Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

atlasobscura.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 110 posts

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

#61

Post by bawolff »

cratermoon wrote: post #59
bawolff wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note, it would be against wikipedia policies to say "Some scholars say X". You're not supposed to use weasel words, and npov does not mean you have to give equal weight to all. Case in point, wikipedia doesn't say that some scholars believe genisis was written by moses. Instead they say: "Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, as well as the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and most of Deuteronomy, but…

"Tradition credits" seems like as much weasel words as "some people say". Whose tradition? Since when? Where does the tradition come from? > Note, it would be against wikipedia policies to say "Some scholars say X" But.. that's exactly what the linked wikipedia article says! I'm not vested enough to care to change it, but if you're right, that is a violation of policy.

I think its pretty clear in context that they mean the traditions of the people who view the book as holy, particularly Jews and Christians. They go in more detail if you click the link.

The big difference is that "Some scholars believe X" and "Some scholars believe not X" are basically true for most X. The traditional view of Jews & Christians being that moses wrote genisis is a fact about the world. It can be either true or false. They either believed that traditionally or they did not. Both it and its negation cannot both be true.

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

#62

Post by cratermoon »

colechristensen wrote: post #18
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…

They’re talking about a late thirteenth century fresco in France, not Roman art by protochristians in the first few centuries CE. As christianity spread or was forced across europe, there was plenty of mixing religions. But this whole thing is a pretty big stretch, you can’t tell if it’s a tree or a mushroom then maybe it’s just the artist wasn’t the greatest and trying to shoehorn psychedelics into it isn’t at all a…

Yes but the article doesn't speculate on the practices of late 13th century French Christians, it's speculating that the mural is referring to "early Christians" depicting a story that "Christianity itself had derived from a fertility cult whose members ingested hallucinogens". How late middle ages Christians knew so much about 1st century protochristians is left unexplained.

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

#63

Post by Natsu »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #45
iammisc wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is, but the idea he put forth... that the elect (presumably meaning those who are getting into heaven) are deserving of secret knowledge is not really something that anyone can say ever existed in the church. They had a whole separation and heresy to address that.

Which “he” do you mean here?

I believe they're referring to amanaplanacanal who appears to be describing Gnosticism, which was rejected as a heresy early in the Church's history.

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

#64

Post by tmountain »

hospadar wrote: post #32

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…

It's been suggested (but not proven) that amanita muscara inspired portions of Christmas mythology (Santa, flying reindeer, etc).

https://www.npr.org/2010/12/24/132260025/did-shrooms-send-sa...

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

#65

Post by Natsu »

anigbrowl wrote: post #55
iammisc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are not even replying to the same person. I think you're being a little over-literal here.

The 'elect' as a Christian concept is a bit different from ordinary uses of the word. In context, the concept from Calvinism seemed to be under discussion until someone came into the discussion using 'elect' in the normal meaning.

So I think it's important to keep track of which definition of 'elect' is in use here or you'll just be talking past each other without realizing that you're not talking about the same concept at all:

https://www.learnreligions.com/five-point-calvinism-700356

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

#66

Post by Natsu »

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…

The heyday of gnosticism was a thousand years or more prior to this fresco, though.

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

#67

Post by [deleted] »

iammisc wrote: post #44
Talanes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also comes down to a matter of linguistics. English uniquely changed the name of the holiday to match up with local celebrations. If you're not thinking to hard about it, it's very easy to go from "Easter is named after a forgotten pagan goddess" to "The entire Easter tradition is stolen from old pagan rituals."

That's right. In most of the world, easter is referred to as some derivative of 'Paschal', which is the adjectival form of Easter in English. For example, French: Paques Spanish: Pascua Romanian: Pasti Russian: пасха (Paskha) Chinese: fùhuójié (resurrection festival) Danish: paske Only the german languages adopted a Germanic goddess name due to the coincidental timing.

[deleted]

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

#68

Post by pmoriarty »

Natsu wrote: post #66
pmoriarty wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The heyday of gnosticism was a thousand years or more prior to this fresco, though.

But the gnostics weren't completely eradicated until much later. The Cathars[1], for instance, weren't defeated until about the time of this fresco.

And, anyway, one need not be a gnostic in order to believe there is a hidden side to Christianity.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathars

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

#69

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

hospadar wrote: post #32

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…

This is a far cry from an evidence-grade source, but https://ambrosiasociety.org/ is a pretty wild site to explore.

Someone has put quite a lot of work into mapping the phenotypic traits of Amanita Muscara onto Christian iconograhy (the lamb of god being the wooly mycelium, and the living cup having to do with the way it colonizes wooden containers, etc). They've also got instructions on preparing it for consumption.

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

#70

Post by swayvil »

It makes sense.

Mushrooms (and some other devices) are how you see God etc.

I mean, it wasn't always just about reading old books. It had to start somewhere. With some kind of real observation.

And studying that stuff without the shrooms etc. Well, that's like studying microbiology without a microscope.

Post reply on HN