pagan continuity hypothesis pagan continuity hypothesis

But unfortunately, it doesn't connect it to Christianity. 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? Now, that date is obviously very suggestive because that's precisely the time the Christians were establishing a beachhead in Rome. And she talks about the visions that transformed the way she thinks about herself. And shouldn't we all be asking that question? It seems entirely believable to me that we have a potion maker active near Pompeii. let's take up your invitation and move from Dionysus to early Christianity. 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. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name He decides to get people even more drunk. So that, actually, is the key to the immortality key. I mean, that's obviously the big question, and what that means for the future of medicine and religion and society at large. But what I see are potential and possibilities and things worthy of discussions like this. 40:15 Witches, drugs, and the Catholic Church . This event is entitled, Psychedelics, The Ancient Religion With No Name? Not much. So frankly, what happens during the Neolithic, we don't know, at least from a scientific vantage. Psychedelics Today: Mark Plotkin - Bio-Cultural Conservation of the Amazon. 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 Pagan polemicists reversed the Biblical story of the Israelites' liberation from Egyptian bondage, portraying a negative image of Israelite origins and picturing them as misanthropes and atheists. Nazanin Boniadi And the big question is, what is this thing doing there in the middle of nowhere? PDF The continuity between pagan and Christian cult - Scandinavia Like in Israel. But we at least have, again, the indicia of evidence that something was happening there. 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. Thank you, sir. Now we're getting somewhere. 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. I would expect we'd have ample evidence. And I think sites like this have tended to be neglected in scholarship, or published in languages like Catalan, maybe Ukrainian, where it just doesn't filter through the academic community. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. It draws attention to this material. Now, I've never done them myself, but I have talked to many, many people who've had experience with psychedelics. And my favorite line of the book is, "The lawyer in me won't sleep until that one chalice, that one container, that one vessel comes to light in an unquestionable Christian context.". And I don't know if there's other examples of such things. And as a lawyer, I know what is probative and what's circumstantial evidence, and I just-- I don't see it there. Not because it's not there, because it hasn't been tested. 8th century BC from the Tel Arad shrine. And besides that, young Brian, let's keep the mysteries mysteries. 1,672. Material evidence of a very strange potion, a drug, or a [SPEAKING GREEK]. Now, what's curious about this is we usually have-- Egypt plays a rather outsized role in our sense of early Christianity because-- and other adjacent or contemporary religious and philosophical movements, because everything in Egypt is preserved better than anywhere else in the Mediterranean. It's not to say that there isn't evidence from Alexandria or Antioch. Do you think that by calling the Eucharist a placebo that you're likely to persuade them? 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. You take a board corporate finance attorney, you add in lots of childhood hours watching Indiana Jones, lots of law school hours reading Dan Brown, you put it all together and out pops The Immortality Key. Did the potion at Eleusis change from generation to generation? The most colorful theory of psychedelics in religion portrays the original Santa Claus as a shaman. 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. To this day I remain a psychedelic virgin quite proudly, and I spent the past 12 years, ever since that moment in 2007, researching what Houston Smith, perhaps one of the most influential religious historians of the 20th century, would call the best kept secret in history. He draws on the theory of "pagan continuity," which holds that early Christianity adopted . Read more 37 people found this helpful Helpful Report abuse Tfsiebs So much research! 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. 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. Then there's what were the earliest Christians doing with the Eucharist. Wonderful, well, thank you. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. So if we can test Eucharistic vessels, I wouldn't be surprised at all that we find one. CHARLES STANG: All right. 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. He co-writes that with Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann, who famously-- there it is, the three authors. That's, just absurd. So how exactly is this evidence of something relevant to Christianity in Rome or southern Italy more widely? 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". Show Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation podcast, Ep Plants of the Gods: S4E2. BRIAN MURARESKU: But you're spot on. I understand the appeal of that. 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. 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. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian They did not. What's significant about these features for our piecing together the ancient religion with no name? And that the proof of concept idea is that we need to-- we, meaning historians of the ancient world, need to bring all the kinds of resources to bear on this to get better evidence and an interpretive frame for making sense of it. And Hofmann famously discovers-- or synthesizes LSD from ergot in 1938. Like the wedding at Cana, which my synopsis of that event is a drunkard getting a bunch of drunk people even more drunk. This is all secret. This limestone altar tested positive for cannabis and frankincense that was being burned, they think, in a very ritualistic way. 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. Where are the drugs? The Tim Ferriss Show - #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin There's all kinds of reasons I haven't done it. 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. I'm happy to argue about that. He's talking about kind of psychedelic wine. Two Reviews of The Immortality Key - Graham Hancock Continuity theory - Wikipedia The whole reason I went down this rabbit hole is because they were the ones who brought this to my attention through the generosity of a scholarship to this prep school in Philadelphia to study these kinds of mysteries. Because they talk about everything else that they take issue with. This notion in John 15:1, the notion of the true vine, for example, only occurs in John. The Immortality Key, The Secret History of the Religion With No Name. 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. I'm sure he knows this well, by this point. 32:57 Ancient languages and Brian's education . I mean, in the absence of the actual data, that's my biggest question. 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. BRIAN MURARESKU: OK. I would love to see these licensed, regulated, retreat centers be done in a way that is medically sound and scientifically rigorous. So why do you think psychedelics are so significant that they might usher in a new Reformation? So we move now into ancient history, but solidly into the historical record, however uneven that historical record is. I can't imagine that there were no Christians that availed themselves of this biotechnology, and I can't imagine-- it's entirely plausible to me that they would mix this biotechnology with the Eucharist. 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. What is it about that formula that captures for you the wisdom, the insight that is on offer in this ancient ritual, psychedelic or otherwise? So at the very-- after the first half of the book is over, there's an epilogue, and I say, OK, here's the evidence. Books about pagan continuity hypothesis? He was wronged by individuals, allegedly. Mona Sobhani, PhD Retweeted. It is not psychedelics. Origin of the Romanians - Wikipedia Now are there any other questions you wish to propose or push or-- I don't know, to push back against any of the criticisms or questions I've leveled? Now, Carl Ruck from Boston University, much closer to home, however, took that invitation and tried to pursue this hypothesis. Did the Early Church Use Psychedelics? - Substack And so in some of these psychedelic trials, under the right conditions, I do see genuine religious experiences. I've no doubt that Brian has unearthed and collected a remarkable body of evidence, but evidence of what, exactly? I think the wine certainly does. I also sense another narrative in your book, and one you've flagged for us, maybe about 10 minutes ago, when you said that the book is a proof of concept. We look forward to hosting Chacruna's founder and executive director, Bia Labate, for a lecture on Monday, March 8. And this is what I present to the world. But what we do know is that their sacrament was wine and we know a bit more about the wine of antiquity, ancient Greek wine, than we can piece together from these nocturnal celebrations. And I did not dare. What was the wine in the early Eucharist? I mean, about 25 years ago, actually. And what about the alleged democratization with which you credit the mysteries of Dionysus, or the role of women in that movement? So the big question is, what kind of drug was this, if it was a drug? And I want to ask you about specifically the Eleusinian mysteries, centered around the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. The Immortality Key Book Summary by Brian C. Muraresku And if the latter, do you think there's a good chance that religions will adopt psychedelics back into their rituals?". And that's all I present it as, is wonderfully attractive and maybe even sexy circumstantial evidence for the potential use of a psychedelic sacrament amongst the earliest Christians. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm asked this question, I would say, in pretty much every interview I've done since late September. This is true. 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. And I think we get hung up on the jargon. And I wonder whether the former narrative serves the interests of the latter. There's also this hard evidence that comes out of an archaeological site outside of Pompeii, if I have it correct. 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 want to say to those who are still assembled here that I'm terribly sorry that we can't get to all your questions. For those who didn't have the time or the money or the temerity to travel all the way to Eleusis from Spain, here's your off-site campus, right? [2] Now I understand and I appreciate the pharmaceutical industry's ability to distribute this as medicine for those who are looking for alternatives, alternative treatments for depression and anxiety and PTSD and addiction and end of life distress. So psychedelics or not, I think it's the cultivation of that experience, which is the actual key. So I'm trying to build the case-- and for some reason in my research, it kept coming back to Italy and Rome, which is why I focus on Hippolytus. So now it's true that these heresy hunters show an interest in this love potion. I know that's another loaded phrase. So how does Dionysian revelries get into this picture? 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]. Psychedelics Weekly - Prince Harry and Psychedelics, Proposed CHARLES STANG: OK, great. Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. You might find it in a cemetery in Mexico. I was satisfied with I give Brian Muraresku an "A" for enthusiasm, but I gave his book 2 stars. 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. Throughout his five books he talks about wine being mixed with all kinds of stuff, like frankincense and myrrh, relatively innocuous stuff, but also less innocuous things like henbane and mandrake, these solanaceous plants which he specifically says is fatal. McGovern also finds wine from Egypt, for example, in 3150 BC, wine that is mixed with a number of interesting ingredients. 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? I mean, I wish it were easier. 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. But the next event in this series will happen sooner than that. 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." In this hypothesis, both widely accepted and widely criticized,11 'American' was synonymous with 'North American'. We know that at the time of Jesus, before, during, and after, there were recipes floating around. Klaus Schmidt, who was with the German Archaeological Institute, called this a sanctuary and called these T-shaped pillars representations of gods. CHARLES STANG: All right. And inside that beer was all kinds of vegetable matter, like wheat, oats, and sedge and lily and flax and various legumes. And maybe in these near-death experiences we begin to actually experience that at a visceral level. She had the strange sense that every moment was an eternity of its own. Now, you could draw the obvious conclusion. But it survives. And if it's one thing Catholicism does very, very well, it's contemplative mysticism. I think the only big question is what the exact relationship was from a place like that over to Eleusis. Well, wonderful. I want to thank you for putting up with me and my questions. But it's not an ingested psychedelic. In the same place in and around Pompeii, this is where Christianity is really finding its roots. And I think what the pharmaceutical industry can do is help to distribute this medicine. The Continuity Hypothesis of Dreams: A More Balanced Account But we do know that something was happening. Let me just pull up my notes here. What does that have to do with Christianity? 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. 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. And Dennis, amongst others, calls that a signature Dionysian miracle. And I started reading the studies from Pat McGovern at the University of Pennsylvania. Amongst all the mystery religions, Eleusis survives. Part 1 Brian C. Muraresku: The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis and the Hallucinogenic Origins of Religion 3 days ago Plants of the Gods: S4E1. But with what were they mixed, and to what effect? Now, I've had experiences outside the Eucharist that resonate with me. All right, so now, let's follow up with Dionysus, but let's see here. That would require an entirely different kind of evidence. Church of the Saints Faustina and Liberata, view from the outside with the entrance enclosure, at "Sante" place, Capo di Ponte (Italy). That's just everlasting. Was there any similarity from that potion to what was drunk at Eleusis? CHARLES STANG: OK, that is the big question. The Immortality Key - Book Review and Discussion - Were early - Reddit Theories of Origins about Witch Hunts - King's College So if you were a mystic and you were into Demeter and Persephone and Dionysus and you were into these strange Greek mystery cults, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better place to spend your time than [SPEAKING GREEK], southern Italy, which in some cases was more Greek than Greek.