The Dogmatist’s Debacle

Questioning Holy Mushroom History as Found in the Writings of Jan Irvin

“No one has been able to contend The Holy Mushroom.¹“
-Jan Irvin

One of the most attractive psychedelic theories ever hatched was the notion of the Holy Mushroom, a challenging concept that cut to the heart of Western Civilization. It started in 1946 when Muhammad Ali discovered vessels containing texts today known as the Dead Sea Scrolls in a cave in Qumran. Not long after, two teams of scholars assumed the duty of diligently deciphering the delicate dialectical-diamonds descended from days deceased. In 1970 one of these scholars, Oxford philologist John Marco Allegro (1923-1988), announced his newest findings to the Sunday Mirror (5, April, ’70):

“Thousands of years before Christianity, secret cults arose which worshipped the sacred mushroom — the amanita muscaria — which for various reasons … came to be regarded as a symbol of God on earth. … Through studying Sumerian cuneiform texts which go back to 3500 B.C., we can trace the proper names and words used in the Bible back to their original meanings².”

His philologically ingenious book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, released that very day, would demonstrate that tucked away in New Testament language was proof that the stories found therein were mere “cover stories” to hide the holy mushroom.

A Fantasy So Egregious

Allegro was not some swindling professor trying to cash in with a sensational concept — he was a specialist in ancient languages, with credentials so impressive that his theory seemed incongruous to his intellect, leaving one reviewer to call The Sacred Mushroom: “A fantasy so egregious³.” Other scholars agreed, and while the theory has been largely ignored since first decried decades ago, a small cadre of professors and amateurs has attempted a recent resurrection with new evidence that they claim vindicates Allegro. The research of one of these Allegro supporters, Jan Irvin, shall be the object of this study, as his views are considered exceptionally peculiar within the broader entheogenic research community.

Since Allegro was a philologist, we will begin our investigation with the null hypothesis, testing the veracity of the linguistic approach to our inquiry by starting from zero, and building on evidence⁴.

“…she has them believing that poor old ape with the twisted foot is a satyr — Illusions! Deceptions! Mirages!”
-Lady Amalthea, The Last Unicorn

But here we meet our first problem: Allegro fabricated much of his Sumerian vocabulary. In The Sacred Mushroom he included a Sumerian index of 869 words, of which 315 of them are his own linguistic inventions⁵, causing many linguists, Semitists, Classicists, and various other historians to promptly dismiss his work: Henry Chadwick, Ninian Smart, Joel Carmichael, Peter Levi, Dennis Potter, Michael Green, Maxwell Warren, and Sir Godfrey Driver (among others)⁶.

But we needn’t even rehash their critiques; we need only consider the following hypothetical: I claim that Allegro was wrong because I have discovered an ancient Anglo inscription that reads, “ALLGROWSRNG“.

Forget that the word might have meant “ALL GROW in SPRING” to the people using it thousands of years ago and that corroborating evidence holds this as the more plausible translation. Still, I insist that it reads “ALLEGRO WAS WRONG“.

How long did it take you, the reader, to determine that my theory, based on incomplete word roots and predetermined bias (“Allgrowsrng” = “Allegro was wrong”), is a weak argument to show my hypothesis? Probably about as long as it took Godfrey Driver to determine that this very tactic (albeit a far more sophisticated and erudite version) employed by Allegro meant the same for his theory.⁷

This analogy is supported by others; Allegro’s own daughter, Judith Anne Brown, is remarkably objective in assessing her father’s approach:

…the clues [Allegro] was finding linked together like a web. From the critics’ point of view, the logic of this was flawed: To fasten one improbable link onto others was to compound the weakness of the web, not strengthen it. … [Another] problem was the imprecision of philology as a guide to historical events. Though fascinating for the derivation of words, it has less bearing on their meaning for users⁸.

With the case stacked against Allegro, Jan Irvin set out to find a Sumerian philologist who agreed with him; not finding one, he claimed that Carl Ruck, Classics professor at Boston University, was that philologist. While Ruck has done some excellent work in these areas (even coining the neologism “entheogen”), he is a Classical — not Sumerian — philologist. Irvin asserts that Ruck’s fifteen-page “philological argument”, Fungus Redivivus, vindicates Allegro⁹. An emblematic Irvin exaggeration, as Ruck’s is not a philological paper, and nowhere does the author claim it such!

Indeed, some of Fungus is devoted to some thought-provoking linguistic dissections in Latin and other European languages (as expected from a Classicist), but nothing strong enough to substantiate Allegro’s original Sumerian thesis¹⁰. Ruck’s best argument, however, comes in defending Allegro’s inadequate Sumerian index, which he calls “standard linguistic procedure … to recreate the necessary missing bridges¹¹.” While this is certainly a good start for showing that Allegro’s peers unfairly excommunicated him for his theory, it still does not prove that Allegro’s asterisked words ever existed. Scholars today still debate the relationship between the Sumerian language and other languages¹².

But even if we grant that Allegro’s philology is sound and agreed upon by all manner of antiquarian, there is still a famine of supporting historical evidence, which we shall address now.

Astrotheology and Charlatanism

The bulk of Irvin’s claims can be found in his two books Astrotheology and Shamanism and The Holy Mushroom¹³. In the former, Irvin dodges the philological matter altogether, openly admitting that his is “not a study of ancient languages¹⁴.” Irvin instead offers secret symbols originating in cultures and times far removed from his own, buttressing his interpretations by citing writers whose views most scholars do not support¹⁵.

Irvin’s attempts at real history are simply flawed. For example, his need for the amanita muscaria to be the true Christ experience comes with the particularly bold and unsupported statement in Astrotheology that demonstrates his unfamiliarity with historical ecstatic experience: an unflinching claim that “Anyone saying that they [sic] can achieve these altered states without the use of sacred plants should be thoroughly investigated¹⁶.”

As it turns out, one such group was thoroughly investigated in Italy throughout the 17th century, the Benandanti. As conclusively shown, the Benandanti achieved altered states of ecstatic consciousness without the use of drugs, negating Irvin’s claim centuries before he wrote it¹⁷. And they weren’t alone; Carlo Ginzburg, the Italian scholar that brought the Benandanti to public light, is an authority on fertility cults found throughout Eurasian history. He followed up his study of the Benandanti with a survey of decidedly non-drug induced ecstatic fertility cults extending throughout the ages. Irvin seems wholly unacquainted with Ginzburg’s groundbreaking work¹⁸.

Another subject conveniently overlooked in Astrotheology is the absence of shrooms in the writings of first-century’s authors¹⁹. For example, proto-Christian heresiologists fought countless theological battles throughout the centuries against Christologies they found unorthodox.

The name of the heresiologist game wasn’t cover up, but rather expose, ridicule, and dismantle: Irenaeus wrote five volumes titled Against the Heresies, and not once condemns a holy mushroom²⁰. Tertullian wrote seven discourses denouncing different deviating doctrines — all are shroomless. Justin Martyr, Ignatius of Antioch, Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius, Augustus, Jerome, and countless others wrote page after page, volume after volume, expounding their aversion to first-centuries heresies.

If Irvin will claim that these proto-orthodox heresiologists labored their quills over every kind of blasphemy except the holy mushroom, then he simply doesn’t understand how pugnaciously heresiologists wrote about beliefs they opposed. There is an embarrassment of riches regarding the writings against heretics, but far be it for the Church Fathers to expose and demystify the most profane notion of all?

The battle for proper Christian belief raged for centuries from all manner of Christological dogmas shouting from every corner of the Empire. Where are the writings defending the holy mushroom Christology? Where are the opposing writers rejecting it? That would be evidence. However, this is not the same as denying that certain sects added opium, henbane, mandrake, etc. to make wine more powerful at an agape²¹; indeed, this might be what Augustine meant when he wrote of Manichaean feasts becoming gluttonous, wine-fueled ceremonies — he even mentions Manichaeans munching mushrooms.²² However, the context makes it hard to determine if Augustine regarded these shrooms as entheogenic or ordinary. After all, the fungi are cited alongside other “every day” foods “to gratify [one’s] appetite” like truffles, cake, and mead — that is a long way to proving that the sect members put mushrooms in their vino because they believed the intoxicating additive symbolized the Son of Man.²³

Saying it was “covered up” gets Irvin nowhere. Richard Friedman has shown conclusively that the idea of a small, elite group of priests (mushroom or otherwise) secretly controlling scripture is a futile argument; it is, in fact, a veritable impossibility²⁴. Conversely, considering cross-cultural comparisons, we might ask why entheogenic priests and shamans in other nations never suppressed the mushroom secret from their society. In fact, there is a terminal loophole in Irvin’s argument: the fact that he writes openly about the Church’s efforts to silence whistleblowers strains the very omnipotent conspiracy he purports. Where are the Vatican police officers coming to neutralize Irvin for revealing the mystery?

And the problems mount: even pagan detractors of Christianity never once addressed the “supreme secret”²⁵ that would have brought the whole institution crumbling, all the while slandering Christians for far greater crimes than eating fungi: cannibalism, infanticide, and insecticide²⁶! Indeed, some pagan authors like Celsus and Julian the Apostate wrote entire treatises against Christianity that never reference the sacred mushroom²⁷. This latter fellow presents another curiosity within Irvin’s theories that his (and no other book about ancient Christian mushroom use) addresses²⁸: Julian was an insider, a Christian intellectual placed at the pinnacle of the privileged pyramid — raised his whole life to one day lead the Christian Rome that his uncle, Constantine, had established. If anyone would have known the secret of the holy mushroom, Julian would have.

After taking up the emperorship, however, Julian converted to paganism. He encouraged division in Christianity and, had he lived, might have reconverted the whole empire to paganism.²⁹ He wrote prolifically, and his ruthless Against the Galileans attacks the Church — the perfect opportunity to expose the holy mushroom! Alas, like every other book criticizing Christianity in antiquity, Against the Galileans is shroomless.³⁰

And Julian’s book was hardly destroyed by later Christians; in fact, the opposite is true: early Christians found the book so convincing that they preserved it so as to teach new converts how to argue against Christian detractors! If Irvin will then claim that Christians excised only those parts of pagan works that exposed the secret, than he is arguing from non-evidence.³¹ Even Allegro’s daughter wrote that the “main weakness” of his theory was “the cover-up story”.³² In the face of this stunning lack of textual evidence, Irvin’s interpretations of esoteric symbolism mean nothing.

Perhaps Irvin’s problem is a predisposition to self-created historical fantasies. For example, he claims that the “Church effectively banned reading for nearly 1,000 years,”³³ an outlandish statement that precludes him from checking the historical record.³⁴ There is a wealth of literature spanning from antiquity to medieval times that Irvin apparently doesn’t even know exists! Firstly, reading wasn’t barred from the peasant class. We today consider reading fundamental; to a struggling farmer in a small village, reading wasn’t pragmatic. Secondly, regarding the literate class, let’s assume Irvin’s imaginary book-censure began with Constantine in the 4th century — a “1,000 year” timeframe overlaps with the rise of the European university!

Finally, for Irvin to be correct, one must set up an impenetrable wall between first centuries CE Christians, pagans, and Jews like he does in Astrotheology: “In the eyes of the Catholic Church … the world is either Christian or pagan.”³⁵ But historians know that the ancient world was more fluid than that — Christians intermingled with and, in some cases, married pagans!³⁶ Ignoring the volumes written by heresiologist and pagan author alike (and also disregarding those Christians who copied and preserved pagan writings!), and the intermingling that occurred among people from these diverse groups through nuptial and business, Astrotheology and Shamanism shows that Irvin’s way of thinking about ancient history is simply too linear.

The Self-Fulfilling Prophet Sees

Perhaps recognizing the inherent flaws in Astrotheology and Shamanism, Irvin followed with The Holy Mushroom. Therein, he successfully demonstrates that Allegro’s mistakes regarding the chemical compounds of the amanita muscaria were really the mistakes of other scholars like Andrija Puharich, who Allegro innocently quoted. Irvin writes, “Allegro fell under disrepute among chemists, pharmacologists and psychedelic researchers because he quoted Puharich … in regards to the chemicals present in the amanita muscaria.”³⁷ Like in Astrotheology, Irvin blames the debacle on Robert Gordon Wasson³⁸ (1898-1986), a NY banker with a profound interest in mycology, who later “launched … the Psychedelic Revolution,” as Ruck lauded.³⁹ Irvin sums:

“Based on the evidence presented, we can logically conclude that Wasson is the source of many present-day scholars’ obstructive bias against Allegro and the idea of entheogens in Judeo-Christianity.”⁴⁰

Through a bit of clever sleight of hand, Irvin transfers Allegro’s thesis from philological to chemical:

“Their attacks have now been shown to be baseless accusations. Allegro’s references with regards to entheogens, … with mostly minor errors, are valid.”⁴¹

That’s great! But so what? The point is anachronistically moot: none of Allegro’s peers dismissed him because of Wasson, a point cunningly left out of The Holy Mushroom. Irvin makes no attempt to penetrate the labyrinthine lexicon that is Sumerian philology; he simply passes the buck from Allegro’s incomplete Sumerian index to Puharich’s flawed chemistry. The rest of The Holy Mushroom merely rehashes the debate between Wasson and Allegro, regarding the latter’s chemical citation of amanita muscaria⁴² — a highly insignificant point that none of Allegro’s peers ever mentioned or cared about.⁴³

To account for this lapse in historical logic, Irvin appended forty plates to The Holy Mushroom that he assures us show the sacred fungus depicted in medieval Christian art. But sundry slides share similar snags, as Irvin’s only criterion for interpreting the artwork is that if something looks like a mushroom, it is a mushroom — a weak methodology that we shall see has many problems, the first of which lets a self-fulfilling prophet see whatever he wishes.

Of Fire Bearing Stones — Figure 1: Of Fire-Bearing Stones (*Aberdeen Bestiary*)

For example: Plate 2 (Figure 1) features a man and a woman that Irvin casts as Eve and Adam, standing beside very — we would call “abstract” — trees⁴⁴. We are supposed to believe that these trees are really the holy mushroom, representing the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, as evinced by Eve and Adam. Yet, the couple actually represents the female and male passions of the Fire-Bearing Stones (De lapidibus igniferis), lustful rocks that ignite when conjoined⁴⁵; thus, even if we concede the erroneous Eden theme to Irvin, all the illumination would show was that the artist thought the “fruit” was from a Tree of Carnal Knowledge.

Additionally, similar trees appear in the illumination complementing the lore of the tigress (Figure 2) in the same manuscript⁴⁶. Either the abstract trees in the Fire-Bearing Stones illumination are innocuous foliage, or Irvin has to explain what role sacred mushrooms played in the secular traditions of the tigress.

Plate 5 offers an interesting problem: Irvin reproduces the “Story of Creation” illumination from the Canterbury Psalter (1147)⁴⁷. Since the Tree of Knowledge as it appears in the Psalter (Figure 3, left) has mushroom-like attributes – namely, rounded top, red leaves⁴⁸ – the claim is made. However, in another pane in the Canterbury “Story of Creation”, Eve and Adam have been expelled from Paradise and are toiling in the fields (Figure 3, right). The trees that represent the drudgeries of the natural world and cause Adam such intensive labors resemble the supposed Eden “mushroom” tree, meaning that this was probably just how the artist(s) of this illumination drew trees⁴⁹.

They're the same! — Figure 3: Why didn’t the artist distinguish Eden “mushroom” trees from outside-Eden “regular” trees? They look the same.

In another Eden scene (Plate 8), found in the Bible of Charles the Bald (9th century), debatable “mushroom trees” are also found. Only here, the denizens of Paradise aren’t eating the fruit from these trees⁵⁰, but rather from a pedestrian tree that could bear anything from apples to bananas!⁵¹

Depiction of Eden from The Bible of Charles the Bald — Figure 4: The top panel, just right of center, shows a so-called “mushroom” tree. Below, Eve and Adam have ignored it and are eating fruit from a tree that isn’t very mushroomish at all! Here, the “mushroom” trees obviously represent some other kind of tree, not a mushroom. Otherwise, why didn’t the artist draw Eve and Adam eating its fruit instead?

Leaving Eden, Irvin invites us to tour other plates that feature inanimate objects which he mistakes for mushrooms.

Holkham Bible - angel holding the Arma Christi — Figure 5: Angel holding the Arma Christi

Take Plate 33 (Figure 5): Irvin writes that an angel is holding “three distinct mushrooms”⁵².

However, a careful investigation shows that the supposed three mushrooms are really the three nails of the Arma Christi⁵³.

He further contends that Jesus can be seen holding “a mushroom in his right hand” in this image…

Holkham Bible - Jesus ain't holding — Figure 6: Jesus is empty-handed.

…but when enlarged, it is clear that there isn’t a mushroom there at all; like Irvin when pressed for hard evidence, Jesus is empty-handed⁵⁴.

In Plate 27 Irvin assures us that the donkey that carried Jesus into Jerusalem is looking, “with gritted teeth,” at a mushroom⁵⁵. The “mushroom” is really just the neck-hole of a stole, as many renditions of this scene painted throughout the centuries show children laying various garments on the ground to welcome Jesus into the city⁵⁶. Perhaps the “secret” symbolism behind this painting is that only a jackass can mistake a neck-hole for a mushroom?

Nearly every plate Irvin submits suffers similar shortcomings as those discussed above. Most fall into one of five categories:

they are either from non-devotional works⁵⁷;
open to alternative, naturalistic interpretations that require fewer leaps in faith⁵⁸;
are objects that were never intended to represent mushrooms at all⁵⁹; or
are so desperately lacking in their “mushroomness” it’s a wonder Irvin submitted them as evidence⁶⁰.
Finally, there are Irvin’s truly remarkable claims like rocks representing “metaphors for the mushroom”⁶¹. How one goes about proving or disproving that a rock covertly depicts a mushroom is too highly sophisticated an argument, and far above the intellectual capabilities of this writer…

Irvin’s problems with art shrooms “stem” from his methodology. If something looks like a mushroom (i.e., nails, neck-holes, rocks (!), etc.) then without any investigation, Irvin emphatically dubs it thusly⁶². Irvin could offer up hundreds of images⁶³ and it still wouldn’t matter, as his approach — decontextualizing history to fit preconceived notions — is spurious. After all, if he isn’t going to take his research seriously, how seriously should we take his conclusions? Can it be mere coincidence that all of Irvin’s elementary mistakes and historical blunders always curve toward his favor⁶⁴? Furthermore, suppose an artist here or there did insert a mushroom into a painting⁶⁵. Does that imply that s/he believed Jesus to really be a holy mushroom as clergymen clandestinely chronicled in the canons? Perhaps the biggest shortcoming is Irvin’s lack of study in the realm of medieval art schools, some of which encouraged eccentric etchings of the natural world⁶⁶. For Irvin to be correct, we must blindly accept that there weren’t artistic people living in the past — a truly preposterous idea.

Ironically, the piece of evidence Irvin offers as the best, is actually the most damning: The Epistle to the Renegade Bishops. Oddly, Irvin calls this 16th century document an “ancient source” on radio shows like Joe Rogan and Alex Jones⁶⁷. The 16th century is ancient?! Scholars refer to that time as the Early Modern Period. Ostensibly, a lack of ancient primary sources has led Irvin to publicly misdate the document to fit his agenda of proving a proto-Christian mushroom cult existed in antiquity. Such deception simply does not qualify as history. Anachronisms aside, the Epistle — interesting as it is — only compounds Irvin’s problems. If the word of the holy mushroom was truly “pronounced throughout the entire ecumene,”⁶⁸ leading Irvin to hypothesis that “the holy mushroom had a widespread and integrated role” in Christianity, then where is all the other textual evidence⁶⁹? All other references to the holy mushroom were destroyed except the one that proclaimed the sacred fungus spread throughout the ecumene? This is a real “Baghdad battery” problem⁷⁰. Moreover, let’s momentarily concede to Irvin that the Epistle is a legitimate documentation of the holy mushroom, recounting an incident that occurred in the 13th century. Where is all the textual evidence between the 13th and 16th centuries? Even granting the historically implausible notion that all subsequent textual evidence was destroyed, it would hardly prove that the first Christians understood Jesus to be a mushroom and that this secret was carefully guarded by jealous, proto-orthodox tyrants.

Another interesting but ultimately ineffectual offering of evidence is a passage from the Mishkat regarding the Muslim prophet Mohammed that Irvin borrows from John Rush, who wrote that, “Mushrooms are a kind of manna which God sent to Moses so that we can see⁷¹.” Putting aside that most scholars translate the word in question to mean “eye-drops” instead of “mushrooms”⁷², it really doesn’t help Irvin’s case. Let’s say Rush’s translation is correct. So what? Muhammad maintaining manna meant mushrooms in the 6th century does little to prove that proto-Christians believed similarly in the 1st century.

For all his pompous talk about evidence, Irvin has yet to connect the amanita dots…

Ink Inclusion

It would serve Irvin well to research other Christian iconoclasts in history like John Mill (1645–1707). After studying roughly 100 Bibles⁷³, Mill released his translation of the New Testament with all 30,000 inconsistencies that he found among the texts—a claim that, at the time, proved just as scandalous to the Roman Catholic Church as anything Allegro said regarding sacred mushrooms. Mill’s detractors were outraged, and their criticisms echo in the disapprovals of Allegro roughly 250 years later: “[n]umerous representatives of traditional piety were immediately outraged, and promptly denounced Mill’s publication as a demonic attempt to render the text of the [New Testament] uncertain.” However, when “classically-trained scholars entered the fray” like Richard Bentley, J. J. Griesbach, Karl Lachmann, and Johann Albrecht Bengel to confirm or refute Mill’s assertions, they couldn’t deny that he was correct⁷⁴.

Most confounding is Irvin’s reaction to questions regarding his problematic history. Inquirers receive little more than a never-ending booklist of questionable titles that many scholars do not take seriously⁷⁵. One such title is John Rush’s The Mushroom in Christian Art, wherein the author asks us to “look beyond any naturalistic interpretation” when considering if something mushroom-like is really a mushroom⁷⁶. Rush writes of these Christian art renderings in terms like “a tree is not a tree, a rock is not a rock, a mushroom is not a mushroom … the value of the [mushroom] motif is its visible invisibility” — a most elementary, non-falsifiable, and intellectually flabbergasting argument that demonstrates nothing⁷⁷. Rush has apparently filled Russell’s Teapot with mushroom tea.

Not one volume on Irvin’s pretentious booklist addresses the big problems laid out in this study:

Lack of textual evidence describing sectarian mushroom worship (but plenty of mushrooms in the art?!);
How pagan authorities could accuse Christians of infanticide, incest, and cannibalism — far more appalling crimes than adulating a fungus — but not accuse them of eating a mushroom;
How the diverse writing styles of the Gospels indicate one hand carefully controlling all the texts, secretly inserting mushroom puns, knowing that those “initiated” would understand⁷⁸.

Recently, Irvin was denied entry into the Herbaria at Harvard University. His failed admissions request demonstrates farming for preconceived answers; Irvin writes: “I’m especially interested in missives that would show [Gordon] Wasson to have intentionally created the psychedelic movement via his ties to [Henry] Luce through the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) and Century and the head of the CIA—Dulles.⁷⁹” The null hypothesis is neglected for a predetermined claim — “that would show Wasson to have intentionally created”: Wasson is already guilty. Little wonder Harvard rejected the request.

Clearly Irvin misses the biggest point: an extraordinary idea sought with clumsy criteria, disrespect for fine institutions, and prefabricated conclusions tragically disservices those very scholars — Ruck, (Mark) Hoffman, Wasson, Ott, Metzner, Harner, Grob (among others) — who have produced valid works in the area of entheogenic history. When Irvin anchors his ideas to these scholars, he gives any prejudiced reviewer an excuse to dismiss such reputable authors a priori. Lacking real evidence, Irvin shows that he is not a historian, but an ideologue; his books aren’t mushroom history, but rather mushroom theology; one must take his statements on faith. Mushrooms are his religion⁸⁰, and like all dogmatists, Irvin takes a scissor to any proof that runs contrary to his creed, cutting squares into evidence to fit his circular argumentation. Honest historians are then left to refit the discarded pieces that Irvin’s faith bars him from considering.

Reestablishing the study of psychedelic or otherwise entheogenic research into the university is too delicate to be handled by such callous, conspiratorial claims couched within the writings of Jan Irvin. Lamenting his Harvard Herbaria rejection in a tit-for-tat way⁸¹, it’s a shame Irvin cannot see that he is the reason academia is reluctant to take this area of research seriously.

It’s a sad story.

Perhaps even the saddest story ever told.

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Questioning Holy Mushroom History as Found in the Writings of Jan Irvin

A Fantasy So Egregious

Astrotheology and Charlatanism

The Self-Fulfilling Prophet Sees

Ink Inclusion

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