And you're right. And there were moments when the sunlight would just break through. 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. I think the wine certainly does. 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. 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. They're mixing potions. Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages. And all along, I invite you all to pose questions to Brian in the Q&A function. 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 that's not how it works today, and I don't think that's how it works in antiquity. And I-- in my profession, we call this circumstantial, and I get it. All rights reserved. It was one of the early write-ups of the psilocybin studies coming out of Johns Hopkins. 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. Now, Brian managed to write this book while holding down a full time practice in international law based in Washington DC. 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. Although she's open to testing, there was nothing there. And she happened to find it on psilocybin. Well, wonderful. That is about the future rather than the ancient history. Eusebius, third into the fourth century, is also talking about them-- it's a great Greek word, [SPEAKING GREEK]. These are famous figures to those of us who study early Christianity. Because they talk about everything else that they take issue with. And so the big hunt for me was trying to find some of those psychedelic bits. Read more 37 people found this helpful Helpful Report abuse Tfsiebs So much research! And when I read psychedelic literature or I read the literature on near-death experiences, I see experiences similar to what I experienced as a young boy. 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. The Tim Ferriss Show. [1] According to this theory, older adults try to maintain this continuity of lifestyle by adapting strategies that are connected to their past experiences. So that's from Burkert, a very sober scholar and the dean of all scholarship on Greek religion. The altar had been sitting in a museum in Israel since the 1960s and just hadn't been tested. If beer was there that long ago, what kind of beer was it? 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 then that's the word that Euripides uses, by the way. What's significant about these features for our piecing together the ancient religion with no name? So I think this was a minority of early Christians. Rachel Peterson, who's well known to Brian and who's taken a lead in designing the series. There's evidence of the mysteries of Dionysus before, during, and after the life of Jesus, it's worth pointing out. That event is already up on our website and open for registration. And she talks about kind of being born again, another promise from John's gospel. 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. BRIAN MURARESKU: I'm asked this question, I would say, in pretty much every interview I've done since late September. And that kind of invisible religion with no name, although brutally suppressed, managed to survive in Europe for many centuries and could potentially be revived today. CHARLES STANG: All right. This two-part discussion between Muraresku and Dr. Plotkin examines the role psychedelics have played in the development of Western civilization. I was not going to put a book out there that was sensationalist. 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 he said, Brian, don't you dare. He's talking about kind of psychedelic wine. But by and large, no, we don't really know. Now I want to get to the questions, but one last question before we move to the discussion portion. She found the remains of dog sacrifice, which is super interesting. 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. So after the whole first half of the book-- well, wait a minute, Dr. Stang. The continuity between pagan and Christian cult nearby the archaeological area of Naquane in Capo di Ponte. 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. There are others claiming that there's drugs everywhere. 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. I want to thank you for your candor. CHARLES STANG: Thank you, Brian. He's joining us from Uruguay, where he has wisely chosen to spend his pandemic isolation. BRIAN MURARESKU: I would say I've definitely experienced the power of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. BRIAN MURARESKU:: It's a simple formula, Charlie. So again, if there were an early psychedelic sacrament that was being suppressed, I'd expect that the suppressors would talk about it. You know, it's an atheist using theological language to describe what happened to her. Dogs, indicative of the Greek goddess Hecate, who, amongst other things was known as the [GREEK], the dog eater. And her answer was that they'd all been cleaned or treated for conservation purposes. Where you find the grain, you may have found ergot. I understand more papers are about to be published on this. 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. Others find it in different ways, but the common denominator seems to be one of these really well-curated near-death experiences. 8 "The winds, the sea . There's a good number of questions that are very curious why you are insisting on remaining a psychedelic virgin. I know that that's a loaded phrase. Lots of Greek artifacts, lots of Greek signifiers. It tested positive for the microscopic remains of beer and also ergot, exactly the hypothesis that had been put forward in 1978 by the disgraced professor across town from you, Carl Ruck, who's now 85 years old, by the way. But we at least have, again, the indicia of evidence that something was happening there. 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. And I write, at the very end of the book, I hope that they'd be proud of this investigation. We have plays like the Bacchi from Euripides, where we can piece together some of this. I see it as-- well, OK, I'd see it as within a minority. In this way, the two traditions coexisted in a syncretic form for some time before . They are guaranteed an afterlife. Hard archaeobotanical, archaeochemical data, I haven't seen it. 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? 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. would certainly appreciate. 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. 13,000 years old. If the Dionysian one is psychedelic, does it really make its way into some kind of psychedelic Christianity? And there were gaps as well. 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. 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. Maybe I'm afraid I'll take the psychedelic and I won't have what is reported in the literature from Hopkins and NYU. BRIAN MURARESKU: Now we're cooking with grease, Dr. Stang. I'm happy to argue about that. 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. In this episode, Brian C. Muraresku, who holds a degree from Brown University in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, joins Breht to discuss his fascinating book "The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name", a groundbreaking dive into the use of hallucinogens in ancient Greece, the Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, the role of the Eucharist in early Christianity, the . Wonderful, well, thank you. Those religions featured psychedelic beer and ceremonies lead by women . BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. I know that's another loaded phrase. So in my mind, it was the first real hard scientific data to support this hypothesis, which, as you alluded to at the beginning, only raises more questions. 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. So it is already happening. In the first half, we'll cover topics ranging from the Eleusinian Mysteries, early Christianity, and the pagan continuity hypothesis to the work of philosopher and psychologist William James. That was the question for me. 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 She joins me for most events and meetings. This is going to be a question that's back to the ancient world. CHARLES STANG: I do, too. 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? I fully expect we will find it. Do you think that the Christians as a nascent cult adapted a highly effective psycho technology that was rattling . And so I can see psychedelics being some kind of extra sacramental ministry that potentially could ease people at the end of life. BRIAN MURARESKU: Right. 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. 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. You want to field questions in both those categories? The only reason I went to college was to study classics. And Ruck, and you following Ruck, make much of this, suggesting maybe the Gnostics are pharmacologists of some kind. Just imagine, I have to live with me. Again, how did Christianity take hold in a world with such a rich mystical tradition? As much as we know about the mysteries of Eleusis. What about all these early Christians themselves as essentially Jews? What, if any, was the relationship between this Greek sanctuary-- a very Greek sanctuary, by the way-- in Catalonia, to the mysteries of Eleusis? It's not just Cana. 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. 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. I include that line for a reason. And I think what the pharmaceutical industry can do is help to distribute this medicine. I'm paraphrasing this one. So this whole water to wine thing was out there. That is my dog Xena. 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 want to-- just like you have this hard evidence from Catalonia, then the question is how to interpret it. 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. And I started reading the studies from Pat McGovern at the University of Pennsylvania. Show Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation podcast, Ep Plants of the Gods: S4E2. 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? A rebirth into what? And what we find at this farmhouse is a sanctuary that Enriqueta Pons herself, the archaeologist who's been on site since 1990, she calls it some kind of sanctuary dedicated to the goddesses of the mysteries. And inside that beer was all kinds of vegetable matter, like wheat, oats, and sedge and lily and flax and various legumes.