Compare: I was satisfied & recomm Louis Sass’ books (read in hardcover when published):
Madness and Modernism
The Paradoxes of Delusion
The pastor seems to recomm the Acute book.
I almost recommended that that pastor should read Paradoxes of Delusion, but it was too short of a hot conversation; there was a high bar for which topics to mention.
“This paper critiques the use of the term “mysticism” in psychedelic research, arguing its continued use is outdated and misleading.
“It highlights the confusion stemming from the historical context of “mysticism,” particularly through the works of Walter Stace and Walter Pahnke, whose ideas have shaped the psychedelic discourse despite being flawed and largely unexamined.
“The paper is divided into two parts:
“the first is an archaeology that re-evaluates these foundational texts that misled psychedelic discourse;
“the second is a genealogy that traces how the concept of “mysticism”, with its religious roots, became attached to “psychedelics” and became normalised in second generation psychedelic research.
“It advocates for rebranding the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) to the Psychedelic Experience Questionnaire (PEQ),
“emphasising that this change accords nicely with the idea of Psychedelic Experience which Walter Pahnke developed in his later research, as a five-part typology, and
“liberates the instrument from the hangover of a dubious legacy in which
“the correlation between therapeutic outcomes and mystical experiences invites psychedelic experiences to be shoehorned into a very particular and peculiar quasi-religious construct.”
Outline
The mystic trip: how psychedelic research fell for mysticism
Abstract
Introduction
Part 1 – the origins of psychedelic mysticism
From “primitive” practice to mystical method
Mystical experience as a state of consciousness
The principle of causal indifference
The phenomenology of mystical characteristics and the common core of mysticism
Incompatible contexts
Mystical … Compared to What?
A Pass/Fail Course in Mysticism
Part 2 – the genealogy of the mystical mythology
no headings, many pages 👎
Conclusion
Declarations
References
heading
Finished reading the article and posting reaction critiques. Next, org. the page. The mobile wordpress editor app (Jetpack) chokes on “long” files, so, entered some notes at top of page.
0 hits on Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ)
p13 mentions that Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) ~= the Oceanic dim of OAV (or as they trendily and greedily name it, the “5D-ASC”)
but Fails to mention that the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) ~= OAV’s A/ Angst/ Dread dim (though never mind that CEQ omits 18 of the 21 effects constituting the A dim).
Dittrich’s 5D-ASC is a later, junked-up questionnaire made unclear by starting w Dittrich’s pretty good OAV 3 dims (Oceanic Boundlessness, Angst of/ Dread of Ego Dissolution, Visionary Restructuralization) & then adding two stupid, irrelevant dims (Dittrich lost the plot).
Dittrich’s misconceived, mislabeled Angst dim: Ditt says dread OF “ego dissolution” – a bad, false theory, as if all mystical experience is about Unitive, and neg effects are about negative Unitive, code-named as “ego dissolution”.
What Exactly and Specifically Is “Pahnke’s original questionnaire”?
Pahnke specifies Appendix C, but that ony lists 129 (130) items of Pahnke’s promised 147 items, from 1962/1963. Missing 17 items.
Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) 43, from 1969 article.
In two articles, Sharday Mosurinjohn perpetuates this contradiction, and needs to clarify.
Read the article cited on p 11 top R: “Pahnke 1969; Richards 1975”, ie:
Pahnke W (1969) Psychedelic drugs and mystical experience. Int Psy- chiatry Clin 5(4): 149-162
Richards W A (1975) Counseling, peak experiences and the human encounter with death: An empirical study of the efficacy of DPT-assisted counseling in enhancing the quality of life of persons with terminal cancer and their closest family members. PhD Thesis, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC
Sharday Mosurinjohn self-contradicts: “in 1962, Pahnke administered a 147-item [Apx C?] questionnaire” — yet then says, “the orig version of Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) had 43 items”
wtf are u talking about: exact quote:
MacLean et al. picked up and developed Pahnke’s original questionnaire, whittling it down from 43 to 30 items.
Utter nonsense! Sharday Mosurinjohn (in at least two articles) writes of Pahnke’s 1962 “147-item” questionnaire, which begat his later meq43, yet she refers to the latter as “Panhke’s orig questionnaire”. Nonsense & direct self-contradiction.
the dissertation says twice “147-item … See Appendix C”, but, C only lists items through 129, including a 70a, making 130 – not 147 – items.
Nonsense self-contradiction from Pahnke.
Nonsense self-contradiction from Mosur.
SLOPPY WRITING/ANALYSIS.
SOCQ ~= 1962 147 item questionnaire;
SOCQ is a 100-item dirtying (superset) of the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) by adding junk distractor items
the SOCQ is not intended to be broad like OAV 1994 (Oceanic Boundlessness, Angst of/ Dread of Ego Dissolution, Visionary Restructuralization) psychedelic psychometrics effects questionnaire by Adolph Dittrich ; SOCQ is intended to be strictly mystical experience, plus meaningless junk distractor items.
problem in Dissert: “147 items” are which?
none of the Pahnke 1962/1963 questionnaires have 147 items!
jesus, if we cant even do 1st grader math/ counting, we got psychedelic pseudo science.
see Pahnke:
Appendix C: POST-DRUG QUESTIONNAIRE WITH SIGNIFICANCE LEVELS OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SCORES OF EXPERIMENTALS AND CONTROLS3
Dittrich’s APZ / OAV/ 5D-ASC family of questionnaires, peaked in 1994, then fell into dilution; lost the plot; wrecked in final form: 11-Factors
11-Factors Silently Has 15 factors or dims
Pleasant Experiences – hi lev dim = Ocean dim + Vision dim
Unpleasant Experiences – hi lev dim = Angst dim
Virtual Factor 12: Ocean/Vision effects that are not placed within any of Studerus’ lower level “factor” categs
Shadow Factor 13, hides away from Grifty, oav’s Item 54: “I was afraid to lose my self-control.”
India Advaita
cites article: Jeffrey Breau JA, Gillis-Smith P (2023) Psychometric brahman, psychedelic science: Walter Stace, transnational Vedanta, and the Mystical Experience Questionnaire
1 hit on vedan.
every time she mentions Indian religion, she always uses a different term, thus making it impossible to do a find on Indian advaita religion.
The Unitive (nondual unity oneness) model of common-core mysticism & perennialism, vs. the “eternalism-driven control-transformation” model
gather heading w the content about this
move items up to a previous heading:
APZ – 1975, questionnaire family’s orig psychedelic psychometrics effects questionnaire by Adolph Dittrich, became
OAV (good) became
5D-ASC (bad, greedy, dilutes w 2 irrel dims) became
11-Factors by Studerus (starts introducing serious confusion by removing items from the new lower level Factors, yet the effects items still covertly remain/ hide in the top-level Dimensions, which collapse OAV’s Ocean & Visual dims together as “Pleasant Experiences”, and frames Angst as “Unpleasant Experiences”), begat
CEQ (disastrously bad).
Pahnke meqv1 147 items or 130 items?
apx c has 1 extra item beyond 129 items: 72a
twice Panke diss says “147-item”, but his Apx C only lists 129 (130) items.
“Within a week all subjects had completed a 147-item questionnaire which had been designed to measure phenomena of the typology of mysticism on a qualitative, numerical scale.”
“During the two-hour post-session interview, a 147-item questionnaire7 was completed by each participant in about 30 minutes before any discussion. Certain items were based on the categories of the typology of mystical experience. Other items measured physical symptoms or unpleasant reactions such as fear, terror, anxiety, loneliness, depression, or hatred. The person was asked to evaluate the degree to which he experienced each item on a scale from 0-4:”
7 – “See appendix C for a sample of this post-drug questionnaire.” But (Sharday Mosurinjohn fails to point out), apx c only has 129 (130) items, NOT 147 items, as Pahnke twice claims. apx c is missing 17 items.
These basic counts reveal the absolute vagueness within the heart of the mech tech questionnaire instruments in psychedelic pseudo science.
correction: 1 hit on ‘challenging’, p. 15
The MEQ would become the PEQ (Psychedelic Experience Questionnaire, 30, 40 [sic, 43?], or 100), open to measure a wider range of outcomes, including the challenging ones.
SHOW ME THE CONCRETE ACTUAL questionnaire, and the item-counts.
Misconceptualizing nondual unity oneness to suppress its core: the intense problematization of personal control power
the intense problematization of personal control power
Strategically, in terms of effective strategy to develop this ego death theory of psychedelic eternalism, I sense that this is rather a major breakthrough for me today
it’s a really clever repositioning
instead of saying that my theory of non-control is opposed to the common core mysticism conception that everyone else holds ,
rather, I position my theory (the intense problematization of personal control power during nondual unity oneness) as the hidden center of their model, which they do not understand and comprehend, but suppress and gloss over.
the concept of nondual unity oneness is way oversold. A false center of emphasis. selected by pop wallet
My ultimate-scare tactic can be a milestone: what if the core of common-core mysticism and perennialism nondual unity oneness is the intense problematization of personal control power?
This towering, milestone question, a mature profound question.
What if the result of understanding control instability is control instability?
Correct Transcendent Knowledge as the CAUSE of the intense problematization of personal control power. — instead of (our natural inclination/ assump) bring thr solution.
nondual unity oneness is a diversion, not pointing in correct direction
the best revelation, the ultimate mystical experience, is not nondual unity oneness, but rather, instead, the intense problematization of personal control power. the focus on nondual unity oneness does NOT point in right direction; it is other than the intense problematization of personal control power, therefore nondual unity oneness is a false identification of the common-core experience of mysticism
the nondual unity oneness pseudo-explanation is a substitute answer; a false focus. safer than the true focus of revelatory experiencing.
Sequential Solution to Relating: newbie: nondual unity oneness, then advanced: the intense problematization of personal control power
if thats the case:
first, the newbie has initial beginner experience of nondual unity oneness , and during/ at that time —
because theyre a beginner (just like every single author who writes on this topic is a beginner),
because they are a beginner, they mistake this initial newbie experience as if it is the ultimate common definitive experience,
but this experience (nondual unity oneness) is merely definitive of beginner mystical experience , not of “complete” ie advanced mystical experience — pursuit of correct understanding of the intense problematization of personal control power , which (it is perversely(?) interesting to consider), is the cause of control instability. not the solution to that problem
The unavoidable inherent ultimate problem is the transformative revelation
you are transformed through discovering that the effort to produce control stability through accurate understanding, is in fact the cause of control instability.
that pessimistic possibility that understanding produces the opposite of stability is credible/ authentic/ valid insofar as it is a terror-inducing idea at the center of thinking about the control problem
when the mind’s personal control system is struggling with control instability, then finds the idea that:
correct accurate understanding of personal control power is the cause of instability, rather than the solution to get rid of instability. (!!)
that idea can instill a loop of terror, which shows that the idea is “true”, in the sense that it is a definitively potent idea
“true”, in the sense of, being what it should be
this terrifying idea has a certain credibility/ authority, by virtue of its causing a panic buildup circularity.
more revelation & correction of the mental model of control = more “Lord Have Mercy!”, for the personal individual experiential POV
this captivating premise is the effective opposite and killer of or preventer of personal hubris instead of my bragging only to be shot down, struck down by lightning suppose I reason that I reason that I have stable control because I have an accurate model of personal control but in contrast bring in the intriguing captivating premise hook suppose that more understanding or pure understanding produces unstable control and is the cause of unstable control in that case bragging about my achieved stable control amounts to bragging about my ignorance.
The more that I understand personal control the more that this produces instability
if so, one could not brag in such manner.
Claiming to have achieved
claiming with hubris,
the hubris claim is that I have achieved and secured stable control through accurate understanding
which could be true in some restricted sense
we should
we should hope that we can say that:
the advanced Mystic has achieved some kind of stable control
but emphasized there would have to be the idea that:
better understanding causes unstable rather than stable control
The dynamics of that negative premise are of central relevance
aside from the question of whether it’s true or not
we end up debating:
what do you mean exactly, or not mean, by so-called “stable control”?
Suppose the mature, transformed mind:
has a thing we can describe as “stable control” and
that mind has accurate correct understanding of personal control system & the intense problematization of personal control power.
then also that mind has unstable comtrol
thus my useful term, control transformation 
before transformation, the immature mind has a certain type of stable control, and also a certain kind of unstable control
after transformation, the mature mind has a different certain type of stable control, and also a different certain kind of unstable control
do you end up with stable control or unstable control through accurate understanding and accurate observation and testing?
The mind ends up with both a specific kind of stable stability and a specific kind of instability.
Now the work becomes:
describe how control stability and ctrl instability is different prior to transformation, versus after transformation.
that’s quite different than the inarticulate, false binary, simplistic question:
Do you go from unstable control to stable control?
(thru correct understanding of ctrl & transcendent control thinking)
My mature, stable, secured, transcendent personal control totters on the wise sand of “Lord Have Mercy, i got nothin”
The basis of my confidence about control stability, is the full intense cognizance that there is no basis for securing that,
and I am inherently at the mercy of Creator/ creation/ the Block universe/ the pre-existing future/ psychedelic eternalism
Do you go from not having control, to having control?
(thru correct understanding of ctrl & transcendent control thinking)
Notes
Printer is working! & might record read-aloud in episode of Egodeath Mystery Show.
I read papers (McRae, especially) about 1893 Swami Vivekananda. The origins & formation of modern neo-advaita.
Conclusion: The situation is worst-case. Pop Western modern Buddhism is sculpted and filtered purely based on buyers’ wallets; sheer demand-driven fabrication.
1000 aspects are replaced selectively by 7 aspects, ignoring and misrepresenting.
Every time someone discusses mystical experience and instantly jumps to “oneness, unity”, this is a particular, arbitrary, pop paradigm pretending to be reality.
“pop” ~= the ordinary state pretending to speak for the intense mystic altered state; exoteric esotericism
the “nondual unity oneness” model of mystical experience
vs. the psychedelic revelation of levels of control and two POVs on personal control power.
Griffiths Repudiates “Mystical” questionnaire name
Grifty vid:
“I rather regret that we call this the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ)”
We have an entirely different questionnaire, something called the Challenging Experience Questionnaire. And we try to tap into that. We’ve been very interested in that feature. But I think psychometrically, it falls apart from at least what we’re describing as the classic mystical experience that’s positively balanced.
Roland Griffiths, video interview by Charles Stang, at Harvard website
The Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) is the most bunk questionnaire ever, so bad, it makes Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) look authentic.
Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) cannot be renamed Psychedelic E. Q., AS IF MEQ covers the full range of effects, as OAV’94 in fact does
1st major flaw spotted: authors act AS IF Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) is a general broad q’aire; but it never was so intended!
Adolph Dittrich 1975 provides a broad APZ AKA OAV 1994 (Oceanic Boundlessness, Angst of/ Dread of Ego Dissolution, Visionary Restructuralization) psychedelic psychometrics effects questionnaire aka 5D-ASC –
O = Ocean – positive exp’s
A = Angst – negative exp’s
V = Visionary – positive exp’s
I call Dittrich questionnaire family “OAV”, not the degraded, defocused “5D-ASC” that later added two junk dimensions that aren’t even psychedelic.
the Garbage result from building on the defocused 5D questionnaire is the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ):
See the development from OAV to 5D to 11-Factors (muddy the muddy waters) to the final wretched form, the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ).
Trashcan all that defocused confusion (which ended up simply ignoring 18 of the 21 Angst effects items), and go BACK to the peak questionnaire: OAV 1994 (Oceanic Boundlessness, Angst of/ Dread of Ego Dissolution, Visionary Restructuralization) psychedelic psychometrics effects questionnaire by Adolph Dittrich.
Sharday Mosurinjohn mis-proposes to merely tweak the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), to rebrand it as a general, PEQ. (Psychedelic).
The Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) has only HALF the scope as OAV 1994 (Oceanic Boundlessness, Angst of/ Dread of Ego Dissolution, Visionary Restructuralization) psychedelic psychometrics effects questionnaire by Adolph Dittrich.
At the very least, she’d need to ADD the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) + Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), b4 she could legitly title the result as a broad, “Psychedelic Experience Questionnaire”.
The Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) is WORTHLESS, a “positively balanced” list of negative effects; = the EMPTY SET!
Grifty can’t help but whitewash everything during Public Relations, even the neg effects.
OAV 1994 (Oceanic Boundlessness, Angst of/ Dread of Ego Dissolution, Visionary Restructuralization) psychedelic psychometrics effects questionnaire by Adolph Dittrich
Sharday Mosurinjohn would need to COMBINE [a repaired version of] the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) w the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) , to label the resulting, actually broad q’air as “Psychedelic Experience Questionnaire (PEQ)”.
she notes that the MEQ would need to be “reworded” and that the Factor categories would need to be revised – but that’s a massive understatement. 
a basic error in this article
Fails to Use superior, formatted copy of Pahkne, only knows of MAPS’ raw version
the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) and also the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) are BOTH(!) sanitized, to be, quoting Grifty defending himself to Stang, “positively balanced“.
blurb:
“This book engages the problem of how, in the 21st century, we are to speak about experiences of the extraordinary/anomalous/extreme which occur on a transhistorical and transcultural basis.
“Critical re-readings of seminal texts show how 20th-century theoreticians in the humanities sought to erase madness from their irrational subjects.
“This propensity to sanitize madness in the study of religions was mirrored by the instinct of psychiatrists to degrade religious experiences by reducing mad consciousness to psychosis or dissociation.
“Richard Saville-Smith introduces explanatory pluralism as a way of recognizing these disciplinary biases and mad studies as a way of negotiating this understanding.
“The disproportionate significance of madness in shaping the fabric of the human story can then be recovered from both erasure and dismissal to be given the recognition previously denied – as acute religious experiences.
“Acute Religious Experiences divides into three sections, beginning with re-readings of
William James’s pathological programme
Rudolf Otto’s numinous
T. K. Oesterreich’s possession
Mircea Eliade’s shamanism
Walter Stace’s mysticism
Walter Pahnke’s psychedelic experience
Abraham Maslow’s peak experiences
These ideas are shown to constitute the beginnings of a fractured discourse on the irrational.
[Louis Sass bks??]
“In part two, contemporary psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and Foucault’s History of Madness are re-read to reposition madness as not necessarily pathological.
“This opens the way for the identification of acute religious experiences as a new holistic and post-colonial approach through which religious data can be organized and addressed on a comparative basis.
“In part three, The Gospel of Mark is re-read as a case study to demonstrate the novel insights which flow from the identification of acute religious experiences.
“Richard Saville-Smith draws on his own experiences of madness and his PhD from the School of Divinity at The University of Edinburgh to elucidate his research.”
Deserved Disrespect of “Validated”
i’ve joked about this most-baloney term in the questionnaire articles, claiming to “VALIDATE” category factors of questionnaires. Utterly meaningless and bogus. What is “validated” supposed to mean?
the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) is utterly bunk and worthless, yet it’s been “validated”, therefore “validated” is worthless and meaningless;
we performed a math-dance on 💩, so, it’s been “validated”.
psychedelic pseudo science: fake it til u make it, emphasis on “fake”.
questionnaire industry fails 1st-grade math: “Pahnke’s orig 43 items” was 147 items
or a similar, inconsistent count.
Sharday Mosurinjohn is wrong to write “Pahnke’s original, 43 items.” Basic history error.
meq43 was a later, v2, not the 1962 v1, of the questionnaire.
How i debunked psychedelic pseudo science: simply by asking “how many Qs/ effects items are in this Factor category?
How many effects items are in this questionnaire and what are the items? Crickets!
Psychedelic pseudo science cannot answer the most basic, trivial questions.
The field is all smoke & mirrors from start to finish.
No textbook can summarize this “validated” pile of hooey.
My 💨 “validated” that I had beans for lunch.
Pay no Attention to TIM LEARY(!!) behind psychedelic pseudo science
Sharday Mosurinjohn & I both go against the strategy of “sweeping Leary under the carpet to try to make Pahnke seem legit”.
Pahnke IS Leary; the phd diss says, supervisor: TIM LEARY.
I proposed that credit for the truly “orig” MEQ147 (not the later, v2, MEQ43, per SM) goes to Leary, not Pahnke.
It is Timothy Leary’s Good Friday experiment; stop falsely spotlighting Pahnke.
good friday’s questionnaire technology is from Leary, not Panke, i suspect.
Leary’s been whitewashed out of the “mysticism science” narrative/ marketing.
Half-Truth of the Perennialism Concept
100% of authors define common-core mysticism and perennialism as, specifically, nondual unity oneness, as the most important focus.
They ought to instead focus on the intense problematization of personal control power.
The term or concept “mysticism” is not necessarily problematic.
What’s problematic is that 100% of authors identify mysticism as focusing on the particular, neo-Advaita model of mysticism, as nondual unity oneness, which is way oversold, overemphasized, very mis-focused.
Mysticism, and the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) rebranded as the Psychedelic Experience Questionnaire (PEQ), would need to integrate the scope of effects that’s supposed to be covered by the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ)
The Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) ~= OAV (Ocean/Angst/Vision) questionnaire’s A/ Angst/ Dread “of ego dissolution” dimension.
It is a bait and switch: they ask you first, “Is there something (unspecified) in common between different mystical experiences?”
The answer to that question so far as it goes is yes, but the bait and switch is that they then conflate that with a particular model of what is the specific common aspect they answer that incorrectly.
Everyone except for me falsely asserts that what effects there are in common, is nondual unity oneness; in fact, more central is: two different, specific experiential points of view; two different mental models: the Possibilism-branching mental model alongside the Eternalism mental model.
The result can be called Block-Universe Mysticism, as opposed to Quantum Mysticism aka freewill-branching mysticism.
The best, most shattering, actual perennialism specific content is a revelation of constraint on personal control power, given a single, preexisting future.
Not inarticulate hazy idyllic “nondual unity oneness”.
A sanitized, avoidance strategy.: Focus on nondual unity IN ORDER TO AVOID the real, signif revelation, the nullity of personal control power, from the transcendent point of view (POV).
A Balanced Critique: Lesser Theorists Can’t Handle Doing
crude, self-styled debunkers are only able to (playing in easy mode, intellectually lazy) say either:
“person X is all-correct” (eg “I agree w Sharday Mosurinjohn”) or else: “person X is all-wrong about everything, & contributes nothing”.
My ongoing review of the Mystic Trip article does the real, nuanced, scholarly work: identify the contributions & limitations of each author.
Proper critique; not limited to simple cheerleading & razzing.
“Western = no psychedelic spirituality; Indigenous = psychedelic spirituality”
Sharday Mosurinjohn has an extremist tendency, to assert this mere possibility as if fact, the supposition that Western religious history lacks classic psychedelics.
hypocr: she accuses Ruck of shifting wording from possy to fact. She is projecting.
The Medieval Warm Period (950-1250) was peak psilo use. Look at all of the pictures in Great Canterbury Psalter and the medieval art genre of {mushroom-trees}.
Do not skip over Day 4 of Creation panel like Ronald Huggins saying “the trees” w/o any justification or acknowledgment/ discussion.
They are literal mushroom shapes, w no branching (other than grid-cap encoded).
Sharday Mosurinjohn is not critical enough of the notion of indigenous “religious/ spiritual” use of psychedelics.
EXTREME human sacr & mayhem augmented w psychedelics, framed as “spiritual wisdom”. Indigenous Shams.
See two expose books: by Jan Irvin then thom hatsis: God’s Flesh. Psychedelic Injustice.
Same Mistake Jeffery Breau corrected: “Western Bias”, “colonialist”? No; a Neo-Advaita Bias of the Unitive Mysticism Model
A cheap dump of pop junk analysis accusations: turn off brain, parrot pop tropes:
No Page Numbers
pdf: 18 pages, i wrote # on each page.
No Expose of Neo Advaita per Breau & McRae
The article has mentions of Indian religion scattered throughout, always using a different word every time, and not gathering in a section, a focused analysis of the junk roots of neo-Advaita, selected & filtered (thus, constructed) purely by what sells to the pop audience since 1893.
Does the article say advaita? 1x: Advaitic:
“Stace’s “dispassionate” analysis was conducted from a highly specific cul- tural location – colonial administrator, Advaitic source pipeline, pre-committed perennialist – none of which his method acknowledges or accounts for.”
colonial administrator
Advaitic source pipeline
pre-committed perennialist
Half Truth of common-core mysticism & perennialism
this is a nice strategic solution, to position myself in contrast to everyone else; to position myself in relation to everyone else:
by saying:
All the authors are correct about common-core mysticism and perennialism, but, when you go further than they go re: the experiencing of nondual unity oneness, that leads to my particular problem/ solution/ revelation/ theory.
The most central, best, highest quality experience within nondual unity oneness is, the intense problematization of personal control power.
I cannot be called a “perennialist”, because that word is covertly loaded.
The Egodeath theory (the theory of psychedelic eternalism) cannot be called “perennialist”, because that word is covertly loaded.
There is some type of common-core mysticism and perennialism.
But I disagree with EVERYONE on what that specific common experience (revelation) is.
When it comes to identifying the specific common core experience, we entirely part ways. re: the central emphasis.
Sure, unitive – but what at the heart of that? Problematization of personal control power, specifically, centrally, pointedly. Not clouded over by protective fog of vague “nondual unity oneness”.
Cybernetic control-info emergency is the best & most valuable, consequential, shattering part of nondual unity oneness.
All authors (eg Ken Wilber, Alan Watts, William Richards) wrongly claim that “unity” is the key experience.
Revelation about control-levels is the ACTUAL specific common mystical experience.
Vivek? 0 hits
1893: 0 hits
The Core mystic-state Experience Is nondual unity oneness, BUT, the Core of THAT Experience Is Non-Control; 2POVs; the Profound Problematization of Personal Control Power
What the marketers don’t tell you about their highly advocated nondual unitive experience : intense Problematization of Personal Control Power.
Terse abbr: “non-control” – ok term , but only as shorthand.
Accurate: relative-only control.
Loss of control – an approx term.
Most Potent Scary Idea/ Possibility: What If Accurate Transcendent Understanding Causes Control instability?!
The usual move/ natural assumption: “to stabilize control, i must accurately understand personal control power.
WHAT IF accurate understanding causes control instability?!
We solve every problem by increasing our understanding.
What if, terrifying thought:
Control instability is not SOLVED by correct understanding, but is CAUSED by correct understanding
The problem of provoking control instability is not SOLVED by correct understanding, but is CAUSED by correct coherent understanding.
Jumps from “No Evidence for a Conclusion” to a Definite Negative Conclusion, Exactly as Overemphasized Ruck Supposedly Does
This was a major criticism of Ruck in previous articles, yet she makes this exact same fallacious move, projected onto Ruck. Ruck reasonably employs “as if true” wording, but Sharday Mosurinjohn does the same thing, more heavy-handedly and with less justification than Ruck has.
This hypocrisy of Richard Ascough & Sharday Mosurinjohn’s cancels that page-worth of apparent critique of Ruck.
In previous articles/talks, Sharday Mosurinjohn says “not enough evidence to draw a conclusion about whether there were psychedelics in Western religious history’
Then she does the exact move that she majorly disparages Carl Ruck as doing: she draws a firm definite conclusion “There were no psychedelics in Western religious history” – and then sweepingly discredits all entheogen scholars:
“Entheogen scholars fabricate a lie, that there were psychedelics in Western religious history”
The reality is nuanced; Christian Greer is much more refined, balanced, viable, and decent attitude toward entheogen scholars, not infuriating them w crude unearned absolute dismissal like Sharday Mosurinjohn:
Greer reasons more soundly, “we will find some degree of evidence for entheogens in Western religious history; it’s a matter of degree: how “normal” / “mainstream” was it?”
i solve that by arguing:
* Medieval Warm Period 950-1250 has compelling evidence for psilo
* the BEST mystics or highest-QUALITY mysticism, or the most important ppl in Christendom, were the 1% who used psychedelics; in that sense, via degree of influence, psychedelics were “normal” and “mainstream”.
The 99% of ppl in Christendom who did not use psychedelics are lesser, inferior, unimportant.
They rode the coattails of the superior few who used psychedelics and who were influential, as evidenced in art eg at eye level in the public chapels, illium ms’s, cathedral windows, etc – the best art.
This Article
psychedelic pseudo science is way overdue for an overhaul
the more i looked into the psychometrics questionnaires, the flimsier the field appeared
especially when tracing the creation of the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) – a pseudo questionnaire, not fit for actual use
the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) has a flimsy basis too
A few poor suckers mistake the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) as if it is a serious questionnaire thats meant to be used, but i think it’s nothing but a Medical industry Marketing vehicle
these Psyched psychometrics (Leary) questionnaires firmly incorp, as their stated “scientific foundation”, the all-dominant pop (🤑) model of mystic-state experience as “nondual unity oneness”; they proudly proclaim the out of print 1960 book by Walter Stace, as if a solid scientific foundation
I most strongly agree with *this* article by Sharday Mosurinjohn; a much-needed call for correction and reassessment of foundational constructs & concepts in the field(s) – the field of entheogen scholarship, & the overlapping field of psychedelic-assisted therapy
GCP f134 row 2: Break-Bow Archer’s LEFT hand has I’ via cut thumb. unambiguously cut thumb; cant ignore the bow occluding the thumb
Otto: Entry into Jerusalem: Green Guy Spreading Cloak, LEFT Hand I’
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman
Otto: Entry into Jerusalem: Green guy spreading cloak, LEFT hand: Y’YI’.
f20 Jesus Dancing: Right Index Occluded by Frame
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman
Jesus f20 dance R hand Index occluded by frame is ambig means both cut and not cut
Marriage of Complementary Hands
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman
Marriage Mathematically Permutationally Complementary Hands
End of copied (then modded) sections
After Familiar with a Thousand Hand-Shape Pairs, Have a Feel for How the YI Sequence Is Expressed by Hand-Shapes/ Finger Shapes
i sense that mushroom-tree artists found I’ to be beyond what we need to represent
not nece ly that they found I’ blasphemous against the holy spirit revealed truth
i dk what i would want to message re I’
Decoded {bless} Hand-Shape
I’m now confident that:
bless = Y I Y’
Y = Index & Middle extended, regardless of whether Y-splayed.
I = Thumb.
Y’ = Ring & Pinkie 7-bent instead of extended.
I’m now confident (I have evidence) that extended (non-bent) Index & Middle, regardless of whether they Y-splay, means branching.
Saint-Martin Church > Entry into Jerusalem is a diff use of R Ind & Mid = non-branching bc in contrast to L hand splay all 5 fingers.
Ring & Pinkie bent = cut branching
Index & Middle straight = branching (regardless if splayed or together) but not in that Entry into Jerusalem where two hands are contrasted this way w other L hand carrying “branching”,
that leaves the R hand to only carry Non-branching –
The R hand there is NOT a blessing shape; ignore the R thumb (not shown) & ignore bent Ring & Pinkie (bc not shown there).
Saint-Martin Church: Entry into Jerusalem: Jesus’ Finger-Shapes
Photo Credit: Julie M. Brown, used with permission. Crop by Michael Hoffman, fullscreen
if you analyze L hand in isolation, which it is not, but we are obliged to do if a thorough reading, we might assess L hand fingers shape as any of:
shape is either:
I Y I’
I Y I
ie:
thumb = I
minor 3 fing = Y (t
that is the most definite; doesnt vary if we consider all 5 L fingers, or if we consider both L & R hands together: the L Pinkie & Ring & Middle fingers in all readings form Y branching.
L Index finger (if count the visual cut) = I’
L Index finger (if don’t count the visual cut) = I
Index Is a Major Finger; Typically I; Defaults to I (Non-Branching)
The 3 Minor Fingers, Default to Y (Branching)
Index has natural moderate splay
the minor 3 fingers tend to group
ultra common is slight splay of Index
Rule: Thorough Accounting of a Hand-Shape
in a thorough accounting, we must list all potential readings incl ambiguities, like Douce Apocalypse’s side view of hand that’s ambig of 3 different hand-shapes
Dancing Man: The 7 Angle of Fully Bent Index Finger; Rebut Eternalism Worldline in Block Universe
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Mar. 7, 2026, fullscreen
reprieve from the revealed threat withdrawn mercy and instruction teach by threat and cut branching increasingly
to be perfected/ adult/ beard/ mature/ cybernetically transformed is to {cut branching} and assert non-branching
how describe relat of possibilism vs. eternalism via a pair of hands what can we say? every hand-shape pair is distinctive
comment; analyze:
omit Y default basic possibilism-thinking
omit I ok if incl Y’
omit Y’ omits import point: transformation
omit I’ usually. wtf is I’ “cut non-branching”?? 🤷♂️
prefer a hand-shape or hand-shape pair reduce to / include Y I Y’ but I’ is hardly required- no net gain: rebut eternalism adds slight clear value but costs confusion
you had me at I, then IY, then Y I Y’,
then you lost me at I’
what even is — whiff of satanic blasphemy against revealed truth
cant handle too much truth threat relat
analogical psychedelic eternalism with 2-level, dependent control
Article 4 (nonexistent): “J. Christian Greer and Sharday Mosurinjohn will offer a closing Editorial [404] to this Special Issue. In their closing essay [404], Greer and Mosurinjohn will explore what the failure of apprehending Allegro’s agenda reveals about his admirers and detractors, asking what motivates people to promote or refute narratives that center drugs as the “secret” behind Christianity’s origin.”
On John M. Allegro’s Suggestion That the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the 12th Century Plaincourault Chapel Depicts an Amanita muscaria Mushroom (Huggins)
In his book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970), John Marco Allegro claimed that an obscure, 12th century CE fresco of the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Plaincourault Chapel in Mérigny, France, provided evidence of the persistence in Christian Europe […] Read more.
John Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross posits that early Christianity derived from fertility cults involving psychedelic mushroom use. Though widely discredited by scholars when it was first published, the theory persists in popular culture and entheogenic discourse. This article evaluates the […] Read more.
This article examines the scholarship of John Allegro on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the role his status as a scholar has played in the reception of his The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. While the Dead Sea Scrolls play no prominent […] Read more.
Closing Editorial by Sharday Mosurinjohn & Christian Greer (Nonexistent)
Article 4 (nonexistent):
“J. Christian Greer and Sharday Mosurinjohn will offer a closing Editorial [404] to this Special Issue. In their closing essay [404], Greer and Mosurinjohn will explore what the failure of apprehending Allegro’s agenda reveals about his admirers and detractors, asking what motivates people to promote or refute narratives that center drugs as the “secret” behind Christianity’s origin.” https://www.google.com/search?q=closing+Editorial+Special+Issue+closing+essay+Greer+Mosurinjohn
[A needed topic, but that conflates mere 1st-generation entheogen scholarship (the Secret Amanita paradigm) with the entire topic of mushrooms in Christianity.
1st-generation entheogen scholarship (the Secret Amanita paradigm)
2nd-generation entheogen scholarship (the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm)]
Body text from pdf: a subset of the full text in article special issue:
“Special Issue
“On the Origins of Western Psychedelia: Exploring Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross
“Message from the Guest Editors
“The articles that constitute this Special Issue are dedicated to analyzing the enigmatic career of the Dead Sea Scrolls scholar John M. Allegro (1923–1988) and the history of the reception of his book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970).
“Bringing together scholars from across disciplines, this Special Issue explores three major vectors in the Allegro effect on psychedelic research and culture today:
(1) the nature of Allegro’s evidence and methods for his argument that the original Christian community was a fertility cult based on the sacramental use of the psychedelic mushroom Amanita muscaria;
(2) the controversy and professional backlash generated by his thesis; and
(3) the ongoing influence of his provocative thesis among academics, believers, and authors of popular fiction.
“For more detailed information, please visit the Special Issue’s homepage.
“We look forward to your valuable contribution. Guest Editors Dr. J. Christian Greer American Studies Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA Dr. Sharday C. Mosurinjohn School of Religion, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada Deadline for manuscript submissions closed (15 June 2025)”
Description of Planned Special Issue
“Dear Colleagues,
“The articles that constitute this Special Issue are dedicated to analyzing the enigmatic career of the Dead Sea Scrolls scholar John M. Allegro (1923–1988) and the history of the reception of his book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970).
“A philologist with expertise in comparative Semitic languages, Allegro made a name for himself as a translator and popularizer of the Dead Sea Scrolls; however, his academic reputation was ruined with the publication of The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East.
“The book was shunned by his peers in the academy, repudiated by the Church of England, and ridiculed by the international press.
“Allegro’s book was based on a deep understanding of Aramaic, Hebrew, Accadian, Syriac, Greek, Latin, and Sumerian, and since so few people possess the requisite understanding of comparative linguistics in the ancient world, the arguments presented in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross were never directly refuted.
“This fact did not escape his small but dedicated group of followers, who have continued to direct attention to Allegro’s work in the decades since his provocative text was published (and republished in subsequent softcover editions).
The book jumped into the cultural mainstream, after being a “cult classic” within the drug underground, on account of the Psychedelic Renaissance in scientific research starting in 2006.
It was frequently promoted on the podcast The Joe Rogan Show (recently rated among the most popular podcasts in the world), and its notoriety was also bolstered by the unexpected success of Brian Muraresku’s The Immortality Key (2020), which covered similar ground to Allegro’s work.” [debatable -mh]
“What is at stake in the resurgence of interest in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross?
“As the hype surrounding research into psychedelic medicine continues, Allegro’s conclusions gain more ground as a plausible explanation for the origins of monotheism, which is all the more distressing considering specialists’ indifference to his ideas.
Accordingly, psychedelic-enthused celebrities and psychedelic scientists alike draw upon The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross as a resource for narratives concerning the psychedelic origins of Western religion, which are historically inaccurate, philologically suspect, and philosophically confused.
The authors of this Special Issue have decided to afford this matter the care that it deserves.
To be sure, contributors are not invested in merely underscoring the problems that marred Allegro’s research.
Rather, this Special issue contextualizes the motivations behind his provocative theories, the scholarly and social milieux that rejected them as absurdities, as well as the perpetual appeal of The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross for the general public and academics who do not specialize in the ancient Near East.
The articles will, at turns, appreciate the bold inventiveness of Allegro’s theories and disparage his purposefully misleading etymologies, tracing both his considerable intellectual virtuosity and scholarly malfeasance back to his turbulent tenure working on the earliest translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
As the new era of Western psychedelia struggles with its own sense of historicity, setting the record straight with regards to Allegro will place the transdisciplinary field of psychedelic studies on a more solid foundation.
“Bringing together scholars from across disciplines, this Special Issue explores three major vectors in the Allegro effect on psychedelic research and culture today:
(1) the nature of Allegro’s evidence and methods for his argument that the original Christian community was a fertility cult based on the sacramental use of the psychedelic mushroom Amanita muscaria;
(2) the controversy and professional backlash generated by his thesis; and
(3) the ongoing influence of his provocative thesis among academics, believers, and authors of popular fiction.
“To address these research directions, this Special Issue seeks contributors who possess the ancient language skills that many of Allegro’s readers do not have: Biblical Hebrew, Greek (Attic and Koine), Latin, Aramaic (biblical, Qumran, Targumic), Syriac, Coptic, Middle Egyptian, and Ge‘ez.
“Contributors may explore Allegro’s isolated ways of translating and working outside the corrective influence of the academic community, as well as the problematic implications of assuming that psychedelics lead to the same mystical states found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
They may also situate Allegro’s hypothesis in the context of other debates about the nature of psychedelic sacraments, such as the Vedic Soma portrayed in R. Gordon Wasson’s 1968 Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality, a book that has long been discredited in academic circles but continues to have a significant influence on the popular and scientific understanding of yoga and altered states.
“Other contributors may address the following questions:
What economic, social, and other gains and losses do writers of this “ancient psychedelic cults” genre experience by making the claim?
How do their experiences differ if they endorse psychedelics and religions as things that matter (Muraresku) versus disparage psychedelics and religions as illusions to be broken (Allegro)?
What are readers using this work to potentiate in the various spaces—underground, clinical, legal, ritual, scientific, popular—of psychedelic culture now?
“We hope that both ancient historians and scholars of the contemporary period will move beyond speculative botany and invocation of vague mystical experiences to explore how the substances that are documented shaped the rituals themselves, and centering what is real phenomenologically and ontologically for the people carrying out the rituals—namely, their own divinity and the agency of the gods, spirits, and plant or fungal teachers.
“The scholarly contributions in this Special Issues will be timely in the context of the burgeoning psychedelic conversation—in fact, they will add an important element to this conversation shortly in advance of what is sure to be the 50th anniversary reprint of Road to Eleusis, the pro-psychedelic book that appeared in the same decade (1978) as Sacred Mushroom and has had a parallel scholarly non/reception.
“This Special Issue draws attention to the fact that people’s treatment of psychoactive use in ancient religious contexts has significant implications for our understanding of the past and for contemporary cultural and legal discussions about the use of drugs.
“Such treatments often overlook the complex cultural and religious context of the ancient world, projecting modern preoccupations with psychedelics onto it.
“J. Christian Greer and Sharday Mosurinjohn will offer a closing Editorial [todo: which article?] to this Special Issue exploring the history of the reception of Allegro’s work, focusing on misconceptions by detractors and admirers alike.
“While his thesis that Jesus was a mushroom is well known among religious studies scholars focusing on psychedelics, few have noticed the actual motivation behind Allegro’s provocative thesis.
“Contrary to public perception, Allegro had no interest in placing psychedelics on the agenda for scholars of the ancient Near East, let alone arguing that psychedelic mushrooms have the potential to generate mystical experiences.
“Driven by the belief that psychoactive drugs only induce madness and delusion, Allegro associated Jesus with the red-capped Amanita muscaria mushroom as a means of discrediting Christianity at its source.
“His negative attitude towards drugs and insistence that Christianity originated as a perversely orgiastic mushroom cult represent a red thread that runs through his later work, beginning with The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970), and which is especially pronounced in his follow-up book, The End of the Road (1970).
“In their closing essay, Greer and Mosurinjohn will explore what the failure of apprehending Allegro’s agenda reveals about his admirers and detractors, asking what motivates people to promote or refute narratives that center drugs as the “secret” behind Christianity’s origin.
“It is clear that the antagonism goes beyond the evaluation of evidence, modes of interpretation, or mere methodological differences but rather strikes at scholars’ more fundamental attitude towards the psychedelic class of drugs and their relationship to religious experience.”
“Dr. J. Christian Greer Dr. Sharday C. Mosurinjohn Guest Editors”
Manuscript Submission Information
Religions journal issue page con’t:
“Manuscripts should be submitted online at http://www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
“Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
“Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI’s English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
“Keywords psychedelia John M. Allegro The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently. Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently. Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations. External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal’s social media, increasing their visibility. Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print. Further information on MDPI’s Special Issue policies can be found here.”
Agreement Between the Egodeath Theory & Debunkers of 1st-Gen Entheogen Scholarship
Is the issue a rehash of my ideas (not Irvin’s!) in my article? Wasson and Allegro on the Tree of Knowledge as Amanita (Hoffman, 2006), http://egodeath.com/WassonEdenTree.htm
I have much common per my 3-phase or 4-phase recounting:
Assert 1st-gen entheogen scholarship
Rebut 1st-gen entheogen scholarship as if = entire topic of entheogen scholarship (all Deniers of mushroom imagery in Christian art so far)
Assert 2nd-gen entheogen scholarship
not done: rebut 2nd-gen entheogen scholarship.
Curiously Let Andy Letcher’s book Shroom, 2006 UK employs 2nd-gen entheogen scholarship (Stamets 96 & Gartz 96) to rebut 1st-gen entheogen scholarship, but he botches this at malformed endnote 31 p. 35-36. Garbled situation with shifting positions: what are deniers rebutting? That’s the Letcher Shroom Q! WHICH POSITION ARE YOU REBUTTING?
1st-generation entheogen scholarship (the Secret Amanita paradigm) Secret Christian Amanita Cult – Lash criticized Wasson for pushing Amanita ural mountains spread; Lash is 2nd-generation entheogen scholarship (the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm).
Explicit Cubensis paradigm 2nd-generation entheogen scholarship (the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm)
Timeline of Affirmers of Mushroom Imagery in Christian Art
List only the earliest year of pub’n for each author.
1909 French Mycologists (see Huggins 2025 for citations of several authors)
1925 Rolfe & Rolfe
1953 John Ramsbottom
1957 Robert Graves (1st-gen)
1970 John Allegro (1st-gen)
1993 Chris Bennett (1st-gen)
1995 Clark Heinrich (1st-gen)
1997 Giorgio Samorini (truly 2nd-gen)
2001 Mark Hoffman, Carl Ruck, Blaise Staples (weakly 2nd-gen)
2005 Jan Irvin (weakly 2nd-gen)
2006 Michael Hoffman (truly 2nd-gen)
2007 John Lash (weakly 2nd-gen)
2010? Cyberdisciple (truly 2nd-gen)
2011 John Rush (weakly 2nd-gen)
2016 Brown & Brown (truly 2nd-gen)
1st-generation entheogen scholarship (the Secret Amanita paradigm)
2nd-generation entheogen scholarship (the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm)
only Michael Hoffman & Cyberdisciple are properly 2nd gen.
Deniers of Psychedelics in Western Religious History are Religious Fundamentalists, Violent Oppressors, and Cheap Namecallers Pandering to Prejudiced Anything-But-Drugs Academia
Crop and annotations by Michael Hoffman, Feb. 18, 2026, fullscreenCrop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, fullscreen, f109 crops
Glad to hear there was heavy tension in the fake, non-drug “symposium” where only the Deniers got to present.
The Deniers dubbed themselves as “most academic” and dubbed their opponents as “least academic”.
The Deniers used the podium to namecall their opponents “religious fundamentalists” and “violent colonialist oppressors” — that’s what’s meant by “most academic”.
And “most academic” means, directing people to the drawer at Harvard, instead of normal, proper academic procedure (write, publish, & cite), on this “special taboo topic”.
eg “most academic” means Huggins twice avoiding citing per normal practice, Browns 2019.
See the drawer instead; phone up the art authorities instead; anything but normal academic practice, in this “special, taboo” topic where normal academic practice does not apply.
And as my personal F.U. to Popebanker Gordon . . . .🔍🧐🤔🤬 Wasson, the con artist censor and deceiver:
Wasson censors on behalf of the Pope (though “Suppression of knowledge of psychedelics in Western religious history is just a consp. theory“), but I publish on the World Wide Web:
I’m afraid that, in the worst sense, the Deniers are indeed the “most academic”: the anything-but-drugs agenda/ commitment/ academics/ propaganda/ academia.
Michaelson wrote (below): “On paper, it made perfect sense to bring practitioners, scholars, and lawyers together, but in practice, it was simultaneously the least-academic [IE THE MOST TRUTHFUL AND HONEST] academic conference some people had ever attended, and the most-academic [IE THE MOST LYING, DECEITFUL, and CORRUPT, WITH NEGATIVE PRE-SET COMMITMENT] conference that others had ever attended.”
The Phrase “The Most Academic Conference” Is a Euphemism for Establishment-Approved, Committed Denial
Deniers of Psychedelics in Western Religious History Are Religious Fundamentalists & Oppressors
Driven by Religious Fundamentalism & Violent Cultural Oppression, and Cover-Up of Psychedelics in Western Religious History
Popebanker Wasson is tightly embraced, on this topic, by the Deniers, eg Huggins.
The Deniers are EAGER to Ally with Gordon . . . .🔍🧐🤔🤬 Wasson, though he is a proven propagandist, censor, and duplicitous cover-up artist who tried to replace normal academic practice (write, publish, & cite) by — ONLY for this “special taboo” topic — highly weird, non scholarly, “phone up the authorities to measure with stopwatch, how quickly & how emotionally they spout the required-by-academia view”.
See Andy Letcher’s book Shroom, 2006 UK re: “consulting” art authorities, like Wasson’s “I was impressed by the celerity with which all competent scholars emotionally disavowed psychedelics in Western religious history.”
Instead of write, publish, & cite, we get instead, “. . . .” from Wasson.
“Consult“, my @ss! HOW ABOUT YOU NOT CENSOR Panofsky’S DOUBLE STRONGLY RECOMM BRINC CIT, YOU S.O.B. WASSON! AND Panofsky’s TWO LETTERS, AND Panofsky’s branches argument, AND Panofsky’s TWO EMPHATIC MUSHROOM-TREE ART WORKS?
GTFO of here, Fraud Wasson, the Religious Fundamentalist Denier and ACTUAL OPPRESSOR.
Huggins wraps his copypaste of the Panofsky branches argument within a “Conclusion” section but that section just argues, “it is POSSIBLE to WRITE WORDS stating that “IF” (that’s stupid, it’s a given for the class of all mushroom-trees) a mushroom-tree has any tree features, they somehow magically cancel out the mushroom imagery features, which we are to ignore as meaningless stylization, proved by the consistent skew from pine to emphatic mushroom shape, which proves that the skew cannot have been intentional, as Brinckmann’s little 1906 book explains in detail.
The book does no such thing, which is why Wasson censored the citation that Panofsky urged as must-see.
My accusations in 2006 against Wasson were proved correct:
Panofsky must have provided citations to Wasson. [confirmed in 2019]
The citations from Panofsky are feeble; art historians have NOT considered mushroom-trees. [confirmed in 2019]
Wasson must have censored the feeble citations. [confirmed in 2019]
Evil, Wasson is using stupid chump Panofsky to accomplish his corrupt propaganda campaign.
As Samorini 1997 exclaimed, why does Wasson come to a dead halt here, on such feeble arguments from Panofsky?
Because Popebanker Wasson wants to cover up the class of mushroom-trees — the exact opposite of Ruck in “Daturas for the Virgin” outrageously attempting to paint Wasson as publicly ASSERTING that the class of mushroom-trees means mushrooms.
register: https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0lbDafk1NetQD7o – “Thank you for your interest in the fourth annual Psychedelic Intersections conference on Friday & Saturday, April 10 & 11, 2026.” “Thank you for registering for the “Psychedelic Intersections: Bridging Humanities, Religion, & Law” conference livestream, to be held on April 10 & 11, 2026. We will email you more information soon.”
“The Harvard Study of Psychedelics in Society and Culture is excited to announce that the fourth annual Psychedelic Intersections conference will be held at Harvard Divinity School on April 10-11, 2026.
“Building on the Center for the Study of World Religions’ (CSWR’s) popular conference series, the 2026 conference is a collaborative initiative of
the CSWR at Harvard Divinity School,
the Mahindra Center at Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and
the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.
“Psychedelic Intersections: Bridging Humanities, Religion, & Law” brings together interdisciplinary scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to discuss the intersection of psychedelics and culture.
“The conference will feature research on psychedelics’ intersections with religion, humanities, and the law.”
“My new book is on psychedelics – its metaphysics, psychology, art, and esotericism, working title: Entheogenic Esotericism: Reuniting Religion, Magic, and Science in the Psychedelic Turn.”
“J. Christian Greer and Sharday Mosurinjohn will offer a closing Editorial [todo: which article?] to this Special Issue … In their closing essay, Greer and Mosurinjohn will explore what the failure of apprehending Allegro’s agenda reveals about his admirers and detractors, asking what motivates people to promote or refute narratives that center drugs as the “secret” behind Christianity’s origin.”
“Special Issue Editors
Dr. J. Christian Greer E-Mail Website Guest Editor American Studies Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA Interests: popular culture and religion; radical politics and religious activism; esotericism and occultism; ecological spiritualities; pilgrimage; countercultures and subcultures; drugs and religion
“Dr. Sharday C. Mosurinjohn E-Mail Website Guest Editor School of Religion, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada Interests: psychedelic humanities; new religious movements; ritual; religion and media; affect (esp. boredom as a spiritual crisis)
“Thanks for all the kind words about the RELIGIONS special issue on Allegro.
“Wanted to drop the link to the journal site, which has a much more substantial description of the special issue.
“More to the point, it spells out a point that has almost totally been missed since Allegro published “The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross”- as we argue:
“While his thesis that Jesus was a mushroom is well known among religious studies scholars focusing on psychedelics, few have noticed the actual motivation behind Allegro’s provocative thesis.
“Contrary to public perception, Allegro had no interest in placing psychedelics on the agenda for scholars of the ancient Near East, let alone arguing that psychedelic mushrooms have the potential to generate mystical experiences.
“Driven by the belief that psychoactive drugs only induce madness and delusion, Allegro associated Jesus with the red-capped Amanita muscaria mushroom as a means of discrediting Christianity at its source.
“His negative attitude towards drugs and insistence that Christianity originated as a perversely orgiastic mushroom cult represent a red thread that runs through his later work, beginning with The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970), and which is especially pronounced in his follow-up book, The End of the Road (1970).””
Greer’s Points
Good points. It’s absurd how, early Jan Irvin (to 2013, Hatsis Dancing Man article) tries to make Allegro – like Ruck does – an entheogen scholar.
Search Cyberdisciple site on Allegro as not entheogen scholar but as anti-church, anthropology weaponizer that happens to abuse Amanita toward that agenda. Yet Jan Irvin in The Holy Mushroom The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity (Jan Irvin, 2008) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1439215170 tries to assign credit for asserting the CLASS of mushroom-trees to Allegro, with no citation, proving that Allegro did NOT publish any statement on the CLASS of mushroom-trees ever. Samorini gets the rightful credit, 1997/1998, for the first person to assert that the class of all mushroom-trees means mushroom.
Then counter that, The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity (Jan Irvin, 2008) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1439215170 tries to falsely credit Allegro instead, yet Allegro (1970-1973) never wrote anything on the class of all mushroom-trees that Panofsky revealed via Wasson 1968.
Panofsky’s argument from silent presupposition prejudice: hundreds mushroom-trees, therefore any one of them cannot mean mushroom, QED
On Ronald Huggins’ Side Are the Pope, His Banker Gordon Wasson, and the Top Anything-But-Drugs Art Historian, Erwin Panofsky
Conflict of Interest, Corruption, Cover-Up, Dissuasion Propaganda to Encourage and Leverage No-Mushroom Prejudice; to Inculcate Attitude and Cover-Up Arguments to Put Forth, to Paper-Over the Small Scholarly Inroad by Brink 1906
Popebanker Wasson leveraging Panofsky 1952 in 1968: the Pope, Wasson, and Panofsky were still leveraging the dominant prejudice of 1952-1968 that would lap up the entirely invalid “argument from silent presupposition prejudice”:
“Plaincourault fresco can’t mean mushroom, bc there are hundreds more like it, which you are ignorant about else could not have even proposed that Plaincourault fresco means mushroom, had only you been informed that there are hundreds more mushroom-trees like Plaincourault fresco, it’s a member of a class that we art historians describe as mushroom-trees because we note that they have mushroom features.
“Had you merely only been aware that Plaincourault fresco is not unique but is typical of a class, of course you could not have thought to suggest that it means mushroom, bc there are hundreds more like it, so, NEEDLESS TO SAY THE OBVIOUS, this one instance cannot mean mushroom.
Plaincourault fresco = mushroom?
given: Plaincourault fresco isn’t unique; is member of class.
Therefore Plaincourault fresco cannot mean mushroom.
That is the Panofsky “argument from silent prejudice presupposition” – Wasson doesn’t censor that arg’t (but he sees how totally weak the stupid Panofsky chump is, and wasson the pope’s propagandist leverages the shared stupidity Panofsky and many of wasson’s propaganda victims are, wasson hopes.
How did Wasson choose what not to censor of Panofsky?
“This well-researched work returns us to the earliest known forms of religion and nature worship to show how our modern religions formed and where they really came from.
“It also brings us into modern times, reviving and supporting the important work of John Marco Allegro.
“This book reveals how natural entheogens, including the Amanita muscaria mushroom, were used by those seeking higher consciousness and an authentic religious experience.
“A must read for researchers investigating the origins of religion and the symbology used by the modern religions of today.
“Includes an extensive bibliography, 185 illustrations and over 500 footnotes.”
AstroSham 1 & 2 have my photos from Egodeath.com.
A good day (nov 2024?) when i saw the {mushroom}, {branching}, {handedness}, and {stability} motifs on this orig cover, AstroSham 1.
Does Wasson ever spout the Allegro/ Ruck/ early-Irvin narrative of “Suppression of Knowledge of The Mushroom (🧚♀️🍄🦄) by the Big Bad Church”?
Team Popebanker: Enemies of the Revelation of Psychedelic Eternalism — THEY Don’t Want Us to Know Transcendent Knowledge
Experimental modification of the “suppression” trope.
ji07 The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity (Jan Irvin, 2008) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1439215170 ji06 ji05 astrosham 1
Team Popebanker: Enemies of Eternalism-Driven Control-Transformation
Team Popebanker: Enemies of Transcendent Knowledge of Psychedelic Eternalism-Driven Control-Transformation
Team Popebanker: Committed, Bad-Faith Enemies of Transcendent Knowledge of Psychedelic Eternalism-Driven Control-Transformation
Team Popebanker: Committed, Bad-Faith Enemies of Entheogen Scholarship
Censors & Cover-Up of Psilocybin Eternalism-Driven Control-Transformation
their satanic motive: protect church theology of their Big Bad Church
forget the assumption of suppression of psychedelics in pre-modernity
the evildoers’ assigned mission is to suppress Transcendent Knowledge of non-branching Eternalism
Team Popebanker
Site Map Sharday Mosurinjohn
Site Map Huggs
I should start now, Site Map section:
Committed Enemies of Entheogen Scholarship, Team Popebanker
especially re mushroom imagery in Christian art
Mental Model Transformation as Progression of Finger Shapes in Hand-Shape Pair
A clear Ref point: von Trimberg in Manesse.
At best, the picture shows L to R, 4 equivalent ways to represent mental model transformation mental model transformation from possibilism to eternalism (ie from basic possibilism-thinking to integrated possibilism/eternalism thinking).
Y’ (cut branching, depicted in lower hand, no thumb)
I – thumb shown
integrated YIY’; integrated YI (equiv) like {stand on right foot} : feet are cruder medium of expression: {stand on left foot} vs {stand on right foot} . roughly, {stand on left foot} = Possibilism, {stand on right foot} = eternalism. precisely, from one kind of possibilism alone, to a compound integrated integrated possibilism/eternalism. from: (starting state): {stand on left foot} = basic possibilism-thinking to: (end state): {stand on right foot} = qualified possibilism-thinking + qualified eternalism-thinking
How the “Suppression of The Mushroom by the Big Bad Church” Narrative Factors In for Various Deniers
How much is the assertion or denial of mushroom imagery in Christian art driven by the narrative of “suppression by the big bad church”?
A charged, hot topic, distorts.
Suppose:
The usual Bad Guys discovered by our hereos Graves, Wasson, Allegro, & Ruck, & Lash – a unified team who all labor in unison side by side aligned in the identical same agenda mission: Stop the Big Bad Church.
Which guy sticks out the most as contradicting that narrative?
Popebanker Wasson, conflict of interest.
Suppression of Knowledge of The Mushroom (🧚♀️🍄🦄) by the Big Bad Church
in medieval, kings & artists & court knew psychedelic eternalism
public shown it
texts recopied about it?
AstroSham 1 (Irvin & Rutajit)
Astrotheology and Shamanism: Unveiling the Law of Duality in Christianity and other Religions (Jan Irvin & Andrew Rutajit, Jan. 2006) [IR06]
“Jan Irvin and Andrew Rutajit delve deep into Judeo-Christian symbolism and mythology in Astrotheology & Shamanism to reveal the true origins of Christianity in fertility cults and entheogenic drug use.
“The authors show, with the use of numerous images, textual citations, and etymological analyses, how the symbols used in Christian art and encoded in sacred texts reference sacramental use of psychedelic mushrooms as well as ancient astronomical knowledge.
“This knowledge has been kept secret from the public, however, and the truth has remained concealed behind a campaign to prohibit access to entheogenic sacraments through a Pharmacratic Inquisition (of which the current “War on Drugs” is the latest manifestation).
“Along with a call to wake up to the true history of Judeo-Christian tradition, the authors call for a return to direct spiritual experience through visionary sacraments unmediated through dominating religious institutions.
“This is a powerful and provocative book that is sure to challenge and inspire. – Martin W. Ball, Ph.D. Author, The Entheogenic Evolution: Psychedelics, Consciousness and Awakening the Human Spirit”
/ end blurb
Censorship by Popebanker Gordon . . . .🔍🧐🤔🤬 Wasson, who is the figurehead commandeered by Huggins/Deniers; DENIERS OF mushroom imagery in Christian art LOVE WASSON but they would wonder
What would they say when Ruck “Daturas for the Virgin” tries to credit wasson with AFFIRMING THE CLASS of mushroom-trees, when in fact Wasson DEMONIZED Plaincourault fresco as Amanita and was SILENTLY DENIED the CLASS of mushroom-trees as meaning mushrooms.
Wasson actively interfered with, stymied, and shut down scholarship in mushroom imagery in Christian art. Huggins excuses this scoundrel Wasson, “didn’t stop Irvin from publishing” – but Wasson TRIED, and Huggins inherits Wasson’s guiltiness of censorship. Huggins side is SO BAD, so lacking in credibility and academic integrity, they condone Wasson censoring Panofsky & Brinckmann.
Ronald Huggins PRETENDS no censorship by his side occurred.
Huggins just whips out the Panofsky letters & their Brinckmann citation out of nowhere (the damned “drawer” at Harvard, which Jan Irvin is not allowed access to).
I think “no access” is formally doc’d in: The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity (Jan Irvin, 2008) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1439215170
Huggins fails twice (in his 2024 & 2025 articles) to cite Entheogens in Christian art: Wasson, Allegro, and the Psychedelic Gospels (Jerry Brown & Julie Brown, 2019) where the Panofsky two letters are finally published for EVERYONE to leverage, not just greedy Huggins.
Deniers Are Guilty of Having a Tradition of Restricting Access to Panofsky’s Two Letters to Wasson
The way Huggins leverages (for himself, WITHOUT PRESENTING) the two Panofsky letters, continues his side’s tradition of suppressing the Panofsky letters and their Brinc cit.
Which side finally made the Panofsky letters available for everyone, not just for the Deniers? Brown 2019; the Affirmers. No thanks to the Deniers!
Finally Samorini 1997 ignored Wasson’s harassment and intimidation and censorship attempts, a full-force propaganda campaing for the Pope to shut down looking at mushroom imagery in Christian art.
How Affirmers & Deniers Are Distorted by Attitudes Toward the Church
The Hot Topic of Psychedelics in Church History Causes Distorting Motives.
Christometer: Which entheogen scholar is the most Pro-Church?
My first instinct is to elect me as #1 churchy entheogen scholar– but im pretty allergic to Popery. I am an American Protestant, allergic to Catholocism and Mary Worship (that is accurate per broad def.) and Saints Worship[tot. defens. term]
I Will Freely Mention the Catholic ‘Worship’ of Mary & the Saints
this article paragraph applies to my objectikn to spending honor on Mary instead of on Jesus or God:
“whereas the Spirit is entitled to such adoration, he foregoes it in favor of the other two divine Persons who, together with the third Person, have decided that glory should be directed toward them—the Father and the Son—and not toward the Holy Spirit.”
“the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed through which the Christian church has historically confessed its belief “in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.”
It’s Good to Worship and Glorify the Holy Spirit, If Along with God (the Father) & Jesus (the Son)
Catholics excessively honor Mary & the Saints, at the expense of Christ & Creator.
thats too diffuse and conflicted.
It’s complex to honor God & Christ, along w the holy spirit.
That can be excused as mythic analogy. Though
Realistically, Catholics are superstitious literalists by default, not analogy-driven esotericists.
Do not misread or mis-assess noise-occluded signal as if it is revealed.
In any era, do not read popular Catholic literalist ordinary-state possibilism as if it is analogical psychedelic eternalism.
“Worship” Is an Accurate Term in the Broad Sense, of Extreme Spiritual Honor
Special Issue: Exploring Free Will in Faith Traditions in Conversation with Contemporary Challenges
“This study investigates how human will is articulated, negotiated, and reimagined within the discourses about Shamanism of Northeast China, with a particular focus on user-generated content from the Douyin platform (Chinese TikTok).
Drawing on the data collected from comments between 2020 and 2024, this research employs a triangulated methodology integrating Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling, the Discourse–Historical Approach (DHA), and virtual ethnography.
[relational mysticism -mh]
Crop and annotations by Michael Hoffman
“In traditional Shamanic belief systems, human will is conceptualized not as purely autonomous, but as inherently relational—interwoven with ecological responsibilities, ancestral spirits, and cosmological forces.
While previous studies have explored Shamanism’s cultural and performative dimensions, they have largely overlooked the ethical and philosophical constructs of human agency embedded within Shamanic practices, especially in their digital adaptations.
“This study reveals that contemporary digital discourse simultaneously preserves, transforms, and commodifies Shamanic concepts of human will.”
“Users express reverence, nostalgia, critique, and playful reinterpretations, demonstrating that digital platforms serve both as spaces for cultural continuity and dynamic meaning-making.
“By analyzing online discursive practices, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of how indigenous spiritual frameworks negotiate modern visibility, identity, and ethical agency in the digital era.”
“The journal “Religions” by MDPI is releasing a special issue titled “On the Origins of Western Psychedelia: Exploring Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross”.
“The issue includes two articles [todo: 3 articles + editorial?] that discuss Allegro’s 1970 book “The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross”, its rejection by academia, and its adoption by other movements, on the fringes of New Age and conspiracy enthusiasts.
“This led to the point where the book was reprinted and became a hit among entheogenic literature lovers, despite its scientific validity being questioned.
“The first article https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/8/1029 [John Allegro and the Psychedelic Mysteries Hypothesis, by Richard S. Ascough] “tells the story”, outlining what Allegro claimed and why he faced criticism.
“It describes his methodological flaws and the enduring impact of his thesis, which, although considered scientifically invalid, opened the door to various parallel theories about the psychedelic origins of religion and the influence of pagan rituals on monotheistic worship.
“Starting in the 1990s, when Terence McKenna sought to integrate Allegro’s research into the rightful framework for discussing the influence of psychoactive plants on religious experiences, to the reprint of the book with a 30-page introduction by Carl Ruck, who does not fully embrace Allegro’s radical philological analyses but still highlights the revolutionary nature of his work and bold approach in religious studies, and up to recent years, when parallel studies like Brian Murarescu’s work have topped the bestseller lists.
“The second article https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/8/946 [sh!tty writing! give the goddam title & author ffs! Odd Conspiracies: John Allegro, Sacred Mushrooms, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, by Matthew James Goff] focuses on Allegro’s role as a hero of alternative and conspiratorial movements, which view his academic ostracism as a response by the establishment to his approach, which initially led him to abandon his original research on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Allegro claimed that he did not connect with the research approach of the rest of the team, who, in his view, were religiously biased and under pressure from the Catholic Church.
He argued that they were not interested in revealing the truth behind the Dead Sea Scrolls, which led him to “bypass” the guidelines and publish excerpts from the scrolls without coordination.
Allegro also led teams that attempted to interpret the Copper Scroll as a secret treasure map.
As the 1960s passed, he became increasingly labeled as eccentric and anti-establishment.
Thus, when he published his bold theory that the origins of Christianity were rooted in the worship of a psychedelic mushroom, he was met with ridicule, which fulfilled his prophecy: the church did not want this truth to reach the masses and would try to paint those claiming it as illegitimate.
This also explains his growing popularity in recent years, as conspiracy ideas against “institutions hiding the truth” are proliferating and no longer considered fringe.”
/ END OF PAGE
Meanwhile, Huggins fails to cite brown 2019, citing the damned drawer at Harvard, and acting like Wasson didn’t censor the F out of the Panofsky letters including two mushroom-trees and the Brinc cit.
Huggins allies with Popebanker Wasson, who extremely hid the truth – SHUT IT DOWN! POPE’S ORDERS
Todo
Site Map Section: Deniers of Mushroom Imagery in Christian Art
Team Popebanker: Enemies of the Revealing of Psychedelic Eternalism
Jay Michaelson Article “The Religious Functions of Psychedelics”, about 2025 Symposium “Psychedelics and Monotheistic Religions: Sacramental Practice and Legal Recognition”
todo: read, maybe even paste entire article here for analysis – good commentary about tensions.
“In the context of immense, rapid societal transformation, it was either an act of foresight, joy, privilege, indulgence, resistance, or all of the above to bring together a diverse group of scholars of religion, psychedelic practitioners, clergy, legal scholars, and legal practitioners for a symposium on psychedelics and religion last week at Harvard Law School.
Whatever it was, that’s what we did, and by all accounts, the results were extremely positive.
I am deeply grateful to my colleagues at Harvard for their work, support, input, and wisdom, and to everyone who showed up. Which is a lot of people: we had around 30 presenters, and over 700 attendees joining us in person and online. David Zvi Kalman has already provided an excellent writeup of the symposium on his Substack newsletter, Jello Menorah, but as a co-convenor (with Professor Noah Feldman) of the symposium, I wanted to offer a few notes here from my own perspective.
First, here’s a bit about what we set out to accomplish.
The symposium was called Psychedelics and Monotheistic Religions: Sacramental Practice and Legal Recognition, and responded to the dramatic increase, in recent years, of psychedelic use in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities. While indigenous people have been using these compounds for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and while people of all backgrounds have been exploring them for a century, it is a new phenomenon that thousands of people experience and understand their psychedelic use as part of their religious practice or identity.
And yet, all of this sincere religious practice is, technically, against the law.
There is, as yet, no legal recognition of such use, which remains formally illegal under the Controlled Substances Act.
Arguably, this religious use is exempt from the CSA, based on several court precedents and settlements with other psychedelic religious organizations, but there is no case that has yet tested that, and no guidance from the government.
Meanwhile, the legal doctrines that govern this question are significantly limited in nature.
Against this background, the symposium set out to explore
(1) the historical and theological bases for psychedelic use in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,
(2) the self-understandings of contemporary psychedelic practitioners in these traditions, and
(3) the match/mismatch between them and the the requirements for a religious exemption to the CSA under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
I do talk with my hands a lot.
First, scholars and theologians discussed traditional models for such practice.
All scholars who presented were skeptical of the speculative claims for Biblical and other ancient Mediterranean psychedelic use, noting a paucity of evidence and significant leaps of logic between the available shreds of evidence and conclusions based upon them.
I’ve written about some of these claims here [todo: link], and Harvard Divinity School’s Charles Stang has written perhaps t [todo: link]he definitive analysis of them here. [todo: link]
It was interesting to see how the fifty-or-so psychedelic practitioners in the room received these critiques.
After all, many of them see themselves as reviving ancient practices that underlie religions around the world — some psychedelic communities have even included works like Terence McKenna’s Food of the Gods in their scriptures.
And, well, the air did seem a little tense at times.
On paper, it made perfect sense to bring practitioners, scholars, and lawyers together, but in practice, it was simultaneously the least-academic academic conference some people had ever attended, and the most-academic conference that others had ever attended. The weirdness was fascinating.
[Affirmers of mushroom imagery in Christian art = least academic Deniers of mushroom imagery in Christian art = most academic The anything-but-drugs agenda/ commitment/ academics/ propaganda/ academia – mh]
Yet, as Christian Greer, Sharday Mosurinjohn, Charles Stang, and I all proposed at the symposium, insisting on ancient roots of a contemporary practice is a curiously fundamentalistic move.
[PROJECTION! YOU FUNDAMENTALIST DENIERS, Hypocrites!]
Deniers of Psychedelics in Western Religious History Are Anything-But-Drugs Religious Fundamentalists
con’t
“In context, it may be understood, Greer proposed, as a response to the “Pharmacological Calvinism” of religious conservatives opposed to psychedelics:
the view that revelation is a matter purely of Divine Grace, that there is nothing we can do to effectuate it, that drugs are evil and hallucinations are delusory.
Mind-Altering Substances are the NON-HIDDEN Source of Biblical and Mediterranean Religions
“In opposition to this view (which, upon inspection, is intensely Eurocentric and oppressive), what Greer calls the “Entheogenic View” is a maximalist [#1 is Michael Hoffman – but strike to Hell, ‘hidden] assertion that, in fact, mind-altering substances are thehiddensource of Biblical and Mediterranean religions, not only Meso-American ones.
“For Greer, this is simply the inverse of the hostile view:
both insist that only what’s ancient is legitimate, that religious cultures cannot evolve new rituals and methods of Divine communion that are as authentic as older ones.
Though this flies in the face of religious history itself (in just the Jewish example, prayer replaced sacrifices as the predominant form of worship), it does resonate with the felt sense, in psychedelic experiences, that these experiences are foundational, ancient, and true. I resonate with that felt sense, but for Lockean reasons, I also am leery of making unverifiable subjective religious experiences the basis for ontological claims, let alone political ones.
After all, it’s likely that a majority of such experiences are hostile to my very existence.
There is a third way, which Greer called the “Empirical View.”
Intoxicating compounds are, in many religious traditions, used as a means to attain revelation, healing, power, and magic — and all such traditions come with guardrails, warnings, and prerequisites for safe use that are of enormous value to practitioners today.
But not in all traditions, until recently anyway. [debatable false claim]
“In some, including Jewish, Christian, and Muslim ones, other techniques are used to cultivate Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs), including fasting, trance techniques, magical processes, contemplation, and prayer.
Rather than insist on what Mosurinjohn called a “Western civilizational pedigree” for the use of psychedelic compounds specifically, perhaps it would be wiser to investigate the pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods for cultivating ASCs more generally, explore the reasons such states are religiously valuable, and develop a syncretic, non-colonial approach to incorporating new technologies learned from non-Western cultures.
Sharday Mosurinjohn: You All Must Study Indigenous Shams, But I Am Exempt and Couldn’t Care Less about Them
[HYPOCRITE! WHY DOESN’T SHARDOGGED WRITE A BOOK ABOUT Indigenous Shams? Poser. Empty posturing. Phony Sharday doesn’t give a SH!T about Indigenous Shams; she just weaponizes them as a blunt club to attack affirmers. -mh]
“Several scholars in the symposium explored how this might look.
In the first session, scholars identified a large number of models, methods, and purposes for the cultivation of ASCs in classical Jewish sources, ranging from the ecstatic rites of women ritual leaders in the Bible to magical and theurgical operations in Kabbalah and Hasidism.
“Muslim scholars talked about Sufi mysticism (including the possible use of hashish), the contemplation of Ibn ‘Arabi, and the contemporary embrace of psychedelics in Muslim communities which experience elevated rates of mental health crises (including suicidal ideation).
And in the Christian context, Rev. Jaime Clark-Soles noted that Christianity is founded on ASCs — visions of the resurrected Christ, Paul on the road to Damascus, the Book of Revelation — and has an array of methods of how to cultivate them, including ascetic practices, sleeping in holy places, ecstatic practice, and, perhaps, the Mysterion itself.
Psychedelic practitioners offered a wide range of self-understandings of their religious psychedelic practice. While some saw themselves as reviving ancient traditions of psychedelic use, most emphasized that their psychedelic use was motivated by present-day spiritual and psychological factors, including healing ancestral trauma, experiencing love in relationship to one another and to God, seeking a mystical experience with the Divine — even, in Jessica Felix-Romero’s phrasing, enabling God to connect with us.
Meanwhile, there were important criticisms of all this work. Ron Cole-Turner noted how love (and enduring bonds of love, rather than brief experiences of it) is absent from many analyses of psychedelic experience yet central to Christian mysticism.
Ayize Jama-Everett highlighted the racialized ways in which some religious traditions are foregrounded and others marginalized, and proposed that the underground may actually be a safer and more equitable way to encounter psychedelics than some partially-legalized, partially-medicalized ‘above ground’ pathway.
Laura Appleman gave a hilarious, terrifying presentation on psychedelics and eugenics that I’ll have much more to say about in a future newsletter.
And several participants sounded cautionary notes about the intense hostility that some religious conservatives have not merely to “drugs” specifically, but to any non-canonical way of accessing emotional, affective spiritual experience. Many believe it to be (like liberalism, of course) an act of the devil.
Finally, legal scholars noted the strengths and weaknesses of a Jewish, Christian, or Muslim case for an exemption to the Controlled Substances Act.
On the one hand, courts recognize these traditions as, obviously, religions, unlike some claims of novel psychedelic spiritual communities.
These practitioners are sincere, and not motivated by financial gain.
On the other hand, existing jurisprudential categories such as ‘sacrament’ may not apply to the compounds used by religious psychonauts, and while some potential claimants may understand psychedelic use as central to their religious practice, it cannot be claimed that it is central to these religions as such.
“And of course, there are significant cultural and ideological barriers in play.
The DEA has never, not once, issued a religious exemption without being forced by a court, despite setting up a process to supposedly do so.
[recent exception? mh]
“And it is unclear whether the expansion of religious liberty jurisprudence under the Roberts Court would be applied to religiously liberal claimants as to religiously conservative ones.
As I wrote about in ARC magazine two weeks ago, the Court will soon have the opportunity to apply that jurisprudence to liberal churches seeking to shelter undocumented immigrants — we’ll see if that happens.
Despite these challenges, it is still possible to conceive of legal doctrine catching up with this remarkable religious reality, and I look forward to digging deeper into this question in the months and years to come.
For now, I will close with a personal reflection on what it felt like to dream in this way in the context of our shared national nightmare.
First, as was discussed at the symposium, many psychonauts don’t see the Trump regime as a nightmare at all: they are excited about the possibilities of innovation less fettered by small-minded regulations and restrictions, and hold views which Appleman aptly described as psychedelic eugenicist. (I’ll talk more about this in a future newsletter, too).
Psychedelics are, as Stanislav Grof put it, a “non-specific amplifier,” and they do not generate a particular political point of view. Psychedelic messianism is undercut by psychedelic realism.
At the same time, the increasingly non-partisan nature of psychedelics offers at least some space for common ground, at least between the libertarian wing of the Trump regime, the civil-liberties wing of the opposition, and the diagonalist-whatever wing of conspirituality and horseshoe politics.
I have no illusions that this one issue will generate a new era of non-partisanship.
But it’s interesting to see it as, perhaps, one site for it.
Elevating the experiences of people in ‘traditional’ religious contexts from a wide range of political, religious, and social locations, might also usefully complicate the Drug-War-era assumptions about the kinds of people who ‘do’ psychedelics, and spiritual practice in general. This, too, seems like a good thing.
Second, whatever future (or lack thereof) awaits our nation and our species, it is my experience that psychedelics, in both therapeutic and spiritual contexts (and in the many that blend the two), offer ways to relate to both beauty and terror that can be profoundly empowering and healing.
I do not believe, as many of my fellow ‘spiritual teachers’ do, that our role as pastors is to help the human race navigate civilizational hospice. But we might be headed to, at the very least, a civilizational ER. Certainly, the exponential growth in AI threatens how people understand ourselves and our value in the world.
The Trump regime’s suicidal climate denial will accelerate chaos and, according to mainstream scientific data, cause millions of deaths in the not-too-distant future. And so on, and so on, and so on.
In that context, perhaps psychedelics, like other remedies for the crisis of meaning, will play a small role in human beings’ evolution into less selfish, cruel, and ethnocentric creatures; certainly, between Trump, Vance, and Musk, the ethnocentric instincts in the human mind are predominant at present, and one might see the mainstreaming of psychedelics as one form of resistance to them.
Working in the psychedelics space often feels like a civilizational Hail-Mary pass, and, to mix sports metaphors, I think it’s worth taking that shot.
But even if psychedelics have no impact on increasing human empathy, they still may have an impact on human resilience, wonder, consciousness, and perspective – all of which have their own value and merit. There are ways of being that lie beyond the fences, malls, fears, panderings, and algorithmic enragements of our now-dominant culture.
And, to paraphrase an overquoted Rumi poem, I’ll meet you there. For ‘when the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.’”
/ end of michaelson article
Dogged Entheogen Denier, Religious Fundamentalist Sharday Mosurinjohn
Sharday Mosurinjohn (the religious fundamentalist denier of mushrooms in mystery religions and Christianity, and perpetrator of colonialist violence who is overlooking Indigenous Shams by erroneously trying to write a book on psychedelics in Western Esotericism, instead) wrote and spoke on:
“We then explore how the dogged pursuit of evidentiary mirages contributes to the [pathetic, invalid, illegitimate, in-vain] project of establishing a western civilizational pedigree to dignify the use of stigmatized drugs and revitalize experiential religion.
“Although the desire for [fake] legitimacy and meaning is understandable [though foolish, erroneous, hopeless, and futile], the strategies used by the writers [not scholars or researchers] of this pseudo-history constitute a kind of religious fundamentalism [“and colonialist violence“].” PROJECTION MUCH?!
“The Asp, or “aspido,” is a mythical creature in medieval bestiaries described as a snake that stops up its ears to avoid being enchanted by the music of snake charmers. It presses one ear against the ground and covers the other with its tail to ignore the charming, symbolizing a refusal to hear wisdom or divine truth.”
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Sun., Mar. 8, 2026, fullscreen
f134 God’s Pointing Line Strikes at {stable column base}
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Mar. 4, 2026, fullscreen
f134 Sit Tree – Finger Shapes & YI Hand Shape Pair
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Mar. 7, 2026, fullscreen
f134 Hang Tree – Finger Shapes & YI Hand Shape Pair
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Mar. 7, 2026, fullscreen
f134 Red’s Y or Y’Y Hand (& Angel’s Y’ Hand; 7777 Fingers)
Arg for Red as Y vs. Y’Y
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Mar., 2026, fullscreen
f134 YI Shape of Hand Touch {cut right trunk}, Factoring in the Context
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Mar., 2026, fullscreen
Dancing Man: Angle of Bent Index Finger
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Mar. 7, 2026, fullscreen
Golden – Adam Eve Eject, [IY’, IIY]
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Mar. 7, 2026, fullscreen
Golden – Arrowed Guy
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Mar. 7, 2026, fullscreen
Marriage of YI’ & Y’I: Hand-Shape Pairs
The crop lacks fingers notation analysis; I plan to always include:
YI shape of hand 1
YI shape of hand 2
Finger shape of hand 1
Finger shape of hand 2
hand-shape pair
probably always start w/ Left; this arbitrary convention actually unbiases which hand you start with; a more neutral notation.
finger-shape pair
In this case, a special also hand-shape pair: her right hand & his right hand, as a pair.
Left figure: Left fingers: \IIII
Left figure: Right fingers: 7\IIII R thumb is both splayed (as always) and also visually cut, like bent. A mere visual cut (occlusion, with or without black lines) can’t be assumed to be signif, but clearly is signif in this picture.
Right figure: Left fingers: 77II
Right figure: Right fingers: 7777/
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Mar. 7, 2026, fullscreen
King & Queen Panel
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Mar. 7, 2026, fullscreen
YIY’ Is the Main, Most Common, Reference Hand-Shape Pair, But Is Not the Exclusively Correct Pattern
You can add the freakish I’ shape, or omit the “unenlightened” Y shape.
todo: what are common hand-shape pairs other than YIY’?
Examples:
YIY’ – Great Canterbury Psalter, Douce Apocalypse
IY’
YIY’I’ – marriage king/queen
Motivation for this Page
To upload work (annotated pngs) done on mobile device the past few days, eg:
Douce
Manesse
Salamander bestiary/ dancing man
Golden – todo: are there many pictures omitted from my gallery? inspect medieval YI hand shapes.
Task 1: Make Sense of the Strange Index Finger, by Recognizing It as Combining Two Standard Modifiers: Splayed AND Bent
Task 2: Analyze the YI Hand-Shape Pair to See Which of the 4 YI Shapes Are Present: Not the Standard YIY’, but Rather, YI’Y’, Highlighting the Less Common, Oddball Shape: I’ (Cut Non-Branching)
I’ can mean the ego death aspect of eternalism.
Task 3: Explain How the 4 Shapes Are Used in This Case, to Illustrate This Storyline (Dying from Salamander Poison): “Awake” Shape (I), Inverted by Bend (I’), Becomes “Super Asleep”, ie. DEAD
There Is Plenty of Proof of How to Interpret YI Hand-Shapes, to Extract the Rules, After Surveying Enough Art Instances
Intro
Solved Dancing Man Hand-Shape Pair: Index Finger Splayed & Bent, I & I’; Non-Branching & Cut Non-Branching
Separate the Formation of the 4 Branching Shapes vs. How the Shapes Are Used
Separate the Identification of Which of the 4 Branching Shapes (I and then I’) from How That Shape Conveys “Dying from Salamander Poison”
The finger form DEFINITELY expresses I and then I’.
Exactly how the I’ form is suitable to represent or illustrate “Dying from Salamander Poison” is a matter of taste and is debatable.
Y = branching
I = non-branching
Y’ = cut branching
I’ = cut non-branching
txt msg 1 to AM, a.m. Monday, March 2, 2026
some artists got a little carried away with the YI hand-shapes
txt msg 2 to AM, p.m. Monday, March 2, 2026
dancing man index is over-modified, or at least, is DOUBLE MODIFIED.
both splayed AND ALSO bent!
SPLAYED: The Standard Meaning of “Splayed Finger, Separate from Grouped Multiple Fingers”
The Index finger, if splayed apart from a group of 3 other fingers that form a “branching” Y shape, means the I shape.
BENT: The Standard Meaning of “Bent Finger or Fingers”
As we see and define most basically in the motif of “4 fingers, bent sharply, showing only the base segment of each finger, like cut branches”, the “bent fingers” motifs mean negated, qualified, or “not”.
It’s not exactly a matter of counting finger-segments.
Rather, the main, basic, foundational idea is:
Here’a hand-tree that has 4 branches – now we SHOW those 4 branches, but ONLY the base segment of each finger; thus we show 4 CUT branches, expressing the Y’ shape, ie, “cut branching”.
The Y’ shape, “cut branching”, means the negation of branching Possibilism.
The Y’ shape does not directly mean the assertion of I-shape non-branching.
Assert or rebut.
Y’ rebuts branching. It’s called “cut branching”.
I asserts non-branching.
A finger if bent at right angle means qualified or countered (Prime)
that plays the game of depicting all 4 hand-shapes in a clever way
All 4 YI Hand-shapes Are in Dancing Man’s hand-shape pair: Y, I, Y’, I’
given that the finger carries BOTH qualifiers (splayed AND bent), all 4 hand-shapes are expressed in Dancing Man’s hand-shape pair:
Names of the 4 Shapes: Y (branching), I (non-branching), Y’ (cut branching), I’ (cut non-branching)
The Four Branching Shapes: Y I Y’ I’; Y (assert branching), I (assert non-branching), Y’ (rebut branching), I’ (rebut non-branching)
Wording 1
Y = assert possibilism
I = assert eternalism
Y’ = rebut possibilism
I’ = rebut eternalism
Wording 2
Y = assert branching
I = assert non-branching
Y’ = rebut branching
I’ = rebut non-branching
Wording 3
shape 1: Y – branching; assert branching; assert Possibilism
shape 2: I – non-branching; assert non-branching; assert Eternalism
after we see non-branching I , then we {cut branching} : Y’
Shape 4: I’ = Cut Non-Branching
return from eternalism back to ordinary-state possibilism
I Shape = Non-Branching Eternalism
I = non-branching eternalism, in the standard hand-shape genre psilocyb tradition art initiation.
To Be Educated Is to Know YI Hand Shapes and YI Tree Shapes
To be uneducated is to not know about YI hand-shape & tree-shape theory
In the medieval era, all of the educated class knew:
YI hand shapes
YI tree shapes
handedness
More narrow is my older combination of 4 motifs
{mushroom}, {branching}, {handedness}, and {stability} motifs
Of those 4 motifs, YI hand shapes goes into {branching}.
Mushroom-trees were present during the Medieval Warm Period explicitly, as part of {mushroom}, {branching}, {handedness}, and {stability} motifs — YI hand/tree shapes
txt msg 3 to AM, p.m. Monday, March 2, 2026
Anyone who knew the YI tree branching psilocybin tradition also knew the YI hand shapes psilocybin tradition.
ordinary-state possibilism vs. altered-state eternalism
ordinary-state, branching possibilism vs. altered-state, non-branching eternalism
Y then I
You {cut branching}, to be brought through the gate into eternalism city
“Blessed are those who wash their robes [cut branching], that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.” – Revelation 22:14; end of Bible
Y vs. I
{tree} vs. {snake}
{tree} vs. {snake frozen in rock}
from {king steering in tree} through {mixed wine at banquet} to {snake frozen in rock}
txt msg 4 to AM, p.m. Monday, March 2, 2026
Solution of Dancing Man’s Hand-Shape Pair
How the Y Shape Is Formed
The Y shape is formed by the upper hand:
3 fingers splayed.
How the I Shape Is Formed
The I shape is formed by the upper hand:
Index finger splayed.
How the Y’ Shape Is Formed
The Y’ shape is formed by the lower hand:
4 fingers bent.
How the I’ Shape Is Formed
The I’ shape is formed by the upper hand:
Index finger bent
How the {asleep vs. awake} Motif Is Expressed via YI Hand Shapes
Sleeping Baby from Same Bestiary as Dancing Man: Branching Y Asserted at Forehead
[Y’I, YY’] = YY’I = YIY’ (the most popular, 3-of-4 set of hand-shapes)
branching fingers touching face means asleep in possibilism-thinking.
If Index finger (splayed apart from / contrasted vs. 3 grouped fingers) touching forehead means “awake“, then BENT Index finger (splayed apart) would mean asleep.
Now bring in elements from the story that’s being illustrated in the Salamander entry of the bestiary:
Dancing Man is double sleeping, killed by poisonous salamander ego death
Ego death is indicated by:
{stand on right foot}
right foot touching {cut right trunk}
txt msg 5 to AM, p.m. Monday, March 2, 2026
The message of the mushroom-tree artist re: Dancing Man’s Index finger:
“If touching the forehead with a splayed Index finger is good, then touching the forehead with a bent Index finger would mean bad, like, dead, from salamander poison.”
Per the rules of the YI branching hand/tree genre.
The Medieval Warm Period: 950- 1250
My estimate of the heyday of mushroom-trees: 900-1300.
My estimated date range for mushroom-trees matches the Medieval Warm Period.
“The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from about 950 CE to about 1250 CE.”
Cubensis Grew on Oxen Dung in England During the Medieval Warm Period (950 – 1250), the Heyday of the Mushroom-Tree Genre
“Aristotle holding an armillary sphere and pointing to the heavens as he teaches a group of clerics from Western Europe.
“From the treatise on cosmology by the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, On the Heavens and the World (De Caelo et Mundo).
“The transmission of this work via Arabic scholarship is highlighted by the depiction of Aristotle in a turban.
“BMR163108 Ms 3458 fol 62vo
“Historiated initial \’D\’ depicting Aristotle holding an armillary sphere and pointing to the heavens as he teaches a group of clerics from Western Europe
“(pen and ink and tempera on vellum) by French School, (13th century); Bibliotheque Mazarine, Paris, France;
(add.info.:
from the treatise on cosmology by the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322) \’On the Heavens and the World\’ (\’De Caelo et Mundo\’);
Few-Minute Bio of Michael Hoffman to Read Aloud at Gatherings
todo: new page.
copy from mobile > Notes > Psalon > Michael Hoffman entry
short entry:
Michael Hoffman – 1985 engr two models of time in uni Physics course,
religious mythology as … psychedelic eternalism
proving Psilocybin fully dev – leverage for Reform.
Egodeath.com started August 1991, when the WWWeb was first created.
August 1988, on computer, wrote up the Egodeath theory – the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence in computer files, became the starter content for website.
1985 BSEE student, STEM mentality, need posi-control. Fix cross-time self-control.
1997 – spec’d the Psychedelic Eternalism theory: a useful explanatory model of mental model transformation when moving between the ordinary state and the altered state.
1998 – Studied myth and mythic art to confirm the theory of psychedelic eternalism.
2006 –
2020 – re-found Eadwine’s leg-hanging mushroom tree image in the Great Canterbury Psalter. Proceeded to find tons of mushroom imagery in Christian art integrated with {mushroom}, {branching}, {handedness}, and {stability} motifs.
I was given many advantages over other people:
In high school, father taught me the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, Ken Wilber, the Way of Zen by Alan Watts, the human potential movement, self-help seminars, holistic health.
Colleagues
Brown
Ruck
Hatsis
Irvin
Max Freakout
Cyberdisciple
{branching-message mushroom trees} Mar 21, 2022.
finger shapes Entry into Jerusalem Saint-Martin Church Feb. 9, 2023.
writing article for the Journal of Psychedelic Studies: {branching-message mushroom trees}
Increasing Articulation and Literacy at Applying the YI Hand-Shape Language: asleep vs. awake; uneducated vs. educated; unenlightened vs. enlightened
todo: new page.
3 distinct phases of decoding Dancing Man:
Identify the Index finger shape as conveying two standard modifiers: 1) splayed Index or Pinkie finger, 2) bent finger(s).
Classify/read the hand-shape pair.
This picture’s particular application of the YI hand-shape language and hand-shape pair.
3 tasks:
Task 1: Make Sense of the Strange Index Finger, by Recognizing It as Combining Two Standard Modifiers: Splayed AND Bent
Task 2: Analyze the YI Hand-Shape Pair to See Which of the 4 YI Shapes Are Present: Not the Standard YIY’, but Rather, YI’Y’, Highlighting the Less Common, Oddball Shape: I’ (Cut Non-Branching)
Task 3: Explain How the 4 Shapes Are Used in This Case, to Illustrate This Storyline (Dying from Salamander Poison): “Awake” Shape (I), Inverted by Bend (I’), Becomes “Super Asleep”, ie. DEAD
asleep vs. awake
uneducated vs. educated
unenlightened vs. enlightened
This Post Was Composed During a Blood Red Moon, Full Eclipse of the Moon
Motivation for this Page
Solved Dancing Man!
Specifically, the super weird finger, is clearly simply carrying the two standard modifications:
SPLAYED: Finger splayed separately from 3 other fingers, which are grouped to depict {branching}; Y shape. Splayed finger here = non-branching; I shape (assert non-branching Eternalism).
BENT: Bending fingers means “rebut branching”, in the case of 4 fingers, Y’ shape (rebut branching Possibilism).
SPLAYED AND BENT: Combining the two above indicators, produces I’ (rebut non-branching Eternalism).
A detail: More attention to Left Arm/Wrist of Cybercide; aim the 2 white lines at his wrist & L arm, at {blade}, where {L limb touch blade}.
Fulfilling that already, the line from Woman holding {balance scale} is pretty much touching Cybercide’s L wrist at blade.
Make the line from Swordsman to Cybercide end at an intersection of Left arm & blade. The present line doesn’t convey that the target of blade is L limb/arm; line goes to sword but not to L limb.
[9:50 Mon., Mar. 2, 2026] Sit-in-Tree cuts stems w/ left limbs.
f134 Pulled-from-Banquet guy looks at splayed finger of angel, angel looks at added thumb
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman
Updates to v6 of “f134 targets of psalter room.jpg”:
Added my signature.
Updates to v5 of “f134 targets of psalter room.jpg”:
Made feet box red, not white.
Updates to v4 of “f134 targets of psalter room.jpg”: (for export jpg, used local same file name; overwrote old jpg)
In the local hi-res png file, I added two lines:
Pulled-from-Banquet looks at Index finger of Angel.
Angel looks at thumb of Pulled-from-Banquet.
todo: delete old 1.4 MB jpgs from WordPress Gallery
I wanted to draw line to clutch fist in tree, but that requires more scouting of midpoints, like God / pivot of {balance scale} / Oxen guy clutch fist.
I want to show my process for searching for possible lines at that clutching fist.
Under the paint, there is a lead pencil line at the clutch fist: we must deduce the hidden line by finding the best candidate lines. caveat: everything connects to everything.
Goal: Connect only the items in such a way as to maximize meaning.
f134 Aiming-Lines, Targets of Psalter Room: v3, All 3 Sword Aiming Lines
todo: sign this image, it’s really helpful to have date embedded & shown in the picture
todo: add 2 looking-lines on the Pulled-from-Banquet guy:
Pulled-from-Banquet guy looks at splayed finger of angel
angel looks at added thumb
List of Figures Involved
Row 1, L to R
Leg-Hanging youth
God
Angel
Pulled-from-Banquet youth
Row 2, L to R
Relenting Archer (Break-Bow Archer)
Threatening Swordsman
Threatening Archer
Cybercide
Psalter Viewer
Limbless Maiden
Woman holding {balance scale}
Row 3
Oxen guy – holds God’s pointing-line, setting midpoint at pivot of {balance scale}.
Leg-Hanging Guy lhg
List of Pointing-Lines
Leg-Hanging youth doesn’t aim.
God’s Right hand aims at {balance scale} pivot, also touches white light John Lash, both Cubensis dispensary bins, oxen guy fist puts midpoint of pointing-line at pivot of {balance scale}
Angel eyes aim at thumb of hand of the Pulled-from-Banquet guy.
Pulled-from-Banquet youth eyes aim at splayed Index finger of angel.
Relenting Archer (Break-Bow Archer)
Threatening Swordsman
Threatening Archer
Cybercide (below, I put 3 entries together starting w/ “Sword”)
Psalter Viewer
Limbless Maiden
Woman holding {balance scale}
TODO: SORT INTO THE ABOVE, PER-FIGURE LISTS:
Sword in tree aim at God’s Right hand.
Sword of Cybercide aims at God’s Right hand.
Sword of Threatening Swordsman aims at splayed Index finger of angel.
Drawing-fingers of Threatening Archer aim at __ feet?
left eye of Break-Bow Archer aims at __ R Index finger height relative to L?
right eye of Break-Bow Archer aims at __
left eye of limbless maiden aims at __
right eye of limbless maiden aims at __
left eye of 3-legged Woman aims at __
right eye of 3-legged Woman aims at __
todo: etc.
Decoded {blade touch left limb}
I decoded a long time ago. But the other day, deepened.
{hand mushroom-tree} in f109
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman
White Boxes on Guy’s Hands and Tree’s Hands: {hand mushroom-tree}
Crop by Michael Hoffman, Jan. 24, 2026
Angel’s Non-Branching Thumb Over Open Book
Crop by Michael Hoffman, Feb. 7, 2026
Guy’s Non-Branching Thumb Over Open Book
Crop by Michael Hoffman, Feb. 7, 2026
all the 4 other pages of {open book} are illusory, like fingers branching from palm
possibilism vs. eternalism = cut branching = blade touch left limb
YI hand/tree = assert branching on the left, assert non-branching on the right
cut off branching many worlds = {blade touch Left limb}
absolute four-dimensional spacetime
{snake frozen in rock}
worldline in block universe
ordinary-state, branching Possibilism vs. altered-state, non-branching Eternalism
Good wording in that Egodeath theory lexicon phrase.
possibilism vs. eternalism analogies
Possibilism vs. Eternalism
todo: add to keyboard shortcut LCPE:
ordinary-state possibilism vs. altered-state eternalism
ordinary-state, branching Possibilism vs. altered-state, non-branching Eternalism
[OBVAN]
Y vs. I
add to the keyboard shortcut:
Y shape vs. I shape [YSVIS]
Y shape vs. I shape
{branching} vs. {non-branching}
{tree} vs. {snake}
{fingers vs. thumb, index, or pinkie};
many worlds vs. single block-universe
The Left-Hand, Possibilism Side of the Equation Items Are Equivalent
possibilism =
ordinary-state possibilism =
ordinary-state, branching Possibilism =
Y shape =
branching =
tree =
fingers, or 3 fingers grouped together =
many worlds =
multiple closed pages (vs. one open page)
The Right-Hand, Eternalism Side of the Equation Items Are Equivalent
eternalism =
altered-state eternalism =
altered-state, non-branching Eternalism =
I shape =
non-branching =
snake =
thumb, index, or pinkie =
one open page
Reversible Tauroctony: {tree} vs. {snake}, snake = trunk
Crop by Michael Hoffman
Reversible Tauroctony: {tree} vs. {snake}, snake = one branch-path
Crop by Michael Hoffman
{tree} vs. {snake}
{fingers vs. thumb, index, or pinkie}
thus L side items are equal:
tree = fingers
R side are =:
snake = thumb
blade cuts branching to get from possibilism to eternalism
add non-branching to branching , add thumb to hand in f134
flames = blade = blood on blade = fire sword = cut the branching
Unihorn, Branches Removed from Trees by Fire
Crop by Cybermonk “Canterbury-f104-unihorn.jpg” 530 KB [8:58 p.m. June 27, 2023]
Unihorn vs. deer w/ branching antlers, or ox w/ pair of horns.
left horn of ox touch left side of tree
Saint Martin Church: Youth Cuts Tower Branch Mushroom-Tree Over Gateway
Photo Credit Julie M. Brown. April 10, 2022 image processing & crop by Cybermonk.
todo: email Brown in same thread: the “gate” explanation IS present in webpage but buried and unclear.
My solution writeup has too much “stone” block-universe eternalism, too little “gateway”.
pass through gate = cut branching = mental model transformation from possibilism to eternalism.
“Poor guy didn’t even get a chance to see his own ideas thoroughly validated and watch Einstein grovel and eat his own words.
“What a tragedy that is. Damn.
“Minkowski presented his 4D mathmattical framework in 1908.
“Minkowski died just a few months after January of 1909.
“Minkowski died of appendicitis at age 44.
“Einstein initially dismissed Minkowski’s work, but reversed his views and incorporated Minkowski’s 4D spacetime into his paper on general relativity in 1915.
“Both publically as well as in the paper, Einstein gives Minkowski all the credit he deserved.”
Motive for this Page
mobile post
the other page got too long for mobile
breakthrough warrants new focus in new page
Notes from “List of Pointing-Lines” Section
angel = messenger/ trainer/ reshaper
Threatening Archer t-a
Break-Bow Archer bba
Break-Bow Archer = the Relenting Archer, vs. the Threatening Archer
Break-Bow Archer [BBA]
Break-Bow Archer in Great Canterbury Psalter folio image f134 row 2 middle [BBAL]
todo: global at site: change “Break-Bowman” to “Break-Bow Archer”
Extended Index + Middle, ignore quill pen cutting the Y (it’s an overlay modifn on top of the conventional Y shape)
Where’s the Y’ Shape in Eadwine’s Right Hand?
How to read the Y’ shape in the hand image:
Folded Pinkie + Ring. Standard in blessing shape.
Where’s the I Shape in Eadwine’s Right Hand?
How to read the I shape in the hand image:
Thumb. Standard in Blessing.
Where’s the I’ Shape in Eadwine’s Right Hand?
How to read the I’ shape in the hand image:
Extended Index (much more visible/shown than middle finger) forms I, but cut by quill pen.
Commentary
What a GREAT exercise Eadwine’s portrait enables!
Eadwine’s hand-shape pair never really, plainly depicts the false, … well, the “qua qualified possibilism-thinking, Y shape.
Left hand: normally this would be Y’Y:
Y’ – folded pinkie/ring
Y – extended index/middle
Right hand: normally this would be Y’YI per blessing hand:
Y’ –
To develop nomenclature, theory, analysis technique, etc.
ie, answer these Qs for EVERY hand; given some stupid generic hand-shape, HOW CLOSE CAN YOU COME TO FORCING ALL 4 FORMS read into that hand image?
Purpose of Curled Side Finger when 4 Fingers Bent: Prove that the Bent Fingers Are Shortened, by Showing a Reference Long But Bent-Away Finger
solved! decoded “non-occluded curled side finger” that is NOT really meant to be read as “finger shown”
Principle: If Finger Is Curled-Away/Bent-Away, Read as “Prime”
This solves Mushroom King double-pointing shape: we are NOT to read curled, non-occluded Index as “I, curled”; we are meant to read the curl as “Prime”
don’t read as: Y’III read as: Y’II
the visible 3-seg Middle finger because curled, is grouped with the 1-seg pinkie / ring / middle group.
Pinkie – Y’ group
Ring – Y’ group
Middle – Y’ group, NOT read as “separate, because 3 seg shown”.
Index – I
Thumb – I
Principle: Curl of a Finger OVERRIDES “all 3 segments are shown”
that is a big solution! ie, it is the most useful interp’n convention: we introduce a new class, “curled finger”.
Immedly this solves eg her super long pinkie in some image from Great Canterbury Psalter , dancing?? f20
[9:55 a.m. Saturday, February 28, 2026] it was during photo’ing my hand and hand manikin , choosing what angle best conveyed and avoided conveying unwanted impl’ns, i had a problem that HOW TO GAUGE FINGER LENGHTh and whether finger is extended or bent-away by 1, 2, or 3 joints?
EVEN THOUGH AN ENTIRE FINGER IS SHOWN (CURLED) AND ALL 4 FINGERS ARE BENT AWAY (SHOWING 1 SEGMENT), HOW CAN WE PROVE TO THE VIEWER THAT THOSE 1-SEGMENT FINGERS ARE SHORTENED?
Ans: by showing a full length finger (but curled-away) for length-contrast to estab the Reference “here’s how long a finger would be (shown curled-away, negated) –
Q.E.D. – my moment of breakthrough on this problem i been puzzling for days.
Bent finger shows 1 segment, base segment. Negates/ qualifies; not to say “get rid of possibilism-thinking”; merely: qualified.
Curled finger shows 3 segments but curled = Negates/qualifies.
same for thumb but 2 seg not 3.
How to Detect the “Correct Interpretation”, by What Standard of Measure?
Ans: Most Useful Class’n Scheme, that Feels Most In Sync Consistent w/ the Art/ artists’ Treatment of the Motif.
Resolves inconsistencies/ contradictions/ awkward unresolved complexities across the medieval art genre of {mushroom-trees}.
above, i don’t mean 100% sincerely, “the medieval art genre of {mushroom-trees}”, here I have jumped OUT from that genre into DISTINCT BROADER genre, of medieval YI hand-shape language . redo w/ that phrase:
Resolves inconsistencies/ contradictions/ awkward unresolved complexities across the medieval art genre of {YI hand-shapes}.
the medieval art genre of {mushroom-trees} [MAGMT]
the medieval art genre of {mushroom-trees}
Existing keyboard shortcut, to develop the keyboard shortcut for a hand-shape equivalent of that mushroom-tree keyboard shortcut.
SWAG estimate of years: 900 AD – 1300 AD
the medieval art genre of {YI hand-shapes} [MAGYHS] [MAGHS]
SWAG estimate of years: 800 AD – 1600 AD
ie, since YI hand-shape theory is PART of — a subset of techniques within the medieval art genre of {mushroom-trees}, therefore, the era of YI hand-shape theory is broader than the more particular combination, the {mushroom-tree} era.
eg (highly tent. dates), here is the idea:
800 AD – the artists’ psilocybin motif initiation guild: Start of YI hand-shape language
900 AD – the artists’ psilocybin motif initiation guild: the medieval art genre of {mushroom-trees}; {mushroom}, {branching}, {handedness}, and {stability} motifs. Start of mushroom-trees integ’g {mushroom}, {branching}, {handedness}, and {stability} motifs.
1300 AD – end of mushroom-trees End of mushroom-trees
1600 AD – end of the YI hand-shape language comprehension & usage. End of YI hand-shape language
Proof that Curled Finger Means Negated: {hand mushroom-tree} in f107, f109
the artists’ psilocybin motif initiation guild [APMIG]
the artists’ psilocybin motif initiation guild apmig
with psilocybin mushroom lockbox and education aid instruction
the medieval art genre of {YI hand-shapes}
the medieval art genre of {YI hand-shapes}
Notation: Two Square Brackets, for Synonymous Acronyms [ACRO] [ALTACRO]
Note new notation in heading, two sq brkts – where I defined same keyboard shortcut via alt acronyms. 10:30 [ a.m. Saturday, February 28, 2026]
first i def’d MAGYHS which does have a letter for every word, but,
for parallel w/ older existing acronym MAGMT, which has been very useful, omit Y; instead of …MT (mushroom-trees), say …HS (hand-shape).
eg:
one acronym for each letter
one acronym for parallelism w/ some other acronym, or for shorter easier alternative, or for a different way of recalling and thinking of the expanded phrase.
New Notation for Keyboard Shortcut Acronyms (Extends 4/87 Notation): TWO Square Brackets, for Synonymous Acronyms
Crop & annotations by Michael Hoffman, Feb. 28, 2026 “eadwine hand shapes.jpg” 31 KB, [8:24 a.m. Saturday, February 28, 2026]
Eadwine Image, No Border
Crop by Michael Hoffman “eadwine no border.jpg” 502 KB [8:36 a.m. Saturday, February 28, 2026], fullscreen
Full Image of Eadwine
“eadwine-the-scribe-at-work-eadwine-psalter-christ-church-canterbury-england-uk-circa-1160-70.jpg”, 708 KB [8:12 a.m. Saturday, February 28, 2026]
Left Hand of Eadwine the Scribe
Left hand: Y’YI = YY’I
The latter reduction/normalization from Y’YI to YY’I, into one of the Basic YI Forms, eliminates some sometimes-valuable data/info
Instead of [the blessing shape sans thumb], the extended 3-seg Index + Middle are bent (2 seg; base & mid, no tip).
Example of info-loss simplification in order to usefully discard excess detail that obscures basic patterns:
saying “2 segments of a finger are shown” without saying WHICH segment is occluded.
Sometimes you want full data (obscure forest by tree detail; given that tree form ~= hand form
Right Hand of Eadwine the Scribe
Right hand: Y’ Y’ = Y’ – the latter reduction/normalization (into one of the Basic YI Forms) eliminates some data/info ie that instead of the blessing shape, __
Can’t See the Forest for the Trees
Can’t See the Hand for the Fingers
Full detailed data about which of the 14 finger segments are shown, is an order of magnitude, different info focused, than reduction to one of the __ basic hand-shape forms.
Detailed Hand Finger Segment Inventory vs. Basic Hand Shape
Scribe with {stand on right foot/ left foot lifted}
found a few days ago, good image, multiple handedness motifs
Make a Michael Hoffman Portrait by Using a Scribe Portrait
todo
YI Hand-Shapes in Paintings Showing Medieval Scribes
todo: Showcase YI Hand-Shapes in Paintings Showing Medieval Scribes
64,409 views Mar 3, 2021 Making a historically adequate partial replica of The Missal of Eberhard von Greiffenklau, a 15th-century manuscript from The Walters Art Museum.
I apologize for the video corruptions that crop up at a couple points, I’m not sure how to fix that!
The original manu
Video: Hidden Symbolism in Medieval Art ~ Illuminated Manuscripts, Art Video Essay (Dantier and Balogh Design Studio, Jul. 2024)
Video title: Hidden Symbolism in Medieval Art ~ Illuminated Manuscripts, Art Video Essay YouTube channel: Dantier and Balogh Design Studio Jul. 28, 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnFt_J1h61w —
Desc:
“This video is all about the history of illuminated manuscripts from medieval England.
“In this art video essay we will go through the history and the art & design of book illumination throughout the middle ages focusing on Britain (the british isles)
“we will touch on
the Irish book of Kells from the dark ages , go through
the viking invasions that this (predominantly) Christian art form had to survive made by the monks of Winchester, Canterbury and the likes
“We will mention
the Winchester bible &
the Romanesque Stylistic marks,
the Winchester benedictional (also knows as the benedictional of St Aethelwold) with its carolingian art origins, and
the Queen Mary Psalter from the gothic era.
We will analyse the symbolism of
Romanesque art characteristics,
Gothic art styles and
many more.
“I truly believe these religious illustrations, the art of the middle ages are the precursors of not just what we call book design today but they also laid down the fundamentals of graphic design and illustration as we know it today as well!
“Hope you will find the video entertaining and educational,
bookworms,
history buffs and
designers alike.”
Bonus: Dancing Man – Fresh Analysis of Hand-Shape Pair Shows All Four YI Forms: [Y Y’ I I’]
Crop by Michael Hoffman
Y
upper hand: Middle/Ring/Pinkie group splayed (curled a little, but not enough to signal “rebut” or “cut”)
Y’
lower hand: 4 cut/bent fingers, no thumb
I
upper hand: Index finger fully shown 3 segments – all 4 segments of Index finger are shown
I’
upper hand: Index finger bent; as if 3 segments (extra mid segment) + tip is bent, negating the finger.
If anything, if I had to choose, I’d lean toward classifying the upper hand’s Index finger as the I’ shape, more than as the I shape. The finger is so damn weird, it is easy to justify saying the artist is attempting to convey BOTH I & I’ by extreme elongation (I) + sharp bend (I’). As long as my assessment is PRODUCTIVE and I can “show your work” of analysis justification, I’M GOING WITH THAT.
I – fully extended, fully displayed except the tip of the tip?
The Egodeath theory 
