Entheogens in Christian art: Wasson, Allegro, and the Psychedelic Gospels
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.