Sacred Plants and the Gnostic Church: Speculations on Entheogen-Use in Early Christian Ritual
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.