That's our next event, and will be at least two more events to follow. But clearly, when you're thinking about ancient Egypt or elsewhere, there's definitely a funerary tradition. Because again, when I read the clinical literature, I'm reading things that look like mystical experiences, or that at least at least sound like them. Maybe I have that wrong. Which is a very weird thing today. Now, let's get started, Brian. If you die before you die, you won't die when you die. 25:15 Dionysus and the "pagan continuity hypothesis" 30:54 Gnosticism and Early Christianity . So let's talk about the future of religion, and specifically the future of Roman Catholicism. What about all these early Christians themselves as essentially Jews? I'd never thought before about how Christianity developed as an organized religion in the centuries after Jesus' murder. Up until that point I really had very little knowledge of psychedelics, personal or literary or otherwise. So I think it's really interesting details here worth following up on. 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. No one lived there. Just from reading Dioscorides and reading all the different texts, the past 12 years have absolutely transformed the way I think about wine. And maybe in these near-death experiences we begin to actually experience that at a visceral level. They followed Platonic (and other Greeks) philosophy. Now that doesn't mean, as Brian was saying, that then suggests that that's the norm Eucharist. It was-- Eleusis was state-administered, a somewhat formal affair. And I-- in my profession, we call this circumstantial, and I get it. I think psychedelics are just one piece of the puzzle. Wonderful, well, thank you. What is it about that formula that captures for you the wisdom, the insight that is on offer in this ancient ritual, psychedelic or otherwise? And to be quite honest, I'd never studied the ancient Greeks in Spain. And does it line up with the promise from John's gospel that anyone who drinks this becomes instantly immortal? Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Immortality Key: The Secret History And you suspect, therefore, that it might be a placebo, and you want the real thing. You take a board corporate finance attorney, you add in lots of childhood hours watching Indiana Jones, lots of law school hours reading Dan Brown, you put it all together and out pops The Immortality Key. So Gobekli Tepe, for those who don't know, is this site in southern Turkey on the border with Syria. And I write, at the very end of the book, I hope that they'd be proud of this investigation. So I was obsessed with this stuff from the moment I picked up an article in The Economist called the God Pill back in 2007. [texts-excerpt] penalty for cutting mangroves in floridaFREE EstimateFREE Estimate Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. So, like, they're wonderstruck, or awestruck by their libations and their incense. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian I wonder if you're familiar with Wouter Hanegraaff at the University of Amsterdam. Thank you for that. And I'm happy to see we have over 800 people present for this conversation. 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. 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. In this way, the two traditions coexisted in a syncretic form for some time before . There aren't any churches or basilicas, right, in the first three centuries, in this era we're calling paleo-Christianity. We look forward to hosting Chacruna's founder and executive director, Bia Labate, for a lecture on Monday, March 8. But I'm pressing you because that's my job. I see a huge need and a demand for young religious clergy to begin taking a look at this stuff. The Immortality Key - David Bookstaber 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. You won't find it in many places other than that. 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. According to Muraresku, this work, BOOK REVIEW 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? Like in Israel. And I wonder and I question how we can keep that and retain that for today. But what we do know is that their sacrament was wine and we know a bit more about the wine of antiquity, ancient Greek wine, than we can piece together from these nocturnal celebrations. Brian C. Muraresku - Priory Of Sion There have been breakthroughs, too, which no doubt kept Brian going despite some skepticism from the academy, to say the least. Now, I think you answered that last part. He calls it a drug against grief in Greek, [SPEAKING GREEK]. You mentioned there were lots of dead ends, and there certainly were. So this whole water to wine thing was out there. These Native American church and the UDV, both some syncretic form of Christianity. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. And he was actually going out and testing some of these ancient chalices. And the quote you just read from Burkert, it's published by Harvard University Press in 1985 as Greek Religion. 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 There's all kinds of reasons I haven't done it. Books about pagan continuity hypothesis? : r/AskHistorians - reddit 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. 8th century BC from the Tel Arad shrine. All episodes of The Tim Ferriss Show - Chartable 55 This is very likely as it seems that the process had already started in the 4th century. Others find it in different ways, but the common denominator seems to be one of these really well-curated near-death experiences. Because what tends to happen in those experiences is a death and rebirth. Material evidence of a very strange potion, a drug, or a [SPEAKING GREEK]. PDF The continuity between pagan and Christian cult - Scandinavia 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 The Immortality Key Book Summary by Brian C. Muraresku And I think there are so many sites and excavations and so many chalices that remain to be tested. Psychedelics Today: Mark Plotkin - Bio-Cultural Conservation of the Amazon. 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. You become one with Christ by drinking that. Oh, I hope I haven't offended you, Brian. Maybe there's some residual fear that's been built up in me. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. I'm skeptical, Dr. Stang. I was not going to put a book out there that was sensationalist. And there you also found mortars that were tested and also tested positive for evidence of brewing. 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? So that, actually, is the key to the immortality key. I expect we will find it. So my biggest question is, what kind of wine was it? Not because it's not there, because it hasn't been tested. Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian Mysteries She joins me for most events and meetings. So we move now into ancient history, but solidly into the historical record, however uneven that historical record is. I want to thank you for putting up with me and my questions. And what does this earliest history tell us about the earliest evidence for an ancient psychedelic religion? The most influential religious historian of the twentieth century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs, and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? Not because it was brand new data. Brought to you by GiveWell.org charity research and effective giving and 5-Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter.Welcome to The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is usually my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out their routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life. Then there's what were the earliest Christians doing with the Eucharist. So after the whole first half of the book-- well, wait a minute, Dr. Stang. [1] According to this theory, older adults try to maintain this continuity of lifestyle by adapting strategies that are connected to their past experiences. Revolutionary Left Radio: Early Christianity: Psychedelics, Ancient So at the very-- after the first half of the book is over, there's an epilogue, and I say, OK, here's the evidence. 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. And again, it survives, I think, because of that state support for the better part of 2,000 years. Because they talk about everything else that they take issue with. Then what was the Gospel of John, how did it interpret the Eucharist and market it, and so on. BRIAN MURARESKU: Good one. Those religions featured psychedelic beer and ceremonies lead by women . The continuity theory of normal aging states that older adults will usually maintain the same activities, behaviors, relationships as they did in their earlier years of life. But I don't understand how that provides any significant link to paleo-Christian practice. Eusebius, third into the fourth century, is also talking about them-- it's a great Greek word, [SPEAKING GREEK]. I'm happy to argue about that. You might find it in a cemetery in Mexico. I know that's another loaded phrase. It's a big question for me. Now, I've never done them myself, but I have talked to many, many people who've had experience with psychedelics. When Irenaeus is talking about [SPEAKING GREEK], love potions, again, we have no idea what the hell he's talking about. He was wronged by individuals, allegedly. 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. Nazanin Boniadi This discussion on Febrary 1, 2021, between CSWR Director Charles Stang and Brian Muraresku about his new book, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name,a groundbreaking dive into the role of psychedelics in the ancient Mediterranean world. How does, in other words, how does religion sit with science? Pagan Continuity and Christian Attitudes: When did Paganism End? Like, what is this all about? What Brian labels the religion with no name. So the mysteries of Dionysus are a bit more of a free-for-all than the mysteries of Eleusis. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. These mysteries had at their center a sacrament called kykeon, which offered a vision of the mysteries of life and death. So there's a house preserved outside of Pompeii, preserved, like so much else, under the ash of Mount Vesuvius's eruption in the year 79 of the Common Era. 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? He has talked about the potential evidence for psychedelics in a Mithras liturgy. It's funny to see that some of the first basilicas outside Rome are popping up here, and in and around Pompeii. It's not the case in the second century. And I don't know if there's other examples of such things. President and CEO, First Southeast Financial Corp and First Federal Savings and Loan Director, Carolina First Bank and The South Financial Group 474, ?] That seems very believable, but there's nothing to suggest that the pharmacy or drug farm was serving Christians, or even that the potions produced were for ritual use. 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. And what the FDA can do is make sure that they're doing it in a way that it's absolutely safe and efficacious. If beer was there that long ago, what kind of beer was it? There are others claiming that there's drugs everywhere. Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation 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? And yet I talked to an atheist who has one experience with psilocybin and is immediately bathed in God's love. So this is interesting. 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. 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. 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? The phrasing used in the book and by others is "the pagan continuity hypothesis". 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. So I'm trying to build the case-- and for some reason in my research, it kept coming back to Italy and Rome, which is why I focus on Hippolytus. I'm going to come back to that idea of proof of concept. Theories of Origins about Witch Hunts - King's College I really tried. So why the silence from the heresiologists on a psychedelic sacrament? 18.3C: Continuity Theory - Social Sci LibreTexts That they were what you call extreme beverages. And part of me really wants to put all these pieces together before I dive in. We have other textual evidence. And there were probably other Eleusises like that to the east. They were relevant to me in going down this rabbit hole. Now, I have no idea where it goes from here, or if I'll take it myself. And when I started to get closer into the historical period-- this is all prehistory. First I'll give the floor to Brian to walk us into this remarkable book of his and the years of hard work that went into it, what drove him to do this. And I think that's an important distinction to make. So there's lots of interesting details here that filter through. And we know the mysteries were there. It still leaves an even bigger if, Dr. Stang, is which one is psychedelic? 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. Copyright 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name. 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. Do you think that by calling the Eucharist a placebo that you're likely to persuade them? What does it mean to die before dying? It draws attention to this material. You know, it's an atheist using theological language to describe what happened to her. He's talking about kind of psychedelic wine. The altar had been sitting in a museum in Israel since the 1960s and just hadn't been tested. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. BRIAN MURARESKU: I would say I've definitely experienced the power of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. So those are all possibly different questions to ask and answer. BRIAN MURARESKU: Great question. And Dennis, amongst others, calls that a signature Dionysian miracle. Now, that is part of your kind of interest in democratizing mysticism, but it also, curiously, cuts out the very people who have been preserving this tradition for centuries, namely, on your own account, this sort of invisible or barely visible lineage of women. So let's start, then, the first act. BRIAN MURARESKU: OK. That's the promise in John's gospel, in John 6:54-55, that I quote in the book. Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2023 And I offer psychedelics as one of those archaic techniques of ecstasy that seems to have been relevant and meaningful to our ancestors. Jerry Brown wrote a good review that should be read to put the book in its proper place. And what we find at this farmhouse is a sanctuary that Enriqueta Pons herself, the archaeologist who's been on site since 1990, she calls it some kind of sanctuary dedicated to the goddesses of the mysteries. A rebirth into what? The Tim Ferriss Show - Transcripts And she talks about kind of being born again, another promise from John's gospel. What does ergotized beer in Catalonia have anything to do with the Greek mysteries at Eleusis? The Tim Ferriss Show. So whatever these [SPEAKING GREEK] libations incense were, the church fathers don't get into great detail about what may have been spiking them. So the Eastern Aegean. And I'll just list them out quickly. 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. 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. So why do you think psychedelics are so significant that they might usher in a new Reformation? Brian is the author of a remarkable new book that has garnered a lot of attention and has sold a great many copies. And I think that that's the real question here. Perhaps more generally, you could just talk about other traditions around the Mediterranean, North African, or, let's even say Judaism. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. So, I mean, my biggest question behind all of this is, as a good Catholic boy, is the Eucharist. They are guaranteed an afterlife. Brought to you by 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. 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. And I describe that as somehow finding that key to immortality. And I feel like I accomplished that in the afterword to my book. And she talks about the visions that transformed the way she thinks about herself. 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. Kanye West (Ye) storms off Timcast IRL show after Tim Pool pushes back 18.3C: Continuity Theory. I did go straight to [INAUDIBLE] Papangelli in Eleusis, and I went to the museum. Not in every single case, obviously. What's significant about these features for our piecing together the ancient religion with no name? Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages. No, I think you-- this is why we're friends, Charlie. So back in 2012, archaeologists and chemists were scraping some of these giant limestone troughs, and out pops calcium oxalate, which is one of these biomarkers for the fermentation of brewing. And I started reading the studies from Pat McGovern at the University of Pennsylvania. 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. Including, all the way back to Gobekli Tepe, which is why I mentioned that when we first started chatting. 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. 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 . 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 I point to that evidence as illustrative of the possibility that the Christians could, in fact, have gotten their hands on an actual wine. But things that sound intensely powerful. 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. The continuity between pagan and Christian cult nearby the archaeological area of Naquane in Capo di Ponte. The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: 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 (#646) - The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss 3 Annual "Best of" Apple Podcasts 900+ Million episodes downloaded And there were moments when the sunlight would just break through. Then I see the mysteries of Dionysus as kind of the Burning Man or the Woodstock of the ancient world. CHARLES STANG: Thank you, Brian. 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. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian So what evidence can you provide for that claim? And I think we're getting there. And I look forward to talking about this event with you after the fact eventually over a beer. . 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. I mean, lots of great questions worthy of further investigation. 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. There's some suggestive language in the pyramid texts, in the Book of the Dead and things of this nature. 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. "@BrianMuraresku with @DocMarkPlotkin The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, Lessons from Scholar Karen Armstrong, and Much More" Please enjoy! 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.
Sodas That Start With J,
Adorama Tax Exemption,
Charles Elisha Manning,
Death Notices Maldon Victoria,
What Soundboard Does Couragejd Use,
Articles P