The doors of Santa Sabina in Rome are conventionally said to have been carved in the early 5th century.
The scenes carved on it are mostly drawn from the Old Testament and the Gospel story.
The carved scenes are bordered by grape vines, a symbol for entheogenic wine mixture and for the vine-shaped deterministic world line.
Here’s Elijah pulled up to heaven on the chariot, pulled or guided by an angel (themes of ascent, being pulled up, steersmanship). Note the mushroom tree:
Here’s the abduction of Habbekuk. He’s carrying loaves of bread/entheogens. This myth is typologically similar to the abduction of Ganymede by Zeus’ eagle. Ganymede is typically portrayed wearing the same sort of cap as Habbekuk is here. He was abducted while tending his flocks. Note the freewillist goat eating the wavy stalk topped by a mushroom head on the right.
Here’s Jesus with a wand (the magician) multiplying and creating the entheogens (bread, fish, wine), and restoring sight to the blind (experiential enlightenment, switch of mental world model):
Here’s Jesus appearing to two women, surrounded by waving, fruiting, mushroom trees:
From bottom to top: Moses confronts Pharaoh (king ego) with heimarmene snakes (fixedness of thoughts and actions); The horses (ego) drawing the chariot (control themes) are overwhelmed by the undulating waters (perceptual distortion in loose cognition); the people are led to the promised land and greeted by an angel (messenger of transcendent rationality).
Conventional scholarship says this is the earliest surviving depiction of Christ’s crucifixion:
There are more panels. Check them out and spot the altered state metaphor: http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=santa+sabina+doors&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1030&bih=575
2 comments
November 3, 2011 at 9:18 am
cyberdisciple
I’m writing this from within the conventional chronology. Did Edwin Johnson discuss art history or only textual criticism? What does he do with material remains? How secure is our dating of material remains?
I’m not quite sure how I would describe this if I were using Edwin Johnson’s chronology.
One option: the doors depicting these supposedly Christian themes are not from the 5th century AD, but are much later.
Another option: the doors are from the 5th century AD, but the images depicted on them are not representations of stories from the Old Testament and New Testament. The OT and the NT had not been written. Instead these images are variations on conventional themes of altered state experiencing (i.e. chariot ascending, crucifixion, magic holy men).
Or, just the NT had not yet been written. Supposedly Christian images are just updates on and reactions to Jewish images, not depictions of the Gospel story.
November 3, 2011 at 9:45 am
cyberdisciple
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/5464
I agree with Hoffman that it’s time to move past proving that mushrooms exist in ancient art. That’s why I included some comments on how the images represent altered state experiencing and, just now, some comments about chronology.
I do think it’s valuable to publish more and more images of mushrooms and other plants in ancient art. Hoffman has been complaining that the blurry images that accompany John Rush’s book obscure the evidence.