Joe Rogan Experience #1543 - Brian Muraresku & Graham Hancock

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. BMBrian C. Muraresku0:02

      (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. GHGraham Hancock0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Joining us by Skype is the great and powerful Graham Hancock. My friend, how are you, sir?

   4. GHGraham Hancock0:19

      Hi, Joe. It's really good to be back with you. I wish I could be there in person. Uh, it feels very strange to be on this, uh, this technology, but these are the times we live in.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:29

      Yeah. Well, I'm just happy we could talk at all in this day and age.

   6. BMBrian C. Muraresku0:33

      Me too.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:33

      Uh, l- it's the little things, like little victories.

   8. BMBrian C. Muraresku0:35

      Yes.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:35

      And, uh, Brian, I'm gonna try it, I'm gonna try it, Muraresku.

   10. BMBrian C. Muraresku0:40

       You nailed it, bro. (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:41

       Ta! Thank you. And, uh, your b- this is the first time we've ever done one of these as well in the studio where one per- maybe ever visual. We've never done ... Well, we did one with you guys. Remember we did Randall Carlson and you.

   12. GHGraham Hancock0:55

       Yeah, and Mark, Mark Defant came in by telephone, I think.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       Yes.

   14. GHGraham Hancock0:58

       Yes.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       Whi- which was very strange. It was like a sound coming from nowhere.

   16. GHGraham Hancock1:01

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01

       At least I could see you. But we've never done one of these like this. But this book, tell me ... This is, uh, The Immortality Key: The Secret of Hi- The Secret History of Religion ... Of the Religion with No Name. I'll, I'll say that again. The Secret History of the Religion With No Name. Um, now this is ob- obviously when I found out the subject matter, Graham, this is right up your alley. And, uh-

   18. GHGraham Hancock1:23

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:24

       ... it made total complete sense why you and Brian worked together on this. So, uh, who wants to start and explain? Why don't ... Graham, why don't we have you start since you're, you know-

   20. GHGraham Hancock1:34

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:34

       ... you're over there in the UK.

   22. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:35

       (laughs)

   23. GHGraham Hancock1:36

       Yeah, absolutely. Well, I, I mean, for me, I, I ... In fact, Joe, I think you and I originally got in touch because of my interest in psychedelics in human culture, uh, and a book that I published in 2006 called Supernatural.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:50

       Yes.

   25. GHGraham Hancock1:51

       Which, which looks at the huge role that psychedelics have played in cultures and in religions, uh, all around the world. Uh, and I touched in that book, uh, on the role of psychedelics in the origins of Christianity, uh, which of course is a dynamite subject. Uh, and what Brian has done in The Immortality Key has been to present hard and fast evidence that the first Christians were using psychedelics and that their religious experiences were mediated by psychedelic experiences.

   26. JRJoe Rogan2:24

       And Brian, how did you get involved in this?

   27. BMBrian C. Muraresku2:26

       It's a long story. (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan2:27

       You look like a stoner, by the way.

   29. BMBrian C. Muraresku2:28

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan2:28

       I'll just tell you right now, you look like a guy who's done a few mushrooms in his day.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      he di- takes deep dives into these subjects, and his deep dive into psychedelics was incredibly illuminating. And so for him-

   2. GHGraham Hancock15:09

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:09

      I- I really enjoyed talking to him about it, and I really enjoyed his book as well. His- his perceptions of it were really unique, because you're talking about a guy who lived his whole life without them, you know, and then-

   4. GHGraham Hancock15:20

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:20

      ... really dove headfirst for his book.

   6. GHGraham Hancock15:23

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:23

      And convinced him-

   8. GHGraham Hancock15:24

      It's kind of what happened- kind of what happened to me when I- when I wrote Supernatural. I had- I had-

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:28

      Mm-hmm.

   10. GHGraham Hancock15:28

       Apart from one experience with LSD in 1974, I hadn't used any psychedelics until I began to research, uh, Supernatural back in the early 2000s. And because I'm a kind of boots-on-the-ground researcher, I felt it was essential that I have these experiences. What I couldn't guess was the way that the experiences would utterly change and transform my life. And I- I can understand from a level of personal experience why psychedelics do lie at the root, I think, of all the world's religions. Uh, and those religions are now busily at work trying to deny that connection.

   11. JRJoe Rogan16:03

       Well, th- they're not just trying to do it. Uh, there's many people in science that are trying to deny these connections too, and it's- it's so unfortunate that the people that are trying to deny these connections or the significance of these experiences haven't had them.

   12. GHGraham Hancock16:17

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:17

       I- I don't think anybody who has a dimethyltryptamine experience can just dismiss it as being no-

   14. GHGraham Hancock16:22

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:22

       ... no big deal. It's t- it's too crazy. The fa- and I- we- I-

   16. GHGraham Hancock16:26

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:27

       You need to do it, sir.

   18. GHGraham Hancock16:29

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:29

       This guy- I mean, just the fact that it's- it's one of those things where everyone who does it comes out of it saying, "I can't believe that's real."

   20. GHGraham Hancock16:38

       Yeah, yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:39

       "I can't- I can't believe you can just get there that quickly, that three puffs and all of a sudden you're in Narnia. I just- I- I can't-"

   22. GHGraham Hancock16:46

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:46

       "...and world not way more intense than Narnia." What- it's just-

   24. GHGraham Hancock16:49

       You're in Narnia, and you're in a place where entities are actually communicating with you-

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:54

       Yeah.

   26. GHGraham Hancock16:54

       ... and speaking to you and teaching to you. I mean-

   27. JRJoe Rogan16:56

       Yeah.

   28. GHGraham Hancock16:56

       ... this is another aspect of psychedelics, is the moral aspect of psychedelics. Critics and enemies of psychedelics want to associate them with some kind of immorality, but actually, anybody who's worked extensively with psychedelics will know that they contain moral teachings. Whether it's the mushrooms or whether it's LSD, they cause us to examine our own behavior, our own impact upon others, to question our unkindness to others, and to give us at least, uh, the push to- to begin to be better people and more nurturing and more caring people for others. So this strong moral element in psychedelics, again, is totally ignored, uh, by- by- by the critics who just want to demonize these substances, for- for reasons that I think are rather sinister, actually.

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:39

       Well, I- I think our current culture laps a ma- lacks a map of the territory, and y- y- if we had, like, uh, some sort of legitimate psychedelic counseling where we could go somewhere and experts, both in pharmacology and in medical science, can talk people through these experiences and help them achieve them and- and get people to realize that, you know, much like the ancients, these experiences are not- it's not wise to use them recreationally. I mean, you can-

   30. GHGraham Hancock18:09

       No.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   I've- I've heard rumors…

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      copies of it.

   2. BMBrian C. Muraresku30:01

      I've- I've heard rumors to that effect, yes.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:03

      Yeah. And then he... So he comes out with a second book, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth. What- What- What did... Knowing as much as you know about language, like what-

   4. BMBrian C. Muraresku30:13

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:13

      What did you... Did you feel like he made leaps? Did you feel like he made these connections that maybe were based on speculation?

   6. BMBrian C. Muraresku30:21

      It's, so he writes, it, it's pure philology, right? So it's, it's word games and things that only linguists ... I mean, I, I think it's incredible that, that people who aren't linguists can actually read that. It's really, really difficult to read Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. But it, the, the basic premise is that the New Testament, written in Greek, has this Semitic substratum. So underneath the Greek, uh, the, the, the auth- the gospel writers and, and, and Paul are actually referring to different terms in Hebrew or Aramaic, and that these terms have in, in turn come from the Sumerian, which any linguist would say is a, a language isolate, that there is no real relationship between Sumerian and the Indo-European languages like Greek and the Semitic. So the, the premise of the argument is something that most linguists don't accept; however, and, and Carl Ruck has written the afterword to, uh, one of the editions you probably have of Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, and he gets into some complex theories about psycholinguistics and this interesting idea that just because they, they aren't related, there are certain words, certain names, certain vocabulary, like plant definitions, which wo- which would carry across the different languages. And I find that somewhat interesting, but when you, when you dig into the, the words that Allegro was recreating, he's, he places an asterisk, actually, n- next to, to, to these words because they can't be corroborated by the ancient texts. So some of these Sumerian words, he, he straight up hypothesizes as existing, uh, but they're, they're not, they can't really be found in the existing tablets, so it's- it's hard to correlate some of those meanings he, he draws down from the Sumerian.

   7. JRJoe Rogan31:52

      Mm-hmm.

   8. BMBrian C. Muraresku31:52

      But that said, he makes very interesting claims. For example, like in 1 Corinthians, uh, 22, there's this interesting line where he says about that we, we preach Christ crucified is, um, is a skandalon for the Jews and a folly for the Greeks. And skandalon in Greek means like, um, a bolt or a snare, like a trap. And Allegro ties it to, like, a, a, a tikla, uh, in, in Aramaic, which is, like, the, what, what he calls the, the bolt mushroom. And in Sumerian, ukushtigilla. And so he's saying that Paul's actually telling the Jews that, you know, the, the Christ crucified is a mushroom instead of a skandalon. It's like a, like a code word, like the skandalon is a mushroom, and then for the Greeks, he says it's a folly, which is moira in, in Greek, which actually means mandrake, which is another psychedelic plant. So there's all this, this different, you know, word play going on.

   9. JRJoe Rogan32:42

      Mm-hmm.

   10. BMBrian C. Muraresku32:42

       But it's really hard to tease out any physical, forensic evidence for this stuff, which was what I went after.

   11. JRJoe Rogan32:47

       Was, was, was Allegro's, uh, position, if I recall correctly, that the sacred mushroom was, uh, Amanita muscaria?

   12. BMBrian C. Muraresku32:56

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan32:56

       Yeah, that was even the cover of his book-

   14. BMBrian C. Muraresku32:58

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan32:58

       It was a photo of Amanita muscaria.

   16. BMBrian C. Muraresku33:00

       The c- and that, and that's where I have a ... I, I think, uh, j- Allegro did amazing work, but that's, that's one area where I, where I have a problem with, with Amanita muscaria as the, as the psychedelic of choice in, in early Christianity because in sh- in shamanic, uh, cultures where Amanita muscaria is used, it's recognized that the potion, that the mushroom is much more effective after it's been passed through a human body or indeed through the body of a reindeer, uh, and emerged in urine. And so, so the ... Those, those, uh, sh- shamanistic cultures of Siberia use Amanita muscaria by drinking it in the urine of a shaman who has previously consumed the mushroom. And I don't see a lot of evidence for that in early Christianity, and it's why I like, uh, the work that Brian has done, uh, looking at the really hard evidence for psychedelics, uh, in early Christianity, which are not, which are not, in this case, Amanita muscaria, if I'm correct, Brian.

   17. JRJoe Rogan33:59

       Isn't the speculation about Amanita muscaria that it's seasonable? Uh, it's, it's, it's seasonal. It's also genetically variable. Like, there's, there's, there's different species of it, like ... Much like different fruits taste differently, there's different versions of the Amanita muscaria that have more psychedelic chem- compounds in them and that there's all sorts of ways of preparing them that we've completely lost. Isn't it ... Am, am I getting this wrong? 'Cause I've only had-

   18. BMBrian C. Muraresku34:24

       Well, the-

   19. JRJoe Rogan34:24

       ... one Amanita muscaria experience, and it wasn't very convincing.

   20. BMBrian C. Muraresku34:27

       Hmm. Yeah, and this is, this is often, often the case, but, but I, I, I'm told, I have not had the experience myself, but I'm told that if you can bear the idea of drinking the shaman's urine after he or she has consumed the Amanita muscaria, you will have a really powerful journey.

   21. JRJoe Rogan34:43

       Yeah, but you don't want a shaman just laughing hysterically after you drink his urine.

   22. BMBrian C. Muraresku34:47

       (laughs) Yes, absolutely. (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan34:48

       Like, the joke's on you, stupid. Yeah. There's, there's also so many correlations between, uh, the Amanita muscaria and Santa Claus and Santa Claus to-

   24. BMBrian C. Muraresku34:56

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan34:56

       ... to shamans. There's so many-

   26. BMBrian C. Muraresku34:58

       The colors, the red and white, yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan34:59

       Yes. Yeah, there's ... But also the, the, you know, the bag, the toys, the, the fact that they would dry them on, on these, uh, coniferous trees, the fact that this, these mushrooms have this mycorrhizal relationship with coniferous trees where they, they tend to grow under pine trees-

   28. BMBrian C. Muraresku35:15

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan35:15

       ... which is the tree-

   30. BMBrian C. Muraresku35:16

       Yeah.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Uh, so when it,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      wanted to bring up sage to you 'cause, uh, one of the things that you, you, you, you talked about with salvia, salvia is sage, right? They are basically in the same species at least. When those priests would be walking down the aisle and they would be blowing sage, they're burning sage, was that for some sort of a psychedelic effect? Is that the reason why they were doing that?

   2. BMBrian C. Muraresku45:23

      Uh, so when it, when it comes to incense, we actually have an answer now. I'm not sure if you know this, but earlier this year, in, in May, there were some researchers in Israel who released one of the first, um, archaeochemical studies of ancient incense. Have you heard about this?

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:36

      No.

   4. BMBrian C. Muraresku45:37

      Oh, it's the, uh, so just in May, at a place called Tel Arad in Israel, um, south of Jerusalem, west of the Dead Sea, there was the, the organic remains of some kind of incense that was burned on these two altars that is described by the researchers as kind of, um, a scaled-down version of Solomon's Temple. Um, it's, it's dated to the eighth century BC, so in the Judahite period. So, we could feasibly say the beginnings of the Judeo-Christian period. Oh, yeah, there it is.

   5. JRJoe Rogan46:06

      Frankincense. I love that word.

   6. BMBrian C. Muraresku46:07

      So, under archaeochemical analysis, and, and this, uh, this sample had actually been excavated years ago in the 1960s and was deposited in the museum. But the thing with, with, uh, with this, this science, which is amazing, is that they can resurrect this stuff no matter when it was excavated. So fortunately, it wasn't contaminated. And after analysis, they found it contained THC, uh, CBD, and CBN. So-

   7. JRJoe Rogan46:30

      Wow.

   8. BMBrian C. Muraresku46:30

      ... tetrahydrocannabinol, cann- uh, cannabidiol, and cannabinol. Uh, and so it's, it's, it's the fir- they say it's the first example of psychoactive drug use, uh, in, in the ancient holy land, essentially.

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:43

      So, when they were walking down the aisle, um, would they use only... Well, we know that was cannabis, but sage was used as well, right? And sage is Salvia divinorum, which is a more potent psychedelic than cannabis.

   10. BMBrian C. Muraresku46:56

       Yeah, but I think that's a New World plant, though.

   11. JRJoe Rogan46:58

       Is it?

   12. BMBrian C. Muraresku46:59

       If I'm not mistaken.

   13. JRJoe Rogan47:00

       Oh, okay.

   14. BMBrian C. Muraresku47:01

       Yeah. There, I mean, at least the one you're, you're thinking of, uh-

   15. JRJoe Rogan47:03

       So when they use sa- when you say New World, you're talking about European world?

   16. BMBrian C. Muraresku47:06

       And the Americas.

   17. JRJoe Rogan47:07

       Oh, Americas.

   18. BMBrian C. Muraresku47:08

       In the Amer-

   19. JRJoe Rogan47:08

       Really? So, sage use when they would have it in that, what is that... Graham, do, you would know this. What is that thing that they walk down the aisle with when they blow that smoke?

   20. GHGraham Hancock47:16

       The censor. A censor.

   21. JRJoe Rogan47:18

       A censor. That's really what it's called, a censor?

   22. GHGraham Hancock47:20

       C-E-N-S-O-R, yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan47:21

       Right. Oh. So-

   24. GHGraham Hancock47:22

       Or, yeah, a cen- a cen- a censor.

   25. NANarrator47:24

       (laughs)

   26. GHGraham Hancock47:24

       It's a interesting double entendre there.

   27. JRJoe Rogan47:26

       Yes. (laughs)

   28. GHGraham Hancock47:27

       Censorship, yeah. (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:29

       (laughs) So, they were most certainly using cannabis or something else that they were burning, and they were getting everybody high.

   30. BMBrian C. Muraresku47:34

       And frankincense.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Ugh. …

   1. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:00:00

      they've all been treated for conservation purposes. You know, they put them in museums, uh, and they exhibit them to the public and when you do that, uh, you, you contaminate the, the artifact and it's no longer testable."

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:11

      Ugh.

   3. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:00:12

      So that was my dead end. And that's where things stopped for a while, and that's where my wife starts asking, you know-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

      (laughs)

   5. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:00:19

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:20

      "Ryan."

   7. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:00:21

      "You f- (laughs) You flew to Greece by yourself and left your two daughters at home for no reason, so you could ask a lady if she could test her, her chalices, and she told you no. And now what are you gonna do?" And so I said, "Well, I'm gonna get creative, man." And so I thought about the ancient Greek world. Uh, here's the thing about the ancient Greek world. In, in, in the wake of Alexander the Great, who was called The Great for a reason, the Greek influence, um, after the fourth, third centuries BC w- stretched all the way from Iberia, Spain, and Portugal, to Afghanistan and the East. I'm not sure if, if many folks realize that, but the, the, the Greek-speaking or the Greek-influenced part of the world was enormous. And so, if you're looking for evidence of this kerkeon, why would you restrict yourself to Athens and Eleusis? So I took a step back and I started thinking, "Where else would there be a Greek presence?" And I didn't expect to find one, but I wa- I landed on Iberia eventually, uh, because I started, um, researching ergot in different languages. That was, that was my first clue. Uh, you know, there ... In, in English we have this one weird word for it, ergot. But actually, in German, there's lots of words for it, bizarrely enough. Maybe it's because of the history of brewing. But in German there's afterkorn, mutterkorn, Tollkorn, which means crazy corn, crazy grain, or Totenkorn, which means death corn. And so it's, it's weird that, uh, you know, as, as you look elsewhere, it's, it seems to be more common to the German mind. And then in Spanish I just started random Googling for what that is. It's called cornisuela de, de centeno in Spanish. And a couple things started popping up. Um, and this, these notions of, of spiked beer started popping up, where they weren't supposed to. I never expected to find them. So the first hit that came in was from an archaeological site kind of in the, in the middle, Midwest of Spain called, uh, the Valladolid. And there, in 2003, they found a Greek vessel called ... a Greek chalice called a kerinos, and it's the same kind of vessel that's used in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Uh, it's a, it's like this little cup with a tiny cup on the outside. I brought a picture for you, if you wanna see it.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:02:25

      Sure.

   9. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:02:27

      Um, Jamie, in, um, in Mas Castellar, if you scroll to the bottom, and copy of P29. So this, this, this ca- That's it. So this came from a site called the Necropolis of Las Ruedas. And the Necropolis of Las Ruedas is this archaeological site that was dated to about the second century BC. Now these aren't Greek people, uh, this is a pre-Roman population called the Vaccae, or the Vaccaeans. Uh, but for some reason, in this kerinos, it tested positive for beer spiked with hyoscyamine. If you go to the, to the next tab, Jamie, you'll see the, they wrote it up. It, it's in Spanish, um, but there you'll see that the, at the nu- number 76 and 77, when they tested the, the, the kerinos, which is a very Greek word, by the way, when they tested the kerinos, it tested positive for traces of hyoscyamine. And hyoscyamine can only occur in these solanaceous plants, these nightshade plants. You're talking ... So the, it's the family of plants that includes very boring things like, uh, the tomato-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:03:35

       Eggplants.

   11. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:03:35

       ... and, or the potato or tobacco.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:03:37

       Yeah.

   13. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:03:37

       But it has these nightshades, like mandrake again, uh, or, or henbane. And so it's one of those tropane alkaloids that could've been in henbane, for example. So here, you're talking about a henbane beer, which is really weird. The even weirder part is that this is found in a, in a funeral complex-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:03:55

       Hmm.

   15. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:03:55

       ... just like, just like you would find at Gobekli Tepe or the Raqefet Cave in Israel 13,000 years ago. Here, after thousands and thousands of years, you're seeing this pre-Roman population using beer spiked with henbane in a, in a death cult. And where, where the researchers say that it was used to either facilitate the deceased's travel to the other world, or maybe the people who were there ushering the deceased into the other world. They actually use that phrase.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:04:22

       Holy shit. Go back to that image of the, uh, cup again, please. So why does it have the cup on the outside of it, again? There's the-

   17. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:04:33

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:04:33

       ... the large vessel-

   19. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:04:34

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:04:34

       ... and then there's a small vessel to the side of it.

   21. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:04:36

       We, we don't know. Th- that's just what the, that's what a kerinos is. If you scroll-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:04:39

       It could possibly have been, uh, portion control?

   23. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:04:42

       Exactly.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:04:43

       Hmm.

   25. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:04:43

       If you scroll to the, to the top, Jamie, uh, you'll see, uh, two other kerinoi, on the top right there. Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:04:50

       Ah.

   27. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:04:50

       And so this is-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:04:51

       Hmm.

   29. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:04:51

       ... this is the next part of the, of the clue. Uh, so, so these came from, um, a colony on the East Coast of Iberia called Emporion, which was a bustling, uh, Greek colony. And these are, are, are, are other kerinos vessels, just like you would see at Eleusis. These are the kinds of things that they think the initiates were drinking from. Now they don't make for very good drinking vessels, but maybe they, they make for good mixing vessels, like-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:05:16

       Hmm.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:18:24

   Hmm. Of course. And…

   1. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:15:00

      by 4000 or so BC, it's all over Europe. Why would Triptolemus need to be sent on a mission to teach people to do something they already knew how to do, which is farm? And so, what they would say is he was teaching not, not about growing the grain, but about what grows on the grain, which is ergot.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:17

      Hmm. Of course. And look, someone's pouring something too.

   3. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:15:23

      Yeah, that's one of those just ritual ablutions.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:26

      Hmm. Wow.

   5. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:15:30

      So, then it gets more interesting.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:15:34

      Okay (laughs) .

   7. GHGraham Hancock1:15:36

      (laughs) We're waiting, Jamie. We're, we're, we're...

   8. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:15:38

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:15:39

      We're-

   10. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:15:40

       So-

   11. GHGraham Hancock1:15:40

       ... we're waiting, Brian.

   12. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:15:42

       ... in addition to Triptolemus and the heads of Demeter and Persephone, Enriqueta Pons finds this gem, which is a 250 square foot, uh, ritual sanctuary that she calls, in Spanish, a capilla domestica, which is a household shrine. And she believes it's a household shrine that is specifically dedicated to reenacting the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone for people who wanted to get in touch with their Greek ancestors, and she calls this a ritual room for the living to interact with the dead.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:16:16

       Wow.

   14. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:16:16

       But you still need some Greek influence. So, in the next slide, you'll see the altar where the activity was happening. Does that look Greek?

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:16:24

       Pfft. Very.

   16. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:16:25

       So, that's a column that was proven by petrographic analysis to have originated at the Mount Pentelicus quarry northeast of Athens. It came from Greece, and it's sitting in Spain. And what they're doing on that, aside from burning incense all around, is they're sacrificing dogs. They found the remains of three female dogs. There's only one goddess in Greece associated with that, and that's Hecate, who is the mother of the witch, Circe, and the patroness of all witches. And they're sacrificing dogs to her because she's known as the Kunosphages in Greek, which is the dog eater.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:17:03

       What? God.

   18. BMBrian C. Muraresku1:17:09

       The other things you find in that room, aside from the Greek altar and the Greek goddess to whom dogs are being sacrificed in an underworld journey where the living and dead are communing, is a Greek hearth. And Enriqueta uses the Greek word aschara for that. You can go to the next one, Jamie. So, in addition to the Greek altar and the Greek hearth, she finds these, which are very Greek-shaped cups. These are called kantharos. The kantharos is the ritual vessel that was only used by the god Dionysus to drink his magic potion. She finds about 10 of these in and around the area. And when I heard all this, after the, the Greek influence is swimming on this place, I called up Carl Ruck, who at, at the time was 84 years old. He's now 85 years old. And his career was severely impacted, uh, after the release of, uh, 19, the 1978 book, The Road to Eleusis. His career essentially tanks. Um, it was the classic case of the wrong book at the wrong time. Uh, he was not supposed to write this. Uh, uh, because he did, he was deposed as the cla-, as the chair of the classics department. He was cut off from grad students. He was, uh, discouraged from interdisciplinary scholarship with his colleagues, and he became the drug guy, you know?

Episode duration: 2:34:41