This book changed my entire view of life, history, identity and everything around me. It felt like a real-life Davinchi Code and was eye-opening beyond imagination.

It took me 6 months to get myself to write the review and organize my thoughts. Though the “honey-moon” phase of needing to tell everyone about how great this book is is gone, it doesn’t detract from the fact that it is life-changing and will contribute to my “personal bible” as someone who identifies as spiritual but agnostic. Most of the notes below were written while I was reading the book, and while it’s far from complete, I wanted to jot a few things down.

It is unlikely I will re-read or re-listen to it in the near future (over the next 5 - 10 years), but I do plan to continue recommending it to everyone in the meantime.

— General —

I listened to the audible at 0.75x and re-listened to several chapters while making my way through, taking notes, and sharing my excitement about things I learnt with my friends and family.

The book helped me understand my lifelong relationship with Greek mythology, and clarify my ongoing journey with meditation and micro-dosing of psilocybin.

The book was very dense and full of factual content, so my review is just a best-effort recollection of things I somewhat remember that left an impact on my thoughts.

— Growing up Jewish —

Though I was born & raised Jewish, I was never drawn to formal religious practice. I follow the scientific method both in my personal and professional life, and enjoy cultural events revolving around religion, but I had always considered myself more of an atheist.

I’ve always been skeptical of everything related to religion and only the idea of spending time with family ever drew me in. The religion of illusion is where I find myself attracted to.

— Drawn in by Greek Mythology —

Re the body - I’ve always been drawn to greek museums and exhibitions. In particular, the sculptures of greek bodies, man or woman have always lured me in. This heavily relates to this greek world.

Dionysus - the goddess of firtility, the one who kept the elixir around, the “first witch” is the source of all beauty in the world. I now understand why.

Plato - he split the world into those who went to Eleusis and those who did not. I now understand why.

Polymaths - I’ve always wanted to spend more time with Physicists like Feynman, Einstein, Newton, Gallileo, and others. But, after reading this book, what would I give to also spend some time with Aristotle, Pluto, Pythegreon and others.

— Reflecting on the role of Women —

Women in modern religion - I never understood why women were second class citizens in Christina and Judaism. The pope is a man, women sit on the second floor in synagogues, and they just don’t seem to be as prominent as in ancient Greece…

Soma - Women were the ones responsible for maintaining and passing down the recipe for the special elixir, Soma. Since this elixir broadened the mind, they started being treated as witches so organized religion could control the world.

Witch cult - reading into this, it all started with potions that lead to hallucinations. The only people who are scared of it are those that wanted to maintain control of society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-cult_hypothesis

— Aldous Huxley —

Aldous Huxley was WAY ahead of everyone. Elixirs, soma, orgies. It wasn’t a future utopia he was writing, it was a description of the past that we lost. George Orwell was describing communism and dystopia in the present. Huxley was describing euphoria in the past.

As a 17 year old reading Brave New World, I did not appreciate the importance of drugs and religion, but now realize he sees psychedelics as a form of organized religion.

In the book, Soma is Elysium: a simultaneous intoxicant and hallucinogenic.

— The Pegan Continuity Hypothesis —

Jesus is a modern version of Dionysusis. Dionysus is the wine of god, Jesus’ blood is seen as wine. This is just the first analogue, but one can only seen that it leads to a slippery slope.

— Beer —

What came first, bread or beer? Beer.

Those who drink together, stick together? It’s why people do drugs in groups.

In ancient Greece, there was something called Kykeon Potion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kykeon), which was a combination of water, barley and other ingredients. To quote from wikipedia:

"""

It is widely believed that kykeon usually refers to a psychoactive compounded brew, as in the case of the Eleusinian Mysteries.[2] A kykeon was used at the climax of the Eleusinian Mysteries to break a sacred fast, but it is also mentioned as a favourite drink of Greek peasants.

"""

Can you imagine drinking alcohol (potentially with some infused shrooms) after a fast?

— The Dark Ages—

Christianity was illegal for the first 300 years or so, but the slowly gained control of most of the modern world, removing psychedelics, slowing technological innovation and whether the two are correlated is a huge discussion that the book only touches up on. Future Olshansky should do more research before coming to any conclusions.

— The Author—

One of the things that really took me by surprise is the fact that the author of the book never used psychedelics himself. I understand and appreciate the need to remain a neutral third party given the criticism he would face if he wasn’t. However, imagine the sheer temptation and interest of just trying to understand what the big deal is about.

Reading about the hurdles the author had to jump over to get into the Vatican and get access to all the information he collected was fascinating. It felt like a crime or mystery novel and is just another reason to read the book.

— Gordano Bruno —

If you’ve watched Encanto, you know that we don’t talk about Bruno. ;)

On a serious note, Bruno was very similar to Galileo in many ways. He was an Italian philosopher, cosmologist, poet and so much more. He predicated that the universe is infinite, that the Earth is not the center and that stars were distant suns. He was executed for his ideas on the world that were not in favor of religion.

A lesser known fact is that he was very interested in the ancient Greek Soma / Elixir from the Eleusinian Mysteries, which was not the core reason, but definitely a contributor to his quick execution.

He was a brilliant and curious mind, way ahead of other cosmologists. Again, this is why we don’t talk about Bruno.

— Quotes —

  • If you die before you die, you wont die when you die

  • He only way to experience god is to die before you die

  • God must be experienced, not learnt

  • Every moment is an eternity of its own

  • Living and dead coexist with the help of wine

— Latin —

I learnt about a lot of cool words that original from Greek:

  • Gnosis - knowledge of spiritual mysteries

  • Insight (intuitive process of) knowing oneself

  • Pharmacology - speaks for itself

- Two words for knowing:

- Scientific: he who knows math

- Reflection: he who observes or ha experience

  • Naples - new city in green

— Fun Facts —

  • Sandcript language is the oldest one we have

- To achieve a deep level consciousness: go to a dark cave after a multi-day fast

— Psilocybin Food For Thought—

  • Free from addiction and has no withdrawal symptoms?

  • Is that what the forbidden fruit was really all about?

  • Is it the “real god pill”?