But I don't understand how that provides any significant link to paleo-Christian practice. #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 So there's a whole slew of sites I want to test there. We have plays like the Bacchi from Euripides, where we can piece together some of this. To some degree, I think you're looking back to southern Italy from the perspective of the supremacy of Rome, which is not the case in the first century. And nor did we think that a sanctuary would be one of the first things that we construct. Hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data, I haven't seen it. 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. There's all kinds of reasons I haven't done it. Which, if you think about it, is a very elegant idea. 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. He co-writes that with Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann, who famously-- there it is, the three authors. It was the Jesuits who taught me Latin and Greek. To become truly immortal, Campbell talks about entering into a sense of eternity, which is the infinite present here and now. That's our next event, and will be at least two more events to follow. BRIAN MURARESKU: OK. BRIAN MURARESKU: I look forward to it, Charlie. Here's the big question. I fully expect we will find it. 101. 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. And I want to ask you about specifically the Eleusinian mysteries, centered around the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. 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. Yeah. In the same place in and around Pompeii, this is where Christianity is really finding its roots. And that kind of invisible religion with no name, although brutally suppressed, managed to survive in Europe for many centuries and could potentially be revived today. This discussion on Febrary 1, 2021, between CSWR Director Charles Stang and Brian Muraresku about his new book, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name,a groundbreaking dive into the role of psychedelics in the ancient Mediterranean world. And I did not dare. And Brian, it would be helpful for me to know whether you are more interested in questions that take up the ancient world or more that deal with this last issue, the sort of contemporary and the future. So, I mean, my biggest question behind all of this is, as a good Catholic boy, is the 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. So here's a question for you. On Monday, February 22, we will be hosting a panel discussion taking up the question what is psychedelic chaplaincy. General Stanley McChrystal Mastering Risk: A User's Guide | Brought to you by Kettle & Fire high quality, tasty, and conveniently packaged bone broths; Eight Sleep. So in the mountains and forests from Greece to Rome, including the Holy Land and Galilee. 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? Who were the Saints? You also find a Greek hearth inside this sanctuary. Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages. Many people see that as symbolic or allegorical or just a nice thing, which is not the case. And so I cite a Pew poll, for example, that says something like 69% of American Catholics do not believe in transubstantiation, which is the defining dogma of the church, the idea that the bread and wine literally becomes the flesh and blood. Now you're a good sport, Brian. BRIAN MURARESKU: Great question. 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 Tim Ferriss Show #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin: The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, Psychedelics, and More. 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? 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 And there you also found mortars that were tested and also tested positive for evidence of brewing. 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 that's where oversight comes in handy. BRIAN MURARESKU: I would say I've definitely experienced the power of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. There's a good number of questions that are very curious why you are insisting on remaining a psychedelic virgin. You may have already noticed one such question-- not too hard. Brian has been very busy taking his new book on the road, of course, all online, and we're very grateful to him for taking the time to join us this evening. And I don't know what that looks like. And I write, at the very end of the book, I hope that they'd be proud of this investigation. So why do you think psychedelics are so significant that they might usher in a new Reformation? When Irenaeus is talking about [SPEAKING GREEK], love potions, again, we have no idea what the hell he's talking about. There's John Marco Allegro claiming that there was no Jesus, and this was just one big amanita muscaria cult. A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs, and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? And again, it survives, I think, because of that state support for the better part of 2,000 years. What about all these early Christians themselves as essentially Jews? What was being thrown into it? So what do we know about those rituals? So. I imagine there are many more potion makers around than we typically recognize. 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. But I think the broader question of what's the reception to this among explicitly religious folk and religious leaders? I mean, so it was Greek. 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. That's just everlasting. And that's not how it works today, and I don't think that's how it works in antiquity. And I describe that as somehow finding that key to immortality. And when Houston says something like that, it grabs the attention of a young undergrad a bit to your south in Providence, Rhode Island, who was digging into Latin and Greek and wondering what the heck this was all about. Richard Evans Schultes and the Search for Ayahuasca 17 days ago Plants of the Gods: S3E10. And then at some point they go inland. And what, if any, was the relationship between those ancient Greeks and the real religion of the earliest Christians, who might call the paleo-Christians. 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 even in the New Testament, you'll see wine spiked with myrrh, for example, that's served to Jesus at his crucifixion. So imagine how many artifacts are just sitting in museums right now, waiting to be tested. It was-- Eleusis was state-administered, a somewhat formal affair. What's different about the Dionysian mysteries, and what evidence, direct or indirect, do we have about the wine of Dionysus being psychedelic? He has talked about the potential evidence for psychedelics in a Mithras liturgy. 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. 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? CHARLES STANG: We've really read Jesus through the lens of his Greek inheritors. I mean, so Walter Burkert was part of the reason that kept me going on. So now it's true that these heresy hunters show an interest in this love potion. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm bringing more illumination. Here is how I propose we are to proceed. All rights reserved. And her best guess is that it was like this open access sanctuary. Are they rolling their eyes, or are you getting sort of secretive knowing nods of agreement? How does, in other words, how does religion sit with science? 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. Not much. This notion in John 15:1, the notion of the true vine, for example, only occurs in John. BRIAN MURARESKU: Now we're cooking with grease, Dr. Stang. But it was just a process of putting these pieces together that I eventually found this data from the site Mas Castellar des Pontos in Spain. I was satisfied with I give Brian Muraresku an "A" for enthusiasm, but I gave his book 2 stars. Because ergot is just very common. But in Pompeii, for example, there's the villa of the mysteries, one of these really breathtaking finds that also survived the ravage of Mount Vesuvius. And another: in defending the pagan continuity hypothesis, Muraresku presumes a somewhat non-Jewish, pagan-like Jesus, while ignoring the growing body of psychedelic literature, including works by . So this is the tradition, I can say with a straight face, that saved my life. Maybe there's some residual fear that's been built up in me. So welcome to the fourth event in our yearlong series on psychedelics and the future of religion, co-sponsored by the Esalen Institute, the Riverstyx Foundation, and the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. The Tim Ferriss Show. And when I read psychedelic literature or I read the literature on near-death experiences, I see experiences similar to what I experienced as a young boy. Thank you. CHARLES STANG: Yeah. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. In this way, the two traditions coexisted in a syncretic form for some time before . CHARLES STANG: OK. 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. And if the latter, do you think there's a good chance that religions will adopt psychedelics back into their rituals?". Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. Several theories address the issue of the origin of the Romanians.The Romanian language descends from the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken in the Roman provinces north of the "Jireek Line" (a proposed notional line separating the predominantly Latin-speaking territories from the Greek-speaking lands in Southeastern Europe) in Late Antiquity.The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the . Not just in Italy, but as kind of the headquarters for the Mediterranean. So Plato, Pindar, Sophocles, all the way into Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, it's an important thing. But unfortunately, it doesn't connect it to Christianity. And so that's what motivated my search here. The universality of frontiers, however, made the hypothesis readily extendable to other parts of the globe. And so even within the New Testament you see little hints and clues that there was no such thing as only ordinary table wine. They found a tiny chalice this big, dated to the second century BC. I'll invite him to think about the future of religion in light of all this. This an absolute masterclass on why you must know your identity and goals before forming a habit, what the best systems are for habit. The question is, what will happen in the future. A rebirth into a new conception of the self, the self's relationship to things that are hard to define, like God. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. So that's from Burkert, a very sober scholar and the dean of all scholarship on Greek religion. I want to thank you for your candor. Is this only Marcus? These are famous figures to those of us who study early Christianity. OK, now, Brian, you've probably dealt with questions like this. So the Greek god of wine, intoxication. 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. But the point being, the religion of brewing seems to pop up at the very beginning of civilization itself, or the very beginning of monumental engineering at this world's first sanctuary. Some number of people have asked about Egypt. 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. And I offer psychedelics as one of those archaic techniques of ecstasy that seems to have been relevant and meaningful to our ancestors. What was the wine in the early Eucharist? I write it cognizant of the fact that the Eucharist doesn't work for many, many people. That there is no hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data for spiked beer, spiked wine. 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 . This is going to be a question that's back to the ancient world. 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 I answer it differently every single time. You might find it in a cemetery in Mexico. That's one narrative that I feel is a little sensational. 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. But I don't hold-- I don't hang my hat on that claim. And I think there are so many sites and excavations and so many chalices that remain to be tested. 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. Now, Brian managed to write this book while holding down a full time practice in international law based in Washington DC. But with what were they mixed, and to what effect? Now we're getting somewhere. CHARLES STANG: Brian, I wonder if you could end by reflecting on the meaning of dying before you die. We call it ego dissolution, things of that nature. So I have my concerns about what's about to happen in Oregon and the regulation of psilocybin for therapeutic purposes. So why refrain? IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. And I look forward to talking about this event with you after the fact eventually over a beer. All that will be announced through our mailing list. And yet I talked to an atheist who has one experience with psilocybin and is immediately bathed in God's love. 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. 13,000 years old. So frankly, what happens during the Neolithic, we don't know, at least from a scientific vantage. And you're right. But I'm pressing you because that's my job. 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. 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? I'm skeptical, Dr. Stang. 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. CHARLES STANG: All right. To assess this hypothesis and, perhaps, to push it further, has required years of dogged and, at times, discouraging works in archives and archaeology. They were mixed or fortified. 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. Did the ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? Because at my heart, I still consider myself a good Catholic boy. It's interesting that Saint Ignatius of Antioch, in the beginning of the second century AD, refers to the wine of the Eucharist as the [SPEAKING GREEK], the drug of immortality. 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." 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? And the big question is, what is this thing doing there in the middle of nowhere? The long and short of it is, in 1978 there was no hard scientific data to prove this one way or the other. It still leaves an even bigger if, Dr. Stang, is which one is psychedelic? I've no doubt that Brian has unearthed and collected a remarkable body of evidence, but evidence of what, exactly? Which turns out, it may be they were. What was discovered, as far as I can tell, from your treatment of it, is essentially an ancient pharmacy in this house. 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. 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. This time, tonight I'll say that it's just not my time yet. Certainly these early churchmen used whatever they could against the forms of Christian practice they disapproved of, especially those they categorized as Gnostic. But you will be consoled to know that someone else will be-- I will be there, but someone else will be leading that conversation. Copyright 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College. 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. CHARLES STANG: Thank you, Brian. CHARLES STANG: OK, that is the big question. And inside that beer was all kinds of vegetable matter, like wheat, oats, and sedge and lily and flax and various legumes. 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.

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