pagan continuity hypothesis

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. The Tim Ferriss Show | iHeart 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. It still leaves an even bigger if, Dr. Stang, is which one is psychedelic? What does ergotized beer in Catalonia have anything to do with the Greek mysteries at Eleusis? "The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity" So if Eleusis is the Fight Club of the ancient world, right, the first rule is you don't talk about it. But it survives. I'm skeptical, Dr. Stang. Which, again, what I see are small groups of people getting together to commune with the dead. 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 this is at a time when we're still hunting and gathering. CHARLES STANG: OK. 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. Wise not least because it is summer there, as he reminds me every time we have a Zoom meeting, which has been quite often in these past several months. The continuity theory of normal aging states that older adults will usually maintain the same activities, behaviors, relationships as they did in their earlier years of life. 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 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 this is what I present to the world. You can see that inscribed on a plaque in Saint Paul's monastery at Mount Athos in Greece. Psychedelics Weekly - Prince Harry and Psychedelics, Proposed Did the potion at Eleusis change from generation to generation? And I think what the pharmaceutical industry can do is help to distribute this medicine. 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? Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation There was an absence of continuity in the direction of the colony as Newport made his frequent voyages to and . Certainly these early churchmen used whatever they could against the forms of Christian practice they disapproved of, especially those they categorized as Gnostic. 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. 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. When Irenaeus is talking about [SPEAKING GREEK], love potions, again, we have no idea what the hell he's talking about. Something else I include at the end of my book is that I don't think that whatever this was, this big if about a psychedelic Eucharist, I don't think this was a majority of the paleo-Christians. Who were the Saints? Those religions featured psychedelic beer and ceremonies lead by women . OK, Brian, I invite you to join us now. And I think there are so many sites and excavations and so many chalices that remain to be tested. Revolutionary Left Radio: Early Christianity: Psychedelics, Ancient And I'll just list them out quickly. If the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? I would love to see these licensed, regulated, retreat centers be done in a way that is medically sound and scientifically rigorous. You obviously think these are powerful substances with profound effects that track with reality. Let's move to early Christian. 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. Brian C. Muraresku (@BrianMuraresku) / Twitter Just imagine, I have to live with me. And so how far should this investigation go? 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 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, the honest answer is not much. Like in Israel. I want to thank you for your candor. But what I hear from people, including atheists, like Dina Bazer, who participated in these Hopkins NYU trials is that she felt like on her one and only dose of psilocybin that she was bathed in God's love. BRIAN MURARESKU: Great question. The pagan continuity hypothesis at the heart of this book made sense to me. And so I don't think that psychedelics are coming to replace the Sunday Eucharist. And she talks about the visions that transformed the way she thinks about herself. Yeah. And shouldn't we all be asking that question? Here's your Western Eleusis. The altar had been sitting in a museum in Israel since the 1960s and just hadn't been tested. It's arguably not the case in the third century. I mean, I wish it were easier. That's, just absurd. I did go straight to [INAUDIBLE] Papangelli in Eleusis, and I went to the museum. 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. Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis - ResearchGate So, I mean, my biggest question behind all of this is, as a good Catholic boy, is the Eucharist. And I asked her openly if we could test some of the many, many containers that they have, some on display, and many more in repository there. This limestone altar tested positive for cannabis and frankincense that was being burned, they think, in a very ritualistic way. But Egypt seems to not really be hugely relevant to the research. The Immortality Key - Book Review and Discussion - Were early - Reddit 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. 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. 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. Was Moses high? Studies linking religion and drugs gain traction That's one narrative that I feel is a little sensational. David Wakefield - President - Wakefield Enterprises, LLC | LinkedIn Why don't we turn the tables and ask you what questions you think need to be posed? 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? The long and short of it is, in 1978 there was no hard scientific data to prove this one way or the other. And so the big question is what was happening there? These sources suggest a much greater degree of continuity with pre-Christian values and practice than the writings of more . The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name And then that's the word that Euripides uses, by the way. 55 This is very likely as it seems that the process had already started in the 4th century. The Tim Ferriss Show Podcast | Free Listening on Podbean App And how do we-- when the pharmaceutical industry and when these retreat centers begin to open and begin to proliferate, how do we make this sacred? Now-- and I think that we can probably concede that. McGovern also finds wine from Egypt, for example, in 3150 BC, wine that is mixed with a number of interesting ingredients. A lot of Christianity, as you rightly point out, I mean, it was an Eastern phenomenon, all over the eastern Mediterranean. 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. If you look at Dioscorides, for example, his Materia Medica, that's written in the first century AD around the same time that the Gospels themselves are being written. Not just in Italy, but as kind of the headquarters for the Mediterranean. I see a huge need and a demand for young religious clergy to begin taking a look at this stuff. You see an altar of Pentelic marble that could only have come from the Mount Pentelicus quarry in mainland Greece. Perhaps more generally, you could just talk about other traditions around the Mediterranean, North African, or, let's even say Judaism. 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. 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? So throughout the book, you make the point that ancient beer and wine are not like our beer and wine. 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. And very famous passages, by the way, that should be familiar to most New Testament readers. I mean, something of symbolic significance, something monumental. There's all kinds of reasons I haven't done it. You mentioned there were lots of dead ends, and there certainly were. 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. Now, I don't put too much weight into that. BRIAN MURARESKU: I would say I've definitely experienced the power of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. The answer seems to be connected to psychedelic drugs. Are they rolling their eyes, or are you getting sort of secretive knowing nods of agreement? And I think oversight also comes in handy within organized religion. 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. And maybe therein we do since the intimation of immortality. And that's the mysteries of Dionysus. I'm trying to get him to speak in the series about that. So. They were relevant to me in going down this rabbit hole. CHARLES STANG: OK, that is the big question. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm asked this question, I would say, in pretty much every interview I've done since late September. So how does Dionysian revelries get into this picture? 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? 13,000 years old. Now I want to get to the questions, but one last question before we move to the discussion portion. It draws attention to this material. So, like, they're wonderstruck, or awestruck by their libations and their incense. I'll invite him to think about the future of religion in light of all this. OK, now, Brian, you've probably dealt with questions like this. But I think the broader question of what's the reception to this among explicitly religious folk and religious leaders? They are guaranteed an afterlife. So the event happens, when all the wines run out, here comes Jesus, who's referred to in the Gospels as an [SPEAKING GREEK] in Greek, a drunkard. [2] He decides to get people even more drunk. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian Not in every single case, obviously. So when you take a step back, as you well know, there was a Hellenic presence all over the ancient Mediterranean. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. There's a moment in the book where you are excited about some hard evidence. 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. 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 So thank you, all who have hung with us. BRIAN MURARESKU: I don't-- I don't claim too heavily. 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. 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. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian 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. Where you find the grain, you may have found ergot. In this way, the two traditions coexisted in a syncretic form for some time before . Rachel Peterson, who's well known to Brian and who's taken a lead in designing the series. So I'll speak in language that you and our good colleague Greg [? CHARLES STANG: Thank you, Brian. So Gobekli Tepe, for those who don't know, is this site in southern Turkey on the border with Syria. I understand more papers are about to be published on this. 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. 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 . Not because they just found that altar. 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 . That is about the future rather than the ancient history. It is my great pleasure to welcome Brian Muraresku to the Center. On Monday, February 22, we will be hosting a panel discussion taking up the question what is psychedelic chaplaincy. Its proponents maintain that the affable, plump old fellow associated with Christmas derives from the character of Arctic medical practitioners. I mean, I think the book makes it clear. Church of the Saints Faustina and Liberata, view from the outside with the entrance enclosure, at "Sante" place, Capo di Ponte (Italy). Is this only Marcus? So what I think we have here in this ergtotized beer drink from Catalonia, Spain, and in this weird witch's brew from 79 AD in Pompeii, I describe it, until I see evidence otherwise, as some of the very first heart scientific data for the actual existence of actual spiked wine in classical antiquity, which I think is a really big point. I think the only big question is what the exact relationship was from a place like that over to Eleusis. Whether there's a psychedelic tradition-- I mean, there are some suggestive paintings. President and CEO, First Southeast Financial Corp and First Federal Savings and Loan Director, Carolina First Bank and The South Financial Group The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in I'm going to stop asking my questions, although I have a million more, as you well know, and instead try to ventriloquist the questions that are coming through at quite a clip through the Q&A. "The Jews" are not after Ye. BRIAN MURARESKU: Now we're cooking with grease, Dr. Stang. 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. 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. Is there a smoking gun? 8 "The winds, the sea . Phil's Picks | Phoenix Books CHARLES STANG: We've really read Jesus through the lens of his Greek inheritors. Up until that point I really had very little knowledge of psychedelics, personal or literary or otherwise. I mean, I asked lots of big questions in the book, and I fully acknowledge that. 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. Mona Sobhani, PhD Retweeted. Not much. So imagine how many artifacts are just sitting in museums right now, waiting to be tested. #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. And if it only occurs in John, the big question is why. Not because it's not there, because it hasn't been tested. 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. And did the earliest Christians inherit the same secret tradition? And I'm happy to see we have over 800 people present for this conversation. Now that doesn't mean, as Brian was saying, that then suggests that that's the norm Eucharist. #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 PDF Thesis-The Religion of Constantine I - University Of Ottawa And even in the New Testament, you'll see wine spiked with myrrh, for example, that's served to Jesus at his crucifixion. Now, I've never done them myself, but I have talked to many, many people who've had experience with psychedelics. 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. So again, if there were an early psychedelic sacrament that was being suppressed, I'd expect that the suppressors would talk about it. Although she's open to testing, there was nothing there. 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? And her answer was that they'd all been cleaned or treated for conservation purposes. It's only in John that Jesus is described as being born in the lap of the Father, the [SPEAKING GREEK] in 1:18, very similar to the way that Dionysus sprung miraculously from the thigh of Zeus, and on and on and on-- which I'm not going to bore you and the audience. Eusebius, third into the fourth century, is also talking about them-- it's a great Greek word, [SPEAKING GREEK]. Books about pagan continuity hypothesis? : r/AskHistorians - reddit That's just everlasting. All right, so now, let's follow up with Dionysus, but let's see here. Leonardo Torres Pagan, PhD - Subject Matter Expert & Editor - LinkedIn Thank you all for joining us, and I hope to see many of you later this month for our next event. But you go further still, suggesting that Jesus himself at the Last Supper might have administered psychedelic sacrament, that the original Eucharist was psychedelic. All that will be announced through our mailing list. The actual key that I found time and again in looking at this literature and the data is what seems to be happening here is the cultivation of a near-death experience. 48:01 Brian's psychedelic experiences . That seems very believable, but there's nothing to suggest that the pharmacy or drug farm was serving Christians, or even that the potions produced were for ritual use. 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. Now, that date is obviously very suggestive because that's precisely the time the Christians were establishing a beachhead in Rome. Research inside the Church of Saint Faustina and Liberata Fig 1. CHARLES STANG: All right. Do the drugs, Dr. Stang? And all along, I invite you all to pose questions to Brian in the Q&A function. 1,672. 32:57 Ancient languages and Brian's education . 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. But it's not an ingested psychedelic. But please do know that we will forward all these questions to Brian so he will know the sorts of questions his work prompts. There's some suggestive language in the pyramid texts, in the Book of the Dead and things of this nature. 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. 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. What's the wine? All he says is that these women and Marcus are adding drugs seven times in a row into whatever potion this is they're mixing up. He's talking about kind of psychedelic wine. But clearly, when you're thinking about ancient Egypt or elsewhere, there's definitely a funerary tradition. #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin The Eleusinian So how to put this? I try to be careful to always land on a lawyer's feet and be very honest with you and everybody else about where this goes from here. So I want to propose that we stage this play in two acts. They linked the idea of witches to an imagined organized sect which was a danger to the Christian commonwealth. And that is that there was a pervasive religion, ancient religion, that involved psychedelic sacraments, and that that pervasive religious culture filtered into the Greek mysteries and eventually into early Christianity. 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? But I'm pressing you because that's my job. . 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.". 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. There are others claiming that there's drugs everywhere. 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. 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 don't know if it's a genuine mystical experience or mystical mimetic or some kind of psychological breakthrough. The pagan continuity hypothesis theorizes that when Christianity arrived in Greece around AD 49, it didn't suddenly replace the existing religion. In 1950, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote " The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity " which describes the continuity from the Pagan, pre-Christian world to what would become early Christianity in the decades and centuries before Jesus Religion & Mystical Experiences, Wine The Immortality Key, The Secret History of the Religion With No Name. When you start testing, you find things. Joe Campbell puts it best that what we're after is an experience of being alive. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. 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. 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 . Things like fasting and sleep deprivation and tattooing and scarification and, et cetera, et cetera. Like in a retreat pilgrimage type center, or maybe within palliative care. So I got a copy of it from the Library of Congress, started reading through, and there, in fact, I was reading about this incredible discovery from the '90s. And that's what I get into in detail in the book. Lots of Greek artifacts, lots of Greek signifiers. But I think there's a decent scientific foothold to begin that work. Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows.

Duo Message Sent But Not Delivered, How Do I Add A Child To Patient Gateway?, Articles P