The Immortality Key: Uncovering the Secret History of the Religion With No Name

 

The Immortality Key: Uncovering the Secret History of the Religion with No Name by Brian C. Muraresku
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At the risk of sounding like a 1950's B-horror movie title, I was a teenage drug-fiend. I was 12 or 13, I can't quite remember, when I started experimenting with pot, speed, cocaine, opium, depressants, and, of course, one of the most insidious drugs of all, alcohol. By the time I was 18, I had pumped enough chemicals in my body for a lifetime, so when I came about one judge's signature away form a term in federal prison, I quit. Cold turkey. Everything. And I've been clean since.

One thing I never tried was psychedelics. The war on drugs and the (now comical) portrayal of psychedelic's use on '70s and '80s television frankly scared me away from them. I "knew" that PCP made people think they could fly and LSD could make you crazy forever. I'd been brainwashed really good. Thanks, Nancy.

Fast forward several decades. I have a much more "measured" view of drug and alcohol use. There are plenty of people out there who can safely and responsibly use drugs and alcohol without becoming an addict, like I did. And I realize now that medications have their place and can really benefit people's lives. Then again, as an aside, I think there should be MUCH stiffer penalties for drunk driving, but that's a rant for a different time. And I avoid alcohol like the plague. I know that its no good for me and I'm not good with it.

Now I've done a fair amount of research into psychedelics, mostly being interested in micro-dosing after having listened to a couple of podcasts that touched on the subject. Pretty soon, I started seeing articles popping up here and there - my UW alumni magazine, for instance, or Discover Magazine - about the efficacy of psychedelic treatments for PTSD, in particular, and in easing the fears and worries of terminal cancer patients. It's been a bit of a revelation, so much so that I think we might be on the edge of a revolution in medicine.

I was discussing this with my oldest son this past Thanksgiving as he was visiting from grad school. He told me about a podcast interview regarding this very subject . . . well, sort of. I asked for a link and took some time to listen to Lex Fridman's interview of author Brian Muraresku about his new book The Immortality Key. After listening to that, I put the book on my Christmas wish list, and my son obliged. I raised that boy (well, he's a man now) right.

The general premise of Muraresku's thesis is this: There is a possibility, a strong possibility, backed by some thin threads of evidence, that the history of psychedelics in societal use may be the backbone of the history of religion, particularly sacramental religions like the cult of Dionysus or even Christianity.

Of course, he's crazy, right?

I don't think so.

That's not to say that I'm fully convinced. The evidence is oftentimes tentative, with much more research needing to be done. Or it's based on what I will call "negative historiography," the notion that a certain things absence from the historical record proves its existence by the very void created in the process of the intentional removal of such evidence by the winners of history; in this case, the Catholic Church.

But that's not to say I'm not fully convinced, either. I'm taking a tentative lean towards believing Muraresku's thesis, partly because he acknowledges, in the end, that this is a work-in-progress. I will say, though, that some evidentiary gaps that are "leaped" in the middle of the text, are later given some logical breathing room, some more critical looks, in the afterword.

My biggest issue with the book is connecting the dots from the Dionysian cultic use of psychedelics in the Middle East to the early Christian house churches of Anatolia. In the midst of the presentation of evidence, Muraresku's arguments sound like they apply to all of Christianity, even if he doesn't explicitly say so. But later he acknowledges that it may have been only a very small part of the initial Christian movement across the Mediterranean. The evidence is scant, but Muraresku's eagerness to get the point across makes his arguments sound like there is tacit proof that the use of psychedelics in the early Christian sacrament was a given. Over-enthusiasm sometimes clouds the argument. A little more restraint might have gone a great way in easing me into accepting the trail of evidence more readily.

Time will tell if archaeobotanical and archaeochemical analysis can fill the gaps. I sincerely hope they do. Because what Muraresku is talking about here is not a bunch of stoners sitting in the basement with a bong listening to Phish. He's talking about humans finding real meaning in the psychedelic experience. He's talking about "dying before you die," which has an absolutely profound effect on those who experience it - he goes over this extensively. He's talking about experiential religion, the type of real life events that can make real life changes in the way people view themselves, each other, nature, and reality, seeing the cosmos, the earth, and all humans anew. There is an optimism here that "the religion with no name" can bring some fundamental changes to the whole of the human race, Aldous Huxley's dream come true.

And he might just be right.

Time will tell.

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