Now, here's-- let's tack away from hard, scientific, archaeobotanical evidence for a moment. 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. Just imagine, I have to live with me. I imagine there are many more potion makers around than we typically recognize. Kanye West (Ye) storms off Timcast IRL show after Tim Pool pushes back 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. And that is that there was a pervasive religion, ancient religion, that involved psychedelic sacraments, and that that pervasive religious culture filtered into the Greek mysteries and eventually into early Christianity. Psychedelics Today: Mark Plotkin - Bio-Cultural Conservation of the Amazon. What was the real religion of the ancient Greeks? 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 . That's our next event, and will be at least two more events to follow. And if the latter, do you think there's a good chance that religions will adopt psychedelics back into their rituals?". BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. Continuity theory - Wikipedia 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 'pagan continuity hypothesis' with a psychedelic twist is now backed up by biochemistry and agrochemistry and tons of historical research, exposing our forgotten history. And Brian, it would be helpful for me to know whether you are more interested in questions that take up the ancient world or more that deal with this last issue, the sort of contemporary and the future. There's a moment in the book where you are excited about some hard evidence. We still have almost 700 with us. They are guaranteed an afterlife. Did the ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? What does that have to do with Christianity? Like in Israel. And besides that, young Brian, let's keep the mysteries mysteries. But what I see are potential and possibilities and things worthy of discussions like this. Now, I've never done them myself, but I have talked to many, many people who've had experience with psychedelics. Let me just pull up my notes here. And I think oversight also comes in handy within organized religion. And so I cite a Pew poll, for example, that says something like 69% of American Catholics do not believe in transubstantiation, which is the defining dogma of the church, the idea that the bread and wine literally becomes the flesh and blood. And I offer psychedelics as one of those archaic techniques of ecstasy that seems to have been relevant and meaningful to our ancestors. And now we have a working hypothesis and some data to suggest where we might be looking. I know that that's a loaded phrase. CHARLES STANG: OK, great. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name 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. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name 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. CHARLES STANG: Brian, I want to thank you for your time. It's not the case in the second century. And I don't know if it's a genuine mystical experience or mystical mimetic or some kind of psychological breakthrough. 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? 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. 474, ?] That also only occurs in John, another epithet of Dionysus. So can you reflect for us where you really are and how you chose to write this book? 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 so in some of these psychedelic trials, under the right conditions, I do see genuine religious experiences. They're mixing potions. 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. And so in my afterword, I present this as a blip on the archaeochemical radar. Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis - ResearchGate That's, just absurd. Interesting. Are they rolling their eyes, or are you getting sort of secretive knowing nods of agreement? And so even within the New Testament you see little hints and clues that there was no such thing as only ordinary table wine. In fact, he found beer, wine, and mead all mixed together in a couple of different places. 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. 55 This is very likely as it seems that the process had already started in the 4th century. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian No one lived there. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian So those are all possibly different questions to ask and answer. And there you also found mortars that were tested and also tested positive for evidence of brewing. Copyright 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College. Well, the reason I mention Hippolytus and Marcus and focus on that in my evidence is because there's evidence of the Valentinians, who influenced Marcus, in and around Rome. And I wonder whether the former narrative serves the interests of the latter. But we do know that something was happening. What, if any, was the relationship between this Greek sanctuary-- a very Greek sanctuary, by the way-- in Catalonia, to the mysteries of Eleusis? And he found some beer and wine-- that was a bit surprising. And it was their claim that when the hymn to Demeter, one of these ancient records that records, in some form, the proto-recipe for this kykeon potion, which I call like a primitive beer, in the hymn to Demeter, they talk about ingredients like barley, water, and mint. What's significant about these features for our piecing together the ancient religion with no name? 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. The fact that the Vatican sits in Rome today is not an accident, I think, is the shortest way to answer that. CHARLES STANG: Well, Mr, Muraresku, you are hedging your bets here in a way that you do not necessarily hedge your bets in the book. Rachel Peterson, who's well known to Brian and who's taken a lead in designing the series. 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. They linked the idea of witches to an imagined organized sect which was a danger to the Christian commonwealth. That's only after Constantine. 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. 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? There have been breakthroughs, too, which no doubt kept Brian going despite some skepticism from the academy, to say the least. 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. 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. All right, so now, let's follow up with Dionysus, but let's see here. The same Rome that circumstantially shows up, and south of Rome, where Constantine would build his basilicas in Naples and Capua later on. And I'm happy to see we have over 800 people present for this conversation. 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. Here's the big question. Now the archaeologist of that site says-- I'm quoting from your book-- "For me, the Villa Vesuvio was a small farm that was specifically designed for the production of drugs." But even if they're telling the truth about this, even if it is accurate about Marcus that he used a love potion, a love potion isn't a Eucharist. If we're being honest with ourselves, when you've drunk-- and I've drunk that wine-- I didn't necessarily feel that I'd become one with Jesus. But maybe you could just say something about this community in Catalonia. Nage ?] 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? So let's start with one that is more contemporary. So imagine how many artifacts are just sitting in museums right now, waiting to be tested. 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. The Immortality Key - David Bookstaber I see something that's happening to people. Even a little bit before Gobekli Tepe, there was another site unearthed relatively recently in Israel, at the Rakefet cave. And that's the mysteries of Dionysus. If the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? Tim Ferriss Show Podcast Notes But it was not far from a well-known colony in [INAUDIBLE] that was founded by Phocians. They followed Platonic (and other Greeks) philosophy. Those religions featured psychedelic beer and ceremonies lead by women . We have other textual evidence. And according to Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck, that barley was really a code word. 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. The mysteries of Dionysus, a bit weirder, a bit more off the grid. There are others claiming that there's drugs everywhere. We have some inscriptions. Because very briefly, I think Brian and others have made a very strong case that these things-- this was a biotechnology that was available in the ancient world. It's arguably not the case in the third century. And how can you reasonably expect the church to recognize a psychedelic Eucharist? Books about pagan continuity hypothesis? #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 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. Now, you could draw the obvious conclusion. And that's where oversight comes in handy. You mentioned there were lots of dead ends, and there certainly were. You may have already noticed one such question-- not too hard. The pagan continuity hypothesis theorizes that when Christianity arrived in Greece around AD 49, it didn't suddenly replace the existing religion. So I think it's really interesting details here worth following up on. 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 after the whole first half of the book-- well, wait a minute, Dr. Stang. 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. What about all these early Christians themselves as essentially Jews? Klaus Schmidt, who was with the German Archaeological Institute, called this a sanctuary and called these T-shaped pillars representations of gods. So perhaps there's even more evidence. There aren't any churches or basilicas, right, in the first three centuries, in this era we're calling paleo-Christianity. 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. CHARLES STANG: Wonderful. 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. I mean, this is what I want to do with some of my remaining days on this planet, is take a look at all these different theories. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The - Chartable 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. Some number of people have asked about Egypt. 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. The Immortality Key has its shortcomings. 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. CHARLES STANG: OK. And Dennis, amongst others, calls that a signature Dionysian miracle. 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? 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. 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. 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. CHARLES STANG: OK, that is the big question. Did the potion at Eleusis change from generation to generation? I wonder if you're familiar with Wouter Hanegraaff at the University of Amsterdam. I have a deep interest in mysticism, and I've had mystical experiences, which I don't think are very relevant. . Because ergot is just very common. Up until that point I really had very little knowledge of psychedelics, personal or literary or otherwise. 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. What I see is data that's been largely neglected, and I think what serves this as a discipline is just that. 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 from The Tim Ferriss Show on Podchaser, aired Wednesday, 28th December 2022. And so that's what motivated my search here.