{"id":14622,"date":"2017-10-10T00:43:42","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T04:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/?p=14622"},"modified":"2020-09-10T06:05:06","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T10:05:06","slug":"painted-monastery-headhunters-santa-claus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/blog\/painted-monastery-headhunters-santa-claus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Painted Monastery, Headhunters, and Santa Claus"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Painted Monastery, Headhunters, and Santa Claus<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

What might these two photos have in common? \u00a0First is the\u00a0Painted Monastery of Voronet<\/a>, tucked away in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania.<\/p>\n

Next is a\u00a0tsantsa, a human shrunken head, made by the Shuara Jivaros in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador, the first tribe I ever lived with. \u00a0This particular\u00a0tsantsa\u00a0was given to me by Chief Tangamashi when he adopted me into his clan in the summer of 1960. I was all by myself and 16 years old.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the Painted Monastery.<\/p>\n

Built and painted in 1488, Voronet is an apotheosis of devotion to the story of Christianity. The frescoes, with the famous \u201cVoronet blue\u201d made of crushed lapis lazuli, have withstood over 500 winters of wind, snow, and rain.\u00a0 The extraordinary back panel of the Last Judgment is renowned as \u201cthe Sistine Chapel of the East\u201d —<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The beauty of its devotion is overwhelming —<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

On a visit there last month (September), I was taking a lot of photos, and it was only when I got back home did I take a close look zooming in on them. \u00a0For example, here are Joseph and Mary worshipping the Holy Spirit symbolized by a white dove:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And St. Peter taking saints through the Pearly Gates into Heaven:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Then I zoomed in on a panel that made my jaw drop to the floor. \u00a0It was this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, this made me think of the\u00a0tsantsa\u00a0on display in my study.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because on my visits to the Amazon over the years, I had learned that the fundamental basis of the Shuara Jivaro religion is the interpretation of visions induced by\u00a0natema, a tea made from the\u00a0banisteriopsis\u00a0vine. \u00a0As it grows throughout the Amazon, elsewhere Amazonian peoples call it\u00a0ayahuasca. It contains a hallucinogenic compound known as\u00a0dimethyltryptamine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Through\u00a0natema, and guided by the shaman who explains the visions, the Jivaro see with their own eyes the origin of the world and mankind, meet supernatural beings, and come out of their trance convinced of the verifiable truth of their religious teachings.<\/p>\n

Here comes the kicker. Such hallucinogenic drug experiences are the foundation of the religious beliefs not just of Amazon headhunters, but of India, Ancient Greece, and the Witches of Salem.<\/p>\n

Many of the hymns in the Hindu scriptures of the Rig-Veda written over 3,000 years ago are devoted to the god Soma, who instantiates himself upon the earth in the form of a plant. The Brahmins, the Hindu priests, by eating the god in a sacred ritual, were allowed to commune and become one with the Divine.<\/p>\n

Part of the ritual involved drinking the urine of the priests who had eaten Soma. There is only one natural hallucinogenic chemical that passes through the body metabolically unchanged \u2013\u00a0muscimole\u00a0\u2013 which is found only in the\u00a0Amanita muscaria\u00a0mushroom. How Hinduism was originally a sacred mushroom cult is described by historical ethnobotanist R. Gordon Wasson in\u00a0Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Amanita muscaria\u00a0is the classic Disney cartoon mushroom with the red cap and white spots.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Aryans who practiced Hinduism were an Indo-European people who had migrated east out of their homeland \u2013 the steppe grasslands between the Black and Caspian Seas \u2013 first to the Altai of south Siberia about 3000 BC before they moved into India about 1500 BC. \u00a0In the Altai they learned how people there practiced shamanism.<\/p>\n

The religious practices of reindeer-herding tribes like the Tungus in Siberia and the Lapps in Scandinavia are based on the shaman eating the\u00a0Amanita\u00a0mushroom and sharing his urine with the devotees. The herders figured this out by watching the reindeer eating the mushroom, then licking each other\u2019s urine spills, then acting very strange.<\/p>\n

One of the commonest hallucinations with\u00a0Amanita\u00a0is the sensation of flying. Does the notion of\u00a0flying reindeer\u00a0bring anything to mind?<\/p>\n

And what are the colors of Santa\u2019s costume?<\/p>\n

This is just between us: Don\u2019t ever tell your kids Santa started out as a \u2018shroom. (Actually, this is becoming accepted by scholars. \u00a0Live Science\u00a0gives\u00a08 Ways Amanita Explains Santa<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

For 2,000 years, the greatest religious ceremony of Ancient Greece was the Eleusinian Mysteries, the initiation rite of the cult of the goddess Demeter. The initiate was given a sacred drink,\u00a0Kykeon, enabling him to gain secret wisdom.<\/p>\n

It was called a \u201cMystery Religion\u201d because if an initiate revealed anything of the ceremony, he was killed. That\u2019s how it stayed mysterious.<\/p>\n

Researchers such as Wasson have now determined that the Kykeon was made from the ergot fungus\u00a0Claviceps paspali\u00a0growing on certain wild grasses, and containing the LSD-like hallucinogenic alkaloid\u00a0ergotamine. This is detailed in\u00a0The Road to Eleusis\u00a0by Wasson and biochemist Albert Hoffman (the discoverer of LSD).<\/p>\n

A similar ergot fungus,\u00a0Claviceps purpurea, grows on moldy rye. Eating bread made with such moldy rye induces ergotism where the victim has delusions (especially of flying), mania, burning sensations on the skin, and generally scary weird behavior.<\/p>\n

In a paper for\u00a0Science\u00a0magazine,\u00a0Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem?<\/a>, researcher Linnda Caporael describes how the people executed for being witches in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials were suffering from ergot poisoning via contaminated rye bread.<\/p>\n

So here I am at the Voronet Painted Monastery, where 500 years ago in a remote church in the Carpathians deeply devout Christian artists depicted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the serpent tempting Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil — and the Tree as the Amanita mushroom.<\/p>\n

Zooming in, there’s Adam and Eve with the Tree, eating the Tree encouraged by the serpent, and in the next panel knowing they are naked covering themselves with fig leaves:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

What\u2019s going on here? \u00a0Amanita muscaria\u00a0is\u00a0commonly found<\/a>\u00a0in the Carpathian forests. \u00a0Did the Voronet painters engage in Amanita ceremonies giving them visions they used to paint their churches? \u00a0Did those visions make them decide it was Amanita and not an apple that Eve ate?<\/p>\n

Or does it harken back to an earlier tradition \u2013 as Wasson in his book\u00a0Soma\u00a0suggests?<\/p>\n

Hallucinogenic plants can be dangerous and deadly poisons. Yet, from time immemorial, humans have used them as a pathway to the gods. This pathway can be mentally poisonous, for it results in an inversion of reality.<\/p>\n

From the Hindu mystic to the Jivaro headhunter, the belief is that reality is an illusion,\u00a0that the hallucination induced by a psychedelic drug or trance is the \u201ctrue\u201d reality. The drug or trance \u201cparts the veil,\u201d so the devotee can see the world as it \u201creally\u201d is.<\/p>\n

The Secret Wisdom of mystics who pretend they\u2019re so much smarter than us is that what us na\u00efve regular people call the \u201creal world\u201d is a hallucination, and what us na\u00efve folks call a hallucination is actually an insight into the hidden nature of things.<\/p>\n

Yes, this is nuts, so nuts that no one behaves consistently with it. Some pseudo-intellectual mystic philosopher can mouth words all day long about how reality isn\u2019t real, but when it comes to what he\u00a0does, he puts gas in his car and avoids driving into a telephone pole in order to get somewhere just like everyone else.<\/p>\n

Yes, we all have moments when it seems that reality\u00a0is\u00a0nuts \u2013 times that make it tempting to believe the headhunters are right about reality.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when it\u2019s time to reassure ourselves that they are not. That it\u2019s time to exercise our capacity for reason provided by Providence as our only means of successfully dealing with the one and only reality we have while we are here on this earth.<\/p>\n

That capacity is your oasis when it seems an ocean of craziness is lapping at your and the world\u2019s feet.<\/p>\n

From now on though, you\u2019ll have a whole new perspective when you see this jolly old red-and-white guy with his reindeer:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Jack Wheeler is the founder of\u00a0Wheeler Expeditions<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here is<\/b> probably the most extensive ebook on <\/b>Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Eliminating Your Taxes, Protecting Your Assets And Regaining Privacy Over Your Life And Investments<\/i><\/b>. It is called<\/b> The<\/b> Ultimate Guide To Going Offshore<\/b><\/a>.\u00a0 Visit our bookstore to purchase it today!<\/b><\/p>\n

I hope you enjoyed reading this article: The Painted Monastery, Headhunters, and Santa Claus. If you have any questions, please contact<\/b> our office HERE<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n

I’ve included some great articles for you to read, enjoy!<\/b><\/p>\n

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Belizeans are Genuinely Welcoming to Tourists and Tourism<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Painted Monastery, Headhunters, and Santa Claus What might these two photos have in common? \u00a0First is the\u00a0Painted Monastery of Voronet, tucked away in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. Next is a\u00a0tsantsa, a human shrunken head, made by the Shuara Jivaros in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador, the first tribe I ever lived with. \u00a0This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":366,"featured_media":14635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[23371,23373,23370,23375,23374,23372,23377,23368,23378,28995,28993,23379,28996,28992,28991,23369,28994,28990,28378,23376],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/jpeg-71.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14622"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41232,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14622\/revisions\/41232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14622"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}