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2. The Best Kept Secret In History
65 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Joe and Josh discuss the history of Psychedelic use in the human story, covering the Stoned Ape Hypothesis and the Mysteries of Eleusis
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Music By Nathan Willis RIP
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Transcript
Introduction to Psychedelics Through History
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Pursuit of Infinity podcast with Joe and Josh. This is Josh. Today we have a discussion about psychedelics through history, which just scratched the surface of how these substances coincide with the human story. So I do see a part two, more than likely even more episodes on this in the future.
00:00:19
Speaker
But first, please check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash pursuit of infinity, where you can become a patron and get early access to episodes, unreleased conversations that will only be posted on Patreon and monthly AMAs or ask me anythings with Joe and I.
00:00:35
Speaker
We're also on Instagram at pursuit of infinity pod, where we post updates, general musings and other things. So please follow us there. If you feel compelled to do so, please also consider giving us a five star rating on your podcast platform of choice, as it really helps us to make our mark and recruit bigger and better guests. Thank you for listening. And I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Stoned Ape Hypothesis
00:01:23
Speaker
Alright, so Josh, what role do you think that psychedelics have in the history of mankind? Like, how far do you think this really goes back? Well, I think, first of all, the farther you go back, the more sort of speculative it is.
00:01:43
Speaker
And the farthest back that we could possibly go would be like the formation of the modern human from whatever hominid we were before this. Um, so that would go into the stoned ape hypothesis.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah, so you're saying that, according to this hypothesis, that psilocybin mushrooms were actually a fundamental part of what shaped the current human being, what we are today.
00:02:19
Speaker
I'm not sure if I'm going to get my numbers right here, but it could be a million. It could be 20 million. It could be 20,000. Um, but a certain really, really huge number of years ago, the human brain size basically doubled and what they call like overnight. And what they mean by overnight is just in a really, really short span of time.
00:02:43
Speaker
Yeah. If you ask, uh, different people, they'll give you different answers. They say it could be 2 million years or yeah, there's like 2 million years to 200,000 years. So anywhere in between there, depending on who you ask, that's when the doubling of the brain size happened.
00:02:58
Speaker
And again, as you can see, like the more time you go back, the more time in between there are of like the possibilities. So it sort of gets speculative at that point. But, so yeah, you were saying, um, that psilocybin mushrooms help to form or shape the brain that we currently have, right? Yes. So.
00:03:23
Speaker
The hypothesis is that when we were still sort of like, like monkey-like humans, we were in the trees. And as the African plains started to dry, we migrated to like the flatlands. And during this time, we were domesticating and using cattle.
00:03:53
Speaker
And what would happen was as you're following these cattle and as your, cause we were nomadic, we were hunter gatherers at this time, so constantly moving. And as you're following these cattle and you're, you know, you're grazing them and everything.
00:04:10
Speaker
Inevitably, they're gonna take a lots of shits. Indeed. And when they do, this happens to be one of the most fruitful and nutritious substrates for psilocybe cubensis mushrooms, which are psychedelic mushrooms that contain psilocybin. And the theory goes, or the hypothesis goes, they incorporated these mushrooms into their diet.
00:04:39
Speaker
So it seems that initially they would have incorporated them into their diet at small doses, which would have
00:04:48
Speaker
helped to what Terrence McKenna, who is the, um, the brain behind this hypothesis would say was that it increased their visual acuity, which essentially just means it increased like their visual edge detection. So this would benefit them in, in hunting and, you know, these types of things. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it would aid the survival of the species, really.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, and I guess you could say that the tribes or the groups that took these mushrooms at small doses into their diet would be more successful, and then they would progress farther than hominids who weren't including this in their diet, giving them an evolutionary advantage. Okay.
00:05:35
Speaker
So then if you increase the dose a little more, you get an increased eroticism. Okay. So this, that means then this would allow the species to reproduce more often. Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, it's possible that.
00:05:59
Speaker
They were group sort of, I mean, for lack of a better word, like orgies in these. Kind of like bonobos. Yes, like bonobos. Yeah, exactly. And in this way, like they're just producing more and more and more and more. And again, this is another evolutionary advantage. Interestingly, how these, these cubensis mushrooms are
00:06:21
Speaker
influencing the human mind and the human capability to survive better. Like that is a question itself. Like why should a mushroom impart the abilities of a human to survive better with them than without them?
00:06:38
Speaker
It's just, it's, it's very peculiar, but if you increase the dose even more than into your diet, you start to see creativity, cave paintings, um, the introduction of art and things like that, which, um, leads to a symptom of psychedelics, which is referred to as glossolalia. Um, so that would be essentially like a.
00:07:08
Speaker
just a random assortment of mouth noises come out and they don't mean anything necessarily. It's just like a series of noises that can be sort of connected to emotions. So what McKenna says is that this was like the introduction of language because
00:07:32
Speaker
Language essentially is just a bunch of mouth noises that we attach to emotions or thoughts to express to our tribe. And it makes sense that if you don't have the knowledge
00:07:48
Speaker
that you're capable of creating complex mouth noises that attach to emotions or attached to thoughts. And there's a substance that can bring that out of you and can help you to sort of catalyze that, that it would aid in the evolution of your species because I mean, you're able to communicate with your tribesmen, you're able to hunt easier. There's so many things that language introduces, introduces culture. Um, so I think that's one of the more.
Speculative Nature of Hypotheses vs. Theories
00:08:20
Speaker
Amazing parts of this theory if it would be considered true and I mean You know they say if you look it up they call it the stoned ape theory But as you actually said before it's actually a hypothesis Because there's there is no way to actually prove this it cannot be proven but there is now fortunately that there's science going into psilocybin and the effects on the brain and
00:08:45
Speaker
And it does start to add up that this could have been a real possibility. Can you just kind of define what makes something a theory and what makes it a hypothesis?
00:09:00
Speaker
Well, a theory is testable. It's tested and proven with facts. Whereas a hypothesis is more speculation. And that's where this is clearly a hypothesis, because there's no way that you could really test this. But they're doing a lot of studies on the brain when psilocybin is introduced. And when psilocybin is introduced into the brain,
00:09:28
Speaker
It substitutes serotonin and activates neurogenesis, which causes new neurons to form new pathways of knowledge. So there is some evidence behind it that claims that over a period of millions, maybe hundreds of thousands of years, a continuous consumption of these mushrooms will lead to these new pathways. Yeah, I think when you first look at this idea
00:09:57
Speaker
You might think like, oh, so a few monkeys took some mushrooms a few times and then like all of a sudden their brain jumped up like 20% or whatever. But I think really like a good way to think about it is Paul Stamets had said that this did not occur like quickly.
00:10:15
Speaker
necessarily in our term and our idea of what quick means. It happened over millions of years and millions of doses. And these doses wouldn't just be like once a weekend or something, like to have fun with your friends. Like these are, this is part of their diet. Like they're eating these all day, every day, and they're understanding their doses. They're using them like in, in a way that's beneficial to their survival, because at that time,
00:10:46
Speaker
life is all about survival. There's no luxury. You're on the move all the time. You're hunting, you're gathering, you're surviving. And you have to think, you know, food was scarce in a sense. I mean, it took a lot of work and mushrooms are, I mean, a relatively easy way to, you know, fill up your diet. And I mean, they say that there, there's a clear abundance of mushrooms and almost all primates consume mushrooms too. So,
00:11:14
Speaker
So yeah, you know, and what's interesting is that when you, or when these so-called hominids, um, left the trees and came down to the plains, I mean, you're all of a sudden dealing with predators that if you go up against like hand to hand physically, you're done. Like you got big cats and, you know, these animals that are predators, like real predators and us as human monkeys, like, yeah, the monkeys were pretty strong.
00:11:44
Speaker
Um, and they were capable, but we didn't stand a chance against a lot of the predators that we came into contact with at this time. So you think that anything that gives you an edge survival wise, you're going to take into your diet. You're going to take into your.
00:12:01
Speaker
into your being and it's going to work for you, hopefully. And if it does work, you're going to continue to use these things. So that brings me to the, like the next step up in dose, which is beyond art, beyond
The Eleusinian Mysteries
00:12:20
Speaker
even language. And what McKenna would say is that the dose slammed you to the cave floor and introduced religion.
00:12:31
Speaker
And this would have been the basis for all of religious ideas because it introduced the simple idea that God is a thing. Yeah. Cause you have to think, I mean, where did that idea come from and how long has it been around? Such a great question. Such a great question. I mean, and I mean, that would lead us into, I would say the next
00:13:02
Speaker
chronological historical time in the use of psychedelics and that would be the Eleusinian mysteries.
00:13:14
Speaker
referred to by Houston Smith, who I'm not sure if you've ever heard of Houston Smith. He's like one of the greatest religious scholars of the 21st century. Like this dude, he gets it. Um, he referred to the mysteries, but like more specifically the sacrament that they used as the best kept secret in history. So essentially the idea is that there was a religious sacrament used in the city of Eleusis that was basically an, um, a
00:13:44
Speaker
Beer spiked with psychedelics. This idea was initially introduced by R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hoffman and Carl Ruck in a book that they called The Road to Eleusis. It was published in I believe 1978.
00:14:04
Speaker
Um, there's also a dude named Brian Murarescu who wrote a book called the immortality key, which I believe came out in like 2019, very recent. Um, and he referred to it as a once in a lifetime psychedelic encounter as the origin of Western civilization. So it's a pretty tall order. It's a, it's a pretty big thing to say, um, about.
00:14:30
Speaker
You know, these, these mysteries or this, this ritual that they performed. And also what's interesting about Houston Smith's comment that it's the best kept secret in history. So.
00:14:44
Speaker
Initiates of The mysteries because so i'm going to refer to them as the mysteries i'm not going to say elucis or elucinian like every time so if I if I say the mysteries i'm just talking about just the as a whole the ritualistic use Of the sacrament that's in question
00:15:03
Speaker
So, um, again, this was a ritualistic ceremony and like an initiation of sorts. So when you had an initiate, the rule was the initiate was not allowed to speak of the specifics of the mysteries. Like that's why we don't have any record of what it was that they actually consumed as their sacrament.
00:15:29
Speaker
uh, that's and again, that's why houston smith called it the best kept secret in history because Nothing can be found about this like it is It's really really is like a grand secret um, so it said that the mysteries were the root of greek civilization and as you can see greek civilization and greek history has a tremendous influence on our civilization so
00:15:57
Speaker
When you think about this, you could think about the mysteries as like the foundation of Western culture as a whole, because we were built off of Greek culture and Greek history.
00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah. And this, I guess this started around the time of the Mycenaean period in ancient Greece. And, uh, that's like right after the bronze age. And that's the time when in Greece, organized urban areas started, you know, popping up and they started creating a lot of art. So this is like, this was the beginning of what we know as, you know, ancient Greece.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it was before Greece became sort of more imperial, which we will get to. But it started in the city of Eleusis, which is about 30,000 people, and it's located like 13 miles northwest of Athens.
00:16:59
Speaker
Um, so very, very close to Athens. So, you know, later you will definitely see the impact that Athens as a city, um, had on the mysteries, but.
00:17:11
Speaker
What's really crazy is that for about 2000 years, it was what was called by my rescue as the epicenter of the Mediterranean spiritual universe, um, often referred to as the authentic religion of ancient Greece. And think about what it would take to keep something going for 2000 years and to keep it secret for 2000 years. Like this must've had such an impact on the people who are initiates.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah, and it's interesting because you were only allowed to participate once. You could only do this one time, and then you couldn't speak about it. And another thing that's interesting is it was open to everybody, like men, women, free people, and even slaves were allowed to participate in the initiation.
00:18:01
Speaker
A lot of famous people from Greece, you know, participated. Plato, Cicero, he was a great Roman statesman, and he was quoted saying that the mysteries were the most exceptional and divine thing Athens ever produced. And that's coming from a culture that, you know, created democracy, free speech, things like this. Cicero placed these mysteries above all.
00:18:28
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, other initiates, um, you said Plato, right? Well, that was Cicero. Yeah. He also, he said that this is, these mysteries is what actually held the whole species together. That's saying something. Yeah. And that it's coming from, you know, a very intelligent guy. And yeah, Plato also, he, he participated. Yeah. Some other initiates were, um, Aristotle, Pindar, uh, Caesar, uh, Caesar, Augustus Caesar.
00:18:57
Speaker
It's wild. It goes from, you know, it goes from philosophers to slaves that were participating in this. Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus, I mean, so many of the most important philosophical and scientific minds of the human race.
00:19:16
Speaker
were all initiates of these mysteries. Aristotle said, you go there not to learn something but to experience something. And Plato spoke about witnessing the blessed sight and vision.
00:19:31
Speaker
So these things, they're pointing to something, you know, something that we can sort of unearth. And a very important part of this is the myth of Demeter and Persephone.
00:19:50
Speaker
right that that's kind of the origin story of the festival right yeah so what that is it's it's essentially it's the the greek myth of
00:20:02
Speaker
of death and rebirth that was attached to the mysteries. Um, so the ritual would transform your relationship to death. Um, like the classic definition of a shamanic journey, for instance. Um, and what they would say is it's like death preparation. So, so the quote is if you die before you die, you won't die when you die. Great quote.
00:20:30
Speaker
Great quote. And it points directly to a mystical experience directly. Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting. We only have a few, you know, accounts, like people speaking of it, there's no real evidence to show what, you know, what it was inside this brew that was drunk. Um,
00:20:55
Speaker
So in the 14th century, when the mysteries were in jeopardy of destruction, um, it was said by one of their high priests that life in the absence of Eleusis would be unlivable. So what is, what can that mean? Like life without these rituals could be, would be unlivable. Like how important was this to their culture and their way of life? Well, yeah. And that goes back to, uh, Cicero saying that it was quite literally what held the entire human species together.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, and I think he also said something like, it was the most divine thing Athens ever produced, right? Is that what you said? Yeah, yep. More so than democracy, free speech. It's absolutely insane. So eventually, Athens becomes an imperial power and takes over their religion, essentially. Like snuffing it out. It didn't really snuff it out, though, I would say.
00:21:48
Speaker
Um, it sort of changed the mysteries a little bit, like it made it less, um, authentic. Like they almost diluted and watered it down until it, you know, dissipated and, and, you know, it was gone. Um, but.
00:22:08
Speaker
There's no real evidence or so we thought as to what it was contained within the brew or with, or if it was a brewer or what the hell it was. But.
Psychedelics in Ancient Rituals
00:22:22
Speaker
the technologies of what's called archaeobotany and archaeochemistry, which is essentially just like the archaeological study of plants and the archaeological study of these plants or of artifacts using chemistry.
00:22:39
Speaker
So what they use is called, it's called gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. So not going to pretend to know what those things mean, but what they do is they take samples of ancient containers, cups, chalices, and grails, and they can sort of test the remains of what was inside them. As long as they haven't been cleaned because.
00:23:01
Speaker
If you go to many many museums around the world they have these chalices that were supposedly used in similar rituals But they've been purged of all of you know the remains of any chemicals that are in them They're they're cleaned and they're prepared for the museum. So But I just wanted to to throw that out there because we're gonna kind of get to that in a bit with Brian Moore rescue's work and the immortality key but there's some more
00:23:31
Speaker
interesting artifacts that I'd like to sort of talk about that connect Demeter and Persephone myth to the mysteries and sort of further the idea that it was like psychedelic in nature in terms of like the experience itself. So there was a piece of art that I found it was
00:23:56
Speaker
like a stone relief sculpture of a dude's head. And below it, there's like a huge set of eyes that are on like a flat panel. And under the eyes, there's like some writing and I think it was the ancient Greek. So researchers say that the head was the head of an, was the head of the artist who was also an initiate of the mysteries and happened to be blind.
00:24:24
Speaker
So the purpose of the piece, they say, as indicated by the writing on the bottom was a tribute to Demeter and Persephone, which we were saying was the myth of death and rebirth that was attached to the mysteries for restoring his vision quotes, restoring his vision. So what that means, I mean, who knows? Does it mean that.
00:24:50
Speaker
His vision, his actual eyesight was restored, or was it an internal vision? How would you? Well, not to jump forward too much because we might get to this, but it reminds me of...
00:25:05
Speaker
you know, another person through history that you know of, Jesus, who would give people something to drink, the blood of Christ, whatever this potion was, that would give sight to the blind. So it's a, it's another comparison or a parallel that you see in another religious story where you could say a lot of this stuff originates from these mysteries.
00:25:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think that is the real important part of the mysteries is that you can come, you can directly translate this into Christianity. And I mean, I think, you know, again, that's the most important part of this. Um, not sure if you ever heard of, uh, the Greek God Dionysus. So.
00:25:52
Speaker
A lot of people say that Jesus is actually our version of Dionysus. Right. And that would make sense, you know. A lot of it, there's so many parallels to other religions. I mean, well, Jesus, you know, is also famous for saying that you must be born again before you can see God's kingdom.
00:26:14
Speaker
I know you're familiar with, uh, with Gabekli Tepe, right? Yeah. So, um, it's an archeological site that was discovered in the nineties, uh, was completely buried by sand. And then what they say is intentionally. And when I mean they, I mean the people who excavated it, you can, they can sort of tell that this structure was buried by sand intentionally by the people who built it.
00:26:39
Speaker
Why? It's still yet to be determined, but uh, it's original excavator who's named Klaus, Klaus Schmidt, uh, talked about a representation of God being essential to the structure. So again, you know, you find these, um, like these same sorts of value systems in these, these are these archeological structures. Um, and there's ancient pots that were found in Gebekla Tepe that, um,
00:27:08
Speaker
that we used some archeochemistry technology on. Um, and they found that there were remains of beer in these chalices. So what's interesting about that is right there is evidence for like in a structure that was supposedly dedicated to God and to finding God, you find a chalice with beer in it. So what do you, like, what do you think that means?
00:27:39
Speaker
Well, I mean, if you ask Albert Hoffman, he'd say that, that it was a beer, but it was brewed with, uh, ergot, which is what Albert Hoffman was studying when he discovered LSD. I'm so glad you brought that up because, um, later ergot is actually found in some of these chalices. Um, not the ones that are in Gebekli Tepe, um, but
00:28:08
Speaker
Without getting too much into the myth in its iconography, you see pieces of art, images with deminare and Persephone all over the world, all over the place, which takes us to Iberia, which in Iberia,
00:28:32
Speaker
Uh, there was a sanctuary that was found all kinds of ritualistic items, uh, a whole bunch of stuff that had these images of, of, uh, Demeter and Persephone on them. And in the very center of the sanctuary, they found a chalice that they dated back to like the second century BC. And again, using technologies of archeochemistry and archeobotany, they found the remains of beer again.
00:29:01
Speaker
But along with the beer, they found the remains of that very important fungus that you just brought up, which was ergot. And like you just said.
00:29:10
Speaker
Ergot is essentially what LSD is. Well, it is also said that Ergot was, that it could have been very plentiful in the plains of Eleusis. Because the plains of Eleusis, they grew barley, rye, this type of thing, and that's, you know, Ergot's basically a fungus that grows on barley.
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's interesting because they even say that it may have been that the ergot was there by accident because like you said, it grows in those conditions with those ingredients. So it's even possible that they stumbled upon this by accident. Right. I mean, they could have just been using barley to, you know, brew this beer and just as, you know, an effect of this ergot growing on it, you're left with this, this potion, this psychedelic potion.
00:29:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I think potion is the right word for it because I'm pretty sure that beer and wine.
00:30:06
Speaker
We're different back then than what we make today, what we define beer as. Yeah, because you hear about, you know, and the same thing with, with Christ and the blood of Christ being wine. Like you hear about in these ancient stories, they talk about wine and beer, but it, none of this adds up to what we consider wine and beer. You know, when they talk about it, they're talking about these experiences that seem very psychedelic in nature, but you know, what we consider beer and wine today, not close to that.
00:30:36
Speaker
No, and there was actually, um, there's a dogfish head beer. Um, dogfish had brewery. Um, they made a beer called Midas touch. Have you ever had this or heard of it? I think they have. Yeah. One of my favorite. I love Midas touch. It's fantastic. Um, but this was actually made in inspiration of or inspired by.
00:30:57
Speaker
An ancient beer that was involved with these sorts of like with these sorts of rituals Which is called a graveyard beer not too familiar with it But you know these this has been around for a while, you know and all this stuff that we've been going on about it's this is all Greek and If you look at the Christian Old Testament
00:31:22
Speaker
What languages are written in it's written in ancient Greek Greek is known as the sacred language of Christianity. So Like you said it this seems to bring potential new meaning to eating the flesh of the gods or the blood of Jesus, which is that wine and it brings into question as to whether or not You know Jesus is our
00:31:47
Speaker
version of Dionysus, which would be, he's like basically the god of the psychedelic experience. All right. It gives context to the phrase giving sight to the blind too, for sure.
00:32:00
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Which goes back to that piece of art, which is like, you know, restoring your vision, you know? So like in those terms, like, what does, what would vision mean? Do you think, like, do you think it is literally like there? Cause I mean, in other, in other cultures,
00:32:20
Speaker
Like in, in South America, like ayahuasca is used as not just like a visionary experience, but it's also used to like, to heal and to cure physical ailments. So is it possible that they are talking about like physical vision, like being able to actually see, or is, do you think the vision is like more metaphorical?
00:32:43
Speaker
Well, I think it's metaphorical and literal. I mean, when you take a psychedelic, you quite literally see things. I mean, it's funny, though. Like you, we have so many, unfortunately not too many, but we have descriptions of this and it's always really intense and profound, like a rebirth and
00:33:01
Speaker
seeing vision and all this and like if you look to the Victorian era they put their culture on to Eleusis meaning they heard about Eleusis and they thought that it was some laser light show or some something crazy like that when
00:33:17
Speaker
That's just kind of their culture shining through and like being projected onto Eleusis. So if they determine that to be what Eleusis was, I feel like it might be safe to say that it's a quite literal vision that these people are getting because I mean, they explained it as, you know, some kind of light show.
00:33:39
Speaker
And interestingly, um, it's funny that you bring that up because some modern day researchers. Consider the mysteries to be a play. Like they say that it was like an actual play that was happening, you know, but I mean, for me, unless they give you the potion, which has ever gotten it before the play, there's no way the play can lead people to say such profound things like Cicero saying it was most divine thing Athens has ever produced.
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah, a play, you know, isn't necessarily something that profound, but it's funny, I mean, after these mysteries, that's when plays started popping up. These weren't a thing that existed before Eleusis. Like it create, it quite literally created theater and all this type of art we think of that came out of Greece. Yeah, and I mean, it most likely
00:34:32
Speaker
created religion, or at least organized the religion. Like we said that the stone day hypothesis probably gave humans the idea that religion could be a thing, but it seems that the mysteries of Eleusis solidified a ceremonial way to ingest the sacrament and create an organized religion around, around that sacrament and the experience that it provides.
00:34:58
Speaker
Yeah, and it was a powerful initiation, which is like something that we lack today in our culture. You know, and it's funny. I mean, our current religions, we still have these initiations, but they don't have the profundity that.
00:35:14
Speaker
that Eleusis had. I mean, in Christianity we still, you know, initiation, you know, drinking the blood of Christ. You know, you could ask anybody who's done it, it doesn't change anything about you. You just have a sip of wine and that's it. But, you know, when you hear about Eleusis and they're doing the same thing but having profound experiences that are specifically attached to the drinking of the wine, or whatever the brew is that they're drinking.
00:35:41
Speaker
whereas today we don't see too much significance in those type of things. It's kind of just ritualistic, you know, just going through the motions when people go to church and do those things. There's no real physical effect that you hear about when people, you know, they report what their experience is at Eleusis. Yeah, it seems that when Athens initially took over the religion and
00:36:08
Speaker
influence the West more so than ever. Um, it continued the dilution process of what, you know, these religions are, because when you go into a church, you know, there's a dude in front.
00:36:26
Speaker
who's a priest, he is supposed to be your doorway to God. You're not supposed to be allowed to experience God yourself. And what these mysteries are is a testament to people experiencing God for themselves, as opposed to looking to somebody else to be the prophet of God. And most of the time in religions, they specifically tell you, like, you aren't
00:36:51
Speaker
You can't experience this. You're not supposed to. It's a sin to think that you have. Look to our priest. He will tell you the way to go because he's the prophet. But when you look into the religious text, the true prophets like Jesus and stuff, these guys usually give sight to the blind or show people the way. But it's often the case that through consuming something,
00:37:17
Speaker
So the blood of Christ, I mean, it's a pattern that pops up in a lot of religions. Like today we interpret it as, you know, this person being magic and allowing people to see God through them.
00:37:33
Speaker
Well, now we focus in today's world and the myths of all these religions, we focus on the person. We focus on Muhammad or Jesus and we should worship them when if you look to Eleusis, there was no person. It was about yourself, going there yourself and having an experience yourself, like a death and a rebirth.
00:37:57
Speaker
the common theme that you do see is the brew or the consumption of something, but that's downplayed today. And it is arguably a sinister motive behind that. I mean, why would you downplay something that is that crucial clearly when you look into the history of Eleusis?
00:38:18
Speaker
Yeah. It's like they removed the magic from the sacrament and replaced it with like the person in front, you know, telling you what to do and what to think. And I mean, it's not supposed to, this isn't meant to be like a, you know, a thrashing of
Personal Divine Experience vs. Organized Religion
00:38:32
Speaker
organized religion. Cause I'm sure, you know, people who are involved in organized religion, it benefits their life in great ways and, and, you know, this and that I don't happen to subscribe to any organized religions, but I'm not going to discount what they do for people.
00:38:47
Speaker
But that being said, it seems like, um, like the sacrament was really where the rubber meets the road. And in order to enact a certain amount of structure of control,
00:39:08
Speaker
You put somebody at the forefront instead of experiencing it yourself. You put someone up there to listen to a teacher or a guide or whatever instead of taking the sacrament and allowing divisions to happen and being initiated into understanding what the possibilities of the universe are.
00:39:30
Speaker
Well, I have a quote here that explains the intention of the mystery. And when you hear this, it points directly to psychedelics if you've ever had a psychedelic experience. So it says, the mysteries were intended to quote, to elevate man above the human sphere into the divine and to assure his redemption by making him a god and so conferring immortality upon him.
00:39:55
Speaker
So when you hear that, I mean, there's no experience, at least that I've encountered in life, other than a psychedelic that can produce that type of divinity. Yeah. And divinity that you can experience yourself instead of, because I didn't, man, before psychedelics, I was a staunch atheist and, and I as well, and nothing that anybody could tell me.
00:40:24
Speaker
was going to change that. The only thing that would change that is me undergoing an experience that showed me truly that atheism is, I want to say wrong. I'm not going to say that like theism is the way that it is. And like, there is a sky daddy, you know, kind of God, but
00:40:46
Speaker
atheism is definitely not right. Well, you think about in our culture, I mean, we're growing up in a culture that is, our culture is scientific, materialistic, and in order for something to be true, we demand proof. And you know, this type of stuff, there's no proof for it.
00:41:10
Speaker
And we don't value today a divine experience. Our culture values organization, progress, production. We want to get the most out of the system we have now and build it further and further. A divine experience like Eleusis, this kind of tears down everything that we believe.
00:41:33
Speaker
gives power back to the individual. You won't need a religion or a priest to have a connection to God. So it really throws a monkey wrench into the culture that we find ourselves in today. Yeah, it seems like that's why these things were snuffed out. But man, how do you go from 2,000 years of a ritual that they say life is unlivable without?
00:42:03
Speaker
what changes you know from then till we have now it's hard to say i mean there some people believe they might have been a sinister motive you know for control but then there's also people that believe that there was a quite literal shift in culture from you know this beer brewed with ergot to
00:42:25
Speaker
a different method of brewing a beer that is, you know, alcohol-based rather than psychedelic-based, which could have been a major shift in the culture. I think they started using honey or something. They switched up the recipe for beer, basically. And a lot of people think that the death of like a leucis and all this was because the potion changed. That, you know, we went from a psychedelic culture to an alcohol culture.
00:42:54
Speaker
Yeah, cause I mean, imagine going into a psychedelic experience and like, say you've had a bunch of psychedelic experiences and you go into your next one and instead of being handed like a cup of ayahuasca or instead of being handed like a mushroom or something, you're handed a cup of alcohol. You know, like that pales in comparison. I mean, it's not even in the same realm of effects.
00:43:20
Speaker
Right. And it's something that you can do all the time. Like it becomes, you know, a huge thing of the culture. Whereas Eleusis, as I mentioned earlier, this was something that you could do once in your life and then vowed to silence about it or else you were killed. I mean, you were sentenced to death if you talked about it.
00:43:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. They would kill you, which is crazy. And for 2000 years, like imagine how many generations of humans had to maintain and promote these ideas in order to afford to last 2000 years. That's a long, long time. Well, the thing is, I mean, if you've had a psychedelic, I mean, it doesn't need much promotion or any of that because the experience speaks for itself and.
00:44:02
Speaker
And just the whispers of that experience drove people from all over to come to Eleusis. I mean it was a major part of the culture and something that everybody had to do in their life. I mean anybody who was anybody found themselves at Eleusis.
00:44:19
Speaker
and the most unimportant people, I mean slaves. I mean, it was such a deep, profound thing. It was something that, as Cicero said, kept all humanity together. They understood this in a way that they allowed enslaved people to participate as well. That's how important this was.
00:44:37
Speaker
So maybe it could be even be fair to say that the beginning of like the erosion of humanity started with the dilution of and removal of the mysteries.
00:44:55
Speaker
I think that's safe to say. I mean, we don't have anything like this today. I mean, fortunately, people can do this, you know, you can do psychedelics on your own and all this, but culturally, we don't have something that is treated with such respect and something that people need to do in their life to truly understand humanity.
00:45:16
Speaker
I mean, I think the biggest thing is I think drugs shape a culture and it shows.
Substances and Cultural Development
00:45:22
Speaker
I mean, like I said, some people believe that we went from a psychedelic culture to an alcoholic culture there. And now we still have alcohol and caffeine.
00:45:32
Speaker
These drugs that we're using shape our culture. Like today, we need to move, progress, growth, move forward, keep doing, keep going, keep producing. That's an effective caffeine. I mean, if you look to what the people are consuming of any time, it's very telling of their culture.
00:45:52
Speaker
It's true. And in McKenna's book, Food of the Gods, he, you know, a lot of people think that that book is just about the stone day hypothesis, but essentially what that book is about is the, the influence of drugs on the human species at different periods of time and in different places. And he goes over sugar and tea, like the sugar trade is crazy. If you look into that, like,
00:46:19
Speaker
And coffee beans, I mean, well, it's one of the biggest trades on the planet. I mean, this stuff isn't as, it's significant. I mean, people don't think about it because it's so common, but I mean, everybody is running around caffeinated. I mean, we don't even notice the difference anymore. You just take it and it's such a deep part of our culture. I mean, imagine what it would be like if psychedelics were treated as, you know, as something as prominent as alcohol or caffeine.
00:46:47
Speaker
I mean, the thing is, you can't do psychedelics every day. And that's, I think there's some beauty to the aspect of a lusus that you can only do it once. And I'm assuming that they had it right because, I mean, you don't want to show up to a lusus and get a weak batch or something, you know what I mean? So they must have had it right in order to ensure that you only needed one time.
00:47:08
Speaker
So yeah, that that's like, uh, the one time heavy dose. So do you think that micro dosing has its part to play in culture? And do you think that.
00:47:22
Speaker
it can aid in the evolution of humanity in maybe a different type of way, but in conjunction with periodic high doses? Yeah, I think there's a place for microdosing in it. It could be important and beneficial. There's research on brain chemistry that kind of resets your brain for people who are depressed, this and that.
00:47:48
Speaker
So microdosing, I mean, I do advocate it, but I still, I don't think that it is quite, you know, as important as these high doses. I mean, I will say I microdose for about a week. And I did feel positive effects for maybe like a month, like months after. I don't know if that was, you know, a product of the microdosing, but I think, you know, it could be good for some people. But I think with a leucis,
00:48:17
Speaker
having a one-time profound experience is more beneficial than maybe just microdosing and never having that. Because otherwise, like you said, 2,000 years this was successful and everybody raved about it and everybody had to participate. You won't hear that about a microdose.
00:48:41
Speaker
You know, microdosing is kind of, it's so subtle that you're not going to have any divine experience. And I think a divine experience is what people need to actually change the culture. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean.
00:48:58
Speaker
microdosing could be a very good tool. And I think for people who are in any kind of creative endeavor or looking to, you know, get over certain traumas, you know, therapeutically, maybe.
00:49:12
Speaker
think
00:49:30
Speaker
See, a microdose, it just still adds to our culture now. It doesn't really change it. It allows people to work and focus. Whereas these high doses, it's a life-changing experience. Whereas a microdose, it's more about productivity or maybe mood elevation, which is good, but it's still just adding to what we're already doing. It's not going to provide some monumental shift.
00:49:55
Speaker
Yeah, so the important part, you say, is changing culture.
Psychedelics and Personal Divinity
00:49:59
Speaker
In my opinion, well, even maybe not important, but the effects of a high dose that would change a culture. Like I was mentioning, I mean, I do think what a culture is intaking, like drugs, food, all of that, that really does shape the culture. I mean, we eat bad food, we drink alcohol, we do all this stuff, and then psychedelics are a Schedule I drug. They're forbidden. So it's very telling of our culture.
00:50:24
Speaker
And, you know, we are pretty atheistic in the West. And then people who are religious are kind of looked at as stupid or dumb or like from a scientific person. They say, how could you believe this or that? But you could take that same person and give them a dose of DNT or psilocybin or something like that, and they'll understand and change their whole belief system. And that could just be off of one experience.
00:50:52
Speaker
Yeah. Cause I think it changes what your definition of God is. Cause like I was saying, like before, when we were talking earlier, um, off recording, it seems that psychedelics change our definition of what God can be. Like you can be told that God is this and God is that. And you know, a priest can come up to me and really explain to me everything in the Bible and all of this and that. And I'm still not going to believe it.
00:51:21
Speaker
because my definition of God is skewed because I'm being told about God by something that is not God. It's just the same as me. It's just another monkey telling another monkey what God is. When you take a mushroom and you take some LSD or DMT or you know, whatever, whatever your choice of psychedelic is, you really experience what God is firsthand and
00:51:49
Speaker
When that happens, it changes what you define God as. Yeah, 100%. And that's why a lot of times, if I'm talking about this type of subject with an atheist, that's the first question you start with is, well, what is your definition of God? What is God? And usually, it turns out that a lot of them haven't thought too deeply about it. And they usually say, oh, like, kind of have the cliche image of a man or something like that.
00:52:18
Speaker
you know, a person or, you know, a religious idea. Whereas I think people have an idea of God that is something that was told to them rather than something they figured out on their own. So I don't, I don't see how somebody, I don't
00:52:45
Speaker
I wouldn't expect somebody to believe in God without experiencing it, especially people from our culture who demand proof. I mean, there's no way to prove it. You can only experience it. And I think that was where Eleusis came in. That's why it was so important because it allowed people to have a direct contact with the divine, you know, not sitting there watching a priest speak and tell you how you should act and what you should do. This was a direct experience.
00:53:12
Speaker
that with psychedelics, there's some type of moral undertone to it. There's something good about it or something that teaches you how to be and how to act and how to be a human. And it's funny because, again, going back to Cicero, he said that Eleusis literally held humanity together.
00:53:33
Speaker
Yeah. And it seems that a loose has happened before like structured societal pressures dictated like what these.
00:53:48
Speaker
experiences should be and what religion is and what God is. And I think that's key to its effectiveness was that there was no idea of a structured religion during this time. The structured religion part happened after Eleusis was already buried.
00:54:06
Speaker
And it's arguably—you can argue that religion is just some kind of translation of Eleusis. I mean, you see all the similarities across different religions—death, rebirth, this type of stuff, a potion involved. So people were going into Eleusis without all this baggage already attached to God or divinity
00:54:32
Speaker
They were going in there a little more clear-headed and unexpected.
00:54:39
Speaker
I think that's a, that's a great point. I think it's a great point, clear headed and unexpected because you're not putting your own expectations on what the experience should be. And since nobody's allowed to share with you what it is, it's really new and you're going into it with a completely clean slate. And I think you're right. That's a super important aspect of it because when you impose your own ideas,
00:55:06
Speaker
onto these types of things, that's when the squirreliness comes in. And then, especially if you decide to form some type of, let's say, religion around it or hierarchy, any hierarchy is corrupted in a sense. I mean, there's always a power structure involved there. With Eleusis, I think the beauty of it was there was none of that involved, and it was open to everyone.
00:55:33
Speaker
Once you did it once, you had your experience and that was it. You didn't have to show up every weekend and pray to somebody or this or that. You had the experience and you kept it with you.
Conclusion and Encouragement for Exploration
00:55:42
Speaker
And I think there's no other explanation, in my opinion, than psychedelics that can produce that type of experience. And it's arguably the reason why God exists and to human beings. I mean, going back to the stone dape theory,
00:56:01
Speaker
I mean, where did God come from? How was it created? I've never experienced it until I tried psychedelics. Yeah, same. I'm not sure if there's any better way to end it, man.
00:56:14
Speaker
Yep. That sounds good for me. Yeah. Yep. This has been a good, a good discussion. I really enjoyed it. Eleusis. Eleusis. Yep. Do some more research on it if you want. It's fascinating. Yeah, it really is. And highly recommend, uh, Brian Murrow Rescue's book, The Immortality Key. I mean, this dude, he went so, so deep and so far that it is, this book is a magnificent display of scholarly work. I mean, it is, it's amazing.
00:56:44
Speaker
Yeah, we just scraped the surface here a little bit and wanted to talk about it. I mean, it's something that I think everybody should try to learn about and then make your own evaluation of it. It's my belief that psychedelics were the focal point of this festival.