Moses At Sinai

The taste of human beings for psychotropic drugs has a confusing seniority. Is it surprising? Beyond the recreational aspect, altered states of consciousness are not they a way of enlightenment?

“At his descent of Mount Sinai, when he presented the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people, Moses was under the influence of powerful hallucinogens,” says Benny Shanon, professor of psychology at the University of Jerusalem. In a provocative article in Time and Mind, a philosophical journal, he states that psychotropics were part of the religious rites of Israelites mentioned in the Book of Exodus. His arguments are unconvincing, especially when he refers to the biblical text where his analysis remains low.

“Regarding Moses at Mount Sinai, it was either a supernatural cosmic event in which I do not believe, or a legend, in which I do not believe either, or finally – and this is very probable – an event bringing together Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics,” said the professor to the Israeli public radio. “The Bible says on this subject that the people see sounds, and that is a very classic phenomenon, for example in the tradition of Latin America where we see some music,” he added.

The Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden was a drug-induced state. He specifies there are in the deserts of Sinai and Negev herbs and hallucinogenic plants still used by the Bedouins. According to him, traditional shamanic societies often use drugs in their religious rites. 

“But that use is subject to very strict rules. (…) Thus fire can be a bad thing if used for war, and a very good thing if used for cooking.” 

Appalled, I suppose, his religious audience wonders what motivates such blasphemies and shocking assertions. Some expect to see probably drop the Gehenna fire to punish the unwary who disregards the sacred Ark of the Covenant powers. Others imagine the good teacher affirming that the whole sacrosanct Jewish religion would be but a pure delirium addicts. 

Shannon instead shows his true colors:

“I myself was invited in 1991 to a religious ceremony in the northern Amazonia, in Brazil, during which I consumed a potion made from a plant, ayahuasca, and I had visions with spiritual and religious connotations”, also indicated Professor Shanon. According to him, the psychedelic effects of potions prepared with ayahuasca are comparable to those produced by drinks concocted with the bark of acacia. This tree is frequently mentioned in the Bible.

Its wood is similar to that in which has been cut the Ark of the Covenant. (source)Le Parisien, info posted by Adriana Evangelizt

What an edifying story! If it was a goy who had told it, we imagine the cries of the CRIFCouncil of the Israelite Religion in France. But this brave professor Shanon, Jewish and Israeli moreover, is above suspicion. Really? But still, a university professor who is drug-addict, it is disreputable… Still! His students have not waited his example to get high. In vino veritas, Romans said. In ayahuasca very tassefrench joke, tasse means cup, say teachers today.

So, Prof Shanon is perhaps not wrong:
maybe Moses was hovering like a god.