ebooks Mushrooms; Myth and Mithras: The Drug Cult that Civilized Europe by Carl Ruck in History

Review

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. I used the book to research into Mithraism. Of ...By KundeI used the book to research into Mithraism. Of course it is not a monograph especially about the cult of Mithras but it seems (at least in this part of the book) very superficial. The argument that Mithraism would have had psychedelic rituals is based on a passage in Plinys "Natural History" (3.6) in which Nero is initiated into the cult by being served a magical dinner (cenis magicis). The problem is that there is no other (especially archeological) evidence that this meal contained psychedelic substances and wasn't more of a symbolic nature etc. This wobbely argument culminates in the hypothesis that Paul from Tarsus would have been very likely a mithraic mystes too because Cilicia would have been a center of mithraism. In fact in all over turky almost no Mithraeums (temples of the cult of Mithras) have been found.This shows in my opninion the way in which this book works: to see ghosts behind every corner in places where there aren't neither ghosts nor corners.Maybe it is rather an intellectual game than fact based scholarhip.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Amazing bookBy MarkThis book is small in your hand but large in your head. It isn't derivative of other books until it has to be (let's face it; you can't write about the mushroom-sacrament without giving a shout out to Wasson; Allegro et alia); but instead presents independent research from three scholars; at least two of which are excellent. There are so many salient facts packed into its pages that it seems the authors found a way of condensing a 500 page book into half those pages. Enough of the superlatives; because you want facts; right?Mithraism was a reboot of an older religion we might call Zurvanism; which existed between 4000 BC and 2000 BC. After this; the religion was reborn under the guidance of a series of prophets called Zoroaster or Zarathustra. There was a reboot around 1400 BC; and at least two between 1000 and 0 BC; which brings us to the time of Jesus; who definitely utilized Mithraic ecclesiology if not dogma.What the authors present is basically a two-fold religion: Mithraism is Christianity for the nobles and Christianity is Mithraism for the poor; which is to say; the guilds; because you can't have organized religion without money. A series of Magi visit Rome and initiate a series of Roman Caesars into Mithraism. One very interesting story was the initiation of Nero; during which the fire of Rome occurred and after which he blamed Christians; and crucified hundreds and perhaps thousands of them in his garden. We read about this story from Acts and various histories; but this book tells the real story: to become enlightened; Nero is convinced that he needs human sacrifice. This seems to have been a mis-interpretation of the ancient religion as passed down by the Magi themselves.The original metaphor of sacrifice involved the ritualistic killing of the Amanita mushroom; which euphemistically was said to be the body of the god; of the priest and of the initiate. The Soma wine that was pressed from the Amanita and various other sundry drugs added to the mix was the "blood" of the god. Somehow; and we can imagine the madness of the Maenads and the berserking of the Berserkers here; the idea of actually killing people took root; and it seems that this occurred several times over the course of the history of Mithraic reboots.The authors present many quotes of historians about medicinal herbs which Wasson; Allegro; Irvin; Ott; Hoffman (Albert); Rush; McKenna et alia have missed. I wish all of them could write a book together amalgamating their respective research. Let's remember that the overarching figure among these authors is Carl A. Ruck; who has become famous for his non-dramatic treatments of entheogenic pharmacology and what I call "Myco-Mythology".Buy this book just because Ruck was one of the authors. You will never regret it.6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Celestial TripBy Scribe X.Y.Z.An interesting approach to the mysteries of Mithras. Since as with most of the authentic mysteries nobody is alive who could or would divulge the actual secrets this book is as good as it gets in theorizing what was really behind the Mithras cult from the outside evidence. Previously I had studied with David Ulansey at CIIS in San Francisco and his book; The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World which seemed controversial up to now since it concentrates on the cosmological and astronomical aspects of Mithrasism.I had only considered this cult from an astronomical perspective but there was something missing in this approach.The authors here supply the missing links and make Ulansey's thesis more complete. The authors are more convincing that the entheogenic aspect is much more logical as to why Mithrasism would appeal to the legionnaires rather than some abstract theory on the precession of the equinoxes.The iconography is fascinating although the authors drop so many little known details from so many myths that it's hard to keep up.The best part of the book is in the explanation of Mithrasism and its ancient appeal as illustrated through the iconography . I was less impressed with later connections to freemasonry and post-renaissance histories which I believe were added to pad the text.The surprise came in the appendix with an account of possible survival of the cult into Kurdish communities.They could have deleted the masonic speculation and concentrated more on this phenomena.