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. 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. We call it ego dissolution, things of that nature. And there were probably other Eleusises like that to the east. And I think oversight also comes in handy within organized religion. He decides to get people even more drunk. I expect we will find it. 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. Now, you could draw the obvious conclusion. Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages. 18.3C: Continuity Theory. 283. Which, if you think about it, is a very elegant idea. 8th century BC from the Tel Arad shrine. And we know the mysteries were there. But I'm pressing you because that's my job. 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. And I think what the pharmaceutical industry can do is help to distribute this medicine. 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. BRIAN MURARESKU: I don't-- I don't claim too heavily. But I think there's a decent scientific foothold to begin that work. 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." There is evidence that has been either overlooked or perhaps intentionally suppressed. So perhaps there's even more evidence. It is not psychedelics. You're not confident that the pope is suddenly going to issue an encyclical. 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. The continuity between pagan and Christian cult nearby the archaeological area of Naquane in Capo di Ponte. So I think it's really interesting details here worth following up on. But I mentioned that we've become friends because it is the prerogative of friends to ask hard questions. 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. A rebirth into what? This time around, we have a very special edition featuring Dr. Mark Plotkin and Brian C . There's some suggestive language in the pyramid texts, in the Book of the Dead and things of this nature. I was satisfied with I give Brian Muraresku an "A" for enthusiasm, but I gave his book 2 stars. All right, so now, let's follow up with Dionysus, but let's see here. The continuity theory proposes that older adults maintain the same activities, behaviors, personalities, and relationships of the past. And it was the Jesuits who encouraged me to always, always ask questions and never take anything at face value. She joins me for most events and meetings. "The Jews" are not after Ye. And as a lawyer, I know what is probative and what's circumstantial evidence, and I just-- I don't see it there. That's staying within the field of time. 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. Which, again, what I see are small groups of people getting together to commune with the dead. 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". Including, all the way back to Gobekli Tepe, which is why I mentioned that when we first started chatting. The phrasing used in the book and by others is "the pagan continuity hypothesis". . Psychedelics Today: PTSF 35 (with Brian Muraresku) Griffithsfund.org 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? 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. 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. Books about pagan continuity hypothesis? And much of the evidence that you've collected is kind of the northern half of the Mediterranean world. Some number of people have asked about Egypt. And that's the mysteries of Dionysus. He dared to ask this very question before the hypothesis that this Eleusinian sacrament was indeed a psychedelic, and am I right that it was Ruck's hypothesis that set you down this path all those many years ago at Brown? And when Houston says something like that, it grabs the attention of a young undergrad a bit to your south in Providence, Rhode Island, who was digging into Latin and Greek and wondering what the heck this was all about. In the same place in and around Pompeii, this is where Christianity is really finding its roots. And so for me, this was a hunt through the catacombs and archives and libraries, doing my sweet-talking, and trying to figure out what was behind some of those locked doors. Show Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation podcast, Ep Plants of the Gods: S4E2. And I write, at the very end of the book, I hope that they'd be proud of this investigation. What's significant about these features for our piecing together the ancient religion with no name? I appreciate this. Now, that date is obviously very suggestive because that's precisely the time the Christians were establishing a beachhead in Rome. The only reason I went to college was to study classics. And I'm not even sure what that piece looks like or how big it is. CHARLES STANG: Brian, I wonder if you could end by reflecting on the meaning of dying before you die. So the mysteries of Dionysus are a bit more of a free-for-all than the mysteries of Eleusis. Now, it's just an early indication and there's more testing to be done. That's how we get to Catalonia. But let me say at the outset that it is remarkably learned, full of great historical and philological detail. And I wonder and I question how we can keep that and retain that for today. 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. And I describe that as somehow finding that key to immortality. I mean, I think the book makes it clear. So even from the very beginning, it wasn't just barley and water. So I went fully down the rabbit hole. So how exactly is this evidence of something relevant to Christianity in Rome or southern Italy more widely? 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 . He's joining us from Uruguay, where he has wisely chosen to spend his pandemic isolation. To be a Catholic is to believe that you are literally consuming the blood of Christ to become Christ. This notion in John 15:1, the notion of the true vine, for example, only occurs in John. Not because it was brand new data. And I wonder whether the former narrative serves the interests of the latter. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, Lessons from Scholar Karen Armstrong, and Much More Brought to you by GiveWell.org charity research and effective giving and 5-Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter. So I think this was a minority of early Christians. And we had a great chat, a very spirited chat about the mysteries and the psychedelic hypothesis. As much as we know about the mysteries of Eleusis. But Egypt seems to not really be hugely relevant to the research. 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. Maybe part of me is skeptical, right? I write it cognizant of the fact that the Eucharist doesn't work for many, many people. What is its connection to Eleusis? And the reason I find that a worthy avenue of pursuit is because when you take a step back and look at the Greek of the Gospels, especially the Greek of John, which is super weird, what I see based on Dennis MacDonald's scholarship that you mentioned-- and others-- when you do the exegesis of John's gospel, there's just lots of vocabulary and lots of imagery that doesn't appear elsewhere. I'm not sure where it falls. 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 . 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. So the big question is, what kind of drug was this, if it was a drug? BRIAN MURARESKU: Now we're cooking with grease, Dr. Stang. 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. 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 you're right. We don't have to look very hard to find that. And maybe therein we do since the intimation of immortality. You want to field questions in both those categories? According to Muraresku, this work, which "presents the pagan continuity hypothesis with a psychedelic twist," addresses two fundamental questions: "Before the rise of Christianity, did the Ancient Greeks consume a secret psychedelic sacrament during their most famous and well-attended religious rituals? Who were the Saints? 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 The idea of the truth shall set you free, right, [SPEAKING GREEK], in 8:32. 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. So if we can test Eucharistic vessels, I wouldn't be surprised at all that we find one. Maybe I'm afraid I'll take the psychedelic and I won't have what is reported in the literature from Hopkins and NYU. Rather, Christian beliefs were gradually incorporated into the pagan customs that already existed there. That is about the future rather than the ancient history. 32:57 Ancient languages and Brian's education . So let's start, then, the first act. BRIAN MURARESKU: Great question. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. Yeah. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm asked this question, I would say, in pretty much every interview I've done since late September. It was one of the early write-ups of the psilocybin studies coming out of Johns Hopkins. Nage ?] And I don't know what that looks like. Brian's thesis, that of the Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, was explored by Alexander Hislop in his "The Two Babylons", 1853, as a Protestant treatise in the spirit of Martin Luther as Alexander too interjects the Elusinian Mysteries. And yet I talked to an atheist who has one experience with psilocybin and is immediately bathed in God's love. Are they rolling their eyes, or are you getting sort of secretive knowing nods of agreement? And part of me really wants to put all these pieces together before I dive in. That also only occurs in John, another epithet of Dionysus. But I do want to push back a little bit on the elevation of this particular real estate in southern Italy. So now it's true that these heresy hunters show an interest in this love potion. 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. Read more 37 people found this helpful Helpful Report abuse Tfsiebs So much research! Many people see that as symbolic or allegorical or just a nice thing, which is not the case. 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. Love potions, love charms, they're very common in the ancient. 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. And for some reason, I mean, I'd read that two or three times as an undergrad and just glossed over that line. BRIAN MURARESKU: Great question. and he said, Brian, don't you dare. 44:48 Psychedelics and ancient cave art . 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. A lot of Christianity, as you rightly point out, I mean, it was an Eastern phenomenon, all over the eastern Mediterranean. And in the ancient world, wine was routinely referred to as a [SPEAKING GREEK], which is the Greek word for drug. First act is your evidence for psychedelics among the so-called pagan religions in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Now I want to get to the questions, but one last question before we move to the discussion portion. 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. CHARLES STANG: OK, that is the big question. 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. difficult to arrive at any conclusive hypothesis. Let me start with the view-- the version of it that I think is less persuasive. I might forward the proposition that I don't think the early church fathers were the best botanists. Is this only Marcus? Eusebius, third into the fourth century, is also talking about them-- it's a great Greek word, [SPEAKING GREEK]. What does God mean? So what do we know about those rituals? According to Muraresku, this work, which "presents the pagan continuity hypothesis with a psychedelic twist," addresses two fundamental questions: "Before the rise of Christianity, did the Ancient Greeks consume a secret psychedelic sacrament during their most famous and well-attended religious rituals? So the closer we get to the modern period, we're starting to find beer, wine mixed with interesting things. Please materialize. Like, what is this all about? So there's a whole slew of sites I want to test there. Now you're a good sport, Brian. That was the question for me. 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. And so in some of these psychedelic trials, under the right conditions, I do see genuine religious experiences. 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. And I think it's proof of concept-- just proof of concept-- for investing serious funding, and attention into the actual search for these kinds of potions. And Dennis, amongst others, calls that a signature Dionysian miracle. The Tim Ferriss Show. And I think that's an important distinction to make. I am excited . BRIAN MURARESKU: Dr. Stang, an erudite introduction as ever. You mentioned there were lots of dead ends, and there certainly were. Because what tends to happen in those experiences is a death and rebirth. And there were moments when the sunlight would just break through. And I think we're getting there. The Immortality Key has its shortcomings. Why don't we turn the tables and ask you what questions you think need to be posed? 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 . The long and short of it is, in 1978 there was no hard scientific data to prove this one way or the other. It's funny to see that some of the first basilicas outside Rome are popping up here, and in and around Pompeii. Here's the proof of concept. These are famous figures to those of us who study early Christianity. 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. That's just everlasting. With more than 35 years of experience in the field of Education dedicated to help students, teachers and administrators in both public and private institutions at school, undergraduate and graduate level. I can't imagine that there were no Christians that availed themselves of this biotechnology, and I can't imagine-- it's entirely plausible to me that they would mix this biotechnology with the Eucharist. And that that's how I-- and by not speculating more than we can about the mystical supper, if we follow the hypothesis that this is a big if for some early communities of Greek speakers, this is how I'm finding common ground with priests both Catholic and Orthodox and Protestants. Because at my heart, I still consider myself a good Catholic boy. And let's start with our earliest evidence from the Stone Age and the Bronze Age. He's been featured in Forbes, the Daily Beast, Big Think, and Vice. 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 improving I know that that's a loaded phrase. And the quote you just read from Burkert, it's published by Harvard University Press in 1985 as Greek Religion. 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. Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages. But it was not far from a well-known colony in [INAUDIBLE] that was founded by Phocians. So, like, they're wonderstruck, or awestruck by their libations and their incense. That event is already up on our website and open for registration. 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 don't know why it's happening now, but we're finally taking a look. 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 that's what I get into in detail in the book. 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. Copyright 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name. 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. They linked the idea of witches to an imagined organized sect which was a danger to the Christian commonwealth. Mona Sobhani, PhD Retweeted. 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. This is all secret. Certainly these early churchmen used whatever they could against the forms of Christian practice they disapproved of, especially those they categorized as Gnostic. Not because they just found that altar. So after the whole first half of the book-- well, wait a minute, Dr. Stang. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. Now, Brian managed to write this book while holding down a full time practice in international law based in Washington DC. Maybe there's some residual fear that's been built up in me. And my favorite line of the book is, "The lawyer in me won't sleep until that one chalice, that one container, that one vessel comes to light in an unquestionable Christian context.". And we know from the record that [SPEAKING GREEK] is described as being so crowded with gods that they were easier to find than men. They did not. 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. CHARLES STANG: All right. So how does Dionysian revelries get into this picture? This limestone altar tested positive for cannabis and frankincense that was being burned, they think, in a very ritualistic way. Liked by Samuel Zuschlag. 40:15 Witches, drugs, and the Catholic Church . If beer was there that long ago, what kind of beer was it? And she talks about kind of being born again, another promise from John's gospel. We see lots of descriptions of this in the mystical literature with which you're very familiar. They're mixing potions. If you die before you die, you won't die when you die. 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. 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 . Like in a retreat pilgrimage type center, or maybe within palliative care. 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. The most colorful theory of psychedelics in religion portrays the original Santa Claus as a shaman. And I've listened to the volunteers who've gone through these experiences. There's a good number of questions that are very curious why you are insisting on remaining a psychedelic virgin. It was a pilgrimage site. Thank you for that. CHARLES STANG: All right. Now, I don't put too much weight into that. I would have been happy to find a spiked wine anywhere. 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. And if it's one thing Catholicism does very, very well, it's contemplative mysticism. There he is. And besides that, young Brian, let's keep the mysteries mysteries. I opened the speculation, Dr. Stang, that the Holy Grail itself could have been some kind of spiked concoction. It still leaves an even bigger if, Dr. Stang, is which one is psychedelic? And so part of what it means to be a priest or a minister or a rabbi is to sit with the dying and the dead. That is my dog Xena. They were mixed or fortified. Just imagine, I have to live with me. What does that have to do with Christianity? Now, I have no idea where it goes from here, or if I'll take it myself. 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. And it seems to me that if any of this is right, that whatever was happening in ancient Greece was a transformative experience for which a lot of thought and preparation went into. 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 What was discovered, as far as I can tell, from your treatment of it, is essentially an ancient pharmacy in this house. And what does this earliest history tell us about the earliest evidence for an ancient psychedelic religion? So let's talk about the future of religion, and specifically the future of Roman Catholicism.
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