#1543 - Brian Muraresku & Graham Hancock

Joe Rogan (0:12)

Joining us by Skype is the great and powerful Graham Hancock. My friend, how are you, sir?

Graham Hancock (0:18)

Hi, Joe. It's really good to be back with you. I wish I could be there in person.

It feels very strange to be on this technology, but these are the times we live in.

Joe Rogan (0:29)

Yeah. Well, I'm just happy we could talk at all in this day and age. It's the little things, like little victories.

And Brian, I'm going to try it. I'm going to try it. Muraresku.

Brian Muraresku (0:39)

You nailed it, bro.

Joe Rogan (0:41)

Thank you.

And you're... But this is the first time we've ever done one of these as well in the studio where one per... Maybe ever. Visual.

We've never done one. We did one with you guys. Remember, we did Randall Carlson and you...

Graham Hancock (0:55)

And Mark Defante came in by telephone, I guess.

Joe Rogan (0:59)

Which was very strange. It was like a sound coming from nowhere. At least I could see you. But we've never done one of these like this. But this book, tell me... This is The Immortality Key, The Secret History of Religion, of the Religion with No Name. I'll say that again. The Secret History of the Religion with No Name.

Now this is... Obviously, when I found out the subject matter, Graham, this is right up your alley.

It made total, complete sense why you and Brian worked together on this. So who wants to start and explain... Graham, why don't we have you start since you're over there in the UK?

Graham Hancock (1:36)

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, for me... In fact, Joe, I think you and I originally got in touch because of my interest in psychedelics in human culture and a book that I published in 2006 called Supernatural, which looks at the huge role that psychedelics have played in cultures and in religions all around the world. And I touched in that book on the role of psychedelics in the origins of Christianity, which of course is a dynamite subject.

And what Brian has done in The Immortality Key has been to present hard and fast evidence that the first Christians were using psychedelics and that their religious experiences were mediated by psychedelic experiences.

Joe Rogan (2:24)

And Brian, how did you get involved in this?

Brian Muraresku (2:26)

It's a long story.

Joe Rogan (2:27)

You look like a stoner, by the way. You look like a guy who's done a few mushrooms in his day.

Brian Muraresku (2:32)

Oddly enough, I don't do drugs at all. I've never done psychedelics.

Joe Rogan (2:35)

Wow. That's crazy. You want to start?

Brian Muraresku (2:39)

Today?

Joe Rogan (2:39)

Well, I wish we were in LA. I could hook you up in Texas. The laws are sketchier here.

What led you to do this then?

Brian Muraresku (2:50)

I was fascinated by Graham's work, which I only came across about 12 years ago. I was a Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit undergrad major.

And instead of getting the PhD or becoming a priest, which are the two options when you study Latin and Greek, I went to law school instead for no reason whatsoever and then wound up at a law firm. And a couple years into it, I started reading about these psilocybin studies coming out of Hopkins and NYU and that amazing statistic that two-thirds of the participants were describing it as one of the most amazing experiences of their lives. And it hit me that there was something there because the testimony coming out of Hopkins and NYU in a very clinical setting immediately reminded me of what I heard about Eleusis.

And for those who don't know what Eleusis is, it's essentially the spiritual capital of the ancient world. It was where the best and brightest of Athens and Rome went to essentially meet a goddess in the flesh and have this mind-blowing visionary experience. So before Jerusalem, before Rome, before Mecca, there was Eleusis. And for some reason, we're not taught about this in our high school mythology or Western civ classes, but it was there that Plato, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius all went to drink a magical potion and, in their words, have this vision, what Plato calls a blessed sight and vision, the holiest of mysteries, in which they claim to have a direct encounter with the goddess and completely eradicate their fear of death. It was very similar to what the volunteers are saying with their single experience of psilocybin.

Joe Rogan (4:21)

Now, with Eleusis, how much history do we have? How much recorded history that documents these rituals and is there any that describes the actual contents of this mixture?