Why a documentary on the Secret History of Magic Mushrooms?

[HeartCore]

"As many of you may know, I’ve published two books on entheogens, focusing on the religious aspects of psychedelic mushrooms. So why a documentary and book on the Secret History of Magic Mushrooms?

In 2008 I published a book called The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity, which was the first to show, with primary documentation, that mushrooms were in fact used within Judeo-Christianity.

In 2005/2009 I also published Astrotheology & Shamanism, which goes into much of the theory behind this idea, followed up with the documentary film, The Pharmacratic Inquisition, 2007."

Read more:

http://www.gnosticmedia.com/SecretHisto ... omsProject

 

[zezt]

why is noone commenting on this dynamite article???

 

[Sticki]

What exactly do you consider dynamite about this article?

Also the claim that the first book published was the first book to show magic mushrooms were used within Judeo-Chritianity is inaccurate, What about the good work of Mr John M Allegro that got him ex-communicated from the catholic church based on his direct examination and translation of the dead sea scrolls at their request?

Do you think that the ability to brainwash people in transdental states hasn't been recognised?
Look at the Manson family incident. That was huge and coverd extensively by people who were interested in psychology and psychiatry as well as the media, Obviously the government know alot more through the works of MK Ultra and the alikes.

Also the ability to tap into intuituion or understand things that you never thought possible will surely have been capitalised on by the elite. Look into the accounts of scientists of old too it is remarkable to see how many of them actually consumed LSD in small amounts (50ug roughly) as a stimulant to boost their ability to think.

Psychedelics are tools and the psychedelic experience is exactly that, An experience and based on "Set and Setting" each experience will be different. Be it positive or negative, Accidental or intentional.

People will continue to use what ever possible to gain what they desire be it financial gain, control or liberation.

P.S. Based on the fact these people hold alot of weight with the stock market, it may be of some interest to you this quote by J.P. Morgan, “Millionaires don’t have astrologers, billionaires do.”.

 

[ophiuchus]

i read it.

what is there to be said? government is corrupt to the core...

 

[HeartCore]

Sticki: Jan Irvin's book the Holy Mushroom is actually endorsing Allegro's work and proving that Wasson's attacks on Allegro are baseless. He (Jan) is a great fan of John Allegro's work and although his article seems to imply that he takes credit for the proof, the book 'the Holy Mushroom' does not imply that at all but gives credit where credit is due (Allegro). Btw johnallegro.org is maintained by Jan Irvin for the Allegro family if I remember correctly.

Psychedelics are tools and the psychedelic experience is exactly that, An experience and based on "Set and Setting" each experience will be different.

Indeed, part of the set, that is you, are the stories you have heard/read about the substances. Information about the experience that have been intentionally manufactured to lead you astray, is something that can be recognized in one way by understanding who those authors we've learned to trust, really are.

 

[maxfreakout]

He (Jan) is a great fan of John Allegro's work

that's an understatement, he named his son 'John Marco' in honour of Allegro

Irvin makes the same fundamental error as John Rush does, by putting all the focus on the physical mushrooms, and none on the mushroom experience. He looks for evidence of mushrooms in christian artwork, but he doesnt look for evidence of mushroom tripping

 

[zezt]

He (Jan) is a great fan of John Allegro's work

that's an understatement, he named his son 'John Marco' in honour of Allegro

Irvin makes the same fundamental error as John Rush does, by putting all the focus on the physical mushrooms, and none on the mushroom experience. He looks for evidence of mushrooms in christian artwork, but he doesnt look for evidence of mushroom tripping

Can you explain more in-depth what you mean by that Max please?

meanwhile I will give my opinions about what he says etc.

I called his article dynamite because I think the question of who has infiltrated the psychedelic movement (and does) and why it is that in history, and others times, that even when certain groups or individuals may take psychedelics they still seem to not 'get it' and do horrible things like the Aztecs and sacrifices, like the ancient Christians and their myth of pure versus impure, and fallen nature, itself influenced by even earlier groups like the Orphics and Gnostics who also took mind-altering vegetation, and then you have the occult elite who very well will not be strangers to psychedelics---and so on.
I have met people online at various forums dedicated to psychedelics who --from my perspective--cliong to scientism and its mechanistic worldview and would argue me till blue in the face that mental illness is not a myth; would attack me for 'magical thinking', and gang up pn me to produce evidence for everything I say. I have met people online, and in real life (but mostly online) who even having had psychedelic experience will say 'but it just fucks you up; it is just a chemical ride' 'they distort reality'.
I have met Buddhists and others who follow Eastern and /or New Age forms of 'spiritual evolution' who even though they may admit to early psychedelic experience will say that once you get the message 'hang up the phone' implying that their way is the only truth, and continuing to be inspired from psychedelics is dangerous.

I am sure I have missed out other strange things, but you get the drift.

I wonder why and where these views originate. Is it just human diversity or is it deliberate ploys by infiltrating myths which distort the REAL potential of psychedelics. So what would I call the real potential of psychedelics?

Well along with interest in psychedelic I have a deep interest in mythology, and guess who inspired that? John Allegro, and the reading of his book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, many years ago! I saw how myth could be used to manipulate the gullible literalist readers, and hide a self-ordained elite core who would communicate to each other through various means only they could understand--both for power, but also to protect themselves from other powers.

I see all that as patriarchal, and then I was later to discover about Goddess mythology, and the theme of the Goddess and her son/lover.
It is important at this point to know that Allegro revealed that the biblical so-called only 'Son of God' was esoterically meaning the actual physical mushroom which was believed to be miraculously appearing after thunderstorms, because they had no access to microscopic technology and couldn't see spores, and being a phallic-oriented belief system, and thus spermocentric, beliving these 'sacred mushrooms' to be full of the essence of their sky god's sperm, and therefore we get how 'God was made flesh'. The mushroom supposedly minature replicas of their phallic god.

But all that is a motif ripped off and subverted from Goddess mythology. Here is the big difference. Unlike the patriarchal understanding of a 'creator' and HIS 'creation', the Goddess is the Earth. It is Her body, and thus even though there might not have been microsopes the mushrooms like ALL vegetation and borth came from Her Womb, and when a theme of a son/lover arises in that myhology he is the god of nature, and the magical vegetation which gives enlightenment to the Celebrant who eats the sacred fruit, and then becomes the lover of the Goddess, of nature! See the difference?

This means a lot to me because AGES before I got to read any of these books (and other books), I had personally experienced this! At 15 I was given LSD, and to cut a long story short (because I have told my story at these forums several times lol) LSD came looking for me, and it resolved the crisis I had got caught up in via the matrix which was to become dull to the wonders of nature, to fall out of love with it. The ecstasy of my experience had me deeply in love with nature once again, and this inspiration continues.

This is why I was SO shocked meeting people who HAD had psychedelics but seemed to not get the same insights as me, and I have wondered about this. Was it because I was young, and had hated school, and was kind of a free spirit also? Did the people I met take psychedelics later, and have en enforced indoctrination of 'education' and peer pressure waiting for them on their 'come down'. The pressure that claims we are machines, and life is basically meaningless and not full of spirit? Does that take them over, and even influence their very trips. They reduce the experience to chemical they are 'putting into their body for a chemical ride'?

 

[HeartCore]

He (Jan) is a great fan of John Allegro's work

that's an understatement, he named his son 'John Marco' in honour of Allegro

Irvin makes the same fundamental error as John Rush does, by putting all the focus on the physical mushrooms, and none on the mushroom experience. He looks for evidence of mushrooms in christian artwork, but he doesnt look for evidence of mushroom tripping

I guess you haven't been following what Jan has been doing for, say, the past two years.

 

[HeartCore]

who has infiltrated the psychedelic movement

It's more than that, 'who has CREATED the psychedelic movement'.

This is something almost nobody wants to hear but when you start researching the evidence for yourself....

 

[maxfreakout]

He (Jan) is a great fan of John Allegro's work

that's an understatement, he named his son 'John Marco' in honour of Allegro

Irvin makes the same fundamental error as John Rush does, by putting all the focus on the physical mushrooms, and none on the mushroom experience. He looks for evidence of mushrooms in christian artwork, but he doesnt look for evidence of mushroom tripping

I guess you haven't been following what Jan has been doing for, say, the past two years.

can you give an example? It would be great if Jan has recently developed his understanding in this area, but nothing ive ever read of his would indicate that he has, and i am an avid follower of his work. The recent work that this thread concerns, Jan's conspiracy theories about Gordon Wasson, do not touch upon the subject of altered state cognitive processing, so what is this recent work that you are talking about?

afaik i am acquainted with everything Jan has written and podcasted, and on that basis i have concluded that he is now and always has been 100% blind to altered-state phenomenology, he sees references to physical mushrooms all over the place, but he never identifies references to tripping, that is exactly the same mistake that Rush makes

if anything, Jan's more recent work is even further away from this crucial topic than what he was writing 4 or 5 years ago

 

[maxfreakout]

He (Jan) is a great fan of John Allegro's work

that's an understatement, he named his son 'John Marco' in honour of Allegro

Irvin makes the same fundamental error as John Rush does, by putting all the focus on the physical mushrooms, and none on the mushroom experience. He looks for evidence of mushrooms in christian artwork, but he doesnt look for evidence of mushroom tripping

Can you explain more in-depth what you mean by that Max please?

There is an ontological distinction between a physical mushroom, and an altered-state experience that is induced by eating a physical mushroom. Jan Irvin correctly identifies hidden images of the mushrooms in chrisitan artwork, but he never identifies allegorical descriptions of mushroom experiences in christianity. The writer Benny Shanon (whom Jan has interviewed on his podcast) has made significant advances in this area

For example, Jan says in his first book that the image of Jesus on the crucifix is a disguised image of a mushroom, where Jesus' clothing around his waist is the broken partial veil of the mushroom against the stem. He does not say that Jesus on the crucifix is an allegorical description of an ego death/rebirth trip, which is a far more profound observation than simply spotting the similarity to the physical form of the mushroom

the title of his latest book is 'evidence of mushrooms in judeo-christianity', it would be more pertinent to call it 'evidence of psychedelic tripping in judeo-christianity'

this error has been pointed out to him several times, but he fails to acknowledge it. He is a great writer, but he is not at the cutting edge, he doesnt really advance beyond what Allegro already said decades ago, he has successfully revived Allegro's work, but he has not advanced beyond it

This critisism of Irvin is spelled out in detail on cyberdisciple's blog here:
http://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com/2009 ... renthetic/

the relevant part is the following:

he and Dr. Rush were speaking shallowly in that podcast because I didn’t feel like either of them were getting to the heart of the mental dynamics triggered by the entheogen, the mental dynamics that are the religious experience. In my view, these are as, if not more, important than the simple presence of drugs in religious history. We don’t have to just and only talk about the presence of plants in religious history. We can also at the same time talk about the cognitive state triggered by the plants and the experiences encountered in that state. Focusing on cognitive psychology and the phenomenology of the plant-triggered state provides an ultra-compelling explanation for religion and explains why people use and used drugs in their religious practices. I think we can move beyond the systems of surface symbols that characterize culturally distinct religious practices and aim for the mental dynamics that the surface symbols point to. Cognitive experiences are arguably common for all humans across time and culture; surface cultural symbols are arguably not.

 

[zezt]

I see. That is your view. But I have and you seem to have ignored it completely

--quite ironic.

 

[HeartCore]

Max if you claim you heard everything Jan published, you don't need to ask me. In other words, if you would be an avid listener as you claim, you would have been a visitor to gnosticmedia.com and you would have known what Jan is up to. Have you ever heard about the seven liberal arts? There is a good interview series on triviumeduction.com which Jan did with Gene Odening about the seven liberal arts. In the last part the Qabalah and how psychedelics tie in are discussed.

Jan's conspiracy theories about Gordon Wasson, do not touch upon the subject of altered state cognitive processing, so what is this recent work that you are talking about?

That's fallacious reasoning Max.

 

[HeartCore]

He does not say that Jesus on the crucifix is an allegorical description of an ego death/rebirth trip, which is a far more profound observation than simply spotting the similarity to the physical form of the mushroom

Read Joseph Atwil - Ceasar's messiah for some really intelligent and scholarly observations regarding Jesus life, crucifixion and supposed rebirth.

 

[maxfreakout]

Max if you claim you heard everything Jan published, you don't need to ask me. In other words, if you would be an avid listener as you claim, you would have been a visitor to gnosticmedia.com and you would have known what Jan is up to. Have you ever heard about the seven liberal arts? There is a good interview series on triviumeduction.com which Jan did with Gene Odening about the seven liberal arts. In the last part the Qabalah and how psychedelics tie in are discussed.

instead of changing the subject, are you able to actually answer my question? As i said, i am an avid follower of Jan (i was one of the first 5 people to read his second book) and i can say withy certainty that he is totally clueless about psychedelic cognitive dynamics. However if i am wrong about this, i would be very interested to see this recent work of Jan's which you claim addresses this issue. it is not mentioned anywhere in the Odening podcast

Jan's conspiracy theories about Gordon Wasson, do not touch upon the subject of altered state cognitive processing, so what is this recent work that you are talking about?

That's fallacious reasoning Max.

it isnt 'reasoning' at all, it's an observation, followed by a question (which you have avoided answering)

'reasoning' is when you draw conclusions from facts, 'fallacious reasoning' is when you draw false conclusions from facts

here is an example of some actual reasoning: i just asked you to point me in the direction of something of Jan's where he addresses the issue of the phenomenal content of psychedelic experiencing, you avoided answering the question, so i conclude from this that you dont actually know of anywhere where Jan has addressed this issue

The Atwil book is entirely irrelevant to that subject, the idea of the entheogenic interpretation of the Jesus Christ stories doesnt appear anywhere in that book, or on his website/blog, he seems to be completely unaware of it

 

[Sticki]

Thanks for the background info people, very interesting indeed :lol:

The leading astray aspect of psychedelics is clear to see, I do not know how many people I have heard come out with some irrational shit about being the future or being superior to others during and after their experience.

This gave me an understanding of the foundations of reality, "I think, therefore I am". What this statement says lead me to believe that anything is truelly possible through the power of belief.

However, I then in a later LSD trip figured out the majority were all conditioned by our social structure and detached from our true nature. History and Religion perverted to suit the needs and gains of powerfull people and all made law by force.

We are governd and quite often imprisoned by what we believe, Concious over matter after all

One must abandon all forms of written knowledge some times in order to gain real truth.
To quote Jack Johnson "The wisdom's in the trees not the glass windows..."

Live and Let Live 8)

 

[ophiuchus]

give a child a sword and they will undoubtedly cut themselves. tools without trade-ition are little more than weapons.

 

[zezt]

give a child a sword and they will undoubtedly cut themselves. tools without trade-ition are little more than weapons.

and if the tradition is based on war the child will use it to cut others.

 

[BrainEater]

yeah beware of christian (or some people from other religions) that are fanatic/fundamentalist freaks or so.
they are people who propagate things like "the end justifies the means" and other possibly fascist concepts.
some people are just not ready to be unplugged or it's simply too late for them.
don't let yourself be fooled by them. because violence is not a solution. i think that's the lesson that they
have to face. fear controlled puppets that fear when people are brave enough to go their own way and not
be like them.. poor devils lol...
don't swallow the deception propaganda pills! or like yoda maybe would say: "fear the power of dark side is."





peace

 

[ophiuchus]

in my last post i was speaking metaphorically of psychedelics, with zezt's post added to it, we can really see where we have landed in terms of spirituality in america. of course my metaphor works both literally and figuratively.

we now, that is "we" as psychonauts, not members of an elite group or online forum, but we, explorers of mind and reality must create the tradition for future generations. modern society has all but lost touch with the tradition of the nations and races we stand on. we are the living bridge between the two worlds, we have the ability to bring back to society these important traditions, methods, and ideals, so that we may all one day contain this knowledge as common sense.

we hold the future in our hands like a pen to paper. we are important, if not crucial to the development of mankind. we must replace the misinformation with experience, the only truth.