Stoneage Psychedelia by Chris Everard reviewed

Stoneage Psychedelia is a new book by film-maker, author and researcher Chris Everard. It is a very challenging work that will shock many people with the information contained within its 304 pages. Everard, who publishes Feed Your Brain Magazine and makes film documentaries for the Engima Channel, takes the view that all religions and much of the visionary material described in the scriptures came from the inspiration derived from hallucinogenic plants. He believes that the elite of the major civilisations of the world such as the Ancient Egyptians all used psychedelic herbs to access alternative realities and other dimensions.

The author backs up his claims with detailed references to the Bible and elsewhere where mind-altering herbs such as Mandrake, Syrian Rue and Calamus are mentioned. He explains how there is considerable evidence that various "Magic Mushrooms" were the fungal key that shamans and priests used to get in touch with God and other spirits.

Further that the use of hallucinogenic plants dates right back to the time of the Neanderthals who gathered these mind-altering herbs and planted them too.

Lionel Fanthorpe, the former presenter of Fortean TV but who has recently worked in the same role for Enigma TV, has written the introduction to Stoneage Psychedelia with the help of his wife Patricia. He describes it as "a book written by the daring for the daring" and I would agree with this description.

As I have already said, Everard believes that much of the Bible was the result of the inspiration derived from the use of hallucinogens with the Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) being one of the main mind-altering mushrooms used by the ancient prophets and priests. The author suggests that these fungi and other psychoactive plants were very important items of merchandise and trade and that the use of herbs that could produce visionary states went on worldwide. He says that there are as many as 30 different mind-altering herbs mentioned in the Bible.

Calamus (Acorus calamus), for example, is an ingredient in a "holy annointing oil." Chris Everard believes that herbs like these were put into oils and ointments that were massaged into the body because of the psychoactive properties they possess. Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) is yet another powerful hallucinogenic herb he describes that is another of the herbs mentioned in the Bible.

These ideas are nothing new to me because I have come across evidence for believing this in my own research and make reference to the ancient uses of such plants and fungi in my own book Herbs of the Northern Shaman.

In fact I was a good friend of the late Professor Arysio Santos, who was an expert on Atlantis and who had the theory that the Atlanteans used and cultivated all the hallucinogenic plants we know of today, and that it was from this very ancient culture that drug use spread around the world that survived. Prof Santos went as far as claiming many of the psychoactive herbs such as Salvia divinorum had been produced by genetic manipulation long long ago.

Everard makes detailed reference to the books of John Marco Allegro and Terence McKenna. Allegro challenged the official opinion that went out about the Dead Sea Scrolls and in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) he had put forward his theory that the Bible had been written about users of the Fly Agaric mushroom that employed this and other hallucinogens to contact God. R. Gordon Wasson had theorised that Fly Agaric was a major part of the inspiration for the Vedas and was what "Soma" was. Wasson put forward his ideas in Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality.

McKenna, in Food of the Gods and elsewhere claimed that human intelligence, creativity and civilisation had come about as a result of early humans consuming mushrooms that contained psilocybin. All these authors agree that the major religions and much of the culture of the world has come directly and indirectly from the use of mind-altering plants and psychoactive fungi.

The Egyptians left behind artwork and sculpture showing strange beings with the heads of frogs or serpents. These were the Ogdoad and were believed to be the gods of creation. There are eight of them with four female and four male beings, and they are depicted in scenes with Egyptian priests offering up small bowls. The image of the sacred Lotus water-lily is also found throughout Egyptian artwork and also over in India where it is an important symbol in the Vedas and what was to become the Hindu religion.

Chris Everard believes that these ancient cultures used this plant as a hallucinogen and this was possibly in the ceremonial bowls. The author discusses the use of this plant for its mind-altering properties and also goes into looking at what the Ogdoad were and how secret societies and occult practitioners have sought to communicate with these beings.

It was demonstrated in a TV series entitled Sacred Weeds that the Egyptian Blue Water Lily (Nymphaea caerulea) does have psychoactive properties when some volunteers were given the plant to take, It is a hallucinogenic herb that is stocked today by suppliers of legal highs such as Bouncing Bear Botanicals - see links at the bottom of this hub.

He also goes into describing how the Egyptians also used Cocaine, Tobacco and Cannabis, and how the official version of history we have been told about Columbus discovering America is a lie. There was worldwide trade and interchange of culture long before he set sail.

Everard also discusses DMT (Dimethyltryptamine) and the "Ayahuasca" sacred brew that is used by shamans to access other dimensions and the beings that live there. He looks in depth at the history of the usage of hallucinogenic drugs to experience other realities and to contact beings that inhabit these realms.

DMT has recently been called the "Spirit Molecule" and is produced in the human brain as well as being in a long list of plants growing all around the world. It produces intense psychedelic experiences and has been used for thousands of years by shamanic cultures such as those of South America where ayahuasca is brewed.

The DMT and related tryptamines in certain exotic herbs, such as Chacruna (Psychotria viridis), are activated in the presence of harmala alkaloids that are found in other plants such as the Yage vine (Banisteriopsis caapi)  that can act as a catalyst. Syrian Rue (Peganum harmala) is an herb used in Biblical times that also contains these substances, as its scientific name indicates.  The alchemical mixing together of the DMT and tryptamines with the harmaline or harmine creates ayahuasca, which causes an extremely powerful experience that takes the user to other worlds where they may well encounter very strange beings.

Acacia trees contain DMT and other tryptamines as well, and the author explains that this fact was well known to the mystics of Arabia and the areas the Bible and Koran were set in. It seems too much of a coincidence that two sets of plants for making a shamanic brew that would transport the user into another very different reality were found and known about in both parts of the world.

Chris Everard makes a very convincing case for his theories and also looks at how efforts have been made by the controllers of the world to deny and censor all information that shows the truth of what he is saying. The billions of believers and supporters of the major religions are not told anything about how hallucinogenic herbs and magic mushrooms played a big role in the creation of what is in the scriptures.

Stoneage Psychedelia is a very challenging book if you are not familiar with the material it covers and the ideas it puts forward. Chris Everard has assembled a large collection of evidence for everything that he claims is the truth that has been hidden from us by the elite who control the world, by the Vatican, and by the corrupt media and political system we have in place. 

Many readers may find a lot of what he has to say comes as a shock, many will simply refuse to believe what he is claiming and will go into denial. Chris Everard is not worried about that. His book is a wake-up call. There will be those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, and it is to those people that his work is addressed. 

Copyright © 2011 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.