Contents:
- Key Phrases for Phase 2 of the Field of Western Entheogen Scholarship: The New Theory of Mushrooms in Greek & Christian Religion
- Did Brown “Move the Goalpost”, or Move to Phase 2 of Western Entheogen Scholarship?
- Phase 1 of Western Entheogen Scholarship Was Amanita; Phase 2 is Psilocybe in Mixed Wine & Mystery Religion
- My 2003 Announcement of the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion Condoned the Amanita Obsession; I Failed to Quash It at that Time
- John Lash’s Confused Narrative Attributes and Hands-Over the Entire Field of Western Entheogen Scholarship to Wasson-Allegro-Amanita
Brown’s Reply Mostly Reassures Me that Amanita-Mania Was Not So Dominant in Phase 1 of Entheogen Scholarship eg 1956-2009
tbd
Brown corroborates a tendency I noticed, to assign the classic entheogen Psilocybe to the Americas, and restrict Europe to just the Amanita mushroom, during 1956-2009 entheogen scholarship, erasing psilocybe from theory-possibilities we consider for Greek & Christian religious history.
1956: Centaurs’ Food essay by Robert Graves (it’s hard to get details on his first titling of this essay, the date, and the magazine issue).
2009: Irvin’s 3 books published, strong tendency (probably) leaning to Amanita away from Psilocybe).
Key Phrases for Phase 2 of the Field of Western Entheogen Scholarship: The New Theory of Mushrooms in Greek & Christian Religion
Western entheogen scholarship = psychedelics, of which Psilocybe is definitive and ideal and flexible, in ancient Greek/ Hellenistic/ Christian / Christendom, including for example, luxury color illustrated bestiaries for teaching Christian morality.
the field of Western entheogen scholarship
Psilocybe in mystery-religion initiation & mixed-wine banqueting
Psilocybe in mixed-wine banqueting & mystery-religion initiation
Psilocybe in mixed wine & mystery religion
Psilocybe in mystery religion & mixed wine
Psilocybe in mystery-religion & banqueting
Psilcybe in mixed wine, mystery religion, and esoteric Christianity
Psilcybe in mixed-wine banqueting, mystery-religion initiation, and esoteric Christianity. pmwbmriec
Did Brown “Move the Goalpost”, or Move to Phase 2 of Western Entheogen Scholarship?
Did Brown at one time defend Amanita as the center of the universe of entheogen scholarship, and then did he “move the goalpost” and switch to instead, falling back to a more easily defensible position, of Psilocybe instead?
In a video debate, Hatsis characterized Brown as “oh, so you’re moving the goalpost” because Brown refused to be a devoted Amanita-defender; Brown failed to conform to Hatsis’ tilting-at-windmills, his strawman, the only game he knows how to play.
____________________
2. Is it true that the field of Western entheogen scholarship in its first, formative phase was squarely centered on Amanita, and was mostly limited to Amanita as the universal solution explain to Mixed-Wine, Mystery Religion, and Esoteric Christianity?
Why do scholars all rush to imagine Amanita in Esoteric Christianity, instead of Psilocybin in Esoteric Christianity; imagine Amanita in Mystery Religions such as Mithraism, instead of Psilocybin in Mystery Religion?
Why was Ruck blind to the Psilocybe mushroom in Mithras’ leg, while he spun long-shot tales of red and white color in Mithra’s cape indicating Amanita?
Is there some grand conspiracy among scholars to push Amanita and ignore the superior Psilocybe?
Why do scholars assign all the good entheogens to South America, and all the bad, fallback, 3rd-rate pseudo-psychedelics to European religious history?
I’ve even literally read that Europe doesn’t have Psilocybe mushrooms, and therefore Psilocybe cannot be the topic of entheogen scholarship in Western religious history (probably in some source as credible as Letcher).
I know why John Lash is biased against mushrooms in Christianity (he hates Christianity and thus it cannot be allowed to have his precious mushrooms in its history);
I know why McKenna is biased against the existence of mushrooms in Christianity, (Big Bad Church);
I know why Hatsis is biased against the existence of mushrooms in Christianity:
- He’s “selling” Mandrake instead, as his witches’ product.
- He’s selling his text-based, privilege-the-text “scientific historian” methods, which a priori discard 5/6 = 83% of the types of evidence; his “scientific” method which in effect, says that art evidence never counts, and only text evidence counts — and that text evidence must only be literal, plain, explicit, direct descriptions in text.
Of the two media (art and texts), only one counts: texts (it’s an understatement to say that he “privileges” texts).
Of the 3 levels of evidence (Literal; Stylized; Effects), only 1 of the 3 counts: Literal.
Stylized depictions never count, and depictions of effects never count; only botanical literal depictions count; but those don’t count, and are cancelled out, because they aren’t text, just art; and only text counts.
Specifically, only direct, literal descriptions and explicit mentions of mushrooms by name, in texts, counts.
The other 5 of 6 evidence-types never count.
We must eliminate 83% of the types of evidence, and restrict ourselves to 1/6 = 17% of the types of evidence.
So that’s why Hatsis is biased against Psilocybe in Christian history.
WHY THE F*CK IS EVERY GODDAM ENTHEOGEN SCHOLAR BIASED AF AGAINST PSILOCYBE IN Christian HISTORY, except for Brown & me? What the hell!!
In 2011, Ruck is still pumping out books obsessing on Amanita.
Mushrooms, Myth and Mithras: The Drug Cult that Civilized Europe
Ruck, Hoffman, Celdran, 2011
http://amzn.com/0872864707
Am I the lone odd man out, and Letcher-Hatsis is correct that the entire field of Western entheogen scholarship really is identified (incorrectly) with Amanita?
Am I the only Western entheogen scholar who doesn’t identify the field of Western entheogen scholarship with Amanita?
What the f*ck is it with this Amanita obsession/fixation, including by Letcher-Hatsis, who limits his books to Amanita, and who hasn’t heard of Cubensis & Liberty Caps? What’s up with that??
My 1986/1995/1999 Finding in the field of Western Entheogen Scholarship: The Eaten Scroll in Revelation 10 Is Amanita
By historical accident, even I have roots in Amanita: the first question I asked in the field, in 1986, was What is the eaten scroll of Revelation 10?
I was satisfied in 1999 by Heinrich’s 1995 answer: Amanita, and I agree that Revelation 10 refers to Amanita.
Maybe since the first entheogen people find in Christianity is Amanita in Revelation 10 and Ezekiel, that caused fixation on Amanita at the expense of the superficially boring but more cognitively effective & historically relevant Psilocybe.
__________________
3. Can someone reassure me that the field of Western entheogen scholarship was not centered on Amanita and practically limited to Amanita?
I hope the field of Western entheogen scholarship was never actually centered around Amanita.
I might have to say:
Phase 1 of Western entheogen scholarship = Amanita. 1956-2003 or -2011
(2011 — perish the thought. Ruck’s book on Mithras. Have these Amanita obsessives ever TRIED the stuff? At least Heinrich did; his book Strange Fruit is respectable.)
“2003” above: = Entheos issues 1-4, and my 2003 announcement of the maximal entheogen theory of religion.
I hate that concession, that people in the field were so dumb, that the first 55 years of Western entheogen scholarship, on mystery religion initiation, mixed-wine banqueting, and esoteric Christianity, the single-minded focus is Amanita as the universal (wrong) solution for explaining all things esoteric.
Can someone save me & the field, and show that the field of Western entheogen scholarship was not drenched in, and held prisoner in, the Amanita single-plant fallacy/fixation/obsession for 1956-2011, for 55 years?
Phase 2 of Western entheogen scholarship = Psilocybe (and less-ideal fallbacks) in mixed-wine banqueting & mystery-religion initiation.
My coming onto the Western entheogen scholarship scene, spelled the end of the Amanita single-plant fallacy, and displaced Amanita by
Psilocybe in Psilocybe in mixed wine & mystery religion;
Psilocybe in mixed-wine banqueting & mystery-religion initiation.
Phase 1 of Western Entheogen Scholarship Was Amanita; Phase 2 is Psilocybe in Mixed Wine & Mystery Religion
Reluctant Framing:
- Phase 1 of Western Entheogen Scholarship Was Amanita
- Phase 2 of Western Entheogen Scholarship is Psilocybe in Mystery-Religion Initiation & Mixed-Wine Banqueting
Reluctant Framing:
- Phase 1 of Western Entheogen Scholarship Was Amanita in Christianity & Mystery Religions
- Phase 2 of Western Entheogen Scholarship is Psilocybe in Mystery-Religion Initiation & the Ancient Mixed-Wine Banqueting Tradition
I hate this narrative about Phase 1 = Amanita, it’s a sh*tty situation if true. If true, we have to fix the situation.
Email Draft Not Sent to Jerry Brown
Is it true that the field of entheogen scholarship in its first, formative phase was centered on Amanita?
If that is the happenstance fact, I’ll have to say:
Phase 1 of Western entheogen scholarship = Amanita.
Phase 2 of Western entheogen scholarship = pmrmw pmrmw
Maybe I’ll have to concede that the field of entheogen scholarship did make a huge mistake and really was Amanita-fixated in its first phase.
If so, then I need to talk about a New, Different, Mature Phase of the field, that the field of entheogen scholarship was indeed Amanita-centric, but the field has moved past that error, into a different, mature phase; that the field of entheogen scholarship is moving to a next phase, where Amanita is relatively irrelevant.
Hatsis is confused by the change of focus in Phase 2 of the field of entheogen scholarship.
Brown is operating within Phase 2 of the field of entheogen scholarship.
Phase 1 of the field of Western entheogen scholarship was centered on Amanita.
I hate that notion and I hope it is not true, that the field so began.
Phase 2 of the field of Western entheogen scholarship is centered on (eg) Psilocybe in the Mystery Religion Initiation & Banqueting Tradition.
I and Brown are operating in Phase 2 of the field, but Hatsis is still stuck in Phase 1 of the field.
From Hatsis’ perspective, Brown is an Allegro follower of a certain type: a bad, unfaithful, deviant follower, and Brown (by being in a Phase 2 that Hatsis is unaware of) has “moved the goalpost” in Browns’ effort to defend “The Allegro-Amanita Holy Mushroom Theory”, which is the only theory Hatsis can imagine, being stuck as he is, in Phase 1 of Western entheogen scholarship.
In Hatsis’ mind, the only possible way to not be a follower of the “secret Amanita cult” theory, is by rejecting mushrooms in Christian history.
If Brown asserts mushrooms in Christian history, then by definition, per Phase 1 the field of Western entheogen scholarship, Brown is a “follower of Allegro” and Brown is an advocate of the “secret Amanita cult” theory.
Letcher-Hatsis would strive for Phase 2 of the field of Western entheogen scholarship, to be some form of “no mushrooms in Christianity”.
Because Phase 1 was wrong, and Phase 1 reduced-down the entire field of Western entheogen scholarship into solely the “secret Amanita cult” theory, this means — in their confused and biased thinking — that Phase 2 of the field of Western entheogen scholarship must therefore be, “no mushrooms in Christianity”.
Pope Wasson approves.
Ever-malformed argumentation around Allegro-Amanita Madness:
I wonder if there’s any validity to Hatsis arguing that Jerry Brown “moved the goalpost” by not defending Amanita, but defending Psilocybe (Cubensis & Liberty Caps) instead.
Hatsis’ argument depends on everyone in the entire field of entheogen scholarship, making Allegro-Amanita the very center and omphalus navel origin, of the entire field of entheogen scholarship.
I strongly reject the narrative that “the field of entheogen scholarship comes from Amanita”.
That narrative might have some, accidental historical origin of truth, happenstance; but even if so, the origin of the field is irrelevant to the later, more mature & developed field.
We aren’t in 1970 anymore!! Even if the Pop wing or tier of the field of entheogen scholarship still acts like we are stuck for eternity in 1970.
Eject Hatsis’ infinite-loop 8-track tape! That album kind of sucks and there’s much better.
Ruck’s book Apples of Apollo is about Amanita, and claims that myth describes the Amanita plant (not its effects). (Boring & limited.)
I wonder if Ruck’s book The Effluents of Deity covers Psilocybe or cognitive phenomenology experiential effects, or is limited to “this art depicts the physical form of Amanita — boring & limited; superficial, narrow.
The single-plant fallacy.
The plant-focus fallacy (vs. Effects)).
The accidental, halting, off-base origin of a field should never hold it back; that is not how Scientific Knowledge progress works.
People are trying to hamper and cripple the field of entheogen scholarship by shackling the field with the Allegro-Amanita permanent ball-and-chain.
The messy, malformed, backwards, initial phase of a field should not eternally constrain the field.
The field needs to cut off the initial childhood phase and move forward transformed, into mature form.
(If we agree that Amanita-obsession was the original phase of entheogen scholarship — we really need to interrogate, whether that was the case.)
I want to argue that “Allegro-Amanita” was never actually the be-all, end-all, star by which the nascent field of entheogen scholarship EVER steered by.
I hope that Amanita was never actually the central point of reference for the entire field, in the past.
My first question in the field of Western entheogen scholarship, was in 1986, when I wondered which visionary plant the eaten scrolls of the book of Revelation refers to.
Robert Graves was too positive about Amanita, and he should’ve emphasized Psilocybe more.
Cyberdisciple compares on the Greek side, the extreme overemphasis on Kykeon.
The academic fixation on Kykeon in Greek Mystery Religion, is like the unbalanced, oversimplifying fixation on Allegro-Amanita in Christianity.
At 46:15 in Transcendent Knowledge Podcast episode 22.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on6EFVLF-58&t=2775s
The tendency
(in artificially making Kykeon the center and guiding star for all of Mystery Religion & Greek mythology,
or making some imagined “Allegro-Amanita Theory” the Dead Center (forever) of the field of entheogen scholarship),
comes from intellectual laziness, oversimplification; narrowing, narrow minded, reductionistic; reducing down the entire field, into one preconceived central focus.
There is a noxious narrowing type of reductionism in the field of entheogen scholarship, like reducing all theology and religious-experiencing questions to only the one brain-dead question, “Does God exist, or not?”
A guaranteed-unprofitable debate, is the only possible outcome.
The preconceived narrowing-assumption, the fixation on a single position, as if it’s the only notion or phrasing possible, reduces and hampers and hobbles the field; it’s reductionistic.
Just because Chemistry, by historical accident, initially defended Phlogiston, or Physics the Ether —
does that mean that we must for all eternity, frame all of Chemistry in relation to Phlogiston; or for all eternity, frame all of Physics in relation to either being a “follower” of the Ether theory?
Is the only possible alternative to describe the alternative positions as a “lapsed follower who is now a deviant from his initial position”, that is guilty of “moving the goalpost”, but now “has been caught trying to move the goalpost”?
My 2003 Announcement of the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion Condoned the Amanita Obsession; I Failed to Quash It at that Time
I’m surprised at how little pushback I expressed against Amanita Mania within the field of Entheogen Scholarship.
Too much, 24:00
Transcendent Knowledge Podcast, Episode 22 ~~
critiques Allegro-Amanita Mania that tries to reduce the entire field of entheogen scholarship into the narrow prison of Amanita and turn everyone into a slave of Wasson & Allegro, falsely describing every entheogen scholar as a “follower of” , or a follower of who is a deviant from
(so there is no escape — EITHER YOU ARE A FOLLOWER OF WASSSON-ALLEGRO, OR YOU ARE A LAPSED DEVIANT FOLLOWER OF WASSON ALLEGRO, OR YOU ARE “MOVING THE GOALPOST” BUT YOUR “REAL” POSITION IS AMANITA-ALLEGRO WORSHIP.
THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THIS TRAP PEOPLE HAVE CONSTRUCTED, both the Pop Sike world AND Letcher and Hatsis who push against it.
I have accused Letcher-Hatsis as being a brainwashed Allegro-Orbiter even while they sell books against Allegro-Amanita & “The Holy Mushroom theory” and the “secret Amanita cult” theory.
They’re just making the problem worse, further restricting and narrowing the options & horizons of thought.
The King of Plants for the Mono-Plant Fallacy is Amanita.
Hatsis “sells” Mandrake in Christianity, and wants to shut-out the conflicting interest, the competitor, which he sees as Amanita (& as an afterthought, as if synonymous, “mushrooms”).
I proved that Bennett’s book __ is multi-plant, but my point remains.
Chris Bennett “sells” Cannabis as his single-plant fallacy.
In overselling Cannabis in Christianity, at the expense of all mushroom species, Bennett further emphasizes Amanita: he’s currently focused on pushing against __ re: Amanita (in India religion).
THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THE ALL-SWALLOWING GREAT AMANITA THEORY, THE ALLEGRO-AMANITA THEORY-TRAP.
If you agree like Ruck that the universe resolves around the Omphalus navel of Allegro’s Amanita, you are guilty of pushing the baseless Holy Mushroom Theory, and the “secret Amanita cult” theory, and are a follower of Allegro-Amanita.
If you are like me and ignore Amanita, and in opposition to Allegro-Amanita, you instead “sell” Psilocybe, then you are (as the very confused writer John Lash mis-described) a “lapsed follower of Allegro who is (as the very confused writer Hatsis said) guilty of moving the goalpost“.
If you are like me and ignore Amanita, and in opposition to Allegro-Amanita, you instead “sell” Psilocybe in Christianity (& in Greek religion), then you are a “lapsed follower of Allegro who is guilty of moving the goalpost.”
If you do not disavow all mushrooms in Christianity history, that makes you some type of follower of Allegro-Amanita, and of the “secret Amanita cult” theory, and of Irvin’s The Holy Mushroom theory.
THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THE JAIL OF ALLEGRO-AMANITA I HAVE CONSTRUCTED FOR YOU.
DISAVOW ALL MUSHROOMS IN CHRISTIANITY OR ELSE YOU ARE A SLAVE OF WASSON-ALLEGRO. By the logic of Phase 1 of Western entheogen scholarship.
“Moving the goalpost” is Hatsis’ nonsensical accusation against Jerry Brown.
Did Brown in any sense move from an Amanita focus, to Psilocybe?
Ways I’ve Participated in Amanita Scholarship, in a Proper, Limited Way
I assert that:
- My first research question in entheogen scholarship was Rev10 scrolls, which I was happy with Heinrich having solved/identified; I agree, Rev10 scrolls refers to Amanita.
- The Holy Grail refers to the upturned Amanita.
- Those are my best photographs, of a rain-pool pair of Holy Grail Amanitas.
- It was particularly valuable that my photos of Holy Grail prove that the Dionysus Triumph leopard fountain is upturned Amanita.
Those are the ways I’ve been part of the problem, of being positive toward Amanita, instead of Psilocybe in Greek & Christian history.
Letcher-Hatsis Strangely Ignores the Amanita Obsession that also Occurred in Greek Religion Scholarship
tbd
John Lash’s Confused Narrative Attributes and Hands-Over the Entire Field of Western Entheogen Scholarship to Wasson-Allegro-Amanita
todo (copy from idea development page 6 or 7 – but it’s a TON! relevant?? gotta try it.):
quote the very confused writer John Lash (but Heinrich was very confused about Allegro, too!).
Lash’s narrative of the whole field trying to connect Amanita & entheogens to Old Testament & Christianity (he likes entheogens, he hates Abrahamic religion, so therefore there cannot be allowed entheogens in Christianity).
Damn, it’s hard to pick out — I developed WAY too much material from Lash & about Lash yesterday; the present page would become the John Lash Critique page & 3 other topics, if I copied it all:
See the following group of sections in Idea Development page 6: but particularly see the passage from a Lash article that characterizes the origin of the field of entheogen scholarship.
2008 Jan Irvin “The Holy Mushroom” Episode
Lash Article: Wasson and Company: The Entheogenic Theory of Religion — this is the recounting I dislike, of the alleged origin-story of the field of Western entheogen scholarship. Copied to below in the present page.
Article: “Illuminated Heresy: More Images from the Paris Eadwine Psalter” (Lash 2007)
John Lash Site – Entheogens, Mushroom Psalters
Lash Article: Wasson and Company: The Entheogenic Theory of Religion
God I hate how these writers attribute everything, the entire field of mushroom scholarship, to Wasson & Allegro!
full article:
Wasson and Company: The Entheogenic Theory of Religion
https://web.archive.org/web/20110612022630/http://www.metahistory.org/psychonautics/Wasson/WassonAndCo.php —
“Wasson and Company is a section of Psychonautics dedicated to research and evaluation on the controversial topic of the entheogenic theory of religion: that is, the claim that the religious experience of the human species originated in altered states induced by the ingestion of sacred medicine plants such as the amanita muscaria mushroom or other psychoactive fungi.
[fake staged PR propaganda photo of Sabina, exposed by Irvin]
R. Gordon Wasson receiving psilocybin mushrooms
from the Mazatec curandera Maria Sabinas
Although there are important antecedents,
[Salverte 1846, Blavatsky 1877, Hall 1925, Graves 1956 http://www.egodeath.com/WassonEdenTree.htm#_Toc135889202]
the argument for the entheogenic basis of religion can be said to have been formally launched by R. Gordon Wasson in his book, Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. [an Amanita-obsession book, which mealy-mouth sort of vaguely insinuated that a much earlier proto-Eden tree’s snake was Amanita. WEAK AF! -mh]
Initially, due in part to the influence of his Russian wife, Valentina, Wasson posited the existence of a prehistorical shamanic mushroom cult [GRRRR, THAT EVIL PHRASE “MUSHROOM CULT”! -MH] in the Ural mountains.
He sought to prove that the natural [<– GOOD!] sacrament and inebriant of this cult was the fly-agaric, amanita muscaria, which he identified with the Vedic inebriant, soma.
[look at this bullshit double-talk wording below! Is this bad enough to make it into the “Scholarly Quotes Hall of Shame”?
Lash wrote: “Variations of the Wasson thesis, including some considerable extrapolations and departures from it, have been advanced by [every entheogen scholar].”
Got that? “Variations of the Wasson thesis, including considerable departures from it, have been advanced by every entheogen scholar.”
“Variations of the Ptolemaic geocentric cosmology, including considerable departures from it, have been advanced by Copernicus.”
Thus, by definition, EVERY THEORY in the field of entheogen scholarship, is hereby framed as, “Variations of the Wasson thesis, including considerable departures from it.” Is not this reasoning worthy of the Scholarly Quotes Hall of Shame?
“variations *including* significant *departures*” <– Houston I think we have a problem here
Variations of the Wasson thesis, [STOP EQUATING THE FIELD WITH A PERSONALITY!-mh] including some considerable extrapolations and departures from it [<– DISAGREE W/ THIS FRAMING, THAT YOU ARE EITHER A SLAVE IMPRISONED WITHIN WASSON’S THESIS, OR ELSE YOU ARE AN ESCAPED SLAVE WHO IS THE PROPERTY OF WASSON’S THESIS — STOP PLACING WASSON-ALLEGRO-AMANITA AS THE REFERENCE POINT!], have been advanced by
John Allegro, <– AMANITA FIXATED
Ralph Metzner, < Amanita-centric? Odd, I never thought of Metzner as an entheogen scholar, double-check. oh sh*t – Ralph Metzner (May 18, 1936 – March 14, 2019) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Metzner – this new book by Metzner fails to corroborate that Metzner was an entheogen scholarship and advocated the Amanita theory in Western entheogen scholarship.
Searching for the Philosophers’ Stone: Encounters with Mystics, Scientists, and Healers
Ralph Metzner, 2019. http://amzn.com/1620557762
James Arthur, < Amanita-centric? pretty easy to check. darn, no Search Inside: http://amzn.com/1585091510. could check his Wayback site.
Terence McKenna, < Psilocybe! McFakea has nothing to do with the Wasson-Allegro-Amanita fixation. McFakea is guilty of “Do not look for mushrooms in Christianity, because it’s a given that the Big Bad Catholic Church suppressed mushrooms.”
Benny Shannon[sic], <– RIDICULOUS, how the F is Shanon in any way a
Jim de Korne,
and many others.
[JOHN RUSH]
[MY RESEARCH IN MUSHROOM SCHOLARSHIP IN NO WAY “COMES FROM” OR IS A “DEPARTURE FROM” WASSON. WASSON IS IRRELEVANT! I GOT THE MALFORMED ENTHEOGEN BRICK, BUILDING BLOCK TO REPAIR AND SUPPORT MY EGODEATH THEORY, FROM HEINRICH, RUCK, M HOFFMAN… NOT FROM ALLEGRO OR WASSON. STOP IT WITH THE PERSONALITY/FIELD CONFLATION.
STOP MAKING EVERYONE IN THE FIELD A SLAVE OF POPE WASSON & ALLEGRO! WASSSON & ALLEGRO ARE IRRELEVANT, NOT THE GUIDING STAR TO STEER THE UNIVERSE OF THIS TOPIC BY. -MH]
Most recently, John Rush. Failed God: Fractured Myth in a Fragile World.
The Entheogenic Catch-22
At the outset, let me emphasize that I differ from most of the other exponents of this theory in two key respects, each of which implies a kind of Catch-22 in the theory. To refresh your memory, Catch-22 is defined like this:
1. A situation in which a desired outcome or solution is impossible to attain because of a set of inherently illogical rules or conditions.
2. The rules or conditions that create such a situation.
2. A situation or predicament characterized by absurdity or senselessness.
3. A contradictory or self-defeating course of action.
First objection: I draw a strong distinction between religious experience and religion as such, i.e., dogma, hierarchy, institution, ritual and regalia. I reject the claim (expounded by Benny Shannon) that authoritarian religious dogmas such as the Ten Commandments could have been derived from visionary states induced by sacred plants. Consistent with this stance, I reject the notion that
genuine visionary revelations given by plant-teachers became corrupted or co-opted into dogmatism and blind beliefs.
I insist that the corruption of paternal/authoritarian religion was present from its inception, a calculated and deliberate strategy for behavioral control.
[WHAT’S YOUR POINT? THAT HAS F*CK-ALL TO DO WITH ENTHEOGEN SCHOLARSHIP; To what extent mushrooms in Christianity? -MH]
I argue that religious belief-systems and associated rules that locate their origin and authority in a paternal off-planet deity cannot have been derived from visionary trance induced by sacred plants,
[who cares where worldly mundane rules came from. IRRELEVANT.]
for such plants are teachers given by nature to assist the human species in maintaining continuity with nature and, when required, healing its rupture from nature due to socialization of the species. The second part of this proposition states my assumption—pet theory, if you like—that
sacred planets teach and inspire our connection to the earth, so they cannot be cited as the source of off-planet dogmas or anti-natural belief-systems.
[YOU ARE CONFUSED AND IRRELEVANT. -MH]
Catch-22:
psychoactive agents designed and provided by nature to connect the human species to nature
cannot induce
visions that turn humankind against nature in favor of off-planet divinity
, as all the major religions do.
[YOU ARE GETTING LOST IN YOUR OWN THEOLOGICAL WRONG CONFUSED SPECULATIONS IRRELEVANT. STAY ON TOPIC. YOUR “OBJECTION” TO “THE THEORY”[SIC] IS IRRELEVANT GASEOUS VAPOUR. -MH]
[DUMB*SS LASH THINKS ALLEGRO BELIEVES IN MR. HISTORICAL JESUS!:]
John Lash wrote: “associations between psychoactive mushrooms and the historical Jesus, famously argued by John Allegro in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross“
[WHY SHOULD ANYONE WASTE TIME READING LASH WHEN HE CATESTROPHICALLY BOTCHES ALLEGRO’S AHISTORICITY POSITION?
Clark Heinrich’s book commits same major egregious error.
DUDE YOU DIDN’T EVEN READ ALLEGRO, DID YOU?! Manifestly not!
YET YOU PRESUME TO WRITE ABOUT YOUR PROJECTED FANTASY OF “WHAT ALLEGRO WROTE”, OR “THE ALLEGRO THEORY” — YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND SH*T ABOUT ALLEGRO THE ACTUAL MAN AND HIS ACTUAL REAL BOOK.]
Second objection: I discount the widely accepted
associations between psychoactive mushrooms and the historical Jesus, famously argued by John Allegro in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross.
In my view as a comparative mythologist, a great part of Allegro’s conflation of mushroom/penis/savior is unfounded, if not downright fatuous. His scholarship is excellent except when he gets lost in word games with terms in lost languages. In parallel with my objection in the first point, I reject the idea that true, pure, or genuine teachings of Jesus existed, having been derived from visionary trance induced by sacred mushrooms, [THAT’S NOT ALLEGRO’S POSITION, DUMB*SS!] but then were later repressed, distorted, coopted or otherwise corrupted by those who wished to profit from such visions while prohibiting them to the world at large.
[ALL OF THAT IS IRRELEVANT/PERIPHERAL TO THE FIELD, TO THE CENTRAL QUESTION: To what extent mushrooms in Christianity?]
Catch-22: The supposed original teachings of Jesus as leader of a Palestinian mushroom cult [NOT EVEN CLOSE TO ALLEGRO’S POSITION!] cannot have been corrupted into the message of the New Testament because
that message is proven by historical and textual analysis to be a systematic contrivance that does not require a hidden or esoteric message for its basis.
In short, the NT cannot be corrupted or encoded mushroom shamanism [MISSING PERIOD/TEXT]
[ANYONE TALKING OF “MUSHROOM SHAMANISM” IS WORKING IN SOME TOTALLY DIFFERENT FIELD THAN my field:
Psilocybe in Greek & Christian religion & mixed-wine banqueting. -mh]
[whatever you think the position is that you are objecting to — as confused as Letcher — is irrelevant to the real field of
mushroom scholarship about Psilocybe Mixed Wine.
Your position is irrelevant, because your imagined “position objected to” is garbled by you, and irrelevant. -mh]
Various points of difference and my reason for them can be found in the files linked from this page.
Principally, I object to attributing
paternal dogmatic religion such as the Mosaic cult of Yahweh
to
visionary trance induced by psychoactive plants
[at best, those are secondary, peripheral issues, not
the center of the field, of mushroom scholarship:
To what extent mushrooms in Christianity? -mh]
because that argument lends a kind of legitimacy to belief-systems which are hostile to the Goddess and the earth. [you are twisting the field into political proxy, stop it -mh] I insist that
endorsing this argument turns out to be a good thing for religion, making it look good because
its basis is presumed to have been an authentic visionary revelation,
but a really bad thing for psychonautic visionary practice. I oppose
Shannon and others mainly on this point:
they give manistream[sic] religion a specious provenance and false legitimacy.
[Lash has bias against religion, which bias is driving his confusion regarding mushrooms in that religion.
LASH IS SO CONFUSED AND JUMBLES SO MANY DISTORTED VIEWS, HE CAN’T CONTRIBUTE ANYTHING TO THE proper field. -mh]
“Finally, I would point out that in my opinion it is no coincidence that
the argument for “Moses on marijuana or mushrooms” attained international press coverage at the very moment that governmental agencies around the world commenced a brutal crackdown on psychoactive plants, homeopathic medicine, and natural remedies. Tell me, if you can:
Why did media interest in Shannon’s thesis [why call the entire field (as you mis-see it) as “Shanon’s thesis”? -mh] come at a moment when the practice of psychoactive shamanism around the world came under extreme threat?
Dead Sea ET Cult
In Not in His Image, I argued that the Zaddikim of the Qumran settlement were a UFO cult [Lash is a confused literalist -mh], not a mushroom cult. In that same book I showed that
disciplined use of psychoactive planets in the Mysteries was guided by a master narrative, the myth of the fallen goddess, Sophia.
This myth includes an episode that explains the origin, nature, and effects of alien intrusion upon the human mind—the riddle of the Archons.
I contend that
Archontic suggestion or subliminal entrainment by that one identified species of predatory psychic entity can account for the salvationist belief-systems and paternal/authoritarian religion in human history.
Gnostics of the Pagan Mysteries were trained clairvoyants, clairaudients, and adepts of astral projection and lucid dreaming.
Like the new seers of Carlos Castaneda[FRAUD], they were able to explore the Nagual, navigate the supernatural layers of the universe, and investigate other dimensions and alien entities, including inorganic beings like the Archons. In short, they were past masters of the noetic sciences and experts in parapsychology.
The Gnostics attributed Judeo-Christian religion to mental aberrations due in part to the intrusion of extraterrestrial predators, the Archons.
[SEE my recent aside, mytheme: {giants abduct/lust for virgin daughters of men}; find “daughter” in present page, “idea development page 6”. Lash ought to write “extra-cosmic”, or “supra-lunar”, not “extra-terrestrial”. -mh]
Their characterization of the m.o. of these entities accords closely with the “spiritual control program” attributed by Jacques Vallee to ETs, whom he called “messengers of deception.” Not agent of evil, please note. The Apocryphon of John and other Gnostic texts describe the Archons in exactly the same manner.
Following the Gnostic view, I attribute Judeo-Christian religion (the Abrahamic creeds) to the influence of these “messengers of deception,” rather than to visions and revelations inspired by psychoactive plants, or a later distortion of such visions and revelations. On the contrary, such visionary experience, or trance learning, offers healing insight and corrective instruction against Archontic deviation. Such is my position on entheogenic revelation contrasted to mainstream religious doctrines, rites, and rules.
[summary: Lash likes entheogens, and hates religion, therefore, our religion (which is bad) cannot have included entheogens. -mh]
Fail-Safe
Noetic sciences in the Mysteries carried a fail-safe against the risk of tricking ourselves into delusional beliefs by the cleverness of our own minds. To safeguard their investigations, the telestai [means “completed”, “finished” initiates; finished the mental worldmodel transformation from possibilism to eternalism -mh](“those who are aimed,” [“aimed”? wtf does that mean? you are confused, as usual -mh] self-designation of initiates in the Mysteries) used sacred plant-teachers that enabled them to learn directly from Gaia, and correct errors in their mystical vision of the earth and humanity.
They would have argued that such plants cannot impart to our minds any teaching, belief, or dogma of a paternal, off-planet, authoritarian, anti-feminine bearing.
Sacred plants are emissaries of the living earth, the Aeon Sophia who morphed into the planet. In shamanic trance induced by psychoactive plants, the telestai detected what deviates us from rapport with nature.
I conclude that:
It is absurd to speculate that the plant-teachers provided by Gaia to keep us sane and align us to her purposes could have been the source of an off-planet religion, deviating us from our rapturous bond with the planet.
But hold on a second. The famous account by Michael Harner of his shamanic initiation with ayahuasca lends a further twist to this scenario.
Harner saw dragon-like entities in long-boats sailing through the sky.
In the altered state, he understood these entities to declare that they were the creators of humanity. When he recounted this incident to an old-timer who had monitored his ayahuasca session, the veternan shaman replied with a chuckle, “They always say that, but they are liars.”
[review the Mithraism hierarchy of revealed levels of control:
- God the Creator {the Lion outside the orbs} creates/controls the block universe.
- Block universe control worldline. ({snake carved of rock}, under the bull).
- The person’s worldline controls their control-thought inserter/injector ({Sol}).
- The control-thought inserter controls the control-thought receiver ({Luna}). The bull is the monolithic virtual autonomous egoic personal control agent, that uses possibilism-thinking. As distinct from the above, revealed control-hierarchy, which is eternalism-thinking.
-mh]
Note well: it was not the plant entity of ayahuasca itself who spoke to Harner claiming to be the off-planet or ET creator of the human race. That was the claim of skybound entities who appeared in the ayahuasca-incuded trance. This distinction supports my view that ancient seeers who investigated the cosmos in altered states induced by sacred plants were able to detect alien deception and intrusion. They had the power of true discernment, just like the old ayahuascero who wisened up Michael Harner.
Knowing how we can be deviated was one of the primary concerns of the Pagan initiates of the Mysteries. Like them, I have encountered Archon/ETs in lucid dreams and other altered states, with and without the assistance of plant teachers. But I have learned what to make of these encounters, and how to distinguish predatory entities from belevolent or neutral ones, through long and disciplined practice with sacred plants, the medicine of true vision.
Harner’s anecdote is extremely instructive. It shows how two aspects of Gnostic teaching dovetail into a single, supremely important insight:
Cognitive ecstasy induced by sacred plants exposes the alien factor in our own minds and the cosmos at large, providing a crucial discrimination:
anti-human and anti-nature beliefs attributed to an off-planet deity arise with that alien factor and not from the plant-teachers who alert us to its presence.
Gnostic teaching in this vein were tremendosly[sic] sophisticated.
[call John Lash garbled, but he’s no more garbled and irrelevant, putting forth confused, tangential, arbitrary argumentation, than Letcher, and maybe Hatsis.
WHY DID LASH’S NEW WEBSITE OMIT ALL HIS MUSHROOM COVERAGE? -mh]
Eadwine Psalter
The centerpiece of the study of entheogenic religion is the Paris Eadwine Psalter, a one-of-its-kind manuscript from the 13th century which I had the good fortune to discover in the National Library in Paris in September 2007, just prior to the publication of my book, Not in His Image.
This portal page is in development… (12 Nov 2009 Flanders)
/ end of Lash article
The Egodeath theory 
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