Happy Easter. Here is what we know about Christianity and psychedelics.

Psychedelics and Christianity are not two things that usually fit through the same door.

Wine is all the intoxication that you’re getting from the Christian church. But what if I told you that psychedelic intoxication has been a part of religion from the get-go. That is what Brian Muraresku argues in ‘The Immortality Key’. Here are the key revelations.

Psychedelics have long been suppressed in the history of Christianity, this is what we know now.

There is good – physical – evidence that early Christians drank ergot wine

The analysis of ancient remains has uncovered traces of ergot in drinking cups. Ergot fungi produce psychedelic effects – LSD is derived from ergot.

Muraresku takes this evidence – some of which he unearthed from the secret libraries of the Vatican – and argues that the Eleusian Mysteries and early Christian rituals involved drinking wine laced with ergot. He says that “not all prehistoric drinking was a recreational event.”

He isn’t the only one arguing for the early introduction of psychedelics. Tablets from 600 BC in Assyria also describe what could be ergot as “noxious pustules” on grain seeds.

You won’t find direct mention of hallucinatory wine in the Bible, but you would do right to question the prevailing narrative.

Humans have always liked to alter their consciousness, why not 2000 years ago?

Here are 3 more instances of when religion and hallucinogenic effects have mixed.

1. The Eleusian Mysteries, a Greek feast held for 10 days, has been described as producing “visions with the eyes open or closed.” Though evidence of hallucinogenic substances was long-awaited, recent findings in Spain – where rituals were also held – confirms that ergot was present in the drinks served.

2. Psychedelics produce acute hallucinogenic effects, but fasting can also produce visions. Though not immediate – being without food for say 40 days (Lent) has been known to produce visions for people. Jesus was tempted by Satan – but refused each temptation – during his 40 days and nights fasting in the Judaean Desert.

3. During the March Chapel – Good Friday – Experiment – divinity students were given psilocybin. One half of the group received it, the others a placebo. Those in the experimental group almost without exception had profound religious experiences. One of them described it as “the most powerful cosmic homecoming I have ever experienced.”

It’s a myth that psychedelics didn’t play a role in Christianity. There is good evidence for ergots being around for centuries.

But what role it has played exactly, that speculation I will leave to ‘The Immortality Key’ where Muraresku goes far beyond the evidence I’ve presented here (think Dan Brown without the murder mysteries).

If we acknowledge our psychedelic history – who knows in what way a psychedelic religious future could look like