I’m not quite sure what to make of this March 4 story from RawStory (hat tip FreedomsPhoenix):
High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.
Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.
Following is the abstract of the article:
A speculative hypothesis is presented according to which the ancient Israelite religion was associated with the use of entheogens (mind-altering plants used in sacramental contexts). The hypothesis is based on a new look at texts of the Old Testament pertaining to the life of Moses. The ideas entertained here were primarily based on the fact that in the arid areas of the Sinai peninsula and Southern Israel there grow two plants containing the same psychoactive molecules found in the plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew Ayahuasca is prepared. The two plants are species of Acacia tree and the bush Peganum harmala. The hypothesis is corroborated by comparative experiential-phenomenological observations, linguistic considerations, exegesis of old Jewish texts and other ancient Mideastern traditions, anthropological lore, and ethnobotanical data.
Notably, the journal makes the full text available for free. I have not yet read through it to see whether the claims are supported by real evidence, but the descriptive “speculative” did jump out at me from the abstract.
Yet I hardly need to entertain the notion that Moses may have been on hallucinogens to reject the claim that God spoke to Moses through a burning bush.
The more interesting implication is for the religious right’s war on drugs.