Dennis McKenna & Brian Muraresku: Ethnopharmacology & Mystery Schools

Embark on a captivating journey through ancient spiritual practices and their intriguing link to modern psychoactive substances. In this thought-provoking dialogue, Dennis McKenna and Brian Muraresku explores the central themes of Muraresku’s book: “The Immortality Key”, which delves into the historical use of psychoactive substances in ancient religious rituals and their impact on early Christianity. Support the McKenna Academy: https://mckenna.academy/donate

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Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction
02:01 - Brian Muraresku Bio
04:07 - Growing up Catholic
08:02 - What sparked your interest in this subject?
09:23 - Brian discovers the works of Terence McKenna
11:07 - The premise of ‘Food of the Gods’ is the co-evolution alongside the Psilocybin mushroom
12:46 - Brian’s perspective on the Stoned Ape Theory
17:29 - Psychedelic Beer use in Ancient Cultures
21:45 - The use of ergot fungi compared to psychedelic mushrooms in the Eleusinian Mysteries
25:29 - The coundrum of Enthnopharmacolgy: Night Shades vs Psychedelic mushrooms
32:51 - The potential inclusion of nightshade plants as an additive in the Eleusinian Mysteries
35:24 - The ultimate ancient mystery Rorschach test. Fungal imagery in ancient documents
41:25 - Brian’s perspective on The Psychedelic Gospels by Jerry Brown
45:14 - The Eucharist emerges from the ancient traditions
47:15 - The repression of feminine wisdom by the church
50:50 - The suppression of the women as the keepers of pharmacopoeia
53:27 - The church’s suppression of natural human biology
59:31 - The engines of ecstasy
1:01:10 - The devaluation of nature
1:03:34 - The suppression of Psychedelics
1:04:56 - The reintegration of psychedelic use into religious practices
1:16:40 - Mckenna Academy envisioned as a contemporary mystery school
1:17:13 - The singularity
1:18:55 - Final thoughts

May 18th, 2021
The McKenna Academy presents: View from the Far Side Series with Dennis McKenna Ethnopharmacology & Mystery Schools

Join Dennis McKenna and author Brian Muraresku as they discuss the evidence presented in Brian’s New York Times Best-Selling book: “The Immortality Key.”

Muraresku’s work is an interdisciplinary tour de force, combining research from Ancient Greek sources, religious iconography, and obscure liturgical texts with hard science derived from archeological excavations and archaeobotany/archaeochemistry to construct a nearly unassailable argument that the ‘secret sauce’ of the major Western religious traditions was a potent psychedelic beverage.

McKenna brings a keen edge to Brian’s research, shedding light on the psychedelic implications of the ancient mystery schools through an ethnopharmacological and philosophical lens.

For more information on Brian Muraresku:
The Joe Rogan Experience: Nº1543 - Brian Muraresku & Graham Hancock
CNN: Brian Muraresku explains the potential role of psychedelics in Christianity
Afterskool: The Best-Kept Secret in History - Brian Muraresku

Dennis McKenna Ph.D. has focused his research on the interdisciplinary study of Amazonian ethnopharmacology. He has conducted extensive ethnobotanical fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon. His doctoral research (University of British Columbia, 1984) focused on the ethnopharmacology of ayahuasca and oo-koo-he, two tryptamine-based hallucinogens used by indigenous peoples in the Northwest Amazon. He is a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute, and was a key organizer and participant in the Hoasca Project, the first biomedical investigation of ayahuasca. He is the younger brother of Terence McKenna. From 2000 to 2017, he taught courses on Ethnopharmacology and Plants in Human affairs in the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota. In 2019, in collaboration with colleagues, he incorporated a new non-profit, the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy. He emigrated to Canada in the spring of 2019 together with his wife Sheila, and now resides in Abbotsford, B.C.

Brian C. Muraresku graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with a degree in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. As an alumnus of Georgetown Law and a member of the New York Bar, he has been practicing law internationally for fifteen years. He lives outside Washington D.C. with his wife and two daughters. In 2016, Muraresku became the founding executive director of Doctors for Cannabis Regulation. Their work has been featured on CNN and ESPN, as well as The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle. In arbitration with the NFL in 2018, Muraresku represented the first professional athlete in the United States to seek a therapeutic use exemption for cannabis.

The Immortality Key is Brian’s debut book.
www.brianmuraresku.com

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