pagan continuity hypothesis

I'm skeptical, Dr. Stang. I mean, what-- my big question is, what can we say about the Eucharist-- and maybe it's just my weird lens, but what can we say about it definitively in the absence of the archaeochemstry or the archaeobotany? 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. Then I'll ask a series of questions that follow the course of his book, focusing on the different ancient religious traditions, the evidence for their psychedelic sacraments, and most importantly, whether and how the assembled evidence yields a coherent picture of the past. And I think what the pharmaceutical industry can do is help to distribute this medicine. Then there's what were the earliest Christians doing with the Eucharist. As much as we know about the mysteries of Eleusis. So this is interesting. And very famous passages, by the way, that should be familiar to most New Testament readers. Because my biggest question is, and the obvious question of the book is, if this was happening in antiquity, what does that mean for today? And I think there are lots of reasons to believe that. I'm happy to argue about that. So even from the very beginning, it wasn't just barley and water. BRIAN MURARESKU: Dr. Stang, an erudite introduction as ever. And Brian, once again, thank you so much. 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. And the big question for me was what was that something else? Hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data, I haven't seen it. Now, I don't put too much weight into that. CHARLES STANG: OK, great. 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. He decides to get people even more drunk. Do you think that by calling the Eucharist a placebo that you're likely to persuade them? By which I mean that the Gospel of John suggests that at the very least, the evangelist hoped to market Christianity to a pagan audience by suggesting that Jesus was somehow equivalent to Dionysus, and that the Eucharist, his sacrament of wine, was equivalent to Dionysus's wine. You mentioned, too, early churchmen, experts in heresies by the name of Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome. 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. And I don't know what that looks like. And her answer was that they'd all been cleaned or treated for conservation purposes. It's a big question for me. And that that's how I-- and by not speculating more than we can about the mystical supper, if we follow the hypothesis that this is a big if for some early communities of Greek speakers, this is how I'm finding common ground with priests both Catholic and Orthodox and Protestants. I have a deep interest in mysticism, and I've had mystical experiences, which I don't think are very relevant. #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 Brought to you by GiveWell.org charity research and effective giving and 5-Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter. So that's from Burkert, a very sober scholar and the dean of all scholarship on Greek religion. So somewhere between 1% and 49%. I'm paraphrasing this one. 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. 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. And her best guess is that it was like this open access sanctuary. We have plays like the Bacchi from Euripides, where we can piece together some of this. In this hypothesis, both widely accepted and widely criticized,11 'American' was synonymous with 'North American'. Thank you for that. The universality of frontiers, however, made the hypothesis readily extendable to other parts of the globe. And when I started to get closer into the historical period-- this is all prehistory. I appreciate this. 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. It pushes back the archaeology on some of this material a full 12,000 years. 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. CHARLES STANG: I do, too. And I think that's an important distinction to make. He's talking about kind of psychedelic wine. Then what was the Gospel of John, how did it interpret the Eucharist and market it, and so on. Its proponents maintain that the affable, plump old fellow associated with Christmas derives from the character of Arctic medical practitioners. 1,672. 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. I'm not sure many have. [1] According to this theory, older adults try to maintain this continuity of lifestyle by adapting strategies that are connected to their past experiences. Like the wedding at Cana, which my synopsis of that event is a drunkard getting a bunch of drunk people even more drunk. Love potions, love charms, they're very common in the ancient. 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. So whatever was happening there was important. Psychedelics Today: Mark Plotkin - Bio-Cultural Conservation of the Amazon. A rebirth into what? "@BrianMuraresku with @DocMarkPlotkin The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, Lessons from Scholar Karen Armstrong, and Much More" Please enjoy! The Immortality Key, The Secret History of the Religion With No Name. And so I can see psychedelics being some kind of extra sacramental ministry that potentially could ease people at the end of life. CHARLES STANG: Brian, I want to thank you for your time. In fact, he found beer, wine, and mead all mixed together in a couple of different places. And please just call me Charlie. 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?". Now, I mentioned that Brian and I had become friends. Now that doesn't mean, as Brian was saying, that then suggests that that's the norm Eucharist. OK, now, Brian, you've probably dealt with questions like this. 18.3C: Continuity Theory. It's not just Cana. I am excited . So that's something else to look into. All he says is that these women and Marcus are adding drugs seven times in a row into whatever potion this is they're mixing up. The question is, what will happen in the future. Now, I have no idea where it goes from here, or if I'll take it myself. I write it cognizant of the fact that the Eucharist doesn't work for many, many people. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm bringing more illumination. 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? 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? Do you think that the Christians as a nascent cult adapted a highly effective psycho technology that was rattling . And for some reason, I mean, I'd read that two or three times as an undergrad and just glossed over that line. 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. They're mixing potions. What about all these early Christians themselves as essentially Jews? Because at my heart, I still consider myself a good Catholic boy. We have other textual evidence. I want to thank you for putting up with me and my questions. And this is what I present to the world. If you die before you die, you won't die when you die. But what we do know about the wine of the time is that it was routinely mixed with plants and herbs and potentially fungi. 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. 283. I know that's another loaded phrase. And she talks about kind of being born again, another promise from John's gospel. And nor do I think that you can characterize southern Italy as ground zero for the spirit of Greek mysticism, or however you put it. Those of you who don't know his name, he's a professor at the University of Amsterdam, an expert in Western esotericism. let's take up your invitation and move from Dionysus to early Christianity. . 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. That event is already up on our website and open for registration. Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. What the Greeks were actually saying there is that it was barley infected with ergot, which is this natural fungus that infects cereal crops. [texts-excerpt] penalty for cutting mangroves in floridaFREE EstimateFREE Estimate You obviously think these are powerful substances with profound effects that track with reality. I wish the church fathers were better botanists and would rail against the specific pharmacopeia. BRIAN MURARESKU:: It's a simple formula, Charlie. Others find it in different ways, but the common denominator seems to be one of these really well-curated near-death experiences. Is this only Marcus? 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. I think the wine certainly does. would certainly appreciate. Lots of Greek artifacts, lots of Greek signifiers. 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. It's not the case in the second century. he goes out on a limb and says that black nightshade actually causes [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH], which is not unpleasant visions, i.e. I mean, this really goes to my deep skepticism. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. It's arguably not the case in the third century. 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 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. The actual key that I found time and again in looking at this literature and the data is what seems to be happening here is the cultivation of a near-death experience. 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. There have been breakthroughs, too, which no doubt kept Brian going despite some skepticism from the academy, to say the least. McGovern also finds wine from Egypt, for example, in 3150 BC, wine that is mixed with a number of interesting ingredients. I include that line for a reason. So I present this as proof of concept, and I heavily rely on the Gospel of John and the data from Italy because that's what was there. And I answer it differently every single time. Now you're a good sport, Brian. Now, I've never done them myself, but I have talked to many, many people who've had experience with psychedelics. They linked the idea of witches to an imagined organized sect which was a danger to the Christian commonwealth. I see a huge need and a demand for young religious clergy to begin taking a look at this stuff. 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]. And so with a revised ancient history, in place Brian tacks back to the title of our series, Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. And inside that beer was all kinds of vegetable matter, like wheat, oats, and sedge and lily and flax and various legumes. And I think that that's the real question here. And so I do see an avenue, like I kind of obliquely mentioned, but I do think there's an avenue within organized religion and for people who dedicate their lives as religious professionals to ministry to perhaps take a look at this in places where it might work. And I think there are so many sites and excavations and so many chalices that remain to be tested. Was there any similarity from that potion to what was drunk at Eleusis? Here's another one. 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. We're going to get there very soon. They did not. 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. Is there a smoking gun? Where you find the grain, you may have found ergot. This notion in John 15:1, the notion of the true vine, for example, only occurs in John. And how can you reasonably expect the church to recognize a psychedelic Eucharist? 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? These mysteries had at their center a sacrament called kykeon, which offered a vision of the mysteries of life and death. If your history is even remotely correct, that would have ushered in a very different church, if Valentinus's own student Marcus and the Marcosians were involved in psychedelic rituals, then that was an early road not taken, let's say. So how to put this? 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. And by the way, I'm not here trying to protect Christianity from the evidence of psychedelic use. Now the archaeologist of that site says-- I'm quoting from your book-- "For me, the Villa Vesuvio was a small farm that was specifically designed for the production of drugs." The altar had been sitting in a museum in Israel since the 1960s and just hadn't been tested. There's no mistake in her mind that it was Greek. 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 . 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 I am so fortunate to have been selected to present my thesis, "Mythology and Psychedelics: Taking the Pagan Continuity Hypothesis a Step Further" at. And what the FDA can do is make sure that they're doing it in a way that it's absolutely safe and efficacious. . It's really quite simple, Charlie. The Continuity Hypothesis was put forward by John Bowlby (1953) as a critical effect of attachments in his development of Attachment Theory. 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. I would have been happy to find a spiked wine anywhere. 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. Copyright 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name. So imagine how many artifacts are just sitting in museums right now, waiting to be tested. Is taking all these disciplines, whether it's your discipline or archaeochemistry or hard core botany, biology, even psychopharmacology, putting it all together and taking a look at this mystery, this puzzle, using the lens of psychedelics as a lens, really, to investigate not just the past but the future and the mystery of human consciousness. What was the wine in the early Eucharist? CHARLES STANG: I have one more question about the pre-Christian story, and that has to do with that the other mystery religion you give such attention to. What was discovered, as far as I can tell, from your treatment of it, is essentially an ancient pharmacy in this house. You also find a Greek hearth inside this sanctuary. Maybe I have that wrong. So there's lots of interesting details here that filter through. I mean, lots of great questions worthy of further investigation. 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. So I think it's really interesting details here worth following up on. He has talked about the potential evidence for psychedelics in a Mithras liturgy. BRIAN MURARESKU: Great question. It tested positive for the microscopic remains of beer and also ergot, exactly the hypothesis that had been put forward in 1978 by the disgraced professor across town from you, Carl Ruck, who's now 85 years old, by the way. Here's the proof of concept. So there's a whole slew of sites I want to test there. It is my great pleasure to welcome Brian Muraresku to the Center. And I think we get hung up on the jargon. CHARLES STANG: OK. Now let's move into the Greek mystery. And this is at a time when we're still hunting and gathering. So I see-- you're moving back and forth between these two. CHARLES STANG: OK. And not least because if I were to do it, I'd like to do so in a deeply sacred ritual. Books about pagan continuity hypothesis? What was the real religion of the ancient Greeks? Not in every single case, obviously. 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. Why don't we turn the tables and ask you what questions you think need to be posed? Interesting. And it seems to me that if any of this is right, that whatever was happening in ancient Greece was a transformative experience for which a lot of thought and preparation went into. club mtv dancers names, can you wear polka dots to a fall wedding, treewalker treestands out of business,

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