Mushrooms, Myths, and Mithras

Favourite Quotes

“he who knew only that he knew nothing was the wisest man in Athens” - p. 14

Summary

Prelude: The First Supper: Entheogens and the Origin of Religion

• “Our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, provided madness is given us by way of divine gift” p. 9
• entheogens = psychoactive substance
  • entheos = Greek adjective meaning ‘inspired’, ‘animated with deity’
  • genesis = ‘becoming’
  • together it means “something that causes the divine to reside within one”
• the forbidden food that Adam ate is considered an entheogen - p. 9
• in the context of ritual, the use of these substances makes you ‘one with God’ p. 10
• “he who knew only that he knew nothing was the wisest man in Athens” - p. 14
  • A prophetess in ancient Greece said this. Socrates devoted his life to try and understand it
• Pythagoras was also suspected to use entheogens. He would descend into caves that would induce visions of math - p. 15
• “The soul is considered most alert and free in sleep, dreams, and trances, where it can acquire some of the knowledge it will attain upon the final liberation of death.” p. 16
• Greek philosophy is the product of entheogenic shamanism - p. 16

Preface: Also Sprach Zarathustra

• the earliest texts of Zoroastrianism and Hinduism are very similar in language and ideas - this is because of their shared origin - p. 23
• Mithraism was an early Persian religion popular in the Roman Empire. Named after Mithra, God of light in ancient Indo-Iranian mythology ^6df140
  • members went through 7 stages of transcendence, culminating with an ecstatic vision in which one journeyed into a sacred realm where one experienced the entire pattern of the Universe, an experience that was expressed in the prevalent Roman philosophical system known as Stoicism - p. 25
• Mithraism was the main competitor with Christianity in Ancient Rome
• After Christianity became the main religion of the state, the Church Fathers said that Satan must have had advanced knowledge of Christianity because there was lots of similarities between Mithraism and Christianity - p. 25

1: The Entheogenic Eucharist of Mithras

• Mithraic initiation was almost exclusively male - p. 27
• it was very popular - even emperors Nero, Diocletian, and Julian were initiated
• members were initiated with a sacramental meal similar to the Christian Eucharist
• St Paul was likely a Mithraic initiate. His version of Christian practice may have been influenced to some degree by Mithraic teachings - p. 30
• All the emperors pre-Christianity were likely adherents of Mithraism - p. 31
• the Mithraic ‘meal’ or eucharist was a representation of the body of the God - p. 34
  • it was also referred to as ‘magical’, i.e entheogenic
• The bull sacrifice was a common ritual in Mithraic religion, as well as religion of Attis and Cybele - p. 35
• the bull sacrifice was likely NOT a literal thing in Mithraism. Rather it is depicted. Similarly, the last supper depicts may food items but only bread and wine is used in the ritual - p. 37
• the final initiatory item was the sacred Mithraic meal, which was a consciousness-altering liquid
• the common aspect of all these ancient religions is that they ritualized a sacred meal/potion that induced intense spiritual experiences

2: Becoming One with God

• the bull is the Mithraic symbol for their mind-altering eucharist - p. 44
• “ingesting it (eucharist) made the initiate one with the living deity” p. 44
• Mithras was the personification of a cosmic alliance like the Biblical covenant. His name means “treaty alliance’ in Sanskrit and “contract” in Persian. His function was the mediator between god and man - p. 45
  • Jesus was also the mediator between god and man as St Paul said. - p. 45
• king Artaxerxes also participated in the Mithraic rituals - p. 51
• Mithras was born on Dec 25 - p. 52
  • in the 3rd century pope Liberius placed Jesus’s birth on that date
• Mithras was born of the immaculate virgin Anahita with Zarathustra’s seed - p. 53
• The myth taught in the Mithraic initiated was that he was born from a rock, not a woman - p. 53
  • Kronos ate a rock to give birth to Zeus
  • there are many examples of sacred stones/rocks in the ancient Levant. They were often associated with the sun god
  • Even the Kaaba has a black stone that predates Muhammad
  • prophet Jacob laid his head on a rock and had a vision from God
  • so these rocks were vision-inducing
• sacred stones are a common pun on ‘petra’ for ‘stone’. ‘Pitra’ is the Hebrew word for mushroom and occurs widely in Afro-Asiatic languages as indicating ‘seeing’ - p. 54
• an ‘animate rock’ that houses a god and that opens the divine gateway is a perfect metaphor for a psychoactive mushroom - p. 55
• Mithras rock-birth was also called a cave birth. Mithras is re-born every year from his cave dwelling. This is similar to Christ as he was resurrected in a cave. Also according to Eusebius and other Church Fathers there was a version of his Nativity from a cave - p. 58
• tri-form Mithras, a trinity compromising of Mithras, Cautes, and Cautopates - p. 64
• the god of the sacrificial offering was also himself the offering, exactly like in the Christian Eucharist - p. 64
  • this is a mediation between the celestial and human realms

3: The Water Miracle

4: Death by Bull’s Blood

• “seven corresponds to the levels of Mithraic initiation, being the number associated with visionary experience throughout Eurasia since remotest antiquity” p. 80

5: Mushrooms, Gorgons, and the Spring of Perseus

• Roman cult of Mithraism most likely fused the Greek cult of Perseus and the Persian cult of Mithras - p. 87
• Perseus as a Persian in Greek tradition is interchangeable with Mithras - p. 95
• Medusa is identifiable as an anthropomorphized zoomorphism of the mushroom - p. 95

Main Idea of the Book

Generally speaking, this book talks about the use of psychedelics in religion.