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THE SACRED MUSHROOM AND THE CROSS A study of the nature and origins of Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East by John M. Allegro DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK Piracy notice: In order to keep this information available to the public, this book has been pirated! A message to those who’ve taken this book out of print. This book will forever circulate. You will never be able to remove it from the public light, as you, the Vatican and Anheuser Busch attempted to do. In such a case as 2000 years of intellectual hijacking, this book will now remain forever free online. Though Allegro’s theories seemed extreme at the time, philology today knows he was right. See a publication by Piotr Michalowski in “Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages”, edited by Roger D. Woodard. To the reader, enjoy a once banned book. To the suppressors, Fuck you! ORIGINAL CHARACTERS OF SUMERIAN CUNEIFORM AND OTHER HIEROGLIPHIC CHARACTERS WERE LOST BY THE CHARACTER RECOGNITION SOFTWARE USED IN THE PIRACY OF THIS BOOK. PLEASE SEEK AN ORIGINAL COPY OF “THE SACRED MUSHROOM AND THE CROSS” TO REFERENCE MISSING LETTERS AND OTHER POSIBLE ERRORS MADE BY THE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE. 150 pages of reference notes at the back of the book have been omitted. Footnote numbers have (for the most part) been left intact. Some Zeros (0) and ones (1) were not recognized. Primary errors made by Allegro are HIGHLIGHTED IN RED Allegro did NOT understand the growth cycle, effects and "bitterness" of the Amanita muscaria. Allegro overlooked some references to both A. pantherina and P. cubensis, and wrongfully classified Rue as an "abortifacient", not recognizing Acacia and Rue as an Ayahuasca analogue. Allegro also wrongfully assumed that the mushrooms, and not religion and government themselves, were the cause of the shaman to protest against their suppression by the churches and governments. With that said, Allegro was a pioneer in the field of ethnomycology, and founded many of the ideas many researchers use today (though most deny it). Enjoy your read! Author’s Note This book is the first published statement of the fruits of some years’ work of a largely philological nature. It presents a new appreciation of the relationship of the languages of the ancient world and the implication of this advance for our understanding of the Bible and of the origins of Christianity. It will be appreciated that such a statement has to be furnished with the technical data, even though much of it must be outside the scope of the general reader, for whom the book is primarily intended. In order to leave the text as unencumbered as possible, these notes have been gathered in a body at the end of the book, and the numbered references within the text may be safely ignored by the non-specialist. Acknowledgements Quotations from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted 1952 and 1956, are used by permission. Quotations from the Homeric Hymns, Pliny’s Natural History, and Josephus’ Jewish Wars and Antiquities are used by permission of the Loeb Classical Library. The frontispiece photograph is used by permission of Rex Lowden. The photograph facing page 74 is used by permission of Photographe Thuillier. Contents Introduction page xi I In the Beginning God Created... i II Sumer and the Beginnings of History 8 III The Names of the Gods 19 IV Plants and Drugs 29 V Plant Names and the Mysteries of the Fungus 36 VI The Key of the Kingdom 44 VII The Man-child Born of a Virgin 54 VIII Woman’s part in the Creative Process 63 IX The Sacred Prostitute 76 X Religious Lamentation 83 XI The Mushroom “Egg” and Birds of Mythology 91 XII The Heavenly Twins 97 XIII Star of the Morning 109 XIV Colour and Consistency 118 XV Mushroom Cosmography 133 XVI David, Egypt, and the Cens