The Sacred Speaks

Conversation starts at: 5:05 In this episode Dr. Price interviews Dr. Claire Villarreal. Claire is an expert in teaching Tibetan Buddhism, meditation, and Tantra. We discuss the relationship between the social self and the self empty of all that is not self, the connection between spiritual practice and psychedelics, what happens when the threads of our ordinary reality are “cracked open,” attachment, issues with translation in religious traditions, peak experience, obstructions and the spiritual path, repetition in spiritual practice, Dzogchen, directly looking into inner energies through Tantra, Buddha nature, Shamanic practice, and spiritual practice. Bio: Raised as a fundamentalist Christian in a small town in North Texas who, by the time she left for Rice University in 1995, knew that the religious tradition of her childhood did not suit her. When she stumbled across a course on East Asian civilizations co-taught by Anne Klein, she signed up with a deep curiosity of Asian religious culture. When Anne assigned Buddhist texts for the class reading, Claire was immediately hooked on the dharma and added a Religious Studies major. When Claire started meditating with Ajahn Ken of Wat Buddhavas and sitting with Anne’s sangha, Dawn Mountain, she obsessed over Tibetan history and did a Tibetan Studies semester abroad with the School for International Training. After graduation, Claire taught secondary English for a couple of years, trained in Wing Chun and tai chi chuan at Authentic Kung Fu for seven years, and left in 2003 for a long trip to Asia, and after returning home began formally teaching meditation. In 2007 Claire joined the doctoral program in Rice's Department of Religion and spent the next eight years learning, writing, and teaching about Tibetan Buddhism, contemplative ways of knowing, and how those can enrich modern Western life. After earning her PhD in 2015, she joined the staff of Dawn Mountain Center for Tibetan Buddhism, where she became the Programs Director before leaving in 2019 to offer meditation and spiritual instruction online and in person. You can learn more about Claire’s offerings at: https://www.clairevillarreal.com https://rice.academia.edu/ClaireVillarreal Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts at: 5:38 We begin this conversation acknowledging the dynamic between biological reductionism and mystical experience within the ever-growing field of psychedelic assisted therapies. The conversation continues by exploring consciousness, spirituality, the nature of religion, the expanding field of end of life care and psychedelics, mystical experience, the history of psychedelics as a healing modality, integration of mystical experience, Aldous Huxley’s influence, death as a spiritual process, the medicalization of healthcare, we discuss Tony’s recent chapter, Utility of psychedelics in the treatment of psycho-spiritual and existential distress in palliative care: A Promising new paradigm, the research history of psychedelics, constructivism and perennialism, legalization of psychedelics, and addressing the concern for the medicalization of psychedelics. Bio: Anthony P. Bossis, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine conducting FDA-approved clinical research with the psychedelic compound psilocybin for over a decade. Dr. Bossis was director of palliative care research and co-principal investigator on the 2016 landmark clinical trial demonstrating a significant reduction in emotional distress from a single psilocybin session in persons with cancer, specifically, a rapid decrease in depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and demoralization along with improvements in spiritual well-being and quality of life. He is study director and lead session guide on a clinical trial evaluating psilocybin-generated mystical experience upon religious leaders. His primary psychedelic research interests include the treatment of end-of-life existential distress and advancing our understanding of consciousness, meaning, and spirituality. Dr. Bossis is a training supervisor of psychotherapy at NYU-Bellevue Hospital Center and co-founder of the Bellevue Hospital Palliative Care Service. He is a faculty member for The Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research Certificate Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies and for The Art of Dying Institute in NYC. He has a long-standing interest in comparative religion, mysticism, and the interface of psychology and spirituality. He maintains a private psychotherapy and consulting practice in NYC. Bossis, A.P. (2021). Utility of psychedelics in the treatment of psycho-spiritual and existential distress in palliative care: A Promising new paradigm. In: C. Grob & J. Grigsby (Eds.), Handbook of Medical Hallucinogens (pp. 441-473). Guilford Press. Bossis, A.P. (2021). Psilocybin, Spirituality, and Palliative Care: Research and Implications. Alternative and Complementary Therapies, v 27(1). Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

We begin the interview by exploring Mark’s work as a translator and the artfulness of translation by grounding our discussion in one of his books, Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation, originally written in Greek. Within minutes, Mark states that religion fulfills one or two purposes: to control or to transform – our conversation explores the latter. We discuss the psychedelic nature of the Book of Revelation, the nuances of translation, living texts, Mark’s unpublished translation of the entire new testament, modern Christianity, defining “truth” (as in, “the way, the truth, and the life”) …” – a/letheia: non/forgetting, the Answer to Job found in The Book of Revelation, the conflict in dualism, reconciling dualism, critique of the institutional church, Dionysus and Christ, love, ritual, and more. BIO: Born in Richmond, VA (1954) and raised outside Washington DC, Arey converted to Orthodox Christianity from the Episcopal Church when he was 22 years old. He graduated in 1975 from the University of Maryland (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) with a BA in Latin Language and Literature. In 1976, he matriculated at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline MA. He graduated in 1979 receiving a M.Div. (with distinction) and was subsequently ordained both deacon and presbyter in October 1979. In the intervening 34 years, Arey served six parishes (last as interim Dean of the Archdiocesan Cathedral in New York City), as well as parishes in Baltimore, MD, New Haven, CT, Nashville, TN (twice), Frederick, MD and New York City. In 2006 he was awarded the rank of Economos and in 2007 that of Protopresbyter. In 2013, he asked to return to the ranks of the laity in order to marry, and did so, marrying Lyn Cameron Hayes on December 9, 2013. Arey has one grown daughter, Zoë Arey, who lives in New York City with her three daughters, Lillian, Beatrice, and Evelyn. IN 2014, Arey was invited to be Executive Director of The Hellenic Initiative, Inc. (https://www.thehellenicinitiative.org), a global venture philanthropy organization that does economic development in Greece. In 2019, Arey took a six-month sabbatical to travel on pilgrimage to India, after which he began working as a private consultant in both the fields of venture philanthropy and communications. https://www.thehellenicinitiative.org NANINE EWING INTERVIEW https://soundcloud.com/thesacredspeaks/17-the-body-the-unconscious-life-death-a-conversation-with-nanine-ewing CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Through this conversation, Thomas and John discuss ego loss, a historical overview of witches, the sociological aspects of witches, the science of history, anachronism, the history of the devil, interpreting ancient texts and techniques to filter modern bias, demons of antiquity, illness and the spiritual, syncretism defined, goddess worship in antiquity, the shift from polytheism to monotheism, and more. Bio: Thomas Hatsis is an author, lecturer, and historian of witchcraft, magic, Western religions, contemporary psychedelia, entheogens, and medieval pharmacopeia. https://psychedelichistorian.com www.psanctum.org www.patreon.com/m/psychedelichistorian CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg This episode: https://youtu.be/9SclEixv4rI Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Through this conversation Dr. Rigoglioso and John discuss subjects ranging from the myth and history of immaculate conception, the goddess and the underworld, the autonomy of the archetype, various consciousnesses, living the archetypal journey of the gods, the literal and the symbolic, the ontological reality of the gods, the nature of divine birth, how “Mother Mary” became a lesser known character in the bible, the campaign to disempower women, The Mysteries, the sacred and the secret, lineages of female healers through antiquity, medicated dildos in Mystery rites, initiation of priestesses, and more. BIO: Marguerite Rigoglioso, Ph.D., is the founding director of Seven Sisters Mystery School and a scholar/practitioner of the ancient Mediterranean mystery traditions. The foremost authority on the history of virgin birth, she is the author of The Mystery Tradition of Miraculous Conception: Mary and the Lineage of Virgin Births, as well as The Cult of Divine Birth in Ancient Greece, and Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity, pioneering books that explore women's shamanic abilities in a (r)evolutionary new light. A speaker at conferences and numerous public venues around the world, in 2009 she delivered a James C. Loeb Classical lecture at Harvard University on her research. She is also a featured interview guest on Regina Meredith’s Open Minds show on Gaia TV, as well as in the films The Vanishing of the Bees and The Search for Local Honey. Dr. Rigoglioso's research on female deities and women’s religious leadership in the ancient Mediterranean world and beyond has appeared in anthologies and journals, including Feminist Theology, The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, Societies of Peace, She Is Everywhere, Trivia, and the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, where her paper on the cult of Demeter and Persephone in Sicily received an honorable mention for the New Scholar Award. Dr. Rigoglioso combines lifelong study of the religious history of the ancient Mediterranean world and beyond with her own spiritual growth work and intuitional skills, which have been cultivated through years of ceremonial practice as well as intensive study at the Foundation for Spiritual Development in San Rafael, CA. FOR MORE ON DR. RIGOGLIOSO & SEVEN SISTERS MYSTERY SCHOOL: https://www.sevensistersmysteryschool.com/ PURCHASE HER NEW BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Tradition-Miraculous-Conception-Lineage/dp/1591434130/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3L8NZ0UFBWS1B&dchild=1&keywords=the+mystery+tradition+of+miraculous+conception&qid=1616551223&sprefix=the+mystery+tradition%2Caps%2C155&sr=8-1 CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg This episode: https://youtu.be/9SclEixv4rI Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

65: Carl A. P. Ruck – The Road to Eleusis; The Myth of Christ Dr. Carl Ruck and I begin our conversation discussing the book The Road to Eleusis, wherein “the classist” Dr. Ruck and coauthors R. Gordon Wasson, “the mycologist,” and Dr. Albert Hoffman, “the chemist,” released a controversial theory that psychoactive entheogenic sacramental ceremonies are often discovered at the root of many religious and spiritual traditions throughout history – and especially within the Greek Eleusinian Mystery tradition that lasted around 2000 years. Throughout the interview we explore subjects including classical sources, interpretation of ancient texts, religion and consciousness, entheogens and psychedelics, the political difficulty of the psychedelic sacrament, academia and censorship, drugs and cult ritual practices, the nature of myth, drugs and addiction, polyethnicity, myth and metaphor, consciousness, and our symbiotic relationship to the earth. BIO: Carl A.P. Ruck is an authority on the ecstatic rituals of the god Dionysus. With the ethno-mycologist R. Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann, he identified the secret psychoactive ingredient in the visionary potion that was drunk by the initiates at the Eleusinian Mystery. In Persephone’s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion, he proclaimed the centrality of psychoactive sacraments at the very beginnings of religion, employing the neologism “entheogen” to free the topic from the pejorative connotations for words like drug or hallucinogen. Check out Prof. Ruck’s latest project: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgiwjbne3bj7c24/CarlRuck.mp4 Research Interests: Greek drama, Dionysian festivals and rituals, ancient Mystery religions, Orphism, Zoroaster, Mithraism, ancient Christian heretical sects, the role of entheogens in the evolution of human consciousness and religions, Mythology, secret sacraments in medieval and Renaissance art, ancient and medieval eschatology, fairy-tales and European folklore, secret societies and craft guilds, prehistoric rock art, Greek epigraphy, structural linguistics, Latin and Greek grammar, Mesoamerican shamanism. https://www.bu.edu/classics/faculty-profiles/carl-ruck/ http://wassonwest.com https://entheomedia.net CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Join John in his interview with Mackenzie Amara - known to many as the “inked shrink” - as they explore the relationship between trauma and healing, psychedelics and psychosis, and dreams and the underworld. Mackenzie, an early initiate into both psychedelics and psychosis, endured a challenge to her worldview, which subsequently opened the next stage in her life. We discuss Jung’s struggle with psychedelics, repression of moment-to-moment authenticity and spontaneity, psychoanalysis as an acid trip, psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, dreams and waking fantasies, Mackenzie provides a personal example of taking a dream seriously and the impact of that attitude and decision making, rational thinking as a means of defense, trigger warnings and cancel culture, the underworld, and the rational, irrational & reason. Bio: By trade Mackenzie is a writer, coach, & 5Rhythms® teacher. By vocation she is a Jungian analyst-in-training & Clinical Psychology doctoral student. By design she is a collection of fractal, holographic cells dancing around some strange attractor for the sake of who knows what to live an insignificant, mythic life reflective of the mysterious vital spark within her. She identifies as a series of memories & unverifiable subjective experiences of self-hood to which she is rather fondly attached. She has a penchant for scholarship, the occult, pedantic erudition, morbid humor, grandiosity, nihilism, & semi-responsible hedonism. Born in the shadow of New Age culture into a fractured family system & the subjective experiencer of (arguably) extreme early childhood trauma, her life’s work is to heal psychic wounds—her’s & other’s—that she & others become strong enough to contend with the unconscious quicksands & transpersonal abysses which lap at the periphery of developing consciousness. She is an emergent property of Being playing at becoming sovereign. She really, really loves butter. https://www.mackenzieamara.com Makenzie’s YouTube lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYR9JtlWCHE&t=23s CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

This is one of the most controversial podcasts in the history of The Sacred Speaks; though controversy is familiar territory for the participant, Dr. DAC Hillman. Dr. Hillman began his doctoral research in the middle of a controversy that threatened him with a conflict between the choice of censuring his research to graduate with his doctorate or not pass. So, he did what any self-respecting doctoral student would do - remove the controversial work from his dissertation, and the write a book about it. The Chemical Muse is the book whose central thesis circulates within and through the heart of the “offensive” content – the recreational and sacred use of drugs in classical antiquity. Though his advisors denied that people in classical antiquity used drugs both recreationally and within religious rites, the evidence currently underway confirms his censured thesis. But he did not stop there. Dr. Hillman’s research investigates practices by religious Mystery cults in the classic age who participated in the unimaginable, by modern standards. Have you ever imagined that the human body could or would be used as a pharmacy to produce antidotes to drugs and venoms administered to initiates of sacred Mysteries traditions; and that without those human produced antidotes, the initiate’s body would begin to fail? What if the bodies of both adults and children were used in such ways? Dr. Hillman and Dr. Price discuss ancient religion, translating ancient texts, hidden language, image, magic, witches, sexual abuse of children, Jesus and St. John, obscured practices within ancient Mystery cults, Magi, the body as pharmacy, Gnostics, heresy, censorship by those in power, homosexuality, the patriarchy, priestesses, myth, & Magic. Bio: Dr. DC Ammon Hillman earned his MS in Bacteriology and Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where he specialized in Ancient Greek and Roman medicine and pharmacy. His first book, The Chemical Muse, was published with St. Martin’s Press immediately after his dissertation committee forced him to delete all references to recreational drugs from his thesis. Dr. Hillman also wrote Original Sin, a work about the use of drug-induced child rape in early Christian ritual. The publication of The Chemical Muse inspired the production of a lengthy History Chanel documentary on the history of drug use in the ancient world. After an official inquiry by the Catholic Church into allegations of demon possession, Dr. Hillman was fired from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. He continues to write about the use of drugs in ancient mystery cults and tutors ancient Greek online. https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Muse-Roots-Western-Civilization/dp/0312352492 CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

What is a religious experience? Really. How does one define a religious event? Why do we keep reading from figures who report life-affirming, transformation-inducing, and worldview-shattering experiences that we, if we are honest, evoke the tension between both fascination and anxious avoidance? Today’s episode may provide a life raft - though the storm approaches regardless. Tune in as Dr. William Richards, a psychologist in the Psychiatry Department of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Dr. John Price discuss the definition of terms such as mystic and religious events, they explore subject ranging from the early application of psychedelics in a clinical context, the current and historical government regulation of psychedelics - or entheogens, if you will - clinical examples of the transformations that many have experienced during and after the use of these medicines, current studies, the collective unconscious, the embarrassment felt by the military’s attempts to use these substances, morality and entheogens, identity, the ethics of entheogens in a clinical setting, getting “high,” spiritual by-passing, the nature of nature summarized in the familiar refrain that love is underneath it all, and more. Bio: William A. Richards (Bill) is a psychologist in the Psychiatry Department of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Bayview Medical Center, a consultant/trainer at sites of psychedelic research internationally, a teacher in the Program of Psychedelic Therapy and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and also a clinician in private practice in Baltimore. His graduate degrees include M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, S.T.M. from Andover-Newton Theological School and Ph.D. from Catholic University, as well as studies with Abraham Maslow at Brandeis University and with Hanscarl Leuner at Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, where his involvement with psilocybin research originated in 1963. From 1967 to 1977, he pursued psychotherapy research with LSD, DPT, MDA and psilocybin at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, including protocols designed to investigate the promise of psychedelic substances in the treatment of alcoholism, depression, narcotic addiction and the psychological distress associated with terminal cancer, and also their use in the training of religious and mental-health professionals. From 1977-1981, he was a member of the psychology faculty of Antioch University in Maryland. In 1999 at Johns Hopkins, he and Roland Griffiths launched the rebirth of psilocybin research after a 22-year period of dormancy in the United States. His publications began in 1966 with “Implications of LSD and Experimental Mysticism,” coauthored with Walter Pahnke. His book, Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences was released in English by Columbia University Press in 2015 and has since been translated into four additional languages. https://hopkinspsychedelic.org/richards https://hopkinspsychedelic.org https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/home The Jung Center Houston https://junghouston.org CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

In this episode, John interviews Brian Muraresku, author of New York Times Bestseller, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of The Religion with No Name. On an average day back in 2007, Muraresku’s life changed after reading the Economist’s article reviewing the research underway at Johns Hopkins investigating the clinical use of psilocybin mushrooms. Thus, Brian’s twelve-year study of a controversial theory was born. The theory positions psychedelics at the root of early the Christian Eucharist, and beyond that, at the root of religion as a whole. Through this conversation, Brian and John explore the psychedelic theory of religion, “graveyard beer” - a psychedelic brew used as a sacrament to commune with the dead 10,000 years ago, the mysteries of Eleusis – a Greek religious, esoteric tradition, literalism, the need for all of us to study the classics, healthy skepticism, Christ as a Dionysus figure, the relationship between blood and wine, the kingdom of heaven (not in the afterlife, but present day), the technology and science that is providing insight into our religious traditions, and the powers that seek to erase those histories – spoiler alert: for the Roman Catholic Church this was women and drugs. Referencing The Immortality Key, Jeff Kripal writes, “Buckle up tight, Toto. You were never in Kansas. It’s Oz everywhere and always." BRIAN C. MURARESKU graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with a degree in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. As an alumnus of Georgetown Law and a member of the New York Bar, he has been practicing law internationally for fifteen years. He lives outside Washington D.C. with his wife and two daughters. In 2016, Muraresku became the founding executive director of Doctors for Cannabis Regulation. Their work has been featured on CNN and ESPN, as well as The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle. In arbitration with the NFL in 2018, Muraresku represented the first professional athlete in the United States to seek a therapeutic use exemption for cannabis. The Immortality Key is his debut book. https://www.brianmuraresku.com/author Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com