Book Description

• Reveals the secret teachings from the Judeo-Christian traditions that promote the use of psychedelic substances to enhance religious transcendence. • Explains how special meditations were designed to be performed while partaking of the "psychedelic sacrament". In The Mystery of Manna, religious historian Dan Merkur provided compelling evidence that the miraculous bread that God fed the Israelites in the wilderness was psychedelic, made from bread containing ergot--the psychoactive fungus containing the same chemicals from which LSD is made. Many religious authorities over the centuries have secretly known the identity and experience of manna and have left a rich record of their involvement with this sacred substance. In The Psychedelic Sacrament, a companion work to The Mystery of Manna, Dan Merkur elucidates a body of Jewish and Christian writings especially devoted to this tradition of visionary mysticism. He discusses the specific teachings of Philo of Alexandria, Rabbi Moses Maimonides, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux that refer to special meditations designed to be performed while partaking of the "psychedelic sacrament." These meditations combine the revelatory power of psychedelics with the rational exercise of the mind, enabling the seeker to achieve a qualitatively enhanced state of religious transcendence. The Psychedelic Sacrament sheds new light on the use of psychedelics in the Western mystery tradition and deepens our understanding of the human desire for divine union.