Brown, Reply to Hatsis, final revised - Reply to Thomas Hatsis Review of The Psychedelic Gospels (original) (raw)
Related papers
Christianity's Psychedelic History, Reply to Hatsis,
Graham Hancock website, 2022
I stopped publicly debating and communicating with Thomas Hatsis in August 2019, after receiving a slanderous and threatening email from him. I will explain below what promoted this unprofessional outburst. However, due to the February 2022 posting on Graham Hancock’s popular website of Hatsis’ recent screed against me and The Psychedelic Gospels‒ and implicitly against all scholars who “argue for the mushrooms in Christian art hypothesis”‒I felt an obligation to readers and to the field of psychedelic studies to set the record straight by writing this Reply to the Hatsis Review. In this Reply, I will also propose a framework for revitalizing the study of mushrooms in Christian art (MICA), and focus the field on the central question: to what extent are psychoactive mushrooms present in Christian history?
Fragments Journal, 2022
A number of authors in recent years have claimed that Early and Medieval Christian art evidence numerous examples of thinly disguised psychedelic mushrooms. This article examines these claims in reference to a single image in a 13th century bestiary in Oxford's Bodleian Library (MS. Bodl. 602, fol. 27v), which is mistakenly identified by these authors as an alchemical manuscript. We conclude that the authors made many mistakes and failed to make their case and fault them on the grounds that none of them made any attempt to check whether their impressions of the picture was accurate. None consulted the original manuscript to see whether the text accompanying the picture confirmed or their impressions are called them into question. None trouble themselves to discover the manuscript's actual date or name. None tried to verify whether the manuscript containing the image actually represented an al-chemical manuscript, and if it did, which specific alchemical work it represented.
Entheogens in Christian art: Wasson, Allegro, and the Psychedelic Gospels
Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 2019
In light of new historical evidence regarding ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson's correspondence with art historian Erwin Panofsky, this article provides an in-depth analysis of the presence of entheogenic mushroom images in Christian art within the context of the controversy between Wasson and philologist John Marco Allegro over the identification of a Garden of Eden fresco in the 12th century Chapel of Plaincourault in France. It reveals a compelling financial motive for Wasson's refusal to acknowledge that this fresco represents Amanita muscaria, as well as for Wasson's reluctance to pursue his hypothesis regarding the entheogenic origins of religion into Christian art and artifacts. While Wasson's view-that the presence of psychoactive mushrooms in the Near and Middle East ended around 1000 BCE-prevailed and stymied research on entheogens in Christianity for decades, a new generation of 21st century researchers has documented growing evidence of A. muscaria and psilocybin-containing mushrooms in Christian art, consistent with ethnobotanist Giorgio Samorini's typology of mushroom trees. This article presents original photographs, taken during fieldwork at churches and cathedrals throughout Europe and the Middle East, that confirm the presence of entheogenic mushrooms in Christian art: in frescoes, illuminated manuscripts, mosaics, sculptures, and stained glass windows. Based on this iconic evidence, the article proposes a psychedelic gospels theory and addresses critiques of this theory by art historians, ardent advocates, medieval historians, and conservative Catholics. It calls for the establishment of an Interdisciplinary Committee on the Psychedelic Gospels to independently evaluate the growing body of evidence of entheogenic mushrooms in Christian art in order to resolve a controversial question regarding the possible role of entheogens in the history and origins of Christianity.
Christianity and Psychedelics: A Chalcedonian Response
Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 2024
A response to the essay "Christianity and Psychedelics," drawing on the theological codification that emerged from the Council of Chalcedon and its implications for a fully incarnational “psychedelic Christology.” As the authors note, for many of their Christian case studies, psychedelics occasioned experiences that were both deeply “incarnational” as well as ineffably “sacred.” In other words, psychedelics served, for many of the practitioners included here, as further affirmation and integration of the human-divine “problem” that Chalcedon sought to codify and longitudinally correct through its affirmation that Christ was both “fully human and fully divine.”
THE ORIGINS OF RELIGION: AS REFERENCE TO SACRED MUSHROOMS. 3RD EDITION
Throughout the ancient stories of humanity, plants and fungi have been used as sources to contact divine realms by Shaman and Priest alike. These naturally induced experiences are often potent enough to form Mystics, Prophets, Spiritual Gurus, and even gods. Psychedelic substances during modern eras have been virtually demonized and condemned by most members of society or labeled as recreational by others - leaving any claims to a spiritual connection castrated at the thesis statement. Scholars fear tackling this subject by reality of being ostracized from peers and/or branded as a hieratic by the Church if not outright imprisoned by the state. Holidays such as Christmas, Easter, Holy Communion, and Marriage all appear to have their roots in the experience that Christ is centered upon; Sacred Psilocybin Mushrooms. This book takes a deeper look into the myths, artwork, and stories that surround predominating religions and breaks down how each individual can come into direct communication with divine realms by instituting the true Holy Blessed Sacrament.
What the Study of Religion Can Teach Us About Psychedelics
Bill of Health, 2020
** Note: The URL link below works better than the PDF for viewing ** https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2020/11/04/what-the-study-of-religion-can-teach-us-about-psychedelics/ This piece is part of a digital symposium on "Psychedelics and America" through Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics.
Lost Saints: Desacralisation, Spiritual Abuse, and Magic Mushrooms
Fieldwork in Religion, 2019
Psilocybin containing mushrooms have been used in indigenous healing ceremonies in Mesoamerica since at least the sixteenth century. However, the sacramental use of mushrooms was only discovered by Westerners in the early to mid-twentieth century. Most notably, the meeting between amateur mycologist Robert Gordon Wasson and Mazatec curandera María Sabina in 1955 resulted in the widespread popularisation of ingesting 'magic mushrooms' in the West. To Sabina and the Mazatec people, psilocybin mushrooms were sacred and only to be used for healing. However, Western 'hippies' viewed mushrooms as psychedelic drugs which they consumed with little regard for cultural sensitivities, rendering the mushrooms desacralised. This article argues that the desacralisation of psilocybin mushrooms constitutes a form of spiritual abuse that has had far-reaching and long-lasting consequences at individual, local, and global levels. Further, acknowledging and understanding the desacralisation of psilocybin mushrooms as spiritual abuse has important implications for restorative justice and the understanding of psilocybin as a sacred medicine.
Editorial Psychedelics in History and World Religions
Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 2019
An assessment of the implications of entheogenic research for understanding the origins of religion. The Table of contents with links to 12 articles that examine entheogenic bases of prehistorical, historical and world religions.
In this paper, I examine the reciprocal relationship between scholarship about religion and discourses and practices related to the "First" and "Second Wave" psychedelic movements. Following the work of Agehananda Bharati, I argue that the "First Wave" psychedelic movement was instrumental in the success of Religious Studies in the 1970s and 1980s, facilitating interest in a range of issues around religious experience and its interpretation. I postulate two key spheres of influence: scholars whose experiences of psychedelics were formative in their study of religion versus others not associated with psychedelic use but have had a major impact on thinking within psychedelic communities. To illustrate this, I draw on my experience as a participant-observer in one of the first state-approved Psilocybin Facilitator training programs in Oregon, providing examples of how scholarship on religion informs psychedelic discourse and practice and the implications of it for the future of the academic study of religion.