J. Brown, J. Brown. In the Beginning Was the Mushroom: The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity.

Edited by Mikhail Vishnevsky

This book unfolds a grand narrative of the transformation of early mushroom cults into modern Abrahamic religions. By introducing readers to stunning visual evidence from their anthropological journey through Europe and the Middle East, the authors document the role that vision-inducing mushrooms played in the birth and development of Christianity. They trace the path first taken by R. Gordon Wasson—the renowned “seeker of sacred mushrooms”—who studied psychedelics in Ancient Greece and India and conducted research among reindeer herders in Siberia and the Mazatecs of Mexico.

By analyzing biblical texts and Gnostic Gospels, the authors reveal the defining significance of entheogenic mushrooms in the emergence of Judeo-Christian religion, offering a re-evaluation of knowledge about the life of Jesus and introducing a theory that vividly demonstrates how the first sacred paths to God were established.

This book is intended for a wide audience, as well as for ethnographers, cultural scholars, religious studies experts, historians, and ethnomycologists.