Maybe I'm afraid I'll take the psychedelic and I won't have what is reported in the literature from Hopkins and NYU. 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. Psychedelics are a lens to investigate this stuff. Before the church banned their use, early Christians used - Substack Now, it's just an early indication and there's more testing to be done. That is, by giving, by even floating the possibility of this kind of-- at times, what seems like a Dan Brown sort of story, like, oh my god, there's a whole history of Christianity that's been suppressed-- draws attention, but the real point is actually that you're not really certain about the story, but you're certain is that we need to be more attentive to this evidence and to assess it soberly. 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'm sure he knows this well, by this point. Now is there any evidence for psychedelic use in ancient Egypt, and if not, do you have any theory as to why that's silent? The book proposes a history of religious ritualistic psychedelic use at least as old as the ancient Greek mystery religions, especially those starting in Eleusis and dating to roughly 2,000 BC. So if we can test Eucharistic vessels, I wouldn't be surprised at all that we find one. Brought to you by So how exactly is this evidence of something relevant to Christianity in Rome or southern Italy more widely? If the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? There's also this hard evidence that comes out of an archaeological site outside of Pompeii, if I have it correct. 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? That would require an entirely different kind of evidence. I wish the church fathers were better botanists and would rail against the specific pharmacopeia. Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and - Podchaser And part of me really wants to put all these pieces together before I dive in. Others find it in different ways, but the common denominator seems to be one of these really well-curated near-death experiences. Origin of the Romanians - Wikipedia It's arguably not the case in the third century. And I don't know if there's other examples of such things. What Brian labels the religion with no name. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. 474, ?] And they found this site, along with others around the Mediterranean. We know that at the time of Jesus, before, during, and after, there were recipes floating around. So here's a question for you. I want to thank you for putting up with me and my questions. 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. Thank you all for joining us, and I hope to see many of you later this month for our next event. And the reason I find that a worthy avenue of pursuit is because when you take a step back and look at the Greek of the Gospels, especially the Greek of John, which is super weird, what I see based on Dennis MacDonald's scholarship that you mentioned-- and others-- when you do the exegesis of John's gospel, there's just lots of vocabulary and lots of imagery that doesn't appear elsewhere. So thank you, all who have hung with us. Psychedelics Today: Mark Plotkin - Bio-Cultural Conservation of the Amazon. And Ruck, and you following Ruck, make much of this, suggesting maybe the Gnostics are pharmacologists of some kind. 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. Now-- and I think that we can probably concede that. And even Burkert, I think, calls it the most famous of the mystery rituals. I know that that's a loaded phrase. And all we know-- I mean, we can't decipher sequence by sequence what was happening. He's joining us from Uruguay, where he has wisely chosen to spend his pandemic isolation. I'm skeptical, Dr. Stang. 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. Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. We're going to get there very soon. The Tim Ferriss Show - #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin There was an absence of continuity in the direction of the colony as Newport made his frequent voyages to and . 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. So somewhere between 1% and 49%. 44:48 Psychedelics and ancient cave art . There have been breakthroughs, too, which no doubt kept Brian going despite some skepticism from the academy, to say the least. So, you know, I specifically wanted to avoid heavily relying on the 52 books of the [INAUDIBLE] corpus or heavily relying too much on the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the evidence that's come from Egypt. All rights reserved. Do you think that the Christians as a nascent cult adapted a highly effective psycho technology that was rattling . Two Reviews of The Immortality Key - Graham Hancock But I don't understand how that provides any significant link to paleo-Christian practice. At Cambridge University he worked in developmental biolo. It draws attention to this material. If beer was there that long ago, what kind of beer was it? So the Greek god of wine, intoxication. You obviously think these are powerful substances with profound effects that track with reality. Samuel Zuschlag - Durham University - Charlotte, North - LinkedIn But we do know that something was happening. 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. 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 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. Are they rolling their eyes, or are you getting sort of secretive knowing nods of agreement? 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? Not because they just found that altar. 25:15 Dionysus and the "pagan continuity hypothesis" 30:54 Gnosticism and Early Christianity . That's only after Constantine. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. 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 So what do we know about those rituals? BRIAN MURARESKU:: It's a simple formula, Charlie. According to Muraresku, this work, BOOK REVIEW 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? Now I want to get to the questions, but one last question before we move to the discussion portion. Lots of Greek artifacts, lots of Greek signifiers. So I really follow the scholarship of Enriqueta Pons, who is the archaeologist on site there, at this Greek sanctuary that we're talking about in Catalonia, Mas Castellar des Pontos. Brought to you by GiveWell.org charity research and effective giving and 5-Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter.Welcome to The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is usually my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out their routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life. And anyone who drinks this, [SPEAKING GREEK], Jesus says in Greek, you remain in me and I in you. And if the latter, do you think there's a good chance that religions will adopt psychedelics back into their rituals?". 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. Which turns out, it may be they were. Even a little bit before Gobekli Tepe, there was another site unearthed relatively recently in Israel, at the Rakefet cave. BRIAN MURARESKU: I look forward to it, Charlie. I'm not. Its proponents maintain that the affable, plump old fellow associated with Christmas derives from the character of Arctic medical practitioners. So Dionysus is not the god of alcohol. Well, let's get into it then. I just sense a great deal of structure and thoughtfulness going into this experience. You become one with Christ by drinking that. 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. Books about pagan continuity hypothesis? Here is how I propose we are to proceed. Oh, I hope I haven't offended you, Brian. #283: Managing Procrastination, Predicting the Future, and - Scribd