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. That's the big question. So the Eastern Aegean. 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. And I think there are so many sites and excavations and so many chalices that remain to be tested. So there's lots of interesting details here that filter through. I will ask Brian to describe how he came to write this remarkable book, and the years of sleuthing and studying that went into it. And maybe therein we do since the intimation of immortality. Others find it in different ways, but the common denominator seems to be one of these really well-curated near-death experiences. Again, how did Christianity take hold in a world with such a rich mystical tradition? I understand more papers are about to be published on this. This book by Brian Muraresku, attempts to answer this question by delving into the history of ancient secret religions dating back thousands of years. 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 think it's proof of concept-- just proof of concept-- for investing serious funding, and attention into the actual search for these kinds of potions. And I describe that as somehow finding that key to immortality. The same Rome that circumstantially shows up, and south of Rome, where Constantine would build his basilicas in Naples and Capua later on. And then that's the word that Euripides uses, by the way. But I want to ask you to reflect on the broader narrative that you're painting, because I've heard you speak in two ways about the significance of this work. 25:15 Dionysus and the "pagan continuity hypothesis" 30:54 Gnosticism and Early Christianity . The pagan continuity hypothesis theorizes that when Christianity arrived in Greece around AD 49, it didn't suddenly replace the existing religion. You may have already noticed one such question-- not too hard. 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. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm bringing more illumination. A combination of psychoactive plants, including opium, cannabis, and nightshade, along with the remains of reptiles and amphibians all steeped in wine, like a real witch's brew, uncovered in this house outside of Pompeii. 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. And that's what I get into in detail in the book. 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". So the basic point being, as far as we can tell, beer and wine are routinely mixed with things that we don't do today. And what the FDA can do is make sure that they're doing it in a way that it's absolutely safe and efficacious. At Cambridge University he worked in developmental biolo. And when I started to get closer into the historical period-- this is all prehistory. It's arguably not the case in the third century. Please materialize. He co-writes that with Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann, who famously-- there it is, the three authors. And her answer was that they'd all been cleaned or treated for conservation purposes. So. If beer was there that long ago, what kind of beer was it? 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. The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: 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 (#646) - The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss 3 Annual "Best of" Apple Podcasts 900+ Million episodes downloaded BRIAN MURARESKU: That's a good question. Here's another one. 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. Lots of Greek artifacts, lots of Greek signifiers. But Egypt seems to not really be hugely relevant to the research. These two accuse one Gnostic teacher named Marcus-- who is himself a student of the famous theologian Valentinus-- they accuse him of dabbling in pharmacological devilry. I'm happy to be proven wrong. I wonder if you're familiar with Wouter Hanegraaff at the University of Amsterdam. This event is entitled, Psychedelics, The Ancient Religion With No Name? And I don't know if it's a genuine mystical experience or mystical mimetic or some kind of psychological breakthrough. Copyright 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College. CHARLES STANG: All right. difficult to arrive at any conclusive hypothesis. Do you think that the Christians as a nascent cult adapted a highly effective psycho technology that was rattling . In fact, he found beer, wine, and mead all mixed together in a couple of different places. 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. Like savory, wormwood, blue tansy, balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage, and thyme. 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. I know that that's a loaded phrase. 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. And anyone who drinks this, [SPEAKING GREEK], Jesus says in Greek, you remain in me and I in you. 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. So Plato, Pindar, Sophocles, all the way into Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, it's an important thing. I also sense another narrative in your book, and one you've flagged for us, maybe about 10 minutes ago, when you said that the book is a proof of concept. Now, Brian managed to write this book while holding down a full time practice in international law based in Washington DC. But things that sound intensely powerful. And what do you believe happens to you when you do that? 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. The most influential religious historian of the twentieth century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. And so that's what motivated my search here. And I answer it differently every single time. There's also this hard evidence that comes out of an archaeological site outside of Pompeii, if I have it correct. So the closer we get to the modern period, we're starting to find beer, wine mixed with interesting things. They linked the idea of witches to an imagined organized sect which was a danger to the Christian commonwealth. And I think what the pharmaceutical industry can do is help to distribute this medicine. And it was their claim that when the hymn to Demeter, one of these ancient records that records, in some form, the proto-recipe for this kykeon potion, which I call like a primitive beer, in the hymn to Demeter, they talk about ingredients like barley, water, and mint. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. One, on mainland Greece from the Mycenaean period, 16th century BC, and the other about 800 years later in modern day Turkey, another ritual potion that seemed to have suggested some kind of concoction of beer, wine, and mead that was used to usher the king into the afterlife. 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. The Continuity Hypothesis was put forward by John Bowlby (1953) as a critical effect of attachments in his development of Attachment Theory. And I'll just list them out quickly. Which, again, what I see are small groups of people getting together to commune with the dead. Certainly these early churchmen used whatever they could against the forms of Christian practice they disapproved of, especially those they categorized as Gnostic. Then I see the mysteries of Dionysus as kind of the Burning Man or the Woodstock of the ancient world. How does, in other words, how does religion sit with science? In this way, the two traditions coexisted in a syncretic form for some time before . So we're going down parallel paths here, and I feel we're caught between FDA-approved therapeutics and RFRA-protected sacraments, RFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or what becomes of these kinds of substances in any kind of legal format-- which they're not legal at the moment, some would argue. So if we can test Eucharistic vessels, I wouldn't be surprised at all that we find one. CHARLES STANG: Thank you, Brian. Again, if you're attracted to psychedelics, it's kind of an extreme thing, right? What's the wine? That's because Brian and I have become friends these past several months, and I'll have more to say about that in a moment. CHARLES STANG: OK, that is the big question. And I don't know what that looks like. I mean, lots of great questions worthy of further investigation. It was it was barley, water, and something else. So I'm not convinced that-- I think you're absolutely right that what this establishes is that Christians in southern Italy could have-- could have had access to the kinds of things that have been recovered from that drug farm, let's call it. Well, let's get into it then. 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. And the second act, the same, but for what you call paleo-Christianity, the evidence for your suspicion that the Eucharist was originally a psychedelic sacrament. They're mixing potions. The long and short of it is, in 1978 there was no hard scientific data to prove this one way or the other. Now that the pagan continuity hypothesis is defended, the next task is to show that the pagan and proto-Christian ritual sacraments were, in fact, psychedelicbrews. Let me just pull up my notes here. 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? Now you're a good sport, Brian. Eusebius, third into the fourth century, is also talking about them-- it's a great Greek word, [SPEAKING GREEK]. 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. 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? I fully expect we will find it. The continuity between pagan and Christian cult nearby the archaeological area of Naquane in Capo di Ponte. All that will be announced through our mailing list. So somewhere between 1% and 49%. Listen to #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, an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, easily on Podbay - the best podcast player on the web. Not just in Italy, but as kind of the headquarters for the Mediterranean. 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. 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 I want to-- just like you have this hard evidence from Catalonia, then the question is how to interpret it. I'm not sure where it falls. Well, the reason I mention Hippolytus and Marcus and focus on that in my evidence is because there's evidence of the Valentinians, who influenced Marcus, in and around Rome. 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. The Immortality Key, The Secret History of the Religion With No Name. 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? 32:57 Ancient languages and Brian's education . But you will be consoled to know that someone else will be-- I will be there, but someone else will be leading that conversation. We see lots of descriptions of this in the mystical literature with which you're very familiar. That's staying within the field of time. I mean, I think the book makes it clear. Oh, I hope I haven't offended you, Brian. 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. So let's start with one that is more contemporary. 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 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. What was the real religion of the ancient Greeks? CHARLES STANG: Yeah. But clearly, when you're thinking about ancient Egypt or elsewhere, there's definitely a funerary tradition. There are others claiming that there's drugs everywhere. Psychedelics Today: PTSF 35 (with Brian Muraresku) Griffithsfund.org So I think it's really interesting details here worth following up on. Or maybe in palliative care. BRIAN MURARESKU:: It's a simple formula, Charlie. 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. They are guaranteed an afterlife. I am excited . 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. It seems entirely believable to me that we have a potion maker active near Pompeii. I'm sure he knows this well, by this point. It pushes back the archaeology on some of this material a full 12,000 years. 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. I see something that's happening to people. 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. 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. Books about pagan continuity hypothesis? Now, that date is obviously very suggestive because that's precisely the time the Christians were establishing a beachhead in Rome. There's a good number of questions that are very curious why you are insisting on remaining a psychedelic virgin. And if the latter, do you think there's a good chance that religions will adopt psychedelics back into their rituals?". I expect we will find it. 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. So let's talk about the future of religion, and specifically the future of Roman Catholicism. The Tim Ferriss Show. I'm not sure many have. CHARLES STANG: Brian, I want to thank you for your time. And I'm not even sure what that piece looks like or how big it is. 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". We have other textual evidence. Now I want to get to the questions, but one last question before we move to the discussion portion. And again, it survives, I think, because of that state support for the better part of 2,000 years. She found the remains of dog sacrifice, which is super interesting. Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2023 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 . I want to thank you for your candor. Now, Carl Ruck from Boston University, much closer to home, however, took that invitation and tried to pursue this hypothesis. 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. I'm skeptical, Dr. Stang. What was the wine in the early Eucharist? I wish that an ancient pharmacy had been preserved by Mount Vesuvius somewhere near Alexandria or even in upper Egypt or in Antioch or parts of Turkey. There was an absence of continuity in the direction of the colony as Newport made his frequent voyages to and . And if it's one thing Catholicism does very, very well, it's contemplative mysticism. Now, I've never done them myself, but I have talked to many, many people who've had experience with psychedelics. 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. So if Eleusis is the Fight Club of the ancient world, right, the first rule is you don't talk about it. 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. You also find a Greek hearth inside this sanctuary. So I don't write this to antagonize them or the church, the people who, again, ushered me into this discipline and into these questions. Now I understand and I appreciate the pharmaceutical industry's ability to distribute this as medicine for those who are looking for alternatives, alternative treatments for depression and anxiety and PTSD and addiction and end of life distress. BRIAN MURARESKU: I would say I've definitely experienced the power of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. What's significant about these features for our piecing together the ancient religion with no name? For me, that's a question, and it will yield more questions. 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 And the quote you just read from Burkert, it's published by Harvard University Press in 1985 as Greek Religion. Up until that point I really had very little knowledge of psychedelics, personal or literary or otherwise. Now, here's-- let's tack away from hard, scientific, archaeobotanical evidence for a moment. No one lived there. Now that doesn't mean, as Brian was saying, that then suggests that that's the norm Eucharist. 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. That also only occurs in John, another epithet of Dionysus. We call it ego dissolution, things of that nature. This time, tonight I'll say that it's just not my time yet. This is true. 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? He's been featured in Forbes, the Daily Beast, Big Think, and Vice. President and CEO, First Southeast Financial Corp and First Federal Savings and Loan Director, Carolina First Bank and The South Financial Group There have been really dramatic studies from Hopkins and NYU about the ability of psilocybin at the end of life to curb things like depression, anxiety, and end of life distress. I really tried. 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." Maybe I have that wrong. CHARLES STANG: You know, Valentinus was almost elected bishop of Rome. Perhaps more generally, you could just talk about other traditions around the Mediterranean, North African, or, let's even say Judaism. But I don't understand how that provides any significant link to paleo-Christian practice. IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. So that, actually, is the key to the immortality key. Church of the Saints Faustina and Liberata, view from the outside with the entrance enclosure, at "Sante" place, Capo di Ponte (Italy). What does God mean? So this whole water to wine thing was out there. [1] According to this theory, older adults try to maintain this continuity of lifestyle by adapting strategies that are connected to their past experiences. That there is no hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data for spiked beer, spiked wine. So can you reflect for us where you really are and how you chose to write this book? BRIAN MURARESKU: I wish I could answer that question. I would love to see these licensed, regulated, retreat centers be done in a way that is medically sound and scientifically rigorous. Is there a smoking gun? And I've listened to the volunteers who've gone through these experiences. Maybe I'm afraid I'll take the psychedelic and I won't have what is reported in the literature from Hopkins and NYU. 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. 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. 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. CHARLES STANG: Right. And I did not dare. #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 I'm going to come back to that idea of proof of concept. So that's something else to look into. And I write, at the very end of the book, I hope that they'd be proud of this investigation. These are famous figures to those of us who study early Christianity. Did the potion at Eleusis change from generation to generation? And that's not how it works today, and I don't think that's how it works in antiquity. And I wonder and I question how we can keep that and retain that for today. Thank you. What the Greeks were actually saying there is that it was barley infected with ergot, which is this natural fungus that infects cereal crops. 7:30 The three pillars to the work: the Eucharist as a continuation of the pharmako and Dionysian mysteries; the Pagan continuity theory; and the idea that through the mysteries "We can die before we die so that when we die we do not die" 13:00 What does "blood of Christ" actually mean; the implied and literal cannibalism 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. It draws attention to this material. Because for many, many years, you know, Ruck's career takes a bit of a nosedive. 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.". So we move now into ancient history, but solidly into the historical record, however uneven that historical record is. So this is the tradition, I can say with a straight face, that saved my life. And if there's historical precedent for it, all the more so.
Upcoming Protests In Dublin 2022, Articles P