Ancient mystery religions and the possible psychedelic roots of Christianity

Back to the parables in Matthew 25.
Jesus said when The Son of Man returns in his glory he will sit on his throne and will separate the gathered nations as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. The sheep will go to the right - the favored side - and the goats to the left, the side of judgment.
34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
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This particular parable is pertinent in today's world as it applies to the uncharitable attitudes and actions of selfish U.S. citizens who are working to keep out desperate, destitute people seeking to enter the United States. There are many goats masquerading as sheep who are in for a sober reckoning, imo.

Now, remembering these are parables, stories told for a purpose, and not always factual in circumstance, "everlasting punishment" needs to be addressed per your question. I'm going to let Matt Slick, founder and director of Christian Apologetics Research Ministry and a 5 point Calvinist, answer the question asked of me.
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Word study on kolasis, punish

"The Greek word κόλασις, kolasis occurs two times in the New Testament (Matthew 25:46 attributed to Jesus and again in I John 4:18. Strong's # G2851) It has a generic meaning of punishment or “to punish.” However, the exact nature of that punishment whether it be nonexistence or continued existence is not explicitly stated in the two verses in which it appears. Of course, in the context of annihilationism, Matthew 25:46 is one of the key verses under dispute. Is the eternal punishment nonexistence or is it conscious punishment? That is the question. We have to look elsewhere to support or refute annihilationism. The question is what is the nature of that punishment and how does God use the term in reference to people.

Dictionaries and Lexicons consulted

• “κόλασις kólasis; gen. koláseōs, fem. noun from kolázō (2849), to punish. Punishment (Matt. 25:46), torment (1 John 4:18), distinguished from timōría (5098), punishment, which in Class. Gr. has the predominating thought of the vindictive character of the punishment which satisfies the inflicter’s sense of outraged justice in defending his own honor or that of the violated law. Kólasis, on the other hand, conveys the notion of punishment for the correction and bettering of the offender. It does not always, however, have this strict meaning in the NT. In Matt. 25:46, kólasis aiṓnios (166), eternal, does not refer to temporary corrective punishment and discipline, but has rather the meaning of timōría, punishment because of the violation of the eternal law of God.”
  • Zodhiates, Spiros. The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament. Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000
• “κολάζω; κόλασις, εως f: to punish, with the implication of resulting severe suffering—‘to punish, punishment.’
  κολάζω: ἀδίκους δὲ εἰς ἡμέραν κρίσεως κολαζομένους τηρεῖν ‘to keep the wicked under punishment until the day of judgment comes’ or ‘… under guard, awaiting punishment on the day of judgment’ 2 Pe 2:9.”
  
  • Louw, Johannes P., and Eugene Albert Nida. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains. New York: United Bible Societies, 1996.
• “κόλασις [kolasis /kol·as·is/] n f. From 2849; TDNT 3:816; TDNTA 451; GK 3136; Two occurrences; AV translates as “punishment” once, and “torment” once. 1 correction, punishment, penalty. Additional Information: For synonyms see entry 5098, timoria.See entry 5859 for comparison of synonyms.”
  • Strong, James. Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship, 1995."
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Slick's research into the Greek word indicates it does not contradict the corrective, cleansing elements attributed to Gehenna spoken by Jesus earlier in Matthew's gospel. And that's good enough for me. According to verse 46 attaining "eternal life" is not contingent on "Correct" belief about doctrines, it is about living a charitable, unselfish life.

Also want to add, gracious and generous hospitality, charity towards strangers is a recurrent theme from Abraham's gracious welcome of the 'strangers' who stopped and spoke with him before they went to Sodom and were so badly received by the denizens of that city. Ezekiel 16:49 underscores the reason for the cities' destruction.
"'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy."

In the 10th chapter of Matthew Jesus instructed his disciples before sending them out to preach and minister to the people .
11 “Now whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and stay there till you go out. 12 And when you go into a household, greet it. 13 If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. 15 Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!

 

^ I’m surprised you want to leave Jesus the Destroyer in your personal Bible. He spoke of judgement more often than love, hell more than anyone and vowed to oversee violence unprecedented in the scriptures.

 

Lacuna,

My interpretation of Matthew 25 is that it is not a parable but Jesus stating what he believed to be true. There is another passage (I won't try to look it up but you'll know the one I mean) where Jesus talks about the end of the world, he speaks of the signs of the end, and says that "this generation will not pass away before all of these things take place." That is not a parable, it is a prediction. And I believe that in both cases, a final judgment followed by either heaven or hell, and the end of the world within his own generation's lifetime, Jesus was simply mistaken.

 

I take it that Jesus was not mistaken. Clue: what cataclysmic event occurred in the lifetime of many of his hearers, I.e., “this generation” ?

*Jeopardy music*

Hint: as regards the return of the Christ, does nature determine timing or does timing determine nature ?

 

The separating of the sheep from the goats is listed as one of Jesus's parables in numerous sources. I even asked the question of google and this is what appeared on my screen.

is the story of separating sheep from goats a parable - Google Search

Then clicked the link to an article on the Gospel Coalition site. It's pertinent to the point I made in my previous post. And I also like the music of the late Keith Green.
The Real Difference Between Sheep and Goats

"I love the music of Keith Green. I love the intense, heavy-handed piano. I love the wordy lyrics. I love that it’s so early-1980s. I love that it’s Jesus People-ish. I love its passion.

My dad originally introduced me to Green—often during our drives home from school. In my opinion, there is no better example of a Green song than “The Sheep and the Goats.”

In this song, Green sings through Jesus’s parable in Matthew 25:31–46. In the passage, Jesus describes the final judgment of the world as a shepherd separating the righteous sheep from the unrighteous goats. The way the shepherd distinguishes between the two groups is by examining the sacrificial love they have shown toward the “least of these, my brothers” (Matt. 25:40, 45)."

 

Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13 and Luke 21 contain what is known as the Oliver Prophecy. I regard Revelation as John’s Oliver Prophecy and his expansion on it.

Herein lies Jesus’ promise to come back and smite the people we don’t like.

 

Well, it can be called a parable, or it can be called figurative language. In any case he's talking about a final judgment. That's the subject of the discourse. He didn't make up the subject.

 

It does pertain to the final judgement which, I gather, took place in the First Century AD.

 

Its a metaphor my friend.

 

The wind is a metaphor for feeling the unseen. I am not speaking about the literal wind.

 

Calling the bluff of 21st Century Bible skeptics: you’re more credulous than were the Jews of Jesus’ time. They were the real skeptics.

 

yes I’m fully aware and I’m talking about the exact same thing just in a different form. I have had undeniably supernatural experiences that shook me to my core. There is, IMO, no doubt in my mind that there is some sort of higher power. Something so far beyond our comprehension it’s like we are like dogs trying to understand algebra. I just stop short trying to define it like you do. Nor do I claim to understand its (whatever IT is) intentions/motivations. I accept that it’s simply beyond human capacity to grasp and leave it there.

 

What if this higher power made himself known and certain of his creatures hid behind an artifice of ineffability ?

 

I think Gregory David Roberts came the closest to nailing “god” as anyone, in my estimation. In his novel Shantaram. The “tendency towards complexity.”

Explained (somewhat poorly) in this link. I can’t recommend the book enough if you haven’t read it.

Shantaram - Theory of Ultimate Complexity — Steemit.

 

Until this thread I had never known or heard theories or speculation psychedelics were used by early Christians. It's an intriguing idea to consider, and the idea of entheogens enhancing spiritual experiences has been studied in more recent times. In 1962 an experiment was conducted on Good Friday of that year in a basement room under Marsh Chapel on the campus of Boston University.

Twenty divinity school students from the Andover Newton Theological School volunteered to participate. Half of them were given psilocybin in pill form and the other half ingested a placebo containing a large dose of niacin, known to produce pronounced physiological changes within a half hour after being ingested. A sermon being given in the chapel upstairs was piped into the room where the experiment was being conducted. No one knew who had received the psilocybin or the niacin placebo until the effects of the niacin wore off within an hour. The effects of the entheogen lasted several hours.

The experiment was conducted to determine if an entheogen (psilocybin) could help in facilitating a genuine religious experience. Nine of the ten students who ingested the psilocybin reported religious or mystical experiences while only one of ten in the placebo group reported the same.

The experiment was conducted by Walter Pahnke, a graduate of Harvard medical school and psychiatric resident. Pahnke also held a Master's of Divinity from Harvard's Divinity School. He was a psychedelic researcher and working on his Ph.D in religion and society at Harvard when he arranged and conducted the experiment under the supervision of his advisors - Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass). Religious scholar and author Huston Smith, then a philosophy professor at M.I.T. also participated in the study.

Forbes magazine published an article a few years back with a recollection from one of the participants. One bit of information in the Forbes' article was incorrect and never corrected, Boston University's Marsh Chapel is not on Harvard's campus.

Bicycle Day And the 1962 Harvard Experiment That Showed Psilocybin Can Create Lasting, Positive Spiritual Change

"The 1962 experiment now has two nicknames: The Good Friday Experiment and the Marsh Chapel Experiment. Mike Young, now a retired Unitarian minister living in Honolulu, was one of the study participants, and he is fairly well convinced that participation in the study helped transform his life.

"Young: It was maybe 40 minutes after taking the pill that I began to feel stoned. The first clue was that the lights began to have halos of different colors around them. I experienced myself slide into what came to be like the middle of the ocean. Currents of different colors were flowing through me, as though I were at the center of a giant mandala. I believed that I was required to swim out of one of those to a whole different life experience but I couldn't choose which color current to swim out of. So I died. I was so anxious. Dying felt like hell. It felt like my guts were being ripped. While I was at the peak of my dying I heard the piped-in Howard Thurman sermon. He was reciting lines written by the poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay.

'I know that I must die, and this I will do for death: / I will die. But no more. I am not in his employ.'

"'Right then and there, I quit dying. From there on out the psilocybin 'trip' was a relatively pleasant visual experience that I thoroughly enjoyed.'"

Young further reported it was a year later when he recognized he had probably had what Pahnke qualified as a 'religious' experiment, but did not recognize it as such at the time. It said the experience did change the course of his life.

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Last Christmas I was given an actively growing / fruiting psilocybin mycelium. Before it unfortunately became contaminated and stopped fruiting it produced enough mushrooms for >80 grams of dried psilocybin. I have not encapsulated any of it nor yet ingested any of it. I've been waiting for the right time. Perhaps it is now.

 

Jesus is not a "Destroyer". We are the author of our own destructive acts.

 

Oh you should absolutely eat a cap and then go enjoy your favorite place in nature. It will blow your mind. What are you waiting for?

 

Better weather

 

Set & setting are very important. The most important advice I can give you is don’t be afraid of it. It’s only showing you the rest of your mind. If you surrender to the flow you will find complete bliss.

 

The time is coming. Steady as she goes. I trust I'll be ready. Thanks