But you go further still, suggesting that Jesus himself at the Last Supper might have administered psychedelic sacrament, that the original Eucharist was psychedelic. First act is your evidence for psychedelics among the so-called pagan religions in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Now, it doesn't have to be the Holy Grail that was there at the Last Supper, but when you think about the sacrament of wine that is at the center of the world's biggest religion of 2.5 billion people, the thing that Pope Francis says is essential for salvation, I mean, how can we orient our lives around something for which there is little to no physical data? BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. McGovern also finds wine from Egypt, for example, in 3150 BC, wine that is mixed with a number of interesting ingredients. The Tim Ferriss Show. Did the potion at Eleusis change from generation to generation? Which turns out, it may be they were. That's because Brian and I have become friends these past several months, and I'll have more to say about that in a moment. 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. You're not confident that the pope is suddenly going to issue an encyclical. That's staying within the field of time. 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. 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. And Ruck, and you following Ruck, make much of this, suggesting maybe the Gnostics are pharmacologists of some kind. Now, I don't put too much weight into that. Joe Campbell puts it best that what we're after is an experience of being alive. 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. CHARLES STANG: OK. So the closer we get to the modern period, we're starting to find beer, wine mixed with interesting things. 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. #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 this whole water to wine thing was out there. Research inside the Church of Saint Faustina and Liberata Fig 1. But it survives. I was satisfied with I give Brian Muraresku an "A" for enthusiasm, but I gave his book 2 stars. 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. would certainly appreciate. 283. And what you're referring to is-- and how I begin the book is this beautiful Greek phrase, [SPEAKING GREEK]. I'm happy to be proven wrong. And her answer was that they'd all been cleaned or treated for conservation purposes. Then I see the mysteries of Dionysus as kind of the Burning Man or the Woodstock of the ancient world. 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. "The Jews" are not after Ye. Now that doesn't mean, as Brian was saying, that then suggests that that's the norm Eucharist. Then I'll ask a series of questions that follow the course of his book, focusing on the different ancient religious traditions, the evidence for their psychedelic sacraments, and most importantly, whether and how the assembled evidence yields a coherent picture of the past. So if we can test Eucharistic vessels, I wouldn't be surprised at all that we find one. CHARLES STANG: All right. Now, it's just an early indication and there's more testing to be done. Administration and supervision endeavors and with strong knowledge in: Online teaching and learning methods, Methods for Teaching Mathematics and Technology Integration for K-12 and College . And as a lawyer, I know what is probative and what's circumstantial evidence, and I just-- I don't see it there. CHARLES STANG: All right. Klaus Schmidt, who was with the German Archaeological Institute, called this a sanctuary and called these T-shaped pillars representations of gods. And so in some of these psychedelic trials, under the right conditions, I do see genuine religious experiences. This event is entitled, Psychedelics, The Ancient Religion With No Name? The phrasing used in the book and by others is "the pagan continuity hypothesis". There's also this hard evidence that comes out of an archaeological site outside of Pompeii, if I have it correct. So I spent 12 years looking for that data, eventually found it, of all places, in Catalonia in Spain in this 635-page monograph that was published in 2002 and for one reason or another-- probably because it was written in Catalan-- was not widely reported to the academic community and went largely ignored. When there's a clear tonal distinction, and an existing precedent for Christian modification to Pagan works, I don't see why you're resistant to the idea, and I'm curious . I wonder if you're familiar with Wouter Hanegraaff at the University of Amsterdam. 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. That event is already up on our website and open for registration. 55 This is very likely as it seems that the process had already started in the 4th century. I was not going to put a book out there that was sensationalist. You can see that inscribed on a plaque in Saint Paul's monastery at Mount Athos in Greece. And when we know so much about ancient wine and how very different it was from the wine of today, I mean, what can we say about the Eucharist if we're only looking at the texts? In the same place in and around Pompeii, this is where Christianity is really finding its roots. And I started reading the studies from Pat McGovern at the University of Pennsylvania. 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. 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. So somewhere between 1% and 49%. CHARLES STANG: OK. BRIAN MURARESKU: Dr. Stang, an erudite introduction as ever. For me, that's a question, and it will yield more questions. So how exactly is this evidence of something relevant to Christianity in Rome or southern Italy more widely? If you die before you die, you won't die when you die. But they charge Marcus specifically, not with a psychedelic Eucharist, but the use of a love potion. Many people see that as symbolic or allegorical or just a nice thing, which is not the case. He's joining us from Uruguay, where he has wisely chosen to spend his pandemic isolation. 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 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. Again, if you're attracted to psychedelics, it's kind of an extreme thing, right? . But what we do know about the wine of the time is that it was routinely mixed with plants and herbs and potentially fungi. #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 And maybe in these near-death experiences we begin to actually experience that at a visceral level. And it was the Jesuits who encouraged me to always, always ask questions and never take anything at face value. She found the remains of dog sacrifice, which is super interesting. The kind of mysticism I've always been attracted to, like the rule of Saint Benedict and the Trappist monks and the Cistercian monks. OK-- maybe one of those ancient beers. No one lived there. I mean, I asked lots of big questions in the book, and I fully acknowledge that. Before I set forth the outline of this thesis, three topics must be discussed in order to establish a basic understanding of the religious terminology, Constantine's reign, and the contemporary sources. 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. If you are drawn to psychedelics, in my mind, it means you're probably drawn to contemplative mysticism. And very famous passages, by the way, that should be familiar to most New Testament readers. So what I think we have here in this ergtotized beer drink from Catalonia, Spain, and in this weird witch's brew from 79 AD in Pompeii, I describe it, until I see evidence otherwise, as some of the very first heart scientific data for the actual existence of actual spiked wine in classical antiquity, which I think is a really big point. Although she's open to testing, there was nothing there. And we had a great chat, a very spirited chat about the mysteries and the psychedelic hypothesis. Maybe for those facing the end of life. In the Classics world, there's a pagan continuity hypothesis with the very origin of Christianity, and many overt references to Greek plays in the Gospel of John. These Native American church and the UDV, both some syncretic form of Christianity. 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. Perhaps more generally, you could just talk about other traditions around the Mediterranean, North African, or, let's even say Judaism. The book was published by Saint Martin's Press in September 2020 and has generated a whirlwind of attention. That is about the future rather than the ancient history. And, as always the best way to keep abreast of this series and everything else we do here at the Center is to join our mailing list. I just sense a great deal of structure and thoughtfulness going into this experience. So I went fully down the rabbit hole. 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". Thank you for that. 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. I'll invite him to think about the future of religion in light of all this. And so I can see psychedelics being some kind of extra sacramental ministry that potentially could ease people at the end of life. A rebirth into a new conception of the self, the self's relationship to things that are hard to define, like God. Nazanin Boniadi #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 13,000 years old. What I see is data that's been largely neglected, and I think what serves this as a discipline is just that. 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. That is my dog Xena. And I don't know what that looks like. We're going to get there very soon. Here is how I propose we are to proceed. And Brian, once again, thank you so much. 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. BRIAN MURARESKU: But you're spot on. Not in every single case, obviously. There's John Marco Allegro claiming that there was no Jesus, and this was just one big amanita muscaria cult. Thank you. Maybe I have that wrong. And I'll just list them out quickly. Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2023 And please just call me Charlie. So Brian, welcome. I mean, so Walter Burkert was part of the reason that kept me going on. This time, tonight I'll say that it's just not my time yet. He was wronged by individuals, allegedly. CHARLES STANG: Right. But what I see are potential and possibilities and things worthy of discussions like this. 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. There's a moment in the book where you are excited about some hard evidence. And I offer psychedelics as one of those archaic techniques of ecstasy that seems to have been relevant and meaningful to our ancestors. What about Jesus as a Jew? CHARLES STANG: We've really read Jesus through the lens of his Greek inheritors. And when you speak in that way, what I hear you saying is there is something going on. 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. I'm happy to argue about that. Is there a smoking gun? 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. 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.
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