Jan Irvin and Andrew Rutajit have put together a fascinating and educational video on the Christian persecution of entheogenic plants and mushrooms.

The video can be viewed for free at Jan's website Gnostic Media.com and is meant to work as a companion piece to their book Astro-Theology and Shamanism. They skillfully use historical art to point out how some of these mushroom secrets seem to be hidden in plain view.

There are many insights that will make you stop and think. One that I'm still digesting is their hypothesis of the Holy Grail. When the Amanita muscaria reaches maturity, it begins to form a cup shape that resembles the Grail as depicted in several pieces of art. The cup will sometimes capture early morning dew, forming a red liquid that can be sipped to experience a mild mushroom experience. Irvin and Rutajit suggest how this might have been what was referred to in the Bible when Jesus instructs his disciples to drink of his blood and eat of his flesh. The blood being this mushroom drink and the flesh being the actual fruit of the Amanita muscaria.

The argument is well built and backed up with visual evidence from the destruction of the Eleusinian Mysteries at the end of the fourth century through the relentless persecution of "witches" and other shaman-like people in the Middle Ages. It's really not too far of a leap to see where todays "War on Drugs" is a continuation of these brutal policies.