pagan continuity hypothesis
IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. 48:01 Brian's psychedelic experiences . Let's move to early Christian. Now-- and I think that we can probably concede that. And does it line up with the promise from John's gospel that anyone who drinks this becomes instantly immortal? And so for me, this was a hunt through the catacombs and archives and libraries, doing my sweet-talking, and trying to figure out what was behind some of those locked doors. And very famous passages, by the way, that should be familiar to most New Testament readers. And what does this earliest history tell us about the earliest evidence for an ancient psychedelic religion? So this is interesting. They were relevant to me in going down this rabbit hole. difficult to arrive at any conclusive hypothesis. To be a Catholic is to believe that you are literally consuming the blood of Christ to become Christ. So if you were a mystic and you were into Demeter and Persephone and Dionysus and you were into these strange Greek mystery cults, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better place to spend your time than [SPEAKING GREEK], southern Italy, which in some cases was more Greek than Greek. 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. But curiously, it's evidence for a eye ointment which is supposed to induce visions and was used as part of a liturgy in the cult of Mithras. I would expect we'd have ample evidence. Although she's open to testing, there was nothing there. Did the Early Church Use Psychedelics? - Substack And that's the mysteries of Dionysus. The Tim Ferriss Show - Transcripts I write it cognizant of the fact that the Eucharist doesn't work for many, many people. 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. It was a pilgrimage site. You mentioned there were lots of dead ends, and there certainly were. 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. Psychedelics Today: Mark Plotkin - Bio-Cultural Conservation of the Amazon. And part of me really wants to put all these pieces together before I dive in. Many people see that as symbolic or allegorical or just a nice thing, which is not the case. Maybe part of me is skeptical, right? CHARLES STANG: I do, too. Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. No one lived there. In this way, the two traditions coexisted in a syncretic form for some time before . That is about the future rather than the ancient history. The Immortality Key, The Secret History of the Religion With No Name. Now, I think you answered that last part. But I think there's a decent scientific foothold to begin that work. And I think oversight also comes in handy within organized religion. He's talking about kind of psychedelic wine. 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. The universality of frontiers, however, made the hypothesis readily extendable to other parts of the globe. I'm paraphrasing this one. 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]. Hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data, I haven't seen it. That's staying within the field of time. We're going to get there very soon. 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. The most colorful theory of psychedelics in religion portrays the original Santa Claus as a shaman. This limestone altar tested positive for cannabis and frankincense that was being burned, they think, in a very ritualistic way. So I have my concerns about what's about to happen in Oregon and the regulation of psilocybin for therapeutic purposes. Now, I have no idea where it goes from here, or if I'll take it myself. So this is the tradition, I can say with a straight face, that saved my life. Then what was the Gospel of John, how did it interpret the Eucharist and market it, and so on. BRIAN MURARESKU: Good one. And she talks about kind of being born again, another promise from John's gospel. That there is no hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data for spiked beer, spiked wine. So what do we know about those rituals? Just imagine, I have to live with me. 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. Dogs, indicative of the Greek goddess Hecate, who, amongst other things was known as the [GREEK], the dog eater. And Hofmann famously discovers-- or synthesizes LSD from ergot in 1938. And I'm not even sure what that piece looks like or how big it is. That's the big question. [1] According to this theory, older adults try to maintain this continuity of lifestyle by adapting strategies that are connected to their past experiences. And in his book [? The altar had been sitting in a museum in Israel since the 1960s and just hadn't been tested. So, although, I mean, and that actually, I'd like to come back to that, the notion of the, that not just the pagan continuity hypothesis, but the mystery continuity hypothesis through the Vatican. They're mixing potions. Research inside the Church of Saint Faustina and Liberata Fig 1. So what evidence can you provide for that claim? Before the church banned their use, early Christians used - Substack And I think what the pharmaceutical industry can do is help to distribute this medicine. That event is already up on our website and open for registration. Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and - TopPodcast 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? If you die before you die, you won't die when you die. 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. So can you reflect for us where you really are and how you chose to write this book? This an absolute masterclass on why you must know your identity and goals before forming a habit, what the best systems are for habit. #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 Jerry Brown wrote a good review that should be read to put the book in its proper place. I mean, this is what I want to do with some of my remaining days on this planet, is take a look at all these different theories. And if the latter, do you think there's a good chance that religions will adopt psychedelics back into their rituals?". First, the continuity of the offices must be seen in light of the change of institutional charges; they had lost their religious connotations and had become secular. #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 from The Tim Ferriss Show on Podchaser, aired Wednesday, 28th December 2022. But the next event in this series will happen sooner than that. And if there's historical precedent for it, all the more so. 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. he goes out on a limb and says that black nightshade actually causes [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH], which is not unpleasant visions, i.e. We still have almost 700 with us. What the Greeks were actually saying there is that it was barley infected with ergot, which is this natural fungus that infects cereal crops. Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. OK. Now let's pan back because, we have-- I want to wrap up my interrogation of you, which I've been pressing you, but I feel as if perhaps people joining me think I'm hostile to this hypothesis. 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. He has talked about the potential evidence for psychedelics in a Mithras liturgy. 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 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. Brian's thesis, that of the Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, was explored by Alexander Hislop in his "The Two Babylons", 1853, as a Protestant treatise in the spirit of Martin Luther as Alexander too interjects the Elusinian Mysteries. Thank you. But I do want to push back a little bit on the elevation of this particular real estate in southern Italy. #649: Rick Rubin, Legendary Music Producer The Creative Act Here's the proof of concept. 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? That would require an entirely different kind of evidence. CHARLES STANG: Right. But please do know that we will forward all these questions to Brian so he will know the sorts of questions his work prompts. These are famous figures to those of us who study early Christianity. So let's talk about the future of religion, and specifically the future of Roman Catholicism. Now, here's-- let's tack away from hard, scientific, archaeobotanical evidence for a moment. 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. Thank you for that. This is true. 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. 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. 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. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian And to be quite honest, I'd never studied the ancient Greeks in Spain. I mean, lots of great questions worthy of further investigation. And that's what I get into in detail in the book. I mean, the honest answer is not much. And shouldn't we all be asking that question? You obviously think these are powerful substances with profound effects that track with reality. I understand more papers are about to be published on this. The Immortality Key - Book Review and Discussion - Were early - Reddit We don't have to look very hard to find that. And it was the Jesuits who encouraged me to always, always ask questions and never take anything at face value. Where are the drugs? What does God mean? So that's something else to look into. [2] All episodes of The Tim Ferriss Show - Chartable And you find terracotta heads that could or could not be representative of Demeter and Persephone, the two goddesses to whom the mysteries of Eleusis were dedicated. And I hear-- I sense that narrative in your book. 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. The phrasing used in the book and by others is "the pagan continuity hypothesis". 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 . 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. And so I don't think that psychedelics are coming to replace the Sunday Eucharist. 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. 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. A rebirth into a new conception of the self, the self's relationship to things that are hard to define, like God. So. . It's some kind of wine-based concoction, some kind of something that is throwing these people into ecstasy. What Brian labels the religion with no name. 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 . That's just everlasting. CHARLES STANG: We're often in this situation where we're trying to extrapolate from evidence from Egypt, to see is Egypt the norm or is it the exception? 55 This is very likely as it seems that the process had already started in the 4th century. This two-part discussion between Muraresku and Dr. Plotkin examines the role psychedelics have played in the development of Western civilization. Even a little bit before Gobekli Tepe, there was another site unearthed relatively recently in Israel, at the Rakefet cave. What about all these early Christians themselves as essentially Jews? So Plato, Pindar, Sophocles, all the way into Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, it's an important thing. 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. And I started reading the studies from Pat McGovern at the University of Pennsylvania. But let me say at the outset that it is remarkably learned, full of great historical and philological detail. Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis - ResearchGate 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 Dionysus is not the god of alcohol. I don't know why it's happening now, but we're finally taking a look. It was one of the early write-ups of the psilocybin studies coming out of Johns Hopkins. And I think there are so many sites and excavations and so many chalices that remain to be tested. Maybe for those facing the end of life. And my favorite line of the book is, "The lawyer in me won't sleep until that one chalice, that one container, that one vessel comes to light in an unquestionable Christian context.". CHARLES STANG: You know, Valentinus was almost elected bishop of Rome. The only reason I went to college was to study classics. I see it as-- well, OK, I'd see it as within a minority. Certainly these early churchmen used whatever they could against the forms of Christian practice they disapproved of, especially those they categorized as Gnostic. They were mixed or fortified. Eusebius, third into the fourth century, is also talking about them-- it's a great Greek word, [SPEAKING GREEK]. And nor did we think that a sanctuary would be one of the first things that we construct. So it's hard for me to write this and talk about this without acknowledging the Jesuits who put me here. What was the real religion of the ancient Greeks? So the Eastern Aegean. I mean, I think the book makes it clear. It's not the case in the second century. 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. The continuity theory proposes that older adults maintain the same activities, behaviors, personalities, and relationships of the past. Frankly, if you ask the world's leading archaeobotanists and archaeochemists, where's the spiked beer and where's the spiked wine, which I've been doing since about 2007, 2008, the resounding answer you'll get back from everybody is a resounding no. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. And I wonder and I question how we can keep that and retain that for today. He co-writes that with Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann, who famously-- there it is, the three authors. But you will be consoled to know that someone else will be-- I will be there, but someone else will be leading that conversation. And then that's the word that Euripides uses, by the way. Brian is the author of a remarkable new book that has garnered a lot of attention and has sold a great many copies. Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. would certainly appreciate. For me, that's a question, and it will yield more questions. And then was, in some sense, the norm, the original Eucharist, and that it was then suppressed by orthodox, institutional Christianity, who persecuted, especially the women who were the caretakers of this tradition. Again, how did Christianity take hold in a world with such a rich mystical tradition? Like the wedding at Cana, which my synopsis of that event is a drunkard getting a bunch of drunk people even more drunk. There have been breakthroughs, too, which no doubt kept Brian going despite some skepticism from the academy, to say the least. We know from the literature hundreds of years beforehand that in Elis, for example, in the Western Peloponnese, on the same Epiphany-type timeline, January 5, January 6, the priests would walk into the temple of Dionysus, leave three basins of water, the next morning they're miraculously transformed into wine. After the first few chapters the author bogs down flogging the Pagan Continuity Hypothesis and exulting over his discovery of small scraps of evidence he found in a decade of research. And so even within the New Testament you see little hints and clues that there was no such thing as only ordinary table wine. President and CEO, First Southeast Financial Corp and First Federal Savings and Loan Director, Carolina First Bank and The South Financial Group The Continuity Hypothesis of Dreams: A More Balanced Account 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. Thank you all for joining us, and I hope to see many of you later this month for our next event. CHARLES STANG: All right. So your presentation of early Christianity inclines heavily toward the Greek world. Here's the big question. Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin: The Eleusinian Mysteries Copyright 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name. Not just in Italy, but as kind of the headquarters for the Mediterranean. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name I'm not. And her answer was that they'd all been cleaned or treated for conservation purposes. Oh, I hope I haven't offended you, Brian. Well, let's get into it then. "Pagan" and "Christian" Marriage: The State of the Question 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. 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 performers from eclectic areas (investing, chess, pro sports, etc . But this clearly involved some kind of technical know-how and the ability to concoct these things that, in order to keep them safe and efficacious, would not have been very widespread, I don't think. Perhaps more generally, you could just talk about other traditions around the Mediterranean, North African, or, let's even say Judaism. Because every time I think about ancient wine, I am now immediately thinking about wine that is spiked. Not much. I'd never thought before about how Christianity developed as an organized religion in the centuries after Jesus' murder. It pushes back the archaeology on some of this material a full 12,000 years. And what we know about the wine of the time is that it was prized amongst other things not for its alcoholic content, but for its ability to induce madness. 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 I look forward to talking about this event with you after the fact eventually over a beer. And besides that, young Brian, let's keep the mysteries mysteries. Maybe I'm afraid I'll take the psychedelic and I won't have what is reported in the literature from Hopkins and NYU. Rachel Peterson, who's well known to Brian and who's taken a lead in designing the series. 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. In the afterword, you champion the fact that we stand on the cusp of a new era of psychedelics precisely because they can be synthesized and administered safely in pill form, back to The Economist article "The God Pill". And apparently, the book is on order, so I can't speak to this directly, but the ancient Greek text that preserves this liturgy also preserves the formula, the ingredients of the eye ointment.
