This source sheet is a breakaway from the major source sheet of the role psychedelic chemicals play in the Torah, science, and redemption. The two source sheets are meant to be joined together for full clarity, but please do enjoy this shorter snippet of something interesting that hopefully more people can contribute to and elucidate upon.
From Professor Danny Nemu - "The ergot fungus parasitises a range of plants (Zadoks, 2008) and produces a secretion that contains ergotamine. Although ergot can be toxic, the powerful visionary D-lysergic acid amide (LSA), can be prepared from it. Hofmann, who used ergot to synthesize lysergic acid diethy- lamide (LSD), commented:
The separation of the hallucinogenic agents by simple water solution from the non-soluble ergotamine and ergotoxine alkaloids was well within the range of possibilities open to Early Man. (Wasson, Hofmann, & Ruck, 1976, p. 11)
The Bible describes this process, by people who “ground it [Manna] in mills, or beat it in a mortar” (Numbers 11:8), then boiled it and baked it."
"Merkur also argues that this process would extract psychoactive alkaloids from ergot, and how “Manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin” (Numbers 11:7); or elsewhere “white, like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31)."
"The honeydew ergot produces tastes like honey (Zadoks, 2008) and dries on the plant as small, resinous, white pellets roughly the size of coriander seeds. Merkur does not adequately explain the other description of Manna as “thin flakes like frost on the ground” (Exodus 16:14); however, it also describes ergot, as the honeydew splashes where it drips and dries as a thin, white frosty scale."
"Any guess as to the identity can only be speculative several thousand years later, but other evidence Merkur does not cite supports the hypothesis. For example, several problems with the normal reading of scripture are resolved if Manna is identified as ergot:
And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, “It is Manna” (man hoo): for they wist not what it was.” (Exodus 16:15)"
"The KJV translation is illogical, because if “they wist not what it was” then how did they know to call it Manna? The HNV and NLT Bibles translate man hoo as “what is it?,” but this presents a problem raised by the 15th-century Rabbi Isaac Arama, who noted that a question would demand that“the wording should have been ‘they asked one another’ instead of ‘they said to one another’” (Ron, 2010). Also “what” is ma in Hebrew, not man. The Rashbam proposed that the Israelites had picked up the Egyptian word for “what” (which is man) (Ron, 2010), but it is strange to use this single loanword when the rest of their vocabulary was Hebrew. In addition, in another commentary the Israelites maintained their own language in Egypt (Mishna. Leviticus Rabbah 32:5)."
רַב הוּנָא אָמַר בְּשֵׁם בַּר קַפָּרָא בִּשְׁבִיל אַרְבָּעָה דְּבָרִים נִגְאֲלוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל מִמִצְרַיִם, שֶׁלֹּא שִׁנּוּ אֶת שְׁמָם וְאֶת לְשׁוֹנָם וְלֹא אָמְרוּ לָשׁוֹן הָרָע, וְלֹא נִמְצָא בֵּינֵיהֶם אֶחָד מֵהֶן פָּרוּץ בְּעֶרְוָה.
(5) ...Rabbi Hun stated in the name of Bar Kappara: Israel were redeemed from Egypt on account of four things; because they did not change their names, they did not change their language, they did not go tale-bearing, and none of them was found to have been immoral.
"Man hoo can also simply mean “it is man,” where man is a Bedouin word for a sugary secretion excreted by insects that feed on plant sap. It hardens to form whitish resinous pellets that taste like honey, and Bedouins collect it as a foodstuff. Bodenheimer (1947) and others conclude that Manna is man, but if this is the case then the Israelites’ identification would be correct, and “for they wist not what it was” presents a logical contradiction again. It is more parsimonious, without the logical, linguistic, lexical, and rabbinical contradictions, to interpret the verse as the Israelites thinking it was man in error (“for they wist not what it was”). It would have been a reasonable guess at first encounter because desert people would have been familiar with man. On closer inspection, the error would become clear. Man is viscous, not runny like ergot; it forms globulous mounds where it drips, not “thin flakes,” and cannot be ground or beaten in a mortar (Bonar, 1857, pp. 146–151). Ergot secretion, on the other hand, dries brittle and can be ground to powder.
Another problem is that Bedouin man can be stored for a year or more, but with Manna:
Moses said, “Let no man leave of it till the morning.” Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank" (Exodus 16:19–20)"
(19) And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over until morning.” (20) But they paid no attention to Moses; some of them left of it until morning, and it became infested with worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them.
"Such rapid decay supports the thesis of ergot infection, as does the fact that heat arrests the infection:
And he said unto them:"
"The environmental context also supports Merkur. Ergot emerges from dormancy at the onset of spring, which is when the Israelites first encounter it (Alderman et al., 1999; Midrashim. Mekhilta Exodus 16:1).
Furthermore, a parasitic fungus requires vegetation and therefore water. Manna is not found in the Wilderness of Shur, which is dry, but in the Wilderness of Sin where there is water.
Manna is not the only food the Israelites find, as quails also come to ground every night to be rounded up. This seems more remarkable than a plant secretion not unlike others known to desert peoples, and yet only Manna is called “angel food” (Psalm 78:25)."
He sent them provision in plenty.
"Perhaps this is not because it comes from the angels but because people who eat it encounter angels. The quail meat is barely mentioned, and when it is a feeling of satisfaction is attributed not to it but only to Manna (here referred to as bread).
At evening you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be satisfied with bread.
It suggests that Manna satisfies in a more profound way than meat."
The below is an excerpt from researcher Professor Brian Muraresku detailing his groundbreaking research on Psychedelic rituals of Ancient Greece.
"I refer to the Temple of Eleusis as the spiritual capital of the ancient world. It exists from about 1500 BC to the fourth century AD. It calls to the best and brightest of both Athens and Rome for close to 2,000 years. And I sometimes say it’s like the real religion of the ancient Greeks.
They had this temple dedicated to a goddess and her daughter, Demeter and Persephone. And they would make this long pilgrimage from Athens, 13 miles northwest, up to Eleusis, and they would drink this magic potion called the Kykeon. And what little testimony survived, because this was all secret, speaks about this epiphanic, beatific vision that these initiates witnessed in this altered state, that somehow turned them into immortals. So you went there as a human being, and you walked away convinced of your immortality.
The testimony that did survive universally speaks of a vision. And so it raises the question, what kind of vision was this? Was this some spectacle, some theatrical performance? Or was there something in that magic potion — the Kykeon — that produced this vision or some combination of all of the above?
And so in 1978, this relatively controversial theory claimed that this magic potion was some primitive beer that was spiked with ergot. Ergot is the natural fungus from which Albert Hoffman himself was able to synthesize LSD all the way back in the 1930s.
Ergot grows on grains.. it stands to reason that some of that naturally infected grain could have made its way into a very intentional potion, to create these visions. But there was no hard scientific data to really prove that one way or the other for decades and decades.
There was the sensibility that whatever was found in Eleusis was the key, was the glue, that held ancient Greece together. And not just Greek civilization, but human civilization more broadly.
So there was a belief that whatever was encountered there was a kind of salve for humanity, something that kept the species in check, kept us in balance with nature.
The first half of my book really hangs on what I consider a pretty spectacular find, and it just largely went ignored for 20 years. I was looking for evidence to support that controversial theory from 1978 that the Greeks were drinking some LSD-like beer, for lack of a better phrase. And so I went digging into these archaeo-botanical journals looking for any scrap of evidence for exactly that, and wound up finding it.
It turns out there was this Greek colony in what today we call Spain, and it was a sanctuary in the middle of nowhere where these mystery rites were taking place. In the sanctuary they found lots of remnants of the mysteries, like terracotta heads that seemed to have belonged to Demeter or Persephone, and a very Greek altar that came from mainland Greece. But they also found these little ceremonial vessels, these tiny chalices that look like a Holy Grail.
Researchers took these little chalices and tested them under optical microscopy and turned up the evidence for an ancient beer that was spiked with ergot. I mean, it fits precisely this crazy theory from 1978. And the only reason no one’s really heard of it is because this find was published in Catalan, the language of the archeologist, who has been on-site there since 1990, and she’s still there today.
I went out of my way to find something similar that could fit within Christianity, and lo and behold, also from 20 years ago, outside Pompeii, there was this ancient pharmacy that was unearthed. Inside the wine jars that were found there was a really unique witchy wine that was mixed with what seems to be opium, cannabis, and henbane, which is one of these very hallucinogenic Solanaceous plants. And in there also were the bones of lizards.
So there’s a potion straight out of Macbeth just sitting there in Pompeii, dated to 79 AD, exactly when the first generations of Christians would have been showing up south of Rome, to celebrate the earliest versions of the mass.
I think it’s the same reason why Gnosticism itself disappeared. Gnosticism was a heretical version of Christianity that also disappears at around the same time in the fourth century AD when the Temple of Eleusis was destroyed. There are basically two ways to look at that.
One is that the Church was frightened of the idea of people being able to mediate or curate their experience with the divine in a way that obviated the structure of the Church. If you can go and find God in a glass of wine, what do you need the priest and the bishop for?
The other thing is that none of this stuff was really written down. We’re talking about consciously curated oral traditions and they’re bound to disappear unless there’s a strong structure or bureaucracy supporting them.."
Now enters Rabbi Harry Rozenberg and his weaving in the story of Jonah, to suggest that what Jonah consumed was an Ergot like Psychedelic substance just as the Manna was.
First and foremost we must notice the name of the drink the ancient Greeks were drinking - the Kykeon.. sound familiar? Its the exact name of the plant that popped up for Jonah that brought him to a state of ecstasy!
(ו) וַיְמַ֣ן יְהֹוָֽה־אֱ֠לֹהִ֠ים קִיקָי֞וֹן וַיַּ֣עַל ׀ מֵעַ֣ל לְיוֹנָ֗ה לִֽהְי֥וֹת צֵל֙ עַל־רֹאשׁ֔וֹ לְהַצִּ֥יל ל֖וֹ מֵרָֽעָת֑וֹ וַיִּשְׂמַ֥ח יוֹנָ֛ה עַל־הַקִּֽיקָי֖וֹן שִׂמְחָ֥ה גְדוֹלָֽה׃ (ז) וַיְמַ֤ן הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ תּוֹלַ֔עַת בַּעֲל֥וֹת הַשַּׁ֖חַר לַֽמׇּחֳרָ֑ת וַתַּ֥ךְ אֶת־הַקִּֽיקָי֖וֹן וַיִּיבָֽשׁ׃
(6) The ETERNAL God provided Kikayon which grew up over Jonah, to provide shade for his head and save him from discomfort. Jonah was very happy about the plant, a great happiness. (7) But the next day at dawn God provided a worm, which attacked the plant so that it withered.
Fascinating enough that Jonahs plant that brought him joy has the same exact name of the ancient Psychedelic brew consumed during the same period of history, it gets even more interesting when we look into the etymology of the Hebrew word Kikayon based on a teaching that Jonah was consuming Manna while in the belly of the fish!
[And the Lord appointed—Those sixteen days that Israel was missing the manna, since they did not eat it for a complete forty years - God took this manna and sustained the fish so that Jonah would not be digested in its intestines, and Jonah, too, ate within it from this manna. Therefore, it is stated וַיְמַן, the letters מָן י"ו sixteen [days of] manna. Similarly, וַיְמַן קיקָיוֹן, and He appointed a kikayon, for he ate four omers; therefore, it says four times וַיְמַן (4:6 ff.). And in Greek, manna is called “kika.” For that reason, it is stated: קִיק יָוָן ; i.e, manna in Greek. -[Sod Mesharim]
So we see that not only was Jonah consuming Manna as he was in the belly of the fish, the word Kikayon breaks down into two words that mean "Greek Manna" - Kik being Ancient Greek for Manna, and Ayon has the same three Hebrew letters as the word for Greece! יָוָן
The plant that brought him to a state of ecstasy literally translates as Greek Manna!
An additional proof I would like to suggest here is that we see that after a day worms came to eat the Manna of the Israelites in the desert.. and what happened to Jonahs Kikayon plant? The next day a worm came and ate it!
(20) But they paid no attention to Moses; some of them left of it until morning, and it became infested with worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them.
Is the Manna, the high plant of Jonah, and the ancient psychedelic brew of the ancient world not all the same chemical that induces a mystical and spiritual state upon one that would consume it? It seems so
For thousands of years, the Jewish people have been reading the Book of Jonah specifically on Yom Kippur. Come to think of it, why do we read the Book of Jonah on Yom Kippur? This leads us directly into the theory that was published that Yom Kippur was a day set aside where the Pineal Gland of the High Priest of Israel was opened using a psychedelic plant extract concoction that contained DMT, Dimethyltryptamine - which we now know that this chemical can be found inside of our brains naturally flowing while we enter the dream state each night as we sleep, as well, this same chemical can be found in the Acacia Tree that was used to make the coals of the Holy Temple of Solomon where the High Priest of Israel would stand in a room filled with plant extract smoke one day, once a year, to rectify the sin of Adam, which was when Adam had lost the light of the eye of his mind, and that light had fallen and been absorbed by the plants and the ground. All of the sources to the above sentences can be found in the Sefaria source sheet for Psychedelics in the Torah - and we will add one last one here for the icing on the cake - that the daughter of the high priest of Israel is called the daughter of Pineal (same name of the eyeball in our brains that secrete DMT and the name of the place Jacob coined after having a metaphysical battle with an angel), because on Yom Kippur he goes into the inside chambers!
https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/368921 - this is the link to the sources for the whole greater theory involving this eyeball inside of our brains.