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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Moses was high on drugs: Israeli researcher
2008-03-05
Old meme, 'Jesus was a mushroom' has been around a couple decades.
High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.
"You were up there a long time, Moses. Are you sure you remember everything?"
"Dude, I took notes!"
Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.
C'mon, share!
"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the "burning bush," suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.
For purely academic reasons, of course.
"The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a clasic phenomenon," he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to "see music."
That's old. With today's stuff, you can even hear the colors!
He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil's Amazon forest in 1991. "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," Shanon said.

He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.
I've got something with acacia in the name in my back yard. I'm going to go gnaw on it for a while and I'll let you know if I find anything interesting.
Posted by:gorb

#19  "Why, then, wouldn't those same writers of the Bible record the 'secrets of the psychedelics?'"

Reserved for the cabal.
Posted by: Snairong Ghibelline1419   2008-03-05 23:38  

#18  Little known fact: if you synchronize reading the Old Testament to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon"....
Posted by: Frank G   2008-03-05 21:28  

#17  I'm always amazed by the blunt frankness of the Bible. It doesn't pull any punches when it mentions the faults of even some of the greatest religious leaders that grace its pages (e.g., David commits adultery and has the woman's husband killed -- that's harsh). It doesn't condone this bad behavior, and even condemns it at points (e.g., Nathan's rebuke of David is classic), but the Bible is blunt and frank about it all.

Why, then, wouldn't those same writers of the Bible record the "secrets of the psychedelics?" That kind of inconsistency just isn't apparent in the Bible -- regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the worldview espoused therein.

As for me, I am in the camp that holds that the Bible is frighteningly accurate in all respects -- even if at this point we lack the science or history to understand what is set forth in its pages. For example, for thousands of years the Bible said all of humanity was descended from one woman. Now, thanks to genetic science, we know without a doubt that that is true. And the Bible clearly noted that Abraham's descendants would be as numerous as the sands of the sea -- as numerous as the stars of the heavens -- at a time that the stars visible in the heavens might lead one to believe the promise was not that promising. It took the modern telescopic to verify that the stars of the heaven are as numerous as the sands of the sea. I could go on . . .

Anyway, this kind of academic dishonesty infuriates me, because it can wreck havoc on the lives people who lack the resources or ability to figure out what a bunch of bunk is being dumped on them.
Posted by: cingold   2008-03-05 19:27  

#16  SO IOW, and IIRC Mr. Shanon, MADONNA FANS are DRUG USERS/ABUSERS? INCLUDING THOSE WHOM AREN'T?, which in turn infers that SOMEONE IS COVERTLY, ILLEGALLY, AND NON-CONSENSUALLY INJECTING DRUGS INTO NON-USER/ABUSER BODIES??? As opposed to NON-DRUG "NATURAL HIGH/DRIVES" = "MUSIC IS THE SOUND/VOICE OF GOD-HEAVEN"???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2008-03-05 19:24  

#15  the only thing i ever herad God say while high on shrooms was don't eat those again
Posted by: sinse   2008-03-05 18:03  

#14  Ah, the primitive tribal drug-using natives in the rain forest obviously have much more of a true religion than those evil ancient faithful Jooooos.

Maybe the good academician is having flashbacks from his experience in that rain forest...

Just sayin'...
Posted by: FOTSGreg   2008-03-05 16:38  

#13  If you don't believe in the Divine than a more logical explaination is that Moses was lying, trying to enforce laws that would help his civilization through some pretty rough times. Or that he didn't exist and was a parable invented later for the same purpose.

The drug angle is just for headlines.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2008-03-05 12:06  

#12  Just another idiot with a golden calf, this time ayahuasca of the south american shamans.

I imagine in about thirty years they'll come up with another one.
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman   2008-03-05 12:01  

#11  I'm so impressed. All these centuries of scholars, geniuses and savants and at long last we have drug dabbling professor Benny Shanon to expose the truth. What an amazing man. I'm convinced.
Posted by: Crease Poodle1618   2008-03-05 11:46  

#10  The Hebrews didn't have any bread when they were wandering through the desert, though. That was one of the so-recently freed slaves' complaints, along with the meat they'd been accustomed to in the "fleshpots of Egypt". I don't doubt they had access to some sort of hallucinogens -- but again, why would the scribes hide such a thing so commonly accepted at the time. Going into holy trances was traditionally one of the jobs of priesthoods, after all.
Posted by: trailing wife    2008-03-05 11:34  

#9  Awesome quote TW.

Doing drugs in the rain forest huh, is he sure he doesn't have bugs crawling underneath his skin.

Posted by: swksvolFF   2008-03-05 11:32  

#8  Hoestly I don't doubt it is possible. And the notion of ergot contaminated bread playing a large part in Christian miracles probably isn't far off base and might even play a huge role in the communion ritual's coming about. Hallucinagenics have played huge roles in other religions too including Inca and Maya. What are today called "magic mushrooms" were used in religious ceremony for centuries, possibly for thousands of years.

The exact sources and nature of the hallucinogenic would probably have been kept from the masses and only shared with a select few in an inner circle who would be allowed to experience a certain mystical ritual that the general population probably wouldn't without some kind of "training" or "guidance" to properly interpret what they were experiencing. To people of that age, such a trip could be quite intensely spiritual.

This would be particularly true if it happened at random as would happen with "contaminated" bread.
Posted by: crosspatch   2008-03-05 10:49  

#7  like rain forest drugs are found in the middle of the Sinai desert?

Posted by: 3dc   2008-03-05 10:34  

#6  Many of these professor say that Moses was a myth and never lived now they are saying he lived but was high on drugs.

Posted by: Bernardz   2008-03-05 10:01  

#5  DarthVader: Or that the whole thing is a fabrication or a myth. When academic contrive an elaborate theory to undermine faith they do so at the expense of the obvious. And all too often without turning a critical eye on their own faith in nothingness.
Posted by: Excalibur   2008-03-05 09:16  

#4  "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," Shanon said.

Been there, Benny. And when I was, Moses told me you were full of shit.
Continue "dabbling"...
Posted by: tu3031   2008-03-05 09:07  

#3  Hell, why not go with the theory that he and the other prophets had schizophrenia?

I want to know how many "researchers" are on drugs when they do there work.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-03-05 09:02  

#2  Honestly, there's no idiot like an academic with a pet theory.

What TW said--and it goes double when the "pet theory" is intended to make God disappear in a puff of logic. (See also, e.g., the multi-degreed goofball who claimed that Jesus walked on water only because the Sea of Galilee was frozen back then.)
Posted by: Mike   2008-03-05 08:09  

#1  So how many times when the good professor was doing his anthropological research did he come up with an entirely original code of conduct? Or does he contend that Cousin Moshe suddenly chose to employ the genius he'd so successfully hidden before and after his little trip to the mountain top? And why would the scribes who transcribed the tale choose to alter what they considered holy text to hide something heretofore completely acceptable, when otherwise even scribal spelling errors are so carefully recopied that the age of a found Torah scroll can be dated by, and its point of origin placed, by which transcription errors are contained in the text?

Honestly, there's no idiot like an academic with a pet theory.
Posted by: trailing wife    2008-03-05 07:17  

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