Maybe there's a spark of the divine within. He was greatly influenced by Sigmund Freud (1940) who viewed an infant's first relationship - usually with the mother - as "the prototype of all later love-relations". 101. Is taking all these disciplines, whether it's your discipline or archaeochemistry or hard core botany, biology, even psychopharmacology, putting it all together and taking a look at this mystery, this puzzle, using the lens of psychedelics as a lens, really, to investigate not just the past but the future and the mystery of human consciousness. Throughout his five books he talks about wine being mixed with all kinds of stuff, like frankincense and myrrh, relatively innocuous stuff, but also less innocuous things like henbane and mandrake, these solanaceous plants which he specifically says is fatal. Just imagine, I have to live with me. Including, all the way back to Gobekli Tepe, which is why I mentioned that when we first started chatting. 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. would certainly appreciate. Now, that date is obviously very suggestive because that's precisely the time the Christians were establishing a beachhead in Rome. What I see is data that's been largely neglected, and I think what serves this as a discipline is just that. Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages. That's the promise in John's gospel, in John 6:54-55, that I quote in the book. They were relevant to me in going down this rabbit hole. The continuity hypothesis of dreams suggests that the content of dreams are largely continuous with waking concepts and concerns of the dreamer. So I really follow the scholarship of Enriqueta Pons, who is the archaeologist on site there, at this Greek sanctuary that we're talking about in Catalonia, Mas Castellar des Pontos. Then what was the Gospel of John, how did it interpret the Eucharist and market it, and so on. Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages. 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? Show Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation podcast, Ep Plants of the Gods: S4E2. Here's the big question. She found the remains of dog sacrifice, which is super interesting. 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. 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. Well, let's get into it then. I think it's important you have made a distinction between what was Jesus doing at the Last Supper, as if we could ever find out. Klaus Schmidt, who was with the German Archaeological Institute, called this a sanctuary and called these T-shaped pillars representations of gods. If beer was there that long ago, what kind of beer was it? So perhaps there's even more evidence. We know that at the time of Jesus, before, during, and after, there were recipes floating around. And when you speak in that way, what I hear you saying is there is something going on. And I think there are so many sites and excavations and so many chalices that remain to be tested. So this whole water to wine thing was out there. What the Greeks were actually saying there is that it was barley infected with ergot, which is this natural fungus that infects cereal crops. 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. So we move now into ancient history, but solidly into the historical record, however uneven that historical record is. 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. I don't think we have found it. Then I see the mysteries of Dionysus as kind of the Burning Man or the Woodstock of the ancient world. In this hypothesis, both widely accepted and widely criticized,11 'American' was synonymous with 'North American'. And I don't know what that looks like. I know that that's a loaded phrase. 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? Now, here's-- let's tack away from hard, scientific, archaeobotanical evidence for a moment. I'm happy to be proven wrong. 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? Eusebius, third into the fourth century, is also talking about them-- it's a great Greek word, [SPEAKING GREEK]. What was being thrown into it? And so I can see psychedelics being some kind of extra sacramental ministry that potentially could ease people at the end of life. 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. Nage ?] 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. 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. I don't know why it's happening now, but we're finally taking a look. 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. Where you find the grain, you may have found ergot. But maybe you could just say something about this community in Catalonia. Those religions featured psychedelic beer and ceremonies lead by women . 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 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. The pagan continuity hypothesis theorizes that when Christianity arrived in Greece around AD 49, it didn't suddenly replace the existing religion. So Brian, I wonder, maybe we should give the floor to you and ask you to speak about, what are the questions you think both ancient historians such as myself should be asking that we're not, and maybe what are the sorts of questions that people who aren't ancient historians but who are drawn to this evidence, to your narrative, and to the present and the future of religion, what sort of questions should they be asking regarding psychedelics? #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 You mentioned, too, early churchmen, experts in heresies by the name of Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome. That there is no hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data for spiked beer, spiked wine. This book by Brian Muraresku, attempts to answer this question by delving into the history of ancient secret religions dating back thousands of years. 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. Many people see that as symbolic or allegorical or just a nice thing, which is not the case. There are others claiming that there's drugs everywhere. CHARLES STANG: You know, Valentinus was almost elected bishop of Rome. Do you think that by calling the Eucharist a placebo that you're likely to persuade them? But the point being, the religion of brewing seems to pop up at the very beginning of civilization itself, or the very beginning of monumental engineering at this world's first sanctuary. But curiously, it's evidence for a eye ointment which is supposed to induce visions and was used as part of a liturgy in the cult of Mithras. Which turns out, it may be they were. That to live on forever and ever, to live an everlasting life is not immortality. I mean, I wish it were easier.
The Tim Ferriss Show - #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin You can see that inscribed on a plaque in Saint Paul's monastery at Mount Athos in Greece. And Ruck, and you following Ruck, make much of this, suggesting maybe the Gnostics are pharmacologists of some kind. I am excited . What was the wine in the early Eucharist? And according to Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck, that barley was really a code word. I expect we will find it. We have an hour and a half together and I hope there will be time for Q&A and discussion. CHARLES STANG: OK, great. 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. 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.
Phil's Picks | Phoenix Books Thank you for that. I have a deep interest in mysticism, and I've had mystical experiences, which I don't think are very relevant. This is going to be a question that's back to the ancient world. "The Jews" are not after Ye. And this is at a time when we're still hunting and gathering. #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 by The Tim Ferriss Show Now, I don't put too much weight into that. Research inside the Church of Saint Faustina and Liberata Fig 1. 44:48 Psychedelics and ancient cave art . So it wasn't just a random place to find one of these spiked wines. 18.3C: Continuity Theory. Are they rolling their eyes, or are you getting sort of secretive knowing nods of agreement? But what I see are potential and possibilities and things worthy of discussions like this. . They found a tiny chalice this big, dated to the second century BC. And what about the alleged democratization with which you credit the mysteries of Dionysus, or the role of women in that movement? And so in my afterword, I present this as a blip on the archaeochemical radar. 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. And I think it does hearken back to a genuinely ancient Greek principle, which is that only by fully experiencing some kind of death, a death that feels real, where you, or at least the you you used to identify with, actually slips away, dissolves.