I searched this blog but have not yet found a particular aspect of the bible addressed in any of them; that being the Christian Eucharist acts of consumption of the bread and wine as an analogy to consuming the body and drinking the blood of Jesus. When taken literally, this becomes an act of cannibalism being used to “remember” a person, that is Jesus. I am no scholar in any discipline, but I am not aware of cannibalism in general being accepted practice in any but a few, secluded societies that are far from modernity. From this basis, I have three questions:
1. Is anyone aware of any other current or historic religious practice in western or eastern denominations that uses such a literal or analogous practice as part of it’s religious ritual (with the possible exception of cannibalistic societies) ?
2. Does anyone have an opinion on the thesis that the Christian Eucharist is actually an esoteric description of the consumption of some type of entheogen, leading to an altered state of consciousness that would be the experience of Christ’s teachings (“remembrance”) ? (Possibly an MAOI and a tryptamine combination).
3. Does anyone have an opinion as to the hypothesis that Jesus was actually a personified, direct analogy for an entheogen, possible a mushroom, and therefore, the last supper was not a “meal” as such, but a a ritualistic consumption of an entheogen, such as the ritual practices of the Santo Daime and União do Vegetal churches in the United States?
Ok the Christian Eucharist is not technically cannibalism because the actual molecules of the bread and wine do not change into the body and blood of Jesus. This is a rather arcane point of metaphysics. What changes in the Eucharist is the “substance” of these items. Here “substance” is being used in the Aristotelian sense. “Substance” is the fundamental essence of all things not their appearance. How this happens of course is a mystery to be accepted not explained. And like all good mysteries it works whether you understand it or not. So when you accuse a theologically astute Christian of cannibalism when they partake of the Cup and Wafer they are just going to dismiss you as a rube.
There are other systems of belief that have ritualistic meals or have practices where the supplicant identifies with the gods and takes on their attributes.
There is no evidence that early Christianity began as a drug cult although there is evidence that early churches partook of ecstatic and mystical practices, visions and prophecies. You don’t need drugs to do that, just a sense of expectation (“set”) and an environment (“setting”) conducive to such.
What fascinates me most about so-called “entheogens” is that you can have an experience with chemical substances that is almost indistinguishable from what would be considered a traditional religious mystical experience. Seems to me this goes a long way towards demonstrating that when a person’s biochemistry changes their consciousness changes, and such heightened brain states do not require recourse to supernatural explanations.
There are other systems of belief that have ritualistic meals or have practices where the supplicant identifies with the gods and takes on their attributes.
What are these other belief systems? And do they instruct their followers to consume something as a proxy or agent of the actual body of a deity or prophet of a deity?
jhnc
… consuming the body and drinking the blood of Jesus. When taken literally, this becomes an act of cannibalism being used to “remember” a person, that is Jesus.
Does anyone have an opinion on the thesis that the Christian Eucharist is actually an esoteric description of the consumption of some type of entheogen, leading to an altered state of consciousness that would be the experience of Christ’s teachings (“remembrance”) ? (Possibly an MAOI and a tryptamine combination).
Steefen
entheogen: a chemical substance, typically of plant origin, that is ingested to produce a nonordinary state of consciousness for religious or spiritual purpose
Mary is the mother of the baby who was sacrificed for the sins of the rebels.
The baby boy whose body was sacrificed, body and blood consumed is Jesus.
Josephus is Joseph, who did not actually have sex wiith Mary to conceive Jesus.
There is no need to think entheogen.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert