I mean, I wish it were easier. You won't find it in many places other than that. And I wonder whether the former narrative serves the interests of the latter. 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. Well, the reason I mention Hippolytus and Marcus and focus on that in my evidence is because there's evidence of the Valentinians, who influenced Marcus, in and around Rome. Brian launched the instant bestseller on the Joe Rogan Experience, and has now appeared on CNN, NPR, Sirius XM, Goop-- I don't even know what that is-- and The Weekly Dish with Andrew Sullivan. And that is that there was a pervasive religion, ancient religion, that involved psychedelic sacraments, and that that pervasive religious culture filtered into the Greek mysteries and eventually into early Christianity. Up until that point I really had very little knowledge of psychedelics, personal or literary or otherwise. 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? 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 Oh, I hope I haven't offended you, Brian. There were formula. One attendee has asked, "How have religious leaders reacted so far to your book? It's not the case in the second century. 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. You might find it in a cemetery in Mexico. 474, ?] And I don't know if there's other examples of such things. But I don't hold-- I don't hang my hat on that claim. CHARLES STANG: Brian, I want to thank you for your time. We don't have to look very hard to find that. Eusebius, third into the fourth century, is also talking about them-- it's a great Greek word, [SPEAKING GREEK]. And Brian, once again, thank you so much. 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. 283. [1] According to this theory, older adults try to maintain this continuity of lifestyle by adapting strategies that are connected to their past experiences. Certainly these early churchmen used whatever they could against the forms of Christian practice they disapproved of, especially those they categorized as Gnostic. Now, I've had experiences outside the Eucharist that resonate with me. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm asked this question, I would say, in pretty much every interview I've done since late September. Material evidence of a very strange potion, a drug, or a [SPEAKING GREEK]. 44:48 Psychedelics and ancient cave art . Let me just pull up my notes here. 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. 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. Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. So don't feel like you have to go into great depth at this point. That's one narrative that I feel is a little sensational. So to find dog sacrifice inside this Greek sanctuary alludes to this proto-witch, Hecate, the mother of Circe, who is mentioned in the same hymn to Demeter from the 8th, 7th century BC, as kind of the third of the goddesses to whom these mysteries were dedicated. If the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? 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. 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. The altar had been sitting in a museum in Israel since the 1960s and just hadn't been tested. And shouldn't we all be asking that question? So how does Dionysian revelries get into this picture? 25:15 Dionysus and the "pagan continuity hypothesis" 30:54 Gnosticism and Early Christianity . 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. 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 I want to-- just like you have this hard evidence from Catalonia, then the question is how to interpret it. I mean, the honest answer is not much. And nor did we think that a sanctuary would be one of the first things that we construct. Thank you, sir. The most colorful theory of psychedelics in religion portrays the original Santa Claus as a shaman. Nazanin Boniadi All rights reserved. What's the wine? You know, it's an atheist using theological language to describe what happened to her. 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. [texts-excerpt] penalty for cutting mangroves in floridaFREE EstimateFREE Estimate Richard Evans Schultes and the Search for Ayahuasca 17 days ago Plants of the Gods: S3E10. So after the whole first half of the book-- well, wait a minute, Dr. Stang. And maybe in these near-death experiences we begin to actually experience that at a visceral level. 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. They followed Platonic (and other Greeks) philosophy. And even in the New Testament, you'll see wine spiked with myrrh, for example, that's served to Jesus at his crucifixion. It was-- Eleusis was state-administered, a somewhat formal affair. Its proponents maintain that the affable, plump old fellow associated with Christmas derives from the character of Arctic medical practitioners. 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? 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? No, I think you-- this is why we're friends, Charlie. He decides to get people even more drunk. Where does Western civilization come from? Now, I have no idea where it goes from here, or if I'll take it myself. Not because it's not there, because it hasn't been tested. I took this to Greg [? And I started reading the studies from Pat McGovern at the University of Pennsylvania. #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 And if it only occurs in John, the big question is why. 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. Liked by Samuel Zuschlag. 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 . I'm not sure many have. And when I started to get closer into the historical period-- this is all prehistory. And I feel like I accomplished that in the afterword to my book. BRIAN MURARESKU: I would say I've definitely experienced the power of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. Because at my heart, I still consider myself a good Catholic boy. I mean, something of symbolic significance, something monumental. Now, you could draw the obvious conclusion. What, if any, was the relationship between this Greek sanctuary-- a very Greek sanctuary, by the way-- in Catalonia, to the mysteries of Eleusis? But I think the broader question of what's the reception to this among explicitly religious folk and religious leaders? 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. Here is how I propose we are to proceed. 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. Which is a very weird thing today. And besides that, young Brian, let's keep the mysteries mysteries. But I mentioned that we've become friends because it is the prerogative of friends to ask hard questions. 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 But you go further still, suggesting that Jesus himself at the Last Supper might have administered psychedelic sacrament, that the original Eucharist was psychedelic. And I guess my biggest question, not necessarily for you, but the psychedelic community, for what it's worth, or those who are interested in this stuff is how do we make this experience sacred? "The Jews" are not after Ye. And I did not dare. With more than 35 years of experience in the field of Education dedicated to help students, teachers and administrators in both public and private institutions at school, undergraduate and graduate level. 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. Where you find the grain, you may have found ergot. Rather, Christian beliefs were gradually incorporated into the pagan customs that already existed there. There was an absence of continuity in the direction of the colony as Newport made his frequent voyages to and . So there's a whole slew of sites I want to test there. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm bringing more illumination. So what do we know about those rituals? I would have been happy to find a spiked wine anywhere. I write it cognizant of the fact that the Eucharist doesn't work for many, many people. Things like fasting and sleep deprivation and tattooing and scarification and, et cetera, et cetera. They were relevant to me in going down this rabbit hole. I'll invite him to think about the future of religion in light of all this. I know that's another loaded phrase. It seems entirely believable to me that we have a potion maker active near Pompeii. 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? 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. And that's not how it works today, and I don't think that's how it works in antiquity. So I have my concerns about what's about to happen in Oregon and the regulation of psilocybin for therapeutic purposes. So we're going down parallel paths here, and I feel we're caught between FDA-approved therapeutics and RFRA-protected sacraments, RFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or what becomes of these kinds of substances in any kind of legal format-- which they're not legal at the moment, some would argue. Klaus Schmidt, who was with the German Archaeological Institute, called this a sanctuary and called these T-shaped pillars representations of gods. The fact that the Vatican sits in Rome today is not an accident, I think, is the shortest way to answer that. Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. BRIAN MURARESKU: Good one.