Have any of you seen the Pharmacratic Inquisition? It spoke about a book about jesus being a magic mushroom… any thoughts?
I mean entheogen means to generate god within lol
I think that is a little off, but I have heard the ‘body of christ’ wafer thing as being the shroom.
Seems to me it was definitely a psychedelic. There is ample evidence for weed (oil) being in the bible.
weed oil as in hash oil?
Yes. Tho technically it was probably never hash.
As I understood it, I seem to recall from many years ago, John Allegro was the only non Jesuit invited to help translate the Dead Sea Scrolls. After some time he resigned having come to the conclusion that Jesus’s main interest was the consumption of halucinogenic substances, such as magic mushrooms, in order to communicate with higher forms of intelligence: as did the pharoahs. Moses and later Mohammed. He was later hounded from pillar to post for writing the book " The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross". I suspect his main thesis was, in some measure, correct.
Checkin that book out for sure. Thx.
Lol right. I need to get that book because the Pharmacratic Inquisition was ridiculous!
Sounds like a fun read. Will look it up.
I’m pretty sure that the only psychedelic mushrooms available at that time in that part of the would would have been Amanitas. While Fly Agaric does have some activity, I think that conflating its activity with that of psilocybin mushroom is naive. Look at the trip reports for Fly Agaric on Erowid and you’ll see it isn’t terribly entheogenic, so I have a hard time accepting the hypothesis as presented.
Where are you getting that data from?
Keep in mind cannabis oil, taken in large dosed, will produce hallucinogenic effects.
First off, it is generally how the mushrooms in those artworks are represented.
This is fly agaric:
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This is a representative example of a psilocybe mushroom:
On the fly agaric, notice the distinctive spotting on the cap vs. the smoother psilocybe. Even wavy variants of psilocybe don’t usually have spotting. Also, notice the coloration. The fly agaric has a very distinctive bright red cap. Psilocybe mushrooms are, well, mushroom colored. They do often bruise blue.
Now look at some religious art and tell me which mushroom you see:
As for habitat, Fly Agaric is native to Siberia and spread throughout Europe.
It is a little harder with psilocybe, since there are psilocybe mushrooms that do grow worldwide, however the psychedelic kind appear to be restricted largely to the New World and possibly(?) parts of Asia. Consider this article, where the presence and use of psychedelic psilocybe mushrooms was well documented in the New World but unheard of (and/or very poorly supported) in the Old World. For further, easily digestible reading, check out this article. Pay close attention to the work of John Allegro and Clark Heinrich. But, again, you’ll note no aboriginal use of psilocybe mushrooms in Europe.
Having made a case for Fly Agaric being the psychedelic mushroom present in Europe and the Middle East from around say 150BCE-500CE when Christianity and related mystery cults were being formed and fleshed out until about 100 years after Christianity had been established as the orthodox religion, we now have to ask whether fly agaric would be a suitable entheogen for the generation of these cults. Muscimol, the primary psychoactive ingredient in fly agaric works through the GABA rather than serotonin pathways, so already the high is going to be very, very different. Rather than pretty colors and patterns, visual distortions from GABA agonists tend to make things either seem larger or smaller than they are. It is also going to be more “relaxing” than “emotional”, for lack of a better word.
I’m not saying that magic mushrooms of some variety weren’t used in many cases within Christianity and possibly Judaism. The pictures at the start clearly show that they were. But I think that the type of mushrooms they used would be more useful in enhancing a religious experience rather than out-and-out creating one, as opposed to indole-derived psychedelics which can very easily create their own religious experience needing justification/otherworldliness.
Well I don’t think anyone asserted the shroom was solely responsible for Christianity as a religion, just that Jesus used them.
It’s hard to say whether the fly would have the psychoactive dynamic to enable communication with other entities. I’m not sure if a serotonin pathway would be required for channeling/communication in that regard.
There are actually a lot of people who suggest that. Note in the OP, it wasn’t whether Jesus used magic mushrooms, it was whether Jesus was a magic mushroom.
Yeah fair enough. I dunno. He might have been. I think there was an actual dude, but, regardless, the theory (shrooms with early man) is pretty interesting.
I’ve always been fascinated by Mckenna’s take, because Mckenna is the man.
botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/wo … ect20b.htm
Personally I believe the shroom is a conscious multidimensional entity of sorts. If you ask it a question, it will answer. If you request vision toward some end, you will see it in some fashion or another. If you disrespect it, you’re going to get a lesson on the power and reality of the cosmos. Anyone who has done shrooms more than a couple times (that I’ve talked to) usually agree with this.
So, even using the fly, I have little trouble believing Jesus was using it for some next level shit. I have never done that variety, though, so who knows… maybe not. I think it’s pretty hard to conjecture about Jesus, tbh. I don’t really do a lot of that, but like I said, I think there was a guy at some point who impressed some people by a lake. I mean, think about it, religions like that don’t just pop up cause some really clever guy sat down one day, rubbed his hands, and thought up a story. Where there is smoke there is always an entheogenic fire.
I went to a hippy gig once where everyone got an acid tab with their tickets upon entrance, quite amazing the mass effect + that we all took it at around the same time.
I think it would be quite easy for someone with knowledge on such things, to get a mass trip going. As far as I know that’s exactly what ancient druids did at festivals.
I expect that religion could be created in such a way, especially when there already exists cultural archetypes to compose it with.
I still think there is something people are tuning into tho, so maybe mushroom jesus exists. 
While Mushrooms may have played a role, particularly in European expressions of Christianity, the elephant in the room is acacia. It is a common shrub that is found all over the Levant and many varieties have a truckload of DMT (and other related alkaloids) in them. Acacia were burnt as incense in Temples.
All you’d need is some sort of an MAOI to make the DMT work properly. Like Syrian Rue, which is also found in the Levant. And is also burned as incense.
I can’t say whether it was intentionally used for that purpose, though people a) like drugs b) are good at discovering them and c) tend to make sacraments out of them. But even if it wasn’t intentionally used for that purpose, having them around and a person who is particularly susceptible to hallucinogens (possibly due to some other neuronal imbalance) would create one heck of a ride. Leaving the occasional person to have wild visions while everybody else is more-or-less unaffected.
^^very interesting!
Where can you buy that stuff 
Truly brother, I have seen the light! Add beer and Jager and I will be reborn.
That said, both Timothy Leary and Terrence McKenna, in The Food of the Gods go pretty deep into the spiritual aspects of drugs. And while I think it goes a little too far (I seriously don’t see it standing up very well to empirical scrutiny), I think there is something to be said for the transcendent/spiritual aspect of it. I don’t think it mere coincidence that Christ turned water into wine.
^^ indeed, equally it seams unlikely that people casually see gods and have visions, say walking down the street or at the breakfast table. So the mind needs something which separates it from the brain to a degree ~ it seams this is the essential thing of it, the greater the mind-body duality the deeper the spiritual experience.