Book review: The Sacred Mushroom Conspiracy (Hatsis)

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Update: Found Table of Contents of Hatsis’ Forthcoming Book

“My attack article at Graham Hancock’s site went so well, I decided to just use the same outline for my book. – Thomas Hatsis”

The Sacred Mushroom Conspiracy
Thomas Hatsis, 2022
http://amzn.com/B08KQMY3J9
Park Street Press

Evidence that Hatsis had that book ID & title:

Search “Sacred Mushroom Conspiracy” Hatsis book
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Sacred+Mushroom+Conspiracy%22+Hatsis+book
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LVmXZXdU5Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G7yiTwLr6o –

“Hatsis is the author of “The Witches Ointment,” “Psychedelic Mystery … 2021) and “The Sacred Mushroom Conspiracy” (spring, 2022).“

“Microdosing Magic,” and the forthcoming books “LSD The Wonderchild” (summer, 2021) and “The Sacred Mushroom Conspiracy” (spring, 2022).

Search Hatsis’ publisher for “Hatsis”: https://www.innertraditions.com/search/hatsis

My Book Review (December 16, 2020)

Right out the gate, it is immediately evident from the title alone, and from this author’s past work, following in the vein of Andy Letcher, that this book — in the name of debunking Allegro — just reifies and further entrenches the misguided idea that John Allegro is of central, definitive relevance to the field of Western mushroom scholarship; that is, the mushroom theory of Greek & Christian religion & art.

The audience for this book is not professional-level scholars in the field of mushrooms in Greek & Christian religion, but rather, is purely a popular audience.

This book does not engage with the actual field of leading-edge scholarship, but limits itself to a negative, debunking an ill-founded popular idea that somehow John Allegro created the idea of “mushrooms throughout Christian history”. Allegro neither held that idea, nor asserted that idea, of “mushrooms throughout Christian history”.

Who was the first person to assert mushrooms at the start of Christianity?

Who was the first person to assert mushrooms prominently throughout Christianity?

[Critique of McKenna’s curiosity-killing presupposition “the Big Bad Catholic Church totally stomped out entheogens”, Hatsis largely agrees with me here]

The popular misconception, which this book exclusively focuses on debunking, is that Sacred Mushroom & The Cross is an entheogen scholarship book (it’s not), that Allegro is an entheogen scholar (he’s isn’t), and that Allegro knows about entheogens (he doesn’t).

Allegro is self-contradictory about whether mushrooms were forgotten at the start of Christianity after the first generation of primitive Christians. [link to my “allegro partly self-contradictory” article]

Cyberdisciple’s Critique Showing Allegro’s Book Is Irrelevant to Entheogen Scholarship

Influence of early anthropological theorizing on ‘entheogen’ scholarship: John Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom
Cyberdisciple, December 14, 2020
https://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com/2020/12/14/influence-of-early-anthropological-theorizing-on-entheogen-scholarship-john-allegro-the-sacred-mushroom/

Hatsis expended his research skills and time on the easy target, the less-important target — merely debunking the flimsy, ill-conceived pop misunderstanding of Allegro — the unread masses’ wishful projection onto Allegro — when he ought to at least acknowledge the need for someone to do the HARD WORK of actual positive, leading-edge research on processing the various types of evidence for mushrooms in Greek & Christian art.

The negative scholarship around Allegro is necessary (it could be a small % of a good book) but is not sufficient.

Hatsis has a long way to go, though, starting as he is, from no awareness of Greek mythemes. A good start would be reading Ruck’s books and the issues of Entheos journal. And the main article at Egodeath.com. And the Proof article, and the Criteria article at present site.

Debunking the popular view of Allegro is needed, is mandatory, is important. But it is not the whole of what’s needed.

A correct replacement theory is even more important.

Hatsis’ recent 2022 book wrongly acts as if the only thing needed in the field of Western mushroom scholarship, is to debunk pop misconceptions involving Allegro, and then the whole topic of Western mushroom scholarship supposedly would vanish.

The Great Conflation built into his mind is, mistakenly thinking that the entire broad field of Western mushroom scholarship has the same scope and focus as the particular narrow theory of spread of secret Amanita cult.

I add the words “spread of”, because Letcher seemed to particularly take issue with the alleged mechanism of spreading of the secretAmanita cult. I read Letcher’s book one time, when it came out — and I critiqued it (links below).

Andy Letcher’s Book, Shroom

Competing Views about Entheogens in Religious History
April 12, 2007, Michael Hoffman
Subsection:
Minimal Entheogen Theory per Psychedelics Advocates
http://www.egodeath.com/ViewsOnEntheogensInReligiousHistory.htm#_Toc164518584 — excerpt from top of section:

Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom
by Andy Letcher
http://amazon.co.uk/o/asin/0571227708 — June 15, 2006
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0060828285 — February 27, 2007

Author’s websites: [2006]
http://andyletcher.co.uk
http://myspace.com/shroomthebook

Shroom is essentially a reaction against the extreme mushroom theory of religion as extracted from Wasson/Allegro/McKenna (the “Mushroom Origin of Religion” Theory [MORT]).  Shroom cannot perceive or address the entheogen theory of religion because Shroom is fully busy reacting against the isolated narrow mushroom theory of religion.

_____

Letcher’s view doesn’t engage with some clearly relevant alternative views; for example, per the maximal entheogen theory, entheogenic mushroom use was common (agrees with “the MORT”, disagrees with Letcher), and entheogenic mushroom use was not in the form of a single secret official cult (agrees with Letcher, disagrees with his particular chosen monolithic variant of “MORT”).

_____

The book amounts to
a limited refutation of
one subtype of
the maximal theory,
while
among religion scholars, and faux-“hip” esotericism scholars (Gnosis mag) and even among many entheogen scholars, today’s predominant scholarly view is the minimal entheogen theory.  

Among a pop audience (not widely read in entheogen scholarship), a kind of “maximal mushroom theory of religion” may indeed be predominant.

_____

The minimal entheogen theory uses the “divide, isolate, and diminish” strategy: it

separates into isolation
each instance of
possible
historical or literary
evidence

for psychoactive use, then

states that
for each isolated instance, there’s not compelling evidence to support
this instance being evidence of religious psychoactive use.

_____

A key, differentiating set of questions to ask Letcher (as representative of a certain anti-MORT paradigm):

·         Did mystic-state religious experiences happen, in the history of religion?

·         Were many of them induced by mushrooms (in terms of numbers and percentage)?

·         If they weren’t induced by mushrooms, then how did they come about?

·         Are religious myths metaphorical descriptions of the mystic altered state?

/ end of excerpt from my 2007 critique of Shroom

My Review of Hatsis’ Recent 2022 Book, Continued

What this book provides is merely negative; showing that the popular mind wrongly fantasizes what Allegro thought and wrote. This book is in error, in that it accomplishes that goal (showing that the pop conception of Allegro poorly describes his actual position & book), but then this book halts there and congratulates itself, “Job finished; job done; job well done.”

The field — on the lower, pop tier, — got headed down the wrong onramp. This book puts it in reverse, to back out from that wrong onramp.

But then, the car needs to get headed forward again, on the right onramp (the higher tier, the scholarly sound tier of theorizing plus historical evidence).

This book informs people that their use of Allegro is wrong, and that Allegro is not what the pop mind thinks he is. That is all merely prerequisites, to undo the wrong path that the Wasson-Allegro non-debate led us down.

This book ought to continue on forward in the right direction, to show:

  • Show how Allegro is dead weight interfering with constructive productive scholarship.
  • Show how to throw off this dead weight. eg replace one’s John Allegro framed portrait, by a Robert Graves framed portrait.
  • Show how to rightly conceptualize the role of mushrooms in Christianity, building on the sound direction which Graves figured out.
  • The only way to be able to proceed, is to co-decode Greek and Christian religion together. This has been proved repeatedly. Armed with the pair, Greek and Christian religion, you can solve any problem in decoding World Mythology. If armed only with mushrooms in Christianity — or if armed only with mushrooms in Greek religion, you can figure out neither Christianity, nor Greek, nor World religious mythology.

Hatsis Cancelled His Book “The Sacred Mushroom Conspiracy”

Early in this website (2016?) I wrote something naively expectantly hopeful and wrong, that Hatsis retracted his insane denial of mushrooms in Christianity.

Here is an equally venturesome conjecture. Hatsis lists his sites in the Description of these YouTube videos.

https://www.innertraditions.com/search/hatsis

The Sacred Mushroom Conspiracy
Thomas Hatsis, 2022
http://amzn.com/B08KQMY3J9
Park Street Press

Evidence that Hatsis had that book ID & title:

Search “Sacred Mushroom Conspiracy” Hatsis book
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Sacred+Mushroom+Conspiracy%22+Hatsis+book
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LVmXZXdU5Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G7yiTwLr6o –

“Hatsis is the author of “The Witches Ointment,” “Psychedelic Mystery … 2021) and “The Sacred Mushroom Conspiracy” (spring, 2022).“

“Microdosing Magic,” and the forthcoming books “LSD The Wonderchild” (summer, 2021) and “The Sacred Mushroom Conspiracy” (spring, 2022).

Search Hatsis’ publisher for “Hatsis”: https://www.innertraditions.com/search/hatsis

https://psanctum.org –

“Psanctum Psychedelia is a non-profit psychedelics research, educational, and harm reduction organization located in Portland, Oregon.

Since forming in 2018, Psanctum Psychedelia has hosted a variety of speakers knowledgeable in the latest, cutting-edge advances in psychedelic science, history, anthropology, and spirituality. We threw the Gaian Mind Psychedelic Conference in 2019, and host the Psanctum Open Mic every Monday.

Our mission is to respect the deep traditions of various peoples all over the world, while coupling those insights with the latest breakthroughs in psychedelic science and technologies.”

One of Hatsis’ articles argues: “If you assert that Christians used mushrooms, then you are DEFINITELY doing culturecide. If you assert that Christians did not use mushrooms, then you are definitely NOT doing culturecide.” This prejudice is what the (failed, esotericism-illiterate) Psychedelic Witch calls “respecting the traditions of peoples all over the world.”

“We value the wild, the weird, and the wonderful—and see viable connections between the scientific and the spiritual, the traditional and the innovative, and the magical and the measurable aspects of the psychedelic experience.

Please enjoy our videos and blog, and don’t forget to visit the Psanctum Psychedelic library!”

The YouTube vid lists: https://www.facebook.com/groups/psanctum.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G7yiTwLr6o –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LVmXZXdU5Q – 5Q has more contacts/sites than other vid:

Thomas Hatsis is the author of “The Witches Ointment,” “Psychedelic Mystery Traditions,” “Microdosing Magic,” and the forthcoming books “LSD The Wonderchild” (summer, 2021) and “The Sacred Mushroom Conspiracy” (spring, 2022).

Go ahead Hatsis make it official, publish your official folly book, carved in stone.

The anti-mushroom “psychedelic witch”, self-contradiction incarnate, #1 follower of Allegro, “Allegro’s book is really great”.

Closer to the truth is: Allegro’s book is irrelevant for entheogen scholarship, except in some negative sense.

See Also

Hatsis the #1 Follower of Allegro:
Reading Allegro Again (Hatsis 2015)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/02/18/reading-allegro-again-hatsis-2015/

My links to Hatsis’ articles: https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/10/31/psychedelic-mystery-traditions-hatsis/#Hatsis

Irvin’s Salamander article (original PDF title, with appendixes including questions for Ruck & Irvin):
Roasting the Salamander: Mushroom Cult Theorists Vs. Critical Historical Inquiry
August 18, 2013 (the earliest home page archived on that date has this article)
https://web.archive.org/web/20160218214557/http://arspsychedelia.com/uploads/3/2/1/4/3214063/roasting_the_salamander.pdf

I’ve explained the esoteric mystic-state analogies in the right-foot “dancing man”/salamander image:
Salamander Mushroom Tree Right Side Cut (Dancing Man; Roasting Salamander Bestiary Image)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/04/13/salamander-mushroom-tree-right-side-cut/

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Author: egodeaththeory

http://egodeath.com

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