An Israeli researcher says that Moses received inspiration from psychedelic drugs:
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.
“As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics,” Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.
Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the “burning bush,” suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.
“The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a classic phenomenon,” he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to “see music.”
Speculation, of course, but the religious use of psychedelic drugs is not unprecedented in human history.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:03 am
The way the Bible reads there is so much missing from the stories, it leaves you to believe some of it is added by the Kings who wanted to control the way we think, to instill fear of the ultimate. I don’t think a God of all of us would want us to fear him. I mean why? Why fear something that is good? And why add tidings into it, other than to keep up a building or invest in those who are not Gods on earth, but messengers? The Bible is full of stories, and something is missing and added. The Bible is something man wrote, and that leaves lots of question to me.