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Psyche

High on Mount Sinai

Derek Beres

While the academic sometimes goes to great extremes to “prove” the obvious, there is something endearing about professors bucking trends and putting forth new ideas — even if many of us knew the reality of the situation. Such is the case of Hebrew University professor Benny Shanon, when he put forth the idea that Moses was tripping on some serious drink when he declared the Torah while standing high on Mount Sinai. All we can ask academia is: What took you so long to realize that?

While journalists label the theory “provocative” after its publication surfaced in the philosophy journal Time and Mind, the realization that the father of three major world religious traditions was under the influence while reciting what would become the most quoted passages in history is not groundbreaking to those of us who’ve tasted similar fruit. In fact, it was Shanon’s own experiences with ayahuasca and a drink made from the bark of the acacia tree -- a hallucinogenic mixture based on a tree often mentioned in the Bible -- that led him to his conclusions.

It remains to be seen how Shanon’s theories will be greeted. He is honest in saying that there is no direct proof of his interpretation, but given the evidence, is it that far a stretch? The reality is that no one has direct proof that Moses even existed, much less that he was completely sober or “God inspired” off plant mixtures during his thundering evenings.

Peering back into the religious texts, there are generally two major characteristics that define our prophets: those serene and poised in meditation, and wild, raving lunatics. The West has been consistent in providing the latter. One contemplates the world, the other transforms it; one dreams existence into being, the other recreates through an unwillingness to conform. Both are deservedly heralded, but we have to recognize the root of their discontent. In fact, we need look no further than our own planet, at this moment, to get into the minds and hearts of our prophets. We are them deconstructing and rebuilding anew.

The dead are easy to misconstrue, for they no longer fend for themselves. What is alive on our planet now is entwined with the same consciousness as three thousand or so years past, which from an evolutionary standpoint is just the blink of an eye. If we access new and bold realities through plant and drink today, then it is of no shock that the man behind the Western religious soul might have dabbled freely. Remember, Moses was a pagan nomad, and such men see much on their journeys. Perhaps we just need more men willing to walk that path today, and not need the safety of history to realize their visions.

Creative Commons Image: "Moses" by Mickelodeon on Flickr.

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Religions of Fear

there is something endearing about professors bucking trends and putting forth new ideas — even if many of us knew the reality of the situation.

what "reality" is that? " The reality is that no one has direct proof that Moses even existed" ?

He is honest in saying that there is no direct proof of his interpretation,

There is no direct proof, therefore this isn't academic, it is faith for popular consumption. Similar theories have been proposed about Christianity's origins in the past.

I find this speculation utterly execrable, both on its own and as an attempt to validate the patriarchic Religions of Fear.

Yes, there are SO many reports of people drinking ayahuasca analogues and encountering angry old yahveh giving orders and delivering rewards and punishments, Moses MUST have been on the jungle juice. . . After all, Judaism and the amazonian ayahuasca traditions are SO similar, they MUST have come from the same source!

There are hundreds of Acacia species, and only maybe 3-4 of them are known to be effective and safe to consume. None of these has been documented to occur in the middle east.

Derek Beres writes " The reality is that no one has direct proof that Moses even existed"

And shortly after : "Remember, Moses was a pagan nomad"

Remember what?

Judaism and Christianity came from ayahuasca? Excuse me while I retch, this cup is especially nauseating.

I suppose ol'Moses could have had a pre-existing pathological condition that just became acute when he had his cup of tea and he got a rather sever case of mania?

Nah, wrong. Wrongest thing i've seen since last week's latest massacre (one in a long and continuing series) of palestinian women and children in Gaza by people who are supposed to be following their God's Law. (maybe they are?)

Thanks yahveh, remind us that might is right, and that you rule, we need it.

well Moses

as Charlton Heston he is not.But as some dood that took some trip on some shroom and went up a hill,that is a nice slant on the story, and worth a looking at. But the Bible version is a mish mosh of events that have been scrabbled(scrambled?) so many times that we now have the Bible Code business, and on the other side of the spectrum we have the Olemec, the Moors, and all the history that has been shoveled under the porverbial Persian carpet.

documentation

ecolocal said: "None of these has been documented to occur in the middle east." Do you mean to say that the written word is the be all, end all of truth in the world? If something isn't "documented", does that automatically make it false? Plenty of things have been documented and proven to be false later on. Take the classic example of the fish off the coast of madagascar that was discovered to be NOT extinct. Before this discovery, the fish had been DOCUMENTED as extinct and at the time this was considered "truth". People need not throw declarations of truth around so carelessly. In my view, "truth" is simply a matter of personal acceptance. Each person has their own truth that may not coincide with another's truth, but that doesn't make it less true for that individual. And go easy with the attitude of contempt. It's hostile attitudes that got us into this current worldwide "bind". "Excuse me while I retch" - geeze! take it easy, ecolocal
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an altered state of consciousness

I think this is a fascinating article. Whether its true or not that Moses chowed something, I think it's safe to say that the prophetic traditions of the Hebrews, Israelites, on and on up to Christ were filled with visionaries. Perhaps dmt was excreted in their brains naturally during their fasting and wandering in the deserts and on the mountains? Perhaps not. I'm tired of people who lump all of the Old Testament traditions and texts together and then blast them saying they are ALL patriarchal and fear based. The truth is that the spiritual traditions were evolving from Eden to Abraham to Moses to David, on and on. To label the history of Judaism as simply "dark," to me, is to read the Bible and history just as idylically as fundamentalist Christians who take it to all be the literal truth of God. Sheesh---there are tons of amazing bits of evolution in Judaism from start to Christ. No need to hate! Eco--is it possible to say all that you feel without sounding so angry and mean? I don't want to censor what you write or think that anyone shouldn't have a voice, but it's like....comon man. We need to love while we have these talks, right?

Adam Elenbaas

let me see

there was the Song of Songs, but yeah a lot of the names in the old Testament are messed up, switched around, not to mention that they spoke Aramaic in those days and that language gives a different perspective on the stories, like the garden of eden, ect.

oh, and the whole Moses story, is another very doctored version of real events, that reflect like the whole story of Isis and Osiris.

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-

whatever...

The mystical path...

I once heard a "guru" say to me that one should follow the mystical part of any religion: Kabbalah vs Judaism, Sufi vs Muslim, Gnostic vs Christianity, etc. Some of the wisest words I ever heard.

Kabbalah with it's divine union of the dark and the light, feminine and masculine is a far cry from Yaweh's vengeances.... Perhaps he is wrathful because he is missing his consort? But that is another post....

Puzzle pieces

i thought of this analogy a while back and i think it works pretty well... each religion or spiritual practice, and subsequently each person's view of them, is like one piece of a massive jigsaw puzzle. instead of arguing over who has the best piece or who has the "right" piece, we need to realize that EVERY piece is the right piece. EVERY piece is necessary to finish the puzzle and see the "big picture". it might not be a perfect or seemless analogy, but the point is that we must all work together to achieve any real progress. have you ever tried to finish a puzzle with just one piece? it can't be done. as for moses and whether or not he was trippin' out on mt. sinai, it's pretty much moot because none of us were there. unless someone visits ancient judea with a time machine, there is no person on earth who can say one way or the other. so just drop it. more than likely, moses didn't exist the way we think he did. his CHARACTER (along with many others) was probably plagiarized from egyptian and persian mythologies. or at the very least borrowed. it's all the same movie, they just keep re-releasing it for newer generations in a hip, revamped format. jesus = horus = mithra, etc. don't let the details, fascinating as they are, distract you from the bigger picture
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Actually...

Actually, this theory makes pretty good sense. In Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Mr. Jaynes hypothesized that humans of this time period were pretty much all hallucinating, as the speech center of their right brains would bark orders to the dominant left hemisphere. These voices were believed to be personal gods, or kings, that would direct them in novel situations. As this left/right duality was breaking down in the second century BC, all manner of auditory hallucination were attributed to a receding god. At any rate, it's probably not a good idea to imbue Moses or any biblical figure with the same type of consciousness as we have now.

maybe what could be done

is deconstruct all religious stories, and compare creation myths, with current understanding of the brain, look at how this creates confusion, and or harmonious thought,look at the real manifestations of religion,throughout history honestly, the wars of persecution, the history of "secret societies" the effects of the breakdown of the post modern mind compared to a scientific model of the bicameral mind,and ask questions as to why, and who it serves to have psychopathic bible thumpers that want to destroy the whole planet, who does that serve? After all the hollywood version of moses, was played by a man that was like john wayne, or bedtime for bonzo actor president.
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Okay, but to what end.

That is to say, I’m with you - organized religion: bad. But to prove that scientifically to someone strung out on dogma hasn’t been shown to be effective. Rupert Sheldrake as well as recent advances in nonlinear dynamics notwithstanding, Darwin’s ideas still seem to be a fairly decent approximation of how we got here. This hasn’t convinced many christians.

Darwin, you bring up Darwin

this is just to weird, i was just talking to a guy in a video store, about Darwin, wow! but you know all that servival of the fittest, is not what, or is not the whole low down on Darwin, that's where Rupert Sheldrake steps in.
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You got that right.

As I understand it, survival of the fittest is just one piece of the pie. This, along with random mutations, the theory of dissipative structures, autopoiesis, as well as morphic resonance are all contributing factors. Rent anything good?

rented not

actually, i went into this small store, to find about a book written by Eric Burdon, because i was told that the store owner had some copies as Eric lives in the area.I ended up talking to the store owner for almost three hours on his time because i went in just about the time he would have closed.It turned out he went to the same high school i went to and he was two years younger then me, but we knew some of the same people , and we both saw some of the same late 60's bands.It was by some fluke that the topic of evolution came up, i told him i talk to people on the internet about all these kind of subjects.But for almost three hours we reminisced about the music and the energy that came out of the late 60's, also i told him i wrote a book about my experiences in those wild freaky late 60's, and i recalled to him that Eric had been friends with Jimi Hendrix, as he well knew because he talks to Eric and it seems he also read the book.And we were wondering about the messages of the music and where it has come and gone.We both agreed that revolution was part of the topic, and then evolution.But it was a little spacy as we relived those times for what seemed like a time warp, and looking around at all the old and new movies on the shelves.So if Eric brings a copy of his book to the store i'm in luck.

 

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Hendrix fan, are you?

Me too. I started playing guitar at age 13. He was a huge influence, and not just musically. To this day, I still find myself playing Hendrixian licks, almost unconsciously. He leeked into my psyche, or something. I guess it makes sense that Jimi was friends with Eric Burdon. They probably met through Chas Chandler, no?

As an aside, my wife and I were watching this show a few months back - some cable channel on a Sunday afternoon or something - it was called 'Pop Music', or some such nonsense. It was from 1966 and it was basically like a 'Top of the Pops' kinda show. In any event, there were a bunch of one hit wonders, and The Animals. To say that The Animals were far and away the best band is a supreme understatement. They lip-synched to House of the Rising Sun and We Gotta Get Out of This Place (if I remember correctly). Obviously, this is seen through the lens of the last 40 some-odd years, where we know that The Animals were a hugely influencial band, but still. It must have been obvious to someone watching back then, as well.

Hendrix in the House

I think the house of the rising sun, was the song in my memory that was the hub from were all the rest of the music spun off from, it's like i see that song, and then i see Dylan, Donovan, Stones, Beatles, Byrds, and Yardbirds, then everything just built, until the Doors, Cream, and Hendrix.ect.

but Jimi was on another level altogether, with the guitar magic, and his vision.Jim Morrison kind of mirrored that with his vision.

a kind of psychedelic Moses, with lyrics chiseled in stony.

well not really.Just sonic discovery with language that puts the writing on the wall.

oops i spelt survival

servival like servile, my spelling does expose my flank.
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hey CJ

Cj---you should check out Douglas Rushkoff's "Testament" graphic novel/comic book series. I did an interview with him a while back. They are super cool reimaginings of biblical myths with other religious deities, etc.

 

You might dig it?!

 

Adam Elenbaas

yeah

i like Rushkoff, i have read a lot of his articles, cool

i dig!

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Man or Myth??

Moses was not a historical Hebrew character. This legend is found from the Mediterranean to India, with the character having different names and races, depending on the region; "Manou" is the Indian legislator. "Nemo the lawgiver," who brought down the tablets from the Mountain of God, comes from Babylon. "Mises" is found in Syria, where he was pulled out of a basket floating in a river. Mises also had tablets of stone upon which laws were written and a rod with which he did miracles, including parting waters and leading his army across the sea. In addition, "Manes the lawgiver" shows up in Egypt, and "Minos" was the Cretan reformer. Jacolliot traces the original Moses to the Indian Manou: "This name of Manou, or Manes . . . is not a substantive, applying to an individual man; its Sanscrit signification is the man, par excellence, the legislator. It is a title aspired to by all the leaders of men in antiquity." "Techqua Ikachi"

or

Moshe

Moses and the Mountain

If Moses was actually a man who lived on this earth I do believe the mountain he climbed was his own consciousness because if you read the Bible correctly it is full of metaphors, astrological bits and pieces of info and the book is symbolically the story of the evolution of human consciousness...the 12 tribes of Israel are the 12 astrological signs which are considered to be fragments of consciousness which shatter at birth, and the end is a depiction of the psyche in wholeness or completion or balanced. The end depiction is revealed through references to astrological language and precious stones. (see Llewellyn George A to Z Horoscope Maker and Interpreter) to grab some insight into all this.

we always hear about the mountain

because of the rarified air where higher consciousness can manifest and flourish, "go tell it on the mountain" but the immortalist taoists liked mountains, but they also were at home in the misty valley.And the I Ching has its astrological connect.

Isn't that a song

Hey CJ...what if higher consciousness is of the nature of rarified air? Maybe aspects of higher consciousness are for example your black humour and surrealist thinking. That would mean you live in environments of rarified air. Taoists liked mountains cause they like to live in higher thought and yes they like the misty valley which would be states of contemplative thought. They liked to go tell it on the mountain because they were speaking from higher truths....everything has an astrological root including your life and mine....peace and will you scatter more bliss balls...I am running out

i'm not sure surrealist

i suppose i became a surrealist by default, i was reading some poetry, i was a young hippie cat, but you know i wanted to change the world.I ran into a crazy surfer dood that was a writer from L.A. he had a lot of books of famous poets, i was hooked over night.About that time i met this crazy lady wino and we had a fling she was a bit older then me, she happened to have a copy of the San Francisco surrealist poet published by City Lights books, his name was Philip Lamantia, i was drinking some cheap vino at her pad one night, and i found a copy of Philip's 'Touch of the Marvelous', the first poem blew me away, the first line was " The mermaids are coming to the desert" so i called Philip on the phone one night and he blew what was left of me away.So i began the journey to "do the impossible" as Philip said and i began reading all of the surrealists, and my surfer poet buddy had language skills in spanish and french and he translated what we could not find in english.

WE ran into Jack Hirschman a Frisco poet that had been a professor one day in front of City Lights and he smiled and said to us " are you guys some kind of psychedelic surrealists'?" and he mocked us a tad like poets will do, and my surfer poet pal and i looked back at him, and then we looked at each other, and shook our heads.

signed....plum out of bliss balls

Hippie Cat

CJ...I think the Hippie era were those who came into life to walk to the beat of their own drum. It cannot have hurt you to walk as a Hippie...I've read your posts! You are clearly intelligent, well read, a deeper thinker who appreciates the arts...thats true culture because to live with poetry is to search for meaning, not just words. You keep your pace in every discussion, thats rare! "The mermaids are coming to the desert" ....emotional matters are coming to places of silence and contemplation. You met a "crazy lady wino" you collided with a life in pain" she showed you something that took you on a journey....now you use black humour and surrealist thinking to express yourself...thats more than likely your comfort zone. Don't ever stop using your bliss balls....they are marvellously delicious!
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40 day and nites

The number 40 is also found throughout the bible as a trial of time like a gestation period....corresponding to the 40 weeks of labor before a birth "Techqua Ikachi"

The Circle of Life Squared

40...I am born, I pass from the universal to the earth. with my first breath and cry I square the circle. The Circle has 36 decans, I am the missing 4 decans, the self is the 13th decan...to find the self, to know the self is to reunite the earth back to the universal. Every life born, holds this mystery.

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it doesnt matter

I really don't think it matters whether Moses was tripping or not. I could understand why he might be. Certainly religious clerics would be stuck in infantilism to deny the possibility. However, I think drug users/biblical scholars are also obsessing, considering we'll probably never know (until time travel is discovered that is). All we have is the words of the Torah, which must be judged on their own merits. The fact that Moses might have been tripping doesn't make the words any more or less valid- they are what they are. There are other ways shamans have talked to gods on mountains; ritual fasting was sometimes the only thing necessary to have an "authentic vision quest". Bipolar type mania can also lead one to similar states of revelation without any drugs. Authentic ritual can also bring this on...which would involve the use of the most natural psychedelic magnetism.
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Download the Complete Paper

You can get a PDF of Benny Shannon's paper, "Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis," here: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berg/tmdj/2008/00000001/00000001/a...