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[Book Club] The Immortality Key Options
 
dreamer042
#1 Posted : 10/27/2020 11:53:19 PM

Dreamoar

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A new book was just released with some very intriguing information that is absolutely of interest to this community.



Macmillan Publishers wrote:
As seen on The Joe Rogan Experience!

A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations.

The most influential religious historian of the 20th century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Did the Ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same, secret tradition? A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age?

There is zero archaeological evidence for the original Eucharist – the sacred wine said to guarantee life after death for those who drink the blood of Jesus. The Holy Grail and its miraculous contents have never been found. In the absence of any hard data, whatever happened at the Last Supper remains an article of faith for today’s 2.5 billion Christians. In an unprecedented search for real answers, The Immortality Key examines the archaic roots of the ritual that is performed every Sunday for nearly one third of the planet. Religion and science converge to paint a radical picture of Christianity’s founding event. And after centuries of debate, to solve history’s greatest puzzle once and for all.

Before the birth of Jesus, the Ancient Greeks found salvation in their own sacraments. Sacred beverages were routinely consumed as part of the so-called Ancient Mysteries – elaborate rites that led initiates to the brink of death. The best and brightest from Athens and Rome flocked to the spiritual capital of Eleusis, where a holy beer unleashed heavenly visions for two thousand years. Others drank the holy wine of Dionysus to become one with the god. In the 1970s, renegade scholars claimed this beer and wine – the original sacraments of Western civilization – were spiked with mind-altering drugs. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The constantly advancing fields of archaeobotany and archaeochemistry have hinted at the enduring use of hallucinogenic drinks in antiquity. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psychopharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. But the smoking gun remains elusive.

If these sacraments survived for thousands of years in our remote prehistory, from the Stone Age to the Ancient Greeks, did they also survive into the age of Jesus? Was the Eucharist of the earliest Christians, in fact, a psychedelic Eucharist?

With an unquenchable thirst for evidence, Muraresku takes the reader on his twelve-year global hunt for proof. He tours the ruins of Greece with its government archaeologists. He gains access to the hidden collections of the Louvre Museum to show the continuity from pagan to Christian wine. He unravels the Ancient Greek of the New Testament with the world’s most controversial priest. He spelunks into the catacombs under the streets of Rome to decipher the lost symbols of Christianity’s oldest monuments. He breaches the secret archives of the Vatican to unearth manuscripts never before translated into English. And with leads from the archaeological chemists at the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he unveils the first scientific data for the ritual use of psychedelic drugs in classical antiquity.

The Immortality Key reconstructs the suppressed history of women consecrating a forbidden, drugged Eucharist that was later banned by the Church Fathers. Women who were then targeted as witches during the Inquisition, when Europe’s sacred pharmacology largely disappeared. If the scientists of today have resurrected this technology, then Christianity is in crisis. Unless it returns to its roots.

Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the New York Times bestselling author of America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization.

Here is the Joe Rogan interview with the author:



This book is available as hardcover and audiobook from your favorite booksellers. There is also an ebook version which is available on Z-lib.
If you like the book please consider purchasing a copy and supporting the author.

I would like to propose the reading and discussion of this text beginning this Sunday, November 1, with chapter one and proceeding at the pace of one chapter each week to allow ample time for reading and discussion.
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...

Visual diagram for the administration of dimethyltryptamine

Visual diagram for the administration of ayahuasca
 

Good quality Syrian rue (Peganum harmala) for an incredible price!
 
Tony6Strings
#2 Posted : 10/28/2020 2:15:16 AM

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Book club! What a wonderful idea! I love this!!
olympus mon wrote:
You need to hit it with intention to get where you want to be!

"Good and evil lay side by side as electric love penetrates the sky..." -Hendrix

"We have arrived at truth, and now we find truth is a mystery- a play of joy, creation, and energy. This is source. This is the mystic touchstone that heals and renews. This is the beginning again. This is entheogenic." -Nicholas Sand
 
potnoble
#3 Posted : 10/28/2020 10:45:46 AM

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Very interesting!!

Thank you
Psychedelic drugs don´t change you, they don´t change your character,
unless you want to be changed. They enable change. They can´t impose it.
Alexander Shulgin
 
Ramma
#4 Posted : 10/29/2020 9:12:08 AM

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I wish I could buy the book. This man came on the Joe Rogan podcast for 2hs and made it seem half an hour--so smart, so eloquent, such amazing content and ideas. Genious man. Cant wait to see what he has to say if he ever tries DMT
Behold, a sower went out to sow
 
Spiralout
#5 Posted : 10/30/2020 7:09:14 PM

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The book seems really interesting. I know we've talked a bit about possible psychedelic lineages throughout history and it has gone over my head : I have very sparse understanding of history. This book actually comes at the perfect time, I have just begun looking for a way to traverse and understand our history. One other book which I've picked up (and only read the introduction) is "What is History" - Carr.

I've read the first chapter, Identity Crisis, and will continue reading next week. I'm trying to decide whether to continue with the Carr book, or maybe pick up a Steven Pinker book, to read at a slower pace. I might read one of Pinkers books that focus on linguistics : I watched a lecture by him on how to write last night and it was very good.

I was thinking about sending Brian a few bucks directly; it shouldn't be too difficult to find his email and I doubt he would mind. Of course it could be done anonymously. I can't afford to purchase the hardcover at the moment but I would like to send him something at least . He put a ton of time into this project (although I wouldn't mind putting the time into a similar project if I had the means !).
 
dreamer042
#6 Posted : 11/1/2020 11:01:43 PM

Dreamoar

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Just a reminder that Z-lib offers 5 free ebooks per day per IP address. I hope some of you will take the time to check this one out and join the discussion. If you dig it, please support the author, he invested 12 years of his life to bring you this remarkable research.

Forward:

I didn't realize Graham had such a religious upbringing growing up in a community of actual missionaries. His story is a common one though, grew up with a religion shoved down his throat, saw how silly it all was, adopted rationality and atheism.

But it doesn't end there as it does for so many. Then he tried ayahuasca and had a direct experience, now he's a little more unsure, a little more open the possibilities. Personally I feel like this is the best outcome you could hope for. Maintaining a healthy balance of rationality and openness to novelty.

Introduction:

The part that really jumped out at me was where the author was talking about how historically, education was learning about the classics and the bit about how grammar school was literally about learning Greek and Latin grammar. I really admire the amount of effort the author put into tracking down this information and sharing it with the world. He is uniquely qualified and incredibly courageous to do so. In regard to the two questions he poses about psychedelic being at the heart of wesstern culture and christianity, I've always suspected and assumed that to be the case, but I'm really intrigued to explore the evidence he's found. I agree with his premise that an outbreak of mysticism is exactly the catalyst we need in culture and religion right now.

Feel free to post your own takes, or what jumped out at you from the forward and introduction, but officially this weeks assignment is to read to chapter 1 and post your thoughts. I look forward to hearing your insights.
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...

Visual diagram for the administration of dimethyltryptamine

Visual diagram for the administration of ayahuasca
 
Tomtegubbe
#7 Posted : 11/2/2020 5:08:32 PM

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There is so much promise in this book and many, many interesting and inspiring anecdotes in the book. Very soon the book however becomes a treatise on what the author thinks should have been the original Christianity. It's not so much different what every Christian sect has claimed throughout history. It's shame, since careful and impartial research in to the antiquity could bring more information for the public about how diverse were the roots of what later became Christianity, and leave it that way.

The author does a good job in convincing that psychedelics were part of the ancient pagan mysteries though.
My preferred method:
Very easy pharmahuasca recipe

My preferred introductory article:
Just a Wee Bit More About DMT, by Nick Sand
 
Spiralout
#8 Posted : 11/2/2020 8:04:50 PM

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I didn't realize that it was "officially" meant to be next Sunday. Anyways..:

I also don't know very much about Hancock. I haven't read any of his books but I remember having heard or read that he was raised amongst missonaries. I find it a bit odd that he calls himself an atheseist in spite of the clear effects these experiences ( and the fodder for thought following them) have had on him. This seems to be a common thread among present day people: "I'm spiritual but not religious". I think some of this is due to a want to dissociate themselves from the dogma, lack of logical reasoning, and all the other things, but at the end of the day I think it is just a game of linguistics; if your religion is based on dogmaticism, blind faith, and inference, with no deference to direct experience, it should hardly be considered religion. The subjective and objective must be reconciled to make any sense out of things. Somewhere towards the beginning there's a Watts quote which encapsulates the opposition quite articulately : "Nothing could be more alarming to the ecclesiastical hierarchy than a popular outbreak of mysticism, for this might well amount to setting up a democracy in the kingdom of heaven".



His take on the dwindling attention paid to ancient history and the classics I also thought was interesting. I never paid more attention than I needed to to pass tests in history class growing up. I've begun reading up on this stuff because I have a feeling that some of what I might be missing in my life could be due to a lack of understanding other people, and by proxy of that, understanding our history. I'm also interested to see what is presented in this book, although I'm sure I will have difficulty fitting it into a neat package in my own mind given my lack of historical scaffolding. Clearly there was something going on at Eleusis though, and the chances that it was something substantially psychdelic are very high. Given that presupposition, the only thing that is left is for it to have had a nursemaid or chaperone to have kept it alive and dispersed it. This doesn't seem like a huge leap.

In this same vein, and to touch on what you bring up Tomtegubbe, "history" is not an objective fact, nor at it's best is it entirely subjective. It is impossible to be "impartial" when enquiring into history: even if someones sole goal is to accrue the documents, artificacts, and pull out of them the dry facts, they are left with the implicit question of where to start and which evidence is more important. This motivational, and emotionally, laden valence is part and parcel; it is there a priori. The book which I'm reading now, "What is History" by Carr, goes into this in detail. This is common sense if you think these things through on your own, but he has done a much better job than I likely every will do. Just as the historian has his own ideas on how and when to seperate the wheat from the chaff, what is wheatand chaff, when doing his research and writing, we also do the same when reading what he writes. So I have no problem with a historian being opinionated: he has this right just as I have the right to scrutinize him.




 
Tomtegubbe
#9 Posted : 11/2/2020 9:37:01 PM

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Concerning impartiality, Spiralout, I think it's again about linguistics. There is hardly such a thing as absolute impartiality, but there sure are different ways to inquire history. The Church is especially notorious at first coming up the conclusion and then searching for evidence that supports it and discarding everything else as heretic. Revisionist historians have the tendency to do exactly the same, but using different sources. I like reading history books where the conclusions are not fixed and alternative hypothesis are laid out for reader to consider. I think impartiality is something a good historian should aim for and held as an ideal.
My preferred method:
Very easy pharmahuasca recipe

My preferred introductory article:
Just a Wee Bit More About DMT, by Nick Sand
 
Mindlusion
#10 Posted : 11/3/2020 2:34:00 AM

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I also think Graham Hancock is more or less reluctant to talk about his spiritual beliefs as to give fodder to the critics that like to dismiss him as a pseudo-archaeologist.

A book I just started reading recommended to me by a good MD:

https://www.amazon.com/E...9&s=books&sr=1-1




It's full of neuroscience (a lot based on fMRI) behind the mystical experience, induced with or without drugs, the permanent structural changes in the brain and dramatic psychological changes associated with these experiences, as well as his own journey to them.

There is an audio book as well that is well done.
Expect nothing, Receive everything.
"Experiment and extrapolation is the only means the organic chemists (humans) currrently have - in contrast to "God" (and possibly R. B. Woodward). "
He alone sees truly who sees the Absolute the same in every creature...seeing the same Absolute everywhere, he does not harm himself or others. - The Bhagavad Gita
"The most beautiful thing we can experience, is the mysterious. The source of all true art and science."
 
dreamer042
#11 Posted : 11/5/2020 12:48:45 AM

Dreamoar

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Thanks for the heads up Mindlusion! That book looks amazing.

It's absolutely next on my reading list.
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...

Visual diagram for the administration of dimethyltryptamine

Visual diagram for the administration of ayahuasca
 
f1
#12 Posted : 11/18/2020 7:14:44 AM

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Mindlusion wrote:
I also think Graham Hancock is more or less reluctant to talk about his spiritual beliefs as to give fodder to the critics that like to dismiss him as a pseudo-archaeologist.

A book I just started reading recommended to me by a good MD:

https://www.amazon.com/E...9&s=books&sr=1-1




It's full of neuroscience (a lot based on fMRI) behind the mystical experience, induced with or without drugs, the permanent structural changes in the brain and dramatic psychological changes associated with these experiences, as well as his own journey to them.

There is an audio book as well that is well done.


Oh this books very interesting! I'm always wondering how I've changed my brain from a life of being into mediation, yoga and hyperspace. Twisted Evil
In the dance of astral hyperspace, we learn, grow, and connect. Here's to our shared journey through the cosmic tapestry! ✨🌌
 
 
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