[HN Gopher] Does This Medieval Fresco Show a Hallucinogenic Mush...
___________________________________________________________________
Does This Medieval Fresco Show a Hallucinogenic Mushroom in the
Garden of Eden?
Author : prismatic
Score : 77 points
Date : 2021-08-09 05:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| andrewtbham wrote:
| It's possible that manna from heaven and the bread at communion
| are mushrooms. that many of the experiences seem to by
| psychadelic: the burning bush, the transfiguration, etc. And that
| it was all gotten rid of during the black death.
|
| https://psychedelictimes.com/the-secret-psychedelic-mushroom...
| XantosD wrote:
| There are several examples from Scandinavia of old Christian
| churches with art depicting psychedelic mushrooms. Not 13th
| century though
| motohagiography wrote:
| If you want to go down a rabbit hole, look into biblical and
| other references to how important and common the acacia tree was,
| and then consider that it's thought to be a significant source of
| DMT. (The second fresco in the article has what appears to be an
| acacia tree in it). One can only speculate what someone could
| have imagined if they were around one while it was burning and
| they inhaled it. The analog feedback patterns one sees when their
| senses are impaired are by almost all accounts, geometric
| patterns like fractals, and so the discovery of geometry and
| association of it with mysticism could have a common chemical
| origin. If there was something to be known or learned from
| psychedelic experiences, a national security service would need
| to know and understand its boundaries. Given radio was only
| recently discovered, people new to the idea of communicating over
| long distances using invisible energy would have had to consider
| whether there was some chemical connection. I'm not saying it's
| aliens...but it may very well be all drugs.
| mbesto wrote:
| If you're curious about the ties between religion, shamanism and
| psychedelics theres a great book by Terrence McKenna on this
| subject called Food of the Gods:
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553371304?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_...
| pram wrote:
| The premise doesn't even make sense, the tree of knowledge is a
| Bad Thing in the Genesis story. Even if it was a magic mushroom,
| how could you possibly come to the conclusion that it's being
| depicted in a positive light?
| takoid wrote:
| The Tree of Knowledge is not the "bad thing" (sin is a better
| vocabulary choice) in the book of Genesis. The sin is the
| defiance of God's instruction by Adam and Eve avoiding the
| fruit from the Tree of Life.
| tokenpreneur wrote:
| It's not the Tree of Knowledge that is a 'bad thing', but
| rather Adam and Eve did a bad thing by defying God's command
| not to eat from that tree.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Something else to consider is that some early Christians (like
| the so-called Gnostics) believed that there was an esoteric (or
| secret) meaning or teaching in Christianity.
|
| The esoteric meanings were often mirror images of the exoteric
| (or plain/obvious/surface) meanings. So where eating of the
| Tree of Knowledge might be viewed as "bad" in the exoteric
| interpretation, in the esoteric interpretation it could be
| viewed as good.
|
| Similar inversions happen with the snake in the Garden of Eden,
| who is similarly viewed in a negative light in the exoteric
| interpretation, but as good in the esoteric interpretation. The
| same thing happens with Judas, and even the creator God
| himself.
|
| I'd encourage reading up on the Gnostics for more details on
| exactly what those views were.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| The book "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn includes a retelling of
| genesis in this mirrored sense: the devil has adam and eve
| convinced that the garden is paradise and there's no need to
| leave. god has to sneak in to convince eve to eat the apple
| and become free. (paraphrase from 10 yrs ago, I should pick
| that book up again...)
| Natsu wrote:
| The heyday of gnosticism was a thousand years or more prior
| to this fresco, though.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| But the gnostics weren't completely eradicated until much
| later. The Cathars[1], for instance, weren't defeated until
| about the time of this fresco.
|
| And, anyway, one need not be a gnostic in order to believe
| there is a hidden side to Christianity.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathars
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| True, and early Christian cults were often mixed up in
| offshoots of the mysteries traditions as well.
|
| So while the article mixes up which storied tree that image
| is supposed to represent, there's a real question of whether
| or not the similarities to the amanita mushroom were
| intentional or not. When placed in the context of esoteric
| traditions, it's a worthwhile question.
| tk75x wrote:
| Knowledge of good and evil is a "Good Thing", and one
| interpretation of the reason God put the tree in reach of Adam
| and Eve is that he wanted them to eventually partake of its
| fruit, but they did it early and without whatever other prep
| was necessary. Think of it as a child slowly learning concepts
| instead of being immediately presented with complex knowledge
| and not having the necessary foundation to process it. Not sure
| about the positive light depiction, but I could see
| hallucinogenics being viewed as something that expands your
| knowledge/mind especially since people report out of body
| experiences when using them.
| mandeville wrote:
| Ditto. Also in traditional doctrine it was good because the
| fall led to jesus. Look up felix culpa on wikipedia. As for
| the mushrooms, it's not as if medieval clergy didn't have a
| good time.
| iammisc wrote:
| You can't mention Felix Culpa though without mentioning
| Original Sin. Like most things in traditional Catholicism,
| there is a duality and a paradox. You can't get one without
| the other. Mentioning the Fall as a strictly good thing is
| simply ridiculous. That does not find any ground in
| traditional Catholicism, which also believed (and still
| believes frankly) that all the bad things in life,
| including the pain of childbirth, disease, sin, and
| destruction, are directly attributable to the sin of Adam
| and Eve.
|
| Plus, there are several translations of it. The common
| rendition into English is 'happy fault', which may be too
| positive. The other translations include 'lucky mistake',
| 'happy mistake', blessed fall, etc. Note again the duality,
| the paradox, and that the fundamental noun (fault, mistake,
| fall) is negative. It's a paradox, a mystery, meant to get
| you to think deeper, not some stunning endorsement of
| listening to Satan.
| theli0nheart wrote:
| > _the tree of knowledge is a Bad Thing in the Genesis story_
|
| Not at all. I'm certain that it differs between faiths, but in
| mine (Judaism), the tree of knowledge was not A Bad Thing.
|
| Eating the forbidden fruit / fruit of knowledge exposed Adam
| and Eve to evil things; tarnishing their purity. After they ate
| the fruit, they awakened. They desired to wear clothes, possess
| things, have children, etc.
|
| What we learn from this is that knowledge is not good or bad;
| it's how we use it that makes the difference. And from the
| standpoint of an "awakening" and mystical experience, the
| connection to psilocybin deserves further study.
| iammisc wrote:
| Except, this is a christian fresco, and this is not how
| Christianity interprets the Genesis story. I understand that
| Judaism was the source religion of Christianity, but the two
| religions are substantially different. Christianity has very
| different interpretations of the Old Testament compared to
| the Jews.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The gnostic view is that the tree opened people up to the
| knowledge that the creator of earth was a flawed god, and not
| the good one up at the top of the heirarchy. In my
| understanding.
| codetrotter wrote:
| I've long been thinking about how things like this are in the
| Bible:
|
| > They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each
| appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel ... Their
| rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes
| all around.
|
| -- Ezekiel 1:15
|
| And I've been thinking, that these kinds of things could have
| their explanation in people having ingested plants or been stung
| by insects or something, that altered their perceptions of
| reality. Or even maybe just hallucinating because of hunger, or
| from having been born with a brain that was producing these types
| of hallucinations on its own.
| cratermoon wrote:
| You mean the Ophanim? Be not afraid, my child. https://i.kym-
| cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/878/385/a57...
| codetrotter wrote:
| Yup, that's the one they talk about in Ezekiel 1:15 quoted
| above. And there are others too.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Dear friend, they were simply drinking. You don't need
| hallucinogenics to ramble with ecstasy, just a few drinks.
| maxk42 wrote:
| Amanita muscaria do not have three branches supporting the cap.
| elwell wrote:
| The serpent wrapped around the tree indicates that this is to
| represent the _Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil_ , not the
| _Tree of Life_. So, even if this were depicting hallucinogenic
| mushrooms, if anything it would mean that Christians viewed them
| as forbidden.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Yeah, the article mixes up the two trees, which doesn't bode
| well for the rest of it.
| hbosch wrote:
| As soon as I saw the "snake", I made the assumption on my own
| that this was just a crudely drawn tree with the dots
| representing fruits/"apples" as the story is commonly known.
|
| Stretching this into an article about psychedelic mushrooms is
| quite a reach.
| newdude116 wrote:
| This is a bad drawing of Silphium
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium#/media/File:Silphium....
| cratermoon wrote:
| There are several problems with this article. To start with, it
| mixes up the Tree of Life[1] and the Tree of Knowledge of Good
| and Evil[2].
|
| Second, the Genesis story is Jewish, and predates Christianity by
| _at least_ five if not ten centuries. And most importantly, early
| Christians were Jews first. Post-Pauline times, pagan or Gentiles
| in the Roman empire did join the growing movement that was soon
| to be called Christianity, but they were weren 't dragging in any
| pagan rituals they may have had prior to their conversion. Three
| hundred years later, with the conversion of Constantine and the
| co-optation of Christianity for Roman imperial designs, certain
| pagan rituals and practices were papered over with Christian
| beliefs (cf Easter, Christmas), but not the other way around.
|
| 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(biblical)
|
| 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_the_knowledge_of_good_...
| iammisc wrote:
| > cf Easter, Christmas
|
| There is no evidence of roman paganism being the _origin_ of
| either holiday. Easter and Christmas were celebrated before the
| romanization of Christianity. The only thing that was added
| were pagan symbology to the existing feast days, which is
| typical, as the church is happy to incorporate pagan
| traditions. The issue here is that in America we see a myopic
| view of Christianity from Europe. We note that during Easter,
| many European pagan symbols are incorporated, and mistakenly
| apply that to all Easter celebrations.
|
| In reality, Christianity is not a european religion. In other
| centers of christianity, like Ethiopia, the Middle East, and
| India, European pagan symbology for easter was not adopted
| until recently. For most of history, there would either have
| been local rituals incorporated, or none at all.
|
| This does not contradict the fundamental idea of Easter or
| Christmas though, because the Church _explicitly_ desires that
| local rituals be incorporated. Catholic missionaries are happy
| to include anything non-contradictory with the Christian
| religion into Catholic practice. For example, it is the
| official policy of the church, after much deliberation, and
| much back and forth, that Chinese Catholics who desire to do
| their ancestor veneration rites are allowed to do so, with
| certain changes made to ensure that the rites fit the Catholic
| understanding of prayers to ancestors. But for the most part,
| Catholic Chinese are allowed to partake in these confucian
| rituals, and can even do so in the context of Catholicism.
| There is no contradiction.
|
| To support my claims, here is an article on a traditional Syro-
| Malabar (Indian) Catholic celebration of easter. The Syro-
| Malabar Church has existed for 2000 years since the times of
| Thomas. If easter was a European pagan incorporation, we'd
| expect to see lots of European pagan symbology, like Easter
| bunnies, eggs, etc. Except we don't. The traditional syro-
| malabarese feast is a celebration of passover, but with Indian
| food instead of the middle eastern stuff.
|
| https://homegrown.co.in/article/802431/a-traditional-easter-...
|
| That is not to say that European traditions haven't been
| incorporated (american cultural hegemony is an unstoppable
| force), but the rituals that are traditional are nothing close
| to them.
|
| I can speak to this myself, as an Indian Catholic. I didn't
| know what the Easter bunny did (apparently he brings candy to
| little American boys and girls? -- I was clearly short-changed
| and am still somewhat bitter haha) until middle school.
| Although my family mentioned the Easter bunny in passing, it
| was not part of our celebrations at all. Although we dyed eggs
| with other people in our church because that's what they did,
| we didn't really do it at home. It was just a social thing.
| cratermoon wrote:
| > The only thing that was added were pagan symbology to the
| existing feast days, which is typical
|
| Yes, that's exactly what I said: papered over.
| wut-wut wrote:
| Ha! Bitter.
| Talanes wrote:
| It also comes down to a matter of linguistics. English
| uniquely changed the name of the holiday to match up with
| local celebrations. If you're not thinking to hard about it,
| it's very easy to go from "Easter is named after a forgotten
| pagan goddess" to "The entire Easter tradition is stolen from
| old pagan rituals."
| iammisc wrote:
| That's right. In most of the world, easter is referred to
| as some derivative of 'Paschal', which is the adjectival
| form of Easter in English.
|
| For example,
|
| French: Paques Spanish: Pascua Romanian: Pasti Russian:
| paskha (Paskha) Chinese: fuhuojie (resurrection festival)
| Danish: paske
|
| Only the german languages adopted a Germanic goddess name
| due to the coincidental timing.
| Talanes wrote:
| >Only the german languages adopted a Germanic goddess
| name due to the coincidental timing.
|
| And not even one anyone actually remembered, just one
| whose name was still around to denote that time of year.
| [deleted]
| Minor49er wrote:
| > The Genesis story is Jewish, and predates Christianity by at
| least five if not ten centuries. And most importantly, early
| Christians were Jews first.
|
| Just thought this contradiction was amusing.
| cratermoon wrote:
| How so? Jesus and the apostles, or any historical figures
| which they inspired, didn't think of themselves as
| "Christian", nor did they even imagine they were creating a
| new religion. They were Jews who didn't toe the Second Temple
| Judaism line.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| According to the Bible, Christians started using the word
| Christian to describe themselves while the Apostles were
| alive (Acts 11:26). Prior to this they generally would
| refer to themselves as followers of The Way. The idea that
| they didn't think of themselves as Christian is incorrect.
| pulse7 wrote:
| There is no contradiction here: Jews (descendants of Judah,
| son of Jacob=Israel) were living at least 15 centuries before
| Jesus Christ. Jesus was also a Jew and his first followers
| were also Jews, later non-Jews (=pegans) joined the
| "movement"...
| colechristensen wrote:
| They're talking about a late thirteenth century fresco in
| France, not Roman art by protochristians in the first few
| centuries CE. As christianity spread or was forced across
| europe, there was plenty of mixing religions.
|
| But this whole thing is a pretty big stretch, you can't tell if
| it's a tree or a mushroom then maybe it's just the artist
| wasn't the greatest and trying to shoehorn psychedelics into it
| isn't at all a worthwhile way to spend your time.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > maybe it's just the artist wasn't the greatest
|
| This seems likely, especially given that Eve's thighs are
| larger than her torso in the painting.
| cratermoon wrote:
| thicc
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| Yeah, the guy drew Eve with no breasts and what appear to be
| gills running up to her collarbone. I don't think we can
| safely assume that anything in the image is an accurate
| representation of a real-world object.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| Analysing the fresco leaves us with more questions than
| answers. Is there a connection between 13th century
| Christianity and psychedelics? How far back could such a
| connection go? What would such a connection mean for us
| today? Maybe the artist's fresco would have sent a clearer
| message if they hadn't eaten so many mushrooms before making
| it.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Yes but the article doesn't speculate on the practices of
| late 13th century French Christians, it's speculating that
| the mural is referring to "early Christians" depicting a
| story that "Christianity itself had derived from a fertility
| cult whose members ingested hallucinogens". How late middle
| ages Christians knew so much about 1st century
| protochristians is left unexplained.
| bawolff wrote:
| > Second, the Genesis story is Jewish, and predates
| Christianity by at least five if not ten centuries.
|
| This is silly. Its shared by a number of religions since
| abrahamic religions generally have a common root.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The root of Judaism.
| piptastic wrote:
| From your linked source on the Tree of the knowledge of good
| and evil:
|
| _Alternatively, some scholars have argued that the tree of the
| knowledge of good and evil is just another name for the tree of
| life._
| xyzelement wrote:
| There are probably "some scholars" that have argued for just
| about anything, but certainly the majority of knowledge on
| these treats them as different topics.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Exactly. Some "scholars" say that Genesis, along with the
| other four books of the pentateuch, was literally written
| by Moses and recounts actual facts as they happened.
| Wikipedia's NPOV utterly fails on topics like faith and
| belief.
| bawolff wrote:
| Note, it would be against wikipedia policies to say "Some
| scholars say X". You're not supposed to use weasel words,
| and npov does not mean you have to give equal weight to
| all.
|
| Case in point, wikipedia doesn't say that some scholars
| believe genisis was written by moses. Instead they say:
|
| "Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, as
| well as the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and most
| of Deuteronomy, but modern scholars, especially from the
| 19th century onward, see them as being written hundreds
| of years after Moses is supposed to have lived, in the
| 6th and 5th centuries BC.[7][8] Based on scientific
| interpretation of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic
| evidence, most scholars consider Genesis to be primarily
| mythological rather than historical. Biblical literalists
| do interpret it as actual history, giving rise to beliefs
| such as Young Earth creationism."
|
| Which seems entirely fair to me.
| cratermoon wrote:
| "Tradition credits" seems like as much weasel words as
| "some people say". Whose tradition? Since when? Where
| does the tradition come from?
|
| > Note, it would be against wikipedia policies to say
| "Some scholars say X"
|
| But.. that's exactly what the linked wikipedia article
| says! I'm not vested enough to care to change it, but if
| you're right, that is a violation of policy.
| bawolff wrote:
| I think its pretty clear in context that they mean the
| traditions of the people who view the book as holy,
| particularly Jews and Christians. They go in more detail
| if you click the link.
|
| The big difference is that "Some scholars believe X" and
| "Some scholars believe not X" are basically true for most
| X. The traditional view of Jews & Christians being that
| moses wrote genisis is a fact about the world. It can be
| either true or false. They either believed that
| traditionally or they did not. Both it and its negation
| cannot both be true.
| carlmr wrote:
| >The traditional view of Jews & Christians being that
| moses wrote genisis is a fact about the world. It can be
| either true or false. They either believed that
| traditionally or they did not. Both it and its negation
| cannot both be true.
|
| How so? If there was more than one early Jew/Christian
| they could have held different beliefs about that. If you
| want to be exact, you can't state any facts about the
| beliefs of somebody, living or dead. And if there's more
| than one person you can't say they all held the same
| belief.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" the Genesis story is Jewish, and predates Christianity by at
| least five if not ten centuries"_
|
| But the fresco the article is about is from the 13th Century.
| Christians at that time or even earlier might have re-
| interpreted the Genesis story in light of psychedelic
| experiences.
|
| However, on the subject of psychedelic use in early Judaism,
| there is an interesting article titled _" Strange Fires Weird
| Smokes and Psychoactive Combustibles Entheogens and Incense in
| Ancient Traditions"_[1]:
|
| _" The incense cults of Israel have been the subject of a wide
| variety of theological and academic treatments. Researchers
| have speculated on the use of entheogens of a variety of
| species in the Bible (Shanon 2008; Merkur 2000; Allegro 1 970)
| as well as linking a shared entheogenic heritage with Persia in
| such crucial texts as the Book of Ezra, which sheds much light
| on foreign influences on Jewish cultic practices (Dobroruka
| 2006). A number of scholars have discussed the psychoactive
| incense used in the temple with various theories as to
| ingredients (Ruck, Staples & Heinrich 200 I ) and cannabis has
| been suggested as the kaneh bosom (appearing throughout the Old
| Testament with the first mention in Exodus) that eludes --
| along with the other ingredients of the holy incense --
| positive or at least complete identification (Benet 1976). ..._
|
| ...
|
| _The exact recipe of the Old Testament incenses (Levitical and
| foreign), if there ever was an official recipe that persisted
| with exact continuity, will likely never be known. Some of the
| ingredients may be deduced from other examples in the ancient
| world of incense cults and their psychoactive aromatics. A
| starting point would logically be Egypt, from which the
| Israelites made their Exodus, and their various temple incenses
| and magico-medical fumigants, which included benzoin, cannabis,
| Hyoscyamus, bitumen and arsenic sulphide (Shehata 2006).
| Psychopharmacologists link Egyptian plants found in the various
| Greek writings and Egyptian medical papyri with the soma /haoma
| of the ancient world and Peganum harmala, which is still used
| as a magical incense to this day. Linked with the nybt of the
| Papyrus Ebers (Flattery & Schwartz 1 989) Peg anum is also
| mentioned by Dioscorides as being used by ancient Syrians as
| besasa, or "Plant of Bes" and that it was burned in Egypt
| before the statue of Bes. The ancient kyphi has been speculated
| by some scholars to have contained cannabis as well as other
| psychoactive plants such as Acarus calamus and from sixteen to
| fifty other ingredients, many of which are unidentified."_
|
| [1] - https://sci-
| hub.tw/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/...
| cat199 wrote:
| have no doubt that some christians likely dabbled with these
| things, as did their jewish forbears, and certainly some
| sects of paganism where this was explicitly
| allowed/incorporated
|
| but it's one thing to acknowledge these various strands as
| ever having existed, and quite another to take fragmentary
| evidence out of context and use it as a basis to spin a whole
| narritive that all of the historical understanding is somehow
| fundamentally incorrect, and that there is some 'hidden
| teaching' (which incedentally and conveniently is almost
| always more permissive w/r/t intoxication/sexuality)
|
| there's also the detail that this misunderstanding is also
| predicated on a false notion that medieval people were as
| hostile to medicinal plants as we have become after the
| advent of the pharmaceutical industry - if these plants are
| not 'evil' and 'suppressed', then it is less 'shocking' and
| 'world changing' to find references to them in what we might
| think are surprising places to our modern mind
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| But incense was only burned in the temple, with no one around
| to enjoy it, so what's your point exactly?
| cratermoon wrote:
| I saw a Ron Howard movie that starred Tom Hanks which told me
| the Holy Grail is really a metaphor for the descendants of
| Jesus and Mary Magdalene. I read a book by Immanuel
| Velikovsky that told me that around the 15th century BC, the
| planet Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-
| like object and passed near Earth. Venus is made of up
| hydrocarbons which spewed out and fell to earth, turned to
| carbohydrates and fell as manna, then Venus on a later flyby
| caused the earth to stop turning (and the sun to appear to
| stand still) and the walls of Jericho to fall. Somehow, not
| only did Joshua and his armies not get knocked flat on their
| asses when the earth stopped, but the entire earth did not
| become magma as the energy of rotation turned to heat.
|
| People have been speculating about the "science" of the bible
| since the scientific method was a thing, and there's a
| shitload of absolute insane woo.
| b3morales wrote:
| > Eve's ribs are bold slash marks, as if the artist wanted her to
| appear almost skeletal.
|
| The artist probably wanted to highlight the fact that there are
| an even number of them, in contrast to Adam's odd number, since
| the story is that one of his was taken (to make Eve).
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| I guess I've never given much credence to this theory. Why would
| they beat around the bush and use symbols and other words for it.
| Why wouldn't they just say "eat this mushroom"? Was there even a
| stigma against it back then?
| swayvil wrote:
| Maybe societies of scholars reject empirical input.
|
| I've seen such.
|
| The "religious institution" becomes all about authoritative
| literature.
|
| Consuming it, digesting it, debating it. Who's read the books.
| Who hasn't read enough books. Who's the top certified holy-
| book-interpreter.
|
| An airtight power hierarchy.
|
| Real experience just threatens the bubble.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The idea that there is secret knowledge that only the elect
| should know goes back to classical times, and probably to the
| time the old testament was put together. So it might not have
| to do with stigma per se.
| iammisc wrote:
| Catholicism has no concept of the elect, at least not in the
| way you describe it.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| It's entirely possible for people who call themselves
| Catholic to have beliefs that are not in accordance with
| official dogma. And Catholic dogma is not a static thing,
| either, though some pretend it is.
| iammisc wrote:
| It absolutely is, but the idea he put forth... that the
| elect (presumably meaning those who are getting into
| heaven) are deserving of secret knowledge is not really
| something that anyone can say ever existed in the church.
| They had a whole separation and heresy to address that.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Which "he" do you mean here?
| Natsu wrote:
| I believe they're referring to amanaplanacanal who
| appears to be describing Gnosticism, which was rejected
| as a heresy early in the Church's history.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| Of course they do: the priesthood. The Vatican itself
| restricts access to its own archives.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Non-priests view the archives frequently and there is a
| slow process of digitizing them now. It just so happens
| that the Vatican has some of the oldest documents still
| in existence and don't want them damaged by people or
| light.
| iammisc wrote:
| That's not the elect as you described. Priests are no
| more deserving of heaven than any other baptised
| catholic.
|
| The 'knowledge' in the archives is not religious in
| nature. You don't need to have access to it to know God
| or achieve the ultimate goals of catholicism.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| You are not even replying to the same person. I think
| you're being a little over-literal here.
| Natsu wrote:
| The 'elect' as a Christian concept is a bit different
| from ordinary uses of the word. In context, the concept
| from Calvinism seemed to be under discussion until
| someone came into the discussion using 'elect' in the
| normal meaning.
|
| So I think it's important to keep track of which
| definition of 'elect' is in use here or you'll just be
| talking past each other without realizing that you're not
| talking about the same concept at all:
|
| https://www.learnreligions.com/five-point-
| calvinism-700356
| oxymoran wrote:
| The notion that scholars have "debunked" the mushroom hypothesis
| is ludicrous given that they don't postulate a hypothesis that is
| any more reasonable. The idea that it is a "stylized" tree seems
| preposterous to me given each branch ending in a cap. If it was
| just the top, ok. But every branch? It looks like a clump of
| mushrooms growing out of the ground, Occam's razor and what
| not.That doesn't mean it's a magic mushroom, but maybe mushrooms
| had some sort of significance to the artist/church/region etc.
| buovjaga wrote:
| Arguments against Christian mushroom trees:
|
| The Fungi-Pareidola of The Psychedelic Gospels by Chris Bennett
| https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2021/08/05/__trashed...
|
| Mushroom Trees Debunked by Thomas Hatsis
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrfeNp1FSUY
|
| I remember Hatsis elsewhere referring to a chemical study of the
| pigments used in the Plaincourault fresco revealing the red was
| originally green. I can't find the mention atm.
| iammisc wrote:
| The main problem of this article is that it uses modern cultural
| and artistic norms to interpret ancient art.
|
| Traditional Catholic and Christian iconography was not meant to
| be accurate, but rather to symbolize meaning.
|
| For example, in my church, the priest recently pointed out there
| is a dog in every single stained glass window depicting scenes of
| Jesus's life. In particular, the dog is a dalmation.
|
| If we were to apply this same line of reasoning in the article to
| these windows, we'd be forced to make ridiculous conclusions that
| Catholics of 20th century Portland believed Dalmations were holy
| holy dogs alive at the time of Christ.
|
| In reality, the dalmation is a symbol of St Dominic (it's a
| dominican church), whose mother had a dream she gave birth to a
| dalmation (St Dominic) with a torch in his mouth who lit the
| world on fire. The symbology is obvious, since Dominic, founder
| of the Order of Preachers, did indeed spread the gospel message
| throughout large portions of the world at the time. The dalmation
| symbolizes St Dominic's following of Jesus's example. At no point
| is any of the art intended to be realistic.
|
| So if that's true of 20th century Catholic art, made by people
| alive at a time when art is expected to portray reality, then
| even more so should we not interpret this fresco as realistic,
| since it was made at a time when people couldn't even paint
| realistically (perspective was an enlightenment / renaissance
| invention IIRC).
| some_hacker33 wrote:
| Why are you still giving money to the catholic church?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" At no point is any of the art intended to be realistic."_
|
| Well, except that, say, Jesus is supposed to be Jesus. Adam and
| Eve are supposed to be Adam and Eve. The garden in which Adam
| and Eve are depicted is supposed to be the Garden of Eden in
| the Bible. In the various depictions of the Last Supper, Jesus
| is depicted as having supper with his disciples, and that is
| supposed to depict exactly that. Jesus is shown as breaking
| bread in those paintings, just as he does in the Biblical
| story, etc, etc, etc...
|
| Not to say there isn't a lot of symbolism in Christian art, but
| it's not all symbolic.
| iammisc wrote:
| I suppose it's realistic in the sense that Christ is depicted
| as a human as are adam and eve, instead of something else,
| but there is no presumption that christ _actually_ looked
| like the way he was drawn.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| There's an interesting talk[1] about this and other images that
| show evidence of psychedelic use in early Christianity.
|
| [1] - Starting at around 9'50" in "Psychedelics - In Spirituality
| and Religion (by Aware Project)"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEkF2ER0Zwc
| swayvil wrote:
| It makes sense.
|
| Mushrooms (and some other devices) are how you see God etc.
|
| I mean, it wasn't always just about reading old books. It had to
| start somewhere. With some kind of real observation.
|
| And studying that stuff without the shrooms etc. Well, that's
| like studying microbiology without a microscope.
| hospadar wrote:
| Wow mostly unrelated, I had no idea that _Amanita Muscara_ was
| considered to be psychoactive (usually is described as poisinous
| in field guides). Also frequently considered to be edible (after
| treatment) in some places. Fascinating!
|
| (for those unfamiliar, the amanita genus as a whole contains a
| variety of extremely toxic mushrooms and is often avoided by
| novice edible collectors for that reason)
|
| See also:
| https://www.bayareamushrooms.org/education/further_reflectio...
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| This is a far cry from an evidence-grade source, but
| https://ambrosiasociety.org/ is a pretty wild site to explore.
|
| Someone has put quite a lot of work into mapping the phenotypic
| traits of Amanita Muscara onto Christian iconograhy (the lamb
| of god being the wooly mycelium, and the living cup having to
| do with the way it colonizes wooden containers, etc). They've
| also got instructions on preparing it for consumption.
| tmountain wrote:
| It's been suggested (but not proven) that amanita muscara
| inspired portions of Christmas mythology (Santa, flying
| reindeer, etc).
|
| https://www.npr.org/2010/12/24/132260025/did-shrooms-send-sa...
| Trasmatta wrote:
| FWIW, I wouldn't recommend trying to get high off of Amanita
| Muscaria. By all accounts it can be a rather unpleasant (and
| long) high. Best to stick with psilocybin.
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