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Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden?

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Re: Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden?

#31

Post by codetrotter »

cratermoon wrote: post #13
codetrotter wrote: post #9

I’ve long been thinking about how things like this are in the Bible: > They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel ... Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around. — Ezekiel 1:15 And I’ve been thinking, that these kinds of things could have their explanation in people having ingested plants or been stung by insect…

You mean the Ophanim? Be not afraid, my child. https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/878/385/a57...

Yup, that’s the one they talk about in Ezekiel 1:15 quoted above. And there are others too.

Re: Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden?

#32

Post by hospadar »

Wow mostly unrelated, I had no idea that _Amanita Muscara_ was considered to be psychoactive (usually is described as poisinous in field guides). Also frequently considered to be edible (after treatment) in some places. Fascinating!

(for those unfamiliar, the amanita genus as a whole contains a variety of extremely toxic mushrooms and is often avoided by novice edible collectors for that reason)

See also: https://www.bayareamushrooms.org/education/further_reflectio...

Re: Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden?

#33

Post by 52-6F-62 »

iammisc wrote: post #23
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that there is secret knowledge that only the elect should know goes back to classical times, and probably to the time the old testament was put together. So it might not have to do with stigma per se.

Catholicism has no concept of the elect, at least not in the way you describe it.

Of course they do: the priesthood. The Vatican itself restricts access to its own archives.

Re: Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden?

#34

Post by 52-6F-62 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #27
pram wrote: post #2

The premise doesn’t even make sense, the tree of knowledge is a Bad Thing in the Genesis story. Even if it was a magic mushroom, how could you possibly come to the conclusion that it’s being depicted in a positive light?

Something else to consider is that some early Christians (like the so-called Gnostics) believed that there was an esoteric (or secret) meaning or teaching in Christianity. The esoteric meanings were often mirror images of the exoteric (or plain/obvious/surface) meanings. So where eating of the Tree of Knowledge might be viewed as "bad" in the exoteric interpretation, in the esoteric interpretation it could be viewed…

True, and early Christian cults were often mixed up in offshoots of the mysteries traditions as well.

So while the article mixes up which storied tree that image is supposed to represent, there's a real question of whether or not the similarities to the amanita mushroom were intentional or not. When placed in the context of esoteric traditions, it's a worthwhile question.

Re: Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden?

#35

Post by cat199 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #20
cratermoon wrote: post #10

There are several problems with this article. To start with, it mixes up the Tree of Life[1] and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil[2]. Second, the Genesis story is Jewish, and predates Christianity by at least five if not ten centuries. And most importantly, early Christians were Jews first. Post-Pauline times, pagan or Gentiles in the Roman empire did join the growing movement that was soon to be called Christi…

"the Genesis story is Jewish, and predates Christianity by at least five if not ten centuries" But the fresco the article is about is from the 13th Century. Christians at that time or even earlier might have re-interpreted the Genesis story in light of psychedelic experiences. However, on the subject of psychedelic use in early Judaism, there is an interesting article titled "Strange Fires Weird Smokes and Psychoacti…

have no doubt that some christians likely dabbled with these things, as did their jewish forbears, and certainly some sects of paganism where this was explicitly allowed/incorporated

but it's one thing to acknowledge these various strands as ever having existed, and quite another to take fragmentary evidence out of context and use it as a basis to spin a whole narritive that all of the historical understanding is somehow fundamentally incorrect, and that there is some 'hidden teaching' (which incedentally and conveniently is almost always more permissive w/r/t intoxication/sexuality)

there's also the detail that this misunderstanding is also predicated on a false notion that medieval people were as hostile to medicinal plants as we have become after the advent of the pharmaceutical industry - if these plants are not 'evil' and 'suppressed', then it is less 'shocking' and 'world changing' to find references to them in what we might think are surprising places to our modern mind

Re: Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden?

#36

Post by piptastic »

cratermoon wrote: post #10

There are several problems with this article. To start with, it mixes up the Tree of Life[1] and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil[2]. Second, the Genesis story is Jewish, and predates Christianity by at least five if not ten centuries. And most importantly, early Christians were Jews first. Post-Pauline times, pagan or Gentiles in the Roman empire did join the growing movement that was soon to be called Christi…

From your linked source on the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil:

Alternatively, some scholars have argued that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is just another name for the tree of life.

Re: Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden?

#37

Post by iammisc »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #33
iammisc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catholicism has no concept of the elect, at least not in the way you describe it.

Of course they do: the priesthood. The Vatican itself restricts access to its own archives.

That's not the elect as you described. Priests are no more deserving of heaven than any other baptised catholic.

The 'knowledge' in the archives is not religious in nature. You don't need to have access to it to know God or achieve the ultimate goals of catholicism.

Re: Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden?

#38

Post by iammisc »

pmoriarty wrote: post #29
iammisc wrote: post #19

The main problem of this article is that it uses modern cultural and artistic norms to interpret ancient art. Traditional Catholic and Christian iconography was not meant to be accurate, but rather to symbolize meaning. For example, in my church, the priest recently pointed out there is a dog in every single stained glass window depicting scenes of Jesus's life. In particular, the dog is a dalmation. If we were to ap…

"At no point is any of the art intended to be realistic." Well, except that, say, Jesus is supposed to be Jesus. Adam and Eve are supposed to be Adam and Eve. The garden in which Adam and Eve are depicted is supposed to be the Garden of Eden in the Bible. In the various depictions of the Last Supper, Jesus is depicted as having supper with his disciples, and that is supposed to depict exactly that. Jesus is shown as…

I suppose it's realistic in the sense that Christ is depicted as a human as are adam and eve, instead of something else, but there is no presumption that christ actually looked like the way he was drawn.

Re: Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden?

#39

Post by amanaplanacanal »

iammisc wrote: post #23
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that there is secret knowledge that only the elect should know goes back to classical times, and probably to the time the old testament was put together. So it might not have to do with stigma per se.

Catholicism has no concept of the elect, at least not in the way you describe it.

It’s entirely possible for people who call themselves Catholic to have beliefs that are not in accordance with official dogma. And Catholic dogma is not a static thing, either, though some pretend it is.

Re: Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden?

#40

Post by xyzelement »

piptastic wrote: post #36
cratermoon wrote: post #10

There are several problems with this article. To start with, it mixes up the Tree of Life[1] and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil[2]. Second, the Genesis story is Jewish, and predates Christianity by at least five if not ten centuries. And most importantly, early Christians were Jews first. Post-Pauline times, pagan or Gentiles in the Roman empire did join the growing movement that was soon to be called Christi…

From your linked source on the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil: Alternatively, some scholars have argued that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is just another name for the tree of life.

There are probably "some scholars" that have argued for just about anything, but certainly the majority of knowledge on these treats them as different topics.
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