Hallucinogens in Religious Experience

Sacred mushrooms as the original

Tree of Knowledge in Eden

“Where hallucinogen use is unknown or severely restricted, cultural innovations and creative genius is also severely restricted, unknown or vastly underdeveloped.” Terrance McKenna, Food of the Gods

Shamans ‘awake’ on alkaloid rich power plants are the harbingers of cultural advancement, spiritual healing and understanding, hidden knowledge and culturally useful creativity and innovation. 

The use of psycho-active plants by shamans and the spiritually oriented, dissolves the cultural and socially conditioned boundaries; this serves to give shamans access to the wisdom and hidden (occult) knowledge of the spirit world.

The dissolving of the ego-centered matrix into an undifferentiated whole is what is meant by the term, ‘Tao’.

The Tao moves us beyond all categories sanctioned by the common social milieu and offers us a Way of Being that is complete, whole and one with nature that is filled with both mystery, spiritual unification and alchemical applications for reaching the lofty goal of divine immortality.

Shamans seek ecstatic experiences that are easily supplied by hallucinogenic plants as a way to commune with the power of the spirits in order to attain and provide for the well being of their tribe, family or clan.

Ecstasy is the experience of moving beyond, of transcending duality. It is at once amazing, terrifying, consciouness expanding and altering, ontologically challenging and thought provoking. It is the spiritual awakener par-excellence, providing fantastic visions via altered perceptions that offer important (sacred) information about the location of animal herds, waterways and pools, food sources, healing herbs and plants, dangers and the movement of enemies, harvests, the cleansing and removal of spiritual pollution, protecting fertility & reproduction and the pacifying of storms or the bringing of rain. 

By losing our Taoist orientation of a eco-based (feminine) and energy centered view of life

and connection, and instead adopting an 'ideal' saviour version of religion,

human beings have lost touch with our essential nature and have fallen into the pits of addiction,

loneliness, despair, psychological fragmentation, emotional imbalance, anxiety, guilt,

suicidal inclinations and internal disease patterns.

Is this not an indication that the concept of a personal ‘saviour’ is a failed and unreliable notion?

And why are the believers and adherents of the saviour model of religion not free

of preventable bodily and mental decline, self-destructive behaviors and insurmountable

habits? Having said this, there is another very important perspective worth considering:

Jesus and the Mushroom

The idea that Christianity has hallucinogenic origins, particularly linked to the use of psychoactive mushrooms suggests that early Christians may have experienced visions or altered states of consciousness that influenced their beliefs and understanding of Jesus. 

John Allegro, an anthropologist, argued that Jesus was a mythological figure created by early Christians under the influence of psychoactive mushrooms containing psilocybin. He suggested that the Last Supper and other biblical events could be interpreted as hallucinatory experiences induced by the use of these substances.
Allegro's ideas gained recognition through figures like Terence McKenna, who explored the potential for psychoactive substances to influence religious beliefs and experiences. 

John Marco Allegro (1923 –1988) was an English anthropologist and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. He was a populariser of the Dead Sea Scrolls through his books and radio broadcasts. He was the editor of some of the most famous and controversial scrolls published, the persharim. A number of Allegro's later books, including The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, brought him both popular fame and notoriety, and also complicated his career.

This is the body of the God. Take and eat 
that you might see and have imperfections removed from you.

Sacred mushrooms of the forest

As human beings emerged from the remote past, thousands of years ago, there was a stage of evolution of his awareness when the discovery of the mushroom with miraculous properties was a revelation to them, a veritable detonator (awakener) to the soul, arousing sentiments of awe and reverence, and a gentleness and love to the highest level of which mankind is capable.

Terrance McKenna, Food of the Gods

This book provides compelling visual evidence on the role of visionary power plants (magic mushrooms) in Christianity based on field work conducted at abbeys, chapels, churches and cathedrals in Europe and the Middle East.

As human beings emerged from the remote past, thousands of years ago, there was a stage of evolution of his awareness when the discovery of the mushroom with miraculous properties was a revelation to them, a veritable detonator to the soul, arousing sentiments of awe and reverence.