Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion

According to the maximal entheogen theory, visionary plants have always been used to some extent in Western culture throughout the ages, in what amounts to a continuous chain. It's a matter of degree, rather than yes/no were they present. The question is, in a given era and culture, *where* were visionary plants present?

Phantastica: A Classic Survey on the Use and Abuse of Mind-Altering Plants

Louis Lewin

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0892817836

Some theosophy groups offered hashish pills mail-order around 1880.

The literary circles had their suppliers of visionary plants.

Toward a viable model of how religious literalism overshadowed entheogenic mysticism and the entheogenic origin and vital fountainhead of myth-religion.

According to the entheogenic non-literalist theory of the origin and development of religions, pretty much all the religions began from entheogen use, not from a literal founder, and always retained a strong tradition of entheogen use and purely esoteric, non-literalist thinking, though this has consistently been obscured by the official religionists and by the thick-headed cluelessness and shallow literalism of the modern era's sensibilities.

We've been trained to see literalist religion everywhere, but must learn to instead see entheogenic religion everywhere.

This article defines the main outlines for an entheogenic non-literalist theory of the origin and development of religions.

I'm committed to the axiom that religion is really about entheogenic experiencing and entheogenic insight rather than literalism, ethics, and the supernatural. This may seem at first to be problematic and therefore unthinkable. However, recall that worldviews are a dime a dozen.

Nothing is easier than constructing a worldmodel that is consistent according to its innate version of what consistency means, and logical according to its own built-in conception of what it means to be logical, and well supported by the evidence, according to its own, characteristic, built-in conception of what constitutes evidential support. Every interpretive framework has strengths and weaknesses.

Literalist Christian history, including the New Testament version of the history of the origin of the Christian religion, is strongly accepted even though it is deeply improbable by the standards of the skeptical minority, and even when reasonable people scientifically discard the supernatural miracles, they still accept the New Testament version of history overall.

So improbability, even gross improbability, has never been a serious impediment to adopting a worldview. A battle between interpretive frameworks is a largely even contest; both sides have elements that can be considered strengths and weaknesses, evidence and counter-evidence.

The theory that religion is really about entheogens rather than literalism is no different than the literalist, New Testament-based theory, that religion originates like a big bang at a point in time from the immensely great and innovative deeds and teachings of a founding figure, an original religious superstar.

Literalist Christianity has had many years to explain away its difficulties and highlight its reasonableness and put into place the standards of assessment that are optimized to favor literalism. The entheogen theory of the origin of religions has hardly had a year or two to begin -- a strong candidate for the start of the building of this case, as far as Christianity, is John Allegro's 1967 book The Sacred Mushroom & The Cross -- and that was just an isolated theory about one religion in isolation.

Who before me has made a general proposal that the real meaning and origin of all the religions is entheogenic? McKenna seems to propose something like that, but that doesn't come across clearly.

I have my own particular model of entheogens and religion and myth, and am bound to raise the question in a way that favors my own theory, but I ask: what scholar has proposed that basically, all religion originates, and all the religions originated, from entheogens? Did Wasson propose that? Leary? The assertion requires qualification, of course.

No doubt, many things that can be called religions did not proceed from entheogens directly, and many individuals who are conventionally considered religious are oblivious to entheogens. So clarifying the assertion or proposal is a main step in erecting this interpretive framework. The proposal in short is that "religion and religions are really, essentially, originally entheogenic, not Literalist", or more tersely, "religion is really entheogenic, not literalist".

This proposal can be called "the entheogenic theory of the origin of religions" and particularly applies to Christianity as well, and implies a rejection of the default counter-proposal that currently is dominant, which may be called "the literalist theory of the origin of religions" and takes it for granted that Buddha started Buddhism, just like the Buddhists say, and Jesus Christ started Christianity (together with Paul) just like the New Testament says, and Mohammed started Islam, and Moses and Abraham started Judaism.

Much scholarship has been done by Christians and skeptics to examine and account for the weaknesses of the literalist theory of the origin of Christianity. Almost no scholarship has been done to examine and account for the weaknesses of the entheogenic theory of the origin of Christianity. First of all, we need to start defining what these weaknesses are.

The origin, essence, inspiration, and source of Christianity is really entheogens rather than the literalist factors such as the big bang New Testament story, where the causal explosion event is held to be the resurrection, Jesus' incredible and stunning ethical innovation, or Paul's incredibly and unbelievably rapid proselytizing.

But why is there so much credence given to the literalist theory and so little evidence for the entheogen theory?

Why are the predominant religions so averse to psychoactives?

Why does the typical religionist -- Buddhist, Christian, and others -- take such offense to any positive role of psychoactives as the historical source of inspiration for their religion?

We need to work to gradually clarify how entheogens may have been used as a source of early Christianity, and how they reinvigorated early Christianity. On the other side, we need to clarify the main varieties of the literalist theory of the origin of Christianity: there are perhaps three main versions: Supernatural Literalism, demythified literalism, and gradual-coalescence literalism.

Supernatural literalism as a theory of the origin of Christianity is the proposal that Jesus existed, and was crucified, and miraculously was raised to life by God; the disciples became apostles and Paul did as well, as reported in Acts. Between half and all of the Bible miracles are true, particularly the great deeds of Jesus. The Holy Spirit descended on a particular historical day, mysteriously and inexplicably.

Jesus will literally return and battle the forces of evil, and all souls will be judged and sorted into heaven and hell. N.T. Wright holds this position.

Demythified literalism accepts many of the above scenario aspects, but removes all the supernatural or miraculous elements, and soft-pedals hell and heaven, and holds an awkward stance of accepting that some miracles could happen, that the overall history of the start of Christianity as told in the New Testament is true. Jesus and the other characters in the New Testament existed, but either didn't rise after his crucifixion, or was never fully dead, and was resuscitated and may have gone to India.

This view normally assumes that a historical Jesus played an important and necessary role; Christianity as we know it couldn't have started without some historical Jesus. This view is considered liberal, but certainly not radical to any degree. This view tends to assume that Christianity began as a mostly single, unified religion, though often besieged by breakaway sects and various dissenters or deviants.

Gradual-coalescence literalism still hangs onto many of the above elements, usually taking for granted the historicity of a single Jesus figure and of Paul and of some of the New Testament characters. However, it doesn't hold the existence of Jesus to be necessary for the origin of Christianity. It holds that the driving force behind Christianity at the start was the various schools or sects, with various combinations of Hellenistic high philosophy, Jewish sects, and gnostic groups.

Christianity began in extreme diversity and multiplicity, and was only brought together into an apparently single religion around 313. This viewpoint is promoted definitively by Burton Mack, who doesn't challenge the assumption that there was a single historical Jesus, but whose theory is entirely independent of whether there was such an individual. This is considered moderately radical.

Those are the three main frameworks that currently reign. Any big bookstore has several books promoting each view. The gradual-coalescence view is the most cutting-edge relative to mainstream scholarly consensus. Supernatural literalism is a huge popular market which supports the constant publication of many books upholding that set of assumptions about the nature of the origin of Christianity.

Demythified literalism is mainstream in the Churches. By defining and differentiating between these three existing, mainstream views, we have several points of view which help to define the position of the entheogenic theory of the origin of Christianity.

We also at the start of this project need to differentiate possible main variants of the entheogenic theory: Jesus as an entheogenic hierophant, and Jesus as purely a personification of the entheogen, like Dionysus. Mainstream scholars mention Allegro's theory by incorrectly describing the scenario as "Jesus was the leader of a mushroom cult."

Allegro's theory actually held that Jesus was the mushroom, not the leader of consuming mushrooms. Allegro assumes that Christianity was originally singular, and later branched. The same mode of thinking happens if you assume Buddha used mushrooms: you accept the premise of a literal founding figure who, in big bang fashion, started a single original version of the religion, that later branched.

The several main literalist and entheogenic views of religious origins must also be defined for Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism. What are the three main literalist views of the origin of those religions? What are the two or three main entheogenic models of the origin of those religions? Was Buddha the leader of a mushroom cult? Or was Buddha strictly the mushroom consumed?

Was Moses a user of mushrooms? Or instead, was Moses a traditional mythic figure that was explored by mushroom users in the Jewish tradition? I see two main entheogenic theories of the origin of any religion: either the founder used entheogens, or the founder didn't exist but is a personification of the use of entheogens or of the experience-cycle resulting in the life of a follower by using entheogens.

These positions can be called the literalist entheogenic position, and the purely entheogenic position. So at a high level we have two paradigms to compare: literalist versus entheogenic, but at a more detailed level, we have five paradigms to compare.

I use the words "conservative", "liberal", and "radical" with caution: it's all relative. I use the terms here in the conventional, consensus sense, though I point out that they are tricky and full of assumptions; in general, one man's "radical" is another man's "conservative".

The most radical of the literalist theories, gradual-coalescence literalism, is very compatible with viewing entheogens as the origin of some sects, but probably not of all sects. That acceptance and compatibility makes the first-order approximation, "literalist versus entheogenic", problematic.

The most conservative of the entheogen theories, the "literalist entheogenic" position in which the founding figure consumed entheogens, is very literalist while being entheogenic as well, which again makes the first-order approximation, "literalist versus entheogenic", problematic.

We can see my two first-order groupings touching: Burton Mack could accept that some of the earliest schools of what would become Christianity utilized entheogens, and Jesus' own group may have done so as one of those diverse groups -- that's the "Jesus tripping with the Essenes at Qumran" scenario, which is very popular with the entheogenists, who wish to gain Jesus as a powerful political ally in the drug policy reformation movement.

Even in the entheogen camp we can see the forces of literalism at work: gaining mundane power is often helped by a literalist rather than purely mystic framework of assumptions.

The two groups and the five subgroups I've identified, as theories of the origin of Christianity, are:

Literalist theory:

Supernatural literalism

Demythified literalism

Gradual-coalescence literalism

Entheogenic theory:

literalist entheogenic

purely entheogenic

My theory is that Christianity and the religions are really entheogenic and not literalist. My main problem is that there is so much evidence for religions being about literalism and so little evidence of religions being about entheogens.

The main work, in putting forth a viable theory of the entheogenic origin of religions, is to explain why, if religions are really about entheogen use and originate from entheogen use, there is so little evidence of that, and so much evidence that suggests a literal founding-figure origin and especially an intensely literalist tradition.

Two possibilities instantly come to mind together: that there really isn't much evidence for a literal founding-figure, and there really isn't much evidence that the later tradition was so literalist as we in the modern era have thought.

So we have a puzzle developing, with some complexity and flexibility. First we find that there is no single literalist version of a religion or literalist model of the start of a religion, and there is no single entheogen-compatible model of a religion's origin or later tradition. These latter points indicate another distinction we must address: there are two periods to distinctly debate: whether a religion was *originally* about entheogens or literalism, and whether that religion was *later* about entheogens or literalism.

I am committed to defining and promoting the most extreme view, that all the religions, in their origin and their later development, we about entheogen use, and, they were neither started by a literal founding figure nor later based on the assumption of a literal founding figure. All the religions began as non-literalist entheogenic initiation rites and continued as non-literalist entheogenic initiation rites.

This is the opposite in every way of the conservative Christian assumptions about the religions: they assume that all the religions were founded by a literal founding figure and didn't involve entheogens. Literalist anti-entheogenists have a literalist anti-entheogenic theory of what all religions are about and how they started.

Literalist entheogenists ("Jesus and Buddha took mushrooms, and so did the most esoteric of their later followers") have a literalist entheogenic theory of what all religions are about and how they started. Purist entheogenists must now work to create an equivalent model. It's not a matter of whether it can be done. Any model, interpretive framework, paradigm, worldview, or worldmodel can be constructed and defended, and it's not that difficult. Self-consistent systems are a dime a dozen.

Just as the most conservative literalist saves his credibility by grudgingly admitting that some religion is nonliteralist and entheogenic, so should the purist entheogenist admit that not all religion is purely entheogenic and nonliteral. These two camps are arguing then about the relative size of the two kinds of religion models, or histories.

As a purist entheogenist, I argue that religion has always "really" been about entheogens and not literalist elements. Much of the work of paradigm definition concerns defining what exactly is meant by that "really". This includes addressing the question not of *whether* drugs were used in Christianity or other religions, but only *how commonly* and how influentially or how importantly.

A purist entheogenist theory of the origin of religion can be a purist entheogenic theory of what all religions are about and how they started. By "purist", I mean emphatically and definitely rejecting the literalist explanations of the origin of religions. "Purist entheogenist" means an entirely entheogenic, and not at all a literalist, model of the origin of the religions.

We need a model of how religious literalism overshadowed entheogenic mysticism, at least overshadowing it according to the official histories. This suggests another piece of the puzzle, the distinction between the official histories of religions and the actual, perhaps popular or mystic or radical histories and actualities of the religions. Certainly, Christianity is portrayed in the great majority of books as literalist and not entheogenic. Let's change what we're defining a bit:

The "purist entheogenic theory of religion" holds that a religion was *both originally and later* really about entheogen use rather than literalist concerns.

The "purist entheogenic theory of the origin of religions" holds that a religion was *originally* about entheogen use rather than literalist concerns.

The "purist entheogenic theory of the development of religions" holds that a religion was *during the main, central part of its history* about entheogen use rather than literalist concerns.

Spelling out the first of those three theory-names, the most extreme theory is the purist entheogenic theory of the origin and development of religions. I may be the first to formulate such an extreme and uncompromising model. This theory holds that generally, all the religions were originally about entheogens, not literalist concerns, and were later about entheogens, not literalist concerns.

It is practically easiest to formulate this extreme theory, and then later ease back and see how much compromise must be admitted and how much ground must be conceded to the literalist views of origins and developments of religions.

I am willing to grant that Joseph Smith existed as a single, historical individual who used Amanita and started the Mormon church, perhaps somewhat like Tim Leary existed and consumed psilocybin and then LSD and started the LSD cult, exemplified by the League for Spiritual Discovery.

There may be many combinations:

The founder did/didn't exist. The founder did/didn't take entheogens. The original members did/didn't use entheogens. The later followers did/didn't take entheogens.

Permutating the combinations:

0000 The founder didn't exist. The founder didn't take entheogens. The original members didn't use entheogens. The later followers didn't take entheogens. (Typical no-historical-Jesus position)

0001 The founder didn't exist. The founder didn't take entheogens. The original members didn't use entheogens. The later followers did take entheogens. (The "later deviant esotericists" position)

0010 The founder didn't exist. The founder didn't take entheogens. The original members did use entheogens. The later followers didn't take entheogens.

0011 The founder didn't exist. The founder didn't take entheogens. The original members did use entheogens. The later followers did take entheogens. (The purist entheogenic theory of the origin and development of religion, "Pretty much all the religions began from entheogen use, not from a literal founder, and always retained a strong tradition of entheogen use and purely esoteric, non-literalist thinking, though this has consistently been obscured by the official religionists and by the thick-headed cluelessness and shallow literalism of the modern era's sensibilities")

0100 The founder didn't exist. The founder did take entheogens. The original members didn't use entheogens. The later followers didn't take entheogens.

0101 The founder didn't exist. The founder did take entheogens. The original members didn't use entheogens. The later followers did take entheogens.

0110 The founder didn't exist. The founder did take entheogens. The original members did use entheogens. The later followers didn't take entheogens.

0111 The founder didn't exist. The founder did take entheogens. The original members did use entheogens. The later followers did take entheogens.

1000 The founder did exist. The founder didn't take entheogens. The original members didn't use entheogens. The later followers didn't take entheogens.

1001 The founder did exist. The founder didn't take entheogens. The original members didn't use entheogens. The later followers did take entheogens.

1010 The founder did exist. The founder didn't take entheogens. The original members did use entheogens. The later followers didn't take entheogens.

1011 The founder did exist. The founder didn't take entheogens. The original members did use entheogens. The later followers did take entheogens.

1100 The founder did exist. The founder did take entheogens. The original members didn't use entheogens. The later followers didn't take entheogens. ("Jesus was secretly using mushrooms, but his followers never understood this.")

1101 The founder did exist. The founder did take entheogens. The original members didn't use entheogens. The later followers did take entheogens.

1110 The founder did exist. The founder did take entheogens. The original members did use entheogens. The later followers didn't take entheogens. (The popular literalist entheogenist theory of an originally entheogenic and later degenerated, placebo tradition - "Jesus was an entheogenic hierophant on top of whom Christianity later developed in a distorted way, lacking the psychoactive sacrament Jesus used with this disciples")

1111 The founder did exist. The founder did take entheogens. The original members did use entheogens. The later followers did take entheogens. ("Jesus started Christianity as a mushroom cult and is has remained so among his true followers in the esoteric semi-suppressed tradition")

Combination 0011 is the purist entheogenic theory of the origin and development of religion, which I advocate and am defining.

I leave it as a fun exercise for the reader to add parenthetical characterizations of the remaining permutations of assumptions above.

The above is the top-level outline of the challenge. The detailed work remains, to explain exactly and in detail how it was that each religion started with entheogen use, and didn't start with a literal founder, and continued with a strong tradition of entheogen use and a strong tradition of purely esoteric, mystic-state, allegorical understanding of the religion's mythic framework.

It remains to explain exactly how those strong entheogenic, allegorical-only origins and traditions were not clearly reflected in the literature and artwork that is commonly available. Books about mysticism and entheogenic religion always have half a page explaining rather carelessly and casually that the officials naturally wanted to retain control, so suppressed those who sought and promoted direct experiential knowledge of the sacred realm.

But if such books want to effectively promote their view of mysticism and entheogens, clearly a whole chapter and book are required to explain exactly and in detail how the suppression of the mystics and the suppression of entheogen use worked in practice.

If a huge number of original and later members of the religion were mystics (whether literalists or anti-literalists) and entheogenist mystics (whether literalist or anti-literalist), why is there so little evidence for the existence of the mystic version of Christianity, and why is there so little evidence for the use of entheogens in the beginning and later development of the religions?

Why exactly was the mystic version of each religion suppressed so much and so effectively, and why exactly was the common use of entheogens suppressed so determinedly and so effectively?

To gain insight on how suppression and distortion works with regard to mysticism and entheogens, look for comparable examples from the current era. Consider the suppression of LSD references in rock from 1965 through the 1970s and beyond, how it forced the creation of covert encoded lyrical allusions to LSD phenomena instead.

Also look at how drug prohibition has distorted history, museum exhibits, cognitive science, psychotherapy, and religious practice, making a perfectly complete and extreme mockery of the claim to allowing religious freedom (you can practice any fake, placebo, ineffective, nontransformative religion you want).

Another strategy that must be used in this project is to consider the religions both as a group and individually, striving to find and assert the commonness of entheogenic anti-literalist features in the start and development of every religion. By now, there are a couple books that make the case for the presence of entheogens in each religion, and there are a handful of good books on the mystic, psychological, symbolic, esoteric reading of Christianity, as well as such books about other religions.

A couple of the Christian mysticism books advocate the purely mystic, anti-literalist view of the origin of Christianity (Alvin Huhn's book Rebirth for Christianity, Freke & Gandy's books The Jesus Mysteries and Jesus & The Goddess), or assert that the later Christians were entirely concerned with the allegorical archetypal psychological, esoteric Christ, and unconcerned with the historical Jesus (Watts' book on Christian symbolism).

Dan Merkur's books Mystery of Manna and Psychedelic Sacrament reveal entheogens in Jewish religion. This is the first time enough books exist so that a theorist can focus on gathering their fruits to begin to formulate a sweeping theory that all religions started and remained entheogenic and not literalist. I'm really pushing the edge here. I really doubt that anyone else has brought these ideas to this logical culmination point.

This is a paradigm shift, in that a minority hold the New Testament to be all fictional, a minority holds the Old Testament to be all fictional, a minority holds that entheogens are present at the start of some religions, a minority holds that entheogens were present at the start of most religions including Christianity, and a minority hold that entheogens have always been significantly present in all religions.

It's time to combine and resolve these epicyclic corrections or Newtonian spacetime incongruities into a theory that can better accommodate all of them.

Another element in this framework formation is to examine the ongoing dynamic tug-of-war between official literalism and mysticism, including entheogenic mysticism. Look at the relations between official literalism and mainstream mystics, and consider that relationship to be present even more pronouncedly between the official religionists and the entheogenic mystics. Was there really such a thing as non-entheogenic mystics, or does it finally turn out that basically all mystics used entheogens?

Something similar happens with regard to the debate about the freedom of the will in both philosophy and religion, as well as in quantum mechanics and artificial intelligence or consciousness research. Treat this as a related distinct case of suppression and distortion and potential paradigm shift, a hot, ever-contested pivot point of concern to mystics and officials.

Free will is discussed so much but yet so little, and always so contentiously. Concern with the subject of the freedom of the will always turns out to be as central in theology as the Eucharist, and is a standard concern of mysticism, but it still isn't discussed in popular religion. It is truly amazing that no one has written a book on the history of determinism -- it is a subject so hot, so widespread, so close to us that it doesn't occur to look and see that the subject is very common and widespread.

The strong entheogen theory of religion requires seeing something everywhere, in the center of the picture, where before we kept seeing it scattered here or there as isolated heresies or deviance off to the side.

It is a revolution in perspective to stop painting literalism in the middle of the religious scene, with mystics and magic plants off to the side demoted to scattered heresies, and instead start painting the historical picture with the literalists demoted to the role of annoying deviants and scattered minor cults, with entheogenic mysticism in the middle.

I am concerned that many would-be progressive scholars do themselves a disservice by taking too many conventional assumptions for granted, and questioning one piece in isolation. These baby steps won't go anywhere; they are band-aids and stopgaps. Let's begin from the maximal postulate that all religion is really about entheogens rather than literalism. A wholesale paradigm shift is much faster than incremental change, and there are now enough books to begin making the maximal theory viable.

Any paradigm can be built up and supported; let's try this one and see how much ground were are forced to conceded when looking through this lens and using this framework's standards of assessment of what's plausible and what's implausible. From the vantage point this system entails, it is implausible to have a religion in which entheogens aren't central, both in the origin and later development.

Entheogens are powerful, reliable, and widespread; people have every reason to make entheogens the center of religion, and no reason not to, except for reasons that are outside religion, such as moralism, social convention, and political contention.

The latter suggests some useful main categories for explaining how entheogens have been largely suppressed from the official, false history of religion. Religion appears literalist rather than entheogenic because of reasons that mainly include (bad and distorting) reasons in various domains such as political, social, moral, and psychological.

McKenna provides an example in the latter field: he expressed clearly the proposal that popular spirituality rejects entheogens because people are afraid of the very intensity and religious experiencing that they think they are seeking.

Most popular religion functions mainly as a substitutive protection against actual religious experiencing: "actual religious experiencing is too strong and upsetting, yet you naturally desire transcendence -- the solution is to kid ourselves by using a harmless substitute, like playing violent video games or watching violent movies instead of beating on each other with sticks.

Popular religion is a harmless substitute for real religion, which we desire but are apprehensive of. This may help to explain more convincingly the puzzling question of why people go to church even though it is in fact so obviously completely untransformative. Theology books are packed from cover to cover with talk about Christianity as a religion of powerful inward transformation, yet nothing could be less transformative, obviously, than sitting listening to a sermon and eating crackers and drinking grape juice.

Such popular religion is essentially safe placebo substitute religion, providing an inert placebo to temporarily gratify one's innate desire for transcendence and awakening of the higher mind, while protecting from the travails of actual psychic death and rebirth.

Popular religion is a make-believe to satisfy one's higher drive while safely avoiding paying the price and experiencing the downfall -- a way to have your religious drive satisfied, somewhat, for awhile, while keeping your egoic worldmodel safe and sound and comfortable, at the same time. It's a religion of comfortable substitute gratification for drives that would otherwise lead to uncomfortable actual transformation -- because real initiation does have aspects that are deeply uncomfortable.

Such safe, comfortable, placebo substitute religion staves off that annoying inner drive toward actual transcendence. Ken Wilber's early book The Atman Project explains this drive and futile, temporary substitution. I would define Boomeritis as being exactly this placebo religiosity, rather than some nebulous psychology-speak like Wilber's vague label "narcissism".

Most spirituality is placebo religion, a substitute to protect the egoic mind from ego death which would happen in actual, real, genuine religion. The issue or right move isn't one from "religion" to "spirituality". The way those are contrasted usually means rejecting the lowest form of religion and embracing a somewhat higher (middle) level of religion.

We could describe this more accurately as progressing from substitute religion to substitute spirituality to real religion. Today's "spirituality" is nothing but substitute, literalist, supernaturalist religion minus the supernatural and authoritarian elements; it doesn't have anything more positive to contribute than the official/literalist/supernaturalist versions of the religions.

Like Protestantism was created largely by subtracting from an often-empty Catholicism, so was today's "spirituality" created largely by subtracting from Protestantism, and then sprinkling on some decoration. Today's "spirituality" isn't significantly more transformative than official literalism; at best, it is less inauthentic, rather than more authentic.

Even mysticism, as officially portrayed in the regular Christian books, wouldn't be significantly more transformative than the official religion of supernaturalist literalism, ceremonies and sermons. I don't intend to disparage people who have used entheogens and respect them as fully legitimate and chose to meditate without them.

It's a lie that non-augmented meditation is more legitimate than entheogens. It's a false history to claim that entheogens were deviant rather than essential and central within the best part of a religious tradition. The official literalists would claim that entheogens are the worst part of their religious tradition, contributing only negatively; but actually, entheogens are the best and most definitive part of a religious tradition.

To gain one degree of authenticity, leave the literalists and go to the mystics; to gain two degrees, leave the anti-entheogen mystics and go to the entheogenic mystics. Then you will have arrived at the heart, origin, and foundation of the religion, joining the true hidden Church of which the literalist church is a poor imitation.

Someone told me that he liked Jewish mystic contemplation until it actually started to succeed at producing cognitive changes -- then it was uncomfortable and frightening, so he quit.

I'd be satisfied if today's spiritualists would admit that they are apprehensive of the negative effects of the actual transformative religious state of cognition, and are knowingly and intentionally settling for a lite, safe, comforting, denatured, domesticated, neutered, ersatz, make-believe, cargo-cult, placebo, substitute version of religion -- one designed to satisfy one's natural thirst for transcendence, without providing any actual transcendence, which includes uncomfortable aspects.

As usual, prohibition complicates and distorts the picture -- some people would like to use entheogens or wish others would be allowed to use them, but are forced to settle like Grof for far less effective and reliable triggers of the mystic state, such as meditation. Prohibition promotes disparagement of entheogens and treating them as isolated, unfortunate deviations within religious traditions.

Prohibition, official literalist religion, and popular spirituality all work together to distort and suppress the role of entheogens in religious history and to strongly disparage their use.

This widespread systematic distortion and suppression helps to explain how we've ended up with the opposite of the truth, bolstering the literalist theory of the origin and development of religions, which only serves to obscure history and block actual religious transformation, when we should be uncovering the entheogenic theory of the origin of religions.

Most recently I'm emphasizing "the entheogenic theory of the origin *and ongoing development* of religions".

>This is interesting to read, because to succintly state there is such

>a thing as the "entheogenic *theory* of religion," has as you are

>saying has not completely cystallized, except in a wide variety of

>suggestions from various scholars.

Right, it hasn't formed as a clear system.

>Huston Smith, RA Zechner, Joseph Campbell ... suggested this

>Entheogenic basis to religion.

But Zaehner is a Catholic official, committed to fitting drugs into his official Catholic framework, entailing -- and this is the real problem to battle now -- taking every opportunity to disparage entheogens without being caught making any statements that are so blatantly false that his efforts backfire.

For example, if you preach orthodoxy and insist that entheogens never produce any experience that is in any way mystic, you'd be dismissed as an embarrassment who is inadvertantly calling orthodoxy into doubt. That stance would imply that the only way to deny the potency of entheogens is by throwing away all credibility, and willfully ignoring what is plain to everyone.

He knows it is hopeless to deny the effectiveness of entheogens, and that doing something that willfully reality-denying would call *all* of his dogma into question as being nothing but propaganda.

Zen, Drugs, and Mysticism

R.C. Zaehner

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0819172669

I'd like to see a quote from Einstein.

>On a simplistic level, we have some basic choices as to which model of explanatory thinking we like or believe.

>1. Divinity, divine beings, messiahs, Buddhas, Special Gurus.

>2. Space Aliens, Ancient astronauts etc.

>3. Entheogenic theory of religion

You leave out the most important one, that's currently the most effectively deceiving position: New Age American Buddhist entheogen-disparaging meditationism, and the Jungian/Campbellian myth-psychology-archetype theory that myth reflects mundane, ordinary-state pychology.

The supernatural paradigm and the crackpot paradigm are not nearly as serious a threat to the entheogen theory of religion as the tepid, mediocre, middle-level popular "spirituality" that's as empty and misguided as liberal Protestantism's reduction of religion to mundane ethics. The most serious challenge to real religion is the religion which *seems* most credible but stops just short of delivering the goods.

It is disturbing how the best books on religious myth are so much better than literalist religion that they *seem* to deliver truth, without actually delivering it. They portray myth as allegory for mental phenomena, and they are correct in that, but still they utterly lack religion proper: myth is allegory for *altered-state* mental phenomena, particularly of the entheogen-triggered intense mystic altered state -- *not* of ordinary-state mundane mental processing.

>The funny thing, is that of these three choices, the Entheogenic Theory of religions is the most logical and the least speculative or

>superstitious....although people will beg to differ.

Yes, that's a point I've tried to emphasize, that the least speculative and most *plausible* theory of religion... especially, *the simplest* theory of religion, is that it reflects entheogenic mental phenomena and insights. I worship simplicity and follow that star where it leads my thinking.

For example, whatever you think of the no-free-will hypothesis, it's a strong candidate for being the *simplest* explanation, and simply equating ego death and rebirth with the experience of the temporary suspension of the sense of free will may be controversial, but one thing for sure: it's the simplest theory possible, sort of like Zen perception is the simplest perception possible -- so simple, it's beyond the capability of the normal, busy mind.

I need to amplify how much I'm against the mid-20th Century psychology paradigm or interpretive framework. Psychology *claims* to offer a logical alternative to religion, but it doesn't. Consider Wilber's definition of Boomeritis as "narcissism" -- that's meaningless psychology-speak, where the Psychology conceptual framework actively impedes understanding, rather than providing understanding.

>It appears that most people are shocked and offended upon hearing that religion actually comes from eating plants. They would prefere to believe in Divine Omnipotent beings, specially chosen messengers, or intervention by Aliens.

Or, even more importantly lately, they would prefer to believe that religion comes from thirty years of long meditation sessions, with a success rate of a fraction of a percent. This is the real devil that we need to turn our sights on now.

Ken Wilber advocates this view, rather than the entheogen initiation view which holds that for all intents and purposes, five to ten entheogen sessions, combined with a college course on systematic theory of ego death, brings a mind to perfection and sacrifices the child-thinking for adult-thinking -- with any remaining development being nonessential refinement.

>I find this ultimately humorous.

>I am trying to locate the quote from Albert Einstein, where he implied that religion had an entheogenic basis. I think this view has been there and passed over or not crystllized. Clearly, someone like McKenna or Leary of course believed it but maybe they didn't propose it as directly as it needs to be proposed.

Please email if you can substantiate that Einstein proposed religion had an entheogenic basis.

The theory needs to be stated much more sweepingly and forcefully, and today's new dogmas like meditationism and psychologism need to be unequivocally rejected and condemned as false and obstructive theories.

>Huston Smith definitely said it,

He does everything wrong, stating this case in the standard weak and tepid way that has enabled the status quo to ignore it -- the old 1960s view that ancient religion and exotic religions had entheogens, but the European religions didn't. The 60s advocates of entheogens, in their frenzy to fully disparage "Christianity", totally missed out on the opportunity to rewrite the only history that matters at all, the history of Christianity.

They avoided the only battle that matters at all, and failed to recognize that Christianity has always been an entheogen-centered religion, in all eras.

Similarly, they painted the dominant entheogen-disparaging, false consensus view of Buddhist history as well, relegating entheeogens forever to a minor, minimal bit part in Buddhist tradition, so that like the psychedelic culture's co-optation by the establishment, so was the great entheogen tradition in the two most currently important religions, Christianity and Buddhism, co-opted once again, as it so often has been, and robbed of its symbolic jewels while being insulted and relegated by being integrated as a minor deviance, when the entheogenic tradition completely deserves to be portrayed as the heart, soul, core, source, and ongoing inspiration of Christianity and Buddhism, per the maximal entheogenic theory of the origin and later development of the religions.

>So did RA Zechner, but in more of a anthropological way.

What do you mean by "anthropological"? Zaehner is an official Catholic theologian committed a-priori to defusing the entheogen threat by diminishing the stature of entheogens as much as possible.

>Many others as well.

>I know that I myself have said it many times to people over the last 39 years, but really only in the past 5 years have I began to see it in terms of a specific or formal "theory," that needs to be officially postulated academically. I think even the suggestion of this being a "theory," implies the possiblity that it is possibly not true. Afterall the word "theory," implies soemthing that needs testing or proof, when in reality, I had all the proof of this I'd personally ever need, when I was 19 years old. So to postulate this theory, one is really attempting to convince others in an academic mode.

> I'd advise caution. There is no good reason to think that Siddhartha, Zoroaster and Muhammud - for starters - weren't historical figures.

Given how mythmaking works, and given the core purpose of myth-religion -- to reflect entheogenic mystic-state phenomena -- there is no great reason to take it for granted that they existed, either. Scholars have erred *way* too far on the side of taking it for granted that the founding figures, such as Paul, existed literally as individuals, though what myth is mainly about isn't historical individuals, but archetypal figures personifying the intense mystic altered state.

I have read stacks of books against the Historical Jesus and other Christian founding superheros, but not much regarding Buddha, Zoroaster, or Muhammud, so I won't press the nonexistence of the latter. Still, to say "Buddha existed as a literal single person who founded Buddhism" is to put forward a grossly misconceived and malformed model of what myth-religion is all about. The primary source of myth-religion is the intense mystic altered state, not founder-figures from long ago.

>One of the great strengths of early Christianity had to do with the fact that the 'cornerstone' of the Church was the (absurd) Pauline belief in a literal, historical 'god' who resurrected from the dead.

Early Christianity's only claim to distinctiveness with respect to the other mystery religions was the *claim* that Jesus was a historical literal individual -- it was a profitable claim.

Your above statement contains a weak assumption: the assumption or interpretation that the Paul figure was made to preach a literal historical literal death and literal resurrection of a single, specific historical individual named Jesus. The Pauline writings express a purely Gnostic interpretation, with the later Paul-attributed scriptures being used to instead express anti-Gnostic viewpoints.

Only when the Pauline writings are read through Gospel-colored glasses can a careless reader come away with the impression that those writings assume a single, specific historical individual named Jesus.

>>We need a model of how religious literalism overshadowed entheogenic

mysticism, at least overshadowing it according to the official histories..

>Entheogenic mysticism suffered from esotericism from within and suppression from without.

I'm extremely against secrecy of any sort, regarding esoteric knowledge or practices. Prohibition makes this difficult, though. I'm also against the lack of explicit explanation. Metaphor is good but is most helpful when accompanied by explicit elucidation.

The official historians of religion, professional scholars of Christian history, have manage to extremely entrench the view that orthodoxy has always been actually the center of religion and that heresies have actually been peripheral deviations. That view is so taken for granted that even the would-be progressive entheogen scholars take it too seriously. The only scenario that makes sense, given how intense the entheogen mood is in theology and art, is that the officials had only very partial control, and that heresies and entheogen use was quite commonplace.

>In India this was typical. There were always the simplistic masses people believing grandiose myth, unable to see how myths began and those who were more like the greek philosophers, debating high end philosophical theory. I am quite sure that entheogen use out in those forests was happening, while the Brahmanists climed sacred control of the Soma ceremony. The teachings of these rationalist was in direct conflict with the status quo. The rationalists including Gautama taught logical formulations, where people were taught to transcend the superstious ideas of brahmanism,and that the mythic content was nothing more then illusory imprinted imagery and phenomena.

It's important and true that not all religious systems that use entheogens reflect mystic insight and mystic-state experiencing by using clever mythic allegory.

It is likely that a school of rational mystics arose, and determined that they needed to fabricate and back-project a founder figure to attribute their views to. That was universal standard practice. A realistic-styled story of how a religious school was founded shouldn't be assumed to be reality -- just reality-styled.

Similarly, compared to the other Hellenistic mystery-religions, Christianity was distinctively political-styled and historical-event styled (that move was the main move that was borrowed from Judaism), but was essentially the same as the other religions of the era, with regard to the core of religious experiencing proper. A fictional Buddha styled as a literalized, non-mythical Buddha operates on much the same lines.

To try to increase my credibility were I in a backwards-looking culture, I would attribute my theory of religious insight to some towering, important ancient rationalist who literally existed and was an unusual man for his time, who rejected an emphasis on mythic metaphor.

Religious groups who rejected mythic-style thinking had good reason to fabricate a single, important, credible, fictional founding figure to whom to attribute their own views and style of approach. The convention of doing so was there, and the motive for doing so was there.

The doctrine of rebirth as something undesirable is essentially mythic in itself, so an anti-mythic Buddha figure would need to be portrayed as teaching that "avoiding rebirth" has a lower and higher meaning (avoiding falling back into the mental habit of the egoic worldmodel after a session of intense mystic experiencing/insight).

>The teachings of these rationalists was in direct conflict with the status quo. The rationalists including Gautama taught logical formulations, where people were taught to transcend the superstious ideas of brahmanism,and that the mythic content was nothing more then illusory imprinted imagery and phenomena.

Be cautious about characterizing mythic content as nothing more than fantasy. Much mythic content serves as a test for true rationalists: no one can be a rationalist if they can't understand what valid meaning is present in myth-religion. The true rationalist doesn't dispose of myth by dumb rejection of it, but by sorting it as more and less sound allegorizations of mystic insight and phenomena, including metaphors for the plant entheogen itself (the latter point is overemphasized by entheogenists, who miss the more philosophical aspects such as king=sovereignty=ego=freewill).

Date of 'Maximal entheogen theory of religion' formulation

I would like to assign a date to my clear formulation of the "maximal entheogen theory of religion", against the dominant, too Establishment-friendly "minimal entheogen theory of religion" which stresses that entheogens were *not* used in the main thread of religion-philosophy.

This happened *after* criticizing the entheogen scholars for "not getting the message across" -- what I was *really* complaining about was that the idea they were getting out was the *minimal*, diminishing portrayal of entheogens in religion, just propping up the received, Establishment paradigm.

Strong (maximal) vs. weak (minimal) entheogen theory of religion

I define a strong version of the entheogen theory of religion. Entheogens are by far the most classic, efficient, effective, and traditional method of triggering mystic experiencing. Today's popular view is that meditation is the main, classic technique, and entheogens are only a minor approximation; I assert the opposite or the inverse of that position. They say there is only a grain of truth in the proposal that entheogens can cause enlightenment. In contrast, I say that there is only a grain of truth in the proposal that meditation/contemplation can cause enlightenment.

It is *possible* for a person to walk across the United States, but that doesn't mean walking is a good, ergonomic, efficient, smart approach for the general case of wanting to get to the other side of the country.

The evidence hasn't been collected yet in support of the entheogen theory. We have only *started* to look for the evidence, and to make our opening cases, position statements, and proposals. It is too early to say that a reasonable debate has taken place. Entheogen scholars are only beginning to define what kind of evidence we need to look for.

There is a weak entheogen theory and a strong entheogen theory. The weak theory says entheogens were used rarely, a long time ago, and are inefficient for enlightenment, or are only moderately efficient. The strong theory, which I advocate, says entheogens were used commonly, in all eras, and are highly efficient for enlightenment.

The Mystical Entheogenic Core of the Great Traditions

Bill used to have a bit of reservations about my focus on the hypothesis of the ancient and ongoing entheogenic wellspring.

Bill wrote:

>>Michael, ... Everything you have to say here--and in your messages in the past, on your website and the most recent communications to 'techgnosis'--are aligned perfectly with what I have studied, learned, and experienced with shamanic practitioners east and west. As I am sure you know, 'religions' have freely--and sometimes not-so-freely--expropriated from native spiritual practices and spiritualism those aspects that 'work' and inserted them--or more usually bogus substitutions for them--into their own political agenda.

>>In my own book, 'religion' is merely and primarily a political expropriation of SOME of the practices or a simulation (usually the lowest common denominator in whatever culture this takes place) of those originally psychoactive (or 'psychedelic,' or 'entheogenic') practices that actually worked in their original setting.

>>Most commonly, IMNSHO, as in the 'Vedas,' the hierophants of the 'new religion' appropriated to themselves--through secret language and practices--those 'sacraments' that worked, and clouded them in such secrecy that their reality has only been uncovered by 'outsiders' like Schultes, Hofmann, and others, in modern ti8mes. Of course you know all this and more--and I discovered it over a lifetime through reading and then going to experience the realities themselves in the Americas, Europe, and finally Asia.

>>I wish I had more to say to you than 'Carry on, young master!' but lacking some times to share these things more directly I know that the work you are doing is, first, essential; second, worthwhile for all of us; and third, inevitable! Carry on!

>>... Erik Davis; I've read his works--especially 'Techgnosis' which was a great to read--and heard him at conferences, and know him to be one of those to whom the 'mantle' has been passed worthily! Keep up the good work!!!

The entheogen theory of gnosis

All esotericism and religion and high philosophy and gnosis is based on entheogens. The current dominant version of the entheogen theory of religion is a much narrower conception: it puts all emphasis on entheogens in "religion" rather than in high philosophy/wisdom traditions altogether, and only emphasizes entheogens at the historical beginning of religion, and puts all emphasis on entheogens themselves as the secret knowledge that is hidden and revealed, rather than a correct 2- or 3-part emphasis:

The entheogen is hidden (initially encoded and deliberately obscured) and is then revealed to or discovered by initiates or seekers.

The entheogen reveals vitally the perennial principles, as experiential insights.

The perennial principles are hidden (initially obscured, not known) and revealed.

So, entheogens are what is revealed, and perennial principles are also what is revealed, and perennial principles are revealed through entheogens (through loose cognition). Entheogens cause loose cognition which reveals perennial principles. Also perennial principles are "revealed" in a more ordinary way, through writings and in-person instruction.

Gnosis itself is based on visionary plants: it comes most strongly and significantly through visionary plants, rather than later, artificial, auxiliary, lesser supplemental techniques such as meditation and active imagination.

Per the excerpts below, Arthur Versluis is firm and clear that the definitive factor in Western esoteric wisdom traditions is 'gnosis', as a nonordinary mode of experience and consciousness.

All that which most mystifies scholars about how the intense vivid non-ordinary experiential aspect of esotericism was brought about, is instantly solved by the proposal of visionary plants.

It's somewhat mysterious why visionary plants were so hidden, though some explanations are clear enough: nothing threatened the Church as much as people recognizing the visionary-plant nature of the Eucharist; for them to do so would be to recognize that there is no need for priests as intermediaries; the real and proper intermediary would obviously be the visionary plants themselves, "flesh and blood of christ", needing no priest to supposedly activate the Eucharist.

___________________

http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeIV/Methods.htm -- excerpts:

an insistence upon direct spiritual experience or cognition, meaning both insight into the divine nature of the cosmos and metaphysical or transcendent gnosis;

The most important element missing from Faivre’s list of the characteristics of Western esotericism is gnosis.

the term “gnosis,” which refers to direct spiritual insight either into hidden aspects of the cosmos, or into transcendence.

I am using the word “gnosis” to refer to 1. knowledge or direct perception of hidden or esoteric aspects of the cosmos (cosmological gnosis) as well as to 2. direct spiritual insight into complete transcendence (metaphysical gnosis).

Metaphysical gnosis is non-dualistic spiritual insight

This distinction [between cosmological dualistic gnosis and metaphysical nondual gnosis]... is comparable to that found in the Corpus Hermeticum between “lower” and “higher” gnosis, “lower” referring to philosophic learning, “higher” to direct insight into the Nous.

the seminal work of Jacob Böhme, central to which is his spiritual insight, or gnosis.

if one cannot understand such a central esoteric author as Böhme without reference to gnosis, then how can one exclude this term from the list of characteristics entirely? One must take gnosis into account

to acknowledge the primacy of the cosmological dimension in ... Western esotericism must not entail denying the presence of a metaphysical gnostic dimension at least in some of the same currents of thought.

as we look over Western esotericism from antiquity to the present, we can discern one characteristic that emerges as central throughout the entire period: gnosis. ... the word “gnosis” refers to direct spiritual insight into the nature of the cosmos and of oneself, and ... [has] both a cosmological and a metaphysical import. ... [there are] two fundamental but related kinds of gnosis: ... ‘cosmological gnosis’ [includes] astrology, -mancies such as geomancy [and] cartomancy, numeric, geometric, and alphabetic traditions of correspondences and analogical interpretations, and ... natural magic based on these correspondences. Cosmological gnosis illuminates the hidden patterns of nature as expressing spiritual or magical truths; ... [for example,] the via positiva of Dionysius the Areopagite. Metaphysical gnosis ... represents direct insight into the transcendent; it corresponds ... to the via negativa of Dionsyius the Areopagite, and is represented by gnostic figures like Meister Eckhart and Franklin Merrell-Wolff ... These terms are not mutually exclusive but exist on a continuum: visionary experiences in general belong to the realm of cosmological gnosis, but they may nonetheless convey metaphysical gnosis.

I ... define esotericism primarily in terms of gnosis because gnosis, of whatever kind, is precisely what is esoteric within esotericism. ‘Esotericism’ describes the historical phenomena to be studied; ‘gnosis’ describes that which is esoteric, hidden, protected, and transmitted within these historical phenomena. ... Alchemy, astrology, various kinds of magical traditions, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, Jewish or Christian visionary or apophatic gnosis -- ... ‘Western esotericism’ ... [covers] disparate phenomena connected primarily by one thing: that to enter into the particular arcane discipline is to come to realize for oneself secret knowledge about the cosmos and its transcendence. This secret or hidden knowledge is not a product of reason alone, but of gnosis -- according to esotericism, it derives from a supra-rational source. [I would say "a source other than ordinary-state ratiocination" -mh].

Gilles Quispel, the scholar of ancient Gnosticism, [portrays] European tradition [as comprising] a triad of faith, reason, and gnosis, with gnosis being the third and hidden current of Western thought. While I do not agree with some of Quispel’s Jungian premises [20th-century Psychology is insightful if you remove and weed out all the 20th-century Psychology from it - mh], I do think that he is fundamentally right in proposing this triad ... we cannot investigate European, American, or other categories of comparatively recent esotericisms without reference to their historical antecedents at least as far back as late antiquity. One cannot fully understand the triad of faith, reason, and gnosis without considering the full range of European history in which it manifests itself. ... we cannot adequately investigate ... variants of esotericism without an awareness from the outset that we are entering into unfamiliar territory for the strictly rationalist or scientific mind, and that in order to understand it in any genuine way, we will have to learn at least imaginatively to enter into it.

There have ... been ... efforts ... to ... [compare] ... Gnosticism in late antiquity with Vajrayana Buddhism, ... Böhmean theosophy, or ... Persian Sufism ... such efforts ... suggest new insights into these disparate but sometimes apparently parallel traditions or spiritual currents. ... while the conventional historian must work with rather straightforward historical data ... the historian of esotericism must also confront an entirely new additional dimension ... gnosis. This dimension cannot be addressed by conventional history alone ...

____ end excerpts ______

Lee Irwin is apparently trying to set up these debatable equations/correlations:

cosmological gnosis ~= dualistic gnosis ~= lower gnosis ~= philosophic learning

metaphysical gnosis ~= nondual gnosis ~= higher gnosis ~= direct insight into the Nous

I have various disagreements with these speculative, arbitrary constructs and associations, particularly the effort to equate cosmological gnosis, as a dualistic experiential gnosis, with mere philosophic learning as normally conceived.

Irwin's assertion that they are 'comparable' is only weakly true. Even if you accept that the postulated 'cosmological dualistic gnosis' is lower than the postulated 'metaphysical nondual gnosis', both these types of postulated gnosis are intensely experiential and are both therefore far higher than, set apart from, or distinct from, philosophic learning as normally defined.

Because scholars don't have a clue that the state of gnosis is simply that produced by visionary plants, they are inventing all sorts of elaborate, abstruse, debatable impressive-sounding constructs and distinctions: they are trying to erect a major division within gnosis and mysticism an impersonal and personal type, or a dualistic and nondualistic type.

Although there may be a bit of merit in such distinctions, all those forms of mystic experiencing are close together -- far from the understanding of the typical 20th-century scholars. Such scholars are straining at gnats, and missing the beam. They are trying to make ultra-subtle distinctions and constructs so they have something, anything, to work with -- when they aren't even close to having the most basic, rudimentary comprehension and recognition of visionary-plant experiencing.

Religion based on entheogens? How can it be, given A, B, and C?

In my paradigm -- the maximal entheogen theory of religion-philosophy-myth, it is *certain*, a fact, a given, a fundamental axiomatic truth, that religion is based on visionary plants; my challenge is not to prove that but to state clearly the proposition, accounting for:

o The apparent or supposed lack of explicit evidence for visionary plants

o The supposed great majority of religionists who supposedly have nothing to do with visionary plants.

Even the latter "majority" claim is suspect -- by a suspicious coincidence, evangelical Christianity had a surge immediately after the psychedelic 60s.

I axiomatically assume that many mystics and many of the most famous Christians used visionary plants -- so the challenge is not to prove that, but instead, to lay out a scenario and a proposed reality, a way of portraying that scenario clearly and viably. The latter is tantamount to a proof. A clear and coherent scenario effectively amounts to a kind of proof. My main challenge is to answer:

If religion is based on entheogens, why is there so little explicit evidence of that, and why does the majority of religion have or seem to have nothing to do with visionary plants? The task isn't so much "prove it" as "show how that can be".

Has entheogen theory been effectively communicated?

What are the outcomes of this experimental train of thought, the criticisms of entheogen scholars' backdrop of assumptions?

My criticisms are half-correct. It was entirely incorrect for me to associate James Arthur with an exagerrated focus and weak framework of an all-plants perspective: I should have used Clark Heinrich, instead, as an example of an entheogen scholar whose writings inadvertantly equate religion with one plant, Amanita.

James Arthur is hard to criticize -- the main flaw of his work is the unprofessional, unscholarly presentation of his research in Mushrooms and Mankind; he'd be more successful among the scholarly community with more careful editing and scholarly citations.

I have been very careful to qualify my critique of Ken Wilber -- unlike my first attempts at doing so, where I accused him of being oblivious to entheogens. Now, my criticism of him on that point is far more qualified: he has a bad *treatment* of entheogens, failing to see their ubiquity such as in Hellenistic mystery-religion, and failing to see that they are not a simulation of mystic technique, but are the main, original, and ever-popular mystic technique. His statements about entheogens are largely right -- he just doesn't make entheogens central as he should.

I have to improve my criticism of entheogen scholars the same way. There is something seriously wrong with the existing entheogen scholarship -- but what exactly is it? I refuse to be morose or repentant about the flaws in my critical efforts so far. Flaws are the price of making headway. I will correct my criticisms but won't apologize; I had to venture some flames to push the envelope and see aspects of today's researchers immortally survives and which parts are perishable.

One important outcome of my extremist, experimental condemnation of today's paradigm for doing entheogen scholarship is the need to assess the degree to which this scholarship has achieved influencing general knowledge.

James Arthur has been highly influential in certain respects, spreading the gospel of entheogen-pharmacopia religion far and wide on the Art Bell show with millions of listeners -- other scholars ought to be jealous of Arthur's popular success. He has also been an extremely popular presenter at conferences. His site gets many hits, and his book is highly popular at Amazon, higher than 50,000 for a long time.

In the popular High Times and Cannabis Culture magazines, Chris Bennett has spread the gospel of entheogen-religion, most visibly of "Jesus' use of marijuana", as The Door magazine reports it.

Ruck's work, altogether, has been influential, though it's hard for me to gauge. Heinrich's work is much better positioned now that his second edition of Strange Fruit has been published inexpensively in the U.S., rather than the extremely fine and fairly expensive U.K. original edition.

I don't really have a "work" to gauge the impact of, but my work at Amazon, in Christianity and entheogens and no-free-will has probably been about as influential as my personal communications with entheogen scholars.

Robert Graves deserves much more credit than he's been given, for the entheogen theory of religion: in fact, the Wasson Hypothesis really must be renamed the Graves/Wasson Hypothesis. I wish to read Graves, such as White Goddess, and King Jesus. Graves' innovative ideas were influential, but he's given little credit for the entheogen theory of religion.

Were Allegro's ideas about mythic Christianity and Amanita influential? In some twisted and complicated ways, yes. Entheos magazine ought to have an article about that question. I evade the responsibility for writing it, but am a candidate for doing so, even though I'd ignore the sex aspects.

Assessing the extent of communicating "the entheogen theory of religion": Arthur has accomplished a tremendous amount on the popular front: radio, videotapes, presentations. Chris Bennett has contributed much: his cannabis-focused Christianity articles were heavily covered in newspapers.

But entheogen scholars are getting demolished by the guru and meditation camp, which ever-more-desperately belittles entheogens to no end; Arthur points out the positive aspect of this: it proves that the entheogen theory is at least firmly on the public scholarly radar -- but I'm pissed off at how the conventional scholars are together committed to belittling entheogens as much as they are allowed to get away with.

What's my main wish-list item that I wish entheogen scholars could do? Effectively stop the conventional guru-and-scholar community from that tired old lie of elevating "mysterious, inexplicable Christian mysticism" and "pure, natural meditation" while diminishing "artificial" and "inferior" and "harmful" entheogens.

I'm tired of entheogenists caving into that lie -- I wish they'd start asserting that entheogens are *by far* the main method, most classic method, and most effective method for triggering the intense mystic altered state -- and they should insist that triggering the intense mystic altered state *is* essential, *not* an irrelevancy as the Buddhist guru camp is increasingly maintaining.

The time has come to rightly elevate entheogens and rightly diminish the other "paths" as what they are: feeble alternatives, shadows and footnotes to the real thing, the main path of paths. It bothers the hell out of me to see, like in the book Zig Zag Zen and typical books on Christian mysticism, entheogens treated just for the purpose of diminishing them and elevating "inexplicable, mysterious Christian mysticism" and "pure, natural, safe, compassionate, insight meditation".

I'm incensed about seeing that same old upside-down view promoted by mainstream scholars, and worst of all, accepted by entheogenists who grant non-augmented meditation and other methods such as drumming, far more credit than they deserve. Hyperventiliation, drumming, and meditation are lame, with effectiveness so low as to prove that they serve to prevent, rather than enable, the mystic cognitive state.

Too many entheogenists go along with the mainstream view that entheogens are a partially effective simulation of the real thing, "traditional" meditation and drumming. Make no mistake: the real thing is entheogens, and the feeble, generally ineffective simulation is meditation, drumming, hyperventiliation, and other "acceptable mysterious" routes.

Graves-Wasson entheogen theory 1960, was also postulated by Manley Hall 1925, and S. in 1845

The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy

Manly Hall

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/089314830X

Written in 1925 (age 24), published in 1929. Hall near page 112 states succinctly that the mystery religions centrally used drugs to induce a visionary state. He cites S's book in 1845 as stating this. Robert Graves' 1960 edition of Greek Myths has a prefix stating that he now realizes that the Centaurs represented the use of mushrooms such as Amanita or psilocybin/stropharia cubensis.

These references ranging back in time support what's becoming clear, that esoteric knowledge, which is based on visionary plants, was never completely forgotten, only somewhat suppressed, omitted from official histories, and periodically relatively rediscovered.

Degree of relative emphasis (balance) is crucial. A good theory of the best of esoteric knowledge should be firmly, emphatically centered on visionary plants and on the experience of timeless determinism.

dc wrote:

>Manly Hall was quite a interesting fellow.

>I used to visit him in the 1970's at his office and discussed Buddhism and Psychedelics with him.

>His office looked like a museum, with all kinds of world-wide artifacts all over the place.

>He was fairly influential with the theosophist people, so fairly Blavatskyeque.

>He had a very open mind.

How large of a role did visionary plants play in the history of religion and Western esotericism, according to Hall? It's odd that visionary plants are held to be the key to the most important religion -- Eleusis, shamanism, Soma/Vedic -- while then telling a story of the history of religion that otherwise omits visionary plants.

How was it possible for a 24 year old to know about and publish a book about esoteric history? He had to have been initiated at age 3 and was born in a metaphysical library and had servants so that he could research and write and rewrite 16 hours a day.

>The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy

>Manly Hall

>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/089314830X

>1928

>Near page 112 states succinctly that the mystery religions centrally used drugs to induce a visionary state. He cites S's book in 1845 as stating this.

Here is the official page about this book, telling about the various formats.

http://www.prs.org/secret.htm

It shows the table of contents entry, reading:

Hermetic Pharmacology, Chemistry, and Therapeutics -- ... The use of drugs in the Mysteries

All that Graves and Wasson did was try to identify which psychoactive drugs were used in one particular mystery cult. The hypothesis (recognition) that psychoactive drugs were used and were key was not created, in the age of modern published scholarship, by Graves and Wasson. Modern published scholarship takes that recognition back at least to 1845.

Amazon has sample pages.

Precursors to 20th-Century rediscovery of entheogens

Mark Stahlman has a conspiracy theory that mind-change through entheogens, against the Bomb and warfare, was promoted during the Cold War by some parts of trans-national intelligence organizations.

He questions the usual story about the "surprise" discovery of LSD at the same time as the Bomb was invented/discovered; he considers the usual history of LSD (such as per the book Storming Heaven) to be distorted; since World War 2, there were some good guys in Intelligence deliberately using existing perennial knowledge of entheogenic plants to cause mind-change metaprogramming against Mutually Assured Destruction.

I agree that the existing story of entheogens told by today's entheogen scholars still has major paradigmatic distortions, underestimating the extent and continuity of entheogens in religion and esotericism.

I suspected the continuous knowledge about entheogens, as part of my "maximal entheogen theory of religion", when finding that if you look hard enough, you find the entheogenic knowledge reflected in books in the early 20th Century, and in the 19th Century -- subdued, but certainly present at least at a minimum level. I have attached my posting about Manly Hall's book which shows this knowledge at least at a bare, minimum level.

Formulating the entheogen theory of religion isn't a simple matter of discovering what was unknown or completely forgotten, but rather, of clarifying (more than ever was done for any audience) and publically communicating (more than ever) the perennial knowledge. Perennial knowledge is always known to some degree; it's a matter of degree, not simply yes or no, known or not known.

Thread: MAPS: Hofmann's Potion: LSD as PEACE Bomb

http://www.maps.org/forum/2003/msg00456.html

Some posts from that thread, followed by a post of mine:

-----Original Message-----

From: Mark Stahlman of Newmedia

Sent: October 11, 2003

To: maps-forum

Subject: Re: MAPS: Hofmann's Potion: LSD as PEACE Bomb

Rob:

I'm not the primary researcher on either of these topics -- it would be best for you to contact Stolaroff, Hofmann and/or people who have done their homework on these fellows to get the details.

Nonetheless, I agree that these are enormously important topics. To the extent the Hofmann -- and perhaps the Stolls -- were already "nature mystics" (as opposed to simple "lab-rat" chemists) when they first came in contact with psychedelics, it potentially changes the whole story.

Captain Al Hubbard had been seeing "angels" since he was a "bare-footed" little boy in Kentucky according to my conversations with Willis Harman and his final "conversion" to become the "Johnny Appleseed of LSD" supposedly came in a vision in a wooded clearing outside of Seattle -- before he was aware of the specifics of the psychedelic which had just appeared in Vancouver at Hollywood Hospital.

In the documentary, Albert Hofmann recounts something similar about an experience he had as a "child" while hiking in the Alps -- presumably also before he became a chemist or found out anything about psychedelics.

The use of hallucinogens -- certainly various mushrooms and probably also some ergot preparations -- by "artistic/phiosophical/mystic" circles in and around Basle (among other places) certainly predated any of the LSD lab work in the 20th century by a 100 years or more.

It is now fairly well established that Nietzsche was a heavy user of various drugs, some of them what we'd now call psychedelics. He began is career in Basle in the 1860's. Rudolf Steiner was Nietzche's "librarian" for a while so he would have probably known this and, more generally, the knowledge of the "religious" implications of the whole pharmacopeia was certainly widespread in Theosophical groups by the late 1800's. The "Cosmic Circle" around Ludwig Klages (in Munich and elsewhere like Ascona) were certainly well versed in the use of hallucinogens and their fascination with acting out Eleusis might imply some "experimentation" with ergot as well.

The idea that LSD-like chemicals came as a total surprise to those who were working at Sandoz in the 1930/40's seems more implausible to me than the recognition that there is a long history of interest in these matters which finally found its expression in synthetic organic chemisty in the 20th century.

So, to some extent, the research task might be to prove that those involved (i.e. Hofmann and the Stolls and others) were "ignorant" rather than the reverse.

...

Perhaps you've stumbled across the writings of Scott Thompson regarding the use of mescaline by Frankfurt School philosopher Walter Benjamin in the 1930's?

http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/2jcl/2JCL21.htm

As described by Thompson, Benjamin was to some extent following the trail blazed by Ludwig Klages and his early 20th century "Cosmic Circle" in Munich. It is believed by some researchers that Klages employed mescaline along with other psychoactives in his exploration of "the intoxication of cosmic experience" starting around 1900. The Klages "scene" extended to Zurich and Ascona and is well summarized in Martin Green's "Mountain of Truth: The Counterculture Begins, Ascona 1900-1920" as well as in Robert Norton's "Secret Germany."

To presume that this early "counterculture" didn't use synthetic mescaline and was unaware of psilocybe mushrooms and peyote seems pretty far fetched and the fact that scholars haven't dwelt on this aspect of what happened only implies that these matters were treated with some discreteness -- not the sweeping negative that you've been asserting.

Carl Jung has been described as a man who came to believe that he was the reincarnation of the Mithratic "deity" Aeon according to Richard Noll in his "The Aryan Christ." The controversy surrounded these claims didn't help Noll's career and I suspect that many who write on this period and its prominent figures are reluctant to bring drugs into their academic or even popular writings for fear that they may also be attacked.

To imagine that Jung wasn't quite familiar with mescaline and the psychedelic pharmacopeia seems far fetched. For whatever its worth, the man who perhaps most closely emulated Jung in the U.S. -- to the extent of recreating in the woods of Massachusetts the "Bollingen" stone tower in which Jung worked (and carried out his famous "affair") -- was the same guy who hired Tim Leary at Harvard . . . Harry Murray. He was also a top CIA personality profilers -- incidently Leary's speciality as well.

Freud not only famously used cocaine but he also hired Lou Salome -- the woman who came closest to becoming Nietzsche's "wife" -- as the governess for his children. The personal overlaps between Freud, Jung, Nietzsche, Steiner, Crowley, Klages and many others were numerous and extensive. It was a very small world.

By the late-1800/early-1900's there was both enough interest in the details of "cult" practices in antiquity, including attempts to reinact the "initiations" of Eleusis, Isis, Mithraism, etc., and in the use of plants by various "tribes" around the world that it would seem reasonable to presume that these matters were fairly widely known to those who were interested. Without introducing the topic of ongoing Western "traditions" that used natural psychedelics (in association with mystical religious practices, for instance), there are many reasons why "science" would have uncovered much of this long before Hofmann's discovery.

As the title of this thread indicates, the *mass* interest in psychedelics cannot be separated from the Cold War -- the widespread popularization of LSD, et al is a reflection of the fact that some people wanted to "use" psychedelics as a "peace bomb" in the 1950/60's. This was not the situation in the 1800's or early 1900's, which may be why you find it so difficult to imagine that the "private" use of psychedelics predates the synthesis of LSD and may indeed have been continuous throughout human history.

--Mark Stahlman

_________________________

Neal Goldsmith wrote:

>>I've particularly enjoyed learning about the pre-LSD history of psychedelic use, generally in the context of little-known groups carrying out their (often idiosyncratic) version of ancient practices.

>>The point for me is that, even if by only a few, there seems to be a thread of knowledge that was maintained from ancient times about the psychedelic properties of ergot. The fact that use by these groups and individuals were never in (not, "deleted" from) the public record makes sense when you think that the word "occult" means, "hidden," "obscured from view," "secret."

Rob wrote:

>>>This last question brings me back to the quote from Neal Goldsmith that Dan began with: "We are now obliged to explain why and how psychedelics research could have been completely divorced from the powerful, occult historical knowledge of ancient tribal and religious rituals using these substances."

>>>Before the discovery of LSD, and the surge of interest and research in psychedelics that followed in its wake, how much knowledge was there about "ancient tribal and religious rituals" using these substances? And in particular how much interest and knowledge was there about entheogens used in Europe? Is there really any divorce that needs to be explained or perhaps is it more likely that the future couple had not yet met?

Neal wrote:

>>I think the real question in reference to my post should be not "how much" knowledge was there, but rather, was "any" significant knowledge of these substances maintained continuously since pre-Christian, tribal times -- even if only by a few interested scholars, esoteric group members and assorted, ostracized heretics. Mark [Stahlman] and Dan [Merkur] have supplied some names and groups.

Rob wrote:

>>>My point here is that there doesn't appear to be any "occult connection" with psychedelics in Europe to "delete" from the public record because until the discovery of LSD there was not much knowledge or interest in psychedelics in Europe. Probably because there doesn't seem to have been widespread use or even distribution of any indole tryptamines, no phenethylamines and to my knowledge not even widespread use of Amanita in most of Europe. The tropanes yes but these are quite different from what Dr Hoffman and associates encountered.

Neal wrote:

>>Again, you say, "not much" knowledge or interest and that there wasn't "widespread use..." of course I would agree with you - but was there "any" continuous use among a few curious, brave, heretical counter-culturalists, mostly hidden from public record because of the hostile laws of state and religion?

>>I believe it to be similar to the way use of psilocybe receded, but did not disappear in Mexico over the last 500 years, with unsubstantiated whispers in academic and adventurer circles of continued, hidden mushroom ceremonies, which were not substantiated in the west until the years around WW II by Heim, Wasson, etc. We've all heard of the folk-lore "record" of the magical properties of amanita in Europe and of the repressed herbalists there who similarly the "hexing herbs" in secret from the Christian "witch" hunters. I'm not sure why it is so hard to accept that inquiries by scholars, clerics "on the edge," and certain relatively quiet, esoteric groups might have maintained or rediscovered knowledge of the use of ergot, as Mark and Dan describe.

_________________________

Frederick Bois-Mariage wrote:

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003

>To my opinion, peyote is the best case to understand how "psychedelics" have been acculturated in the West. Before working on ayahuasca, I did a good deal of scholar research on the anthropological, psychological, psychiatric, and parmacological literatures on peyote and mescaline, from 1886 up to present day.

>The process is exemplary: take the plant, discard or ignore as soon and as much as possible the field studies in social sciences reporting the traditional knowledge attached to it (superstitions, isn't?) while transferring the production of academically and politically valuable information to lab sciences (biomedical, psychological), isolate and purify an "active agent", and treat it as a brand new cultural/scientific object.

_________________________

-----Original Message-----

From: Michael Hoffman

Sent: August 26, 2003

To: egodeath

Subject: Re: Graves-Wasson enth theory 1960, Hall 1925,

S. 1845

dc wrote:

>Manly Hall was quite a intersting fellow. I used to visit him in the 1970's at his office and discussed Buddhism and Psychedelics with him. His office looked like a museum, with all kinds of world-wide artifacts all over the place. He was fairly influential with the theosophist people, so fairly Blavatskyeque. He had a very open mind.

Michael wrote:

>The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy

>Manly Hall

>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/089314830X

>1928

>Near page 112 states succinctly that the mystery religions centrally used drugs to induce a visionary state. He cites S's book in 1845 as stating this.

Here is the official page about this book, telling about the various formats.

http://www.prs.org/secret.htm

It shows the table of contents entry, reading:

Hermetic Pharmacology, Chemistry, and Therapeutics -- ... The use of drugs in the Mysteries

Amazon has sample pages.

Entheogenic conference presentation on ego death could be shocking

If I presented at an entheogen conference I'd put forth my most intense, distinctive ideas: ego death, determinism, no Jesus & crew, self-control seizure, prayer for transcendent rescue, futility of personal self-control agency, rejection of idea of Catholic suppression of entheogens in the middle ages, removal of the years 500-1000, denial of the legitimacy (efficacy/historical credentials) of meditation -- alarming people by incorporating all entheogen research & positions, but then turning it to these purposes that would jar and shock the would-be "radical" entheogen community.

One interesting approach is a presentation "Pros and Cons of Ego Death". First, you have to sacrifice your firstborn child and deny that Jesus died on the cross. In return, you get to be a metaphysical slave and helpless puppet rescued by an impossible miracle. Good news: In the Gospel of John, turning water into wine, water of divine life flowing from the belly, means drinking mushroom urine. By the way, all this leads to the conclusion that Jesus is heroin. Thank you and good night.

Emphasizing primacy of visionary plants in religion

>>>>http://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/traditions.html

>>>>The Mystical Core of the Great Traditions

>>>>Six great religions have shaped the major civilizations that exist today:

>>>>the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and

>>>>the three Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism/Confucianism). These religions

Michael wrote:

>>>…all have visionary plants at their core as the activating wellspring. The title should be "The Entheogenic Core of the Great Traditions" and the diagram should show a plant such as psilocybin in the middle.

>>>Visionary plants are the common core of religions

>>That's probably true (is that the case for Taoism or Confucianism? Not sure.

This requires a little more research -- about 5 minutes worth. It is routine to identify yet another visionary plant at the core and origin of yet another religion. I have an altar artwork based around a 10" image of Kwan Yin holding a drinking vessel and riding a dragon on a turbulent sea:

http://www.heartlandsangha.org/graphics/KwanYin.gif

>>I wish they hadn't conflated the two as Taoism/Confucianism, btw, as they are hardly the same. One might as well say "Taoism/Confucianism/Buddhism/Hinduism".

There is some justification for the construct "Taoism/Confucianism"; the article author would have no trouble defending it. To group them isn't to claim they are the same thing; it is a claim that they are characteristically and typically found together. Almost like the construct "Greco-Roman religions", or the debated construct "Gnosticism".

>>However, even though they all might have visionary plants at their core, it is but one aspect of the mystical which is common to all of them. The map is not the territory. But this might be worth adding as one of their common traits.

I used to take that stance, but after investigating the extent of visionary plants in religions, I now consider visionary plants to deserve basically full credit as by far the main trigger, entryway, door, or passageway into the world of mystic experiencing. The entryway is not the building, yet today's description of the interior is highly distorted due to misconceiving and failing to recognize the doorway as primarily entheogenic.

Although entheogens may be merely one of 12 ways to trigger the mystic altered state, that grossly understates their relative role and degree of efficacy. In 1988 I put all emphasis on the mystic altered state and didn't plan to put much emphasis at all on the visionary plant entryway to that state.

But after looking at the wretched state of mysticism and the worthless pile of pseudo-spirituality magazines that reduce mysticism to lifestyle, even to the point of denying the relevance of the mystic altered state, it is time to emphasize the primacy of visionary plants as the historical and effective and egalitarian enabler of access to the mystic realm.

This discovered need for central focus on psychotomimetics amounts to a sort of political-mystical revolution that is needed. Not a socio- political revolution, but a revolution regarding the politics of access to the mystical realm. Today's pop American Buddhist magazines are politically incorrect, from the point of view of the activated mystic in the magic garden. These magazines are in effect actively blocking the way to the mystic realm.

It *sounds* reasonable to say that "the mystic results are what matters, not the trigger, and there are many triggers other than visionary plants." However, in truth, the trigger is of tremendous importance -- without it, the result is today's glut of fake and phony substitute cargo-cult spirituality that lacks any actual mystic- state experiencing.

We've ended up like frogs in increasingly heated water: we got used to modern Catholicism without any real religious experiencing, then we got used to modern Protestantism without any real religious experiencing, and now we've gotten used to modern pop American Buddhism without any real religious experiencing, yet we've convinced ourselves that since this ersatz and denatured Buddhism is different than our previous ersatz and denatured Christianity, this Buddhism must therefore be genuine religion -- but it is not.

What is missing? Actual mystic experiencing. What is the only practical and egalitarian effective method of inducing and accessing the mystic state? Visionary plants. Without visionary plants, it is guaranteed and inevitable that the world become filled with a glut of bunk, inert, deactivated low-grade religion, as it is. So I repudiate my former feeling that visionary plants as a trigger is of no great import. It is of tremendous and central import.

Are other methods also of import, because they can on occasion trigger mystic experiencing? No; it's not a simple matter of whether or not something can work; it's a matter of distribution curves and degree of efficacy, of proportion and of ergonomics. In terms of distribution curves of efficacy and in terms of ergonomics, there is no comparison between visionary plants and other methods of accessing the mystic altered state: other methods are relatively insignificant in efficacy.

Furthermore, studying religious history, the visionary plants turn out to have a more central role than the seemingly reasonable view which emphasizes that meditation can occasionally induce some mystic state.

Entheogens are more effective, more central, more of a source, more ergonomic, more egalitarian, and in terms of the politics of experiencing, are more politically correct than other methods such as breath manipulation, meditation, and spontaneous mystic experiences.

We have every reason to amplify and highlight visionary plants in religion, and every reason to de-emphasize alternate approaches, which -- as has been falsely said of entheogens -- merely provide a haphazard glimpse of the mystic realm, and must lead on to the main door, the main method: eating the flesh of the deity.

Michael wrote:

>>>>Visionary plants are the common core of religions

JT wrote:

>>>That's probably true (is that the case for Taoism or Confucianism?

Michael wrote:

>Not sure.

>This requires a little more research -- about 5 minutes worth. It is routine to identify yet another visionary plant at the core and origin of yet another religion. I have an altar artwork based around

a 10" image of Kwan Yin holding a drinking vessel and riding a dragon on a turbulent sea:

>http://www.heartlandsangha.org/graphics/KwanYin.gif

JT wrote:

>>>I seem to remember this. Sorry for not taking five minutes. My interest in Taoism isn't so much connected to that history. I am a Taoist and have experienced mystical states through many means. Am I there, yet?

>>>I wish they hadn't conflated the two as Taoism/Confucianism, btw, as they are hardly the same. One might as well say "Taoism/Confucianism/Buddhism/Hinduism".

Michael wrote:

>>There is some justification for the construct "Taoism/Confucianism"; the article author would have no trouble defending it. To group them isn't to claim they are the same thing; it is a claim that they are characteristically and typically found together. Almost like the construct "Greco-Roman religions", or the debated construct "Gnosticism".

JT wrote:

>Well, sure, but then it might also be valid to say Judeo-Christian instead of separating them, or include Islam as well and just say JHVH or Elohim, or as they put it Abraham(ic). My question arose as the distinction was made with the religions inspired by Judaic roots, but not with the branches of Tao-Confucius.

>http://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/traditions.html

JT wrote:

>>>However, even though they all might have visionary plants at their core, it is but one aspect of the mystical which is common to all of them. The map is not the territory. But this might be worth adding as one of their common traits.

Michael wrote:

>>I used to take that stance, but after investigating the extent of visionary plants in religions, I now consider visionary plants to deserve basically full credit as by far the main trigger, entryway,

door, or passageway into the world of mystic experiencing. The entryway is not the building, yet today's description of the interior is highly distorted due to misconceiving and failing to recognize the doorway as primarily entheogenic.

>>Although entheogens may be merely one of 12 ways to trigger the mystic altered state

JT wrote:

>This is not exactly what I meant ... more later ...

>>that grossly understates their relative role and degree of efficacy. In 1988 I put all emphasis on the mystic altered state and didn't plan to put much emphasis at all on the visionary plant entryway to that state.

>>But after looking at the wretched state of mysticism and the worthless pile of pseudo-spirituality magazines that reduce mysticism to lifestyle, even to the point of denying the relevance of the mystic altered state, it is time to emphasize the primacy of visionary plants as the historical and effective and egalitarian enabler of access to the mystic realm.

JT wrote:

>But without a proper context, the experience is often mistaken for something else, or can appear to be quite the opposite of mystic. It can be a mystical portal to a sort of hell, which is, indeed, mystical and sometimes necessary, but not for the inexperienced or unprepared.

That point is true -- visionary plants can induce a variety of effects -- but doesn't change or disagree with what I wrote. My first inclination is to label the entire range of effects "phenomena of the mystic realm", rather than plucking out a selected few effects and labelling those 'mystic' while labelling the others 'not mystic'.

Michael wrote:

>>This discovered need for central focus on psychotomimetics amounts to a sort of political-mystical revolution that is needed. Not a socio- political revolution, but a revolution regarding the politics of access to the mystical realm. Today's pop American Buddhist magazines are politically incorrect, from the point of view of the activated mystic in the magic garden. These magazines are in effect actively blocking the way to the mystic realm.

JT wrote:

>Why did you limit yourself to what can be found at the crystal stores? Why not contact the Sufis, Bwiti, Rastas and other mystics in person?

Because I'm talking about mainstream spiritual practice when I dismiss the glossy meditation magazines as lacking essential experience and as needlessly deficient in efficacy.

Michael wrote:

>It *sounds* reasonable to say that "the mystic results are what matters, not the trigger, and there are many triggers other than visionary plants." However, in truth, the trigger is of tremendous importance -- without it, the result is today's glut of fake and phony substitute cargo-cult spirituality that lacks any actual mystic- state experiencing.

JT wrote:

>Who says you need [or one needs] their map?

Their map is culturally strongly dominant and has become in some ways the main problem for entheogen scholars and entheogen religionists. Censorship is also strongly involved in the dynamics of what is published. This is a critical analysis of the current predominant state of spiritual thinking, which falsely maintains that Buddhism as reflected in the popular magazines is superior to visionary-plant induced mysticism, when the truth is the exact opposite.

>>We've ended up like frogs in increasingly heated water: we got used to modern Catholicism without any real religious experiencing, then we got used to modern Protestantism without any real religious experiencing, and now we've gotten used to modern pop American Buddhism without any real religious experiencing, yet we've convinced ourselves that since this ersatz and denatured Buddhism is different than our previous ersatz and denatured Christianity, this Buddhism must therefore be genuine religion -- but it is not.

>>What is missing? Actual mystic experiencing. What is the only practical and egalitarian effective method of inducing and accessing the mystic state? Visionary plants. Without visionary plants, it is guaranteed and inevitable that the world become filled with a glut of bunk, inert, deactivated low-grade religion, as it is.

JT wrote:

>I can't say that this is absolutely true. But it is a point worth considering.

My exact position is subtle. I'm impressed with your manner of thinking -- unusually balanced, deliberative, and considered. So many writers online are so careless in their reasoning, thought process, communication, spelling, and everything, it's a wonder they bother posting at all. They're out to express attitudes and fight, not to actually think and weigh ideas and carefully fit them together and adjust them in the process.

I don't mean to frame you as just another representative of the spiritual Establishment, chronic entheogen diminishers -- you seem more in the camp of fence-sitters who elevate both entheogen and non-entheogen methods. My goal is to elevate the entheogen method and diminish non-entheogenic; the latter is extremely overrated.

I am losing patience with the sort of reasonableness that results in the status quo that's biased against visionary plants. As a rule, admitting any efficacy of meditation is an instant path back to the same old entrenched rubbish of chronically and persistently diminishing and underestimating the towering importance and primacy of entheogens.

I'm doubting that exact precision of stating my position is helpful. I would make more progress and bring more people closer to the truth by simplifying my position statement, saying that the long and short of it is "meditation doesn't work; entheogens do; meditation has no pedigree; entheogens are the only true mystic tradition".

Michael wrote:

>So I repudiate my former feeling that visionary plants as a trigger is of no great import. It is of tremendous and central import.

JT wrote:

>I never said it wasn't of tremendous and central import. My problem is that you seem to see it at times as the totality rather than as a part, or a doorway. It is perhaps the easiest doorway to open, but it is also then one of the most difficult paths to navigate, especially as the experiencer isn't always properly prepared.

That is entirely debatable, the meaning and assumed context behind the statement "entheogens are one of the most difficult paths to navigate". Entheogens can be used to any intensity one chooses -- you have control over the intensity. What is here labeled as "greater difficulty of navigation" depends on all sorts of unstated assumptions which are biased against the entheogen method. This potential of entheogens to induce difficult experiences can be spun as a proof of inferiority, or a proof of superiority; proof of inefficacy or of efficacy.

Debating the true efficacy of entheogen and non-entheogen methods of mysticism requires refereeing the discussion this way, because a whole set of hidden unconscious moves -- a battle of interpretive frameworks (established vs. alternative) -- is involved.

>>Are other methods also of import, because they can on occasion trigger mystic experiencing? No; it's not a simple matter of whether or not something can work; it's a matter of distribution curves and degree of efficacy, of proportion and of ergonomics. In terms of distribution curves of efficacy and in terms of ergonomics, there is no comparison between visionary plants and other methods of accessing the mystic altered state: other methods are relatively insignificant in efficacy.

>This is true, however those plants don't always inspire mystical states, or rather sometimes the experience isn't seen as mystical, or turns the experiencer away, running to the relative safety of dogmatic structure and hierarchy.

That is a true point, but it's presented as though it is in conflict with my stated position, though it is not in conflict. Beware of the discussion move of projecting a position (and really, a paradigmatic framework) onto the other participant, that is not actually held or asserted by the other participant.

I never stated that plants always induce what can be reasonably described as mystical states. To spell out my position -- I didn't say that all entheogen experiences always draw people toward further mystic exploration. My position is that within entheogenic experience, there is a very high incidence of mystic experience, whereas within meditation, there is a very low incidence of mystic experiencing, and this is the opposite assertion of the entheogen-diminishing meditation advocates.

Michael wrote:

>>Furthermore, studying religious history, the visionary plants turn out to have a more central role than the seemingly reasonable view which emphasizes that meditation can occasionally induce some mystic state.

>We're having a semantics problem. What I meant is not that it can be induced in other ways, but that the method (the map) - in itself - is not the territory.

>>Entheogens are more effective, more central, more of a source, more ergonomic, more egalitarian, and in terms of the politics of experiencing, are more politically correct

>What?

>>than other methods such as breath manipulation, meditation, and spontaneous mystic experiences.

>Well, the BBC is trumpeting [a hindu proven to live without food and water] while it practically ignores the Sufis, peyoteros and so forth.

>Politically correct? I'm not sure where you get that.

Entheogens are politically more fair; the primary and efficacy of meditation is a false dogma that oppresses and keeps most minds down. Thus entheogens are a more politically enlightened and fair and accessible and non-oppressive method than meditation. Drug-free meditation as a dogma serves to restrict and prevent people from accessing their birthright, as surely as sexual climax, the birthright to mystical climax.

>But I'm also not quite sure what you mean by the "politics of experiencing." Do you mean expedient rather than correct?

>If so, then perhaps the time and discipline of those other methods are necessary in order to fully appreciate the mystical state.

The entheogen path and method already has more than enough time and discipline to enable one to fully appreciate the mystical state. The entheogen path and method can be used fast if one wants, or slow if one wants; strong or weak as one wants. Name any attribute of meditation-induced meditation, and the entheogen-based approach can achieve the same, better.

The entheogen-based approach to mystic experiencing and enlightenment -- people habitually and unthinkingly always define it in a way that is biased against it, designed to compare unfavorably against meditation, so that they compare entheogens used in the least effective way conceivable, to meditation used in the most effective way conceivable.

The entheogen approach needs no "help" from methods that provide the "benefit" of working so little that it's not clear whether they work at all. It takes such backwards reasoning to try to portray the less effective as more effective than the really effective. These views totally depend on what biased framework one arbitrarily chooses to use as a colored lens.

>The Protestants didn't know what to make of ergot, and mistook its effects to the point of condemnation and damnation.

It is a separate discussion, the ins and outs of the true history of entheogens in Protestantism, and the various shifting configurations in that dance hall.

>We have every reason to amplify and highlight visionary plants in religion, and every reason to de-emphasize alternate approaches, which -- as has been falsely said of entheogens -- merely provide a haphazard glimpse of the mystic realm, and must lead on to the main door, the main method: eating the flesh of the deity.

Well, maybe, but if the intent isn't there, or isn't understood, then the experience will not necessarily mean this for the experiencer.

Ok, but it's not as though your point, your hypothetical conditional scenario, lessens my stated point and position.

Everyone always drags out all the negative scenarios they can think of for the entheogen method, but strives to adopt all the most idealistic conditions and scenarios for the favored method endorsed by today's spiritual Establishment, drug-free meditation and literally *any* other method besides hallucinogenic drugs.

Mention the entheogen method and everyone reaches for a long list of all the negative potentials -- yet the positive aspects remain: the bottom line is, today's dominant spiritual Establishment asserts the paradigm that meditation (contemplation) works and drugs pretty much don't, when the truth is plainly in the opposite direction, and only an elaborate overcomplicated interpretive framework prevents everyone from seeing the nakedness of the emperor.

Today's situation in religion is even weirder: a major foundation for the Establishment spirituality paradigm is the doctrine that "we can't understand how mystics manage to access the mystic state, or why meditation is such an ineffective path". Also de rigeur is the unreflective acceptance of this strange situation; "mystic experiencing is rare and difficult, that's just the way it is".

You also have to accept the politically oppressive and unfair notion that for no particular reason, some rare, rumored people are good at meditation -- it induces the mystic state in them -- but the vast majority of people are bad at meditation; they fail to have it induce the mystic state in them. And so we have had to then accept a bunch of redefinitions of "mystic", "enlightenment", and "religious experience", skeletal and malnourished redefinitions of these.

The mystic state is put on a remote, hard-to-reach pedestal, and all kinds of attitudes and reasons are invented to excuse this inability to deliver the goods in any reasonable timeframe and manner. The status quo cows everyone into lowering their expectations down to the ground. The spiritual Establishment has succeeded at making completely difficult that which is relatively easy -- mystical climax and full basic enlightenment. It's really not that big a deal as they portray it, given the right tool for the job.

>-----Original Message-----

>From: Michael Hoffman [mailto:mhoffman~at~egodeath.com]

>Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2003 12:04 AM

>To: egodeath~at~yahoogroups.com

>Subject: RE: [egodeath] Emphasizing primacy of visionary plants in

>religion

>Michael wrote:

>>>>>Visionary plants are the common core of religions

>JT wrote:

>>>>That's probably true (is that the case for Taoism or Confucianism?

>Michael wrote:

>>Not sure.

>>This requires a little more research -- about 5 minutes worth. It is routine to identify yet another visionary plant at the core and origin of yet another religion. I have an altar artwork based around a 10" image of Kwan Yin holding a drinking vessel and riding a dragon on a turbulent sea:

>http://www.heartlandsangha.org/graphics/KwanYin.gif

>JT wrote:

>>>>I seem to remember this. Sorry for not taking five minutes. My interest in Taoism isn't so much connected to that history. I am a Taoist and have experienced mystical states through many means. Am I there, yet?

If you've made peace with no-free-will.

Michael wrote:

>>>Visionary plants are the common core of religions

Panoptes wrote (paraphrased):

>>My 30 years of experiential research with various triggering techniques indicates that dissociative trance is a more probable basis than visionary plants for the common core of spiritual/mystical/religious experiencing.

I consider dissociative trance a result, synonymous with the mystic cognitive state, resulting from a technique or trigger. Triggers all trigger brain chemistry changes which then result in the resulting state of cognition. At a first order approximation, all triggers are functionally equivalent though not in degree of efficacy; and the resulting state is the same. In general, mystic methods trigger the mystic state.

You position 'dissociative trance' as a method, when I see it as a result of a method. Therefore I have no idea what you have in mind when you say that dissociative trance rather than visionary plants is the basis for religious experiencing. In my terms, dissociative trance *is* religious experiencing, and the question at issue is what method one uses to induce dissociative trance.

The spirituality Establishment asserts that meditation/contemplation is the main way to induce dissociative trance and visionary plants are the minor way, whereas I strongly maintain and insist that the truth goes the other way, that visionary plants is the main way to induce dissociative trance and drug-free meditation/contemplation is the minor way.

In what sense is dissociative trance a triggering technique for religious experience? What are we supposed to mentally picture when you say 'dissociative trance'? Are visionary plants a triggering technique that brings about the dissociative trance as a result? Is 'dissociative trance' a synonym for 'the intense mystic altered state of consciousness'?

Help psychedelicize this world-mysticism webpage

Could someone rework this graphic to put a visionary plant eg Amanita, psilocybin, in the middle? And alter the wording to be centered on visionary plants?

http://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/traditions.html

and

http://www.digiserve.com/mystic/ -- tells all these to-do steps for mysticism, lacking however any visionary plant *method* to *activate* the advised steps. Please alter and send me the resulting file. "Step 6: turn thoughts inward, so that you spiritually die and are reborn." Fine, but *how*, specificially? What is the *method* to "turn thoughts inward"?

Needed here is a list of how visionary plants are the wellspring at the core of each of "the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and the three Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism/Confucianism)".

Strong entheogenic influence on official theology & practice

>>Does 'Traditional' Intellectual activity include a strong component of transcendent intense *experiencing* -- if not, what makes their touted "Intellectual" activity really any

>different than mere modern "intellectual" activity, lower-cased?

>"modern intellectual activity" uses reason and evidence. "Traditional intellectual activity" as exemplified by Schuon and Co. uses ad hoc hypotheses, abuse and ostracism to enshrine his personal views as "Tradition." As for "intense experiencing," don't count on it. Certainly no drugs.

>To be fair, they are very much about the Prayer of the Heart, the repetition of "Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" over and over, until... something. Hence their interest in the Orthodox Church.

>I suppose this counts as "intense experience", but talk about a placebo! Isn't this really just exactly what you describe as substituting an inert sacrament for the Real Thing? Speaking of sham initiation ...

The official Eucharist is a completely inert sacrament. The Jesus prayer is a form of meditation/contemplation, which has 1% of the efficiency and ergonomics of using visionary plants. Some Orthodox practitioners have used visionary plants in any given era. Official religion is mostly parasitical upon visionary-plant mysticism, taking over the best of its fruits, officially suppressing them [the visionary plants], and posing the church professionals, rather than the visionary plants, as conduits for grace, regeneration, and salvation.

Official religion is blatantly, heavily entheogen-derived, and entheogen-styled, but with a psychologically inert placebo right where the entheogen is, or ought to be, or really is as far as the actual mystics practice it. There are effectively two churches or forms of practice that look identical in their stated theology and their practice, but have one difference: placebo vs. active sacrament.

Thus official Mystic Theology literally *is* based on entheogens and derives from entheogenic phenomena, both at the start and over the centuries -- but it won't officially admit that; officially, it claims that the wine is the true sacrament, and that the non-entheogenic use of the Jesus Prayer and contemplation is the true practice.

Like modern Western Buddhist meditation, the Jesus Prayer without the entheogen is an inert practice, or more precisely, a near-inert practice: so little effective, and so rarely effective, it is no threat to the profitable financial scam of priests (or gurus, or spiritual leaders) as conduits of grace.

"As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs." -- John Tetzel, professional spiritual leader

Perennial philosophy itself is based on entheogens

The Eucharist is the vulnerable Achilles' heel for the official Church. To reveal that the Eucharist is really visionary plants is to reveal that the dead-center and foundation of Christianity is visionary plants.

The perennial philosophy as a whole comes from visionary plants and is based on visionary plants, and is specifically the experiential insights that proceed from visionary plants, more strongly and classically and originally than proceeding from any other technique.

Religion and high philosophy and Western esotericism and world mysticism are based on the perennial philosophy. To reveal that the perennial philosophy is based on visionary plants and the experiential insights flowing from visionary plants, is to reveal that all religion, high philosophy, Western esotericism, and world mysticism is based on entheogens.

religion, high philosophy, Western esotericism, and world mysticism

based on

perennial philosophy (this basis is commonly known)

based on

visionary plants (this basis is to be revealed)

Christianity

based on

Eucharist (this basis is commonly known)

based on

visionary plants (this basis is to be revealed)

Given that the perennial philosophy is based on entheogens: insofar as a philosophy-religion school is based on the perennial philosophy, that school is based on visionary plants.

Perennial philosophy is to world mystic esotericism

Eucharist is to Christianity:

When perennial philosophy is revealed as based on visionary plants, world mystic esotericism is revealed as based on visionary plants (because per the scholars, the core of religion/wisdom traditions is the perennial philosophy).

When the Eucharist is revealed as based on visionary plants, Christianity is revealed as based on visionary plants (because per theologians, the core of Christian practice is the Eucharist).

This is a simple theory. The only dissatisfying aspect is, why are visionary plants so hidden? But are they really so hidden, or has scholarship been blind? If you can accept "on faith" that for some reason, visionary plants are largely hidden even though centrally present and important, then a completely simple and satisfying explanation of esoteric philosophy-religion-wisdom is possible, even easy. It's too early, in scholarly research, to reliably assess the degree to which visionary plants have been hidden.

Misrepresentations of my position on plants and enlightenment

Too many people oversimplify my position. They incorrectly say that I propose the following:

o "Meditation is purely a placebo."

o "Visionary plants are the only possible way to become enlightened."

o "Enlightenment results from taking visionary plants."

A more accurate summary of my position is:

o Meditation is only 1% as effective as visionary plants.

o Visionary plants are the only reasonably efficient, ergonomic way to become enlightened.

o Enlightenment results most effectively from a series of visionary plant sessions in conjunction with studying the perennial principles of transcendent knowledge.

Entheogens are definitely the main method by a mile, and meditation/contemplation is the "alternative", upstart method.

My position on meditation is simple and clear: entheogens came first, meditation was developed to assist entheogens, entheogens are a hundred times as ergonomic and effective and potent as meditation. Full enlightenment is most likely to come through entheogens, because they are reliably potent and available on tap.

A person can repeatedly do entheogen sessions as often as necessary and with as much intensity as desired, to accomplish the goal of transforming the mental worldmodel from the free-will/separate-self model to the no-free-will/no-separate-self model.

Recently, entheogen-diminishing meditation proponents have invented a new definition of enlightenment, falsely portraying it as the main and oldest definition, that involves a confusing and distorted position which amounts to asserting that intense mystic altered state experiencing causes delusion, while a kind of 'meditation' that does *not* involve intense mystic altered state experiencing, causes enlightenment -- enlightenment is redefined as being entirely concerned with elevating day-to-day life. The result of such a position is a new definition of mysticism which lacks the actual classic type of mystic altered state experiencing, a kind of mysticism that lacks the classic kind of mysticism.

Meditation without entheogens *can* and *does* produce the mystic altered state, but only rarely, and only in a few people. There is no need for more evidence here; the reports are in, and there have been many attempts to use meditation to cause the intense mystic altered state, because meditation is legal and favored by official religion and professional religious leaders.

After many attempts to use meditation to cause the mystic state, it is certain that the attempts rarely work, work only for a small percentage of people, usually work only after a great deal of effort, and produce usually weak results. In contrast, although in the modern era only a few trials have been run based on entheogens, it is certain that entheogens consistently have a very strong effect on practically everyone.

Therefore, it is certain that entheogens are far more effective at inducing the intense mystic altered state than meditation. No one can seriously deny that conclusion; they know they would convince no one, any more than saying that the moon is brighter than the sun and gives it its light. Everyone agrees and admits that entheogens are vastly more effective than meditation at inducing the intense mystic altered state in the typical, normal person.

The only possible strategic move for the religious leaders who want to diminish entheogens is to redefine the goal of meditation and the conception of enlightenment, in such a way that favors meditation and makes entheogens look bad: praise the very ineffectiveness of meditation, and ultimately, disparage the intense mystic altered state itself, and advocate some vague idea of spiritually elevating daily life, and become vague about what it means to experience nondual awareness.

My own model of transcendent knowledge is basically simple, but relating it to other models inherently introduces a degree of complexity.

My model is basically:

Taking visionary plants loosens cognitive associations, leading to experiential insights, causing the mental worldmodel to switch to a no-free-will/no-separate-self model.

All my additional verbiage is merely elaboration and clarification of that sentence, and relating that view to other models of transcendence. Even a point so earth-shattering as "allegorical-only Jesus", or "preexisting future, timelessly frozen block-universe determinism" is merely expansion to elaborate upon my 1-sentence theory of transcendent knowledge, enlightenment, and salvation.

Therefore I'm satisfied when intelligent people join the egodeath discussion group, demonstrate that they comprehend my 1-sentence theory, and its slight expansion in the Intro article, and then leave -- that is the minimal conceptual communication I vowed to achieve: formulate and communicate a clear, simple model of transcendent knowledge.

http://www.egodeath.com/intro.htm

Modern vs. premodern 'enlightenment', max entheogen theory

>From: merker2002

>The "Dark Ages" are our times. The supposed "Dark Ages" didn't happen 500 years ago but are found in the 20th century. Clerics roughly knew how things would be happening , so they anticipated the "Dark Ages" in a way as to make believe they already happened and are no threat anymore.

>Never was man more a slave to his own viciousness than today. Our supposedly "enlightened" age is exactly the opposite of what it claims to be.

>The typical ego-mind of today is so full of corruption as it never has been in history as of yet. It's quasi forbidden to speak the truth about Entheogens and related areas in a country which claims to be the "land of the free".

When and why did premodern entheogenic rich and colorful enlightenment/initiation/esotericism, relatively popular, give way to the modern "Enlightenment" which is sociopolitical emancipation calling itself "enlightenment" while discarding not only the evils of premodern culture, but discarding entheogenic enlightenment as well?

So often the modern science era, 1700s-1800s, is characterized as "mechanically deterministic", while looking to Quantum Physics as our savior from determinism, the way to transcend determinism through mathematical cosmological speculative mysteries. The dance continues to center around determinism, from Greco-Roman classical antiquity, through medieval Renaissance esotericism, through the early modern and late modern era: one giant debate and dance secretly centered around determinism and entheogens.

Perhaps suppressing entheogens is secretly an attempt at suppressing determinism or elevating ourselves into the divine transcendent realm outside the clutches of determinism. When did popular entheogenic enlightenment (which is about timeless determinism) give way to modern sociopolitical 'enlightenment' which has, more than a secret sexual obsession, a secret determinism and entheogen obsession?

Modern philosophy is framed all around the irrelevant little topic of epistemology, but secretly it is really centered around the big topic of determinism and lusts for entheogens: the key central taboo is not sex but entheogen determinism.

The concept of 'enlightenment' was redefined away from centering on entheogen determinism and transcendence specifically over determinism, to an 'enlightenment' about the modern philosophy topic of epistemology intertwined with sociopolitical emancipation. The modern mind threw away religion and its entheogen-determinism 'enlightenment' in the name of epistemological enlightenment centered on sociopolitical 'enlightenment'.

Perhaps the modern mind has greater sociopolitical enlightenment, but less metaphysical and experiential enlightenment, and maybe in some ways more epistemological 'enlightenment', but so much less of that too -- it is absurd for anyone to call themselves a philosopher and discuss epistemology, when these people, generally noninitiates, don't even know that the intense mystic altered state is the perennial wellspring and fountainhead of philosophical speculation about epistemology.

What really happened between the fall of Rome and the Reformation? We can be certain the official history is a tall tale, even if we have no detailed sure theory of what did in fact transpire in history between those events and time periods. Just as we can be sure that today's post-1960s Establishment accommodation theory of entheogens is a tall tale, far from the truth.

How far is the distance between the Establishment Academic theory that only a couple ancient deviants used entheogens to simulate the mysterious traditional methods, and the maximal entheogen theory that entheogens have ever been by far the main traditional method, enabling a routinely repeatable initiation series producing enlightenment and maturity that is every man's due?

Thomas Roberts talks of "democratization" of religious experiencing through entheogens, as though it would be a historical first, thereby propping up the highly distorted, false history of religion and culture: in fact, he ought to be talking of the *re*-democratization of religious experiencing -- and it is a long way from the paradigm (false history) that talks about "democratization" of religious experiencing to the true historical paradigm that talks of the *redemocratization* of religious experiencing.

We must combine the best of premodern entheogenic repeatable and democratic entheogenic 'enlightenment' with the best of modern (semi-)epistemological, socio-political-cultural 'Enlightenment', and combine the premodern democratization of metaphysical enlightenment through entheogens, with socio-political-cultural modern democracy. The post-1960s Establishment official acceptable theory of the history of entheogens in religion is highly distorted, a whitewash that basically all academic entheogen scholars are constrained to adhere to.

Against them, a few non-Establishment scholars adhere now to the new, truer theory, the maximal entheogen theory of religion, which is in many ways the opposite of the official establishment-condoned model and story.

The Establishment scholars of the role of entheogens in religion are constrained; they have to be careful to stay down in their place and not rock the boat too much, just titillate a little without seriously risking changing the paradigm; most books posing as "radical alternatives" to the Establishment position on entheogens are no such thing: they prevent genuine alternatives -- that is, the truth, democratic ergonomic access to direct religious experiencing -- while *posing* falsely as an alternative.

I never thought I'd have to end up arguing against the entheogen scholars, accusing them of being sellouts, pushovers, and complete compromisers of the truth. They move at glacial speeds and I must have the truth immediately -- if not right now, then when?

In some ways, I stand with the likes of John Allegro, against the liberal, infernally slow, compromisers who would propose a mushroom-using inner circle led by Mr. Jesus -- what regressive tommyrot and poppycock, balderdash and horse feathers, a colossal category error amounting to a completely off-base paradigm and interpretive framework from the very start.

The inventors of Christianity may have had reason to form quasi-historical, quasi-literalist conception of Jesus, but not an ultra-literalist, ordinary-state version of Jesus, baffled by the mystery of how the first Christians, with the Mystery Cults, clearly had the intense mystic state routinely and *repeatably* on tap.

I have this same impatience with drug policy reformers: they misframe what they are up against, and delude themselves that the enemy suffers from ignorance, when the real, actual problem to be battled is evil, profit, racism, and power-mongering -- short of that, they are shadow-boxing, putting on a big show that is just a compromise.

The lame excuse that passes for drug policy reform activism walks hand in hand with the lame excuse that passes for entheogen scholarship and the lame excuse that passes for theory and history of mysticism. The lame Establishment-aligned, minimal entheogen theory props itself up on the meditation theory of mysticism, which is completely contradicted by the routinization of initiation experiences in the Mystery Cults, which obviously could be (it's taboo to say) repeated in this era of supposed "modern brains" just as well.

It's easy to separate the academic compromisers and sellouts, the tepid and unserious entheogen scholars, from the true and therefore radical entheogen scholars who adhere to the maximal entheogen theory of religion and of esotericism and of the perennial philosophy.

James Arthur, John Allegro, Jonathan Ott, and Clark Heinrich all supply contributions toward the anti-Establishment maximal entheogen theory, as against the paradigm promoted by the Establishment-compromising, minimal entheogen scholars who are devoted to putting together a theory and historical story that is small and incidental enough to be acceptable to the established paradigm, not rocking that boat in which so many have invested.

It's a systemic conspiracy: today's horrible and evil prohibition-for-profit is, de facto, in league and in bed with the meditation theory of mystic religion, which is in league with the minimal entheogen theory of religion: they all are invested in propping up the received paradigm, which is that mysterious and baffling and glorious meditation techniques are the traditional religious mysticism technique, while entheogens are a minor, deviant, nontraditional simulation of the authentic, traditional methods -- methods which don't rock any modern boats because they supposedly can't be understood by the modern mind.

Meditationists, Establishment-acceptable entheogen scholars, and prohibitionists-for-profit are all in the same bed together; they are all invested in the same overall story, that the use of entheogens in religious history is an incidental, minor footnote.

Some criticize such dwelling on entheogens, but there is every good, sound, solid reason to put the full, bright spotlight on entheogens: if entheogens are in fact by far the main perennial wellspring of the intense mystic altered state, religion, mysticism, perennial philosophy, and esotericism, then we should and must give this proportionate great attention to entheogens that they deserve. To deny that entheogens deserve full, heavy emphasis in religious history is to promote a false paradigm, a bogus and essentially, grossly distorted story of religious history.

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