by frankiespeakin 47 Replies latest jw friends
Black,
I suppose there are them theories,,, I posted a topic a while back that hass sites and information about ethnogens and the bible, and other stuff, you might look back in my profile and look at some of the subject matter I have posted in recent years.
I will post if I can find it.
Frankie, my San Pedro cactuses have grown huge in a short time. I had 2 12" segments, and created 3 pieces to which I applied sprouting hormone. This was last winter. One piece is now about 3' tall. Have you ever tried these? I really don't want to harvest them, they are quite attractive.
BTS
Black,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogenic_drugs_and_the_archaeological_record#Soma_and_Mushrooms
Entheogenic Drugs and Major World Religions
There have been several reports stating that the Bible and the Vedas have several references to entheogenic drugs. Although most scholars largely reject these claims, they are accepted by many fringe groups.
Some researchers speculate that Manna, the food that which the Israeli tribes harvest, was actually an entheogenic drug. The Bible as quoted in Exodus 16:14 reads:
“And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.”
Some point to the similarities of Psilocybe and the biblical Description of Manna as evidence.
In the Vedas, the religious texts of the Hindu religion, there has been a lot of speculation on the nature of what Soma, the food of the gods, actually was. Below is a passage from the Vedas "Splendid by Law! declaring Law, truth speaking, truthful in thy works, Enouncing faith, King Soma!... O [Soma] Pavamana, place me in that deathless, undecaying world wherein the light of heaven is set, and everlasting lustre shines.... Make me immortal in that realm where happiness and transports, where joy and felicities combine..." Scholars like R.G. Wasson suggest that Soma is Fly Agaric, a mushroom commonly used by Siberian Shamans.
http://www.answers.com/topic/entheogen
Judaism and Christianity
According to The Living Torah, cannabis was an ingredient of holy anointing oil mentioned in various sacred Hebrew texts. [ 5 ] The herb of interest is most commonly known as kaneh-bosm (Hebrew: ?????-??????). This is mentioned several times in the Old Testament as a bartering material, incense, and an ingredient in holy anointing oil used by the high priest of the temple. Although Chris Bennett's research in this area focuses on cannabis, he mentions evidence suggesting use of additional visionary plants such as henbane, as well. [ 6 ]
The Septuagint translates kaneh-bosm as calamus, and this translation has been propagated unchanged to most later translations of the old testament. However, Polish anthropologist Sula Benet published etymological arguments that the Aramaic word for hemp can be read as kannabos and appears to be a cognate to the modern word 'cannabis', [ 7 ] with the root kan meaning reed or hemp and bosm meaning fragrant. Both cannabis and calamus are fragrant, reedlike plants containing psychotropic compounds.
Although philologistJohn Marco Allegro has suggested that the self-revelation and healing abilities attributed to the figure of Jesus may have been associated with the effects of the plant medicines [from the Aramaic: "to heal"], this evidence is dependent on pre-Septuagint interpretation of Torah and Tenach, and goes firmly against the accepted teachings of the Holy See. However Merkur contends that a minority of Christian hermits and mystics could possibly have used entheogens, in conjunction with fasting, meditation and prayer. [citation needed]
Allegro was the only non-Catholic appointed to the position of translating the Dead Sea scrolls. His extrapolations are often the object of scorn due to Allegro's non-mainstream theory of Jesus as a mythological personification of the essence of a "psychoactive sacrament", furthermore they conflict with the position of the Catholic Church in regards to transubstantiation and the teaching involving valid matter, form, and substance—that of bread and wine, which do not contain psychoactive substances. Allegro's book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, relates the development of language to the development of myths, religions and cultic practices in world cultures. Allegro believed he could prove, through etymology, that the roots of Christianity, as of many other religions, lay in fertility cults; and that cult practices, such as ingesting visionary plants (or "psychedelics") to perceive the Mind of God [Avestan: Vohu Mana], persisted into the early Christian era, and to some unspecified extent into the 1200s with reoccurrences in the 1700s and mid 1900s, as he interprets the Plaincourault chapel's fresco to be an accurate depiction of the ritual ingestion of Amanita muscaria as the Eucharist.
The historical picture portrayed by the Entheos journal is of fairly widespread use of visionary plants in early Christianity and the surrounding culture, with a gradual reduction of use of entheogens in Christianity. [ 8 ] R. Gordon Wasson's book Soma prints a letter from art historian Erwin Panofsky asserting that art scholars are aware of many 'mushroom trees' in Christian art. [ 9 ]
The question of the extent of visionary plant use throughout the history of Christian practice has barely been considered yet by academic or independent scholars. The question of whether visionary plants were used in pre-Theodosius Christianity is distinct from evidence that indicates the extent to which visionary plants were utilized or forgotten in later Christianity, including so-called "heretical" or "quasi-" Christian groups, [ 10 ] and the question of other groups such as elites or laity within "orthodox" Catholic practice. [ 11 ]
James Arthur asserts that the little scroll from the angel with writing on it referred to in Ezekiel 2: 8,9,10 and Ezekiel 3: 1,2,3 and Book of Revelation 10: 9,10 was the speckled cap of the Amanita muscaria mushroom. [ 12 ]
Alexander Shulgin World Famous Developer of Pyschedelic Drugs:
Yes Shulgin. And the tryptamine bible, TiHKaL.
"In 1936 Sula Benet (a.k.a. Sara Benetowa), a Polish etymologist from the Institute of Anthropological Sciences in Warsaw stated that: "In the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament there are references to hemp, both as incense, which was an integral part of religious celebration, and as an intoxicant"(Benet 1975). Through comparative etymological study, Bennett documented that in the Old Testament and in its Aramaic translation, the Targum Onculos, hemp is referred to as kaneh bosm, which is also rendered in traditional Hebrew as kannabos or kannabus. The root "kan" in this construction means "reed" or "hemp", while "bosm" means "aromatic".
This word appeared in Exodus 30:23, Song of Songs 4:14., Isaiah 43:24, Jeremiah 6:20, Ezekiel 27:19.
In 1980 the Hebrew University in Israel confirmed Benet's identification of Kaneh-Bosm as hemp, and the respected anthropologist Weston La Barre(1980) referred to the Biblical references in an essay on cannabis."
BTS
BTS,
Frankie, my San Pedro cactuses have grown huge in a short time. I had 2 12" segments, and created 3 pieces to which I applied sprouting hormone. This was last winter. One piece is now about 3' tall. Have you ever tried these? I really don't want to harvest them, they are quite attractive.
Yes, I bout about 10 ft piece while in the beginning of my tripping journeys. I was real cheat 10 bucks and then latter from a renter I gave $10 and got about 60 ft. I use to eat the real healthy looking stuff while hiking for hours in the hills and forests plus smoking lot of pot. I recall some profound changes in my world view very mystical at the time and I was still a bible believer at the time so i was often praying a lot speaking in tongues and trying to figure out if god was a trinity or not many trips latter I could careless. It was very therapeutic in my estimation and help me think new ideas and break the shackles of some old residual religious indoctrination.
I'm glad you got some beauties I hope they are nice and potent and you have some delightful and insightful trips.
Black,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marco_Allegro
However, Allegro's work has been adopted by some alternative authors. Jan Irvin and Andrew Rutajit published the book Astrotheology & Shamanism [ 6 ] in 2006, which supported some of Allegro's ideas using iconographic and symbolic evidence that Allegro had overlooked. In May 2006, Michael Hoffman of egodeath.com and Jan Irvin wrote an article for The Journal of Higher Criticism [ 7 ] entitled Wasson and Allegro on the Tree of Knowledge as Amanita [ 8 ] that suggested that Allegro's work should be evaluated on its merits like that of any other scholar and not dismissed merely because its arguments fall outside the mainstream. It must be noted here however that R. Gordon Wasson never commented on Allegro's theories relating to Christianity, once stating that the author of the Book of Revelation could not have been "bemushroomed" because of the mortifications that he was suffering from. [ 9 ]
Allegro went on to write several other books exploring the roots of religion; notably The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth, which seek to relate Christian theology to Gnostic writings, classical mythology and Egyptian sun-worship in the common quest for divine light.
It is suggested that Allegro believed the Dead Sea Scrolls raised issues that concerned everyone. It wasn't just a matter of dusty manuscripts and disputed translations. Rather, the story of the scrolls raised questions about freedom of access to evidence, freedom of speech, and freedom to challenge orthodox religious views. Allegro believed that through understanding the origins of religion people could be freed from its bonds to think for themselves and take responsibility for their own judgments.
.
http://www.egodeath.com/WassonEdenTree.htm
Wasson and Allegro on the Tree of Knowledge as Amanita
by Michael Hoffman
About Christian History?This article has left slim pickings for anyone who is still committed to rejecting the interpretation of the Plaincourault fresco as deliberately intending Amanita mushrooms. Flimsy pseudo-arguments and careless rebuttals buried in endnotes can no longer give the appearance of a serious and adequate treatment of these issues. But we need not waste further time spinning entheogen-diminishing apologetics and defending against such evasions; there is more serious research at hand.
It is most remarkable that none of these scholars – Ramsbottom, Panofsky, Wasson, or Allegro – explicitly consider and address the question, “What was the extent of entheogen use throughout Christian history and in the surrounding cultural context?” Wasson and Allegro share the unexamined and untested assumption that while entheogen use was the original inspiration for religions, it was vanishingly rare in Christianity and the surrounding culture. This unjustified combination of premises has resulted in a standoff of positions that all share the same shaky foundation, producing inconsistencies and self-contradictions in all of the competing ill-formed explanatory frameworks.
All the scholars to date have proven themselves unable and unprepared to face the issue of entheogen use throughout Christian history squarely, properly, and clearheadedly; none can write clearly nor read each other clearly on the subject. There are more complex and nuanced historical possibilities than the simple-minded options that either Christianity was always fully entheogen-using or was always fully against entheogen use. The greatest dogmatic preconception in this area today is the assumption that Christian history contains only a placebo sacrament, and that every instance of a psychoactive sacrament found within Christianity is ipso facto a non-Christian, foreign intrusion.
Having here shown the shortcomings of how the Plaincourault tree and the surrounding questions were handled by all the scholars involved, the way is now cleared to properly address and focus on the truly significant questions: What was the actual extent of entheogen use inside Christian practice throughout Christian history and throughout its cultural context? What was the extent of Christian metaphors and figures representing visionary plants and the experiential phenomenology induced by the plants? What was the actual extent, throughout Christian history, of considering Jesus and all the apostles as non-historical? And finally, what was the extent of considering Jesus as identical to, and none other than, entheogens and their phenomenological effects?
I don't know about amanita, sounds too strong. Besides, where do I get it? It is very hard to grow, and rare down here in the wild. By the way, regarding these things, this motif appears in medieval churches from time to time.
Adam and Eve before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil:
What's odd is, I went to the Garden in my first trip, and I witnessed the snake Eve eating the fruit. Then a sense hit me that good and evil are the same thing, and that there is no need to fear, since everything is proceeding according to plan, and will be allright.
I have not yet fully integrated this.
BTS
BTS,
I think I bought some from This site:
http://www.bouncingbearbotanicals.com/ethnobotanicals-amanita-muscaria-c-60_71.html
I also shopped around and sample some other vendors but don't recall at present maybe "I am Shaman" and a few others. Some were good and strong and some were not. Get a A++ grade all caps nice and red no stems you can even coat them and use them for Christmas ornaments. Grind them up nice and fine in a blender(you might need sizzers to cut up the real nice red caps or your coffee grinder might stall and die on you as mine did) pour boiling water that has been allowed t stand for one minute and if you really want to get as much out as you can put it in a mixing bowl for about 10 or 15 minute as soon as you poor in the very hot but not boiling water strain with a cloth and cheers.
And BTW if you do a strong dose be prepared to jump out of time so find a good place to lay down if you feel jerks of electricity pulsing through you whole body because you can fall flat on your face if stand if the dose is strong enough.
I wouldn't bother trying Amanita. They are toxic. You have to try to take enough to get whatever you get without poisoning yourself.
The psilosybin mushrooms this thread is about are far more forgiving. I have eaten large quantities in one session with no nasty side effects.
They are a helluva lot of fun if you are sharing the experience with a bunch of nice people.
I picked a T shirt full one day. We cooked them for lunch. About 50 people partook.
There was no moon that night and the only lighting was stars, fireflies, flourescent mushrooms and cigarettes.
The only music; guitars, voices and the sounds of the rainforest.
Nice.
Cheers
Chris
