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Contents:

• Episode Info
• Episode Outline
• My Markup Copy of the Outline
• Jan Irvin of the Past – His Book Publication Dates
• Intro – Kent’s Position
• Kent (Like Hatsis) Is Outdated, Trailing a Decade or Two Behind the Leading Edge of Research in the Field
• Kent’s Project Is to Separate (Break) the Connection Between Psychedelic Drugs & Religion
• Do Not Utilize the Phrase “The Mushroom”; It Announces Contempt for Scientific Clarification
• Fact-Check What My Position Has Been re: “Grouping” Wasson-Allegro-McKenna
• In What Way Can Wasson, Allegro, and McKenna Be Grouped? What Are Their Positions on Narrow & Broad Questions?
• Amanita Single-Plant Fallacy for Christian History
• The Great Strength and Defensibility of the Position that Christianity Is Based on Psychedelics, and the Weakness and Indefensibility of the Too-Narrow Position that Christianity is Based on Amanita
• Hidden then Revealed, vs. Brittle “Secret” Presuppositional Theory
• What My Position Is, vs. the “Secret Amanita Cult” Theory of Christianity
• Amanita Sucks as an Entheogen
• The Existence of Amanita Has Set Back Entheogen Scholarship and Understanding of Psychedelics by Decades
• The Poorness of Amanita as an Entheogen Disproves the Pop “Amanita Theory of Christianity”, not the “Mushroom Theory of Christianity” as Kent Over-Concludes
• Truly, You Have a Dizzying Intellect: Mushrooms on Church Door Proves: No Hidden Mushrooms; thus Proves: No Mushrooms in Christian History
• Letcher Hatsis Kent Pretends to Dismiss the Entire “Mushroom Theory of Christianity” by Merely Disproving the “Secret Amanita Cult Theory of Christianity”
• The Specific Entheogen Identity of Soma and Kykeon Is of Limited Importance
• Conflation and Mis-Centering a Critique
• Conflating “Confirming Mushrooms in Christian Art” with “Identifying What the Holy Grail Refers to”: Literalist, Poetry-Illiterate “Granter of Immortality”
• My Amanita Photos
• The Mytheme: {Holy Grail grants Immortality}
• Brags About Adherence to Scientific Method, Yet Fails to Use Scientific Method Competently
• If Kent Were Actually Progressive and Scientific, He Would Study the Egodeath Theory
• Why Transcendent Knowledge Is of Highest Value
• Cultural Integration of Initiation, Coming-of-Age Ceremony Connected with Psychedelic Experiencing

Episode Info

Episode 22, Feb 23, 2020 – James Kent (DoseNation) part 6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on6EFVLF-58

Max Freakout and Cyberdisciple conclude their discussion about psychedelic journalist James Kent, in particular the recent ‘Final 10’ DoseNation podcast series.

Transcendent Knowledge Podcast episodes
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/07/transcendent-knowledge-podcast-episodes/
My page about the podcast series including outline of each episode.

Episode Outline

• Western tradition of psychedelic drug use
• Mushrooms and religion
• Mushrooms as religious sacrament
• Minimal, moderate and maximal theories of psychedelic religion
• John Allegro and the cult of Amanita Muscaria
• Gordon Wasson and the identity of Soma
• Amanita mushroom references in Christian art and the ‘where’s Waldo?’ project
• James Arthur and Jack Herer’s psychedelic scholarship

• Over-emphasis on amanita, under-emphasis on psilocybe in psychedelic scholarship
• The unpopularity of amanita mushrooms as a recreational drug
• Mono-plant fallacy
• Elite priestcraft conspiracy theory of mushrooms in Christianity
• Andrew Letcher’s debunking of mushroom Christianity
• Irrelevance of identifying a particular plant as religious sacrament
• Does anyone really care about amanita mushrooms?
• Metaphorical interpretation of the holy grail causing immortality
• Rejection of pop-psychedelia
• James Kent’s failure to integrate the ego death theory
• Realistic expectations of psychedelic drugs
• Direction of initiation and psychological progression
• Lack of clear initiation ritual context in modern society

My Markup Copy of the Outline

Western tradition of psychedelic drug use

Mushrooms and religion

Mushrooms as religious sacrament

Minimal, moderate and maximal theories of psychedelic religion

[vs narrower or other scopes which is to say, OTHER CENTERING-focal-POINTS OF INQUIRY:

• Min/Mod/Max theories of mushrooms in Greek & Christian religion

General note for this website: when I say “Greek & Christian”, it is shorthand for “Hellenistic & Christendom, integrated”, seen as interpenetrating, not as if hermetically isolated and separated and at odds with each other. It means Hellenistic+Christendom; or, “in Helleno-Christian history”; in the history of Helleno-Christianity.

John Allegro and the cult of Amanita Muscaria

Gordon Wasson and the identity of Soma

Amanita mushroom references in Christian art and the ‘where’s Waldo?’ project

James Arthur and Jack Herer’s psychedelic scholarship

Over-emphasis on amanita, under-emphasis on psilocybe in psychedelic scholarship

The unpopularity of amanita mushrooms as a recreational drug

Mono-plant fallacy

Elite priestcraft conspiracy theory of mushrooms in Christianity

Andrew Letcher’s debunking of mushroom Christianity

Irrelevance of identifying a particular plant as religious sacrament

Does anyone really care about amanita mushrooms?

Metaphorical interpretation of the holy grail causing immortality

Rejection of pop-psychedelia

James Kent’s failure to integrate the ego death theory

Realistic expectations of psychedelic drugs

Direction of initiation and psychological progression

Lack of clear initiation ritual context in modern society

Jan Irvin of the Past – His Book Publication Dates

2005-2009
Astrotheology & Shamanism: Christianity’s Pagan Roots. A Revolutionary Reinterpretation of the Evidence
Jan Irvin, Andrew Rutajit
2005, 2006, 2009
http://amzn.com/1439222428

2009
The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity
September 30, 2009
http://amzn.com/0982556209
I look more at Helleno-Christianity -mh.

2009
The Sacred Mushroom and The Cross: A study of the nature and origins of Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East
1970; [40th] Anniversary edition (November 12, 2009)
John Allegro; Jan Irvin (Introduction), Carl Ruck (Foreword), Judith Brown (Foreword)
http://amzn.com/0982556276
Publisher : Gnostic Media Research & Publishing

2:36 Intro – Kent’s Position

2:36

The history of psychedelics use in western culture.

Kent (sometimes) says no, there has not been a tradition of psychedelics use in Western culture — but Kent is inconsistent / self-contradictory here.

This confusion, vagueness, and inconsistency is typical of bad reasoning, especially around Allegro.

All critical writings about Allegro tend to be marked by confusion, vagueness, basic scholarship errors, and inconsistency, including self-contradiction. -mh

11:50, 14:50 Kent (Like Hatsis) Is Outdated, Trailing a Decade or Two Behind the Leading Edge of Research in the Field

11:50

14:50

Letcher can be a little more excused than Hatsis; Letcher’s book was written back when Irvin still held and asserted his values and views (focusing on Christianity instead of Hellenistic also (as I do); focusing on Amanita instead of all psychoactive mushroom species (as I do)). -mh

21:00 Kent’s Project Is to Separate (Break) the Connection Between Psychedelic Drugs & Religion

21:00

He fights against the Moderate view, he advocates the Minimal view —
the minimal entheogen theory of religion.
the moderate entheogen theory of religion.
“the

22:45 debunking and falsifying the psychedelic theory of religion

Why Doesn’t Max, or My Initial Comments, Point Out the Obvious: That the Field Conflates Amanita and Mushroom, Shutting Out the True Center, Psilocybe?

that question is Jan 13 2021. Below, I do work-up toward that critique, but not with the pointed shorthand of late, my embracing of
“Psilocybe Scholarship Good, Amanita Scholarship Bad:
Destroy All Amanita Scholarship”
(partially shared between both me and Letcher-Hatsis).

22:45 “debunking and falsifying the psychedelic theory of religion, as he sees it” — Max lists the ways.

1. Allegro. “the cult of Allegro”, “the cult of Amanita”. Max largely agrees with Kent here. I agree with Kent here.
2. Kent denies and dismisses the entire project of trying to find Amanita representations in Christian art, w/o any consideration that even 1% could be genuine.

This seems excessively discmissive even though Max and I are not [24:22] advocate the project of trying to find Amanita repre’ns in Christian art.

That project Amanita scholarship has its limitations.

Cyberdisciple sasys “I think that people know that now; we now have a lot of meta-scholarship on the scholarship on Amanita.”

Cyberdisciple seems to be praising the contributions of Letcher-Hatsis, here.

“Does Kent take on the claims that have been made about other mythologies … Soma tradition = Amanita?”

Max: “Kent lumps Soma in w/ Allegroism & the scholarly cult of [25:13] Amanita, bc he uses Wasson as the figurehead of Soma, and Wasson’s theory is Soma = Amanita.

26:00 Wasson-Allegro-McKenna

“Kent thinks Wasson & Allegro are grouped as one, typical [26:00], Amanita-cult (of scholars), which is like Hoffman on “Wasson-Allegro-McKenna”, all expressing the same idea about the mushroom.”

Do Not Utilize the Phrase “The Mushroom”; It Announces Contempt for Scientific Clarification

Above, careful saying the phrase “the mushroom”.

I would never utilize the phrase “THE MUSHROOM”, THAT IS A BAD-THEORY CONSTRUCT, IT’S WAY TOO VAGUE, way too loaded a phrase.

What am I supposed to mentally picture when someone says “the mushroom”?

Using the malicious, destructive phrase “the mushroom” is deliberately and maliciously unclear, it’s a bad-attitude statement “I disrespect and disavow all precision, I am trying to maliciously jam together and conflate all scholarly theorizing that has anything to do with mushrooms and religious history; I am bent on destroying the field, not clarifying the field.”

Using the phrase “the mushroom” is a loud announcement “I HEREBY DISCARD ALL SCIENTIFIC SCHOLARLY METHOD AND CLARITY AND PRECISION.” The term is loaded with sarcasm and bad attitude and so is completely useless.

We must critique the term “the mushroom”, but we cannot utilize the term, “the mushroom”.

I hate that phrase “the mushroom”; it is a nasty CONFLATION PROJECT, trying to mangle-together all variants of fields of scholarship theorizing about mushrooms and all religious history.

It is the most horrible SLOPPY UNSCHOLARLY CONFLATION-PURPOSED term; when you utilize the phrase “the mushroom”, you are announcing that you are going to throw out all scholarly care and precision and are entering massively anti-scientific conflation mode.

Fact-Check What My Position Has Been re: “Grouping” Wasson-Allegro-McKenna

NEED FACT-CHECK on My Position:

Have I written that Wasson-Allegro-McKenna can be grouped?

I doubt I have much grouped the three, but it depends on what sense of ‘group’.

Sure, you can identify something in common; none of them are the maximal entheogen theory of Christianity.

In What Way Can Wasson, Allegro, and McKenna Be Grouped? What Are Their Positions on Narrow & Broad Questions?

Wasson (focus: Amanita)

Moderate entheogen theory of religion
Minimal entheogen theory of Christianity; specifically:
… Minimal Amanita theory of Christianity

Allegro (focus: Amanita)

Moderate entheogen theory of religion
Moderate entheogen theory of Christianity; specifically:
… Moderate Amanita theory of Christianity

McKenna (focus: Psilocybe)

Moderate entheogen theory of religion
Minimal entheogen theory of Christianity; specifically:
… Minimal mushroom theory of Christianity (regardless of Amanita vs. multiple psychoactive mushroom species)

McKenna disagrees with Wasson & Allegro, in that McKenna focuses on Psilocybe, rather than Amanita.

McKenna disagrees with Allegro, MAYBE, re: whether primitive Christians used mushrooms at all. Need fact check.

All 3 agreed — despite Allegro’s self-contradictory no-context initial inclusion of Plaincourault image — no mushrooms in post-primitive Christian history. Here’s where I emphatically disagree, part of what makes me Maximal.

• Later Christianity used mushrooms.
• Later Christianity used mushrooms HEAVILY.
• Primitive Christianity used mushrooms HEAVILY.
• The entire surrounding culture, Hellenistic+Christendom used mushrooms HEAVILY; NORMALLY; in the Mainstream, from Antiquity until the start of the Modern era, such as Newton 1687.

Useful Ideas and Attitude in Kent re: X

27:06 where’s waldo

Amanita Single-Plant Fallacy for Christian History

field of Amanita-Christianity scholarship is endlessly looking at Christian art to make tenuous connections to Amanita, multipole books do this. Kent is correct here. MH calls this the mono-plant fallacy.

28:00 ANY plant that can loosen cognition can be a potential religious sacrament for religious exp’c and mystical ego death.

[January 13, 2021] lately I swing further: If before, I said “Don’t forget Psil too”, lately, I say “Forget Amanita! It’s the false center of the entheogen scholarship field! Put Psil at center INSTEAD!” Lately, I don’t merely say “Amanita is too narrow”; I say “Amanita has REPLACED Psilocybin; get rid of Amanita focus, replace it by Psilocybe focus.”

The Great Strength and Defensibility of the Position that Christianity Is Based on Psychedelics, and the Weakness and Indefensibility of the Too-Narrow Position that Christianity is Based on Amanita

28:40 That narrow theory makes for a weak, hard-to-defend theory. How brittle and open to attack.

The misguided efforts of entheogen scholars who presume “What we need to find is Amanita“, leaves the proponents of that too-narrow theory very open to attack & effective criticism like from Letcher-Hatsis. It’s a weak theory, that this ONE species (Amanita) is the key to the entire large claim that Christianity was based on psychedelics. It’s a narrower position to disprove, which is easier to disprove than the multi-plant position (eg any specifies of species of entheogenic plant or mushroom.

[January 13, 2021] – I dislike the above wording; instead, now, shove aside Amanita, and replace it by Psil instead, in entheogen scholarship.

30:27 Letcher’s book Shroom attacks one very very very narrow theory, priests hid… they take the VERY most narrow version they can POSSIBLY invent, and then CONFLATE that extremely hyper-narrow theory with the very opposite: the TOTAL, ALL-ENCOMPASSING, widest-possible theory.

They argue that the infinitely narrowed theory position, is the same as, the infinitely broad, all-inclusive theory that entheogens are important in Christian history.

• The infinitely narrow theory invented, assumed, concocted (for the purpose of strawmanning/ misrepresentation of the field), and attacked by Letcher-Hatsis:
  “the “secret Amanita cult” theory, including a particular assumed model of transmission
  conflated like an SOB, per bad, illegitimate strategy, with:
• The infinitely broad theory that:
  entheogens are important in Christian history

Kent falls into some of that bad reasoning, of Letcher-Hatsis.

Hidden then Revealed, vs. Brittle “Secret” Presuppositional Theory

[31:00]

The “transmitted secret cult” canard/ unexamined narrow presupposition.

Assumption that mushroom use was secret, deviant, abnormal, hidden, not revealed. vs. the Egodeath theory’s “hidden then revealed” model.

I cringed and halted a Hatsis video yesterday [now is 9:01 a.m. December 24, 2020] when he said “The ‘Holy Mushroom’ theory” and wanted to loudly rant and rave WTF ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT, THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “THE HOLY MUSHROOM THEORY”, SPEAK ENGLISH!

Stop conflating like a MF! You’re just wrecking the field by your clumsy, sloppy thinking.

THIS IS NOT PROPER THEORIZING!

NO ONE KNOWS WHAT YOU’RE REFERRING TO; your phrase “the Holy Mushroom theory” IS NOT A PROPER CONSTRUCT IN the field of Western entheogen scholarship!”

Every time Hatsis says “the Holy Mushroom theory” I feel like he’s hallucinating what the field is.

Why does Letcher-Hatsis glorify and put Irvin (of 2009) up on a pedestal?

Acting as if Irvin — of 11 years ago, who doesn’t even believe those views and values anymore! — Irvin2009’s one, little, particular, narrow, quirky model of mushrooms in Christian history, is the same thing as the entire proposition in all of its forms, that Christianity was based on and continually inspired by mushrooms — REGARDLESS of the separate detail question of which species, whether it was “secret”, whether it was “suppressed”, and various other detail questions.

I really resent that conflation of the entire field of “mushrooms in Christian history” with the particular, weakest-theory-we-could-find-or-imagine, “the secret Amanita cult theory of Christianity”!

The SLOPPY thinking of Letcher-Hatsis is TRYING TO WRECK the field of Western entheogen scholarship.

Stop STRAWMANNING everyone in the field (Brown, me) by trying to FORCE us to be asserting a position which we DENY, the particular “transmitted secret Amanita cult” theory that Jan Irvin doesn’t assert either, anymore anyway. And hasn’t asserted for 11 years or so.

Like Kent, Hatsis’ theorizing is OUTDATED; he’s way behind in the field he presumes to critique.

What My Position Is, vs. the “Secret Amanita Cult” Theory of Christianity

My position is equally in Greek religion, not just Christian: my particular theory isn’t even within Christianity, it’s broader.

My thinking is essentially fundamentally broader than ONLY questioning mushrooms in Christian history; my concern is with Greek AND Christian history — as an INTEGRATED pursuit, pictured as ONE CHAPTER, not as two chapters.

In my mytheme decoding, I am always grouping Hellenistic and Christian mythemes together, with great success.

My mytheme decoding, integrating Greek & Christian evidence, is bolstered by World religious mythology, although that’s not my center of focus; the entire ancient “world”, of Western antiquity.

When I decode “vine leaf”, I gather examples of vine leaves from both Greek & Christian art.

I readily and successfully use evidence from Greek art to confirm and corroborate interpretations of Christian art & texts; and I use evidence from Christian art to confirm and corroborate interpretations of Greek art & texts.

Let’s consider for a moment only my theory within Christianity, momentarily shrinking me down to Irvin2009’s size of theory:

I assert that:

• Christianity consciously shared the Greek banqueting tradition.
• The mushroom in Hellenistic & Christendom religion was much more likely to be any of numerous species of Psilocybe (decorated with Amanita imagery), than literal use of Amanita.
• Christian use of mushrooms was done consciously in the traditions-cluster of:
  • mystery-religion initiation
  • mixed-wine banqueting
  • esoteric Christianity

My theory is not Irvin’s theory, unlike the falsehood that Hatsis digs-in deeper, every time he utters his confused and confusing, loaded, strawmanning phrase, “the Holy Mushroom theory”.

Stop using a term from Irvin2009, which Irvin2020 doesn’t agree with.

My theory is not Irvin’s theory and cannot be conflated with Irvin’s theory, and must be considered, discussed, critiqued, and approached distinctly from Irvin’s theory.

Neither like hash-for-brains John Lash, is my theory “derived from Wasson” or “a variant of Wasson’s theory that is a considerable departure from it”.

What gibberish double-talk nonsense, that’s always connected with Amanita (and with Allegro).

MY THEORY IS NOT “A DEPARTURE FROM WASSON” — MY THEORY HAS JACK AND F-ALL TO DO WITH WASSON.

Don’t even relate my theory – A BONA FIDE ACTUAL THEORY – to Wasson’s garbled non-theory, ineptly expressed so that not one person on earth understands what his position is.

Anyone who describes my theory as “a variation of Wasson’s theory, including a considerable departure from it” is maliciously strawmanning and trying to make Wasson the king, owner, pole-star, boundary, and center of the field.

My theory has NOTHING to do with Wasson one way or another.

Wasson’s theory is CRAP and FALSE; WAY off-base, and ENTIRELY WRONG, and completely irrelevant.

Wasson’s “theory” isn’t even a theory; it’s a garbled heap of self-contradiction.

My theory has its own completely independent basis and origin.

Wasson can drop off a cliff, I DON’T CARE ABOUT ALLEGRO AND WASSON AT ALL, they are irrelevant nobodies and they aren’t in my field.

You might as well say my theory is a “considerable departure from football.”

John Lash’s caricaturization of ALL writers on entheogens as “variants of the Wasson theory” is MEANINGLESS GIBBERISH designed to make Wasson and Allegro the center and boundary of the field of Western entheogen scholarship.

I COULD CARE LESS ABOUT WASSON AND HIS BRAIN-DEAD, INEPTLY STATED THEORY.

MY THEORY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WASSON AND IS NEITHER “DERIVED FROM WASSON” NOR “A VARIANT OF WASSON’S THEORY INCLUDING A CONSIDERABLE DEPARTURE FROM WASSON”, SPAGHETTI-FOR-BRAINS.

WHAT ABOUT YOUR THEORY, JOHN LASH — YOU OWN BAD LOGIC RENDERS YOUR OWN THEORY AS “A VARIANT OF WASSON’S THEORY, INCLUDING A CONSIDERABLE DEPARTURE FROM IT”. WHAT GARBLED NONSENSE!

STOP TRYING TO ENSLAVE US ALL TO WASSON AND ALLEGRO.

STOP HANDING THE ENTIRE FIELD TO WASSON-ALLEGRO.

WASSON AND ALLEGRO ARE IRRELEVANT FOR THE FIELD OF WESTERN ENTHEOGEN SCHOLARSHIP.

Amanita Sucks as an Entheogen

37:04 Max’s intellectual history.

Max was frustrated with Heinrich’s writing about Amanita despite Amanita being uninteresting and un-ergonomic – Max wanted to hear about Psilocybe mushrooms & effects, not the surface form of Amanita like the books all obsessed on and limited the field to.

Only McKenna was covering Psilocybe.

All other entheogen scholars were madly fixated and obsessed on Amanita, and even then, merely on its superficial surface form, not its cognitive phenomenology and explaining that.

Why did ALL other writers obsess & fixate on Amanita? -max

I recently wrote the same and started a page to examine just how bad has this problem been:
Was Phase 1 of the Field of Western Entheogen Scholarship in Fact Centered Around Amanita?

The giant super striking photo in Heinrich’s book is a very lousy reason to obsess on Amanita (ignoring all the Psilocybine-containing species) and equate/conflate:

• the entire broad theory/field of scholarship, eg
  • the mushroom theory of Christianity
• (but I’d integrate and include Hellenistic religion too, as the orienting-center of focus, NOT making Christianity the orienting-center of focus as if to hermetically isolate Hellenism from Christendom)
• with only, specifically and exclusively, the Amanita theory/field of scholarship;
  • the Amanita theory of Christianity
• I specifically advocate:
  • the Psilocybe theory of Greek & Christian religion
• by ‘psilocybe’, I mean all mushroom species that contain psilocybin and/or psilocin.

Strange Fruit: Alchemy and Religion: The Hidden Truth
Strange Fruit: Alchemy, Religion and Magical Foods: A Speculative History
The above is an alternate subtitle within this edition eg title page.
Clark Heinrich, 1994 (Amazon says “January 1, 1995”)
ISBN: 0747515484

Clark Heinrich.  Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy.  (2nd ed. of Strange Fruit.)  ISBN: 0892817720.  2002.

todo: there’s — fix the above ISBN #/ link, in orig webpage my 2006 article’s Bibliography. That ISBN is for Merkur’s book Mystery of Manna.

Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy
2nd Edition
http://amzn.com/0892819979

The Existence of Amanita Has Set Back Entheogen Scholarship and Understanding of Psychedelics by Decades

42:00

The existence of Amanita set “psychedelic scholarship … drugs & symbolism back”, leads to “fighting” (Hatsis), made a reputation for himself by fighting Irvin, to get a book deal.

Letcher’s book fighting against Irvin, created its own academic market of arguing over these things, that is not really particularly relevant, or important, or leading-edge.

Max: It’s a misleading waste of time on the way to the Egodeath theory. because Amanita has set back psych scholarship in this way, it’s also setting back Kent’s own thinking in the same way, in his critique of Pop Sike culture that’s talking about Amanita.

Kent has exactly same blindness about amanita as the people he’s criticizing.

The Poorness of Amanita as an Entheogen Disproves the Pop “Amanita Theory of Christianity”, not the “Mushroom Theory of Christianity” as Kent Over-Concludes

44:22

Kent argues that Amanita is very unpopular, and is not very psychoactive — he uses that argument to supposedly disprove the ENTIRE field of invesigation, of psychedelics in Christian history.

Kent argues: How could Amanita be the true sacrament that has been hidden by the Priestcraft for centuries, if even nowadays when everybody knows about Amanita and has access to Amanita, nobody can be bothered to take Amanita? that’s a score against the theory.

Cyberdisciple agrees with Kent that the poorness of Amanita as an entheogen is a score against “the theory” but Cyberdisciple clarifies, unlike Kent:

“The poorness of Amanita as an entheogen is not a score against the psychedelic Christianity theory; the poorness of Amanita as an entheogen is a problem only for the very narrow, Amanita-specific, single-species theory.

Truly, You Have a Dizzying Intellect: Mushrooms on Church Door Proves: No Hidden Mushrooms; thus Proves: No Mushrooms in Christian History

Cyberdisciple: “Hasn’t this argument been made already, that the poorness of Amanita as an entheogen disproves bad entheogen scholarship and bad Pop Sike Cult, that fixates on Amanita as the uber-entheogen of Christian history?

“What’s Kent doing here that’s new, isn’t this just what Letcher was saying over a decade ago?”

Max: “Yes, though Kent uses different examples. Letcher leans heavily on a Belgium cathedral door, which Kent doesn’t mention.”

My passage copied from idea development page 6:

Books by Andy Letcher that are rushed out by big-name Establishment presses, making loud-sounding arguments about nothing in particular, a shell game, in which we nod our heads in dizzied consent that this constitutes an argument:

“The mushroom on the church door is evidence that there’s no hidden mushrooms in Christian art.

Therefore I have shown there’s no evidence for mushrooms in religion; such use is late 20th C only.”

Letcher

Yes Letcher, truly you have a dizzying intellect; I give in!

Movie: Princess Bride, “battle of the wits” scene, after convoluted but futile argument. 2:50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZSx3zNZOaU&t=170s (after skip ads)

You are right (in your theory and position, whatever it is, that shifts on every other page, as needed, to give the right surface impression of something having been proved).

His book has all the logical structure of a pile of oatmeal.

/ end of passage copied from idea development page 6

Letcher Hatsis Kent Pretends to Dismiss the Entire “Mushroom Theory of Christianity” by Merely Disproving the “Secret Amanita Cult Theory of Christianity”

“Door aside, THE SHAPE OF THE THEORIZING IS EXACTLY THE SAME in Kent & Letcher; it’s the same counterattack to a relatively unimportant and very narrow theory.

“So Kent’s argument/critique is basically uninteresting.”

[then in some aspects, we can criticize together, the Letcher-Hatsis-Kent argumentation, their attempt to dismiss the entire “mushroom theory of Christianity” (or Hellenistic & Christendom), by simply merely disproving the “Amanita theory of Christianity”. -mh]

“But it’s worth deconstructing for its sheer relevance because it’s talking about this crucial idea of psychedelia and religion.

[44:30] No One Uses or Likes Amanita, so it’s a terrible particular theory, the particular specific theory that Amanita was secret and was THE mushroom for Christian history.

[45:30] differences between, but much more the similarities of fallacies committed by Letcher & Hatsis.

The Specific Entheogen Identity of Soma and Kykeon Is of Limited Importance

46:07

“Soma wasn’t Allegro’s concern. Soma was Wasson’s concern.

“Other writers great effort to try to identify Soma and also in Western tradition Kykeon as well, so much ink spilled trying to give precise singular identities to Soma & Kykeon, whereas it’s all really just a misleading waste of time on the way to the Egodeath theory, which points out that both Soma and Kykeon are simply going to be entheogenic sacraments.

“It doesn’t matter what they are, as long as they are entheogenic psychedelic.”

46:30 single-plant fallacy [single-species of Amanita vs. multi-species Psilocybin-containing -mh]

47:00

Cyberdisciple — overemphasis on Kykeon causes the single-plant fallacy.

47:00

Cyberdisciple:

“Overemphasis on Eleusis and the Kykeon there, within Greek culture entheogen scholarship.

“It doesn’t really matter proving which plant used, that’s not really where the action is, what’s important and revolutionary.

“We don’t need that smoking-gun evidence in that way.

“This whole model of how do we PROVE psychedelics in the past and past religious cultures, we don’t need to find the exact plant, in order to do the work of the changing our paradigm of religious history and religion.”

47:43

Max: Kent concludes nobody cares about Amanita, that’s true and false. It’s true and false that people overemphasize amanita.

Kent fails to move beyond the people he criticizes, toward the Egodeath theory.

Conflation and Mis-Centering a Critique

My theory is: Psilocybe in mixed-wine banqueting, mystery-religion initiation, and esoteric Christianity.

My theory is not centered on Christianity.

My theory in the field of Western entheogen scholarship encompasses Christian history, but my theory is not centered on Christian history, nor specifically on primitive Christianity (as is Allegro).

My theory is CENTERED ON Hellenistic & Christendom history.

My theory is not centered like Allegro, on primitive Christianity, and so my theory cannot be judged from a standpoint that’s centered on primitive Christianity, that assumes centrality of the concern of primitive Christianity.

Why does Letcher-Hatsis insist on equating one, narrow, very particular model of the relationship of “mushrooms” and “Christianity”, with the ENTIRE general broad theory or question of “what is the significant role of mushrooms in Christianity?”

Letcher-Hatsis commits a fallacy of conflating:

• A PARTICULAR SPECIFIC explanatory theory, more or less specified by Jan Irvin2009 (but NOT Irvin 2015+) in particular,
  with the opposite in scope:
• The most general possible theory that mushrooms were in some way important in Christian history.

No Valid Scientific Method if Sloppy Basic Thinking

Hatsis can lecture all he wants about sound scientific historians’ methodology, but he’s sloppy at basic thinking/theorizing.

No amount of alleged sound scientific historians’ methodology can rescue your bad scholarship, if you are sloppy at basic thinking and theorizing.

Conflating a Particular Narrow Theory with a General Broad Theory — Disproving the Particular Theory Does Not Disprove the General Theory

Sloppy conflation of a particular theory with a general theory, is part of “sound scientific historian methodology”, according to Hatsis’ methodology.

The Folly of Basing One’s Entire Critique on a Single Book, from 11 Years Ago (Which the Author Would No Longer Advocate Anyway)

Evidentially Hatsis has only read ONE book in the general field or theory of “mushrooms had an important role in Christian history”: Jan Irvin’s The Holy Mushroom (2009; 11 years ago).

Hatsis strongly gives the impression that he has only read or considered ONE writer in the field, of mushrooms in Christian history.

Forget Hermetically Isolated Christianity (a Fiction); Consider Greek & Christian; Hellenistic & Christendom Together

It’s a malformed field. People should not just look at the theory that “Mushrooms had an important role in Christian history“; scholars should instead look at the theory that “Mushrooms (of VARIOUS species) had an important role in GREEK AND Christian history.“

Hatis is trying to GIVE and HAND OVER and ENSLAVE the *entire* theory that mushrooms were important in Christian history, to Jan Irvin of 2009, who doesn’t even advocate that theory or values anymore!

Since WHEN does Jan Irvin “own” the entire proposition that mushrooms were important in Christian history?

Stop making Jan Irvin (of 11 years ago) the single, only spokesman for the ENTIRE theory that mushrooms were important in Christian history!

Letcher-Hatsis has so many presuppositions that he folds into his malformed usage, his misuse of his construct, “the Holy Mushroom theory”.

Every time Letcher-Hatsis says “the Holy Mushroom theory”, he’s conflating massively:

• A narrow, hyper-specific, particular theory, with the entire broad as possible overall general theory, that mushrooms were IN SOME WAY — not necessarily particularly specified — in Christian history.

Conflating “Confirming Mushrooms in Christian Art” with “Identifying What the Holy Grail Refers to”: Literalist, Poetry-Illiterate “Granter of Immortality”

At 1:09:00 in episode 8, Kent asserts that identifying mushrooms in Christian art is specifically the issue of, we need to identify what The Holy Grail refers to. Some say upturned Amanita, immortality.

[To an appropriate, limited extent, I too have been interested in Amanita:

• My first research question in entheogen scholarship was the book of Revelation chapter 10, angel-given, eaten scrolls that give visions, which I was happy with Heinrich having solved/identified; I agree with Heinrich’s 1994/1995 book which I read in 1999, that the eaten scroll of Revelation 10 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 almost too positive toward Amanita, instead of my recent, principled, better-centered focus on Psilocybe in Greek & Christian history. -mh]

Picture of Eating Scroll, of Revelation/Ezekiel, from John Rush

Mushroom in Christian Art, Chapter 3
John Rush
http://www.clinicalanthropology.com/mushroom-in-christian-art/mushroom-in-christian-art-chapter-three/

Rush’s comment: “The Angel Gives John the Book to Eat, Douce Apocalypse, 1265-1270 CE  Notice the angel represents the stalk of the mushroom-cloud from which he or she emerges, and the celestial erection in John’s cape once he eats the “book.””

My Amanita Photos

https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/12/13/photos-of-amanita-muscaria-mushrooms-to-identify-mushrooms-in-greek-christian-art/
find ‘hoffman’

The Mytheme: {Holy Grail grants Immortality}

49:00

At 1:09:00 in episode 8, Kent re: identifying mushrooms in Christian art is specifically need to identify what The Holy Grail refers to. Some says upturned Amanita, immortality.

Kent mis-argues that “Amanita only gets you high for a few hours, it doesn’t grant you immortality; therefore Amanita cannot possibly be the real Holy Grail.”

49:41 immortality is related to eternity.

Experiencing timeless eternity in the altered state (loose cognitive binding), IS produced by Amanita, disproving Kent’s argument. eternalism.

Point of view where the mind sees that everything has already happened; the 4D block universe.

The Egodeath theory clearly explains experiencing eternalism/ immortality/ eternity.

Regarding the mytheme {immortality}, Kent’s mytheme-illiteracy prevents him from thinking clearly about evidence.

Kent’s blindness to meaning-flipping. 2-level meaning of religious texts.

There are various meanings packed into {immortality}.

Kent fails to define what he means by “immortality”.

Literalist, lack of critical thinking about meanings; Kent uses unstated presumption, thus literalism and the single-meaning fallacy.

Kent fails to define what he means by the terms that he denies.

Kent repeatedly says “x is false” but doesn’t define ‘x’.

51:55

Cyberdisciple lists meanings of {immortality}, rattling off several off top of head, while Kent doesn’t even TRY to define ANY such meanings.

Kent’s thinking typifies literalist (ordinary-state possibilism) thinking. Failure to have Poetry Consciousness, which is a REQuirement to interpret.

Kent is OUT of the field of religion-interpretation, becasuse he’s literalist, and he assumes the audience is all literalists too.

Literalism the only mode Kent is able to think in.

Brags About Adherence to Scientific Method, Yet Fails to Use Scientific Method Competently

55:00

Kent brags about “the scientific method” — in a regressive way; he uses very brittle reductionist OUTDATED mode , caricature, of “scientiific”.

Kent is regressive, NOT scientific. the Egodeath theory is definitive of the actual Scientific method.

If Kent Were Actually Progressive and Scientific, He Would Study the Egodeath Theory

55:20

the Egodeath theory precisely fits/solves/addresses Kent’s complaints about Pop Sike eg dark side.

56:20

Paranormal is criticized — the Egodeath theory same, provides better, metaphor interpretation.

So it’s completely ridiculous to say the Psych Community is regressive yet ignore the Egodeath theory. for psychedelics to move ahead.

Block re: explaining religion, Kent’s hangups, instead of UNDERSTANDING religion.

Kent Wants to Destroy Religion, Not Understand Religion

58:00

59:00

ppl aren’t dealing w/ these questions

59:20 if you believe in progress, you have to recog that the conditions — egoic scienfitic methods — is just 1 stage of progress. rationalistic scientific way of thinking. “highly evolved state” Kent is thinking of, is actually, immature undeveloped egoic.

Kent talks of evolutionary states, yet he dismisses higher knowledge as hallucination. and glorifies egoic reductionistic type of scientism.

Kent fails to consider Loose Cognitive Science (which the Egodeath theory enables and is the requisite, mandatory gateway for), even though his book (which he doesn’t mention) is neuroscience.

The DARK SIDE AND PSYCHEDELICS WILL keep coming up, against Kent’s emotional wish for them to just go away.

We can’t keep trying to shut out self-control loss, the religious altered state (loose cognitive binding) and shut out the death of possibilism-premised model of self and world; those factors will keep coming up, bursting in (due to the innate structure of the mind); Kent tries to the shut the door again on the religious effects of psychedelics.

Max: Kent emotionally says, wants to shut out this barrage of interest in religious use of entheogens, “Just stop talking about sacred mushrooms, they’re not sacred!”

Cyberdisciple: “Kent’s immature.”

1:02:30

Max: “I lost interest; Kent’s content is not worth critique.”

/ end of discussion of Kent

Jan Irvin had a very similar trajectory: he was all pro- Pop Sike, then flipping against it. “I don’t take his line of thinking seriously.”

“Kent has a more earnest attempt than Irvin to critique & deal w/ Pop Sike inadequacies.”

“I always wanted to not end up being like that, flipping against psychedelics. after 10-15 years, the Egodeath theory , the religious significance of psychedelics.

By breaking down Kent’s argument, I can avoid that trap.”

1:05:13

Cyberdisciple: “We have sympathy with Kent’s critiques of the over-inflated “selling” of Pop Sike.

Max: “Healing” is oversold, that leads to disappointment, which is not healthy for… which is a danger in the ‘psychedelic community’.

“parallel: Kent talks of the inevitablity of Western culture abandoning psychedelic ritual. He’s actually describing himself.

Why Transcendent Knowledge Is of Highest Value

Why Psychedelics Are the Most Valuable Thing

See my WordPress page:
Why Transcendent Knowledge Is of Highest Value

MH never bougtht into Pop Sike and conflated that w/ the true value of psychedelics; figured out for himself the true value of psychedelics.

1:08:29

1:09:21 “Benefits”

1:10:30 wrmspirit discussing “benefits”, Cyberdisciple’s comment on a WordPress post thread. Rock lyrics.

1:11:30

Benefits of Psychedelics

• having that eternalism experience of switching mental worldmodels, makes clear the limits of the egoic control system , the limits of its logic.
• brings peace and light to understand.
  • brings terror, so that:
  • coming out the other side is a kind of peace.
• Cyberdisciple never gets angry any more.
• His laundry is whiter than when egoic thinking.
• He now sits on a cloud unperturbed.
• Birds & butterflies fly to him.
• He can never be moved; unmovable, unshakeable; rock solid.

Cultural Integration of Initiation, Coming-of-Age Ceremony Connected with Psychedelic Experiencing

Initiation in Culture; Cultural Integration of Initiation, in Multi-State Post-Modernity Cutlure. Look for that in religion.

1:16:00

Initiation and its cultural place.

1:17:30

Baptism of youths, and bar mitzva ceremonies, develop in conjunction with … Baptisms in an earlier era were meant to reflect psychedelic experiencing, so that later the ceremony would be understood in retrospect, as connected with psychedelic experiencing.

1:18:02 – end

_{Site Map}

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
  • Ways I’ve Participated in Amanita Scholarship, in a Proper, Limited Way
• 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.

Lash’s Deleted Mushroom Articles Are Yet another Negative Example, of How Not to Frame & Approach the Field of “Western Mushroom Scholarship”

2008 Jan Irvin “The Holy Mushroom” Episode

John Lash Likes Entheogens, and Hates Abrahamic Religion, Therefore, Abrahamic Religion Cannot Have Included Entheogens

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.

Trying to Look at the Eadwine Psalter or “Paris Eadwine Psalter” – A Copy of Canterbury Psalter? Confusing & Unclear

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”?

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:

1. God the Creator {the Lion outside the orbs} creates/controls the block universe.
2. Block universe control worldline. ({snake carved of rock}, under the bull).
3. The person’s worldline controls their control-thought inserter/injector ({Sol}).
4. 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

_{Site Map}

Contents:

• Websites & Orgs for Mark Hoffman
• Books by Carl Ruck & Mark Hoffman
• Entheos: The Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality
  • Entheos Issue 1 (Summer 2001)
  • Entheos Issue 2: Entheogens in the Americas (Winter 2002)
  • Entheos Issue 3: Soma (Part 1 of 2) (Summer 2002)
  • Entheos Issue 4: Soma (Part 2 of 2) (Winter 2009)

Websites & Orgs for Mark Hoffman

http://wassonwest.com
WASSON WEST —
Home of the Wasson-Ruck Entheogenic Research Institute and Archives
http://wassonwest.com/our-team
Officers:
Dr. Carl A. P. Ruck
Mark Hoffman:
o http://entheomedia.net
o Entheos: The Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality
Brian Muraresku
Advisory board: the whole crew

Books by Carl Ruck & Mark Hoffman

Entheogens, Myth, and Human Consciousness
Carl Ruck, Mark Hoffman
2013
http://amzn.com/1579511414
my review: https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/12/22/entheogens-myth-and-human-consciousness/

Mushrooms, Myth and Mithras: The Drug Cult that Civilized Europe
Carl Ruck, Mark Hoffman
July 26, 2011
http://amzn.com/0872864707

The Effluents of Deity: Alchemy and Psychoactive Sacraments in Medieval and Renaissance Art
Carl Ruck, Mark Hoffman
2012
http://amzn.com/161163041X

The Hidden World : Survival of Pagan Shamanic Themes in European Fairytales
Carl Ruck, Blaise Staples, José Celdrán, Mark Hoffman
2007
http://amzn.com/1594601445

Entheos: The Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality

Entheos Issue 1 (Summer 2001)

= start of the Egodeath Yahoo Group

Issue One

Entheogens 
Full article online
Carl Ruck, Jeremey Bigwood, Blaise Staples, Jonathan Ott, Gordon Wasson

Deipnosophists in Danbury: Reflections on R. Gordon Wasson’s Table
Blaise D. Staples

Erinnerungen an Den Fliegenpilz (Memories of the Fly Mushroom)
Hoffman & Hoffman 
Full article

Conjuring Eden: Art and the Entheogenic Vision of Paradise
Hoffman, Ruck & Staples 
Online gallery of ancillary illustrations
38 pages, 33 illustrations, 47 ancillary online illustrations cued to text.

Impressions of A. muscaria
Photos by Heinrich & Hoffman

Old Gods in New Bottles: Alchemical Pharmacopoeia
Heinrich & Ruck
29 pages, 24 illustrations

In Conversation with Dr. Strassman
Thomas Lyttle

The Phoenix of Lactantius
Translation by Blaise D. Staples

Richard Schultes, Jungle-Drug explorer, Dies at 86
by Elaine Woo 
Full article

Entheos Issue 2: Entheogens in the Americas (Winter 2002)

Issue Two

A Mushroom Viajé in Huautla de Jiménez
Jim Ransom
Online only

The Miskwedo of the Anishinaubeg
Gordon Wasson 
Check back for: Keeywaydinoquay and her Miskwedo

Graeco-Roman Ruins in the New World
Blaise D. Staples 
Online gallery of ancillary illustrations

An Appreciation of Huichol Culture
Juan Negrín

The Man Who Ate Honey: Kiéri and the Calling of a Huichol Shaman
Jay C. Fikes and Catarino Carrillo 
Visit Catarino’s Page, and hear him sing

Huichol Wolf-Shamanism and A. Muscaria 
Download Full Article in MS Word
Mark Hoffman Check back for Red Wolf Power: A. Muscaria in the Americas

Daturas for the Virgin 
Download Full Article in Spanish in MS Word
José Celdrán and Carl Ruck 
Online gallery of ancillary illustrations

Peyote Religion: Opening Doors to the Creator’s Heart
Jay C. Fikes

Faith, Belief, and the Peyote Crisis
K. Trout & Mark Hoffman 
Visit The full article online!

Reuben Snake: Rising Up to Serve God
Reuben Snake and Jay C. Fikes

Reviews
Rick Strassman, Gywllm Llwydd, Thomas Lyttle and more!

Entheos Issue 3: Soma (Part 1 of 2) (Summer 2002)

Issue Three
Vol. 2, Issue 1

A Letter of R.G. Wasson, Easter, 1965

The Mushroom Gods of Ancient India
Clark Heinrich

The Entheogenic Eucharist of Mithras
Mark Hoffman, Carl A.P. Ruck & Blaise Staples
Visit an online gallery of ancillary illustrations (coming soon! [ie >18 years])
Download Footnotes in MS Word

Sidebar:
Menhirs

Sidebar:
Etymological Considerations
H. W. Bailey

Sidebar:
Linguistic Interlude
R.G. Wasson

Coda:
Under the Same Cap: Attis

Freemasonry and the Survival of the Eucharistic Brotherhoods
Mark Hoffman, Carl A.P. Ruck
Full article online

Psychointegrators: The Physiological Effects of Entheogens
Michael Winkelman

Two Paintings by J.W.M Turner: An Entheobotanical Interpretation
Vincent Wattiaux
Download French version in MS Word

Addendum:
Turner’s Vision of Medea
Mark Hoffman and Carl A.P. Ruck

The Lote Tree of the Furthest Boundry: Psychoactive Sacraments in Islamic Gnosis
Alan Piper

In Memoriam: The Spirit of Bob Wallace
Rick Doblin, Maggie Hall, Tom Roberts
Download Full Article in MS Word

Entheos Issue 4: Soma (Part 2 of 2) (Winter 2009)

Issue Four

Entheos Vol. 2, Issue 2

Amrita: Buddhism’s Psychoactive Sacrament
Mike Crowley
(coming soon)

de Rebus Mithraicis
José Alfredo Gonzalés Celdrán
email us for email attachment

Soma’s Fairytale Ending in the West:
The Survival of Entheogenic Themes in European Folklore
Mark Hoffman, Carl A.P. Ruck
email us for email attachment

Hunting the Berserkers
Mark Hoffman & Carl A.P. Ruck
email us for email attachment

The Tree of Life and the Milk of the Goat Heidrun
Alan Piper
email us for email attachment

_{Site Map}