The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name BRIAN MURARESKU: Great question. So the Eastern Aegean. If you die before you die, you won't die when you die. he goes out on a limb and says that black nightshade actually causes [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH], which is not unpleasant visions, i.e. You also find a Greek hearth inside this sanctuary. Wise not least because it is summer there, as he reminds me every time we have a Zoom meeting, which has been quite often in these past several months. I would expect we'd have ample evidence. It is not psychedelics. and he said, Brian, don't you dare. And much of the evidence that you've collected is kind of the northern half of the Mediterranean world. She had the strange sense that every moment was an eternity of its own. The universality of frontiers, however, made the hypothesis readily extendable to other parts of the globe. 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. And I offer psychedelics as one of those archaic techniques of ecstasy that seems to have been relevant and meaningful to our ancestors. 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. I'm sure he knows this well, by this point. 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. 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? Because every time I think about ancient wine, I am now immediately thinking about wine that is spiked. The pagan continuity hypothesis at the heart of this book made sense to me. When you start testing, you find things. I expect we will find it. There's John Marco Allegro claiming that there was no Jesus, and this was just one big amanita muscaria cult.
"The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity" The Immortality Key has its shortcomings. 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? 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. And that's what I get into in detail in the book. CHARLES STANG: Yeah. What was being thrown into it?
John H Elliott - Empires Of The Atlantic World.pdf So Brian, I wonder, maybe we should give the floor to you and ask you to speak about, what are the questions you think both ancient historians such as myself should be asking that we're not, and maybe what are the sorts of questions that people who aren't ancient historians but who are drawn to this evidence, to your narrative, and to the present and the future of religion, what sort of questions should they be asking regarding psychedelics? As much as we know about the mysteries of Eleusis. Now, that date is obviously very suggestive because that's precisely the time the Christians were establishing a beachhead in Rome. So I'll speak in language that you and our good colleague Greg [? CHARLES STANG: So it may be worth mentioning, for those who are attending who haven't read the book, that you asked, who I can't remember her name, the woman who is in charge of the Eleusis site, whether some of the ritual vessels could be tested, only to discover-- tested for the remains of whatever they held, only to learn that those vessels had been cleaned and that no more vessels were going to be unearthed.
Mona Sobhani, PhD (@monasobhaniphd) / Twitter That there is no hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data for spiked beer, spiked wine. 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 . 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: That's a good question. 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. I see something that's happening to people. Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. Because for many, many years, you know, Ruck's career takes a bit of a nosedive. And at the same time, when I see a thirst, especially in young people, for real experience, and I see so many Catholics who do not believe in transubstantiation, obviously, what comes to my mind is how, if at all, can psychedelics enhance faith or reinvent Christianity. First act is your evidence for psychedelics among the so-called pagan religions in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. So I think this was a minority of early Christians. 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. But curiously, it's evidence for a eye ointment which is supposed to induce visions and was used as part of a liturgy in the cult of Mithras. Joe Campbell puts it best that what we're after is an experience of being alive. And that's not how it works today, and I don't think that's how it works in antiquity. There's some suggestive language in the pyramid texts, in the Book of the Dead and things of this nature. Perhaps more generally, you could just talk about other traditions around the Mediterranean, North African, or, let's even say Judaism. [texts-excerpt] penalty for cutting mangroves in floridaFREE EstimateFREE Estimate 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? And why, if you're right that the church has succeeded in suppressing a psychedelic sacrament and has been peddling instead, what you call a placebo, and that it has exercised a monstrous campaign of persecution against plant medicine and the women who have kept its knowledge alive, why are you still attached to this tradition? And there were probably other Eleusises like that to the east. So here's a question for you. BRIAN MURARESKU: Now we're cooking with grease, Dr. Stang. And so for me, this was a hunt through the catacombs and archives and libraries, doing my sweet-talking, and trying to figure out what was behind some of those locked doors. And even in the New Testament, you'll see wine spiked with myrrh, for example, that's served to Jesus at his crucifixion. A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs, and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age?
Continuity theory - Wikipedia We have an hour and a half together and I hope there will be time for Q&A and discussion. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm bringing more illumination. It's funny to see that some of the first basilicas outside Rome are popping up here, and in and around Pompeii.
#283: Managing Procrastination, Predicting the Future, and - Scribd Here's the proof of concept. There aren't any churches or basilicas, right, in the first three centuries, in this era we're calling paleo-Christianity. I write it cognizant of the fact that the Eucharist doesn't work for many, many people. 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. 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. 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? 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 let's start with our earliest evidence from the Stone Age and the Bronze Age. This is going to be a question that's back to the ancient world. And what the FDA can do is make sure that they're doing it in a way that it's absolutely safe and efficacious. 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? And all we know-- I mean, we can't decipher sequence by sequence what was happening. Something else I include at the end of my book is that I don't think that whatever this was, this big if about a psychedelic Eucharist, I don't think this was a majority of the paleo-Christians. So what I think we have here in this ergtotized beer drink from Catalonia, Spain, and in this weird witch's brew from 79 AD in Pompeii, I describe it, until I see evidence otherwise, as some of the very first heart scientific data for the actual existence of actual spiked wine in classical antiquity, which I think is a really big point.
The Religion has a Name: "Shamanism" - AKJournals I would love to see these licensed, regulated, retreat centers be done in a way that is medically sound and scientifically rigorous. Just from reading Dioscorides and reading all the different texts, the past 12 years have absolutely transformed the way I think about wine. He decides to get people even more drunk. 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? The Immortality Key, The Secret History of the Religion With No Name. And what you're referring to is-- and how I begin the book is this beautiful Greek phrase, [SPEAKING GREEK]. And I've listened to the volunteers who've gone through these experiences. CHARLES STANG: OK. So listening right now, there's at least one orthodox priest, there's at least one Catholic priest, an Episcopalian, an Anglican, and several others with whom I've been talking in recent months. Because they talk about everything else that they take issue with. And she happened to find it on psilocybin. 101. Amongst all the mystery religions, Eleusis survives. 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. So, I mean, my biggest question behind all of this is, as a good Catholic boy, is the Eucharist. You become one with Christ by drinking that. Including, all the way back to Gobekli Tepe, which is why I mentioned that when we first started chatting. 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 . So can you reflect on the-- standing on the threshold of pharmaceutical companies taking control of this, how is that to be commended when the very people who have kept this alive would be pushed to the side in that move? There is evidence that has been either overlooked or perhaps intentionally suppressed. The most influential religious historian of the twentieth century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. So we move now into ancient history, but solidly into the historical record, however uneven that historical record is. And he was actually going out and testing some of these ancient chalices. It's arguably not the case in the third century. Dogs, indicative of the Greek goddess Hecate, who, amongst other things was known as the [GREEK], the dog eater. Little attempt has been made, however, to bridge the gap between \"pagan\" and \"Christian\" or to examine late antique, Christian attitudes toward sexuality and marriage from the viewpoint of the \"average\" Christian.
Ep #1 Show Notes | Brian Muraresku: Psychedelics, Civilization pagan continuity hypothesis - diamondamotel.com It was one of the early write-ups of the psilocybin studies coming out of Johns Hopkins. Please materialize.
The Tim Ferriss Show | iHeart Now that doesn't mean, as Brian was saying, that then suggests that that's the norm Eucharist. So why refrain?
Correcting Key Points in Muraresku, The Immortality Key I did go straight to [INAUDIBLE] Papangelli in Eleusis, and I went to the museum. Despite its popular appeal as a New York Times Bestseller, TIK fails to make a compelling case for its grand theory of the "pagan continuity hypothesis with a psychedelic twist" due to recurring overreach and historical distortion, failure to consider relevant research on shamanism and Christianity, and presentation of speculation as fact." 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 . But the point being, if the Dionysian wine was psychedelic-- which I know is a big if-- I think the more important thing to show here in this pagan continuity hypothesis is that it's at least plausible that the earliest Christians would have at the very least read the Gospel of John and interpreted that paleo-Christian Eucharistic wine, in some communities, as a kind of Dionysian wine. Again, it's proof of concept for going back to Eleusis and going back to other sites around the Mediterranean and continuing to test, whether for ergotized beer or other things. That was the question for me. Was there any similarity from that potion to what was drunk at Eleusis?
The Tim Ferriss Show - #535: General Stanley McChrystal Mast But I realized that in 1977, when he wrote that in German, this was the height of scholarship, at least going out on a limb to speculate about the prospect of psychedelics at the very heart of the Greek mysteries, which I refer to as something like the real religion of the ancient Greeks, by the way, in speaking about the Eleusinian mysteries. We know that at the time of Jesus, before, during, and after, there were recipes floating around. CHARLES STANG: OK. Now let's move into the Greek mystery. But I don't understand how that provides any significant link to paleo-Christian practice.
18.3C: Continuity Theory - Social Sci LibreTexts CHARLES STANG: So in some sense, you're feeling almost envy for the experiences on psychedelics, which is to say you've never experienced the indwelling of Christ or the immediate knowledge of your immortality in the sacrament. BRIAN MURARESKU: I look forward to it, Charlie. So again, that's February 22. 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's really quite simple, Charlie. There's evidence of the mysteries of Dionysus before, during, and after the life of Jesus, it's worth pointing out. I'm currently reading The Immortality Key by Brian Muraresku and find this 2nd/3rd/4th century AD time period very interesting, particularly with regards to the adoptions of pagan rituals and practices by early Christianity. To be a Catholic is to believe that you are literally consuming the blood of Christ to become Christ. So it's hard for me to write this and talk about this without acknowledging the Jesuits who put me here. CHARLES STANG: Thank you, Brian. There have been breakthroughs, too, which no doubt kept Brian going despite some skepticism from the academy, to say the least. Despite its popular appeal as a New York Times Bestseller, TIK fails to make a compelling case for its grand theory of the "pagan continuity hypothesis with a psychedelic twist" due to. 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. And you suspect, therefore, that it might be a placebo, and you want the real thing. So let's talk about the future of religion, and specifically the future of Roman Catholicism. So the mysteries of Dionysus are a bit more of a free-for-all than the mysteries of Eleusis. 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 Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name Now, Mithras is another one of these mystery religions. Where you find the grain, you may have found ergot. 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.
The Immortality Key Book Summary by Brian C. Muraresku 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 when Hippolytus is calling out the Marcosians, and specifically women, consecrating this alternative Eucharist in their alternative proto-mass, he uses the Greek word-- and we've talked about this before-- but he uses the Greek word [SPEAKING GREEK] seven times in a row, by the way, without specifying which drugs he's referring to. But unfortunately, it doesn't connect it to Christianity. The pagan continuity hypothesis theorizes that when Christianity arrived in Greece around AD 49, it didn't suddenly replace the existing religion. Because ergot is just very common. 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 I understand more papers are about to be published on this. And I'll just list them out quickly. It draws attention to this material. Lots of Greek artifacts, lots of Greek signifiers. We have plays like the Bacchi from Euripides, where we can piece together some of this. I want to thank you for your candor. He comes to this research with a full suite of scholarly skills, including a deep knowledge of Greek and Latin as well as facility in a number of European languages, which became crucial for uncovering some rather obscure research in Catalan, and also for sweet-talking the gatekeepers of archives and archaeological sites. Not because they just found that altar. CHARLES STANG: OK, that is the big question. Now, let's get started, Brian. BRIAN MURARESKU:: It's a simple formula, Charlie. 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. I'm going to come back to that idea of proof of concept. The only reason I went to college was to study classics. There's no mistake in her mind that it was Greek. Here's what we don't. difficult to arrive at any conclusive hypothesis. The Tim Ferriss Show. Is there a smoking gun? CHARLES STANG: All right. And I hear-- I sense that narrative in your book. So whatever these [SPEAKING GREEK] libations incense were, the church fathers don't get into great detail about what may have been spiking them. And maybe therein we do since the intimation of immortality. I know that's another loaded phrase. But please do know that we will forward all these questions to Brian so he will know the sorts of questions his work prompts. He has talked about the potential evidence for psychedelics in a Mithras liturgy. That they were what you call extreme beverages.
David Wakefield - President - Wakefield Enterprises, LLC | LinkedIn He's the god of wine. It was it was barley, water, and something else. Liked by Samuel Zuschlag. What, if any, was the relationship between this Greek sanctuary-- a very Greek sanctuary, by the way-- in Catalonia, to the mysteries of Eleusis? Many people see that as symbolic or allegorical or just a nice thing, which is not the case. Psychedelics Today: PTSF 35 (with Brian Muraresku) Griffithsfund.org It is my great pleasure to welcome Brian Muraresku to the Center.
#646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian OK, now, Brian, you've probably dealt with questions like this. And her best guess is that it was like this open access sanctuary. What the Greeks were actually saying there is that it was barley infected with ergot, which is this natural fungus that infects cereal crops. The Continuity Hypothesis was put forward by John Bowlby (1953) as a critical effect of attachments in his development of Attachment Theory. And so even within the New Testament you see little hints and clues that there was no such thing as only ordinary table wine. And we know the mysteries were there. Not in every single case, obviously. And in his book [? What's the wine? And I did not dare. Thank you for that. The big question is, did any of these recipes, did any of this wine spiking actually make its way into some paleo-Christian ceremony. 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. 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. No one lived there. And what it has to do with Eleusis or the Greek presence in general, I mean, again, just to say it briefly, is that this was a farmhouse of sorts that was inland, this sanctuary site. And so I don't think that psychedelics are coming to replace the Sunday Eucharist. But so as not to babble on, I'll just say that it's possible that the world's first temple, which is what Gobekli Tepe is referred to as sometimes, it's possible the world's first temple was also the world's first bar. The (Mistaken) Conspiracy Theory: In the Late Middle Ages, religious elites created a new, and mistaken, intellectual framework out of Christian heresy and theology concerning demons. 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. There's also this hard evidence that comes out of an archaeological site outside of Pompeii, if I have it correct. 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. You might find it in a cemetery in Mexico. And so that opened a question for me. 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. You're not confident that the pope is suddenly going to issue an encyclical. I wonder if you're familiar with Wouter Hanegraaff at the University of Amsterdam. BRIAN MURARESKU: I would say I've definitely experienced the power of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2023 I mean, so it was Greek. Copyright 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name. So Dionysus is not the god of alcohol. 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. And very famous passages, by the way, that should be familiar to most New Testament readers. I mean, I wish it were easier. 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? Its proponents maintain that the affable, plump old fellow associated with Christmas derives from the character of Arctic medical practitioners. Not because it was brand new data.
The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark It would have parts of Greek mysticism in it, the same Greek mysteries I've spent all these years investigating, and it would have some elements of what I see in paleo-Christianity. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. And does it line up with the promise from John's gospel that anyone who drinks this becomes instantly immortal? And then at some point they go inland. What about all these early Christians themselves as essentially Jews? Which, again, what I see are small groups of people getting together to commune with the dead. What does God mean? And to be quite honest, I'd never studied the ancient Greeks in Spain. The same Rome that circumstantially shows up, and south of Rome, where Constantine would build his basilicas in Naples and Capua later on. I include that line for a reason. 40:15 Witches, drugs, and the Catholic Church .