The Immortality Key is a book that explores the historical origins of ancient religions and the use of psychedelics in spiritual practices. The author, Brian C. Muraresku, argues that the ancient Greeks, and later, early Christians, used psychedelic plants and fungi to induce mystical experiences and connect with divine beings. Muraresku draws on archaeological and historical evidence, as well as personal experiences with psychedelics, to make his case. He also explores the role of psychedelic substances in modern religion and spirituality, and argues for the importance of incorporating psychedelic experiences into our understanding of human spirituality.
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The Immortality Key
- The Secret History of the Religion with No Name
- Narrated by: Graham Hancock, Brian C. Muraresku
A groundbreaking dive into the role of hallucinations in the origins of Western civilization and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail could shake the Church to its core.
The most influential religious historian of the 20th century, Huston Smith, once called it “the best kept secret” in history. Did the ancient Greeks use medicine to find God? And did the early Christians inherit the same secret tradition? Visionary knowledge of plants, herbs, and fungi passed down from generation to generation, since the Stone Age?
There is no archaeological evidence of the primordial Eucharist – the sacred wine believed to guarantee life after death for those who drank the blood of Jesus. The Holy Grail and its magical contents have never been found. In the absence of any hard data, whatever happened at the Last Supper is still a creed for 2.5 billion Christians today. In a truly unprecedented search for answers, The Immortal Key examines the ancient origins of the ritual performed every Sunday for nearly a third of the planet. Centuries of formation, religion and science converge to paint a radical picture of the founding of Christianity. And to solve history’s greatest puzzle once and for all.
Before the rise of Christianity, the ancient Greeks found salvation in their own sacraments. The sacred drink is often consumed as part of the so-called Ancient Mysteries – elaborate rituals that lead initiates to the brink of death. The best and brightest of Athens flocked to the spiritual capital of Eleusis, where a divine stele unleashed heavenly visions for two thousand years. Others drank the holy wine of Dionysus to become one with the god, achieving immortality. In the 1970s, rebel scholars claimed this beer and wine – the early sacraments of Western civilization – was laced with mind-altering drugs. In recent years, the demonstration of the disgraced theory has quietly increased in the laboratory. The ever-evolving fields of botanical archeology and archeology have suggested the use of hallucinogenic drinks in antiquity. And with a single dose of psilocybin, psychopharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers.
If these sacraments existed for thousands of years in our distant prehistory, from the Stone Age to the time of Ancient Greece, would they have persisted to the time of Jesus? Was the early Christian Eucharist, in fact, a hallucinatory Eucharist? Is this the real secret behind the Holy Grail?
With an unquenchable thirst for evidence, Muraresku toured the ruins of Greece with government archaeologists. He has access to the hidden collections of the Louvre Museum to show the continuum between pagan and Christian wine. He unravels the ancient Greek of the New Testament with the world’s most controversial priest. He explores the catacombs under the streets of Rome to decipher the lost symbols of Christianity’s oldest monuments. He broke into the Vatican’s secret archives to unearth documents that had never been translated into English. And led by archaeological chemists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, he reveals the first hard data on ancient ritual hallucinogenic drug use.
The Key to Immortality recreates a persecuted history of women consecrating the forbidden, drugged Eucharist that was later banned by the Fathers of the Church. The women were later considered witches in the Inquisition, when the sacred pharmacology of Europe largely disappeared. If today’s scientists have revived this technology, then Christianity is dead. Unless it returns to its roots.
The author’s narration in the audiobook creates an immersive experience, as if he is personally recounting his adventure in uncovering rare, hidden gems of history. The historical information presented is striking, and I find myself fully convinced of the author’s theory. He has made a compelling case, and I highly recommend this book as a must-read for anyone interested in history and its mysteries.
