PODCAST SUMMARY
Jerry Brown, PhD, author of Psychedelic Gospels, joins us to talk about psychedelic mushrooms in early Christian society. We hear about the evidence for psychedelic use that exists in Christian art, and how the Inquisition could have resulted in the destruction of these psychedelic traditions. Jerry also shares his vision of a future with freedom to practice psychedelic use as part of our basic religious rights.
PODCAST HIGHLIGHTS
- The Amanita muscaria mushroom was used by Siberian nomads and its use spread to early Christianity
- Use of psychedelic mushrooms was probably targeted by the Inquisition
- Amanita muscaria is the most likely identity of the ‘soma’ mentioned in many ancient texts.
Jerry was professor of anthropology at Florida International University for the past 39 years, and ran a course entitled “Hallucinogens and Culture.” Unsurprisingly, his classes were always popular.
Jerry’s course covered the indigenous use of psychedelic plants, including Amanita muscaria; the famous fly agaric mushroom. This red and white-spotted mushroom was used mostly by Siberian nomads, who noticed their reindeer acting strangely after eating the mushrooms.
It was on a visit to Scotland that Jerry and his wife Julie became interested in how psychedelic mushrooms might have been used in Christian tradition. Upon seeing the famous Amanita muscaria mushroom engraved upon fertility symbols in Rosslyn Chapel, Jerry and Julie set out across the world to discover how deeply psychedelic mushrooms were set in Christian art.
They found symbols of psychedelic mushrooms spread throughout Europe and India, as far back as 300AD and throughout the Middle Ages. There’s evidence to suggest that both Amanita muscaria and Psilocybin mushrooms were used in secret rituals throughout Christianity.
During the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, herbal medicines and midwifery were clamped down on, and treated as witchcraft. It’s believed that the Inquisition was a large factor in the gradual decline of psychedelic symbols from Christian art.
Jerry hopes that we won’t see another Inquisition-style crackdown on psychedelic ritual. He envisions modern psychedelic centers, where anyone can go to explore psychedelics in the presence of trained guides. He thinks that this time, a psychedelic renaissance is unstoppable.
SHOW LINKS
Jerry and Julie’s book, The Psychedelic Gospels.
Soma by Gordon Wasson – investigating a mythical and mysterious psychedelic found in many ancient cultures.
Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna – looking at psychedelic plants and their usage throughout human history.
The Road to Eleusis by Gordon Wasson – unveiling the secretive psychedelic rituals of ancient Greece.
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CARA GIAIMO, Atlas Obscura, September 25, 2015
Thomas Jefferson was a great fan of Jesus. The author of the Declaration of Independence called the Son of God “the greatest of all the Reformers,” a font of “eloquence and fine imagination,” and the author of “a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man.” He wrote of him often, and tried to keep his teachings in mind.
But there was one catch—Jefferson didn’t think Jesus was the son of God. Indeed, he didn’t believe in miracles at all. So for a couple of evenings in February of 1804, after he had gone through the day’s papers and correspondence, the then-President kicked back in the White House, pulled out a razor and some glue, and did something out of a Congressional Republican’s worst nightmare: he cut the parts he didn’t like out of the New Testament, and stuck the parts he did like together again.
The resulting Frankenbook—now known as the Jefferson Bible — « abstracts what is really [Jesus’] from the rubbish in which it is buried, » Jefferson explained 15 years later in a letter to his secretary, William Short. That rubbish included the concept of the Trinity (which he called “mere Abracadabra”) immaculate conception (which he predicted would someday be “classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter”), and nearly everything else with a hint of hocus-pocus. “If necessary to exclude the miraculous, Jefferson would cut the text even in mid-verse,” biographer Peter S. Onuf writes in Jeffersonian Legacies. His was a Bible without prophecy, resurrection, or infinite loaves and fishes; a Bible where angels feared to tread. It was only 46 pages long.
Jefferson was not the first faithful, rational person perplexed by miracles. For as long as the law of scripture has bumped up against the laws of physics, theologians, philosophers and scientists have looked for ways to reconcile the two. But in recent years, some researchers have taken things a step further. Armed with improving technology, a willingness to wade through incompatible fields, and, often, great personal conviction, they have set out to scientifically explain the definitively inexplicable. (…)
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