CHARLES STANG: OK. CHARLES STANG: Yeah. BRIAN MURARESKU: But you're spot on. Not in every single case, obviously. Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. If they've been doing this, as you suggest, for 2,000 years, nearly, what makes you think that a few ancient historians are going to turn that aircraft carrier around? This time, tonight I'll say that it's just not my time yet. Did the potion at Eleusis change from generation to generation? There are others claiming that there's drugs everywhere. 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. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. And I think we're getting there. And how can you reasonably expect the church to recognize a psychedelic Eucharist? So imagine how many artifacts are just sitting in museums right now, waiting to be tested. CHARLES STANG: OK. Now let's move into the Greek mystery. So I want to propose that we stage this play in two acts. BRIAN MURARESKU: Good one. So don't feel like you have to go into great depth at this point. And I'm happy to see we have over 800 people present for this conversation. But when it comes to that Sunday ritual, it just, whatever is happening today, it seems different from what may have motivated the earliest Christians, which leads me to very big questions. And I think oversight also comes in handy within organized religion. Because every time I think about ancient wine, I am now immediately thinking about wine that is spiked. So it wasn't just a random place to find one of these spiked wines. It is not psychedelics. President and CEO, First Southeast Financial Corp and First Federal Savings and Loan Director, Carolina First Bank and The South Financial Group 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. #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 I imagine there are many more potion makers around than we typically recognize. So first of all, please tell us how it is you came to pursue this research to write this book, and highlight briefly what you think are its principal conclusions and their significance for our present and future. I'm going to come back to that idea of proof of concept. There's a good number of questions that are very curious why you are insisting on remaining a psychedelic virgin. We have plays like the Bacchi from Euripides, where we can piece together some of this. I'm paraphrasing this one. I want to thank you for your candor. These sources suggest a much greater degree of continuity with pre-Christian values and practice than the writings of more . The altar had been sitting in a museum in Israel since the 1960s and just hadn't been tested. 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". And so even within the New Testament you see little hints and clues that there was no such thing as only ordinary table wine. CHARLES STANG: All right. Again, how did Christianity take hold in a world with such a rich mystical tradition? I'm skeptical, Dr. Stang. When you start testing, you find things. And there were gaps as well. 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. You mentioned, too, early churchmen, experts in heresies by the name of Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome. I appreciate this. 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. Then what was the Gospel of John, how did it interpret the Eucharist and market it, and so on. That there is no hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data for spiked beer, spiked wine. 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. 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. Part 1 Brian C. Muraresku: The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis and the Hallucinogenic Origins of Religion - Feb 22, 2023 So, like, they're wonderstruck, or awestruck by their libations and their incense. I opened the speculation, Dr. Stang, that the Holy Grail itself could have been some kind of spiked concoction. 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. 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. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. Just from reading Dioscorides and reading all the different texts, the past 12 years have absolutely transformed the way I think about wine. What is its connection to Eleusis? I write it cognizant of the fact that the Eucharist doesn't work for many, many people. Here's another one. I think the wine certainly does. Many people see that as symbolic or allegorical or just a nice thing, which is not the case. I took this to Greg [? It was a pilgrimage site. In fact, something I'm following up on now is the prospect of similar sites in the Crimea around the Black Sea, because there was also a Greek presence there. But I think the broader question of what's the reception to this among explicitly religious folk and religious leaders? But I think there's a decent scientific foothold to begin that work. These are famous figures to those of us who study early Christianity. I mean, in the absence of the actual data, that's my biggest question. But we do know that the initiates made this pilgrimage from Athens to Eleusis, drunk the potion, the kykeon, had this very visionary event-- they all talk about seeing something-- and after which they become immortal. 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. And I want to-- just like you have this hard evidence from Catalonia, then the question is how to interpret it. And what about the alleged democratization with which you credit the mysteries of Dionysus, or the role of women in that movement? Now, let's get started, Brian. That's staying within the field of time. Because for many, many years, you know, Ruck's career takes a bit of a nosedive. The big question is, did any of these recipes, did any of this wine spiking actually make its way into some paleo-Christian ceremony. And when you speak in that way, what I hear you saying is there is something going on. 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. And I describe that as somehow finding that key to immortality. Nazanin Boniadi BRIAN MURARESKU:: It's a simple formula, Charlie. It seems to me, though, that the intensity and the potency of the psychedelic experience is of an order of magnitude different than what I may have experienced through the Eucharist. OK-- maybe one of those ancient beers. he goes out on a limb and says that black nightshade actually causes [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH], which is not unpleasant visions, i.e. I want to thank you for putting up with me and my questions. And there were moments when the sunlight would just break through. This two-part discussion between Muraresku and Dr. Plotkin examines the role psychedelics have played in the development of Western civilization. A lot of Christianity, as you rightly point out, I mean, it was an Eastern phenomenon, all over the eastern Mediterranean. Do you think that the Christians as a nascent cult adapted a highly effective psycho technology that was rattling . CHARLES STANG: OK, that is the big question. Now, Brian managed to write this book while holding down a full time practice in international law based in Washington DC. This limestone altar tested positive for cannabis and frankincense that was being burned, they think, in a very ritualistic way. Several theories address the issue of the origin of the Romanians.The Romanian language descends from the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken in the Roman provinces north of the "Jireek Line" (a proposed notional line separating the predominantly Latin-speaking territories from the Greek-speaking lands in Southeastern Europe) in Late Antiquity.The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the . He's talking about kind of psychedelic wine. I understand the appeal of that. And I think we get hung up on the jargon. And we know from the record that [SPEAKING GREEK] is described as being so crowded with gods that they were easier to find than men. Do you think that by calling the Eucharist a placebo that you're likely to persuade them? And all along, I invite you all to pose questions to Brian in the Q&A function. 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. I fully expect we will find it. Now, that date is obviously very suggestive because that's precisely the time the Christians were establishing a beachhead in Rome. The Immortality Key, The Secret History of the Religion With No Name. Now, it's just an early indication and there's more testing to be done. And I think there are lots of reasons to believe that. So I have my concerns about what's about to happen in Oregon and the regulation of psilocybin for therapeutic purposes. Well, wonderful. 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. And the quote you just read from Burkert, it's published by Harvard University Press in 1985 as Greek Religion. And so that's what motivated my search here. If the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? 8 "The winds, the sea . So throughout the book, you make the point that ancient beer and wine are not like our beer and wine. Things like fasting and sleep deprivation and tattooing and scarification and, et cetera, et cetera. CHARLES STANG: Brian, I wonder if you could end by reflecting on the meaning of dying before you die. . And the big question for me was what was that something else? 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. Here's the big question. And I think that's an important distinction to make. Now is there any evidence for psychedelic use in ancient Egypt, and if not, do you have any theory as to why that's silent? So now it's true that these heresy hunters show an interest in this love potion. There was an absence of continuity in the direction of the colony as Newport made his frequent voyages to and . Psychedelics are a lens to investigate this stuff. What does God mean? 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. Because at my heart, I still consider myself a good Catholic boy. But I want to ask you to reflect on the broader narrative that you're painting, because I've heard you speak in two ways about the significance of this work. Not because it was brand new data. I would have been happy to find a spiked wine anywhere. 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. So the Greek god of wine, intoxication. And Dennis, amongst others, calls that a signature Dionysian miracle. Interesting. He was wronged by individuals, allegedly. 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. And the truth is that this is a project that goes well beyond ancient history, because Brian is convinced that what he has uncovered has profound implications for the future of religion, and specifically, the future of his own religion, Roman Catholicism. So that's from Burkert, a very sober scholar and the dean of all scholarship on Greek religion. He's joining us from Uruguay, where he has wisely chosen to spend his pandemic isolation. He has talked about the potential evidence for psychedelics in a Mithras liturgy. And I think what the pharmaceutical industry can do is help to distribute this medicine. Brian is the author of a remarkable new book that has garnered a lot of attention and has sold a great many copies. That was the question for me. Now, the great scholar of Greek religion, Walter Burkert, you quote him as musing, once-- and I'm going to quote him-- he says, "it may rather be asked, even without the prospect of a certain answer, whether the basis of the mysteries, they were prehistoric drug rituals, some festival imp of immortality which, through the expansion of consciousness, seemed to guarantee some psychedelic beyond." We have other textual evidence. So the basic point being, as far as we can tell, beer and wine are routinely mixed with things that we don't do today. The Continuity Hypothesis was put forward by John Bowlby (1953) as a critical effect of attachments in his development of Attachment Theory. And does it line up with the promise from John's gospel that anyone who drinks this becomes instantly immortal? A rebirth into what? The question is, what will happen in the future. And much of the evidence that you've collected is kind of the northern half of the Mediterranean world. So when you take a step back, as you well know, there was a Hellenic presence all over the ancient Mediterranean. Newsweek calls him "the world's best human guinea pig," and The New York Times calls him "a cross between Jack Welch and a Buddhist monk." In this show, he deconstructs world-class . Maybe there's a spark of the divine within. But it's not an ingested psychedelic. 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. So I'll speak in language that you and our good colleague Greg [? And if it only occurs in John, the big question is why. And so how far should this investigation go? The mysteries of Dionysus, a bit weirder, a bit more off the grid. BRIAN MURARESKU: We can dip from both pies, Dr. Stang. 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. Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2023 Where you find the grain, you may have found ergot. And I'm not even sure what that piece looks like or how big it is. And I want to ask you about specifically the Eleusinian mysteries, centered around the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. We call it ego dissolution, things of that nature. And keep in mind that we'll drop down into any one of these points more deeply. Including, all the way back to Gobekli Tepe, which is why I mentioned that when we first started chatting. And even Burkert, I think, calls it the most famous of the mystery rituals. In 1950, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote " The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity " which describes the continuity from the Pagan, pre-Christian world to what would become early Christianity in the decades and centuries before Jesus Religion & Mystical Experiences, Wine 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? Lots of Greek artifacts, lots of Greek signifiers. The continuity between pagan and Christian cult nearby the archaeological area of Naquane in Capo di Ponte. And I write, at the very end of the book, I hope that they'd be proud of this investigation. I'm not sure many have. 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. It was it was barley, water, and something else. Although she's open to testing, there was nothing there. So, I mean, my biggest question behind all of this is, as a good Catholic boy, is the Eucharist. 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. So this is interesting. 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]. A combination of psychoactive plants, including opium, cannabis, and nightshade, along with the remains of reptiles and amphibians all steeped in wine, like a real witch's brew, uncovered in this house outside of Pompeii. It was one of the early write-ups of the psilocybin studies coming out of Johns Hopkins. Here's your Western Eleusis. Thank you. A rebirth into a new conception of the self, the self's relationship to things that are hard to define, like God. 8th century BC from the Tel Arad shrine. And to be quite honest, I'd never studied the ancient Greeks in Spain. 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 did the earliest Christians inherit the same secret tradition? 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? And so that opened a question for me. CHARLES STANG: Wonderful. I try to be careful to always land on a lawyer's feet and be very honest with you and everybody else about where this goes from here. Not because they just found that altar. 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. That's one narrative that I feel is a little sensational. Others would argue that they are perfectly legal sacraments, at least in the Native American church with the use of peyote, or in the UDV or Santo Daime, I mean, ayahuasca does work in some syncretic Christian form, right? The pagan continuity hypothesis at the heart of this book made sense to me. Now that the pagan continuity hypothesis is defended, the next task is to show that the pagan and proto-Christian ritual sacraments were, in fact, psychedelicbrews. That to live on forever and ever, to live an everlasting life is not immortality. 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.
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