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Entheogen-Diminishing Attitudes: Christianity
Contents
Bernard McGinn: "Students of
mysticism have no direct access to mystic experience"
Pop-Christian LaHaye novel on raves
Don't say drug "abuse";
Gnostics & entheogens
Placebo sacramentalism a product of
profiteering priests/gurus
Demiurge duality and entheogenic apple
What keeps entheogenic Christianity
on track while placebo sacrament used?
Scholarly ignorance of & bias
against Dionysian inebriation
Strategies scholars use to avoid
addressing entheogen theory
Scriptural disproof of plant
prohibition
Bernard
McGinn is the epitome of the academic type of spiritual Establishment bent on
entrenching their paradigm of cluelessless, *dogmatic* cluelessness;
establishing firmly the dogma of "we [modern academics and serious
thinkers] cannot ever understand the mystics, though we can remotely study
them; we certainly and necessarily must forever remain alien to the mystic
state."
He writes
a fine forward to Gershem Scholem's book but page xi he writes something
infuriating -- he in effect is pulling a fast one and writing entheogens out of
history; they never existed and they don't exist, in his worldmodel he is
trying to establish.
"Students
of mysticism -- as distinct from mystics themselves -- have no direct access to
such a form of experience."
On the
Kabbalah and Its Symbolism
Gershom
Scholem
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805210512
Evidently
the forward is not currently online at Amazon, though you can read the rest of
the book there.
It is easy
to forgive Scholem in 1960 for not writing about how anyone can have direct
access to mystic experience by using visionary plants. But it is impossible to excuse McGinn for
writing the above statement in 1996.
Even the spiritual Establishment criticizes McGinn's dogmatic or
doctrinaire deliberate and forceful distancing, amounting to a disdain, between
"proper academic scholarship" and "mystic experiencing" --
a betrayal and contradiction of the perennial tradition of philosophy being
first of all a matter of first-hand mystic-state experiential insight.
McGinn is
a good example of how we must rip out many pages and trash-can them, from even
the best authors and theorists. Icke
has his lizards, McGinn has his utterly false, crackpot assertion that
"students of mysticism have no direct access to mystic
experience." Pick up any
theorist's book, and ask: how can he be so well-informed, yet so utterly
stupid, false, distorted, and off-base?
What a
pointless, arbitrary, artificial, and suicidally self-defeating dichotomy,
between "students of mysticism" and "mystics themselves". McGinn is an example of the worst traits of
scientism. His subject matter is
interesting, his coverage is needed, but his paradigm is painfully awful,
dogmatically postulating from the start that there is no such thing as
entheogens, no way for "us" to access basically on-demand the mystic
state of consciousness.
What's
really fouled up and sick is that half of McGinn's students, lecture audience,
and readers in fact *have* had direct access to mystic experience and they know
it -- through entheogens; they know he is full of it and writes falsely, and
artificially holds mystic experiencing at a complete distance, holding it off
and denying its accessibility to everyone today, certainly including scholars
as scholarly investigators.
The fact
is, some half of today's scholars of mysticism were brought to interest in the
subject as a *result* of their entheogenic experiences, same as American
Buddhists, Christians, and Sufis. Much
of today's pretend-straight fascination with religion is not straight, but
directly a result of entheogenic experiencing.
The spiritual Establishment was inspired by entheogens, and wouldn't
exist without entheogens, but refuses to give entheogens the full credit they
certainly deserve.
Book: The
Foundations of Mysticism (Presence of God: A History of Western Christian
Mysticism, Vol 1)
Bernard
McGinn
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0824514041
1992
Shows a
pop-Christian perspective on rave culture, equating it with drugs. I wonder if it talks about entheogens as the
true flesh of Christ? I once asked for
books about drugs in a Christian bookstore, but they came up with almost
nothing. Evangelist scholar Dave Hunt
has an almost favorable view of entheogens in a recent book; he only warns that
entheogens have led to worship of spirits other than the Holy Spirit -- a
complaint I can relate to; people experience encounters with fantastic
creatures where I hope they would instead experience what it means
philosophically to be a creature that is entirely produced-forth, in every
thought and action, by the Ground of Being and as part of the Ground of Being.
All the
Rave - A Novel, by Tim LaHaye, Bob DeMoss.
Published Jan 2002.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0849943205
"It's
Labor Day weekend – and it is turning out to be a holiday that will not soon be
forgotten. More than 15,000 ravers have gathered for a 72-hour dance party at
the waterfront warehouse in Philadelphia. Kat is strung out on drugs and next
to her lies the body of a dead boy who overdosed; Heather falls in love with a
college freshman who threatens to leave her with nothing but feelings of
rejection and serious regret. Experiencing firsthand the dangers of an
unguarded heart, the girls are forced to reevaluate God's true place in their
lives." From the Back Cover --
"It was the first night of the Memorial Day weekend and Kat Koffman
figured she'd dance the night away at a massive, East Coast rave. She'd go to
the beach in the morning with friends from school. At least that was the plan.
But when classmates Jodi Adams and Bruce Arnold found her, Kat lay unconscious
on the second floor of a rat infested warehouse. Beside her was an empty
syringe--and a dead boy. Jodi wanted answers--and justice. How did the boy die?
Was Kat next? Why did the syringe look familiar to Bruce? And why did the
police refuse to help? Nothing could prepare Jodi for the fact that some kids
are worth more dead than alive. And, just when she thought she'd uncover the
truth, she got more than she bargained for. The Russian Mafia."
>And
why did the police refuse to help?
The
ultimate answer for these questions is, "Because of the Prohibition
gravy-train.""
>Some
people claim to be "shamans" to support their abuse of mind-altering
chemicals.
"Abuse"? That is a totally empty, nebulous, and
meaningless term. One should say
"use", which sticks to the facts and is not a judgement based on the
sand of arbitrariness. There cannot be
any debate about whether he used; the most debatable thing in the world is that
he abused. Why not stay on more solid
ground, rather than speaking the forked-tongue language of deceipt crafted for
us by those of the evil, phony prohibitionist gravy-train, vicars of Antichrist
and haters of the true Christ.
There are
plenty of things to criticize about McKenna without stooping so low as to hurl
the prefabricated refuse at him provided by the prohibitionist, amoral,
profiteering deceivers. They are eager
to say "abuse" as a synonym for "use", when one should
reserve the term to a strict and narrow usage, for cases where the
prohibitionists and decriminalizers can both agree that willful, voluntary use
has crossed over into serious unwilled abuse.
>McKenna
evidently lacked Gnosis, but he can be considered a Gnostic in that he
encountered some sort of Intelligences like the noetic agencies alluded to in
Gnostic scriptures.
McKenna
should be dismissed because of his airhead nonsense about alien
encounters. We do sense being pulled and
fabricated in every thought by an alien hidden God, Fate, or transcendent
Puppetmastering force, but encounters with literalized personifications is weak
thinking. Again we see that a
distinction is needed between Literalist supersitious Gnosticism and esoteric,
rational Gnosticism -- low vs. high Gnosticism.
>The
Gnostics didn't necessarily take entheogens.
Noetic agencies can be apprehended through non-chemical means as well as
through entheogens; they can be intuited through introspection.
Entheogens
are not needed to trigger the mystic altered state; meditation in a cave of
sensory deprivation can cause one to be born from a rock, born a second time
from the cosmic womb. However,
entheogens enjoy pride of place as the main, reliable method. All mystery religions and related religions
of antiquity, had sacred meals, symposions, Seder meals, and love feasts in
dead center of their practice. Search
on "sacrament of apolytrosis".
http://www.google.com/search?q=sacrament+of+apolytrosis
To the
esoteric, higher Gnostics, circular time is a description of what is directly
experienced in the mystic altered state -- profound deja-vu
"remembering". To the
Literalist, supernatural, lower Gnostics, circular time is theory of how time
and years actually work.
Popular
entheogenics requires more critical evaluation. The term "drug abuse" shouldn't be used for that
evaluation, though, because whatever errors are found in popular entheogenics,
the error isn't what's called "drug abuse", which phrase already has
an established, different usage, an inherently propagandist usage. The phrase "drug abuse" is
essentially and inherently a propagandist term, as it is popularly used.
The term
"drug abuse" could be used to criticize neo-shamanism. The legitimacy of usage of a phrase depends
largely on how the user defines it.
To assume
that a phrase has only a single, fixed meaning would be a failure to master
language. The term "drug
abuse" does also have a legitimate, technical, medical, non-propagandist
usage. But neither the correct medical
usage nor the propagandist usage fits a novel usage of the term "drug
abuse" to describe distorted, fake, pseudo-shamanism, or domesticated,
ersatz shamanism.
Although
such a novel usage is perhaps justifiable, it is generally misleading and
incongruous to use the term "drug abuse" to describe ersatz
shamanism, and of gravest concern, such a usage implies support for the
dishonest and immoral prohibitionism scam.
It's dangerous to use the term "drug abuse" to criticize
ersatz shamanism. We should seek a way
to criticize drug-motivated ersatz shamanism without employing a novel usage of
the highly problematic and oppressive term "drug abuse".
We
shouldn't distort shamanism and shouldn't distort drug usage. However, there is nothing wrong with
innovative new blends of drug use and shamanism, forming a neo-shamanism. Who are we to judge and condemn
drug-oriented neo-shamanism as "ersatz shamanism" -- why not call it
"genuine, valid, authentic neo-shamanism"?
Any new
usage of the term "drug abuse", even if defined, should be done with
caution and seriousness for the sake of the persecuted martyrs, and to avoid
supporting the evil, phony drug war.
Criticism of popular entheogen mysticism should be done cautiously, so
that our words and criticisms don't support the abusers of authority who rob,
kill, poison, and imprison in the name of prohibition.
Some
aspects of popular use of entheogens can be criticized, but the concept of
"abuse" of entheogens is too problematic to be useful, because it
asserts that there is a "right way" and a "wrong way" to
use entheogens, or a legit and illegit way.
In contemporary entheogenic neo-shamanism, the worst abuse might be
merely the abuse of language, redefining the term "shaman" so as to
simply equate it with use of entheogens.
That might be an abuse of definitions, but isn't the "abuse"
of mind-altering chemicals.
Some
spiritual use of entheogens may be described as pseudoshamanic, or neo- or
quasi-shamanic, "let's play Indian" type of hippie-style
tripping. That kind of use of
entheogens isn't automatically or inherently "abuse" of mind-altering
chemicals. We can only evaluate the
"abuse" of entheogens if we have some standards for assessing use
versus abuse. The mere fact alone of
claiming to be shaman-identified, whether legit or not, isn't enough to
determine whether one is "abusing" entheogens.
There are
two distinct issues:
1. What
qualifications are required to grant certain entheogen use as
"legitimate" shamanic entheogen use?
2. What
constitutes "proper use" versus "abuse" of entheogens?
A certain
moralist attitude asserts that legitimate use of entheogens occurs only in
serious exploration of mind and spirit.
But intentions don't control the outcome; from fun intentions can come
the highest fall of enlightenment, as attested by Led Zeppelin.
In My Time
of Dying:
If my
wings should fail me,
Lord.
Please meet me with another pair
Well,
well, well, so I can die easy
Oh,
Saint Peter, at the gates of heaven...
Won't
you let me in?
I never
did no harm.
I never
did no wrong
I never
thought I'd do anybody no wrong
Oh,
Lord, deliver me
All the
wrong I've done
You can
deliver me, Lord
I only
wanted to have some fun.
http://tinpan.fortunecity.com/haight/687/zeppg.html
The
moralists assume that we can divide entheogen use into these categories and
then assign "abuse" to the last category:
A.
Shamanism: divinatory, healing (legitimate use of entheogens)
B. Serious
self-exploration of mind and spirit (legitimate use of entheogens)
C. Recreational
and casual, or nonstructured exploration, experimenting with ascent
(illegitimate use of entheogens; abuse)
We could
just as well use dismissive language for A and B, and use respectful language
to identify C, and then attach the word "abuse" to A and B and the
notion of "proper use" to C.
A.
Superstitious, primitive animal-identified wishful thinking (abuse of
entheogens)
B. New-age
mush-headed escapism and entity-multiplying frenetic Gnostic
pseudo-spirituality (abuse of entheogens)
C.
Contemporary, exploratory, open-ended experimentation with high-intensity
ascent, with multimedia and varied contexts of activities (legitimate use of
entheogens)
We should
be both generous *and* critical of authentic shamanistic use of entheogens --
that's what it means to be a fair and trustworthy critic with balanced
judgement.
We should
be both generous *and* critical of use of entheogens for self-exploration of
mind and spirit.
We should
be both generous *and* critical of open-ended, social, exploratory, recreational,
or adventure-seeking use of entheogens.
Corax
wrote:
>I
think I was being generous and critical. Those who are using the materials for
fun and categorize their thrill seeking as "shamanism" invite
criticism. there is nothing wrong with being critical of the self-proclaimed
experts like McKenna and Leary, they in my estimation got it wrong in many
regards despite their use of "entheogens".
>Case
in point is the Leary-Wilson 8-Circuit Model which is not based in any solid
science at all.
>If we
cannot be critical and MUST assume that anything goes then the principle of
virtue leaves your system, Michael.
I probably
essentially agree with your criticism, and hope you further detail it. Given the crisis situation of prohibition, I
strongly caution against using the term "abuse" -- a much-abused term
of abuse -- without specifying what's meant.
I'm interested in clear criticisms of McKenna, Leary, and other
entheogenists, including the assertion that they dissemble about their real
motives. If people take entheogens
within one framework with its motives, they shouldn't twist reality and claim
to be using entheogens within a different framework and motives -- one which
has greater credibility.
The
entheogenic neoshamans might be guilty of stealing credibility from the
shamans. Don Juan seems to have been
fiction dishonestly posed as literal truth (I have a book about this). Entheogenists shouldn't be dishonest, and
shouldn't distort shamanism, entheogen use, and their own motives in order to
dishonestly inflate the own legitimacy of their own use.
As
explained in the book On Drugs by Lenson, the contemporary West needs to stand
on its own feet instead of assuming that all entheogenic legit tradition lies
elsewhere, among the Other -- American Indians, shamans, the East. This is complicated by the certainly
legitimate need to, while we find our own truly native entheogen framework,
relate and connect it to previous frameworks.
Ken Wilber
has predicted the rise of a true native contemporary Western religion via
combining Course In Miracles (a Christian framework) with LSD. Similarly, I have highlighted acid-oriented
Rock as the authentic mystery-religion of our time.
>Actually
I was not making a moral position at all with regard to shamanism.
Yes, I thought
afterwards that my use of the term "moral" was incorrect.
You
caution against the term "shaman" in a contemporary entheogenic
context; I caution against the term "abuse" given today's prohibition
climate. Both terms may be more
misleading and distorting than enlightening.
There are
3 main positions:
A. All
entheogen use is bad; all use is mis-use.
B. Some
entheogen use is legitimate use, some use is mis-use.
C. All
entheogen use is legitimate; there are no grounds for the concept of
"mis-use".
I don't
understand position B, which Maria Sabina, Wasson, and possibly Huxley
hold. What would drive a curando or
Gnostic to label other people's use of entheogens as "mis-use"? Does that claim have any objective grounds,
or is it purely a free-floating value-judgement that can't have any basis but
personal worldview-preference? Suppose
a hippie in the early 1960s in Oaxaca who takes mushrooms casually and
recreationally, and has a traumatic or crazy experience -- is that
"mis-use"? On what basis can
such a judgment rest? Casual or foolish
use is casual, foolish use -- but is it mis-use?
I hold
position C: some use is foolish, harmful, ill-advised -- but generally, the
concept of "mis-use" or "proper use" doesn't apply to
entheogens any more than to coffee, cola, or tobacco.
By some
measure, Leary was East Coast in attitude, treating LSD as a ceremonial serious
tool (position B), compared to the Ken Kesey, West Coast attitude of
deliberately pushing LSD to the crazy limit (position C).
Position B
is hardly viable, because any given entheogen session can include supposed
mis-use and supposed correct use. When
the mind loosens and largely dis-integrates into a blizzard of thoughts and
attitudes, one can only laugh at the notion of pinning down a trip to characterize
it as "correct" or "incorrect", "proper" or
"mis-use". If a session
includes both careless levity and profound revelations about the nature of the
self, is the one part of the session then "misuse" and the other
"proper use"?
It's an
arbitrary judgement to say that person 1 in circumstance 1 is using entheogens
legitimately, while person 2 in circumstance 2 is mis-using entheogens. On what basis does the throne of judgment
rest, from which a Judge can declare the Acid Test festival to be
"mis-use"? Personal vision,
personal preference, personal taste for what the "right attitude of
respect and seriousness" is -- a basis of a stack of turtles standing on
cosmic sand.
__________
Jerry
Garcia, 1971, quoted in Guitar Player magazine, Oct. 2002, page 152:
[Ken
Kesey] lived a block away from where we were all living in Palo Alto, in '62 or
'63, and he started having these scenes in La Honda and we would go up there
and play. All of a sudden there was a
big commotion: "Hey, what are these acid tests? What's LSD?" Anthropologists like Stewart Brand and other
guys decided, why not have a gathering of these new infant forms that are
coming up and are mostly related to getting high? So they had the Trips Festival for three nights in San
Francisco. Nobody had ever seen
anything like it. Time magazine did a
big story, and reporters are coming around, and somebody came up with the term
"hippies." What's a hippie? All of a sudden we were all hippies. These labels-- none of it has a whole lot to
do with music. Playing music is playing
music, no matter who you are. You've
got to have discipline, and al the rest of it.
We've been trying to undo the whole thing of labels and "acid
rock." It was something that was
laid on us, and it really doesn't have anything to do with how we play.
Q. Where
do you thing the new culture is going?
Everything
is going to pieces on the one hand, and coming together on the other. The revolution is over. The important changes have already happened. It's mostly a matter of everything else
catching up. Music is one thing left
that isn't devoid of meaning. You
listen to a politician and it's like hearing nothing. Whereas, music goes way back before language, and it's the key to
a spiritual existence this society doesn't talk about. The Grateful Dead plays at religious
services, essentially -- religious services for the new age.
Strategically
using entheogens in order to gain power over others can fairly be called
"mis-use of entheogens".
Trampling
someone with a horse while on drugs is bad, but would we call it a
"mis-use of drugs"? That
would miss the main point and put the focus on the drug rather than the
action. Let's stay with more physically
inactive type of scenarios.
The main
scenarios under contention are:
1) Reverent
spiritual or philosophical use, or serious scientific use
2)
Recreational use, daredevil use, casual experimental or exploratory use out of
curiosity
Is the
former "legitimate use" and the latter "mis-use"? What is particularly at issue in this thread
is:
Can we
fairly call it "mis-use of mind-altering chemicals" if someone
actually initiates an entheogen session for reason #2 but tries to legitimize
their use by appealing to reason #1? I
say no, that may be dishonesty, that may be foolishness, that may be a lame
approach to entheogen use -- but it can't fairly be called "mis-use of
mind-altering chemicals".
Whatever
aspects can be criticized about McKenna and Leary, "entheogen
mis-use" is not among them, because the concept of entheogen mis-use in
this type of case is too nebulous and confuses criticism of their philosophical
and historical and anthropological methods and interpretations with criticism
of their use of entheogens.
They may
possibly mis-interpret entheogens and shamanism, they may possibly be
reality-twisting credibility thieves who abuse anthropology and history, but
it's meaningless and vague to say that they "mis-use"
entheogens. More likely, they mis-use
scholarship.
Entheogenists
ought to fully study shamanic use of entheogens, and ought to create a distinct
contemporary approach to entheogens, but shouldn't distort their contemporary
approach and the research about shamans to artificially cheat and force
shamanism to offer some kind of support to contemporary use. Shamanism in fact supports and justifies
contemporary entheogen use in certain limited ways, but the two aren't the same
and should be differentiated rather than conflated.
There is
no inherent harm in affecting a certain "neo-shamanism", and that
couldn't be a "mis-use of mind-altering chemicals", but only a misuse
of scholarship and justification.
Leary's
8-circuit model of the mind is only bad because it's so ordinary and standard,
with only a veneer of novelty. His may
be a lame theory of the mind's interaction with drugs, but coming up with a
lame theory has nothing to do with "mis-use of mind-altering
chemicals". Accusing him of
"mis-use" here is simply using the term "mis-use" as a
generalized term of abuse; that is, an epithet, name-calling. A poor theory of mind and entheogens can't
be called "mis-use" of entheogens, but only a "poor
theory".
>This
is what I am saying with regard to the ignorance of people like Leary,
>etc.,
who only look at a small and very narrow use of these medicines the
>psychotropic
effects. These guys have no clue.
Dan
Russell's excellent book Drug War has enlightening coverage of Indian medicine
vs. white man's medicine.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0965025349
http://www.drugwar.com
Complete
fixation specifically on the notion of 'transubstantiation' seems to begin in
the late middle ages, according to one book.
Many priests over the course of European history knew well enough about
the real sacrament to know that the looming potential for popular knowledge of
the real sacrament was the "Death-Star vulnerability" of the entire
profitable Church infrastructure.
"When
the priest invokes the descent of the spirit in the Mass, he does not expect to
see it or feel it; he accepts by faith that the wine has become the blood of
our Lord, the bread His flesh. The
priest knows that all he can do is wait.
The business of religion is to teach men
patience."
Patience
while they pay for Jungian therapy year after year, or donate their wealth to
the guru's Rolls fleet forever, or contribute to their diocese year after year
and at their death bed -- have patience, and time is money. These professional spiritual leaders always
are against fast paths to enlightenment; according to their calculations, the
fast path to enlightenment threatens to be unprofitable.
Thus they
preach patience and avoidance of mystic states, and methods that are proven not
to work but with sufficiently rare exceptions so that such meditation methods,
dream analysis sessions, visualization excercises, drumming, and so on, are no
real threat.
The
officials prefer methods that work at a fraction of a percent efficiency -- not
zero, not the 90% range like entheogens could, but slightly above zero -- just
enough to have a bit of a legitimate claim to efficacy. Once in a thousand years, one person does
get enlightened through meditation: the professional priests and gurus then
whip us into worshipping with gaping jaw that odd rare case.
All of
this is flatly contradicted by the utter routinization of the intense mystic
state and metanoia/ regeneration/ transformation evidenced in the Hellenistic
Mystery Religions and banqueting clubs.
The fast path is the true effective path; the slow path is no real path. Either you have a method that works, or not;
if so, it works straightaway, quickly.
Gnostic God-Duality and the Entheogenic Apple in the Garden of Eden
As per Pagels' book Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, there are many ways to read the Garden of Eden allegory. Here is an entheogenic- determinism reading. The creator-God is the demiurge, who judges upon conventional moral agency. *He* is the God who objects to eating the entheogenic Amanita apple.
Before eating the apple, we believed in the supernaturalist Christian religion of eternal life in heaven. After eating the apple, we are given knowledge *about* the *true* nature of good and evil, and the illusory aspect of freewill moral agency. We become associated with the higher, deterministic God, which is painful because we no longer believe in eternal bliss of heaven.
I used to hope for eternal heaven, reigned by a god of conventional morality. The wise venomous self-biting serpent brought egodeath and rebirth, and now I have been kicked out of that heaven and have entered the deterministic kingdom of the high god. I now face a different kind of eternal life, by identifying with the cosmos- transcendent god of determinism.
The god of determinism does not forbid eating the entheogen; the god of conventional moral agency forbids eating it because we thereby reject and transcend him. Orthodox Christianity jams the god of conventional morality together with the high puppetmaster god of deterministic insight. In the end, these can be considered two distinct levels within a single God.
At first, God mostly conceals his higher, deterministic, puppetmaster nature and acts like a god over conventional moral agency. Then God zaps the mind with the Holy Spirit, revealing his higher nature which cancels the reality of his lower nature and this cancellation is represented by the crucifixion -- you could say that the man on the cross is the demiurge, the sacrificed god of moral agency who had to be sacrificed to reveal the higher sovereignty of God. The lower god accuses us of rebellion against him, the higher god admits he's to blame for everything.
In such a way, I admit some of the Gnostic "demiurge" concept into orthodox Christianity by using (in a specific way) the "revealed mystery" aspect that is generally admitted by orthodox Christianity.
What has
kept the thoroughly entheogenic shape of Christianity on track while the merely
placebo sacrament is so often used?
It is
clear and certain that there are two forces shaping Christianity: psychoactive
and placebo sacraments. The
Christianity we have ended up with is a combination, a product of two types of
Christian practices and assumptions.
Christianity is thoroughly shaped and guided by entheogens at its heart:
the true, psychoactive Eucharist.
Christianity is also shaped by the common use of a merely placebo, inert
version of the Eucharist.
How was it
that entheogens were both strongly present throughout Christian history, and
yet also very absent? How could
entheogens be so strongly influential, and yet also so often not understood or
recognized? The good thing is that we
can now generally recognize the presence and tension between these two
worldviews. The only puzzle remaining
is the details of how exactly the entheogenic and placebo versions of
Christianity played out.
We must
depend heavily on the research of those who are investigating entheogens and
Christian history -- James Arthur, Entheos journal, Mark Hoffman, Clark
Heinrich, and Jack Herer, Eleusis journal, Chris Bennett, and perhaps Robert
Thorne.
There is
an overwhelming amount of clear *indirect* evidence for the common presence of
psychoactives in Christianity, but frustratingly little *direct* evidence. Same with psychoactives in Hellenistic-era
religions in general. There are holes,
but there are now clear frameworks for research as well. We can list all the indirect evidence, and
define the general framework of Christianity being shaped by tension between
psychoactive and placebo versions.
It is
early, in contemporary scholarship; recent scholars have barely begun. At this point, it is fairly easy to write a
bibliography of all research about entheogens in Christian history. I'm increasingly recognizing how thoroughly
ancient philosophy, neoplatonism, and Hellenistic myth and religion were
influenced and originated by the use of entheogens; it's really all about
entheogens -- this is a maximal view not just of religion, but of ancient
culture and ideas in general.
If ancient
religion and philosophy was based on entheogens above all, why does it seem
like there is so little direct evidence of entheogen use? Were the ancients low-key about that, or was
the evidence burned, or are we blind to what evidence remains?
There is
an entheogen-shaped hole at the center of religion, or at the center of
Christianity. But more than that: the
"hole" is as big as the whole of religion, and not just religion, but
Hellenistic-era philosophy as well, or ancient philosophy, myth, and religion
in general. If entheogens were
universally influential across all these areas, and remained so throughout
Christian history, then what happened to all the direct evidence of this?
How could
it be, that we have such massive, overwhelming evidence but it is strictly
indirect evidence? How is it possible
to have so much indirect evidence, with so little direct evidence -- what are
the exact details of this dynamic?
*That* this dynamic happened, is clear, and how this dynamic works in
general is fairly clear, but the details of how this dynamic works aren't
clear.
What if
all the religionists in Christianity heavily used entheogens and conceived of
Christianity from an entheogenic framework, but consistently denied knowledge
of entheogens and pretended to think that the Eucharist is
non-psychoactive? We would end up with
the Christianity we have. This is the
only mystery of Christianity remaining: how could Christianity *be* so strongly
and evidently entheogen-oriented, while so consistently pretending to be
oblivious to entheogens?
This
suggests something like a game theory of Christianity, an insider put-on
approach like worked well for me in cracking the puzzle of the "kingdom of
God" idea. There has always been a
strong True Church; insiders to the entheogenic rather than literalist
knowledge. Christianity has always been
a tension between two churches or approaches or assumptions; it is a result of
the interaction between true, entheogenic, higher Christianity and false,
literalist, lower Christianity.
The
shapers of doctrine were evidently intent on fully developing an
entheogen-based systematic allegory, while suppressing the explicit entheogenic
aspect and putting forth a literalist historical Jesus in its place. What were the motives for the doctrine
shapers, to consciously utilize the fruits of entheogens, while publically
eliminating entheogens and substituting literalist historicist thinking instead?
General
motives aren't hard to find -- establishing a profitable franchise by co-opting
and distorting and stunting entheogenic Christianity, creating literalist
Christianity in its place, designed not to deliver the core of what entheogens
deliver, but only the shell, leaving people unfulfilled. There are parallels in prohibition, in which
the authorities know the truth but suppress and distort it strategically.
How could
the Christian authorities pull off such a massive scam, of knowingly shaping
religion in the form given by entheogen mysticism, while effectively removing
away the actual entheogenic core?
Look for a
parallel in prohibition. How could the
prohibition authorities pull off such a massive scam, of profiting in many ways
from drug trafficking and prohibition-for-profit, and from corporate-state
funny money, all at the same time, while tricking the public into supporting
the whole project that is based entirely on lies and distortion?
Distorted,
placebo Christianity, like prohibition-for-profit, is a huge system. It systematically looks to entheogens to
shape doctrine, at the same time as systematically covering up this entheogenic
basis and origin.
Dave H. wrote:
>>Some of the Jewish merkabah mystical writings also suggest that a psychoactive substance was used, but these writings describe a method of inducing an ascent in which passages of scripture are repeated in various combinations until they sort of unlock a gateway into a trance state. However, look at 4 Ezra 14:37-43 (a.k.a. the Latin Apocalypse of Ezra) for a description Ezra going into a trance to receive the lost books of scripture by revelation, after being handed a bowl of a liquid like water but with the color of fire.
From 4 Ezra, chapter 14:
http://wyllie.lib.virginia.edu:8086/perl/toccer-new?id=Rsv4Ezr.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=14&division=div2
37: So I took the five men, as he commanded me, and we proceeded to the field, and remained there.
38: And on the next day, behold, a voice called me, saying, "Ezra, open your mouth and drink what I give you to drink."
39: Then I opened my mouth, and behold, a full cup was offered to me; it was full of something like water, but its color was like fire.
40: And I took it and drank; and when I had drunk it, my heart poured forth understanding, and wisdom increased in my breast, for my spirit retained its memory;
41: and my mouth was opened, and was no longer closed.
42: And the Most High gave understanding to the five men, and by turns they wrote what was dictated, in characters which they did not know. They sat forty days, and wrote during the daytime, and ate their bread at night.
43: As for me, I spoke in the daytime and was not silent at night.
44: So during the forty days ninety-four books were written.
45: And when the forty days were ended, the Most High spoke to me, saying, "Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first and let the worthy and the unworthy read them;
46: but keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the wise among your people.
47: For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge."
48: And I did so.
>Come
here to see the excellent essay on the Miracles of Dionysos by Sannion:
http://www.winterscapes.com/thiasos/miracles.htm
"According
to Carl Kerenyi, it was not intoxication which was the essential element of the
religion of Dionysos, but the "quiet, powerful, vegetative element which
ultimately engulfed even the ancient theaters, as at Cumae." (Dionysos, pg
xxiv)"
Kerenyi
doesn't know anything about inebriation.
Inebriation with visionary plants is the essential element of the
religion of Dionysos. Likewise, Mircaeu
Eliade says that use of visionary plants in shamanism was a degenerate trend --
Eliade the "expert on religion" doesn't know anything about the foundation
of religion.
Michael
Rinella wrote:
>Although
many new interesting sources have been published since my dissertation was
accepted in 1997, I am not surprised to hear that many still cling to the
notion of the ancient Greeks as a fundamentally "temperate" people,
who had access only to wine, and who diluted that wine to dampen it's
intoxicating effects.
>Nowhere
is presentism so strong in classical studies than, perhaps, on the question of
drug use - religious, recreational, or otherwise - in the ancient (particularly
Greek) world.
Typical
scholars seem to all know these names -- and no others: Tart, Grof, Allegro,
Wasson, Huxley; kykeon, soma/haoma. By
limiting the entheogen theory of religion to just these names or terms, people
can "safely" cordon off and effectively dismiss the subject -- the
"familiar Allegro crackpot theory".
Everyone loves to chuckle over silly Allegro and quickly wave aside the
entire subject of the entheogen theory of religion.
Another
strategy to avoid dealing with the "uncomfortable" and
"controversial" entheogen theory of religion is to keep each of these
names/terms separated -- mention Allegro alone, dismissively; or mention Grof
alone, or think about kykeon alone, or soma alone, or Huxley or Tart
alone. Never acknowledge that there is
a whole range of scholars, an entire school of thought -- not just an isolated
lone crackpot scholar or two -- reaching the same kinds of conclusions or
interpretive frameworks.
The
evidence is present but strategically scattered and kept apart; the typical
scholar needs to be brought to think of an entire school or general theory --
not merely this or that isolated maverick scholar. Ironically, this status quo causes entheogen scholars -- who want
nothing more than recognition -- to dismiss and not quote each other.
Who wants
their entheogen speculation to be associated with that lone crackpot Allegro,
or that maverick Tart, or the odd case of that foreigner Grof, or the quirky
unique topic of anciently irrelevant kykeon, or the even more alien and
antiquated soma? Today's strategy is
isolate and distance the various scholars and ancient sacred drinks from each
other.
Even the
entheogen scholars fall into this conventional trap and, for example, insult
Allegro by dismissively "covering" (more like covering over) his
theory in a footnote, and refusing to include him positively in the
bibliography. Due to prohibition (legal
and cultural), such odd distortions and dynamics coerce the entheogen scholars
into snubbing each other rather than pulling as a team.
Like
Ruck's book on mythology, and like Neitzsche's philosophy of writing style, I
believe in writing about the entheogen theory in a completely matter-of-fact
way. I refuse to buy into the dominant
paradigm and act like the entheogen theory is "controversial" or
"uncomfortable". Let readers
own their own crazy conventional responses.
This lack of cowtowing and apologizing can get people banned from online
discussion areas.
If you
cowtow and apologize and treat the subject in a self-dismissive way, that is
considered acceptable. But taking for
granted an affirmative stance on the entheogen theory, treating it just like
any major school of thinking on a subject, is breaking a taboo. Refusing to acknowledge the taboo is breaking
the taboo, like profaning the mysteries.
José
Alfredo González Celdrán wrote [paraphrased]:
>>...an
email you wrote lamenting the dark situation of scholar mind ... In Spain ...
the situation is the same everywhere; our consolation is that we are [as
though] sinners, while the traditional scholarship is a collection of [those
considered as] "saint men"; but Science always make progress thanks
to the scientific sinners. This is our
joy and prize. They will have to admit
you [the entheogen theory of the origin and basis of religion] are right one
day, and this day will come, that's sure.
Celdran is
author of an article in Entheos about the lily in Christian art as symbol of
the visionary plant Datura. Datura-lily
of the Anunciation to Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, that she bears Christ.
Daturas
for the Virgin
Full
Article in Spanish in MS Word
http://www.entheomedia.org/Daturas_art/Daturas_Spanish.doc
José
Celdrán and Carl Ruck
Online
gallery of ancillary illustrations
http://www.entheomedia.org/datura_gallery.htm
>-----Original
Message-----
>From:
Michael Hoffman
>Sent:
Sunday, August 25, 2002 1:25 AM
>Subject:
[egodeath] Trumpets of Heaven: The Datura Annunciation
>Picture
of a trumpet of Heaven:
>http://www.erowid.org/plants/show_image.php3?image=datura/datura_inoxia_flower4.jpg
>Datura
info:
http://entheogen.com/datura/links.html
>Good
Egyptian picture of Daturas:
http://members.tripod.com/~parvati/datura.html
- "The light is the light of Horus, realized in the psychoactive flowers
of Datura which "illuminate" Tuth-Shena in allegorical fashion. It is
the power of Horus before which she throws up her hands in awe. Vitis,
Nymphaea, and Datura are the intoxicating elements portrayed in this scene of
shamanic manifestation."
http://www.entheomedia.org/Entheos_Issue_2.htm
-- Daturas for the Virgin
>Annunciation
>n 1: a
quarter day in England, Wales, and Ireland [syn: Annunciation, Lady Day,
Annunciation Day, March 25] 2: (in Christian religions) the announcement to the
Virgin Mary by the angel Gabriel of the incarnation of Christ [syn:
Annunciation] 3: a formal public statement; "the government made an
announcement about changes in the drug war" [syn: announcement,
proclamation, promulgation]
>Source:
WordNet R 1.6, C 1997 Princeton University
A search
on the distinctive term 'draught' in King James reveals the chapters Matt15 and
Mark7.
The word
"plant" is in Matthew 15:13.
But the statement about what is clean to eat is far more inclusive than
just "plants": it is "that which goeth into the mouth"
(Matthew 15:11), or Mark 7:18: "whatsoever thing from without entereth
into the man, it cannot defile him".
Not that
which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the
mouth, this defileth a man.
Then
came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were
offended, after they heard this saying?
But he
answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted,
shall be rooted up.
Let them
alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind,
both shall fall into the ditch.
Then
answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable.
And
Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?
Do not
ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the
belly, and is cast out into the draught?
But
those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they
defile the man.
For out
of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts,
false witness, blasphemies:
http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=MARK+7&language=english&version=KJV&showfn=off&showxref=off
Howbeit in
vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
For
laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the
washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.
And he
said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep
your own tradition.
For
Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or
mother, let him die the death:
But ye
say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say,
a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.
And ye
suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;
Making
the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered:
and many such like things do ye.
And when
he had called all the people unto him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every
one of you, and understand:
There is
nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the
things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.
If any
man have ears to hear, let him hear.
And when
he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him
concerning the parable.
And he
saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that
whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;
Because
it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the
draught, purging all meats?
And he
said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.
For from
within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries,
fornications, murders,
Thefts,
covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy,
pride, foolishness:
All
these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)