Is the Bible a magic book?

[ideologyhunter]

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The Bible is a MAGIC book!
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Let me change the direction of the discussion a moment and go back to magic.

One thing that I think is interesting is some of the last few verses of Revelation contain a curse. KJV Revelation 22:18-19.

18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

How could anyone add or subtract from Revelation without knowing what drugs John took? That part about the beast of the sea and the beast of the land (chapter 13) outfreaks most of the OT.
Anyway I like your example of a Bible curse in the context of magic. It's also like obeah and voodooism. And don't forget Jesus teaching, in Mark 3 and Matthew 12, that if you curse the Holy Spirit, you put a curse on yourself that can't be removed. You're hellbound. If you're like me and you don't want to hear Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell and Tammy Faye and Mother Angelica ever again, there's your offramp.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

You have to remember that back then there were no copyright laws. So putting a curse at the end was probably an equivalent to modern-day text:

Permission is hereby granted, to any other prophet obtaining a copy of this prophecy, to deal in dissemination without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the prophecy, and to permit persons to whom the prophecy is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies and no modifications of the document may be made under strict punishment of plagues, potential removal from heaven, and everlasting hellfire.

 

[steve_bank]

I wonder if the ancient Hebrews had ethneogens. our modern culturally sensitive politically correct euphemism for drugs.

It woud exoplanet a lot of the bible.

 

[Elixir]

It woud exoplanet a lot of the bible.

That would be doing the human race a huge favor.

 

[bilby]

It woud exoplanet a lot of the bible.

That would be doing the human race a huge favor.

A bit harsh on the (presumably blameless) aliens on the exoplanet in question though.

 

[DBT]

Commander X from the Pleiades has a lot to answer for.

 

[Politesse]

I wonder if the ancient Hebrews had ethneogens. our modern culturally sensitive politically correct euphemism for drugs.

It woud exoplanet a lot of the bible.

That isn't what entheogen means. "Drug" is a folk classification that means different things to different people, so its true we avoid using it in cross-cultural conversations where confusion is likely, but entheogen is just a technical term. Any substance that might lead to a spiritual or supernatural experience is classed as an entheogen.

 

[Elixir]

Any substance that might lead to a spiritual or supernatural experience is classed as an entheogen.

Look, I’ve taken enough entheogens to curl Timothy Leary’s hair, and the experiences they induce are NOT supernatural. They’re just unusual.

 

[Politesse]

Any substance that might lead to a spiritual or supernatural experience is classed as an entheogen.

Look, I’ve taken enough entheogens to curl Timothy Leary’s hair, and the experiences they induce are NOT supernatural. They’re just unusual.

Inducing religious ecstatic states is what makes something an entheogen. If it didn't work for you, that does not change its classification.

 

[DBT]

I think it's the nature of the experience that's being questioned. Its classification rests on a set of assumptions..

 

[Elixir]

Any substance that might lead to a spiritual or supernatural experience is classed as an entheogen.

Look, I’ve taken enough entheogens to curl Timothy Leary’s hair, and the experiences they induce are NOT supernatural. They’re just unusual.

Inducing religious ecstatic states is what makes something an entheogen. If it didn't work for you, that does not change its classification.

Oh, that part is for reelz! The religion part of ecstatic states is particularly affected in some people. Some who have no religion, get it, some who have religion, lose it or get some intensified version of their previous religious experience… but no supernatural stuff happens. It’s all biochemical. Supernatural components of experiences are truly independent from causal elements like having ingested some compound or plant

 

[Politesse]

Any substance that might lead to a spiritual or supernatural experience is classed as an entheogen.

Look, I’ve taken enough entheogens to curl Timothy Leary’s hair, and the experiences they induce are NOT supernatural. They’re just unusual.

Inducing religious ecstatic states is what makes something an entheogen. If it didn't work for you, that does not change its classification.

Oh, that part is for reelz! The religion part of ecstatic states is particularly affected in some people. Some who have no religion, get it, some who have religion, lose it or get some intensified version of their previous religious experience… but no supernatural stuff happens. It’s all biochemical. Supernatural components of experiences are truly independent from causal elements like having ingested some compound or plant

What is this "supernatural" you refer to?

 

[Jarhyn]

Well, I expect some such events as the Paul ministry and the turn of the church towards what it would become were the result of something causing hallucinogenic effects. I would suspect a rye ergot or similar could well sum up the story.

In some ways, prophecy is something people try to trigger, regardless. People who have belief will attempt to ground that belief in reality, and the worst part is that we are at a point where history will inflect and psychopathic Christians have done everything in their power to set up events to look like their prophecy so that they can justify some mandate to commit to a holy war against "sinners".

Any substance that might lead to a spiritual or supernatural experience is classed as an entheogen.

Look, I’ve taken enough entheogens to curl Timothy Leary’s hair, and the experiences they induce are NOT supernatural. They’re just unusual.

Inducing religious ecstatic states is what makes something an entheogen. If it didn't work for you, that does not change its classification.

That's an interesting tidbit to be sure.

Personally, the only reason I have had experiences more like Elixir and less like Paul is that the things I see and encounter (and I do see and encounter things) are acknowledged as "hosted and instantiated entirely within the system that is my brain".

If I were not as well disciplined in holding this distinction, I would end up believing some very weird shit.

Edit: that said, my experiences and possibly my atypical definitions for certain terms, often definitions driven by those experiences with drugs, do amount to having acted as a genesis of sorts for an "understanding about gods" without "belief in the existence of gods".

 

[Elixir]

What is this "supernatural" you refer to?

It’s an experience, apparently, if I understand the “supernatural” that YOU referred to:

Any substance that might lead to a spiritual or supernatural experience is classed as an entheogen.

 

[Politesse]

What is this "supernatural" you refer to?

It’s an experience, apparently, if I understand the “supernatural” that YOU referred to:

Any substance that might lead to a spiritual or supernatural experience is classed as an entheogen.

Right. The religious experience is what makes it an entheogen. Hint's in the etymology. And it's easy to tell, reasonably objectively, whether someone is in an uncommon perceptive state. Their speech, their actions, their physiological condition, and of their self-report are likely altered. They create artifacts like the Bible.

What confuses me is your claim that these experiences aren't "real" supernatural experiences. What differentiates a "real" from an "unreal" hallucination, and how could your personal experience, the only evidence you've cited, be a reliable guide to that distinction? "I know it because of what I saw while tripping on LSD" is among the least convincing lines of argument ever introduced to rhetoric.

 

[Elixir]

it's easy to tell, reasonably objectively, whether someone is in an uncommon perceptive state. Their speech, their actions, their physiological condition,

Zackly, that. If you take a few hundred mcg of LSD, your altered state will be perceptible by others. Naturally. Because it deviates from the common. If you keep taking that amount of LSD every day for some months, that state becomes common, and what you felt was supernatural becomes so obviously natural that it borders on the mundane.
Don’t ask me how I know.

 

[steve_bank]

I wonder if the ancient Hebrews had ethneogens. our modern culturally sensitive politically correct euphemism for drugs.

It woud exoplanet a lot of the bible.

That isn't what entheogen means. "Drug" is a folk classification that means different things to different people, so its true we avoid using it in cross-cultural conversations where confusion is likely, but entheogen is just a technical term. Any substance that might lead to a spiritual or supernatural experience is classed as an entheogen.

Sorry if I touched a sensitive spot amigo.

Don't know if it is still around, The Ntive American church had peyote rituals. Back in the 60s 70s it was legal for an outsider to go to a reservation and participate. Knew somebody who did.

The soft culturally sensitive term is ethneogen, but it means a drug. You can quibble over a semantic difference between peyote and LSD as one being ethneogen and the other a drug, but both are chemicals that alter the brain chemistry.

Back in the 90s I first heard it said by the pro drug legalization crowd that all cultures have had ethneogens, so LSD and pot are our 'ethneogens' and as such it should be legal.

Ethneogen is synonomous with psychedelic, psychoactive, and halucinagenic. An acadenic euphemism IMO.

It is certainly plausible that bizarre writings like Revelations were drug induced. Og Jesus wnadeing in a desert havng visions and halucinations. Hearing vouces, god speking to him from heavdn.

Drugs are thought to be involved with the Oracle Of Delohi. Soma. Today there are still wanderng Sadus inIndia who thik they find god in rejecting tbe world and smoking pot.

Rastafarians.

 

[bilby]

I would suspect a rye ergot or similar could well sum up the story.

In other words, "cogito, ergot some".

 

[Elixir]

I would suspect a rye ergot or similar could well sum up the story.

In other words, "cogito, ergot some".

Is that what they call a rye sense of humor?

 

[Jarhyn]

I would suspect a rye ergot or similar could well sum up the story.

In other words, "cogito, ergot some".

Is that what they call a rye sense of humor?

You guys are a trip!