And so in the epilogue, I say we simply do not know the relationship between this site in Spain and Eleusis, nor do we know what was happening at-- it doesn't automatically mean that Eleusis was a psychedelic rite. They did not. Just from reading Dioscorides and reading all the different texts, the past 12 years have absolutely transformed the way I think about wine. But it just happens to show up at the right place at the right time, when the earliest Christians could have availed themselves of this kind of sacrament. It's only in John that Jesus is described as being born in the lap of the Father, the [SPEAKING GREEK] in 1:18, very similar to the way that Dionysus sprung miraculously from the thigh of Zeus, and on and on and on-- which I'm not going to bore you and the audience. 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." [1] According to this theory, older adults try to maintain this continuity of lifestyle by adapting strategies that are connected to their past experiences. The Immortality Key - Book Review and Discussion - Were early - Reddit And part of me really wants to put all these pieces together before I dive in. I mean, if Burkert was happy to speculate about psychedelics, I'm not sure why Ruck got the reception that he did in 1978 with their book The Road to Eleusis. Nage ?] And so in my afterword, I present this as a blip on the archaeochemical radar. Video: Psychedelics: The Ancient Religion with No Name? It still leaves an even bigger if, Dr. Stang, is which one is psychedelic? You also find a Greek hearth inside this sanctuary. So how exactly is this evidence of something relevant to Christianity in Rome or southern Italy more widely? 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. 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. It is my great pleasure to welcome Brian Muraresku to the Center. 44:48 Psychedelics and ancient cave art . I wish the church fathers were better botanists and would rail against the specific pharmacopeia. But it survives. 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". To assess this hypothesis and, perhaps, to push it further, has required years of dogged and, at times, discouraging works in archives and archaeology. 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. I fully expect we will find it. 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. Because ergot is just very common. And there were probably other Eleusises like that to the east. Phil's Picks | Phoenix Books 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. We have an hour and a half together and I hope there will be time for Q&A and discussion. CHARLES STANG: OK, great. So I think this was a minority of early Christians. They were mixed or fortified. 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 mysteries of Dionysus, a bit weirder, a bit more off the grid. 25:15 Dionysus and the "pagan continuity hypothesis" 30:54 Gnosticism and Early Christianity . And what do you believe happens to you when you do that? It's a big question for me. So let's start, then, the first act. And Hofmann famously discovers-- or synthesizes LSD from ergot in 1938. John H Elliott - Empires Of The Atlantic World.pdf Like in Israel. So Dionysus is not the god of alcohol. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm asked this question, I would say, in pretty much every interview I've done since late September. I did go straight to [INAUDIBLE] Papangelli in Eleusis, and I went to the museum. Show Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation podcast, Ep Plants of the Gods: S4E2. 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. Certainly these early churchmen used whatever they could against the forms of Christian practice they disapproved of, especially those they categorized as Gnostic. 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. I would have been happy to find a spiked wine anywhere. 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. And nor did we think that a sanctuary would be one of the first things that we construct. Why don't we turn the tables and ask you what questions you think need to be posed? And as a lawyer, I know what is probative and what's circumstantial evidence, and I just-- I don't see it there. So those are all possibly different questions to ask and answer. And what does this earliest history tell us about the earliest evidence for an ancient psychedelic religion? I mean, this really goes to my deep skepticism. We're going to get there very soon. All that will be announced through our mailing list. A rebirth into a new conception of the self, the self's relationship to things that are hard to define, like God. Now we're getting somewhere. So why do you think psychedelics are so significant that they might usher in a new Reformation? 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. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian So it is already happening. So, although, I mean, and that actually, I'd like to come back to that, the notion of the, that not just the pagan continuity hypothesis, but the mystery continuity hypothesis through the Vatican. Is this only Marcus? Joe Campbell puts it best that what we're after is an experience of being alive. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. BRIAN MURARESKU: Good one. And if the latter, do you think there's a good chance that religions will adopt psychedelics back into their rituals?". I don't know why it's happening now, but we're finally taking a look. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name He's joining us from Uruguay, where he has wisely chosen to spend his pandemic isolation. And in the ancient world, wine was routinely referred to as a [SPEAKING GREEK], which is the Greek word for drug. It is not psychedelics. So your presentation of early Christianity inclines heavily toward the Greek world. 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. Now, I have no idea where it goes from here, or if I'll take it myself. 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 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. And how do we-- when the pharmaceutical industry and when these retreat centers begin to open and begin to proliferate, how do we make this sacred? BRIAN MURARESKU: But you're spot on. 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. To be a Catholic is to believe that you are literally consuming the blood of Christ to become Christ. Now, Carl Ruck from Boston University, much closer to home, however, took that invitation and tried to pursue this hypothesis. I would expect we'd have ample evidence. But what we do know about the wine of the time is that it was routinely mixed with plants and herbs and potentially fungi. So we not only didn't have the engineering know-how-- we used to think-- we didn't have even settled life to construct something like this. This is true. I've no doubt that Brian has unearthed and collected a remarkable body of evidence, but evidence of what, exactly? I mean, about 25 years ago, actually. I think the only big question is what the exact relationship was from a place like that over to Eleusis. And I started reading the studies from Pat McGovern at the University of Pennsylvania. These were Greek-- I've seen them referred to as Greek Vikings by Peter Kingsley, Vikings who came from Ionia. CHARLES STANG: Yeah. CHARLES STANG: OK. And that's a question equally for ancient historians and for contemporary seekers and/or good Catholics. You may have already noticed one such question-- not too hard. 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. I appreciate this. And so I don't know what a really authentic, a really historic-looking ritual that is equal parts sacred, but also, again, medically sound, scientifically rigorous, would look like. So whatever these [SPEAKING GREEK] libations incense were, the church fathers don't get into great detail about what may have been spiking them. Those religions featured psychedelic beer and ceremonies lead by women . And I look forward to talking about this event with you after the fact eventually over a beer. In my previous posts on the continuity hypothesis . And I'm not even sure what that piece looks like or how big it is.