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Edited October 1st, 2021 with Table of Contents; edited October 3rd, 2021 to correct typos
Table of Contents
John Marco Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, and his “students”
Finding psychedelics in history and the understanding of “secrecy” and “mystery”
Introduction
This article is prompted by Chris Bennett’s recent article criticizing Jerry Brown and Julie Brown’s The Psychedelic Gospels.
Here I will use Bennett’s article as a launching point to draw attention to certain dynamics in the field of historical psychedelics research (or “entheogen” scholarship) that are not discussed enough and are blocking progress in the field.
In particular, I will discuss
- the problematic place in the field of John Marco Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross and the need to properly contextualize that book
- the field’s ensnarement in a literal understanding of “secrecy” or “mystery”; the need for a thoroughgoing reflection on the nature and meaning of “secrecy” and “mystery”
- the need to recognize pre-modern figural art, literary texts, myth, and ritual as complex, multi-valent media characterized by metaphoricity, allusion, punning, and double-entendre, rather than literalist, photorealistic representations of just one thing
- the need for generosity and charitability in intra-disciplinary criticism, though not at the expense of serious, no-nonsense critique; the need to keep the field focused on ideas, not personalities.
Overview
Although his article is focused on The Psychedelic Gospels, Chris Bennett critiques the topic of mushrooms in Christian art more broadly. In this he joins with Thomas Hatsis, who has posted criticisms of what he calls the “Holy Mushroom Theory” at his site (all the articles are dated to 2017, but I believe they were written and originally posted more like 2013 at an earler version of his site). Bennett and Hatsis argue primarily against Jan Irvin (The Holy Mushroom), John Rush (The Mushroom in Christian Art), and now Jerry Brown and Julie Brown (The Psychedelic Gospels; “Entheogens in Christian Art”). Carl Ruck and Clark Heinrich are also mentioned, though not in the same detail, and Chris Bennett has also criticized the identification of mushrooms in Hindu and Buddhist art in another article on Mike Crowley’s Secret Drugs of Buddhism. To my knowledge, Bennett and Hatsis have not discussed in writing other scholars who have written on mushrooms in Hellenic/Christian/Western art, including John Rolfe, John Ramsbottom, Frank Brightman, Robert Graves, Giorgio Samorini, Mark Hoffman, Fulvio Gosso, Gilberto Camilla, José Alfredo González Celdrán, Michael Hoffman, and myself.
In an introductory note to his article on The Psychedelic Gospels, Bennett writes that he follows Hatsis’ framing in criticizing scholars whom Hatsis calls discipuli Allegrae [sic] (“students of Allegro”; the Latin should really be discipuli Allegri, see below), referring to John Marco Allegro’s book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. Hatsis used the term discipuli Allegrae in his 2018 book, Psychedelic Mystery Traditions (first on p. 108). Hatsis and Bennett use the category to argue against the idea that mushrooms were secretly encoded into religious artwork. They characterize the concept of secretly encoded mushrooms as a conspiracy theory rooted in Allegro’s discredited work.
Bennett and Hatsis dismiss arguments for the presence of mushrooms in Christian art as primarily deriving from over-eager scholars unversed in proper historical method. Such a proper historical method, they argue, shows that alleged mushrooms in medieval Christian art are in fact other objects that happen to look like mushrooms. The alleged mushroom-shape of the object derives from either a) the ineptitude of medieval artists or b) progressive stylization due to artists working not from natural and real forms, but from previous versions of typical images. For Bennett and Hatsis, mushrooms in art are an embarrassing, unserious, unscholarly proposition that detracts from the dignity of the field of researching psychedelics in history, and draws attention away from other drugs for which they consider there to be actual sound evidence. Instead of evidence from figural art, Bennett and Hatsis prefer explicit, literal references to drugs in texts and straightforward archaeological evidence of drugs.
In what follows, I will first discuss Allegro and see whether or not Hatsis’ categories of discipuli Allegrae and the “Holy Mushroom Theory” are an accurate way of characterizing scholars who write on mushrooms in Christian art.
Following from there, I will discuss Hatsis’ and Bennett’s view of mushrooms in Christian art as a secret code and build from that to a reflection on the confused overemphasis in the field on the secrecy of psychedelics in historical religions. I will suggest that this overemphasis and confusion stem from a misconception of the concept of “mystery.” I urge that the field engage in reflection on the concepts of “secrecy” and “mystery” in order to move beyond a simple, literal understanding of those concepts.
Next, I will turn to Hatsis’ and Bennett’s approach to pre-modern art and evidence for mushrooms in art. I will argue that their approach is overly simplistic and misses out on the multivalence and allusiveness typical of pre-modern art, including medieval Christian and “secular” art.
I will further suggest that there is an intimate relation between a revised understanding of “secrecy” and “mystery”, the complex meanings of pre-modern art, and altered-state experiencing itself. I believe that this relationship serves as an effective rebuttal to Hatsis’ and Bennett’s rejection of mushrooms in art.
Lastly, I will offer a reflection on intra-disciplinary criticism and what I view to be Hatsis’ and Bennett’s unproductive aggressiveness and fixation on scholarly personality and style.
John Marco Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, and his “students”
Does John Marco Allegro have any students or followers in the field of psychedelics in history (or “entheogens”)? Thomas Hatsis thinks that he does, namely scholars who argue that mushrooms were secretly depicted in Christian art (see, e.g. Hatsis, Psychedelic Mystery Traditions, p. 158, 223). Hatsis has termed all such scholars discipuli Allegrae (first on p. 108 of Hatsis, Psychedelic Mystery Traditions) and regularly refers to them as promoting something he calls the “Holy Mushroom Theory.” Chris Bennett accepts Hatsis’ category discipuli Allegrae early on in his article on Jerry Brown and Julie Brown’s The Psychedelic Gospels. Hatsis and Bennett imply that everyone who recognizes mushrooms in Christian art is in some way inspired by Allegro and tied to the thesis of his book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. Are Hatsis and Bennett correct? To answer this question, we first need to consider what Allegro’s argument actually was.
To vastly over-simplify his argument, Allegro argued that
- etymological links prove that the authors of the New Testament wrote in a deliberate code that concealed that Christianity was an iteration of an ancient fertility cult, a cult that also included the Amanita muscaria mushroom;
- the authors of the New Testament wrote in such a code in order to conceal their fertility/mushroom cult from Judaic and Roman oppressors;
- this original meaning was forgotten after the first generation of Christians, but can be uncovered thanks to Allegro’s philological method.
In addition to this philology/fertility/mushroom theory, Allegro mentioned, almost in passing, the 13th century fresco in the Plaincourault Chapel, in which the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden is depicted in the style of an Amanita muscaria mushroom and reflects some “recollection” of the otherwise forgotten fertility/mushroom cult (p. 80).
I have argued that Allegro should be dropped from discussion by historians of psychedelics. In my article linked in the previous sentence, I argue that his book is not a work of history, but a demonstration of philological method and a meditation on the relationship of words to generation — and just so happens to involve the Amanita muscaria mushroom as a symbol of the process of generation. At best, for historians of psychedelics, Allegro should be a footnote, an odd curiosity. Allegro’s theory is a curious philological offshoot of early anthropological theorizing into the nature of religion that overemphasized the fertility and generative aspects of religion.
The forcefulness and notoriety of Allegro’s theory, brazenly combining the ahistoricity of Jesus, sex and fertility, etymological punning and codes, and the Amanita muscaria mushroom, has distracted many scholars. Has Allegro been cited and even championed by some scholars of psychedelics in religion? Of course. But I do not see any scholar as being truly based in Allegro’s theory because Allegro’s theory is a closed system.
Allegro’s theory is so particular, specific, and self-contained that it cannot be properly incorporated into studies of mushrooms in antiquity more broadly or into studies of medieval art. Any argument for mushrooms in Christianity outside of Allegro’s model of a secret fertility cult in the first generation of Christians immediately contradicts Allegro’s theory to such a degree that one ought not to bother citing Allegro in the first place. Even Allegro himself partly contradicted himself in mentioning the Plaincourault fresco. Given that his theory was that only the first Christians used Amanita muscaria, what is it doing in a fresco in 13th century France?
Allegro sits awkwardly in books and articles on mushrooms in Christianity. Whether or not they critique him directly, scholars’ arguments and evidence for mushrooms in the rest of Mediterranean and Near Eastern antiquity, in the medieval period, and in art refute Allegro’s narrow, particular construction of a secret fertility/mushroom cult.
In practice, then, scholars have moved past Allegro and work independently of his highly particular philological theory. I would advise them to follow up on their practice and stop citing Allegro positively; he is not the influence that they think he is. Likewise, I would advise Hatsis and Bennett to drop Allegro. There is no need to tie the topic of psychedelics in Christianity, including in Christian art, to Allegro’s theory. As it is, Hatsis and Bennett recenter the field around Allegro, hindering progress by litigating again and again the topic of Allegro’s secret Amanita cult. For all their claims of wanting the field to progress, this fixation on Allegro traps the field in an endless loop.
In particular, it is odd for Hatsis and Bennett to tie the topic of mushrooms in Christian art to Allegro. Visual art has little role in his philological theory. As noted above, he mentions Plaincourault only in a passing, contradictory way. Moreover, Allegro was not the first to identify a mushroom in the Plaincourault fresco. Instead, the attribution goes back at least to 1925 and Rolfe’s Romance of the Fungus World (if not earlier to 1911 and the French mycological journal cited by Rolfe; see excerpt from Rolfe here). For the topic of mushrooms in Christian art, Allegro is unimportant, merely reporting what he found in the books of others. Allegro did not develop a theory, method, or body of evidence for interpreting mushrooms in Christian art.
In sum, Hatsis’ categories of discipuli Allegrae and the “Holy Mushroom Theory” are problematic and should be discarded. The categories rest on a fundamental misapprehension of Allegro’s project and a misestimation of his place in the development of identifying mushrooms in art.
To be fair, this misapprehension is partly the fault of certain pre-existing traditions in the field, of certain scholars who have misconstrued the relevance of Allegro’s work. Nonetheless, Hatsis’ categories discipuli Allegrae and the “Holy Mushroom Theory” add little clarity to the matter and do not help the field progress.
[As an aside, the Latinist in me is compelled to point out that discipuli Allegrae is bad Latin. If we want to make a Latin version of Allegro’s name in the genitive case, it will surely be “Allegri,” not the first declension “Allegrae.” His name, after all, is not Allegra, but Allegro, corresponding to the Latin second declension. The phrase should be discipuli Allegri (“students of Allegro”).]
Finding psychedelics in history and the understanding of “secrecy” and “mystery”
What I think Hatsis and Bennett are truly reacting against is not the influence of Allegro, but instead against the field’s tendency to posit that the use of psychedelics was an actively repressed “secret”, concealed by a hidden code in text and image.
Do a word search on their articles for the word “secret” and related words, and you will see that the position they are really criticizing is not that of mushrooms in art, but that of mushrooms secretly encoded in art, or the position that Christianity originated in a secret mushroom cult, or that there was secret mushroom use throughout Christian history.
Here I have to say that they are onto something, though I also think that they ultimately take their criticism in the wrong direction. The field of psychedelics in history has overemphasized the secrecy of the use of psychedelics. Many authors have presented psychedelics as used rarely, deviantly, or covertly, and have made the topic of religious initiation primarily about knowledge of psychedelics themselves and/or the policing of this knowledge across history. Examples follow:
- Robert Graves and R. Gordon Wasson had their mushroom “taboo” (my discussion here; search for my other articles on Graves).
- Allegro—although I do not think he belongs in the field, as discussed above—has his secret mushroom/fertility cult hidden by etymological punning.
- Wasson, Albert Hofmann, and Carl Ruck identify what was revealed at the mysteries of Eleusis as ergot itself.
- The majority of Carl Ruck’s work after The Road to Eleusis revolves around secret knowledge of psychedelics by a select few, and his Structuralist myth interpretation elevates the revealing of the drug plant itself as the key revelation, by giving the drug plant a key role as the symbol of the “mediator” between opposites, the central figure of Structuralist myth interpretation.
- Mike Crowley’s book is titled Secret Drugs of Buddhism.
- Jerry Brown and Julie Brown’s book is subtitled The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity.
- Brian Muraresku’s The Immortality Key is subtitled The Secret History of the Religion with No Name, and focuses on a secret and oppressed tradition of the use of psychedelics spanning centuries.
[Although outside of the scope of the present article, we can entertain nuanced ways of understanding that “the drug itself” emerges in historical religions as an object of revelation or as a discovery of religious initiation, as part of a series of initiations. Such arguments, however, should be carefully distinguished from point-blank suggestions that premoderns were selectively ignorant, or kept ignorant, of the existence of psychedelics and their effects. Too often the language of “secrecy” implies such ignorance.]
One could say that the field has an obsession with “secrecy”, an obsession the field should discard. Among other things, the “secret psychedelic use” model has always had a problem with evidence. If the idea was that the use of psychedelics in a religion was kept secret, known only to a few, the researcher can only bring so much evidence of psychedelics to bear. If we have a ton of evidence for psychedelics, the “secret psychedelic use” model starts to look untenable.
With regard to mushrooms in Christian art, the general approach criticized by Hatsis and Bennett-i.e. their conception of what they mean by the “Holy Mushroom Theory”-is that mushrooms have been encoded cryptically in images and other figural cultural forms, particularly in order to keep knowledge of them secret either from the non-adept or from oppressors, while at the same time also communicating about mushrooms to the initiated. Rather than accept this conception of “secret mushrooms in art and Christianity”, Hatsis and Bennett have pivoted towards the denial of mushrooms in art and Christianity. Their general practice is to refute their conception of the secrecy of mushrooms by denying that there are any mushrooms to be seen to begin with.
Instead of this denial of a particular conception of “secret mushrooms in art and Christianity”, what the field needs is a reconceptualization of the extent of the use of psychedelics in history and of “secrecy” and related concepts like “mystery”, “veiling”, and “revelation.” A full treatment of this topic is outside of the scope of the present article. But in summary, this reconceptualization involves moving away from the idea of hidden practices (i.e. clandestine use of psychedelics) towards issues of meaning. These issues of meaning include religious, dramatic, and other figural conceptions of “mystery” and what we can call paradigms of interpretative epiphany such as “revelation”, “insight”, “enlightenment” etc. The rationale for “secrecy” or “mystery” was not to keep outsiders ignorant of the use of psychedelics, but to describe something about the way the mind makes meaning and to instantiate that in the practice of religion.
One alternative to the “secret psychedelic use” paradigm in contemporary psychedelics scholarship has been formulated by Michael Hoffman. According to Hoffman’s theorizing, psychedelics were an open secret and their effects were widely understood, discussed via analogy in myth and text, and depicted in art. Applied to Christianity, this new paradigm asserts in part that:
- the use of psychedelics was not a restricted secret or oppressed heresy in Christianity;
- mushrooms are depicted in numerous pieces of Christian art;
- the Eucharist is routinely discussed in the New Testament, other Early Christian writings, and in the Church Fathers in the way we would expect a psychedelic to be discussed;
- concepts like “secrecy”, “mystery”, “veiling”, and “revelation” refer not to “hidden psychedelic use” but to the switch from the ordinary state of cognition to the psychedelic state of cognition, and specifically to the unveiling of the mind’s ultimate, normally hidden, source of thoughts and will.
Articles on mushrooms in Christian art produced by this new paradigm include Hoffman’s articles Defining “Compelling Evidence” & “Criteria of Proof” for Mushrooms in Christian Art and Proof that the Canterbury Psalter’s Leg-Hanging Mushroom Tree Is Psilocybe (both of which I contributed to).
Interpreters of Art
Thomas Hatsis and Chris Bennett have adopted a “debunking” stance on the topic of mushrooms in Christian visual arts. They take up a few individual pieces of evidence for mushrooms in Christian art and “explain away” the mushroom. Primarily, they assert that each mushroom-image in question does not look like a mushroom to them, but is instead a depiction of some other object. They regularly imply that an object in a piece of figurative art represents one thing and one thing only, that art has a fixed meaning that represents precisely one thing, implying that art is incapable of holding multiple interpretations and representations at the same time.
It is an inadequate reply to the proposed topic of mushrooms in Christian art to say (in effect) “I just don’t see it” and “that can’t represent a mushroom because it actually represents a [tree/parasol/whatever].” Pre-modern art is widely recognized as a multi-valent, multi-layered system of figural allusion. Objects in pre-modern art are not merely representations of just one thing, but exist in a system of allusions, whether to other versions of the same image, to related images, across media (e.g. visual allusions to literary text and vice versa; or to ritual action), or to models imagined to exist at a higher metaphysical level. This is a standard, beginner-level aspect of studying pre-modern art and representation, whether visual, literary, or ritual.
This multi-valency of art, literary text, and ritual is in fact even more interesting and apt with regard to psychedelics, because of the well-known allusive and metaphorical state of consciousness induced by psychedelics; a playful overlapping of representations is perfectly in line with the psychedelic experience. For example, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that artists familiar with the effects of psychedelics would depict mushrooms as trees and trees as mushrooms. There is nothing far-fetched about such an idea, despite the assertions of detractors. The declaration of “just not seeing it” looks like a kind of affected obtuseness, especially when coming from historians of psychedelics.
Chris Bennett makes the most confusing pronouncement when he posits that the apparent mushroom-shaped objects in Christian art stem from the inability of medieval artists to draw or paint well, because it was the “Dark Ages.” The concept of the “Dark Ages” and the position that medieval artists simply had no skill was discarded by medievalists decades ago. It is a basic principle of modern medieval studies that the “Dark Ages” is an unhistorical interpretative category and that the move in medieval visual art away from naturalism in the depiction of forms cannot be attributed simply to a decline in skill. Since Bennett is an accomplished historian, I would expect him to have some familiarity with the positions in medieval studies that have been standard in the field for decades. His deployment of an out-dated and inaccurate explanation again looks like a kind of affected obtuseness.
“Scholar” as Brand and Style
In the context of mushrooms in Christian art, Bennett writes that “I prefer things, [sic] like actual textual references, etymological research and most of all archeological evidence.” With this statement, Bennett suggests that he relies on “superior,” empirical evidence and method when it comes to the topic of mushrooms in Christian art. Thomas Hatsis relies on similar kinds of statements, championing the superiority of his method. These statements are not themselves proof of superiority, but are instead a kind of stylistic statement. They allude to the kind of scholar Hatsis and Bennett want to be known as. This “kind of scholar” is set in opposition to the kind of scholar they do not want to be known as, specifically (their conception of) scholars who recognize mushrooms in Christian art.
There is an aspect of “branding” to Hatsis’ and Bennett’s articles on mushrooms in Christian art. They want to convince you, the reader, that they are scholars superior to those unserious scholars who recognize mushrooms in Christian art. They tell you repeatedly that they are superior scholars with superior methdology, while the targets of their criticism are amateur dilettantes with no understanding of proper methodology and history. Most importantly, these awful, bad “scholars” are hindering the field by drawing attention away from the good scholars to whom everyone should be listening (guess who the good scholars are in this story).
Hatsis and Bennett employ aggressive rhetoric about their own superiority, but do they deliver the goods in their criticism? As I point out above, a) their treatment of pre-modern art, far from being some advanced historical methodology, is simplistic and reductionist, and b) they use Allegro’s book uncritically to cast doubt on the targets of their criticism.
On the positive side, Hatsis and Bennett advocate for more rigor in scholarship in this field and for more attention to be paid to the historical context of evidence. There is some good in this, and they have provided corrections to errors in citation and basic historical information published by some authors.
There is a limit to such correction, however, and in their criticism they have elevated what is essentially an editorial problem to the level of conceptual error, and in some cases to intellectual deficiency on the part of the target. This last tactic confuses criticism, turning scholarly criticism into personal attack.
What amounts to citational errors and imprecision about historical context serves as part of Hatsis’ and Bennett’s rationale for radically dismissing their targets. This is a dangerous tactic, because using such an all-or-nothing attack requires that the attackers’ own writing be error-free. Employing such tactics in public criticism is tricky and should be reserved for special circumstances. Indiscriminate use of such tactics can result in a kind of arms race, with scholars breaking out into hostile camps.
I have not reviewed Chris Bennett’s books in detail. I am told that they are top-notch. Yet by the logic of the all-or-nothing tactic of criticism employed by Hatsis and Bennett, I should dismiss his work solely for his “Dark Ages” comment above. No respectable historian in 2021 should be using the “Dark Ages” as a conceptual tool.
I have read parts of Thomas Hatsis’ Psychedelic Mystery Traditions, and it is not difficult to find errors. Two examples: 1) on page 71, Hatsis misidentifies a plate (search page for “cista”) from Pompeii as depicting Dionysus adding drugs, symbolized by a serpent, to a mixing vat. Instead, the plate shows what is likely a satyr (note the tail) and a cista mystica, with snake emerging. The iconography of a snake emerging from a cista mystica is typical and standard: a simple image search in a search engine for “cista mystica” will turn up numerous examples of this iconography (e.g.). One could argue that anyone writing on Greco-Roman art should be able to identify the image correctly. Hatsis likewise does not credit the source of the image, committing a basic failure of scholarship.
2) on page 14, Hatsis discusses the relationship between religious ritual and theater performance, adding “It should come as no surprise that the words theology and theater have similar word roots.” In fact, the roots are only superficially similar, but not in any meaningful way. The theo– part of theology derives from the Greek work θεός, ‘god, goddess,’ while the thea– part of theater derives from θέα, ‘sight, spectacle.’ Per the Etymological Dictionary of Greek, the Greek words themselves do not derive from similar roots: see page 536 for θέα, 540 for θεός. Hatsis’ statement is a clever, “wow, isn’t that cool” statement that one sees often about antiquity, and especially about ancient languages. It superficially looks interesting and profound, but turns out to be totally meaningless. Merely because the word units of another language look kind of similar to us, does not mean that they have any real relation or significance.
To compound the problem, Hatsis in endnote 4 (found on page 237) cites Ruck, Staples, and Heinrich, Apples of Apollo, page 12, as support to his claim about the words theology and theater. This citation is vague. The book should be titled The Apples of Apollo and the citation should be to Ruck, C.A.P., “Bacchus Amongst Us,” 12. In Ruck, C.A.P., Staples, B.D., and Heinrich, C., The Apples of Apollo, 12 (or something similar, depending on the citation style). The problem for Hatsis’ claim about the words theology and theater is that on page 12 Ruck makes no such claim about the words theology and theater. Instead, Ruck writes about the relationship between religious ritual and theater performance in classical Athens. What’s going on? The answer is sloppy citation.
Hatsis’ sentence about the roots of the words theology and theater ends Hatsis’ paragraph about the relationship between ritual and performance. Hatsis has cited Ruck’s chapter to support the paragraph as a whole, not the final sentence about the roots of the words theology and theater. This is not proper citation practice. Instead, proper citation practice would be to cite each sentence that draws from Ruck’s chapter individually or to cite Ruck’s chapter as a general influence after the first sentence of the paragraph (e.g. “in this paragraph about ritual and theater, I follow Carl Ruck’s ‘Bacchus Amongst Us’…” etc.). Putting the citation at the end of the paragraph is misleading and confusing, and not proper scholarly citation practice.
If I were writing in the style of Hatsis, I would use these mistakes to claim that Hatsis lacks basic training in art historical material, in the Greek language, and in scholarly methods of citation, and that therefore we should be suspicious of all his other claims and citations. After all, if a so-called “historian” can make such a basic error as misidentifying a cista mystica as a krater for mixing wine, what good are the rest of his writings? If a so-called “historian” can make such a meaningless statement about etymologies, what good are his other analyses of texts? If a so-called “historian” completely omits one citation and makes such a confusing mess of the other, what good are the rest of his citations? How can we trust such a writer?
I point out these errors not to dismiss the work of Hatsis and Bennett, but to illustrate the degree to which their claims to be truly serious scholars in a sea of amateurs are really posturing and bravado. They rely upon a series of standards that are unhelpful to anyone working in this field who has an earnest desire to see the field (and not themselves) advance. Advancing the field requires a combination of theoretical, methodological, and evidential analysis. Errors in citation and historical context are of lesser importance. They should merely be corrected, ideally behind the scenes before publication by a judicious editor or through a peer-review process. They should not be turned into principles of dismissing other scholars.
The field of psychedelics in history could use more serious, no-nonsense, yet good-willed criticism. What the field does not need is the sort of aggressive attacks found in Hatsis’ and Bennett’s articles. The field will certainly not be advanced by attempting to force scholars into hostile camps by overly aggressive criticism, self-aggrandizement, character attacks, and smearing by association. The field should not be based around personality, but around ideas.
Hatsis and Bennett instead want to make the field about personality, with them as the right sort of personality. This is an exercise in branding and social sorting, creating a “good” in-group and a “bad” out-group. Hatsis and Bennett champion themselves as the saviors of the field, those who will finally bring serious, critical, professional work to the historical study of psychedelics, in contrast to all the other, unserious, uncritical, unprofessional researchers. Given this branding and these social dynamics, perhaps it should be no surprise that both Hatsis and Bennett are active on social media and video sites to promote their work and attack their imagined rivals. As an example of their “branding”, they are called “two leading psychedelic historians” who will “separate fact from fiction” in an upcoming livestream event on September 27th, 2021, titled “Psychedelic Mysteries and Entheogenic Sacraments: A Critical Historical Perspective.”
Acknowledgments
My wife, for proofreading, editing, contribution of some wording, and much discussion.
Michael Hoffman for correcting typos.
Introduction
This post presents my summary review of The Immortality Key and collects in one place my writings on the book from October 2020 to May 2021.
Table of Contents
Summary Review – read this for the basics
Elaborations – further reading that expands on points in the Summary Review
Links to Posts – detailed critique
Summary Review
The Immortality Key (TIK) by Brian Muraresku proposes to introduce the general American public to the topic of psychedelics in Greco-Roman and Christian religion and culture.
What should a book with the above goal accomplish? Such a book should review the scholarship published so far on the topic, evaluate the methods, conclusions, and evidence of that scholarship, and point out questions still to be answered and gaps in the research. In short, the book should be a history and evaluation of the field, summarizing what has been achieved and what needs to be done. Such a book would need to present enough Greco-Roman and Christian history and culture to contextualize the scholarship and discuss the implications of the scholarship for our understanding of Greco-Roman and Christian history and culture. Ultimately such a book should contribute to the transformation of modernity’s understanding of religion, from ordinary-state based to altered-state based.
Despite presenting itself initially as an introduction to the field, TIK soon gives way to a more limited scope: to prove Carl Ruck’s ‘secret tradition’ approach to psychedelics in religion with bio-chemical archaeological scholarship. Curiously, the book undermines both parts of this argument. Only a limited selection of Ruck’s scholarship is discussed, and the scholarship of Ruck’s that is discussed is treated as if not convincing on its own terms, needing additional evidence from the hard sciences to persuade. Conversely, the hard science that we are promised will provide a ‘smoking gun’ is singularly underwhelming. As the book admits again and again, the right sort of tests either have not been done, are impossible now to do for some sites and finds, or when they have been done are simply inadequate to prove the ‘secret tradition.’ The structure of the book creates a frustrating tension: always holding out the promise of finding proof to keep the reader turning the page, never delivering on that promise.
What, we may ask, does the book accomplish? There is another narrative running through the book, a narrative that constitutes the true goal of the book. This narrative has two interwoven aspects. Chapter by chapter the book constructs an image of its author, Brian Muraresku, as a scholar and researcher who travels the world to museums, archaeological sites, libraries, and meetings with scholars. Likewise, by following Muraresku’s travels, thoughts, and conversations, chapter by chapter the book constructs Muraresku’s own version of the ‘secret tradition’ of psychedelic religion. Muraresku has taken the ‘secret tradition’ idea over from Ruck and developed it in his own direction.
Muraresku’s version of the ‘secret tradition’ is a tradition, continuous over the centuries, and handed down by tenuous connections, of psychedelic techniques for communing with the dead in ceremonies lead by women. This tradition was oppressed by male politicians and priests who wanted to prevent people from having direct, mystical experiences. Instead, they replaced those experiences with mere words and doctrine. The constant mention of the author’s travels, research, and conversations are meant to give him an air of authority and lend credence to his version of the ‘secret tradition.’ Reading closely, however, the book’s argumentation, evidence, and endnotes, shows this version of the ‘secret tradition’ to be little more than flimsy conjecture. If we were to cut the author’s tales of travel and conversations, this weakness would be even more apparent.
If the book were merely an attempt to publicize its author and his implausible conjecture, we could put the book into the stack of ‘entheogen scholarship’ books that make some contribution to the progress of the field, sharpen our critical tools by evaluating the book’s strengths and flaws, and move on to the next book while continuing our own research. However, there is another aspect of the book that deserves special attention, an aspect that amounts to a hidden intention. The book’s conjectural ‘secret tradition’ is intended to prop up contemporary psychedelic therapy and its political and social goals.
The book presents psychedelic therapy as providing direct experience, in contrast to contemporary religion’s mere words. Furthermore, the book associates experience with women and associates words and doctrine with men. The book projects this reductive contrast on to the past, leading to a picture of a ‘secret tradition’ of psychedelic experiences oppressed by organized religion’s words, of ‘witches’ oppressed by priests.
Shockingly, in the book’s Afterword, psychedelic therapy is praised as a superior version of the ‘secret tradition’ conjectured by the book, and the book gives space for a contemporary therapist to advocate for therapists to have control of administering psychedelics to people. These will be the new ‘mystery religions,’ providing direct experience. The book’s hidden intention is to subordinate the history of psychedelics in Western religion to psychedelic therapy and its social and legal goals.
The book is ultimately a regressive work, despite posing as culturally progressive. The book advocates for a special class of administrators to have the legal power to administer psychedelics in tightly controlled settings. A far cry from the book’s apparent sympathy with the groups the book depicts as oppressed by a hierarchy seeking to control access to the psychedelic eucharist. The book has a predatory approach to the topic of Western religion: pick out the parts useful for its social agenda, demonize and discard the rest. In doing so, the book shuts itself off from understanding Western religion and undermines progress in the field.
The book is not a well-intentioned scholarly work, dedicated to making a contribution to the field and moving the field forward. The book is instead a P.R. campaign for its author and contemporary psychedelic therapy. Whether knowingly or not, the author and his book have become a tool of contemporary psychedelic therapy.
Elaborations
Regarding TIK‘s relationship to Carl Ruck and to chemical analysis
TIK discusses only two of Ruck’s books, The Road to Eleusis (for Greek topics) and The Apples of Apollo (for Greek and Christian topics). Where are his many other books and articles? The rest of Ruck’s output is ignored in favor of the book’s own version of a ‘secret tradition’ of psychedelic use in Western religion. In fact, most scholarship in the field is studiously ignored in the book.
The initial premise of the book is curiously dismissive of Ruck’s scholarship, the very scholarship the book hopes to redeem. Ruck’s scholarship is treated as fundamentally unconvincing in its own right. Instead, the book claims, chemical analysis of archaeological finds is needed to really, truly prove that psychedelics were used in Western religion. This focus on chemical analysis as the guarantor of plausibility implies not only that Ruck’s scholarship is not particularly convincing, but that textual, artistic, and theoretical approaches in general are unconvincing. This self-defeating stance is all the more ironic when we consider that the book does not turn up much particularly compelling evidence (by the book’s own admission, mind you!) derived from chemical analysis and pivots to the very textual, artistic, and theoretical approaches that its obsession with chemical analysis has undermined.
The laboratory tests have either not been done or are not possible for some sites or are inconclusive. This happens again and again in the book, despite the great fanfare that a mind-blowing piece of evidence is just about to be revealed in each new chapter. Here, too, we find a curious weakness. Although the book triumphs chemical analysis of archaeological finds, the book does not provide the ultra-compelling evidence that it says it wants to find. What then is the point of this book?
TIK‘s ‘secret tradition’ and conjectural relationship to historical scholarship
To construct its own version of the ‘secret tradition,’ TIK relies on poorly substantiated ‘links’ between groups to create an elaborate chain of transmission of psychedelic use and knowledge. This chain of transmission is not so much argued for and proven as suggested. The arguing style relies on series of conditional statements: “if A is possible, then perhaps B is possible” ; “if A and B are possible, then perhaps C is possible” ; “if A and B and C are possible, then perhaps D is possible” ; and so on. The book leaves us with a series of possibilities, building up an ever more wobbly stack of cards. The book uses some scholarly sources to substantiate those possibilities, but typically draws upon a single source per topic. When the scholarly book or article is solid, TIK shines, but when the source is tendentious or overly biased and incomplete, the book falters.
Furthermore, TIK frequently goes beyond what the scholarly source supports, but rarely indicates when doing so. TIK frequently mixes solid scholarship with groundless fantasy, but obscures what precisely derives from another’s scholarship and what derives from the author’s conjecture. The book gives the impression of being rooted in scholarship. Nonetheless, a close reading of the book and endnotes show that the majority of the book is the author’s conjecture and fantasy, albeit passed off as reasonable and well-supported by scholarship.
Correcting TIK‘s ‘secret tradition’
I do not think that TIK is wrong to identify psychedelic usage in the groups the book does, but I do not think those were the only groups. Nor do I think that the groups were persecuted because of their use of psychedelics. There is no need to posit an elaborate and brittle chain of transmission of secret, oppressed knowledge and use. TIK has a scatter-shot approach to evidence for psychedelics. On the one hand, the book continually praises chemical analysis as the only way to ‘prove’ psychedelics. On the other hand, the book draws on an odd melange of techniques to construct the brittle secret tradition that it does. Methodology is not discussed, but techniques and types of evidence are thrown together opportunistically as the author needs to construct his fantasy secret tradition. Much evidence is ignored, one imagines because such evidence would interfere with the author’s fantasy. Perceiving evidence for psychedelics requires discussion of what counts as evidence and why.
The groups that TIK describes, rightly or wrongly, as oppressed were not oppressed because of psychedelic usage, which was common and widespread throughout Greco-Roman and premodern Christian culture. TIK automatically assumes that the Roman Senate and later the early Church bishops and later Catholic priests were opposed to psychedelics, and in the Christian case, provided a placebo eucharist, instead of the psychedelic eucharist. These competing groups should instead be understood as competing brands of psychedelic salvation, and we should understand that the competition between them is a matter of rhetoric, resources, power, etc. not psychedelic vs. placebo.
TIK‘s narrative of research
The majority of the book is given over not to a discussion of scholarship and to history, but to the author’s detective-like narrative. The real subject of TIK is the author, Brian Muraresku. Page after page narrate his discussions and meetings with scholars, his travels around Europe, his visits to sites and libraries. TIK portrays the normal work of scholarship as an unusual and rare process of fascinating interest for the general reader. This narrative obscures that Muraresku has not turned up anything particularly new or convincing. Researchers, take note! When you don’t find anything in your research, simply write about the process of your research in excruciating detail! With the right publisher’s backing, you too can have a best-seller!
TIK‘s hype and fame, scholarly reviews
Since the book’s publication, Muraresku has gone on a major media campaign, celebrated as a scholar. In reality, he has pulled one over on us, disguising his under-argued, under-supported fantasy of a secret tradition of oppressed, women-led psychedelic initiations as solid scholarship.
Scholars in a variety of fields should call Muraresku out for passing himself off as a scholar and profiting from media hype. Jerry Brown‘s and Chris Bennett‘s reviews provide much needed correction of Muraresku’s claims. I would go further, however, and reject the book’s value in raising awareness and popularizing the topic. The book has received enough praise from its press kit. Brown’s review is admirably impartial, as befits a scholarly journal. Although I disagree to some extent with the initial framing of the book as “fascinating, audacious, and important,” Brown is rightfully critical of the book’s claims to newness, omission of scholarship, and historical over-reach. Bennett focuses on TIK‘s omission of research on cannabis, including his own, and especially archaeological evidence for cannabis, the very evidence TIK champions. Even more fascinating is Bennett’s account of his correspondence with Muraresku: glowing praise of Bennett’s research, then omission of that research in his book; appearing on Bennett’s podcast to discuss the book, then ignoring any subsequent communication. These are not the actions of a scholar.
Brown and Bennett both treat TIK as if the problems with the book are oversights on the author’s part that can be corrected by more knowledgeable and experienced scholars. In light of the intense media hype surrounding the book, I think they and other scholars should be suspicious and keep the book and its author at arm’s length. The problem extends beyond the author to the media apparatus surrounding him and to the contemporary media culture. Whatever scholarly intentions the author may have had, they have been distorted by the larger media apparatus. Such an apparatus transforms the author from a scholar into a media profiteer and participant in media culture.
The book is largely a product of the so-called “Psychedelic Renaissance” and its university, NGO, and media machine, advocating for psychedelic therapy and controlled distribution by therapists. To me the question is less “how could this particular book be better?” and more “how and why did this particular book arise at this particular time?”
Regressive character of TIK, intellectual and cultural
The greatest tragedy of TIK is the effect it will have on the general reader’s understanding of who used psychedelics in Western religions for what purposes. The author’s anti-Roman, anti-Church stance prevents the book from addressing the topic of psychedelics wedded to social, political, and economic authority. The book perseveres in the illusion that psychedelic users inherently are an underclass, subversive to power and order. The persistence of such an illusion prevents us from seeing the full role of psychedelics in history.
Lastly, the cultural politics of TIK is solidly on the side of contemporary groups that want to limit access to psychedelics and create a controlled hierarchy. For all its opposition to the Roman Senate and Catholic Church hierarchy as oppressors of ‘folk’ use of psychedelics, TIK firmly supports the efforts of university and therapist-led psychedelic administration centers, to the exclusion of the free use by a variety of people. Hubristically, TIK claims that modern psychedelic therapy has surpassed pre-modern religions and gives prominent space in the Afterword to one of the head university therapists who advocates for tight control of substances by therapists. This praise sits uneasily with Muraresku’s history of oppressed psychedelics users in pre-modernity. Another incoherence of the book: a book whose historical narrative seeks to champion the oppressed psychedelics users in history against the hierarchy that would control access, ends with praise of a program that would put power in just such a hierarchy of controlled access.
Authoritarianism and hierarchy disguised as revolution and emancipation.
Links to Posts
I immediately noticed the strange media hype surrounding the book:
11 Oct 20: Media Hype about Muraresku, The Immortality Key
Then I wrote about Graham Hancock’s forward and the book’s allegiance to modern therapy
12 Oct 20: Graham Hancock foreward to Muraresku, The Immortality Key
19 Oct 20: Hopkins/NYU therapy model of psychedelics guides Muraresku, The Immortality Key
23 Oct 20: Proponents of psychedelic therapy typically occlude realities of economics and access
Then I critiqued the book’s method and historical content
8 Nov 20: Strict evidence and loose history: methodology problems in Muraresku ‘The Immortality Key’
17 Nov 20: Moving on from Muraresku, The Immortality Key [I was frustrated when I named this post; an incomplete set of rants about the poor quality of the book and its pretensions to scholarship]
24 Nov 20: Correcting Key Points in Muraresku, The Immortality Key [Summary descriptions of most chapters and discussion of key claims and flaws]
From an email with scholars:
I started identifying an “over-focus on Eleusis” as a vague trend in popular discourse about psychedelics when I started paying closer attention to that popular discourse a few years ago.
By “over-focus on Eleusis” I mean that when people who are not in the field of researching psychedelics in history talk about psychedelics in history, they usually mention Eleusis in Mediterreanean antiquity and stop there, to the exclusion of all the other possible examples for Western pre-modernity.
Once I suspected this trend, I started to see it more and more in popular discourse: conference presentations; articles at pop psychedelics websites; conversation with friends both in and out of academia. Eleusis and the theory of ergot put forward in The Road to Eleusis would be mentioned, positively or negatively, and that’s it, as if that were the entire scope of the question of psychedelics in pre-modern Western history. As if discussing Eleusis means you have covered the topic adequately.
There’s a similarity to the role Allegro the token has played in holding back discussion of psychedelics in early Christianity. It has been common to treat Allegro as the definitive case for psychedelics in early Christianity. Many have acted as though talking about psychedelics in early Christianity means talking about Allegro’s theory, as if that were the only theory. Same thing has happened to the theory of ergot at Eleusis and psychedelics in ancient Greece. Eleusis is lovely, but it was far from the only sacred meal, drink, or banquet in antiquity.
Max in a podcast episode told me that Terrence McKenna presented the sack of Eleusis by Alaric as leading to the disappearance of psychedelics in Western Europe until modern times. Such a story is only possible by focusing exclusively on Eleusis. McKenna being as popular as he is, I have to imagine that this “over-focus on Eleusis” is fairly entrenched in the popular mind.
I somewhat attribute this over-focus to R. Gordon Wasson’s marketing strategy for The Road to Eleusis. When you read Carl Ruck’s later chapters in the book, it is clear that his data and approach already indicates widespread psychedelics throughout the ancient Greek world. But due to the rhetorical strategy of the book, it is easy to overlook how broad those later chapters really are.
Eleusis is of course an important site; but the argument for psychedelics in Western pre-modernity does not rest on the specific theory of secret knowledge of ergot at Eleusis. “Ergot at Eleusis” has become a meme, standing in the way of reckoning with the full scope of evidence and arguments for psychedelics in Western pre-modernity and the implications of that evidence and arguments for understanding the history, culture, literature, art, etc. of Western pre-modernity.
My concern and reason for discussing the “over-focus on Eleusis” more recently comes from engagement with Brian Muraresku’s The Immortality Key. I was struck by the amount of coverage the book received in popular press, but found the book itself to be a major let-down. All of my posts about the The Immortality Key can be found via this search, but the major constructive one is here, with chapter by chapter engagement. I have not updated it since December, so it lacks comments on the final few chapters.
Muraresku repeats that “over-focus on Eleusis” meme, inflating Eleusis to comical exaggeration: For him, Eleusis is “the spiritual center” of ancient Greece. Certainly Eleusis had a high reputation in our surviving literature, but calling it “the spiritual center” of ancient Greece made me seriously doubt his qualifications to discuss the topic at all, given that even someone who stopped formal study of Classics with undergrad should know how decentralized ancient Greek culture was and how many sacred meals and banquets there were across the Greek world. Delphi or Olympia would hold greater claim than Eleusis, if we wanted to award the title “spiritual center of ancient Greece” for some reason.
In any case, I found The Immortality Key oddly selective both in the story it tells about the ancient Mediterreanean and in the scope of scholarship it covers. I wrote a bit more about that here. Muraresku presents the book in part as an attempt to present to the public Carl Ruck’s research, but where are all of the Ruck authored and co-authored books and articles after The Road to Eleusis? Why does he eschew the methods of Ruck et al. (humanistic, historical, philological, art historical) and treat chemical analysis (lab science) as the only guarantor of validity? I wrote this about the methodology Muraresku champions.
The strategy of The Immorality Key is pretty clear to me: to talk about entheogens in ancient mystery religions just enough and in just the right way to support the particular portrait of entheogens drawn by the Johns Hopkins and NYU studies. It reads more like a lengthy press release than a work of history.
The Mystic Episode:
In this episode, Max Freakout addresses various issues that came up after the last podcast with Cyberdisciple and Jimmy. Topics covered include:
- The meaning of the word ‘mystic’
- Precise definition of mystical transformation
- Setting the bar for attaining mystichood
- How special are mystics?
- Idealisation of mystics
- The relevance of mystics to the egodeath theory
- Mystics tripping frequently
- Comparable concepts such as gnostics, hierophants and prophets
- Verbal communication compared to written communication
- The relevance of Ramesh Balsekar’s thinking compared to other self-help gurus
- Fusing the two states of consciouness; joining vs blending
- Hesychasm as a natural means of accessing the altered state
- The incompatibility between Jimmy’s book knowledge and his experiential knowledge
uploaded for scholarly purposes.
My 2017 assessment of Graves’ writings on psychedelics is here: Assessing Robert Graves’ 1950s psychedelic scholarship on Greek myth/religion/art
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Robert Graves principal writings on psychedelics in ancient Greek myth and religion:
Graves, What Food the Centaur’s Ate, published in Steps (1958) (The essay was first published in 1956 in the magazine The Atlantic Monthly, and also republished in 1960 in the book Food for Centaurs, with the title “Centaur’s Food”)
Graves, Poet’s Paradise (1961) (republished later as “The Universal Paradise”)
I have copies of other essays and book reviews by Graves. From my survey of them, they restate the arguments of the above two essays. The above essays contain Graves’ principal arguments for psychedelic mushrooms in ancient Greek myth and religion.
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I also include below the Forward to Graves’ popular The Greek Myths, in which he discusses his theories.
Graves, Greek Myths, Forward (1960)
Graves also included his mushroom arguments in the last, 1960 edition of his book on poetry and anthropology, The White Goddess, originally published in 1948. Below are some excerpts.
Graves, White Goddess, excerpts (last edition, 1960)
Graves’ White Goddess could be included somewhere in my “Theories of Mythology” page.
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I also have a book of selections of Graves’ correspondence. There are many letters to Wasson, which shed light on Graves’ roll in the development of the “secret entheogen” school of scholarship.
edited 16 Dec 2020
Addendum to my Allegro article.
Allegro is not an entheogen scholar. Allegro’s book is singular and remarkable, and should be considered on the book’s own terms. The details of his work cannot be evaluated outside of the anthropological “fertility philosophy” theory and his linguistic method. He cannot be incorporated into the field of “entheogen studies” or “psychedelic history” or whatever.
Allegro’s book is a demonstration of method. Allegro demonstrates his method of tracing Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic words to Sumerian roots. Each chapter is a fresh demonstration of this method. Allegro’s method finds that words in the later languages refer to words having to do with reproduction and fertility in Sumerian. Allegro has one trick, and he performs that trick very well every chapter, for 200 pages.
Allegro is not a pioneer in finding mushrooms in Christian art. He mentions only Plaincourault, and then only in passing. Allegro is monomaniacally focused, hyper-focused, obsessively focused on his linguistic method. There are no “students of Allegro” when it comes to mushrooms in Christian art because Allegro did not discuss mushrooms in Christian art. He mentions only Plaincourault, and then only in passing.
Writers err when they try to pluck out an individual topic, such as his treatment of the virgin birth, from Allegro’s book and evaluate the merits of Allegro’s interpretation of that topic considered in isolation. Allegro’s interpretation of any given individual topic is governed by and determined by his linguistic method and fertility philosophy theory. Writers who evaluate an individual topic of Allegro’s book in isolation from the linguistic method and fertility philosophy theory distort Allegro for their own purposes. The book will never fit into another field, such as “entheogen scholarship” or “psychedelic history.”
Allegro’s book is a demonstration of linguistic method wedded to fertility philosophy theory.
Allegro in his introduction grounds his linguistic method in the fertility philosophy theory:
- “The seed of God was the Word of God.” (p. xx)
- “The Word that seeped through the labia of the earth’s womb became to the mystic of less importance than the Logos which he believed his religion enabled him to apprehend and enthuse him with divine omniscience. But the source was the same vital power of the universe and the cultic practice differed little.” (p. xx)
- “The names of the plants were spun out to make the basis of the stories whereby the creatures of fantasy were identified, dressed, and made to enact their parts.” (p. xxii)
- “Every aspect of the mushroom’s existence was fraught with sexual allusions, and in its phallic form the ancients saw a replica of the fertility god himself… our present study has much to do with names and titles. Only when we can discover the nomenclature of the sacred fungus within and without the cult, can we begin to understand its function and theology.” (p. xxiii)
- “For the first time, it becomes possible to decipher the names of gods, mythological characters, classical and biblical, and plant names. Thus their place in the cultic systems and their functions in the old fertility religions can be determined.” (p. xxiv)
- “Even gods as different as Zeus and Yahweh embody the same fundamental conception of the fertility deity, for their names in origin are precisely the same.” (p. xxiv)
His book is not a work of history. Allegro openly states throughout his introduction that his wook is a book of philology, not history:
- “Above all, it is the philologian who must be the spearhead of the new enquiry [into Sumerian origins of Old and New Testaments]. It is primarily a study in words.” (p. xxiv)
- “What follows in this book is, as has been said, primarily a study in words. To a reader brought up to believe in the essential historicity of the Bible narratives some of the attitudes displayed in our approach to the texts may seem at first strange. We appear to be more interested with the words than with the events they seem to record; more concerned, say, in the meaning of Moses’ name than his supposed role as Israel’s first great political leader.” (p. xxvi)
- “The breakthrough here is not in the field of history but in philology. Our fresh doubts about the historicity of Jesus and his friends stem not from new discoveries about the land and people of Palestine of the first century, but about the nature and origin of the languages they spoke and the origins of their religious cults.” (p. xxvi-xxvii)
- “The enquirer has to begin with his only real source of knowledge, the written word… if we want to know more about early Christianity we must look to our only real source, the written words of the New Testament. Thus, as we have said, the enquiry is primarily philological.” (p. xxvii)
- “The New Testament is full of problems… it is not until the language problems have been resolved that the rest can be realistically appraised.” (p. xxvii)
- “In any study of the sources and development of a particular religion, ideas are the vital factor. History takes second place.” (p. xxviii)
- “Of course, history now and again forces itself on our attention… [examples of historical questions about the Old Testament]… These and many other such questions are raised afresh by our studies, but it is our contention that they are not of prime importance. Far more urgent is the main import of the myths in which these names are found. If we are fight… it matters comparatively little whether these characters are historical or not.” (p. xxix)
- “Ours is a study of words, and through them of ideas. At the end we have to test the validity of our conclusions not against comparative history … but against the overall pattern of religious thought as it can now be traced through the ancient Near East from the earliest times.” (p. xxx)
Complain all you want about Allegro’s lack of historical rigor. Allegro does not care. He tells you at the very beginning of his book that he does not care about “history.” His book is a book of philology, not history. Pointing out that Allegro’s book is not history is irrelevant. Allegro himself tells us that his study is not a historical study in his introduction!
If you want to prove Allegro right or prove Allegro wrong, you have to talk about his linguistic method and his fertility philosopy theory. The entirety of Allegro’s book rests on the combination of lingustic method and fertility philosophy theory. Each individual topic Allegro discusses is embedded in his linguistic method and fertility philosophy theory.
Allegro’s book is a self-reflexive contemplation on his linguistic method of revealing the fertility reference embedded in language:
“The seed of God was the word of God” (p. xx).
Translation: The fertility philosophy is the linguistic method.
Condensed: The fertility is the philology.
To accurately assess Allegro, we have to talk about both his linguistic method and the intellectual background of his fertility philosophy theory as a unit. Critiquing Allegro for his ‘history’ or his interpretation of visual art makes no sense, because his book is not a work of history nor does he interpret visual art in any meaningful way (besides his passing reference to Plaincourault).
Allegro himself does not talk about the intellectual background of his fertility philosophy theory, and is perhaps unaware of the background. He presents fertility philosophy theory as a conclusion derived from the linguistic method. The two are in fact intertwined, in Allegro’s intellectual world. Each assumes the other, in Allegro’s intellectual world. My article on Allegro points out that Allegro’s fertility philosophy is derived from early anthropological theorizing about religion and myth.
Allegro’s book is a monstrum, a singular oddity.
Please, let Allegro go!
Read Allegro’s book if you want to marvel at a rare and wonderous creature.
Based on wrmspirit’s comment here, wondering why I’m opposed to the idea of suppression of psychedelics in pre-modernity. Some of the below can be found in my reply to her comment, but I’ve also expanded some below.
Most entheogen scholars treat the topic of suppression in pre-modernity as if the suppressors themselves were sober and wanted to suppress the altered state entirely. I think that this attitude transposes the rhetoric of modern Prohibition and War on Drugs into a pre-modern context.
The attitude shapes research, by shaping the sorts of questions the researcher allows themselves to ask. Many researchers automatically assume that some authority (usually the Roman Empire or the Catholic Church) was opposed to the altered state entirely and sought to suppress psychedelics.
The researchers who think this way treat their research as telling a story about suppression. Their story becomes one-sided. They do not think to look for evidence in the mainstream Roman Empire society or the mainstream Middle Ages or the mainstream Renaissance. Any evidence they find in those contexts automatically becomes a sign of an oppressed group or a fringe survival or a secretive elite.
As a matter of research assumptions I do not assume that there was suppression of drugs. I am interested in looking for evidence more broadly than most researchers.
I find that many entheogen scholars are committed to demonizing the mainstream of past societies. I think that they have internalized the rhetoric of modern Prohibition, War on Drugs, and the counter-culture, and project that idea onto the past, consciously or unconsciously. Because the entheogen scholars understand drugs to be counter-cultural today, they think that they were counter-cultural in the past.
I’m interested in the question: “what does it mean for drugs to be a part of mainstream culture?” I’m not interested in trying to find a drug counter-culture that just so happens to mirror 20th century counter-culture. Many entheogen scholars seems to be interested in finding a drug counter-culture in pre-modernity.
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I wrote some questions to Egodeath Theory blog last month, starting to outline these topics as research questions:
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/27/idea-development-page-3/#qfc
Copied from the above link, with some commentary from Egodeath Theory blog:
Additions from Cyb Nov 28 2020:
“Evidently there has been suppression in the Prohibitionist 20th century.
“What sort of suppression was there before Prohibitionist laws?
“That’s the question that Moderates should answer, instead of projecting back 20th century-style Prohibition onto earlier eras.”
_____
“Moderates start by assuming a negative: that mushrooms were not used commonly.
“They assume they were somewhat rare, or are self-contradictory on this point, and act as though they were completely suppressed somewhere by someone.
“Moderates assume that the knowledge was lost until c. Wasson in the 50s.”
/ end nov 28 additions
What profit in suppressing Analogical Psychedelic Eternalism, and selling Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism?
What is the motive for suppressing mushrooms and promoting literalist ordinary state possibilism?
Answer: $
eg Brown didn’t even bother to specify why it’s a total, worst-case problem (a problem that mitigates against the credibility of Wasson re: mushrooms in Christianity), that Wasson was Pope-buddy/banker.[joke: what’s the meaning of any mytheme; mytheme {m}?
Answer: rebirth in the ASC.
A shallow tautology answer, that fails to differentiate mythemes or ASC phenom/ experien/ observ.What’s 248 x 84.3?
Answer: a number. <– um, correct?]When did supposed entheogen suppression start, in Christianity?
If we argue against all the Moderates that want to assert some sort of priest suppression in antiquity (middle ages, renaissance), when did it start?
When did the Catholic eucharist stop normally being psychedelic?
Answer: According to Pagels, during Valentinus’ time, Valentinians/ Gnostics/ esoterics / higher Christians used [mushroid] sacrament of apolytrosis (“after-redemption”, “after-release” – pls apply Greek + the Egodeath theory to explain meaning of “apolytrosis” ), while at the same time, lower Christians / “orthodox” / exoteric Christians, used the inert Mass.
In the same, oil & water congregation.Prot stopped shrooming when?
When did the various Protestant churches stop offering a psychedelic eucharist?
I’m thinking it was certain factions/ circles eg groups of monastic monks who taught each other how to use it; how accomodate their mind to harmless seizure & mental model transformation, how to interpret myth — the Lesser Mysteries book-learning preparatin training and exams you have to pass before real deal firsthand.
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“Your idea development is tending towards the Reformation and Counter-Reformation as the key battle ground.”
w/ Chron’y Revisionism, there’s an interesting foreshortening: everything before the printing press appears at the same distance (Edwin Johnson argues); there’s no difference in tone/character of writing, between 1525 vs. 1200 vs 400 vs 100 A.D. According to Johnson. It all has the same undifferentiable character: Church Fathers, Luther, read like the same factions of monks wrote them all, he argues. Same battles, same writing style.
“I know antiquity the best,
“I know fairly well the middle ages and renaissance in Italy(or what the unrevised chronology conventionally understands those periods to be). They seem psychedelic to me, with not obvious suppression of psychedelics.”
Chrono-Vertigo
“It is a major challenge to think in the Edwin Johnson chronology.
“It is mind blowing to think about, always has been since I encountered it via your work in the early 2000s.
“Makes me feel like the rug has been swept out from under me.
“The simple take away is to be agnostic about all historical narratives before the printing press (c. 1440, in conventional dating).”
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From the main article:
http://egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm#_Toc177337612The adept use and comprehension of metaphor faded after the battle between politicized Christianity and Scientism around 1700, leaving a long-term standoff between mystically neutered religious literalism versus exclusively ordinary-state-based Science.
The culturally predominant type of religion in the modern era neutralized and reduced the traditional initiation system by a combination of non-transformative surface ritual and intellectual speculation based only in the ordinary cognitive state.
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The modern cultural experience resulted from the predominance of the ordinary cognitive state.
The lack of culturally integrated altered-state initiation caused the egoic mental world-model, which is based in only a single cognitive state, to become completely predominant.
/ main article excerpt
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“I had to catch myself while working a the post about Muraresku.
“I was going to write something that implied that The Egodeath Theory and the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion draws down the date for widespread drug use in Western religion to c. 1700, but that’s not right.
“I was thinking of the above part of the main article, but had misremembered its import (or perhaps never sorted it out very clearly).
“The statement is not about psychedelic use, but about metaphor.”
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“I’m interested in the topic of literalist interpretation’s rise to dominance in the modern era.“Public and scholarly discourse about religion is hampered by it. Modern books are constrained by their failure to comprehend religious metaphor.
“I want to read more about the c. 1700s period, and now also the Reformation/Counter-Reformation that directly preceded it.”
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“Hanegraaf’s Rejected Knowledge book fits in with the above, since he relates the rejection of esotericism with the Rationalist, Science-first, Enlightenment.“The Moderate position is that mushrooms, even if used somewhere at some time, were definitely suppressed, so much that mainstream culture forgot about them until the 60s.”
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“When does the Maximal Theory ‘end’, chronologically speaking?“Per the Maximal Theory are we to say that mushrooms have always been used in religion?
“Is it tied to the fading of ‘adept use and comprehension of metaphor’ per the above in mainstream culture?”
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“When did Christian churches switch from authentic initiation to ‘non-transformative surface ritual’?”
Addendum added 16 Dec 2020, see below.
Edited 15 Dec 2020 to clarify references to articles by Carl Ruck; edited for clarity.
In order to characterize entheogen scholarship since the 1950s, we should recognize the role in that scholarship of theories about religion, myth, and culture developed by European anthropologists from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Such theories have shaped many scholars’ investigations of psychedelic drugs in religious history. The background assumptions of many scholars has been founded in such theorizing about pre-modern religion and myth. I have written before about how Robert Graves’ and Wasson’s reliance on the concept of “taboo” led them to underestimate the extent of evidence for psychedelics in religious history. The concept of “taboo” led them to speculate that mushrooms were used in religious origins, but were then suppressed and made taboo. They were subsequently half-remembered in mythology. See my posts on Robert Graves: https://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com/?s=robert+graves
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This post discusses a strain of anthropological theorizing as a major component of the intellectual background to John Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross.
It would be misleading to think of Allegro as a “mycologist” or a scholar of “entheogens” (i.e. drugs in religious history). It has become clearer over the past 20 years that Allegro’s contributions to scholarship on psychedelics in religious history are rather minor. Although he has priority in the act of combining the topics of drugs in Christian history and the ahistoricity of Jesus and the Apostles (as well as drugs in Jewish history and the ahistoricity of Old Testament accounts), his book is not really of much use now to scholars. Allegro was a pioneer for the field of ‘entheogens,’ such as it is, but a very imperfect one.
Similarly, it does not help much to describe his work in The Sacred Mushroom as that of a linguist. His argumentation may be primarily linguistic, but that argumentation relies on anthropological theorizing of the 19th and early 20th century.
See my Evaluating Theories of Mythology page for summaries of anthropological theorizing about mythology. Relevant extracts for this post:
Myth as science: Myth is an explanation for the natural world. Read myth literally. Myth is premodern/’primitive’ form of modern scientific explanation. Variants within this framework. Creationism; Rationalizing; Tylor; Horton. Literal, ordinary-state, alien social psychology.
E. B. Tylor (1832-1917): myth is ‘primitive’ version of scientific theory. Myth explains natural world, but poorly. Decisions and actions of gods cause physical events. myth and science incompatible. ‘primitives’ had ‘myth’, moderns have ‘science’. We moderns should reject myth. Myth must be understood literally because myth explains the workings of the physical world. ‘Primitives’ think like moderns, but less rigorously. ‘Primitives’ see same world as moderns, but conceive of it differently.
R. Horton (1932-2019): Modifies E. B. Tylor’s theory. Myth and pre-modern religion are coherent conceptual systems with internal logic and rules, just as science is for moderns. Take pre-modern myth at face value, not symbolically. Rejects Tylor’s use of word ‘primitive’. Modern western thinking should not monopolize interpretation of other non-modern, non-western thinking.
Myth-ritual theory: Myth intertwined with communal religious ritual. Myth explains ritual, ritual enacts myth and seeks to affect world. Variety within this framework. Frazer; Smith; Harrison; Hooke; Girard; Burkert; Frye; Raglan. Literal, ordinary-state, alien social psychology.
J. G. Frazer (1854-1941): Myth-ritualist theory. Early: myth is pre-modern version of modern applied science/technology. myth tied to ritual, ritual enacts myth. combination of ritual and myth affect physical world. Focused on ensuring yearly vegetable growth, main myth worldwide is of dying and rising vegetation god. Later addition: Focus on king in worldwide myth. God resides in king, king is ritually killed before becomes too infirm, soul of god passes to next king, ensures continued success of community (including vegetable growth). Ignores story-telling elements.
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Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross is founded on his construction of the “fertility philosophy” as the origin and essence of Near Eastern and Greek religion.
The book fits in with anthropological theorizing about the origins of cultural practices and with the mindset of “primitives,” imagined in general as a mindset now foreign, alien, and lost to modern, rational, industrialized people, and needing to be reconstructed via the scholarly heroics of the investigator.
Allegro interprets religion and myth as resulting from early peoples’ attempt to control the cycles of generation in plants and animals, including people.
This is not so different from James Frazer’s widely-read The Golden Bough (first published 1890; expanded in 1900; expanded again 1906-1915). Frazer interprets the many examples of a dying-and-rising godman in world religion and myth as representing the planting and harvest cycle. For Frazer, religious ritual was meant to ensure the next year’s harvest. He interpreted Christ as a variant on this central myth. Frazer’s book was read widely by scholars, intellectuals, and the general reading public alike, and was influential on thinking about ancient religion.
When I finally read Allegro’s book recently, I was surprised to see how much space was devoted to this “fertility philosophy.” If someone asked me what Allegro’s book is about, I would say the book is primarily about his variant of the theory of an ancient “fertility philosophy” as the origin and essence of Near Eastern and Greek religion; I would not say that it is primarily about mushrooms in Christianity. Allegro’s contribution of combining psychedelics in Christianity and ahistoricity of religious founders seems almost accidental.
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Allegro’s particular twists on the “fertility philosophy” theory were to ground it in etymologies and to interpret the mushroom as the primary symbol of “fertility philosophy.” The first twist, that of etymologies, is a linguistic argument. The second twist, that of the mushroom as symbol for “fertility philosophy” is an argument by analogy.
His linguistic argument is (1) that words in Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, etc. are all traceable to Sumerian, (2) that these roots in Sumerian reveal the true meanings of the later words, and (3) that at least some authors were aware of these true meanings and wrote in a special code that alluded to them. Allegro claims that key words in religious contexts can be traced back to Sumerian words that have to do with fertility. This material is so technical and (by Allegro’s own admission) hypothetical that evaluating it is impossible for the common reader. In passing, we can point out that it is only Allegro’s conjecture (as he admits) that the languages noted above are descended from Sumerian. Scholars of Sumerian language, from what I can tell, regularly treat it as a linguistic isolate, meaning it did not descend to later languages in the way that, for example, Latin descended into Italian, French, Spanish, etc.
His argument by analogy and symbol is that the life cycle of the mushroom, its various stages, and its appearance are all representative of the longer seasonal cycle of plants and the procreation of animals, all understood in the literal, mundane, ordinary state of consciousness. His method here too is primarily linguistic, with little reference to depictions of mushrooms in art. The argument about the mushroom as symbol for the “fertility philosophy” relies on already having accepted the validity and details of the “fertility philosophy” construction. The “mushroom as symbol for the “fertility philosophy” is not evidence to prove the “fertility philosophy,” but rather the “fertility philosophy” is evidence that proves the hypothesis that the mushroom was symbolic of the “fertility philosophy.”
The Amanita mushroom’s psychedelic effects play a minor part in Allegro’s interpretation. He is not too interested in the phenomenology of the state induced by mushrooms. Allegro does not have anything to say about possibility-branching or pre-existence. It may be true to say that Allegro talks about psychedelics and about metaphor, but it wouldn’t be very helpful or tell us much about his book. “Psychedelics and metaphor with reference to what?” one could justly ask. Answer: with reference to his “fertility philosophy” construct. To make better sense of his work, we have to do the additional work of taking Allegro’s “fertility philosophy” and mapping it on to transcendent knowledge. Allegro ‘decodes’ religion into… another code.
Allegro writes as a modern rationalist. This is typical of the perspective of the 19th century anthropological theorist. Allegro’s interest in explaining Judaism and Christianity as exemplars of the “fertility philosophy” is to discredit them: once we see that they derive from the “fertility philosophy” we should abandon the religions and their moral teachings as irrational. The drug aspect of the book seems present to discredit the religions, to associate them with a topic controversial at that time (late 60s, early 70s).
Allegro’s decoding leads him to reject the historicity of the Old and New Testaments. The authors wrote in punning code to allude to the fertility philosophy and its main symbol, the mushroom. His emphasis on secret punning leads him to read the history of conflict within Judaism and Christianity and between the Romans and Christians as the conflict between mushroom users and mushroom suppressors. He does not have any direct evidence of such suppression. On this topic he projects modern Prohibitionism onto antiquity. It is not clear why there would be suppression of a fertility mushroom cult in later antiquity during the Roman Empire, if Allegro’s other argument is true, that the fertility-mushroom cult is the origin of Near Eastern and Greek religion. Were not Roman and Italic religious practices of near equal antiquity as Greek religious practices and derived from similar sources?
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Allegro’s investigation and framing of the topic of religion and mushrooms is shaped by his basis in the “fertility philosophy” idea drawn from anthropological theorizing.
Allegro’s future reputaton will be as an imperfect pioneer. It is possible to imagine a different book published in 1970 opening up the topic of psychedelics in Christianity and combining that with ahistoricity of religious founders, but entirely lacking in any reference to a “fertility philosophy” and without attempting to tie Greek, Christian, and Jewish religion to Sumerian religion via tenuous linguistic arguments, and without projecting modern Prohibition onto ancient society.
Ah, well. We deal with what we have. More important than studying Allegro in much detail is to understand and characterize the components of his theory and the role his book has played in discourse about psychedelics in Christianity.
There’s no need to spend much time refuting or defending Allegro. Even to say, broadly, that “Allegro was right about psychedelics in Christianity and the ahistoricity of religious founders” requires us to have gone far beyond Allegro’s model.
Allegro was right, broadly speaking, about psychedelics in Christianity, but what would the phrase ‘psychedelics in Christianity’ mean for Allegro? It would mean Amanita, Amanita as symbolic of plant growth and animal reproduction, and secretive linguistic punning on the mushroom and on fertility. It would not mean a variety of psychedelics used in an initiatory sequence to cause the transformation of mental worldmodel from possibility-branching to pre-existence of the future, in service of a counter-imperial society.
Allegro was right, broadly speaking, about the ahistoricity of religious founders, but what would the phrase ‘ahistoricity of religious founders’ mean for Allegro? It would mean secretive linguistic punning to refer to Amanita and fertility, in order to hide a mushroom fertility cult from the Roman authority. It would not mean an analogical understanding of figures in mythology as representing aspects of the psyche during altered state initiation, etc.
The above characterizations are not possible if we are stuck in the simplistic framing of “defending or refuting Allegro.” They require standing outside of Allegro’s work, with independent understanding of the many topics Allegro touched on. Saying positively that Allegro was right about psychedelics in Christianity and ahistoricity requires pointing out how constrained and narrow his positions were. He deserves credit for combining psychedelics and ahistoricity, a key idea combination, though the way he deployed it was largely limited.
“Refuting Allegro” has become its own cottage industry, one that needs to be put to rest. Why the obsession with ‘refuting Allegro’? What does an author gain by portraying himself as a ‘debunker’ of Allegro? What’s the point? The field would be better served by ignoring the details of Allegro’s work. It’s not necessary to take Allegro as the starting point for discussing psychedelics in Christianity or for the ahistoricity of religious founders.
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Allegro is more interesting for the discourse that he provoked, and the dynamics of argumentation that can be observed in that discourse: http://egodeath.com/WassonEdenTree.htm
Allegro’s reference to mushrooms in art on the medieval French fresco at Plaincourault is a curious accident. He mentions the fresco at Plaincourault in passing, even though it calls into question his idea that everyone forgot about Amanita after the first generation of Christians (https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/10/17/plaincourault-partly-contradicts-allegros-thesis/).
I wouldn’t bother studying Allegro in much detail. It’s enough to know about Allegro and to conceive properly of his achievements and limitations. At least The Sacred Mushroom has convenient summaries of each chapter at the chapter’s end.
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Summarizing major entheogen scholars and their relation to anthropological theorizing:
Graves, Wasson: Taboo: mushrooms were present at religious origins, but later suppressed and rendered taboo. This taboo is reflected in mythology. For example, Graves asserted that Greek myth depicted the punishment of figures for serving ambrosia [=mushrooms] to mortals [understood mundanely to reflect prohibition on serving psychedelic mushrooms, instead of an altered-state entrapment experience, bound to the rock block universe, freewill debranched to a single pre-set path].
Allegro: Fertility Philosophy: mushrooms are symbols of the life cycle of plants and reproductive cycle of animals. Religious rituals were focused on renewing these cycles, ensuring future life. Mushrooms were referred to via secretive coding in language, knowledge of which was later lost.
Carl Ruck has been the prime inheritor of these approaches. I realized in 2016, after reading Ruck’s two chapters in the book Entheogens and the Development of Culture (edited by John A. Rush), that Ruck writes about mythology in the way a Structuralist does: https://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com/2016/05/29/book-rush-j-ed-2013-entheogens-and-the-development-of-culture/
In a subsequent post, I will discuss Ruck’s 2009 Afterword to Allegro’s book, titled “Fungus Redivivus” (whose meaning, “Fungus Reborn,” seems to pun on Allegro’s focus on the mushroom as symbol of the life cycle of plants). Expect more posts on Ruck’s scholarship. With Brian Muraresku setting out to vindicate Ruck, it is time to characterize his work.
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Addendum, 16 Dec 2020
Allegro is not an entheogen scholar. Allegro’s book is singular and remarkable, and should be considered on the book’s own terms. The details of his work cannot be evaluated outside of the anthropological “fertility philosophy” theory and his linguistic method. He cannot be incorporated into the field of “entheogen studies” or “psychedelic history” or whatever.
Allegro’s book is a demonstration of method. Allegro demonstrates his method of tracing Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic words to Sumerian roots. Each chapter is a fresh demonstration of this method. Allegro’s method finds that words in the later languages refer to words having to do with reproduction and fertility in Sumerian. Allegro has one trick, and he performs that trick very well every chapter, for 200 pages.
Allegro is not a pioneer in finding mushrooms in Christian art. He mentions only Plaincourault, and then only in passing. Allegro is monomaniacally focused, hyper-focused, obsessively focused on his linguistic method. There are no “students of Allegro” when it comes to mushrooms in Christian art because Allegro did not discuss mushrooms in Christian art. He mentions only Plaincourault, and then only in passing.
Writers err when they try to pluck out an individual topic, such as his treatment of the virgin birth, from Allegro’s book and evaluate the merits of Allegro’s interpretation of that topic considered in isolation. Allegro’s interpretation of any given individual topic is governed by and determined by his linguistic method and fertility philosophy theory. Writers who evaluate an individual topic of Allegro’s book in isolation from the linguistic method and fertility philosophy theory distort Allegro for their own purposes. The book will never fit into another field, such as “entheogen scholarship” or “psychedelic history.”
Allegro’s book is a demonstration of linguistic method wedded to fertility philosophy theory.
Allegro in his introduction grounds his linguistic method in the fertility philosophy theory:
- “The seed of God was the Word of God.” (p. xx)
- “The Word that seeped through the labia of the earth’s womb became to the mystic of less importance than the Logos which he believed his religion enabled him to apprehend and enthuse him with divine omniscience. But the source was the same vital power of the universe and the cultic practice differed little.” (p. xx)
- “The names of the plants were spun out to make the basis of the stories whereby the creatures of fantasy were identified, dressed, and made to enact their parts.” (p. xxii)
- “Every aspect of the mushroom’s existence was fraught with sexual allusions, and in its phallic form the ancients saw a replica of the fertility god himself… our present study has much to do with names and titles. Only when we can discover the nomenclature of the sacred fungus within and without the cult, can we begin to understand its function and theology.” (p. xxiii)
- “For the first time, it becomes possible to decipher the names of gods, mythological characters, classical and biblical, and plant names. Thus their place in the cultic systems and their functions in the old fertility religions can be determined.” (p. xxiv)
- “Even gods as different as Zeus and Yahweh embody the same fundamental conception of the fertility deity, for their names in origin are precisely the same.” (p. xxiv)
His book is not a work of history. Allegro openly states throughout his introduction that his wook is a book of philology, not history:
- “Above all, it is the philologian who must be the spearhead of the new enquiry [into Sumerian origins of Old and New Testaments]. It is primarily a study in words.” (p. xxiv)
- “What follows in this book is, as has been said, primarily a study in words. To a reader brought up to believe in the essential historicity of the Bible narratives some of the attitudes displayed in our approach to the texts may seem at first strange. We appear to be more interested with the words than with the events they seem to record; more concerned, say, in the meaning of Moses’ name than his supposed role as Israel’s first great political leader.” (p. xxvi)
- “The breakthrough here is not in the field of history but in philology. Our fresh doubts about the historicity of Jesus and his friends stem not from new discoveries about the land and people of Palestine of the first century, but about the nature and origin of the languages they spoke and the origins of their religious cults.” (p. xxvi-xxvii)
- “The enquirer has to begin with his only real source of knowledge, the written word… if we want to know more about early Christianity we must look to our only real source, the written words of the New Testament. Thus, as we have said, the enquiry is primarily philological.” (p. xxvii)
- “The New Testament is full of problems… it is not until the language problems have been resolved that the rest can be realistically appraised.” (p. xxvii)
- “In any study of the sources and development of a particular religion, ideas are the vital factor. History takes second place.” (p. xxviii)
- “Of course, history now and again forces itself on our attention… [examples of historical questions about the Old Testament]… These and many other such questions are raised afresh by our studies, but it is our contention that they are not of prime importance. Far more urgent is the main import of the myths in which these names are found. If we are fight… it matters comparatively little whether these characters are historical or not.” (p. xxix)
- “Ours is a study of words, and through them of ideas. At the end we have to test the validity of our conclusions not against comparative history … but against the overall pattern of religious thought as it can now be traced through the ancient Near East from the earliest times.” (p. xxx)
Complain all you want about Allegro’s lack of historical rigor. Allegro does not care. He tells you at the very beginning of his book that he does not care about “history.” His book is a book of philology, not history. Pointing out that Allegro’s book is not history is irrelevant. Allegro himself tells us that his study is not a historical study in his introduction!
If you want to prove Allegro right or prove Allegro wrong, you have to talk about his linguistic method and his fertility philosopy theory. The entirety of Allegro’s book rests on the combination of lingustic method and fertility philosophy theory. Each individual topic Allegro discusses is embedded in his linguistic method and fertility philosophy theory.
Allegro’s book is a self-reflexive contemplation on his linguistic method of revealing the fertility reference embedded in language:
“The seed of God was the word of God” (p. xx).
Translation: The fertility philosophy is the linguistic method.
Condensed: The fertility is the philology.
To accurately assess Allegro, we have to talk about both his linguistic method and the intellectual background of his fertility philosophy theory as a unit. Critiquing Allegro for his ‘history’ or his interpretation of visual art makes no sense, because his book is not a work of history nor does he interpret visual art in any meaningful way (besides his passing reference to Plaincourault).
Allegro himself does not talk about the intellectual background of his fertility philosophy theory, and is perhaps unaware of the background. He presents fertility philosophy theory as a conclusion derived from the linguistic method. The two are in fact intertwined, in Allegro’s intellectual world. Each assumes the other, in Allegro’s intellectual world. My article on Allegro points out that Allegro’s fertility philosophy is derived from early anthropological theorizing about religion and myth.
Allegro’s book is a monstrum, a singular oddity.
Please, let Allegro go!
Read Allegro’s book if you want to marvel at a rare and wonderous creature.
Muraresku presents his book as an introduction to the public to this field of research (p. 20). I am warning readers that the book is a highly selective introduction. The story it presents about ancient religion and psychedelics in ancient religion is so distorted, that I am skeptical of the value of the book.
My central advice to readers of Muraresku’s The Immortality Key:
Be aware that Muraresku is telling a selective history of the ancient Mediterranean, of religious cult in antiquity, and of the altered state in antiquity. He overly focuses on a few cults and places, and then weaves a fantastical story linking them all together. He leaves out major components of ancient religion and the altered state in antiquity.
For example, left out or given only passing mention are:
- The Roman Imperial cult and its initiatory mysteries
- The Roman army’s initiatory mysteries of Mithras
- The initiatory mysteries of Isis and Osiris
- The initiatory mysteries of Orpheus
- The initiatory mysteries of Cybele, the Great Goddess, Mother of the Gods
- Initiatory mysteries in Judaism
- Initiatory elements of ancient philosophy (Parmenides is mentioned, but not with much discussion or integration into the story of the book; little mention of Plato’s use of initiatory language to describe philosophical insight)
- Oracles (Oracle at Delphi is discussed, but not incorporated into the larger story of the book)
I could go on. In sum, there are huge swaths of ancient religion not discussed or incorporated into his story. His story about Eleusis, the cult of Dionysus, and early Christianity can only be told by ignoring or downplaying other initiatory cults and related practices (such as philosophy). His story of the centrality of Eleusis and of the suppression of initiatory mysteries by the Roman Empire falls apart when one tries to fit the above into the story. It is not possible to claim that Eleusis was the spiritual center of pagan antiquity nor that the Roman Senate and Empire suppressed altered state initiatory mysteries when taking into account the above.
Against Muraresku, the altered state was not rare in antiquity, nor was it suppressed. Instead, the altered state was integrated into culture. It was integrated to such an extent that it is difficult for moderns to perceive it. Muraresku wants to move beyond modernity’s worldview, but he lacks the Egodeath Theory, and so cannot make sense of the topic of the altered state in ancient religion.
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Muraresku’s story also relies on a selective approach to modern scholarship. He has not surveyed the fields he draws from, but cites a few studies and arguments to support the story. He is at his best when reporting on the narrow topic he champions, that of archaeochemistry. For ancient religion, psychedelics, ancient philosophy, ancient history and culture, he has a very selective approach. He has not surveyed these fields, and key books are missing, just as key topics like the above are missing.
A few quick examples that would change Muraresku’s story completely:
- Michael Rinella’s Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture, and Identity in Ancient Athens (For a book focused on drugs in ancient Greece, this is a bizarre omission. Rinella centrally covers drugs in ancient Greek thought, including Eleusis.)
- Ruck, Hoffman, and Celdrán, Mushroom, Myth & Mithras (Its omission is especially bizarre, considering Muraresku knows Ruck and wants his work to be vindicated.)
- Luther H. Martin, Hellenistic Religions: An Introduction (a friendly, introductory survery to the many initiatory mysteries in Mediterranean antiquity.)
- Iulia Ustinova, Divine Mania (As critical as I am of the book’s “anything-but-drugs” approach to the altered state, Ustinova’s Divine Mania shows how extensive the altered state was in just classical Greece, let alone the later Roman Empire period.)
I could go on.
The book pretends to offer a survey of scholarship for the public, but this is a cover to present a story of psychedelics in ancient religion that supports the psychedelics-as-therapy agenda and that takes a side in an intra-Catholic debate about women priests (or intra-Christian debate; I’m not familiar with the debate).
***I published my Summary Review of The Immortality Key on 10 May 2021: cyberdisciple Reviews Brian Muraresku’s The Immortality Key: Summary, Elaborations, and Collection of Posts
Updated 16 Mar 2021 to group Chapter 14 with Chapters 12-14; fixed a few typos
This post is for correcting the main claims in Muraresku’s The Immortality Key about drugs in Western religious history. All the confusions in the book on this topic can be resolved by adopting the Maximal Entheogen Theory of religion. The book creates a muddled mess by employing a Moderate Entheogen Theory of religion when speculating about religious history and a Minimal Entheogen Theory of religion when evaluating evidence.
Entheogen Theories of Religion
Muraresku’s Mixed Moderate/Minimal Approach
Chapters 2-5: Eleusis
Chapter 6: Prehistory
Chapter 7 / Epilogue to Part One: Spain
Chapters 8-11: Dionysus and Christianity
Chapters 12-14: Underground Funerary Sites in Rome
In progress:
Chapters 15 on Campania (Naples region of Southern Italy)
Chapter 16 and 17 on Inquisition
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Entheogen Theories of Religion
Below I sketch out approaches to understanding the extent of psychedelic use in religion. Authors typically employ some version of one of the below, generalized approaches. Likewise, the assumptions below are often implicit in an author’s work, structuring their approach to evidence. These assumptions, however, are rarely explicit.
Authors in this field typically get it backwards. They act as though they will first simply find evidence and only then, after finding that evidence, define the extent of psychedelics in religion. In fact their approach to evidence is structured (limited) by already held assumptions about the extent of psychedelics use in religion.
By Maximal, I mean: the view that drugs have been used commonly throughout the world and throughout culture. The question typical of the Maximal approach is “to what extent were drugs used in x religion?”
Authors in the Maximal camp are inherently aligned with the Egodeath Theory’s formulation that drugs routinely trigger the loose cognition state, enabling the transition from the possibilism model of time and control to the eternalism model, and that religious art depicts this via analogy. The Egodeath Theory points out drugs in religious art and text, but more importantly decodes the religious art and text.
By Moderate, I mean: the view that drugs were occasionally used in some places of the world and in some cultural activities. The question typical of the Moderate approach is “were drugs used in x religion?” The Moderate approach assumes that most religion was not drug-based, and that drug use was secretive and non-mainstream or counter-cultural in some way.
Typically, authors in the Moderate camp write about a secret use of drugs that was hidden from other groups, and that faced oppression. They also typically trace a secret tradition of knowledge of drugs, handed down across time (because drugs have been kept a secret, instances of drug use must be connected). There are a variety of Moderate narratives about drugs in religion. Some Moderate authors are closer to the Maximal camp than others, while some may be Moderate on drugs in some religions and areas of culture, but Minimal on drugs in others.
By Minimal, I mean: the view that drugs were not commonly used in religion or culture; or, for some authors, drugs were not commonly used in certain religions or areas of culture. There’s no good evidence. If there is good evidence, it’s only proof that drugs were used rarely and deviantly.
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Muraresku’s Mixed Moderate/Minimal Approach
Muraresku speculates about drugs in Greek and Christian religious history using a Moderate approach. He speculates that drug use was reserved for elites and monopolized by powerful families and kept secret by mystery cults. Some occasional instances of drug use can be found outside of such groups, but they are always secret and related to those groups. Against these groups, the cults of first Dionysus and then of Jesus sought to spread drugs to more people, but they were suppressed by the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. The cult of Dionysus and early Christianity were threatening because they distributed drugs.
Muraresku’s is a relatively broad, but still firmly Moderate approach. He cannot imagine widespread drug use across all culture, including the mainstream, even as he keeps citing evidence that suggests knowledge of drugs was widespread and not limited to secretive elites or suppressed groups. His Moderate approach to speculation is typically shaky. Moderate approaches always totter toward the Maximal Theory, or seem to when viewed through the superior lense of the Maximal Theory.
In conflict with his Moderate speculation, Muraresku uses a Minimal approach when it comes to evaluating evidence for drugs. Again and again he concludes that we cannot really be sure about drugs in Greek and Christian religion, becuase we don’t have “hard evidence.” His criterion for good evidence is extremely restricted: only a residue from a cup from a religious site that shows evidence of a psychedelic when analyzed in a chemical lab will count for Muraresku. Everything else is merely suggestive, but not enough to conclude. As I have pointed out in earlier posting, this standard of archaeochemical evidence is fatally flawed because the remains of mushrooms notoriously do not survive well in the archaeological record. They decay quickly. The chances of finding chemical evidence for mushrooms is low, not because mushrooms were rare, but because they rarely survive long in a recognizable state. Muraresku nowhere addresses the questions of what archaeochemistry can and cannot find, of what its limits are.
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Summaries of sections of the book and corrections of key claims.
Part 1 is dedicted to Eleusis.
Chapters 2-5: Eleusis
Chapters 2-5 (pp. 37-105) are on the topic of drugs in the Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone. Muraresku discusses Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck’s The Road to Eleusis and laments that chemical analysis is impossible of surviving cups found at the site, because they were cleaned after excavation, at a time before chemical analysis was performed in archaeology. Without that chemical analysis, Muraresku cannot decide whether or not drugs were used at Eleusis.
Were drugs used at Eleusis? Yes. It was not a secret, and Wasson erred in presenting it as a secret to be revealed in The Road to Eleusis. The secret to be revealed at Eleusis is that of the switch from the worldmodel of branching future to the worldmodel of pre-existent future in the loose cognition state induced by drugs. We do not need a chemical analysis to conclude that drugs were used at Eleusis. A convincing case can be made using evidence from visual art and text. Eleusis was also not unique in ancient Greece in its use of drugs in religion; it would be strange if drugs were not involved.
Muraresku is wrong to start his investigation with Eleusis and with The Road to Eleusis. It is distorting to focus so much attention on Eleusis at the expense of the rest of ancient Greece. Eleusis did not have the cultural standing that Muraresku attributes to it, as some sort of spiritual center of ancient Greece or the Roman Empire. He can only tell that story through ignoring all the other temples, cults, and stories.
Furthermore, The Road to Eleusis is not the place to start with the topic of drugs in Greek religion. If he wanted to start with the beginning of the 20th century’s investigation into drugs in Greek religion, he should have started with Robert Graves. Better still would have been to start after surveying all the books produced since then on the topic. Best would have been to learn pre-existence and the Maximal Entheogen Theory via the Egodeath Theory
Framing the question as “were drugs used at this one specific site?” (i.e. considered in isolation from other sites) is a sign of a Moderate Entheogen Theory. The Maximal Theory would never ask such a question in that way.
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Chapter 6: Prehistory
Chapter 6 is on the topic of drugs in prehistory in the Mediterranean, specifically at Göblekli Tepe.
Were drugs used in prehistory and the ‘origins of religion’? Certainly; the Maximal Entheogen Theory of religion has no problem asserting that.
It would make sense, then, for drugs to have been used in connection with a religious ceremony at Göblekli Tepe… if indeed it was the site of religious ceremonies; nobody knows for sure. Nearly everything about the site is speculative.
Muraresku is wrong, however, to speculate about a continuity of transmission along cultural and genetic groups from Göblekli Tepe to Eleusis. Such a continuity is unprovable and implausible, and weakens his book.
Regardless, the case for drug use in religion does not need such a continuity. Looking for such a continuity is a sign that an investigator is using a Moderate Entheogen Theory of religion. The Maximal Theory does not need to map out tenuous connections between places and times of drug use in order to prove drug use.
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Chapter 7 / Epilogue to Part One: Spain
Chapter 7 and the Epilogue to Part One are on drugs at an archaeological site in Spain. Muraresku seems to have his ‘hard evidence’ here: ergot was found on the chemical residue of a cup found at a site and on the teeth of a human jaw bone found at the same site. This ‘hard evidence’ is however thrown into doubt in the Epilogue to Part One. Muraresku reports that another scientist warns that the results are uncertain because the original samples analyzed cannot be found, and so cannot be tested again. So much for the criterion of ‘hard evidence’ via archaeochemistry.
Were drugs used across the Mediterranean and across culture? Certainly; the Maximal Theory has no problem asserting that. The evidence from the site in Spain is just another bit of data for the Maximal Theory, not of any particular importance.
For Muraresku’s speculation, however, it becomes a grandly important sign that the mysteries of Eleusis were being spread in secret and that particular Greeks who founded the colony were especially spiritually sophisticated and took this special spiritual sophistication with them also to their colonies in Southern Italy.
However, there’s no clear, good evidence that the site in Spain was a cult site. Muraresku follows the archaeologists who excavated the site in this interpretation. But archaeologists frequently resort to saying that a site had a ritual purpose when they have no idea what the site was for. It’s a well-known joke in the field, and spoofed in books and articles that treat modern life as a bizarre ritual from the point of view of future investigators. Even if it was a cult site to Demeter, this is not an indication that it was a version of the mysteries at Eleusis or in any way connected to Eleusis. Muraresku literalizes the Eleusinian myth that Triptolemus spread knoweldge of grain around the world and thinks that the Demeter cult at Eleusis was some sort of proselytizing cult.
Why Muraresku thinks that the Greeks from Phocaea who founded the colony Emporion near the farm site in Spain and also founded the city of Elea/Velia in southern Italy were especially spiritually sophisticated is beyond me. Presumably this would mean that they are sophisticated in way that other Greeks were not, but Muraresku cannot bring forward anything particularly special. Embossing Persephone on their coins and producing the philosopher Parmenides at Elea/Velia do not especially set apart the Phocaeans and their colonies from other ancient Greeks.
The Minimal approach to evidence and the Moderate approach to speculation traps Muraresku into over-estimating the importance of the site in Spain discussed in these chapters. He wants it to be a slam-dunk evidence that proves the kykeon at Eleusis hypothesis of The Road to Eleusis right, but it is too marginal and dubious to accomplish even that limited task. The Maximal Theory does not need to rely on such special pleading.
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Chapters 8-11: Dionysus and Christianity
Chapter 8 is on drugged wine in ancient Greece and Dionysus. This topic is not new, and Muraresku’s narrative of looking at broken vase paintings in a museum focuses on weak evidence. He presents an uncompelling case of a topic of great importance.
Chapter 9 focuses on establishing Dionysus in ancient Galilee, in order to justify linking Mr. Historical Jesus to Dionysus and drugged wine.
Chapter 10 focuses on drugs in the ancient Near East, including Egypt and the Canaanites. He claims that the drugs were exclusively for the elites, such as pharaohs and Canaanite elites. He then makes the cult of Dionsyus and Christianity about providing drugs to more people, non-elites. He then claims this was the reason that the cult of Dionysus and Christianity were oppressed.
Why he is so confident that drugs were restricted to the elites, when he has just argued that wine was widely drugged, I cannot say.
I would ask Muraresku: what evidence is there for the suppression of drugs in antiquity? As he knows, drug use was not exclusive to the cult of Dionysus and Christianity, and was found all over the Mediterranean. On what basis, then, does he think that the cult of Dionysus and Christianity were suppressed because of drugs?
Muraresku’s Moderate approach teeters and totters.
Yes, the Roman Senate in 186 BC suppressed a particular version of the cult of Bacchus in Italy, according to the ancient Roman historian Livy and a decree of the Senate found on an inscription. Muraresku takes this historical event and fantasizes that the Roman Empire suppressed all instances of the cult of Dionysus everywhere because it provided drugged wine to initiates. The Roman Senate in 186 BC did not suppress the cult of Bacchus because it provided drugged wine to initiaties, but because it viewed it as a source of social unrest. The Roman Senate was perfectly happy with drugged wine.
Same thing with Christianity. The persecution of Christians was exaggerated by later authors in their martyrdom stories, but in anycase, the Roman authority was not hostile to the Christian cult because it provided a drugged Eucharist to initiates, but because it set itself up as a rebuttal to Rome’s empire. The Roman Empire was perfectly happy with a drugged sacrament.
Drugged wine was common across religions, cults, banqueting, and other cultural activities.
Chapter 11 finalizes the first sequence of part 2, consisting of Chapters 8-11, on the similarities between Dionysus and Jesus and on the Eucharist as psychedelics.
It is not particularly new or groundbreaking to point out that a source for the Jesus figure is Dionsyus, though Muraresku acts as though he is contemplating some new breakthrough.
More importantly, it is misleading to focus so exclusively on Dionysus as the source of the Jesus figure. The Jesus figure was derived from many sources, not only Dionysus. “Jesus figure” is my addition, since Muraresku is committed to Mr. Historical Jesus.
Muraresku invents the idea that the early Christians needed a psychedelic Eucharist to appeal to Greeks. Lurking behind this idea is the implication that a mystery cult could have had some other sort of sacrament, some non-psychedelic sacrament. We see Muraresku’s Moderate approach stumbling here. Per the Maximal approach, there was no such thing as a non-psychedelic mystery meal.
Even apart from the contrast between Moderate and Maximal approaches, the idea fails on its own in the context of Muraresku’s book. Why would it matter to the Greeks if the Christian sacred meal were psychedelic, if they already had psychedelic sacraments at Eleusis, around the Mediterranean in cults in farmhouses, and in Dionysiac initiations? A psychedelic Eucharist wouldn’t make Christianity especially appealing or noteworthy to Greeks. What about a psychedelic sacrament would make Christianity distinctive?
In the heavily psychedelic and heavily mystery cult-oriented Mediterranean, Christianity’s distinctive appeal lay primarily in its counter-empire stance. Muraresku, knowingly or not, has some awareness of this. He makes the cult of Dionysus and early Christianity deviant and in danger of suppression from the Roman Empire. However, he exaggerates the degree to which either was suppressed and misfires when he names the cause of suppression. With no evidence or basis, he fantasizes that the Roman authority suppressed the cults because they used psychedelics. Because of this fear of Roman SWAT teams, the Greeks would have found it appealing for Christianity to have a psychedelic sacrament, you see.
Far from being hostile to psychedelics and mystery initiation, the Roman imperial hierarchy in fact incorporated the use of psychedelics and mystery initiation to support and prop up the socio-political arrangement. To the extent that mystery cults and other religions threatened that socio-political arrangement, to that extent were they interfered with by the Roman power. Most mystery cults and religions adapted to the hierarchy and became subordinate to it.
It is true that the Roman historian Livy (64/59 BC – AD 12/17) and an inscription of a decree of the Roman Senate indicate that the Roman Senate in 186 BC regulated and suppressed a particular manifestation of the cult of Bacchus/Dionysus in Italy.
Muraresku wants that one instance of regulaton/suppression to mean that Bacchus/Dionysus was a threatened cult everywhere in every instance. This is not the case. Bacchus/Dionysus was not some taboo and suppressed god for the Romans. Before the importation of the mystery cult of Dionysus/Bacchus into Italy, the Romans/Italians had their own equivalent, Liber (or Pater Liber). Over time Liber and Bacchus/Dionysus became identified with each other. In whatever manifestation, Liber/Bacchus/Dionysus was always a standard member of the pantheon in Greece and Rome. His worship was completely normal and regularly incorporated into the culture of ancient Greece, ancient Italy, and the Roman Empire, from the bottom of the social order to the top.
As I’ve pointed out in other posts, a source as obvious, banal, and entry-level as Wikipedia shows the inaccuracy of Muraresku’s story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus#Worship_and_festivals_in_Rome
There is indeed a history of back-and-forth relations between the Roman authority and the worship of Dionsyus/Bacchus/Liber concerning the activities of worshippers. But this does not amount to a blanket threat of suppression of the altered state in the way Muraresku implies. The altered state via psychedelics was common and easy to come by in the ancient Mediterranean. The uneasy relations of a particular brand of cult with the Roman authority did not affect the widespread and common altered state experiencing via psychedelics.
In turn, early Christianity stood out not for its psychedelic sacrament, but because it stylized itself as a direct counter to the Roman hierarchy and applied itself to the set-up of an alternative society. It is another mark against Muraresku’s ‘scholarship’ that in a book on Christian origins he makes no mention of the many books on counter-empire themes in early Christianity. The psychedelic sacrament was nothing special, and it would have been unusual (impossible) not to have one.
Secondarily, the reason for Muraresku’s selective focus on Eleusis, Dionysus, and early Christianity becomes clearer in Chapter 11. He has been so selective because he wants to tie the preparation and administering of psychedelic beverages to women. He fantasizes that women had exclusive knowledge of psychedelics.
He wants his book to participate in an intra-Catholic (or intra-Christian debate) about the legitimacy of women priests. This is why he ignores all other mystery cults and the widespread use of psychedelics throughout Mediterranean culture. Ignoring it allows him to tell his fantasy story that women held the special knowledge of psychedelics until they were suppressed by ‘the patriarchy.’
He is committed to the Moderate approach because of cultural commitments, not because of a commitment to historical accuracy or plausibility. Eleusis and Dionysus appear to be easy targets because the cult mythology at Elusis focuses on female goddesses and because Dionysus had his maenads. Early Christianity appears to be an easy target because evidence can be arranged to show its popularity among women. Yet Muraresku has not produced any evidence that women alone knew of and administered psychedelics. It’s implausible. Why would only women know how to mix psychedelics into wine? Can Muraresku prove what is implied by his story, that men did not know how to mix psychedelics into wine?
It’s a story he wants to be true, so he’ll distort everything to make it so.
Muraresku on the topic of women is an example of his literalizing of religious myth. ‘Female’ in analogical mythemes refers to:
“{female}: the mind’s vulnerable thought-receiver, normally {veiled}, unable to resist the uncontrollable source of thoughts. When that source-situation becomes visible, perceptible in the ASC, the female {maiden} is consciously overpowered and {abducted} to the {underworld}.”
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/15/mytheme-list/#fterms (scroll down to find [NB: the page at the link has changed shape since this passage of this post was authored]).
The presence of females in the religious imagery of the cult tells us nothing about the historical reality of the cult’s practice.
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Chapters 12-14: Underground Funerary Sites in Rome
Chapters 12-14 focus on funerary banqueting in Rome. The main argument seems to be that the early Christian eucharist is a version of the funerary banquet. Muraresku visits four underground sites in Rome from the 1st-3rd centuries AD: the hypogeum of the Aurelii, the necropolis now under St. Peter’s Basilica, and two catacombs. He continues his narrative that “paleo-Christianity” was an illegal mystery cult of culturally Greek women in Italy leading funerary banquets underground.
We can agree with Muraresku’s suggestion that the funerary banquets involved ingestion of psychedelics (though I’m not sure that he is the first to make that suggestion); what I continue to object to is the way he wraps that suggestion up in a particular, speculative account of the social history of antiquity. This is partly an objection to Muraresku’s lack of historical rigor, partly an objection to his arbitrary claims about who did and did not prepare and ingest psychedelics in antiquity.
Muraresku claims without evidence that the presence of psychedelics was the cause of the secrecy of mystery cults and of their oppression. He likewise claims without evidence that only women knew how to prepare and serve psychedelics.
Instead of making a compelling case for his claims about secrecy, oppression, and gender, he merely associates psychedelics with certain groups, who he says were oppressed, and not with others, who he says were the oppressors. In doing so, he very obviously projects his own associations about social categories, oppression of groups, and suppression of psychedelics onto his historical study.
We thus have an author who says that he wants to bring more widespread interest to the topic of psychedelics in antiquity, but then limits that topic in arbitrary ways. This is a strategic failure. The book should strive to open the topic as much as possible. Instead, the book limits the topic of psychedelics in the ancient Mediterranean arbitrarily to specific social groups.
Muraresku stands back from asking the all-important question: “to what extent were psychedelics used in Greek and Christian religion?” Muraresku’s portrait of paleo-Christianity as “illegal mystery cult of Greek women in Italy leading funerary banquets underground” is an unnecessarily selective and narrow image.
In this section of the book, Muraresku simply asserts out of nowhere and with no evidence that the early bishops suppressed the psychedelic eucharist. Muraresku asserts that the objection found in writings attributed to the early bishops to ‘Gnostic’ and other groups the early bishops labeled as ‘heretical’ was due to the ingestion of a psychedelic eucharist by those ‘Gnostic’ and ‘heretical’ groups. To Muraresku’s way of thinking, because the bishops objected to ‘Gnostic’ and ‘heretical’ groups, therefore they must have objected to the psychedelic eucharist. To Muraresku’s way of thinking, psychedelics could simply not have been mainstream, ‘official,’ accepted by the socially or politically powerful. He maintains this position, even though he also writes about the widespread practice of funerary banqueting with psychedelics.
Chapter 12 is a set-up chapter for Chapter 13 on the Hypogeum of the Aurelii in Rome. The main topics it introduces are that of the agape meal and that of the refrigerium (funeral banquets held at gravesites).
Chapter 13 describes the Hypogeum of the Aurelii in Rome. Muraresku as the awed tourist. He engages in a certain kind of wishful thinking about art and archaeology. This wishful thinking interprets art/archaeology using ancient literature. Ancient literature is treated as a guide to identifying images and sites. I can hear my archaeologist colleagues groaning as they read this chapter.
An image on a fresco in the hypogeum of someone weaving is taken to be that of Homer’s Circe from the Odyssey. Why? Muraresku writes “When it comes to weaving, there’s only one mythical woman who instantly comes to mind.” Muraresku’s confidence here is overly brazen: weaving is a typical activity for women in Greek and Roman art. There’s no specific need to suggest there is a specific mythological referent to the image of a woman weaving. Moreover, for me at least, several mythological women come to mind: Arachne, who challenged Athena to a weaving contest and was turned to a spider; Philomena, who wove to communicate after her tongue was cut out; and, most damningly for Muraresku’s over-confidence, Penelope from the very same Odyssey as Circe, who puts off her suitors for years by weaving and secretly unweaving a shroud (this wikipedia page lists more mythological women weavers). Muraresku is over-confident in identifying the weaving woman as a particulary mythological woman. The fresco he is discussing gives no strong evidence that would allow us to conclude with certainty that any particular story is referred to.
Muraresku’s rush to identify the image as depicting a scene from the Odyssey is indicative of his approach: string famous names together using even the flimsiest of evidence and claim their “influence” with little argumentation or precise discussion of how said “influence” works. Muraresku has broad basic knowledge of classical Mediterranean history, literature, and archaeology. He tries to weave together that basic knowledge, but produces a misshapen jumble, exaggerating the prevalence and influence of many figures and authors and myopically picturing c. 1300 years (c. 800 BC – 500 AD) of human society in the Mediterranean as guided and determined by a few names famous today.
I should not be too harsh on Muraresku regarding the Hypogeum of the Aurelii, since for much of the fantasizing he follows the sloppy guesswork of most scholarship on the Hypogeum. Muraresku uncritically repeats speculative guesswork and ignores, or has not done enough research to find, the critical scholarship that critiques the speculative scholarship he cites.
Muraresku accepts the Christian historiography/archaeology of the site without question. Completely conjectural fantasies have been published by scholars and repeated by guides at museums and sites. These fantasies are then taken as fact by uncritical tourists.
Christian historiography/archaeology is invested in a certain story of Christian origins, centered around the story of the persecutions in Rome. Christian historiography/archaeology is flexible and opportunistic: any image it wants can be justified as a sign of early Christianity. Muraresku’s priest companion is quoted on p. 288-9 engaging in such mental gymnastics:
As Christians, [the original owners of the hypogeum] would have tried to depict their beliefs under the veil of other, more acceptable symbols. Because they couldn’t just explicitly say they were Christian. For those who knew, the images could be interpreted as Christian: the Good Shepherd and Saint Paul and so forth. The banquet of the refrigerium, of course, resonates with the New Testament narratives of the Last Supper. But for those who weren’t Christians, it would just look like a refrigerium. The whole scheme is a deliberately designed external presentation that would be acceptable in a society where Christianity was not a lawful religion. But even their Christian friends who came here would still have to acknowledge the persistence of this tradition…this Dionysian worldview. You see, this is the whole paradox of an intercultural encounter.”
Admire the skill and dexterity as the mind leaps between the interpretations of Christian and non-Christian viewers, swings on the parallel bars of vague, but important sounding words like “resonates,” before hitting the stunning and incomprehensible landing with a masterful move of obfuscation, “this is the whole paradox of an intercultural encounter.”
We can also see in the above quotation a larger problem illustrated throughout this chapter by the priest, Muraresku, the archaeological guide, and the speculative art history scholarship they all draw on. Certain art history scholarship that seeks to define the meaning of a particular piece of ancient art has a problem with audience: who is the audience?
Here’s an example of that audience problem. Muraresku concludes his discussion of a fresco in the Hypogeum in his typical way: “Was the Homeric fresco used by the Aurelii to demonstrate their intimate knowledge of the mystical Greek tradition that connected them to the likes of Pythagoras and Plotinus in Magna Grecia?” Setting aside everything else I could complain about in that sentence, try to picture to yourself the scenario Muraesku imagines. Who is viewing this fresco and when? What reason would the Aurelii have for “demonstrating their intimate knowledge of the mystical Greek tradition”? If we agree with Muraresku that such a tradition was oppressed, why would they want to demonstrate that intimate knowledge? If a visitor recognized everything Muraresku suggests they could have, so what? Muraresku’s discussion lacks motivation.
Muraresku continues to discredit himself as a scholar by failing to discuss the latest study of the Hypogeum of the Aurelli, by John Bradley (publisher’s website; jstor; earlier version as author’s dissertation available here). Bradley reviews previous scholarship on the Hypogeum and points out the prevalence of wishful thinking in interpretations of the frescos as signs of Christianity and/or Gnosticism. This wishful thinking is precisely what Muraresku presents to his readers as historical and archaeological fact. We need not agree with all of Bradley’s conclusions and formulations, but if Muraresku wants to pretend to be a scholar, he has to be held to a scholarly standard, including discussing all relevant books and articles.
(One could object that Bradley’s book is recent, from 2019, perhaps too recent for Muraresku to have taken account of; Yet Muraresku regularly cites correspondence and other dates in 2020, and in any case Bradley’s dissertation version has been available since 2017.)
Every chapter of Muraresku’s book is a microcosm of the same problem: wishful, speculative thinking presented as historical and archaeological fact, or, if not presented exactly as fact, nonetheless treated as proven true in order to support subsequent speculation.
Chapter 14 describes a visit to the necropolis now under St. Peter’s in Rome, and two other catacombs. Muraresku continues to accept the Catholic/Vatican historiography and identification of the sites as “Christian.” This approach involves the “wishful thinking” approach to identifying artwork that I discussed above. In this approach, a shepherd depicted in an image must refer to the “Good Shepherd” analogy in the New Testament, a fisherman depicted in an image must refer to the “fisher of souls” analogy in the New Testament, a charioteer with a nimbus of light around his head must be Christ, a banquet scene must be the Christian eucharist, etc.; therefore, the sites where such images are found must have been made by, decorated by, and used by Christians as a distinct social group practicing a religion distinct from other religions. In this approach, the ‘meaning’ of the images comes from their relation to Christian writings.
Muraresku’s Chapters 13 and 14 are motivated by, first, his acceptance of the sites he visits as exclusively Christian and, second, his notice of details that he thinks contradicts his sense of what is acceptably “Christian.” For example, in Chapter 13, the “Homeric” fresco discussed above. In Chapter 14, these include vines around the charioteer and women at the banquet scenes, scenes which I alluded to in the previous paragraph. Because he accepts that the sites were ‘Christian,’ the strange-to-him details must mean that the early ‘Christians’ were not the social group he thought they were, but were instead a different social group. Hence comes how he can claim that the true ‘paleo-Christians’ were Greek women in Italy leading underground funerary banquets.
The above approach wants to derive social history from artwork. Left out is the primary meaning of the artwork, that of portraying the psychedelic transformation of mental world models from open-future to closed-future.
Muraresku also discusses ‘Gnostic’ groups in Rome and, without argument, only by assertion, takes the condemnation of these groups in the writings attributed to early bishops to mean that the early bishops condemned a psychedelic eucharist.
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Chapters 15 on Campania (Naples region of Southern Italy).
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Chapter 16 and 17 on Inquisition
I’ll add summaries and critiques of the remaining chapters. Reading the book is slow going because I want to throw the book across the room after every other sentence.
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