let's take up your invitation and move from Dionysus to early Christianity. CHARLES STANG: You know, Valentinus was almost elected bishop of Rome. You also find a Greek hearth inside this sanctuary. A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs, and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? You mentioned there were lots of dead ends, and there certainly were. 474, ?] I'm paraphrasing this one. So what do we know about those rituals? So whatever these [SPEAKING GREEK] libations incense were, the church fathers don't get into great detail about what may have been spiking them. 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. The pagan continuity hypothesis theorizes that when Christianity arrived in Greece around AD 49, it didn't suddenly replace the existing religion. If beer was there that long ago, what kind of beer was it? This is all secret. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. I'll invite him to think about the future of religion in light of all this. The Immortality Key has its shortcomings. Rather, Christian beliefs were gradually incorporated into the pagan customs that already existed there. And if it's one thing Catholicism does very, very well, it's contemplative mysticism. Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation Many people see that as symbolic or allegorical or just a nice thing, which is not the case. That there is no hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data for spiked beer, spiked wine. 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 psychedelics or not, I think it's the cultivation of that experience, which is the actual key. I really tried. Mona Sobhani, PhD Retweeted. Like the wedding at Cana, which my synopsis of that event is a drunkard getting a bunch of drunk people even more drunk. And the second act, the same, but for what you call paleo-Christianity, the evidence for your suspicion that the Eucharist was originally a psychedelic sacrament. So the mysteries of Dionysus are a bit more of a free-for-all than the mysteries of Eleusis. So Gobekli Tepe, for those who don't know, is this site in southern Turkey on the border with Syria. But I don't hold-- I don't hang my hat on that claim. Now, that date is obviously very suggestive because that's precisely the time the Christians were establishing a beachhead in Rome. 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. I mean, I think the book makes it clear. 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? I'm trying to get him to speak in the series about that. 48:01 Brian's psychedelic experiences . 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. I think the only big question is what the exact relationship was from a place like that over to Eleusis. 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 the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? Maybe for those facing the end of life. pagan continuity hypothesis - diamondamotel.com Let me start with the view-- the version of it that I think is less persuasive. And I want to ask you about specifically the Eleusinian mysteries, centered around the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. So can you reflect for us where you really are and how you chose to write this book? Maybe I'm afraid I'll take the psychedelic and I won't have what is reported in the literature from Hopkins and NYU. "The Jews" are not after Ye. And I'm not even sure what that piece looks like or how big it is. Read more about The Immortality Key by Brian Muraresku Making Sense by Sam Harris And we know the mysteries were there. Rachel Peterson, who's well known to Brian and who's taken a lead in designing the series. Because at my heart, I still consider myself a good Catholic boy. Now we're getting somewhere. It draws attention to this material. CHARLES STANG: We've really read Jesus through the lens of his Greek inheritors. 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. The Gnostics did have continuity with paganism. You obviously think these are powerful substances with profound effects that track with reality. And so the big hunt for me was trying to find some of those psychedelic bits. Not because it was brand new data. First act is your evidence for psychedelics among the so-called pagan religions in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. CHARLES STANG: All right. But we at least have, again, the indicia of evidence that something was happening there. 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. It's not the case in the second century. Pagan Continuity and Christian Attitudes: When did Paganism End? 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. The fact that the Vatican sits in Rome today is not an accident, I think, is the shortest way to answer that. It was the Jesuits who taught me Latin and Greek. 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. So let's talk about the future of religion, and specifically the future of Roman Catholicism. These were Greek-- I've seen them referred to as Greek Vikings by Peter Kingsley, Vikings who came from Ionia. President and CEO, First Southeast Financial Corp and First Federal Savings and Loan Director, Carolina First Bank and The South Financial Group The mysteries of Dionysus, a bit weirder, a bit more off the grid. And it was the Jesuits who encouraged me to always, always ask questions and never take anything at face value. 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. What was the wine in the early Eucharist? As much as we know about the mysteries of Eleusis. Did the potion at Eleusis change from generation to generation? Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis - ResearchGate 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. So it wasn't just a random place to find one of these spiked wines. Oh, I hope I haven't offended you, Brian. He's been featured in Forbes, the Daily Beast, Big Think, and Vice. #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. That event is already up on our website and open for registration. Thank you. Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. Now-- and I think that we can probably concede that. So in the mountains and forests from Greece to Rome, including the Holy Land and Galilee. This time around, we have a very special edition featuring Dr. Mark Plotkin and Brian C . He draws on the theory of "pagan continuity," which holds that early Christianity adopted . 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. First, I will provide definitions for the terms "pagan", "Christian", The continuity hypothesis of dreams suggests that the content of dreams are largely continuous with waking concepts and concerns of the dreamer. Copyright 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College. And so if there is a place for psychedelics, I would think it would be in one of those sacred containers within monastic life, or pilgrims who visit one of these monastic centers, for example. 283. 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. That's the big question. IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. And I think we get hung up on the jargon. What was the real religion of the ancient Greeks? And at the same time, when I see a thirst, especially in young people, for real experience, and I see so many Catholics who do not believe in transubstantiation, obviously, what comes to my mind is how, if at all, can psychedelics enhance faith or reinvent Christianity. So my biggest question is, what kind of wine was it? 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'm sure he knows this well, by this point. General Stanley McChrystal Mastering Risk: A User's Guide | Brought to you by Kettle & Fire high quality, tasty, and conveniently packaged bone broths; Eight Sleep. 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. Hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data, I haven't seen it. They followed Platonic (and other Greeks) philosophy. Like in a retreat pilgrimage type center, or maybe within palliative care. Again, it's proof of concept for going back to Eleusis and going back to other sites around the Mediterranean and continuing to test, whether for ergotized beer or other things. And what do you believe happens to you when you do that? And all we know-- I mean, we can't decipher sequence by sequence what was happening. 13,000 years old. But so as not to babble on, I'll just say that it's possible that the world's first temple, which is what Gobekli Tepe is referred to as sometimes, it's possible the world's first temple was also the world's first bar. 25:15 Dionysus and the "pagan continuity hypothesis" 30:54 Gnosticism and Early Christianity . So if Eleusis is the Fight Club of the ancient world, right, the first rule is you don't talk about it. So if you don't think that you are literally consuming divine blood, what is the point of religion? 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 . Liked by Samuel Zuschlag. he goes out on a limb and says that black nightshade actually causes [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH], which is not unpleasant visions, i.e. BRIAN MURARESKU: OK. And the big question for me was what was that something else? What the Greeks were actually saying there is that it was barley infected with ergot, which is this natural fungus that infects cereal crops. 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. And I'm trying to reconcile that. 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 Brian, once again, thank you so much. Where are the drugs? That's all just fancy wordplay. 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. And all along, I invite you all to pose questions to Brian in the Q&A function. What's the wine? And I think we're getting there. 8 "The winds, the sea . And how can you reasonably expect the church to recognize a psychedelic Eucharist? The Tim Ferriss Show - Transcripts Things like fasting and sleep deprivation and tattooing and scarification and, et cetera, et cetera. But in Pompeii, for example, there's the villa of the mysteries, one of these really breathtaking finds that also survived the ravage of Mount Vesuvius. In this hypothesis, both widely accepted and widely criticized,11 'American' was synonymous with 'North American'. 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. 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. The Immortality Key Book Summary by Brian C. Muraresku Yeah. 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. Two Reviews of The Immortality Key - Graham Hancock Nage ?] I don't know why it's happening now, but we're finally taking a look. Not because they just found that altar. But the next event in this series will happen sooner than that. I will ask Brian to describe how he came to write this remarkable book, and the years of sleuthing and studying that went into it. There was an absence of continuity in the direction of the colony as Newport made his frequent voyages to and . I'm not sure where it falls. Wonderful, well, thank you. He calls it a drug against grief in Greek, [SPEAKING GREEK]. 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. 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 that's from Burkert, a very sober scholar and the dean of all scholarship on Greek religion. In fact, he found beer, wine, and mead all mixed together in a couple of different places. And the quote you just read from Burkert, it's published by Harvard University Press in 1985 as Greek Religion. And this is at a time when we're still hunting and gathering. The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in 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. would certainly appreciate. There is evidence that has been either overlooked or perhaps intentionally suppressed. OK-- maybe one of those ancient beers. So again, that's February 22. And for some reason, I mean, I'd read that two or three times as an undergrad and just glossed over that line. So Plato, Pindar, Sophocles, all the way into Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, it's an important thing. All rights reserved. "Pagan" and "Christian" Marriage: The State of the Question The kind of mysticism I've always been attracted to, like the rule of Saint Benedict and the Trappist monks and the Cistercian monks. Brian is the author of a remarkable new book that has garnered a lot of attention and has sold a great many copies. 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. Which turns out, it may be they were. I also sense another narrative in your book, and one you've flagged for us, maybe about 10 minutes ago, when you said that the book is a proof of concept. He's the god of wine. Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. Material evidence of a very strange potion, a drug, or a [SPEAKING GREEK]. 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. I've no doubt that Brian has unearthed and collected a remarkable body of evidence, but evidence of what, exactly? 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 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. We have some inscriptions. I mean, this really goes to my deep skepticism. 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. 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 even within the New Testament you see little hints and clues that there was no such thing as only ordinary table wine. CHARLES STANG: I do, too. I expect there will be. 18.3C: Continuity Theory - Social Sci LibreTexts 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. So the event happens, when all the wines run out, here comes Jesus, who's referred to in the Gospels as an [SPEAKING GREEK] in Greek, a drunkard. Now, I don't put too much weight into that. I want to thank you for putting up with me and my questions. 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 even in the New Testament, you'll see wine spiked with myrrh, for example, that's served to Jesus at his crucifixion. But clearly, when you're thinking about ancient Egypt or elsewhere, there's definitely a funerary tradition. Maybe I have that wrong. I'm happy to argue about that. You know, it's an atheist using theological language to describe what happened to her. And if there's historical precedent for it, all the more so. It is my great pleasure to welcome Brian Muraresku to the Center. And I answer it differently every single time. There were formula. I understand more papers are about to be published on this. There's John Marco Allegro claiming that there was no Jesus, and this was just one big amanita muscaria cult. Thank you, sir. And Dennis, amongst others, calls that a signature Dionysian miracle. So I went fully down the rabbit hole. CHARLES STANG: OK. Now let's move into the Greek mystery. And I've listened to the volunteers who've gone through these experiences. 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. One attendee has asked, "How have religious leaders reacted so far to your book? All that will be announced through our mailing list. But Egypt seems to not really be hugely relevant to the research. But by and large, no, we don't really know. The continuity theory proposes that older adults maintain the same activities, behaviors, personalities, and relationships of the past. I would love to see these licensed, regulated, retreat centers be done in a way that is medically sound and scientifically rigorous. These two accuse one Gnostic teacher named Marcus-- who is himself a student of the famous theologian Valentinus-- they accuse him of dabbling in pharmacological devilry. 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. So. So your presentation of early Christianity inclines heavily toward the Greek world. Leonardo Torres Pagan, PhD - Subject Matter Expert & Editor - LinkedIn