All language subtitles for Psychedelica.Series.1.11of14.The.Holy.Mushroom.Theory.1080p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org

>> Through the scope of
religious texts and art,

unexplained and quite
mystical type experiences seem

to revolve around
all of the heroes.

In legends and myth,
supernatural powers,

from walking on water
and astral projection

to stories of resurrection
and transcendence,

have baffled the rationale of
skeptics and pragmatists alike.

But the story was
about to change

after an unlikely ancient relic
was discovered after being

lost for 2000 years.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

On March 14 of 1952, at
an archaeological site

on the West Bank in Israel's
Qumran National Park,

15 scrolls were unearthed,
the last of which

was famously called
the copper scroll.

It was corroded to the point
where it could not be unrolled.

So English archaeologist,
John Marco Allegro,

recommended that
the scrolls be sent

to Manchester
University in order

to cut them into pieces,
making them easier to read.

After 15 years of study, Allegro
published his book, "The Sacred

Mushroom and the Cross."

He argued that the linguistics
of this dead language

revealed that the
roots of Christianity

were born in fertility
cults, with the use

of sacramental and
psychedelic mushrooms,

also stating that
these rituals survived

in secrecy within
Christian artwork seen

in cathedrals and churches.

But the most popular of
Allegro's interpretations

was the fresco at
Plaincourault Chapel.

>> Right before his book, "The
Sacred Mushroom" got published,

he saw a grainy image of
the Plaincourault fresco

and thought it was
an amanita muscaria,

so he put it in the
dust jacket of his book.

Like all people, when I first
saw the Plaincourault fresco,

I was like, oh, my god.

That's an amanita
muscaria, of course.

>> Professor Jerry Brown served
as the founding professor

of anthropology at Florida
International University

in Miami, where he taught
a course on psychedelics.

>> It really started with my
first psychedelic experience

which was on LSD at a
Rainbow Family gathering,

high in the Rocky Mountains.

It was a frightening
experience, and I wasn't alone.

I mean, Albert
Hoffman thought he was

dying in his first experience--

discovery of LSD.

And it really made me
pause and want to learn

a lot more about psychedelics.

I mean, I didn't have
the instant nirvana

that Larry was talking about,
and so being an anthropologist

I designed and taught a course
on hallucinogens in culture.

Then, fast forward to 2006.

My wife, Julie, and I are in
Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland,

and I discovered, in the head
of the most prominent green man,

a fertility head of
which there are about 100

in Rosslyn Chapel, about
two weeks after buying

this replica of this
Rosslyn Chapel green man,

I turned it around on a table.

And I looked, and was staring
at a replica of an amanita

muscaria mushroom.

The bulbous bottom, the
little veil around the stem,

the little white dots, the dots.

And it was this discovery
of a psychoactive mushroom

in a Catholic church that led
Julie and me to start thinking,

are there other psychedelic
mushrooms in Christian art?

Julie and I had the opportunity
to meet with Paul Stamets, one

of the world's most eminent
and knowledgeable mycologists.

And we said, Paul, do you
agree with our interpretation

that this is an amanita
muscaria mushroom?

And he said, oh, absolutely.

It is.

And I said, and now I'm
embarrassed about this, I said,

Paul, are you sure?

That's like asking the pope,
are you sure you're Catholic?

And he laughed, and he said,
this is a taxonomically correct

amanita muscaria mushroom.

>> As Jerry and Julie Brown
found their conviction that

this was indeed a secretive
depiction of the psychoactive

amanita muscaria mushroom by
the artist Sir William Sinclair,

the author of "The Witches'
Ointment," Tom Hatsis,

with a master's in history, has
a different view on the matter.

>> Every image put forth by
the holy mushroom advocates,

and they all have different--

they all have different
details in their theories,

but they're all trying to say
the same thing, that there

are mushrooms in Christian art.

While I do believe that there's
a lot to say about psychedelics

in early Christianity and
medieval Christianity,

I don't believe that there is
anything to say about mushrooms

secretly hidden in art.

An example would be the green
man from Rosslyn Chapel.

Paul Stamets and
Jerry Brown both say

that that's an amanita
muscaria mushroom,

and that it's a taxonomically
correct amanita muscaria

mushroom.

But that's only because
they put an unnatural line

of demarcation at the nub
where the mushroom should end.

If you get rid of that
line of demarcation,

it goes on, and on, and on.

It doesn't look like it amanita
muscaria that I've ever seen.

One of the things about the
holy mushroom hypothesis,

if we can call it that,
is that it actually

has a lot of shortcomings.

Now, these
shortcomings are often

overlooked by the people
bolstering the theory,

but for others who pay a little
bit more careful attention

to detail, we see a big problem.

There's a disconnect.

And in my opinion,
the biggest problem

is that Christians,
especially the church fathers,

wrote about their
psychedelic experiences.

I mean, St. Basil
recommended taking mandrake.

Theodoret of Syria would
smoke opium and then

read from the gospels.

So these guys were totally
open about discussing

their psychedelic
use, so why not say,

hey, we're secretly
painting it in art, too.

Why talk about cannabis,
and opium, and mandrake,

and henbane, and never
bring up a mushroom?

It makes no sense historically.

>> Tom asked, he said, look,
if there is all of these

psychedelics, why aren't
the church fathers--

why aren't there
more about this in

the early Christian writings?

And my answer to Tom on
this point is twofold.

One, absence of evidence
is not evidence of absence.

Just because they didn't
write about it doesn't mean

it wasn't there.

And when we come
back to this point

that these were
the holies of holy,

that people talked about them
in secrecy, that the pope said,

let art be the Bible of the
illiterate, they expressed it,

but they expressed it
in the artwork and not

in the writings.

It was too sacred to
put into the writings.

>> Tom began researching the
holy mushroom theory years ago,

and was even on the path to
writing a book on the topic.

>> So I used to actually believe
the holy mushroom theory in its

totality.

And I actually, I didn't
think that anybody

had written a good book on
the topic, so I'm like, OK.

Well, I'm going to
write that book.

So before I wrote "The Witches'
Ointment," the first book

in psychedelics I was going to
write was on the holy mushroom

theory.

But the more I investigated
it, the more I came to realize,

none of these things
are actually mushrooms.

A lot of the times,
the advocates

don't know what
they're looking at.

And some of them have
kind of mushroomy shapes,

but in an odd way,
so does a stop sign.

And look, it's red at the
top, and it's on a stem.

So I was just trying to
make this theory fit--

the evidence fit what I already
thought, and I was like, well,

aren't I a sucker?

There's just nothing to it.

I fell for it.

And so now I spend my time
investigating these photos,

and these pictures, and
showing what they actually

are because I think it's
an important question.

Look, if Jesus had anything to
do with magic mushrooms, that

is a big deal.

>> By the time Jerry and Julie
Brown's book came out in 2016,

many other books had
been published regarding

psychedelics and Christian art.

The concept was
growing in popularity,

yet because there were so
many unanswered questions

and wild speculations,
Jerry and Julie

found it imperative to write
a comprehensive book on where

the debate sits today.

>> Are there other
entheogens in Christian art?

Does Christianity have
a psychedelic history?

If it does, what does
this imply for the life

of Jesus and the disciples?

And before we
slipped into a kind

of a rambunctious
overthrow of reason,

Carl Sagan's famous
words came to us,

"extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence."

>> Extraordinary claims
require ordinary evidence,

and the holy mushroom hypothesis
doesn't even have base

evidence, let alone
extraordinary evidence.

It doesn't even--
it's got nothing.

Of all the pieces
that I've seen,

they're easily
explained away by using

very basic historical criteria
in detective crime solving

methods, every
single one of them.

In those days,
psychedelics were not

classified the way we
classify drugs today.

They didn't classify them.

They classified magic.

So you could give somebody
cannabis, right, to heal them.

And they're healed.

Well, that's good.

That's good magic.

You're a good witch.

Congratulations.

Now, you give somebody
cannabis and let's say

they start to freak
out because they don't

know what's going on
or mushrooms-- well,

now you're a bad witch.

And now you didn't try
to heal that person,

you were trying to
send demons into them.

You were trying to possess them.

So much of it depended
on, really, the outcome.

>> If psychedelics were not
as important as the intentions

of the people using
them in magic,

then would it make sense
to keep them secret?

The extraordinary claims
that Jerry and Julie

Brown were looking to back up
had many obstacles to overcome.

>> We had some serious
reservations at the beginning.

But we finally came
to a point where

we gathered so much
information at a distance

that Julie and I
said, you know, we

will regret it the
rest of our lives

if this insight was
given to us, if we

don't undertake this
journey of discovery

to see if we can find
psychedelic images

in Christian art.

>> Jerry and Julie set out
for Europe and the Middle East

to hunt down the original
artwork, take pictures,

and gather the extraordinary
evidence that they were after.

>> The first place we went
was to Plaincourault, France,

to the tiny chapel, 20
feet wide by 60 feet deep

in Plaincourault, where there
is a giant amanita mushroom

on a fresco of the temptation
scene in the Garden of Eden.

We went there because
this place was

the source of the debate between
Gordon Wasson and John Allegro

as to, is this an amanita
muscaria mushroom,

or is it not?

Wasson said, no, citing
the art historian

Panofsky, who said it's a
stylized Italian pine tree.

And Allegro said,
oh, it absolutely is.

It was an incredibly
emotional day for both of us,

but especially for me.

I had been waiting for 40
years to see this giant amanita

mushroom in
Plaincourault Chapel.

The guide to the
chapel showed up.

He spoke in French which
we could understand,

and he described
it as an amanita.

And when we looked at it,
it was completely clear

that this was an
amanita mushroom because

of the meticulous white dots on
the cap, which were obviously

drawn with intention because
Adam and Eve were covering

themselves with mushroom
caps, not fig leaves.

And Eve was partially
skeletonized which

in shamanism is associated
with transcendence.

I mean, skeletonization
in the bones

are very key to shamanism.

And Julie noticed that.

So it was the first place
we stopped in our journey,

and it was the initial
confirmation to say,

yes, Allegro was right
about Plaincourault,

and we have our
first major signpost

on the trail of finding
compelling evidence

of mushrooms in Christianity.

>> There are shamanic skeletal
references in books as well

as rock art, in which the motifs
represent death and rebirth

of the spirit or transcendence.

And the image even has
definitive markings

to depict that Eve is
either starving or becoming

skeleton-like.

But was John Marco Allegro
truly correct in his claim

that this was a name
amanita muscaria mushroom?

>> Well, Allegro himself
came to believe that that

wasn't a mushroom.

And in every edition of the
sacred mushroom and the cross,

that photo was taken out.

He died believing only in his
linguistic interpretations.

All these people today
don't read dead languages,

so they picked up on the art
because it's just easy to--

it's art.

We can all interpret whatever
we want to see in art.

So it's simple, especially
because some of the trees

are kind of zany looking.

They do have purple
tops, or red tops,

and have kind of a bulbous
top with a long stem.

Yeah, go outside.

That's what trees look like.

>> Well, I would point out that
this is from about the 1100s,

and perspective did not
come into art until the 15th

century.

So the artist could--

look.

This is not an anatomically
correct Adam and Eve,

nor is it an anatomically
correct amanita muscaria fly

agaric mushroom.

So this could be the artist
drawing a cluster of mushrooms

there.

And as an
anthropologist, I always

like to see what do the
locals, the natives, say.

A bishop in early France said
that these were psychoactive,

or really mind
altering substances,

using the language of that time.

When it was first introduced
to the Mycological

Society of France, the
mycologist presenting it

said, and look, the artist
has drawn a giant fly agaric.

When I asked the guide
to Plaincourault,

who was taking us around, why
did the artist put this there?

He said, because he wants
people to understand

that they have to have a
transcendental experience

to come closer to God.

>> The double-edged sword of
art is that some pieces can be

interpreted in many ways,
whereas others are quite

on the nose.

Making a distinction between
which of those categories

these Christian
renderings fall into

is the debate that has raged for
the better part of a century.

But Jerry and Julie kept on
with their investigation,

wondering where else they might
find evidence of psychedelics

in Christian art.

>> After Plaincourault, we drove
about two hours east in France

to the Parish Church of
Saint-Martin de Vic, again,

about 1,000 years old.

And when we came into the
choir, Julie took my arm

and she said, do
you see what I see?

And I looked at the joint
scene of the purification

of Isaiah's lips and
Jesus entering Jerusalem.

And up in the right hand corner
of the scene of Jesus entering

Jerusalem, the joyful youth, who
are welcoming him to Jerusalem

on the Passover, one
of them is holding

onto the stem of one of
five, large, tan psilocybin

mushrooms.

And as we looked
to the next wall,

Jesus is going towards
the Tower of Jerusalem.

On top of the
Tower of Jerusalem,

there are other youth
with long knives,

cutting down unmistakable
psilocybin mushrooms,

cutting through the stem.

If that was not enough on this
wall, the painting, the fresco,

of the Towers of
Jerusalem is looking down

on the Last Supper.

It is not bread on the table.

It's mushroom caps.

If it were bread, it
would be pulled apart.

It would be baked in loaves.

And the same knives
are on the table

that were used to cut
down the mushrooms

in the Tower of Jerusalem.

>> So a lot of people look
at that image without knowing

exactly where it comes from.

And when I say exact
where it comes from,

I mean, literally, the Bib--

the chapter and verse
of where it comes from.

It comes from the
Gospel of Mark.

It's often
misappropriately titled,

The Triumphal Entry, by people
who are not New Testament

historians.

Because New Testament
historians know that it was not

a triumphal entry.

Mark's Gospel is a war gospel.

This was a counter-protest.

In the Gospel, you
have Jesus coming

in from one side of town.

OK?

He's contrasted by Caesar
coming in from the other side

with the standards
and the warhorses.

So Jesus is not on a war horse.

He's on a lowly donkey.

Right?

And even though the
Romans are coming in

with their parasols of victory
getting back to that peace,

you see the young boys,
handing the parasol of victory,

instead, to Jesus.

>> Parasols and umbrellas seem
to be a point of debate between

scholars looking
into religious art.

Even in Hindu, Babylonian,
and Assyrian art,

we find many parasols.

But are these really meant
to depict the same objects?

And why would the
children be using knives

to cut down the
parasols of victory

instead of pulling
them out of the ground?

A knife would make more sense to
cut a mushroom from the ground

than an umbrella.

As Jerry and Julie continued
their investigation,

they found many images that
look far less like parasols,

but still peculiar
enough to question.

>> In the opening folio of
the great Canterbury Psalter,

which was created at
Canterbury Cathedral,

it started about 1180, it
tells the story of Genesis,

all the way through
the life of Christ.

And there's this scene
where Jesus heals the leper.

And the leper says,
master, please cleanse me.

And Jesus says-- and his scroll
reaching out to the leper,

says, I will be cleansed.

But what is
fascinating about this

is that the scroll that
the leper is holding

goes from his hand not to
Jesus, but to a very clear, tan

psychedelic mushroom at
the bottom of the painting.

Jesus is hovering, sort
of suspended in air,

over that mushroom.

And the artist
obviously was showing us

the significance of mushrooms
in Jesus' healing ministry.

In this fresco in the Parish
Church of Saint-Martin de Vic

in central France,
there is a fresco

that brings together to the
New Testament, Jesus entering

Jerusalem and the Old Testament,
Isaiah's lips, the purification

of his lips.

And the story is that
the Seraphim, the angel,

took a burning coal
with tongs and put it in

to cleanse his lips,
and metaphorically

wash all of his sins away.

What's in this
painting is a tan,

round object in Isaiah's lips.

It is not burning hot
black like a coal.

It's not burning red.

There are no tongs.

And given the
relationship, the context

of mushrooms in the rest
of the scenes there,

we believe that this story is
talking about an entheogen,

even back in the
Old Testament time.

And it was at that moment
that we had our aha discovery,

and said, this is a
psychedelic Gospel.

This is an alternative
history of Christianity.

And this shouldn't
be so surprising,

because back in
the sixth century,

Pope Gregory said, let art be
the Bible of the illiterate,

because most of the people
throughout the entire medieval

period were illiterate.

>> Is illiteracy the reason
why these seemingly psychedelic

mushrooms show up
in Christian art?

One other theory is that from
early on in the construction

of the religious
institution, these plants

were suppressed and kept only in
the hands of the inner circles

of the church.

But Jerry sees this
point a bit differently.

>> When it comes to secrecy
of the mushrooms and these

rituals, the major point to
make here is that secrecy is not

suppression.

There are some people who argue
that entheogens were suppressed

in Christianity.

Absolutely not.

This did not happen until
after the Inquisition.

That's the point where
they really disappear

for a variety of reasons.

The reason that these mushrooms
are there for the initiates

to see is because this
is the holy of holies.

These are the sacred plants.

And so in all of the shamanistic
and classic religious

traditions that use entheogens,
these are treated reverently,

and secretly, and quietly.

Among María Sabina and
the Mazatec shaman,

they're talked a little--

landslide mushrooms, the
little saints of the Mazatec,

are talked about in
whispers at night

at veladas, at midnight
healing ceremonies.

>> The use of secrecy in
magic and religion is seen

ubiquitously through many
different spiritual traditions.

Kees Willem Bolle opens his
book, "Secrecy and Religion"

by saying, not only is there
no religion without secrecy,

but there is no human
existence without it.

Religious expressiveness and all
human life cannot be understood

if we ignore their peculiar
codes, reservations,

self restraints, and cautions
that seem their very grammar

and idiom.

Many in modern self
encounter groups

state that the only difference
between magic practice

and religion is that
religion is sanctioned

by a near governmental
size authority,

and magic refers
to the groups that

didn't build the mass
congregation or business

model around it.

But authors like
Jordan Maxwell seem

to find that obscure
passages in the Bible

might point to mushroom
worship amongst the Israelites.

Exodus 16:14 states, and when
the dew that lay was gone up,

behold upon the face
of the wilderness,

there lay a small
round thing, as small

as the hoarfrost on the ground.

He also points out that the
hats worn by Jewish priests

look similar to mushroom caps.

Professor Carl Ruck, who wrote
"Mushrooms, Myth and Mithras,"

says of Mithraism, the
religions kept its secrets well.

The teachings were
never codified

in official scriptures.

He also says that Mithras, like
the amanita muscaria mushroom,

was said to be born wearing
a red, star-spotted cap

from a pine cone or
philosopher's stone.

Many of these
religions were born

in a similar area
of the old world,

while we also find
mushroom idolatry

among many North, Central,
and South American indigenous.

Even if only a few
of these references

are, in fact, historically
accurate, speaking

about psychedelic
worship leading

to widespread
religions, what, then,

is the incentive
to keep the secrecy

alive in the information
age that we live in today?

>> Institutions that are very
invested in telling large

numbers of people what they
should think, like religions,

is probably the best example,
psychedelics are very

threatening to that
because you're saying, no.

I'm not going to accept your
doctrine, your dogma, whatever.

I'm going to think for myself.

A society of people that
actually think for themselves

is a very dangerous thing
to established institutions.

>> What this research reveals
is the plant-based shamanic

origins of religion itself.

And that's something
that fundamental religion

has been rallied against
ever since they took hold.

Ever since the Christian
religion took hold,

it began with the suppression
of the pagan cults

and suppressed the peyote
cults, and the mushroom

cults, and the sacred use of
drugs and plants and everything

throughout the whole world,
because of this fear out of it.

>> Once religions adopted public
persuasion and political power,

the claims of magic powers
coming from plant sacraments

were seen as blasphemous,
and may have fueled the mass

genocide of shamanic
tribes in the Americas.

Even today, it is a
controversial claim

to say that psychedelics
like psilocybin mushrooms

can elicit a religious
or mystical experience.

But if it were true,
could this account

for the nature of
the transformation

that Christ, and possibly
other religious heroes,

claim to have had?

>> There are many writings that
indicate that Jesus achieved

his immortality and
divinity through entheogens.

Let me give you just one--

for example, eat of my
flesh, drink of my blood,

and you will
achieve immortality.

I mean, this is in
the New Testament.

This is John.

What is Jesus talking about?

Is he advocating cannibalism?

I think not, because
this would be anathema

to Romans and to Jews alike.

Number two, when we get
into gnostic gospels,

in the Gospel of Thomas,
Jesus says to the disciples,

to whom can you compare me?

And Thomas answers
and he says, master,

I am wholly incapable of
comparing you to anyone.

And Jesus replies, I
am not your master.

Because you have drunk
from the bubbling spring

that I have measured out,
you have become like me,

and I have become like you.

And all that is hidden
within has been revealed.

Now, what we're talking
about is a bubbling spring.

Drinking the drink from
my mouth, and a drink

that I have measured out.

We all know that dose
is very important.

I mean, here, as
close as you can

get without going
into volume, he's

talking about measuring out a
dose of this particular drink.

We think this is a code
for the original Eucharist,

the mushroom.

>> There is something uniquely
powerful and re-organization

all about these experiences.

They appear to map on
to naturally occurring

mystical or transformative
type experiences that

have been reported
throughout the ages

by mystics and
religious figures.

Now, as a clinical
pharmacologist

who's been doing
research with all kinds

of different psychoactive
compounds for decades,

that's just a remarkable
and unprecedented finding.

>> If the leading researcher
in psilocybin mushrooms trials

with control groups with nearly
two decades of studies can make

the claim that these mushrooms
might account for the wildly

mystical stories of
religious heroes,

then we may now truly have
evidence of the psychedelic

origins of religions
around the world.

The ancient Egyptians called
mushrooms the sons of the gods,

and plants of immortality,
closely resembling the idea

that psychoactive
mushrooms were involved

in the divine soma
drink of immortality

for the ancient Indians.

The Egyptian origin myth
of the sacred mushrooms

was that Set, the
storm god, created them

by hurling lightning bolts with
spores in them to the earth.

This has relevance to the
theory that the first lifeforms

on the planet may have been
mushrooms from large molecules

in the oceans that were
struck by lightning.

Similar beliefs crop up in
anxious Greek, Roman, Indian,

and even Scythian idolatry.

Across the ocean, the
Zapotec civilization,

who built impressive
temple grounds in Mexico,

prayed to the great lightning
bolt that breeds the mushrooms

after their ceremonies.

The Olmec, Maya, Aztec,
and quite possibly

many more ancient religions
from around the world,

believe that these were divinely
intelligent, highly important

holy mushrooms.

As the holy mushroom theory
develops and the world becomes

aware of it, perhaps the
biggest revelation to come

is not an encouragement
to take these substances,

but at the very least,
to balance the view

that the modern
culture has taken

on psychedelic plants and their
role in spiritual pursuits.

Up next, join us as we take a
look at the potential future

of psychedelics in society and
where the merging of those two

might take us.