Tripping With Jesus

The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity by Jerry B. Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Psychadelic Gospels

A raging argument in the the religious scholar community is the debate about the role of ehtneogens or psychadelic drugs on the development of Christianity and other religions. Most religious leaders will try to deny the role of psychodelics in the religions development while someone more open minded might say there is quite a bit of eveidence pointing to the use of hallicinogens.
Starting off with the research of R.Gordon Wasson the author Doctor Jerry Brown and his wife Juliie go traveling to differnt destinations around the world to show the evidence of psychadelics in religious art work. Going through th world relgiions the authors discuss Soma in the classic Rigveda. It appeaers to be a hallucinogenic drink. It is drink that conveys wisdom. It also offers immortatlity. What made up this drink? Some artistic renditions show a mushroom lie fly agaric or Amanita Muscaria. This mushroom was also used by the siberian shaman. There art depicts its use. In fact the Santa Clause legend comes from this. The shaman would have reindeer pull his sled and from an opening in the yurt he would climb through and enter the house. THe Ancient greeks with thier rituals to demeter and the rights of Eleusisis. THe would take egort which grew on Barley and this took them to the underworld and gave them immortality. The art work depicts wheat stocks which is what Ergot grew off of.
R. Gordon Wasson, who was an assitant banker for JP Morgan , was the ametuer scientist who spear headed this movement and he wrote several books on it. His big claim claim to fame was meeting Maria Sabina and the exposure led to tourists combin the hills of Oaxaca looking for a psychadelic experience. This disrupted life for her and it caused enough commotion to/hve here son killed.
Mr. Gordon Wasson never dared to venture that psychadelics played a part in the developement of Christianity. Someone name John Allegro would make that claim and would ultimately be discredited for it. R. Gordon Wasson worked with the vatican and his role was to suppress this theory or information.
The authors Jerry and Julie Brown explored the churches of Europe and examined the art work in Frocault Church, Saint Martins and a few others. The illustration and carving clearly depict serveral mushroom like ilustrations. Juding from this it is easy to say that ethneogens played more than a small role in the developement of Christianity. After all they did play a role inthe developement of the other religions.
The Nag Hammadi Scriptures offer a zen like Christianity. Jesus lived in Egypt for a long time and he must have learned from the Egyptian mysteries. His deth and resurrection weere not literal but rather ppart of an ancient spiritual practice where the Shaman ventures tothe other side in search of gnosis. The Egyptians also used ethneogens.
MANY people have used psychaedelics including steve Job and other scientists. Time is coming to reexamine our relgions and philosophies and look for different interpreations.

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