My Joseph Smith & Entheogens Podcasts Now available

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huckelberry
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Re: My Joseph Smith & Entheogens Podcasts Now available

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Shulem wrote:
Sun Sep 18, 2022 3:07 pm
huckelberry wrote:
Sat Sep 17, 2022 10:04 pm
The psilocybin mushrooms are a much better candidate for controlled spiritual and visionary experience.

And there were plenty of them in Joseph Smith's neck of the woods. All you have to do is pick them and partake. Then you too, can see Jesus! Amazing, isn't it?
Well sort of, there are hundreds of mushrooms one must know which one to pick. If you find the right one and eat some there is no guarantee that you will have a nice religious experience. You might have a truly nerve wracking experience that will trouble you afterwords. Or perhaps just a long strange trip," So many fantastic colors.....is this love or just confusion?"

Any actual evidence that anybody in the region knew about psilocybin and knew how to find it?
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Re: My Joseph Smith & Entheogens Podcasts Now available

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Philo Sofee wrote:
Sat Sep 17, 2022 11:57 pm
huckelberry wrote:
Sat Sep 17, 2022 11:26 pm
I did not mean to be all morbid with my last thought though it illustrates a touch of paranoia I have about mushrooms. I do eat some from the grocery story from time to time.

I remember a fellow , Walters I believe is the name is mentioned as having some esoteric perhaps magical interest and knowledge had some connection to Joseph Smith. I believe Kishkumen has mentioned that and the you tube discussion brought him up as a possible source of knowledge of psilocybin mushroom. It has been a long time since I read Mormonism and the Magic World View.(hope I an mot misremembering the title). There is an impressive amount of contact points that the book brings up. I have heard that information discussed as ephemeral attachments to a basically Christian literal understanding. When I read the book the possibility crossed my mind that Joseph held a priority to some esoteric magic world view where the ideas of god Jesus atonement etc were outside images which might lead a person to a more esoteric spiritual knowledge. If the magic dimensions were the outside attachments then I could not imagine using mushrooms for sacrament. However if the priority is the other way around it would seem congruent and plausible that entheogens were used
Yes, this is all reasonable as I discovered in the article and produced my series on the concept in my Live sessions... The entheogenic sacrament was not unique to Joseph Smith, but has actually been traced back into the Medieval alchemical times on into earlier Christianity with the Last Supper, and then even earlier into the Eleusinian mysteries. And it goes even into earlier times into the ancient Egyptian religions... I mean, what a concept.
Philo, I seem to be less convinced of this than you. I can see that the entheogens have been used people for a long time. On the other hand there are a lot of religious experiences that are not chemical related. I have had both varieties and prefer the non chemical and feel they are pretty easy to distinguish. People know when they are stoned. Your mouth gets tired of grinning.

There were a variety of Christian groups in the first few centuries. It is entirely possible some used entheogens. I know of no indication that the main line group(the one with extensive records) did and there is historical direct link back to the last supper. I know of no indications that visions were part of that supper. Jewish Seder has been going on a long time without drugs beyond wine. Of course what ifs have room looking back in time.
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Shulem
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Re: My Joseph Smith & Entheogens Podcasts Now available

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huckelberry wrote:
Sun Sep 18, 2022 6:38 pm
Any actual evidence that anybody in the region knew about psilocybin and knew how to find it?

The evidence is circumstantial. There is no smoking gun but we have a lot of bullet holes.

The entheogenic origins of Mormonism: A working hypothesis wrote:The overwhelming logistical constraints of supplying
scores or hundreds of Mormons on multiple occasions with
various plant medicines could have been satisfied by an
experienced Thomsonian Botanical physician like Frederick
G. Williams, with his herbarium. As evidence of their close
fraternity, Joseph Smith named one of his children after
Frederick G. Williams. Smith had a strong and previously
unremarked tendency to draw physicians close to him and
place them in positions of close confidence. Smith began his
career as a seer with botanical physician Luman Walters as
his mentor, and later made Frederick Williams one of his top
two or three confidants. In the early 1830s, Smith ordained
him his counselor in the newly organized First Presidency.
In the early 1840s, he made physician Willard Richards an
apostle and his private secretary. Also, around the same
time, he made physician John Cook Bennett a counselor in
the First Presidency and arguably his right-hand man and
closest companion in the early 1840s.
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Re: My Joseph Smith & Entheogens Podcasts Now available

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Shulem wrote:
Sun Sep 18, 2022 7:26 pm
huckelberry wrote:
Sun Sep 18, 2022 6:38 pm
Any actual evidence that anybody in the region knew about psilocybin and knew how to find it?

The evidence is circumstantial. There is no smoking gun but we have a lot of bullet holes.

The entheogenic origins of Mormonism: A working hypothesis wrote:The overwhelming logistical constraints of supplying
scores or hundreds of Mormons on multiple occasions with
various plant medicines could have been satisfied by an
experienced Thomsonian Botanical physician like Frederick
G. Williams, with his herbarium. As evidence of their close
fraternity, Joseph Smith named one of his children after
Frederick G. Williams. Smith had a strong and previously
unremarked tendency to draw physicians close to him and
place them in positions of close confidence. Smith began his
career as a seer with botanical physician Luman Walters as
his mentor, and later made Frederick Williams one of his top
two or three confidants. In the early 1830s, Smith ordained
him his counselor in the newly organized First Presidency.
In the early 1840s, he made physician Willard Richards an
apostle and his private secretary. Also, around the same
time, he made physician John Cook Bennett a counselor in
the First Presidency and arguably his right-hand man and
closest companion in the early 1840s.
Shulem, from your above suggestion I looked up Tomsonian botanical physician. Some interesting information about the spread of interest in herbal medicine. It appears the man left specific records of his herbs. I see no mention of anything close to psilocybin mushrooms. Now this individual sparked interest in other people so it would be a possible speculation that somebody discovered the right mushroom by trial and error and kept quiet about it.
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Re: My Joseph Smith & Entheogens Podcasts Now available

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My curiosity lead me to look up a bit about mushroom eating and hunting and found that interest in this grew in America during the 19th century and became popular at the end of the century. One article forwarded to a list of most dangerous ones.
"Conocybe filaris is an innocent-looking lawn mushroom that is especially common in the Pacific Northwest. Featuring the same mycotoxins as the death cap mushroom, C. filaris is potentially fatal if eaten. The onset of gastrointestinal symptoms often occurs 6-24 hours after the mushrooms were consumed, frequently leading to an initial misdiagnosis of food poisoning"

there was a picture. These look very much like psilocybin mushrooms and grow in similar areas. Eat and maybe see Jesus after being brutally ill for a week.

https://www.britannica.com/list/7-of-th ... -mushrooms
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Re: My Joseph Smith & Entheogens Podcasts Now available

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I have an additional but clumsy addition on this subject. I did continue looking up some information on psilosybin . Google had stuff scattered about largely due to there being a number of kinds of these mushrooms. I found and then lost reference to a studied case of psilocybin mushroom and effects in the last decade of 18th century. In London a book on mushrooms specified information about this pslilcybin mushroom. That does not indicate there was a lot of knowledge bouncing about but it is possible an individual with special interest in herbs and such may well have come into the relevant information in the 2nd decade of the 19th century. That is a possible path to link knowledge, Walters and then Smith. Such a path is not at all common knowledge a fact which could argue both for and against the theory. There is a lot of room for the knowledge not to reach Walters and Smith. On the other hand if it did reach Joseph Smith the people he could have influenced with the mushroom would likely have no knowledge, recognition or expectation of psilocybin effects.

clumsy because I lost track of which wikapedia article had the name of the book published in London with the psilocybin mushroom identification information in it.
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Re: My Joseph Smith & Entheogens Podcasts Now available

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I listened to the first two installments today on my drive to work (I have a really long commute). What a treasure Philo Sofee is! That’s my first thought. Among those I have communicated with on the topic of Mormonism, he is one of the closest to my own viewpoint and sensibilities. His ability to separate the Joseph Smith of the past from the LDS Church of today is a rare attainment. I have enjoyed the series thus far. I really look forward to completing the whole of it!
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: My Joseph Smith & Entheogens Podcasts Now available

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huckelberry wrote:
Sun Sep 18, 2022 6:52 pm
Philo, I seem to be less convinced of this than you. I can see that the entheogens have been used people for a long time. On the other hand there are a lot of religious experiences that are not chemical related. I have had both varieties and prefer the non chemical and feel they are pretty easy to distinguish. People know when they are stoned. Your mouth gets tired of grinning.
Funny thread.

Timothy Leary did start a religion of sorts though. Hmm…

Didn’t amount to much.

Regards,
MG
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Re: My Joseph Smith & Entheogens Podcasts Now available

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huckelberry wrote:
Tue Sep 20, 2022 10:00 pm
On the other hand if it did reach Joseph Smith the people he could have influenced with the mushroom would likely have no knowledge, recognition or expectation of psilocybin effects.

Exactly. They had no idea they were under the influence of a psychedelic drug and attributed their amazing hallucinations to spriitual outpourings from God to confirm the restoration of God and angels through Joseph Smith. How else do you think the 12 apostles were up all night in the Kirtland temple until 5AM? They were drinking lots of wine and yet they were up all night by candlelight. This is really strong evidence that they were on acid because you can't sleep on acid. You're pretty much up all night tripping out and waiting to come down. But those guys were also drinking wine which makes you think they would have fallen asleep rather than stay up till the crack of dawn. Man, I'm telling you, they were tripping on acid. The Backyard Professor has nailed it! I hope someone makes a generous financial contribution to his cause. And I can't wait for him to nail Delmarva when those lights come on and finally light up his understanding of Book of Mormon geography. Yeah baby, Delmarva takes the cake.

Or, if you want to think the Church is really true and God and angels were coming down and appearing -- more power to you. But I think they were tripping on acid. Absolutely. Yeah baby! :lol:
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Re: My Joseph Smith & Entheogens Podcasts Now available

Post by MG 2.0 »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Tue Sep 20, 2022 10:38 pm
huckelberry wrote:
Sun Sep 18, 2022 6:52 pm
Philo, I seem to be less convinced of this than you. I can see that the entheogens have been used people for a long time. On the other hand there are a lot of religious experiences that are not chemical related. I have had both varieties and prefer the non chemical and feel they are pretty easy to distinguish. People know when they are stoned. Your mouth gets tired of grinning.
Funny thread.

Timothy Leary did start a religion of sorts though. Hmm…

Didn’t amount to much.

Regards,
MG
Joseph’s did though. Yeah, Shulem, at the end of the day, as you say, it does come down to angels, golden plates, and the like.

Or hallucinogenics. Does the input equal the output in this instance (if it is hallucinogens). Or does output (scriptures, church, etc.) beg the question of what WAS the input?

Drugs don’t seem to do justice to the output.

In Leary’s case, input didn’t result in any surprising output.

I think this is another example of trying to spin gold from straw.

But, hey man, whatever turns you on.

Regards,
MG
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