Benny Shannon had interesting theory about Moses being high on ayahuasca analogue explaining his powerful visions. If that‘s true first there had to be growing plants containing enough DMT and MAOi. Second – both types of plants had to be consumed simultaniously and in right proportions. I‘m really curious what plants Moses might have used and maybe it even would be possible to recreate his experience. One reason being that I had myself in childhood vision „glowing golden tree“ and hope to rediscover it.
I found one paper mentioning possible plants used for Moses ayahuasca – Acacia senegal resin and peganum harmala:
„It has been suggested that the burning bush witnessed by Moses in the Old Testament was an A. senegal tree. This tree is still held sacred in the Middle East, and it is said that anyone who breaks off a twig will die in a year. It has even been suggested by scholar Benny Shanon that Moses composed an ayahuasca analog from acacia resin and syrian rue, an MAOI, and that this allowed him to see his visions of Yahweh, the burning bush, and so forth. The wood of this tree was also used to build the Jewish tabernacle.“ (Wahba Khalil & Elkheir 1975)
Source

Interestingly acacia senegal resin is called gum arabic is actually widely used today in food industry, as binder in watercolors and so on. If it contains DMT it could be cheap and legal way to get it But I found only data showing that leaves of this tree contains traces of DMT, nothing more.

Bible may be completely or partially work of fiction. But anyway who wrote Bible might have been taking psychedelics too because visions described are staggering, powerful and inspiring. Acacia tree is mentioned so there might connection with reality.

Cool topic! There is a lot of evidence to support the notion that entheogens(very likely) inform most poetry, myth and religious metaphor. See, Michael Hoffman's>>egodeath.com<< site.

Like many theories regarding human antiquity, "irrefutable" evidence is paltry. However if one investigates the ample data with a psychedelically informed open mind, a rich and "accurate" appreciation of the DEEP relation betwixt entheogens("mixed wine" and religio/spiritual narrative develops.

This is not unique to Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian(Western) myth and metaphor but is richly evidenced in-the likely ahistorical-biblical mysticism, old and new testament.

Once the enthogen engendered mystical mindstate is recognized as ubiquitous and archetypal in pre-modern human religio/spiritual thought, this probable, foundational aspect of plant entheogens is readily "recognized".

Peace

Holy Moses! He could have also licked the black monolith back then.

It is possible to have mystical or transcendent experiences WITHOUT taking psychedelics. Other practices can cause them. Sometimes they just happen randomly, without any discernible trigger at all.

I feel like we forget that sometimes here...

Blessings
~ND

That truth. As I mentioned I had not one "mystical" vision during my early childhood. I wonder if that may have been triggered by body produced DMT. Also schizophreniacs have amazing visions such as seen in pictures of Luis Wain. Mystics such as Geoffrey Hodson also had interesting visions.

As far as I know, there's no evidence that endogenous DMT is involved in mystical experiences in any way. I feel like I make this point a lot, but we really have no idea what endogenous DMT is doing in our brains (if it's doing anything, it may be biological white noise). My personal theory is mediating hippocampal-based learning and memory. The visionary effects may be completely coincidental.

Blessings
~ND

There is no doubt people may experience "mystically ecstatic" states of consciousness unaided by plant entheogens. Techniques-drumming, meditation, chanting, fasting, physical privation, spontaneous-are likely tools developed by humanity as adjuncts to the plant induced "mystic state".

The ancient human/plant entheogen relationship is well documented, one being open to the evidence. The subjective nature of the "mystic state", entheogen engendered or otherwise, seems to be analogous. The geographic ubiquity, reliability, reproducibility and ergonomic aspects of entheogen catalyzed ego dissolution should be recognized.

When compared to other modalities available to an average person(of any era), plant entheogens/mixed wines, have no realistic competition for granting access to the intense, reality shaking, mind bending, transpersonal mind-space, on average.

Aren't we fortunate to have facility with these gifts and the opportunity to share/learn/grow via this esteemed forum>>>NEXUS!

Peace

Well there was theory that schizophrenia is a lung disease. When they have too much enzymes producing DMT schizophrenia effects rise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XmrURm9Suk

Oh boy, there are a LOT of assumptions being made there, and absolutely no citations. A few questions I have (just off the top of my head)

- How many studies have found abnormally high levels of NMT (or is it INMT?) in the brain?
- Is there evidence that schizophrenic folks have DMT in their circulatory system (given the chronic nature of the illness, presumably there would be chronicly high levels of DMT.
- How much overlap is there between symptoms of schizophrenia and the DMT experience? Keep in mind that schizophrenia is an incredibly heterogenous disorder.
- Given how quickly DMT is metabolized, presumably there would be easily identifiable fingerprints in urine, has anyone found such a thing?
- If schizophrenia was caused by DMT, then presumably, giving an MAOI would exacerbate the symptoms, but MAOIs have shown promise as adjunct treatments in schizophrenic patients. How do you square this?

This is what I've got off the top of my head, I'm sure some of them have responses, and I'll do some reading,

Blessings
~ND

Hey look, we're coming full circle! IMHO the Diagnostic Statistic Manual and the Bible are based on the same amount of scientifically solid facts.

Drugs, religion and mental illness: I would choose the drugs, because at least some occasionally have a bit of fun involved.

I'm not scientist in this field so can't answer all questions. Hovever there were some scientific papers such as this where it is mentioned that DMT naturally occures in body, produced in lungs by enzymes and it was suggested that there may link with schizoprenia when excessive DMT is produced: http://link.springer.com...ticle/10.1007/BF00422516

When you look at DMT inspired art such as of Alex Grey and schizophreniac Luis Wain late life art you can see similarities. But this is very subjective proof.

It seems that these religions started with someone having some sort of mystical experience. It doesn't really matter if the person ingested psychedelics or not. They more than likely experienced some form of oneness and learned things about how to live in harmony with others. Then over the years it turns into dogma as man fights over who's in charge and who's going to lead it. Of course this happens to greater or lessor degrees, as you can see with Sufism compared to say evangelical Christians.

My first spiritual experience was without any plants or substances - just me drowning in the ocean. Quite powerful, and something that just happened to me out of nowhere. Many experiences with plants and substances now, and also experience with meditation, fasting, isolation, drumming.... I find many of these practices can provide just as deep experiences with a little bit more hard work to get there. Most powerful and impressive shamans I have met in Peru actually dont work with plant medicines at all - they work with mountain spirits.

I dont see any reason you need plants to explain the Bible stories. Many of these "prophets" were known to spend lots of time isolated in the wilderness fasting, and ancient Jews also performed ritual baths, drummed and recited long prayers/mantras, ate specific foods ect.... All these things would factor in with or without plants. I also dont see any reason to assume the bible stories are true/historical. I also find it easy to believe that Moses might have ingested psychedelic plants - even Syrian Rue could be powerful on its own without Acacia and the two together obviously have a lot of power. Many other plants were also popular in that region, and some are even in the bible (like belledona, datura, cannabis ect).

Who really knows what could have happened? There are so many possibilities....

Lots of fun ideas to toy with and wonder about, but really no information to know anything about these stories. Fun to imagine though.

I can agree on one thing that Moses had really powerful hallucinations to see "burning bush", stick turn in snake, sea creating path and so on. I'm taking Benny Shannon theory as truth but ayahuasca or other psychedelics could explain powerful, out of this world visions.

With the staff turning into a snake or parting the red sea other people were involved in the experience though - so that would require the entire Jewish people fleeing Egypt to have drank it for that story to work based on pharmahuasca visions..... Doesnt quite fit for all the stories, just the ones where Moses was alone....

The story of moses is definitely one of the most important stories in holy books since he is the only one who claimed that he saw god.
I was with two religious but very open minded and philosophical friends discussing the story of moses as it appears in the quran i was listening to the verses carefully and we were explaining every word no matter how obvious it's meaning and really to me it all sounded like a dmt trip report.
i'm gonna list some of the verses from the quran i will translate them as good as i can.
1. Moses saw a fire and told his followers stay i might find something in it to guide u and god spoke to him "moses i am ur god take off ur shoes u r in the sacred valey i chose u so listen to what i will say i am the one and only god so worship me the end is coming i'm hiding it untill every one gets what he is seeking, don't listen to who doesn't believe it and followed his desires, and what is this in ur right hand?" Moses said "a stick that i use in may things" and god said "throw it" and when he did it became a snake and god said "grab it it will it will be back like it was before and put ur hand in ur pocket it will come out white and good...."
2.and we (god) were with moses for 30 nights and after another 10 nights it was time for god and moses to meet ...... and when moses came to see god he said "god let me see, look at u" and god said "u will not see me look at the mountain if it is still in its place u will see me and when god manifested in the mountain the mountain became demolished and moses was struck(like how lightening strikes that's the word used) and scared and when he woke up he said to god i am the first believer....
And there is much more but these are the most interesting
the use of words like "strike", "woke up" and other very specific words describing the encounter that i can't translate is very similar to what i feel on a dmt ...

I heard that muslims worship also Jesus as prophet but didn't heard about Moses till now. Bible and Quaran share many similarities. It would be interesting to hear if islam is also associated with psychedelic use. Middle east has both plants needed to brew ayahuasca analog.
Did in Quran Moses too saw burning bush?

Muslims only worship god the creator they don't worship jesus and they don't say he is the son of god in the quran the story of jesus is different he didn't get crucified he ascended to heaven and someone that looks like him was crucified instead.
The quran talks about all prophets and don't just focus on on jesus or mohamad it's much more interesting than the bible imo, verses like "the end(judgement day) is coming i'm hiding it until every one gets what he is seeking" have a lot of meaning to me
There is no explicit citation of any psychedelics in the quran but mohamad before becoming the prophet used to isolate himself in a cave where he saw and talked to angels and god taught him everything, these are what we call hallucinations now
There is nothing about a burning bush just a fire
The way muslims describe the judgement day also makes me think of dmt, first there the angel blows in a horn (the tone u hear when u smoke dmt) and everybody dies then they are reborn and the way they describe the mountains and how things look like in that day are also similar to dmt visions, i mean how would someone talk about what comes after death if they haven't experienced a near death experience like on dmt?