy of further investigation. 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. 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. So can you reflect for us where you really are and how you chose to write this book? 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. What was being thrown into it? Let me just pull up my notes here. 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. 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. Now, it's just an early indication and there's more testing to be done. And to be quite honest, I'd never studied the ancient Greeks in Spain. 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'm going to come back to that idea of proof of concept. Some number of people have asked about Egypt. On Monday, February 22, we will be hosting a panel discussion taking up the question what is psychedelic chaplaincy. And I feel like I accomplished that in the afterword to my book. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. 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". Tim Ferriss Show #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin: The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, Psychedelics, and More. Not much. 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. Who were the Saints? So Plato, Pindar, Sophocles, all the way into Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, it's an important thing. 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. 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. CHARLES STANG: I do, too. The Tim Ferriss Show | iHeart So even from the very beginning, it wasn't just barley and water. The answer seems to be connected to psychedelic drugs. Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin: The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, Psychedelics, and More | Tim Ferriss Show #646 And I want to ask you about specifically the Eleusinian mysteries, centered around the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. The kind of mysticism I've always been attracted to, like the rule of Saint Benedict and the Trappist monks and the Cistercian monks. And I think it's very important to be very honest with the reader and the audience about what we know and what we don't. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name It is my great pleasure to welcome Brian Muraresku to the Center. Where does Western civilization come from? And so that opened a question for me. Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages. The only reason I went to college was to study classics. They're mixing potions. . How does, in other words, how does religion sit with science? Now you're a good sport, Brian. And very famous passages, by the way, that should be familiar to most New Testament readers. That's all just fancy wordplay. 18.3C: Continuity Theory - Social Sci LibreTexts The continuity hypothesis of dreams suggests that the content of dreams are largely continuous with waking concepts and concerns of the dreamer. 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? There's all kinds of reasons I haven't done it. 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. He decides to get people even more drunk. 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. So I got a copy of it from the Library of Congress, started reading through, and there, in fact, I was reading about this incredible discovery from the '90s. We know that at the time of Jesus, before, during, and after, there were recipes floating around. But with what were they mixed, and to what effect? But the point being, if the Dionysian wine was psychedelic-- which I know is a big if-- I think the more important thing to show here in this pagan continuity hypothesis is that it's at least plausible that the earliest Christians would have at the very least read the Gospel of John and interpreted that paleo-Christian Eucharistic wine, in some communities, as a kind of Dionysian wine. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. This is going to be a question that's back to the ancient world. If your history is even remotely correct, that would have ushered in a very different church, if Valentinus's own student Marcus and the Marcosians were involved in psychedelic rituals, then that was an early road not taken, let's say. Here is how I propose we are to proceed. And then that's the word that Euripides uses, by the way. Which, if you think about it, is a very elegant idea. And so that's what motivated my search here. They are guaranteed an afterlife. 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. 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. I wonder if you're familiar with Wouter Hanegraaff at the University of Amsterdam. 474, ?] 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. 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 phrasing used in the book and by others is "the pagan continuity hypothesis". So imagine how many artifacts are just sitting in museums right now, waiting to be tested. PDF Thesis-The Religion of Constantine I - University Of Ottawa Kanye West (Ye) storms off Timcast IRL show after Tim Pool pushes back 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. Like in Israel. Nage ?] The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name Like in a retreat pilgrimage type center, or maybe within palliative care. 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. CHARLES STANG: OK. Now let's move into the Greek mystery. And again, it survives, I think, because of that state support for the better part of 2,000 years. Material evidence of a very strange potion, a drug, or a [SPEAKING GREEK]. BRIAN MURARESKU: That's a good question. And Ruck, and you following Ruck, make much of this, suggesting maybe the Gnostics are pharmacologists of some kind. What is its connection to Eleusis? They were mixed or fortified. I mean, about 25 years ago, actually. Mona Sobhani, PhD (@monasobhaniphd) / Twitter