The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity Within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East

If our author was from modern day Berkeley, California 😎, he would have said :“Dudes, back in the Sumer days of Mess-O-Ptamia, folks were heavily trippin on shrooms ..And the cult of Essenes, took a lot of secret tips from the Sumerian mushroom dealers..And guess what guys, right around early 30 BC to 100 AD, there were a lot of rains in Galilee and Holy Land, mushrooms were growing like rabbits- and holy smokes people were tripping like crazy, the Juicers (as the Christians were called in old Aramaic) were shipping the good shrooms everywhere, people were dropping out, lying flat ..Now the CIA from Rome and the local Jewish FBI were having none of this .. so they came down heavy on the Juicers- who took their cartel underground, made detailed manuals.. and yeah they even man-worshipped their Main product (A-Man-Itah) - a man eater indeed!Finally they wrote a big fictional Bible, that kept their lore alive, ensured that their cult and main product line survived through time..”Lol 😂..Well, on a more somber note, the book’s author has some brilliant but gut wrenching insights in places.. the early human society was nuts.. they had to make sense of the world around them with conjecture and straw-man theories..But not sure the supposed existence of a trippy cult, disproves the existence of messiah (Christ or whoever), reason? :Messiahs, Avatars are common in every religion; god-men are actively created, supported by Priests, Kings, political actors (and burned at stake when inconvenient) to keep the masses ignorant- go to villages in ‘modern’ South Asia and you will find sleight of hand artists posing as religious healers, but always supported by local honchos just so the villagers stay under a cloud of illiteracy, launder money, supply narcs, other vice trade..But our Author is an expert in linguistics, especially Cuneiform, that’s amazing!- so he might be seeing things at a different level.. maybe it’s just not articulated coherently ?5 stars just because he’s got gut wrenching live details that paint a true picture of day to day pre-modern era: hope it will help people stop romanticizing the misery inflicted by Roman Empire & pretty much most pre-modern civilizations..

Interesting perspectives on psilocybin and Christianity. While I don't necessarily agree with the majority of what is written, the author definitely drew my attention to some key symbolism in the OT.

Good product. Is exactly as depicted.

Arrived quickly and in good condition. I am excited to read this.

My brother bought this exact product and the quality is very nice for it being a soft cover. The description and the quality was enough for me to buy it the night of and I can't wait for it to come in.

Allegro's book was one of the original, how should I say, books of the entheogenic Pentateuch. You simply cannot become learned in this matter without reading this book. That being said, BE WARNED. To say Allegro is "phallocentric" would be a vast understatement, for hardly a page gets turned without the mention of a penis. When we say that someone's work is "remarkable", we don't necessarily mean it is *worthy of remark. It may simply be titillating and scandalous. Nonetheless, if only 60% of Allegro's suppositions are correct, then this book is an amazing window into the ancient world of the mushroom sacrament. Yes, Mr. Allegro, psilocybin (especially cubensis) mushrooms can resemble a penis. Yes, there are undoubtedly thousands of references in antiquity to the mushroom as a penis. But Allegro becomes so fixated on the issue he may as well have called his book "The Sacred Mushroom and the Penis". What we wanted from him was a window into the Dead Sea Scrolls. After all, he was giving interviews essentially saying 'yes, I was on the team deciphering these 972 texts and here are the precise verses which I think refer to the use of drugs among the ancient Jews, the more modern Christians, and the Essenes who seem to have acted as a bridge between them'. But he didn't to that. The title alone is false advertising, but so what?Allegro is into etymology and philology and Derrida himself would be amazed at the deconstructions he posits. Allegro is also what I call an "armchair Sumerologist" much like Zechariah Sitchin was: a self-taught expert on the Sumerian lexicon. Wasson berates him for his lack of credentials on the subject, but in the mid 50's to the mid 60's, when Allegro was composing this book, where could one obtain such credentials? As Sitchin himself once said: when he was writing "The 12th Planet" where may have been all of 20 people in the world that even knew how to read Sumerian, so Wasson can just go bite a big phallic-mushroom (which I'm sure he did many times) and cut Allegro some slack. Yes, some of his "word-brick" conjecture is spurious and some is partially (and partically) credible, but other examples he gives are like Babe Ruth knocking a home-run out of the park.None of this changes the fact that this book is a MUST-READ. You need it on your shelf. Forever. End of story. So go buy it already!

Nobody who reads this book will ever be the same again. Its most vehement critics cannot escape its impact. That is, if they have understood it. It does require a certain preparation and education to be able to follow what it says. Those who scream,”absurd, ridiculous, blasphemous, etc.” are those whom it will follow the rest of their lives like the Hounds of Hell. It is simply that kind of masterpiece. If you read only one book during the rest of your life, it should be this one.

This book was so hard to get through. It took weeks because I didn’t want to read it.The book pretty much says that the world revolves around a penis. It says that the amanita muscaria was the main mushroom used and that everything was about semen abs penis.I think this author just had an interest in penis.It’s basically his interpretations of Bible verses. Some are too confusing.He makes associations with everything in the Bible. Everything.And the funny thing is that it took till the END of the book for him to admit he skipped the peer review process. He was “afraid” of the big guys in the game who might look down on him.I’m keeping the book as a reference. Just in case I ever need to cite it for opposing views if I ever write a book

Extremely informative for knowing the truth regarding the etymological basis of biblical words; irrelevant to agree with the author's conclusions as is packed with enough research-based, peer reviewed truths. Need to take in every sentence as each builds on previous one. Learn something new in every sentence. Perfect for the open-minded and believers alike. Avoid if you're a believer whose faith is easily shaken by information too fact-based for church. It's complimented my faith rather than led me to conclude that Jesus was a mushroom rather than a real person and the Messiah.

Excellent book best book I've read cant put it downGreat read highly recommended

I’m not gonna lie book is good but it does say penis quite a lot

Makes you think about the genesis of religion as a concept but it feels like an idea one had whilst tripping.It might be true, but too much extrapolation to be taken seriously.Though it does make you think.

We know that areas of brain function are still to be researched. Some are normaly inaccessible except under drug induced or naturally occurring psychotic states etc. This area has been often and vividly activated under such conditions. Surely therefore this book must be a tool to assist current research that will help us make the connection. Are we wired for god....was Jesus a mushroom..... This book is therefore a "must" to help discover why we have been given this "inaccessible" area of the brain. Rosie Harper.