So Brian, welcome. 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 I would have been happy to find a spiked wine anywhere. And that's the mysteries of Dionysus. Here's the proof of concept. BRIAN MURARESKU: But you're spot on. What does it mean to die before dying? 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 . I know that that's a loaded phrase. She found the remains of dog sacrifice, which is super interesting. The fact that the Vatican sits in Rome today is not an accident, I think, is the shortest way to answer that. So what do we know about those rituals? And again, it survives, I think, because of that state support for the better part of 2,000 years. 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. Now-- and I think that we can probably concede that. Now are there any other questions you wish to propose or push or-- I don't know, to push back against any of the criticisms or questions I've leveled? I understand the appeal of that. BRIAN MURARESKU: Great question. Read more 37 people found this helpful Helpful Report abuse Tfsiebs So much research! Psychedelics are a lens to investigate this stuff. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. 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. 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. 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 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. And very famous passages, by the way, that should be familiar to most New Testament readers. And Brian, once again, thank you so much. 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. What I see is data that's been largely neglected, and I think what serves this as a discipline is just that. What, if any, was the relationship between this Greek sanctuary-- a very Greek sanctuary, by the way-- in Catalonia, to the mysteries of Eleusis? What was the real religion of the ancient Greeks? CHARLES STANG: OK. And that's a question equally for ancient historians and for contemporary seekers and/or good Catholics. 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. When there's a clear tonal distinction, and an existing precedent for Christian modification to Pagan works, I don't see why you're resistant to the idea, and I'm curious . 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. And does it line up with the promise from John's gospel that anyone who drinks this becomes instantly immortal? So Plato, Pindar, Sophocles, all the way into Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, it's an important thing. The Immortality Key, The Secret History of the Religion With No Name. 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. Which is a very weird thing today. But I do want to push back a little bit on the elevation of this particular real estate in southern Italy. We're going to get there very soon. Now that doesn't mean, as Brian was saying, that then suggests that that's the norm Eucharist. 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. 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 much of the evidence that you've collected is kind of the northern half of the Mediterranean world. [texts-excerpt] penalty for cutting mangroves in floridaFREE EstimateFREE Estimate Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. 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. This limestone altar tested positive for cannabis and frankincense that was being burned, they think, in a very ritualistic way. The idea of the truth shall set you free, right, [SPEAKING GREEK], in 8:32. The pagan continuity hypothesis theorizes that when Christianity arrived in Greece around AD 49, it didn't suddenly replace the existing religion. CHARLES STANG: You know, Valentinus was almost elected bishop of Rome. And so in some of these psychedelic trials, under the right conditions, I do see genuine religious experiences. And I describe that as somehow finding that key to immortality. Again, if you're attracted to psychedelics, it's kind of an extreme thing, right? So. 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. And so that opened a question for me. So again, that's February 22. Did the ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? Brian is the author of a remarkable new book that has garnered a lot of attention and has sold a great many copies. In fact, he found beer, wine, and mead all mixed together in a couple of different places. Maybe for those facing the end of life. And Brian, it would be helpful for me to know whether you are more interested in questions that take up the ancient world or more that deal with this last issue, the sort of contemporary and the future. These are famous figures to those of us who study early Christianity. Its proponents maintain that the affable, plump old fellow associated with Christmas derives from the character of Arctic medical practitioners. 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. Part 1 Brian C. Muraresku: The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis and the Hallucinogenic Origins of Religion 3 days ago Plants of the Gods: S4E1. BRIAN MURARESKU: OK. They were relevant to me in going down this rabbit hole. And so I can see psychedelics being some kind of extra sacramental ministry that potentially could ease people at the end of life. They followed Platonic (and other Greeks) philosophy. 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. This is all secret. Which, again, what I see are small groups of people getting together to commune with the dead. Where are the drugs? And what you're referring to is-- and how I begin the book is this beautiful Greek phrase, [SPEAKING GREEK]. I mean, lots of great questions worthy of further investigation. We have plays like the Bacchi from Euripides, where we can piece together some of this. I did go straight to [INAUDIBLE] Papangelli in Eleusis, and I went to the museum. 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. But we do know that something was happening. The Immortality Key has its shortcomings. For those who didn't have the time or the money or the temerity to travel all the way to Eleusis from Spain, here's your off-site campus, right? The Continuity Hypothesis was put forward by John Bowlby (1953) as a critical effect of attachments in his development of Attachment Theory. I'm sure he knows this well, by this point. 32:57 Ancient languages and Brian's education . Lots of Greek artifacts, lots of Greek signifiers. Books about pagan continuity hypothesis? 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. So I think this was a minority of early Christians. Whether there's a psychedelic tradition-- I mean, there are some suggestive paintings. So why do you think psychedelics are so significant that they might usher in a new Reformation? I'm happy to be proven wrong. There was an absence of continuity in the direction of the colony as Newport made his frequent voyages to and . So I'll speak in language that you and our good colleague Greg [? He co-writes that with Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann, who famously-- there it is, the three authors. It would have parts of Greek mysticism in it, the same Greek mysteries I've spent all these years investigating, and it would have some elements of what I see in paleo-Christianity. Richard Evans Schultes and the Search for Ayahuasca 17 days ago Plants of the Gods: S3E10. First act is your evidence for psychedelics among the so-called pagan religions in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Hitman Paris Battle Axe Location, Olivia Rodrigo Wme, Chance Smith Obituary, Articles P