No, Joe Rogan, Jesus was not a psychedelic mushroom. (2023)

Conspiracy theories are a bit like the Greek gods and goddesses. No matter who you are, there is a tailor-made solution to address all your vices.

Just as Hera, the goddess of family and childbirth, appealed to overly nervous and suspicious helicopter moms in ancient Greece, "vaccines cause autism" appeals to overly nervous and suspicious helicopter moms today. In either case, women who refuse to admit their weaknesses are drawn to belief systems that sanctify their flaws.

Just as Dionysus appealed to ancient Greek drunkards seeking to justify their love of drunkenness, thanks to podcaster Joe Rogan, today's drug enthusiasts have a new conspiracy theory that will confirm all their pre-existing prejudices about hallucinogenic drugs. : a conspiracy best expressed thus to summarize: "Actually, Jesus was a psychedelic mushroom."

Joe Rogan's Theory of Psychedelic Mushrooms

On a recent episode of his podcast, Rogan mentioned "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross," a controversial book by English archaeologist John Marco Allegro from the 1970s, in an interview with author Michael Malice. Rogan sums up the book in this clip, which I should point out is full of profanity and blasphemous language:

He also addressed this topic in another interview a few years ago:

If you prefer a simplified analysis of Rogan's claims and would like a few more details and corrections to flesh out the conspiracy theory, let me provide it.

1. John Marco Allegro was a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar (never ordained as Rogan claims) who forged his own path by turning to agnosticism and seeking a naturalistic explanation for the origins of Christianity.

2. Allegro discovered Christianityhad its origin"in an orgiastic fertility cult that harnessed a hallucinogenic mushroom containing the drug psilocybin. Furthermore, Jesus never really existed, but was 'invented' by early Christians under the influence of these drugs, who used his story to convey messages coded Sumerian era, encouraging those with the secret knowledge to continue divine communion through a psychedelic aspect.for mushrooms.However, a bunch of idiots took these New Testament stories literally and concluded that Jesus was a historical person And voila!—Christianity was born.

3. The name "Jesus" has its roots in a Sumerian word meaning "seed that saves" - not "seed of God" as Rogan claims.

4. Allegro's discoveries were so dangerous for Christianity that the Catholic Church withdrew his book from publication.

Read a book without using drugs

As is often the case with bizarre conspiracy theories, you may be thinking, "I know this is wrong, but I don't know why it's wrong." If that's the case, please allow me a moment to debunk something.

1. Allegro was actually an agnostic philologist who worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, he was not the unique and innovative rebel that Rogan presents to him. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that Allegro was pretty standard when it came to eccentric, unbelieving Biblical or Biblical scholars, meaning that he rejected divine inspiration a priori as an explanation of the foundations of Christianity and strove to make a name for himself. he himself offered a "more rational" explanation for the story of Jesus Christ, and invented an explanation some eleven billion times more unlikely than "this is in the Bible because it really happened."

2. Why did the New Testament writers write the stories they did? For Christians, the answer is simple: because it's true.

Admittedly, this answer may not satisfy skeptics who resist the leap of faith required to accept Christian claims like the virgin birth or resurrection. However, in terms of leaps of faith, "This is in the New Testament because it happened" pales in comparison to Allegro's answer.

The best way to sum it up is: "This is in the New Testament because a group of sex-obsessed ancient Sumerians ate psychedelic mushrooms and had enough constant experience while high to come to the same conclusions about the divine, and so do they all. others who have been part of the sex-mad mushroom cult for thousands of years, including the sex-averse Essenes, who were a major influence on the New Testament writers, though they are never mentioned in the New Testament, and so it is like mushroom religion has been going on for millennia for a long time until a bunch of early christians took things literally, and then all that stuff was lost, but then I rediscovered the truth that it was all about psychedelic mushrooms, and I rediscovered that true very conveniently back then, when the hippies were really into it, they came along.

3. Allegro's claim that the name Jesus has its roots in an ancient Sumerian name for a mushroom meaning "seed that saves" is a prime example of a self-promoting, queer academic introduction. All you have to do is:

A. References are diploma.
B. Name some obscure facts that most people have never heard of, let alone read about.
W. I hope people are very intimidated by your ingenuity in researching the subject, especially knowing that you are just making stuff up. (Allegro's scientific colleaguesfiredhim as a freak and chronic misrepresenter of data).

"Jesus" or "Yeshua" in its Hebrew form does not mean "seed that saves" in ancient Sumerian. It simply means "Savior," as indicated by the angel in Matthew 1. Similarly, you don't need to be an expert on first-century Levantine weather patterns to know that the "Jesus actually walked on a piece of floating iceIt's silly, one doesn't have to be a student of ancient Sumerian mushroom taxonomy to know that when Allegro made his claims about the origin of the name "Jesus", he was simply full of, well, a common form of mushroom fertilizer.

4. When The Holy Mushroom and the Cross was published, many Christians were upset, but there was also a massive backlash from Allegro's secular colleagues, who found the book intellectually untenable and shameful. For this reason, the publisher of the bookHe apologizedfor his release.

While it's always fun to blame the Catholic Church (I'm happy to blame it for both the impending collapse of Western civilization and Police Academy 6), there's no evidence to support Rogan's "Da Vinci Code" claim that "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross" disappeared from the shelves because the Catholic Church worked to ban it.

Considering that the Allegro conspiracy theory starts at the idiot guano level and gets more and more ridiculous the more you look at it, it's a little strange that Rogan is pushing it. If all you know about Rogan is that he encourages contestants to smell rancid pig guts on "Fear Factor," don't let that fool you.

Over the years on his podcast, Rogan has proven insightful yet humble, a sharp-minded man who enjoys presenting ideas but is reluctant to speak with too much authority on topics outside of his area of ​​expertise. So why would you subscribe to a conspiracy theory that could best be described as the intellectual equivalent of, well, smelling rancid pig guts?

Mushrooms are a poor substitute for the real Jesus

The answer lies in an excerpt from Malice's interview, in which Rogan, an outspoken skeptic of organized religion and a lover of hallucinogens, argues that most religions are, at best, nothing more. than ethical systems designed to inspire us to be better people. something, he points out, that can also be obtained by stumbling on mushrooms.

As you can see, psychedelics offer all the benefits of religion without the drawbacks. If you want to be a good person, if you want to understand the importance of loving your neighbor, you don't have to submit to God, a holy book or a religious community. You don't have to let anyone tell you what to think. You don't have to wrestle with the idea of ​​what it means to be a sinner or how to find forgiveness. You don't have to do any of those religious things that Rogan finds unpleasant. All you have to do is do what he has already found conveniently tasteful: get high on mushrooms.

In other words, Rogan is drawn to Allegro's absurd "Jesus was a psychedelic mushroom" conspiracy theory for the same reason that drunkards in ancient Greece were drawn to the worship of Dionysus, because it sanctifies vice in instead of condemning it. is that those who delve into this conspiracy theory will not realize that the scriptures offer something much greater thanpsilocybinnever could

The old message is better than drugs.

Despite Allegro's claims of ancient messages hidden in the Scriptures, the ancient message is anything but hidden. From the moment Adam and Eve fell into sin, God promised that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head as the serpent crushed her heel. In other words, God promised a virgin-born Savior who would undo the work of the devil by dying for the sins of the world, for those who were not good people and did not love others.

Over the centuries, God added more details to this promise. That Redeemer would be the son of Abraham, David's heir, who would reign forever from David's throne. He would be pierced for our misdeeds, would die and rise on the third day.

That Savior was found in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was crucified outside Jerusalem and rose from the dead so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life. This Jesus Christ, first promised to the Mother and Father of all men, obtained redemption for all humanity.

This Jesus Christ has freed us from the desperate effort to bless our sins and hide our vices under the worship of false gods or the acceptance of silly conspiracy theories. This Jesus Christ has given us the right to know that these vices and sins no longer have power over us. They are forgiven, dead, lifeless, washed in the deluge of the blood of Christ.

Jesus is not a mushroom. He is the Son of God, the Savior of the world. Those who believe in this truth will find a much more lasting peace than any psychedelic mushroom could offer.

Hans Fiene is a contributor to The Federalist. He is a Lutheran pastor in Missouri and the creator oflutheran satire, a series of comedy videos designed to teach the Lutheran faith. Follow him on Twitter @HansFiene.