pagan continuity hypothesis

First act is your evidence for psychedelics among the so-called pagan religions in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. CHARLES STANG: Brian, I wonder if you could end by reflecting on the meaning of dying before you die. And I want to ask you about specifically the Eleusinian mysteries, centered around the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. I'll invite him to think about the future of religion in light of all this. It's a big question for me. In May of last year, researchers published what they believe is the first archaeochemical data for the use of psychoactive drugs in some form of early Judaism. BRIAN MURARESKU: I don't-- I don't claim too heavily. You take a board corporate finance attorney, you add in lots of childhood hours watching Indiana Jones, lots of law school hours reading Dan Brown, you put it all together and out pops The Immortality Key. And so I can see psychedelics being some kind of extra sacramental ministry that potentially could ease people at the end of life. There aren't any churches or basilicas, right, in the first three centuries, in this era we're calling paleo-Christianity. What was discovered, as far as I can tell, from your treatment of it, is essentially an ancient pharmacy in this house. 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 the big question is, what is this thing doing there in the middle of nowhere? Do you think that by calling the Eucharist a placebo that you're likely to persuade them? 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.". 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. I mean, so it was Greek. I took this to Greg [? 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. 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. And by the way, I'm not here trying to protect Christianity from the evidence of psychedelic use. So here's a question for you. OK, Brian, I invite you to join us now. I'm skeptical, Dr. Stang. And I offer psychedelics as one of those archaic techniques of ecstasy that seems to have been relevant and meaningful to our ancestors. So we move now into ancient history, but solidly into the historical record, however uneven that historical record is. I see something that's happening to people. Oh, I hope I haven't offended you, Brian. 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 . So when Hippolytus is calling out the Marcosians, and specifically women, consecrating this alternative Eucharist in their alternative proto-mass, he uses the Greek word-- and we've talked about this before-- but he uses the Greek word [SPEAKING GREEK] seven times in a row, by the way, without specifying which drugs he's referring to. 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. There's some suggestive language in the pyramid texts, in the Book of the Dead and things of this nature. You're not confident that the pope is suddenly going to issue an encyclical. So you lean on the good work of Harvard's own Arthur Darby Nock, and more recently, the work of Dennis McDonald at Claremont School of Theology, to suggest that the author of the Gospel of John deliberately paints Jesus and his Eucharist in the colors of Dionysus. Where you find the grain, you may have found ergot. Now, Mithras is another one of these mystery religions. And I'm happy to see we have over 800 people present for this conversation. And I wonder and I question how we can keep that and retain that for today. 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? 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. Let's move to early Christian. Thank you for that. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. There was an absence of continuity in the direction of the colony as Newport made his frequent voyages to and . 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. Like, what is this all about? I would expect we'd have ample evidence. You may have already noticed one such question-- not too hard. Now, Carl Ruck from Boston University, much closer to home, however, took that invitation and tried to pursue this hypothesis. CHARLES STANG: All right. That event is already up on our website and open for registration. You can see that inscribed on a plaque in Saint Paul's monastery at Mount Athos in Greece. And I-- in my profession, we call this circumstantial, and I get it. On Monday, February 22, we will be hosting a panel discussion taking up the question what is psychedelic chaplaincy. The Continuity Hypothesis was put forward by John Bowlby (1953) as a critical effect of attachments in his development of Attachment Theory. 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. And this is at a time when we're still hunting and gathering. Is taking all these disciplines, whether it's your discipline or archaeochemistry or hard core botany, biology, even psychopharmacology, putting it all together and taking a look at this mystery, this puzzle, using the lens of psychedelics as a lens, really, to investigate not just the past but the future and the mystery of human consciousness. And I guess my biggest question, not necessarily for you, but the psychedelic community, for what it's worth, or those who are interested in this stuff is how do we make this experience sacred? So. 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 . By which I mean that the Gospel of John suggests that at the very least, the evangelist hoped to market Christianity to a pagan audience by suggesting that Jesus was somehow equivalent to Dionysus, and that the Eucharist, his sacrament of wine, was equivalent to Dionysus's wine. And so I don't know what a really authentic, a really historic-looking ritual that is equal parts sacred, but also, again, medically sound, scientifically rigorous, would look like. So I think this was a minority of early Christians. He draws on the theory of "pagan continuity," which holds that early Christianity adopted . So those are all possibly different questions to ask and answer. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. She joins me for most events and meetings. And we know the mysteries were there. I do the same thing in the afterword at the very end of the book, where it's lots of, here's what we know. And I've listened to the volunteers who've gone through these experiences. And we know from the record that [SPEAKING GREEK] is described as being so crowded with gods that they were easier to find than men. It's really quite simple, Charlie. I appreciate this. But what we do know about the wine of the time is that it was routinely mixed with plants and herbs and potentially fungi. Administration and supervision endeavors and with strong knowledge in: Online teaching and learning methods, Methods for Teaching Mathematics and Technology Integration for K-12 and College . difficult to arrive at any conclusive hypothesis. And I think there are so many sites and excavations and so many chalices that remain to be tested. What about all these early Christians themselves as essentially Jews? Now, I have no idea where it goes from here, or if I'll take it myself. Then there's what were the earliest Christians doing with the Eucharist. And I don't know what that looks like. CHARLES STANG: OK. And there are legitimate scholars out there who say, because John wanted to paint Jesus in the light of Dionysus, present him as the second coming of this pagan God. 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 BRIAN MURARESKU: Now we're cooking with grease, Dr. Stang. The altar had been sitting in a museum in Israel since the 1960s and just hadn't been tested. Whether there's a psychedelic tradition-- I mean, there are some suggestive paintings. But things that sound intensely powerful. But Egypt seems to not really be hugely relevant to the research. And maybe therein we do since the intimation of immortality. So whatever was happening there was important. I see a huge need and a demand for young religious clergy to begin taking a look at this stuff. A rebirth into a new conception of the self, the self's relationship to things that are hard to define, like God. If the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? And what do you believe happens to you when you do that? . And so in my afterword, I present this as a blip on the archaeochemical radar. An actual spiked wine. The Immortality Key has its shortcomings. But I don't understand how that provides any significant link to paleo-Christian practice. Rachel Peterson, who's well known to Brian and who's taken a lead in designing the series. I would love to see these licensed, regulated, retreat centers be done in a way that is medically sound and scientifically rigorous. 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? He's been featured in Forbes, the Daily Beast, Big Think, and Vice. In the Classics world, there's a pagan continuity hypothesis with the very origin of Christianity, and many overt references to Greek plays in the Gospel of John. I mean, if Burkert was happy to speculate about psychedelics, I'm not sure why Ruck got the reception that he did in 1978 with their book The Road to Eleusis. So Brian, I wonder, maybe we should give the floor to you and ask you to speak about, what are the questions you think both ancient historians such as myself should be asking that we're not, and maybe what are the sorts of questions that people who aren't ancient historians but who are drawn to this evidence, to your narrative, and to the present and the future of religion, what sort of questions should they be asking regarding psychedelics? This time around, we have a very special edition featuring Dr. Mark Plotkin and Brian C . I fully expect we will find it. So how to put this? Where does Western civilization come from? BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. Mark and Brian cover the Eleusinian Mysteries, the pagan continuity hypothesis, early Christianity, lessons from famed religious scholar Karen Armstrong, overlooked aspects of influential philosopher William James's career, ancient wine and ancient beer, experiencing the divine within us, the importance of "tikkun olam"repairing and . Maybe I'm afraid I'll take the psychedelic and I won't have what is reported in the literature from Hopkins and NYU. Interesting. To this day I remain a psychedelic virgin quite proudly, and I spent the past 12 years, ever since that moment in 2007, researching what Houston Smith, perhaps one of the most influential religious historians of the 20th century, would call the best kept secret in history. But if the original Eucharist were psychedelic, or even if there were significant numbers of early Christians using psychedelics like sacrament, I would expect the representatives of orthodox, institutional Christianity to rail against it. 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. So I have my concerns about what's about to happen in Oregon and the regulation of psilocybin for therapeutic purposes. If beer was there that long ago, what kind of beer was it? The pagan continuity hypothesis at the heart of this book made sense to me. 32:57 Ancient languages and Brian's education . And how can you reasonably expect the church to recognize a psychedelic Eucharist? So the Greek god of wine, intoxication. 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. 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". It was the Jesuits who taught me Latin and Greek. And it was the Jesuits who encouraged me to always, always ask questions and never take anything at face value. That also only occurs in John, another epithet of Dionysus. We have other textual evidence. I wish the church fathers were better botanists and would rail against the specific pharmacopeia. And so I don't think that psychedelics are coming to replace the Sunday Eucharist. The pagan continuity hypothesis theorizes that when Christianity arrived in Greece around AD 49, it didn't suddenly replace the existing religion. 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. We're going to get there very soon. Now, here's-- let's tack away from hard, scientific, archaeobotanical evidence for a moment. And what it has to do with Eleusis or the Greek presence in general, I mean, again, just to say it briefly, is that this was a farmhouse of sorts that was inland, this sanctuary site. Because ergot is just very common. I mean, so Walter Burkert was part of the reason that kept me going on. Mona Sobhani, PhD Retweeted. I want to thank you for putting up with me and my questions. But you go further still, suggesting that Jesus himself at the Last Supper might have administered psychedelic sacrament, that the original Eucharist was psychedelic. To sum up the most exciting parts of the book: the bloody wine of Dionysius became the bloody wine of Jesus - the pagan continuity hypothesis - the link between the Ancient Greeks of the final centuries BC and the paleo-Christians of the early centuries AD - in short, the default psychedelic of universal world history - the cult of . Here's your Western Eleusis. And considering the common background of modern religions (the Pagan Continuity hypothesis), any religious group who thinks they are chosen or correct are promoting a simplistic and ignorant view of our past. I go out of my way, in both parts of the book, which, it's divided into the history of beer and the history of wine, essentially. 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". 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. Lots of Greek artifacts, lots of Greek signifiers. So first of all, please tell us how it is you came to pursue this research to write this book, and highlight briefly what you think are its principal conclusions and their significance for our present and future. They were relevant to me in going down this rabbit hole. And so the big question is what was happening there? They linked the idea of witches to an imagined organized sect which was a danger to the Christian commonwealth. What is it about that formula that captures for you the wisdom, the insight that is on offer in this ancient ritual, psychedelic or otherwise? And even in the New Testament, you'll see wine spiked with myrrh, for example, that's served to Jesus at his crucifixion. That's all just fancy wordplay. We see lots of descriptions of this in the mystical literature with which you're very familiar. 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. I was not going to put a book out there that was sensationalist. And I just happened to fall into that at the age of 14 thanks to the Jesuits, and just never left it behind. BRIAN MURARESKU: I wish I could answer that question. I mean, this really goes to my deep skepticism. And now we have a working hypothesis and some data to suggest where we might be looking.