Copyright 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College. So I was obsessed with this stuff from the moment I picked up an article in The Economist called the God Pill back in 2007. Maybe I'm afraid I'll take the psychedelic and I won't have what is reported in the literature from Hopkins and NYU. CHARLES STANG: Thank you, Brian. I mean, about 25 years ago, actually. The Tim Ferriss Show. 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. I think the only big question is what the exact relationship was from a place like that over to Eleusis. That's just everlasting. Because again, when I read the clinical literature, I'm reading things that look like mystical experiences, or that at least at least sound like them. Klaus Schmidt, who was with the German Archaeological Institute, called this a sanctuary and called these T-shaped pillars representations of gods. Amongst all the mystery religions, Eleusis survives. First I'll give the floor to Brian to walk us into this remarkable book of his and the years of hard work that went into it, what drove him to do this. 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. 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. Now, let's get started, Brian. 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? 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. There were formula. Brian C. Muraresku (@BrianMuraresku) / Twitter 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 . The same Rome that circumstantially shows up, and south of Rome, where Constantine would build his basilicas in Naples and Capua later on. At Cambridge University he worked in developmental biolo. I would expect we'd have ample evidence. An Exploration of Religion: An Interview with Brian Muraresku Because they talk about everything else that they take issue with. What is its connection to Eleusis? No one lived there. So there's lots of interesting details here that filter through. CHARLES STANG: We've really read Jesus through the lens of his Greek inheritors. Is there a smoking gun? And very famous passages, by the way, that should be familiar to most New Testament readers. What's significant about these features for our piecing together the ancient religion with no name? Do you think that by calling the Eucharist a placebo that you're likely to persuade them? And maybe in these near-death experiences we begin to actually experience that at a visceral level. David Wakefield - President - Wakefield Enterprises, LLC | LinkedIn 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. I mean, so it was Greek. CHARLES STANG: OK. Now let's move into the Greek mystery. He draws on the theory of "pagan continuity," which holds that early Christianity adopted . You also find a Greek hearth inside this sanctuary. Now, Mithras is another one of these mystery religions. And so in my afterword, I present this as a blip on the archaeochemical radar. It's a big question for me. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian You may have already noticed one such question-- not too hard. Now you're a good sport, Brian. 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 does it line up with the promise from John's gospel that anyone who drinks this becomes instantly immortal? 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. I imagine there are many more potion makers around than we typically recognize. The continuity between pagan and Christian cult nearby the archaeological area of Naquane in Capo di Ponte. So I point to that evidence as illustrative of the possibility that the Christians could, in fact, have gotten their hands on an actual wine. 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. Did the ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And there were probably other Eleusises like that to the east. And what about the alleged democratization with which you credit the mysteries of Dionysus, or the role of women in that movement? There's all kinds of reasons I haven't done it. McGovern also finds wine from Egypt, for example, in 3150 BC, wine that is mixed with a number of interesting ingredients. And her best guess is that it was like this open access sanctuary. What's the importance of your abstention from psychedelics, given what is obvious interest. It was one of the early write-ups of the psilocybin studies coming out of Johns Hopkins. Because at my heart, I still consider myself a good Catholic boy. Now, Carl Ruck from Boston University, much closer to home, however, took that invitation and tried to pursue this hypothesis. 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. #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 yet I talked to an atheist who has one experience with psilocybin and is immediately bathed in God's love. The Tim Ferriss Show - #535: General Stanley McChrystal Mast So. Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. [1] According to this theory, older adults try to maintain this continuity of lifestyle by adapting strategies that are connected to their past experiences. They did not. But clearly, when you're thinking about ancient Egypt or elsewhere, there's definitely a funerary tradition. This time, tonight I'll say that it's just not my time yet. I expect there will be. When you start testing, you find things. The continuity hypothesis of dreams suggests that the content of dreams are largely continuous with waking concepts and concerns of the dreamer. Psychedelics Today: Mark Plotkin - Bio-Cultural Conservation of the Amazon. So it's hard for me to write this and talk about this without acknowledging the Jesuits who put me here. And I think we get hung up on the jargon. What does ergotized beer in Catalonia have anything to do with the Greek mysteries at Eleusis? So now it's true that these heresy hunters show an interest in this love potion. And so I can see psychedelics being some kind of extra sacramental ministry that potentially could ease people at the end of life. Pagan Continuity and Christian Attitudes: When did Paganism End? Now we're getting somewhere. From about 1500 BC to the fourth century AD, it calls to the best and brightest of not just Athens but also Rome. 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? For me, that's a question, and it will yield more questions. President and CEO, First Southeast Financial Corp and First Federal Savings and Loan Director, Carolina First Bank and The South Financial Group But what I see are potential and possibilities and things worthy of discussions like this. 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. For those who didn't have the time or the money or the temerity to travel all the way to Eleusis from Spain, here's your off-site campus, right? I think psychedelics are just one piece of the puzzle. What was the real religion of the ancient Greeks? I appreciate this. And I got to say, there's not a heck of a lot of eye rolling, assuming people read my afterword and try to see how careful I am about delineating what is knowable and what is not and what this means for the future of religion. But I don't understand how that provides any significant link to paleo-Christian practice. BRIAN MURARESKU: Now we're cooking with grease, Dr. Stang. And I don't know what that looks like. Now, I've never done them myself, but I have talked to many, many people who've had experience with psychedelics. So why the silence from the heresiologists on a psychedelic sacrament? BRIAN MURARESKU: It just happens to show up. There was an absence of continuity in the direction of the colony as Newport made his frequent voyages to and . The kind of mysticism I've always been attracted to, like the rule of Saint Benedict and the Trappist monks and the Cistercian monks. It pushes back the archaeology on some of this material a full 12,000 years. And as a lawyer, I know what is probative and what's circumstantial evidence, and I just-- I don't see it there. I know that's another loaded phrase. And this is at a time when we're still hunting and gathering. Here's your Western Eleusis. Which is a very weird thing today. 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. I might forward the proposition that I don't think the early church fathers were the best botanists. And inside that beer was all kinds of vegetable matter, like wheat, oats, and sedge and lily and flax and various legumes. "The Jews" are not after Ye. So that's something else to look into. And her answer was that they'd all been cleaned or treated for conservation purposes. A rebirth into a new conception of the self, the self's relationship to things that are hard to define, like God. Here's another one. And I'm happy to see we have over 800 people present for this conversation. If we're being honest with ourselves, when you've drunk-- and I've drunk that wine-- I didn't necessarily feel that I'd become one with Jesus. The phrasing used in the book and by others is "the pagan continuity hypothesis". I wonder if you're familiar with Wouter Hanegraaff at the University of Amsterdam. I mean, that's obviously the big question, and what that means for the future of medicine and religion and society at large. And I don't know if there's other examples of such things. Now, I've had experiences outside the Eucharist that resonate with me. Because for many, many years, you know, Ruck's career takes a bit of a nosedive. Brian C. Muraresku - Priory Of Sion He has talked about the potential evidence for psychedelics in a Mithras liturgy. The big question is, did any of these recipes, did any of this wine spiking actually make its way into some paleo-Christian ceremony. 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. 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. 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 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. Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and - TopPodcast And for those of you who have found my line of questioning or just my general presence tedious, first of all, I fully appreciate that reaction. But even if they're telling the truth about this, even if it is accurate about Marcus that he used a love potion, a love potion isn't a Eucharist. 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. 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 Maybe there's some residual fear that's been built up in me. And even in the New Testament, you'll see wine spiked with myrrh, for example, that's served to Jesus at his crucifixion. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. 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. And I think we're getting there. 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". The Continuity Hypothesis was put forward by John Bowlby (1953) as a critical effect of attachments in his development of Attachment Theory. So frankly, what happens during the Neolithic, we don't know, at least from a scientific vantage. So we move now into ancient history, but solidly into the historical record, however uneven that historical record is. And I-- in my profession, we call this circumstantial, and I get it. So if you don't think that you are literally consuming divine blood, what is the point of religion? But I'm pressing you because that's my job. The divine personage in whom this cult centered was the Magna Mater Deum who was conceived as the source of all life as well as the personification of all the powers of nature.\[Footnote:] Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration, p. 114.\ 7 She was the "Great Mother" not only "of all the gods," but of all men" as well. And then at some point they go inland. Maybe there's a spark of the divine within. In fact, he found beer, wine, and mead all mixed together in a couple of different places. You mentioned there were lots of dead ends, and there certainly were. Jerry Brown wrote a good review that should be read to put the book in its proper place. Maybe part of me is skeptical, right? 8 "The winds, the sea . 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. CHARLES STANG: Well, Mr, Muraresku, you are hedging your bets here in a way that you do not necessarily hedge your bets in the book. 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? I'll invite him to think about the future of religion in light of all this. Perhaps more generally, you could just talk about other traditions around the Mediterranean, North African, or, let's even say Judaism. He's joining us from Uruguay, where he has wisely chosen to spend his pandemic isolation. 18.3C: Continuity Theory - Social Sci LibreTexts These sources suggest a much greater degree of continuity with pre-Christian values and practice than the writings of more . That also only occurs in John, another epithet of Dionysus. 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. Its proponents maintain that the affable, plump old fellow associated with Christmas derives from the character of Arctic medical practitioners. I don't think we have found it. But Egypt seems to not really be hugely relevant to the research. 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." 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. And I've listened to the volunteers who've gone through these experiences. So don't feel like you have to go into great depth at this point. And so with a revised ancient history, in place Brian tacks back to the title of our series, Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. The universality of frontiers, however, made the hypothesis readily extendable to other parts of the globe. 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. The answer seems to be connected to psychedelic drugs. Where does Western civilization come from? And what you're referring to is-- and how I begin the book is this beautiful Greek phrase, [SPEAKING GREEK]. And the big question is, what is this thing doing there in the middle of nowhere? If you die before you die, you won't die when you die. What was discovered, as far as I can tell, from your treatment of it, is essentially an ancient pharmacy in this house. These Native American church and the UDV, both some syncretic form of Christianity. 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. So I spent 12 years looking for that data, eventually found it, of all places, in Catalonia in Spain in this 635-page monograph that was published in 2002 and for one reason or another-- probably because it was written in Catalan-- was not widely reported to the academic community and went largely ignored.