Do you think that by calling the Eucharist a placebo that you're likely to persuade them? 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. Because they talk about everything else that they take issue with. I understand the appeal of that. It is not psychedelics. Do the drugs, Dr. Stang? 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 when you speak in that way, what I hear you saying is there is something going on. Maybe I have that wrong. In the first half, we'll cover topics ranging from the Eleusinian Mysteries, early Christianity, and the pagan continuity hypothesis to the work of philosopher and psychologist William James. This limestone altar tested positive for cannabis and frankincense that was being burned, they think, in a very ritualistic way. 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. So after the whole first half of the book-- well, wait a minute, Dr. Stang. So I have my concerns about what's about to happen in Oregon and the regulation of psilocybin for therapeutic purposes. And that kind of invisible religion with no name, although brutally suppressed, managed to survive in Europe for many centuries and could potentially be revived today. Because at my heart, I still consider myself a good Catholic boy. What I see is data that's been largely neglected, and I think what serves this as a discipline is just that. So when you take a step back, as you well know, there was a Hellenic presence all over the ancient Mediterranean. Now, I have no idea where it goes from here, or if I'll take it myself. CHARLES STANG: I do, too. 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 So I'm not convinced that-- I think you're absolutely right that what this establishes is that Christians in southern Italy could have-- could have had access to the kinds of things that have been recovered from that drug farm, let's call it. 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 so with a revised ancient history, in place Brian tacks back to the title of our series, Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. The long and short of it is, in 1978 there was no hard scientific data to prove this one way or the other. And much of the evidence that you've collected is kind of the northern half of the Mediterranean world. This time around, we have a very special edition featuring Dr. Mark Plotkin and Brian C . And what we know about the wine of the time is that it was prized amongst other things not for its alcoholic content, but for its ability to induce madness. So I want to propose that we stage this play in two acts. The most colorful theory of psychedelics in religion portrays the original Santa Claus as a shaman. And in his book [? CHARLES STANG: Brian, I want to thank you for your time. The Immortality Key, The Secret History of the Religion With No Name. So let's start, then, the first act. Church of the Saints Faustina and Liberata, view from the outside with the entrance enclosure, at "Sante" place, Capo di Ponte (Italy). 32:57 Ancient languages and Brian's education . I'm skeptical, Dr. Stang. 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. He draws on the theory of "pagan continuity," which holds that early Christianity adopted . And Ruck, and you following Ruck, make much of this, suggesting maybe the Gnostics are pharmacologists of some kind. But Egypt seems to not really be hugely relevant to the research. Not in every single case, obviously. This two-part discussion between Muraresku and Dr. Plotkin examines the role psychedelics have played in the development of Western civilization. So your presentation of early Christianity inclines heavily toward the Greek world. And I've listened to the volunteers who've gone through these experiences. BRIAN MURARESKU: I look forward to it, Charlie. CHARLES STANG: OK, that is the big question. Is this only Marcus? And I want to say that this question that we've been exploring the last half hour about what all this means for the present will be very much the topic of our next event on February 22, which is taking up the question of psychedelic chaplaincy. He has talked about the potential evidence for psychedelics in a Mithras liturgy. 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. This time, tonight I'll say that it's just not my time yet. And Hofmann famously discovers-- or synthesizes LSD from ergot in 1938. CHARLES STANG: All right. A rebirth into a new conception of the self, the self's relationship to things that are hard to define, like God. It was the Jesuits who taught me Latin and Greek. 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. Then what was the Gospel of John, how did it interpret the Eucharist and market it, and so on. CHARLES STANG: We've really read Jesus through the lens of his Greek inheritors. 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. So Pompeii and its environs at the time were called [SPEAKING GREEK], which means great Greece. BRIAN MURARESKU: OK. Again, if you're attracted to psychedelics, it's kind of an extreme thing, right? I've no doubt that Brian has unearthed and collected a remarkable body of evidence, but evidence of what, exactly? We call it ego dissolution, things of that nature. It was it was barley, water, and something else. So the Eastern Aegean. 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 . Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. I understand more papers are about to be published on this. If the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? 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. 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. There's a good number of questions that are very curious why you are insisting on remaining a psychedelic virgin. Not because it's not there, because it hasn't been tested. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. Things like fasting and sleep deprivation and tattooing and scarification and, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, the honest answer is not much. And yet I talked to an atheist who has one experience with psilocybin and is immediately bathed in God's love. These sources suggest a much greater degree of continuity with pre-Christian values and practice than the writings of more . Here's another one. The phrasing used in the book and by others is "the pagan continuity hypothesis". The actual key that I found time and again in looking at this literature and the data is what seems to be happening here is the cultivation of a near-death experience. Yeah. I know that's another loaded phrase. The pagan continuity hypothesis at the heart of this book made sense to me. 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? So imagine how many artifacts are just sitting in museums right now, waiting to be tested. 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. Now, I've never done them myself, but I have talked to many, many people who've had experience with psychedelics. You won't find it in many places other than that. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. I might forward the proposition that I don't think the early church fathers were the best botanists. he goes out on a limb and says that black nightshade actually causes [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH], which is not unpleasant visions, i.e. 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. Not because it was brand new data. It's really quite simple, Charlie. Then I see the mysteries of Dionysus as kind of the Burning Man or the Woodstock of the ancient world. She joins me for most events and meetings. At Cambridge University he worked in developmental biolo. As a matter of fact, I think it's much more promising and much more fertile for scholarship to suggest that some of the earliest Christians may have availed themselves of a psychedelic sacrament and may have interpreted the Last Supper as some kind of invitation to open psychedelia, that mystical supper as the orthodox call it, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]. 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 have a deep interest in mysticism, and I've had mystical experiences, which I don't think are very relevant. So we move now into ancient history, but solidly into the historical record, however uneven that historical record is. But we at least have, again, the indicia of evidence that something was happening there. And when I read psychedelic literature or I read the literature on near-death experiences, I see experiences similar to what I experienced as a young boy. BRIAN MURARESKU: Great question. And so the big hunt for me was trying to find some of those psychedelic bits. There he is. So I think this was a minority of early Christians. But this clearly involved some kind of technical know-how and the ability to concoct these things that, in order to keep them safe and efficacious, would not have been very widespread, I don't think. And keep in mind that we'll drop down into any one of these points more deeply. BRIAN MURARESKU: It just happens to show up. I mean, shouldn't everybody, shouldn't every Christian be wondering what kind of wine was on that table, or the tables of the earliest Christians? And I offer psychedelics as one of those archaic techniques of ecstasy that seems to have been relevant and meaningful to our ancestors. The answer seems to be connected to psychedelic drugs. 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. What the Greeks were actually saying there is that it was barley infected with ergot, which is this natural fungus that infects cereal crops. So this is interesting. That there is no hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data for spiked beer, spiked wine. #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 Now, Brian managed to write this book while holding down a full time practice in international law based in Washington DC. That's the big question. So whatever was happening there was important. CHARLES STANG: My name is Charles Stang, and I'm the director of the Center for the Study of World Religions here at Harvard Divinity School.
How Important Is Oxygen To The Living Things,
Traditional Brazilian Weapons,
Greenville Memorial Home,
Cancer Love Horoscope For Today And Tomorrow,
Katt Williams Tour World War 3,
Articles P