Can’t wait for the sequel!

Comparisons with the Da Vinci Code can be made in the sense that this book reads like an investigation into the secret history of the past.

This book is based on solid research. The author is no crank but a leading expert in his field of study. The insights in the book are incredibly insightful and thought provoking - our past and culture has been smudged with important, significant aspects of our human heritage extinguished over the centuries by those who have sought to control the masses to their own benefit.

The book is intellectually stimulating , yet readable. The forward by Graham Hancock provides an outstanding start and the author reads his work with enthusiasm and humour.

Some reviewers have cited the Joe Rogan Podcast as a means of entry to see if you might like this work. I agree - not only is the podcast illuminating but I would also say why not go further and check out some of Joe’s other, many great podcasts that inspire discussions of truth and self empowerment? It’s stimulates the brain better than the mainstream tv media that clogs and warps the brain.

And I suppose this is what this book explores and exposes. It highlights how significant practices such as the centuries old use of psychedelics can transform the lives of so many people. They offered our ancestors a mysterious pathway to the gods - literally - and modern truth seekers are rediscovering their incredible benefits in the twenty first century. Psychedelics may appear to many to be a weird and dangerous pursuit for those who wish to hold on to their sanity...but the incredible, mind blowing truth appears to be that the opposite is true. Psychedelic practice has provided peace and acceptance to the dying, enabled those with mental health issues to discover a means for improving their lives and provided some of the most spiritually profound experiences ever felt to those who have taken them.

The author is not a taker of substances himself. He is a researcher, historian, language expert and lawyer who has studied the ancient texts with such scrutiny and care that he has been able to put the pieces of a jigsaw together to illuminate a story of the past that has never been told before. A story that forces the reader to question the truths they have been told by government and religious organisations. The book is not anti religious as such, but does show how early religions and spirituality has been hijacked, watered down and re-interpreted to the cost of us all.

I look forward to a sequel whereby the author embarks on his own psychedelic journey to document his journey, not through the evidence gathered from dusty tomes but through his experience and insight of altered states.

The books holds the keys to a modern revolution in spiritual thought and a means for re-awakening our common humanity. In that respect, this book is not only timely but profoundly necessary.

The author’s wife apparently questioned his use of time writing this book. Who would want to read this? I can only say look at all the positive reviews and thank goodness his enthusiasm and passion for the subject meant he saw it all through. If he hadn’t written this book then some of the hidden truths within might have been lost forever.

Give the book a try. It provides accessible and interesting research and Is carefully crafted by the best lecturer you never had at College, who delivers the fascinating insights the Church would rather not have you know.

14 people found this helpful

Loved it!

Great book, I was going to deduct a star for mispronounced Greek words, but then I realised its read by the author who speaks ancient Greek and I do not. So I deducted a star from myself instead.
Incredibly interesting read, very well researched I loved it!

13 people found this helpful

informative read

Such a forward thinking author, much needed research.
I liked it and it made me think.

6 people found this helpful

Can't Stop Smiling

Absolutely amazing book.
Story line:10/10.
Authors voice: music to my ears.
Content: jaw dropping.
Get this in your lobes.

5 people found this helpful

briiliant

who knows whether Brian has got it right or not, but it is a brilliant read .

2 people found this helpful

This was a good day for the mystics

Thank you Joe Rogan for having amazing guests, thank you Graham Hancock for all your work and your forword and most of all, Thank you Brian for writing this revolutionary book.

1 person found this helpful

Fantastically interesting with remarkable insights

This book has shown history, religion and mysticism in a completely new light to me. It totally changed the way I view all spiritual experiences, both organised religion and on a personal basis.

1 person found this helpful

Eye opening

Well read and enlightening book. It introduces you to a whole new side of "religion" that had been kept secret for a very long time. Made me want to dive into the rabbit hole even further.

Interesting, but mostly over-reaching.

It's an interesting idea, but it's ultimately overreaching. The first half of the book is relatively solid, and well sourced/cited - I think stating that there may have been psychedelic elements to some of the Mystery religions and elements of Dionysian influence in the Eleusinian Mysteries is not as controversial idea as the author makes out though. At times it feels like the author is trying to insert a DaVinci Code style cover up into pretty banal academic differences, which is more off putting than it is engaging. It falls apart in the second half where it more directly attempts to tie early Christian into this use of psychedelics. While there are undeniable pagan influences on Christianity, and Muraresku does use good sources which discuss this, like MacDonald's Dionysian Gospel book on the relationship between Euripides' Bacchae and the Gospel of John. However he really over-reaches when he starts talking about the catacombs and secret early Christian psychedelic rituals, which seem like pure speculation. At one point he claims that depictions of St Paul might actually be depictions of Plotinus, which would seem very odd given Plotinus famously disliked images of himself, as a strict Platonist he say it as "an image of an image" and therefore avoided art of himself. It just seems....unlikely. Honestly the foreword by Graham "ancient aliens" Hancock nearly put me off buying this, but there's thankfully nothing as outrageously ahistoric or false as there is in Hancock's books here (although the second half of the book comes dangerously close at times). Definitely some interesting tidbits in here though. Worth a look if you're interested in religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, and possibly even if you're interested in the rise of Christianity, but take everything with a grain of salt.

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Information that opens up understanding of history and death. The world is better for knowing.