Journal of Psychedelic Studies
March 12, 2021
Jerry B. Brown
53 citations
The Immortality Key argues that ancient Greek religious rituals, particularly the Eleusinian Mysteries, involved a psychedelic sacrament that may have influenced early Christian Eucharist. The book reports the first direct chemical evidence of entheogen use in the Mysteries, based on archaeochemical analyses and obscure archaeological discoveries in Spain. It proposes that the kykeon potion consumed by initiates contained hallucinogenic ergot, building on earlier research by Ruck, Wasson, and Hofmann. The work also suggests continuity between pagan psychedelic practices and early Christianity, drawing on visits to museum collections, catacombs, and Vatican archives.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
June 1, 2019
Jerry B. Brown, Julie M. Brown
6 citations
Newly examined correspondence between ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson and art historian Erwin Panofsky reveals a financial motive behind Wasson's refusal to acknowledge that a 12th-century fresco in the Chapel of Plaincourault, France, depicts Amanita muscaria. Wasson's view that psychoactive mushrooms disappeared from the Near and Middle East by 1000 BCE prevailed for decades, stalling research on entheogens in Christianity. Twenty-first-century researchers have since documented growing evidence of A. muscaria and psilocybin-containing mushrooms in Christian art across Europe and the Middle East—in frescoes, manuscripts, mosaics, sculptures, and stained glass. The article proposes a psychedelic gospels theory and calls for an interdisciplinary committee to evaluate this evidence and resolve the question of entheogens' role in Christian origins.
Journal of Ancient History
January 31, 2014
Jerry B. Brown, Matthew Lupu
5 citations
The paper argues for a temporal and cultural link between entheogen use in Classical mystery cults and possible entheogen use in early Christian Gnosticism. It presents textual evidence from the New Testament and Nag Hammadi Library suggesting ritual entheogens, and examines entheogen use by Mediterranean religious sects from the fifth century BCE to the third century CE. The authors note considerable philosophical overlap among schools. They conclude that the subject remains plausible speculation due to a lack of primary sources, but if the entheogenic hypothesis is correct, it could aid future research and translation of original documents.
Global Journal of Medical Research
July 31, 2021
Jerry B. Brown, Julie M. Brown
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for cancer patients alleviates mental distress, with the intensity of the mystical experience directly correlating with relief. This article proposes combining guided imagery with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to potentially reduce or eliminate physiological tumors. It compares the two modalities, discusses the literature on mystical experience, and presents anecdotal outcomes of cancer remission among private therapy guided imagery patients.