This list is NOT for the 2007 DVD or new online version of the video. These errors have been corrected in both of the new versions.
The Pharmacratic Inquisition video was never produced for public release. The video was shot on a $500 budget over three days in order to help us gain sponsorship to finish our book Astrotheology & Shamanism, pub. in January, 2006. Because this video was never intended for public release, there are a few minor errors (besides our occasional uhs, ums, mispronunciations, and studering) that need addressing. For those interested in complete and updated sources and full information about the contents in this video may seek out our book. It is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or from our publisher http://www.thebooktree.com
ERROR LIST:
Hour 0:20
Galileo – Though we state that this was only a disseminated belief, and not held in the mystery schools, it was even less than that... it appears that the flat earth theory never really existed at all!
As far back as we've been able to trace it, it appears that people have ALWAYS debated the flat/round earth ideas.
As well, we misquoted info on Galileo regarding the flat earth... He simply said that the earth rotates around the sun... still a heresy, but wrongly stated on our part.
Hour 0:21:50
Maya calendar is Aztec calendar
Hour 0:38:00
Belt of Orion info is incomplete and brief and does not mention that the sun is also born under the constellation of Virgo on Dec. 25, while she steps on the head of the serpent.
Hour 1:02:32
Oannes - the Fish Man
We state that all of the references here to fish were symbolic of Pisces. This is only partially correct.
The fish was often considered a symbol of abundance, domestic felicity, and prosperity. Eating fish on Friday likely came from the belief that eating fish promoted lustfulness and virility. Fish symbology is quite common in pre-Christian iconography. However, Christianity is the newest extension of these “fish-headed priests”. Oannes pre-dates Christianity by more than 5,000 years, but its symbolism is blatantly reflected in Christian symbolism and still remains prevalent today. Simply put, the symbolism of the fish was extracted from older myths and repackaged to mark the Age of (the fish) Pisces.
Hour 1:10:55
King Solomon broken down as Sol-Om-On, the three ancient names for the sun. This statement is incorrent. This was originally referenced from Jordan Maxwell and Michael Tsarion, and was brought to our attention as incorrect. In order to check the veracity of the statement, I contacted a leading Sumerian philologist from England. This is what she had to say:
"The trouble with these derivations of 'Solomon' is that the Biblical name is not spelt s-o-l-o-m-o-n, but shelomoe. This is why you get Shlomos in NY!
The name is generally related to a verb commonly used in both ancient and modern Mideast languages to describe the notion of being sound, secure, safe, including Arabic, Assyro-Babylonian and Sumerian - where it appears in the form silim.It is reflected in the well known Hebrew greeting shalom. As for the terminal oe, my own suggestion is that it is equivalent to a name ending I discussed in an article in connection with some other Mideast names.
It seems to have been a popular name for both people and places BCE and CE: appearing in a variety of forms in various Mideast languages e.g. Arabic sulaiman, Assyro-Babylonian shalmaneser. (Note there is some fluidity of sibilants s and sh in Mideast languages, cf. the Biblical dialect test with the word s/shiboleth). I imagine the popularity of the name with rulers relates to the qualities intrinsic in the word, imbuing them with an aura of justness, reliability and the like (!)
The English spelling s-o-l-o-m-o-n presumably comes via the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible: saloomoon (long o's). Perhaps the Greeks equated the Hebrew shelomoe with the various A-B and Levantine forms of the name such as shalman (cf Hosea 10:14) and salamanu."
Hour 1:18:40
Ayahuasca – we state “Banisteriopsis Cappi and a MAOI”,
Should be Banisteriopsis Cappi (MAOI) and Psychotria viridis leaves (DMT). Banisteriopsis Cappi is a MAOI
Hour 1:22
John Allegro - Worlds leading philologist, team head, completed translation in 1956, asked by scholars… it wasn’t his own agenda. Dead Sea scrolls and Christian myth.
Should say:
John Marco Allegro was a researcher in philology who had graduated with a first-class honors degree in Oriental Studies from Manchester University. He had earlier begun training for the Methodist ministry, but had left to pursue the degree course when he found that studying biblical languages was making him question the foundations of his Christian belief. While working towards a doctorate at Oxford, he was invited to join the original Scrolls editing team in 1953. In 1954, he became an assistant lecturer at the University of Manchester. Considered an up-and-coming philologist in regards to Middle Eastern and Mediterranean languages, Allegro was the only agnostic on the international team of translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most of the other members of the “international” scrolls team were ordained Catholic priests, including Father De Vaux and Father Josef Milik of the École Biblique, Father Jean Starcky, Father Maurice Baillet, and Monsignor Patrick Skehan. They were joined by Frank Cross of the McCormick Theological Seminary and the Albright Institute, Claus-Hunno Hunzinger from Gottingen and later John Strugnell from Oxford.
The work of this team, organized by Father De Vaux, was originally supposed to be published as soon as possible and open to scholarly interpretation. John Allegro was the only member to publish all his translations in learned journals as soon as he felt they were ready to be laid open to scrutiny. The other members tended to hold onto their allocations for so long that some people–including Allegro from time to time, in moments of extreme exasperation–suspected a cover-up and suppression of the research. Scholars who attempted to question the orthodox view (as Allegro found out) had their careers destroyed.
By 1968, Allegro completed and published all of his translations of the Cave 4 scroll fragments assigned to him and began his work on his book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. In 15 years since the international team was put together in 1953 to decipher the scrolls, Allegro was the only member to finish his assigned duty.
Because of Allegro’s so-called errors in his translations and his willingness to release the translations with errors for other scholars to review (for the purpose of finding and eliminating errors), he came under the attack of his team replacement, John Strugnell. Though they had been friends, Strugnell later turned against Allegro and tore apart most of his translations, the effect of which was to further destroy Allegro’s credibility amongst his peers.
Strugnell attacked Allegro’s ability to translate because of the early releases that Allegro was willing to put up for debate. In 1970, Strugnell wrote a “rebuttal” against Allegro entitled Notes in the Margin. This was one of only three pieces Strugnell was ever to write (not publish) in his 30-year career with regards to the scrolls. The rest of the research team refused to release any of their own translations for nearly four decades, thus hiding any of their own possible errors.
Hour 1:25
Valentina Pavlovna (Wasson) used the mushrooms for food and psychoactive purposes.
Valentina Pavlovna had not used mushrooms for religious purposes at that time.
Hour 1:26
R. Gordon Wasson kicked off Entheomycology with Mushrooms, Russia, and History, not Soma – The Divine Mushroom of Immortality
Hour 2:12:28
Libertus with the mushroom on her chest should actually say Minerva with the mushroom on her chest.
Hour 3:03
Corpus Callosum – Not stated properly.
In our bodies, we have wings above our spinal staff. This darkened area, looking like wings, is the ventricle system of the brain. The ventricle system in the brain is a series of cavities and chambers that allow cerebrospinal fluid to flow around the brain. Cerebrospinal fluid is the fluid that brain floats in to protect itself from injury.
3:03
Hour 3:06
Comments about psilocybin and its ingredients are incorrect.
Our statement:
"Psilocybin is the active ingredient in Psilocybe cubensis types of mushrooms and is the most advanced, single chemical compound on earth. Psilocybin is the only naturally occurring 4-substituted indole found on earth. Psilocybin is composed of O-phosphoryl – 4-hydroxy – N,N –Dimethyltryptamine. Notice the word “Phosphoryl” as in phosphor or phosphorescence. Phosphorescence is the emission of light without burning.
Terence and his brother Dennis McKenna discovered that Psilocybe mushrooms contain something not found anywhere else in the plant or animal kingdom. This substance is the 4-hydroxy indole found in Psilocybin."
This was derived from Terence McKenna:
"I've mentioned that psilocin, which is what psilocybin quickly becomes as it enters your metabolism, is 4 hydroxy dimethyltryptamine. It is the only 4-substituted indole in all of organic nature. Let this rattle around in your mind for a moment. It is the only 4-substituted indole known to exist on earth. It happens to be this psychedelic substance that occurs in about eighty species of fungi, most of which are native to the New World. Psilocybin has a unique chemical signature that says, "I am artificial; I come from outside." I was suggesting that it was a gene - an artificial gene - carried perhaps by a spaceborne virus or something brought artificially to this planet, and that this gene has insinuated itself into the genome of these mushrooms."
~ Terence McKenna
Original messages from first error posting:
Icono wrote:
i remember someone pointing out another organic 4 substituted indole not too long ago, yea it was in the "4-hydroxy" thread.
Apparently Mitragynine and Ergine (both psychoactive substances )also have 4 substituted indoles that occur organically.
J Irvin wrote:
I see a lot on chemical substituted indoles and chemical 4-hydroxy, but and I looked these two up, but I'm not a chemist. Does anyone want to help get to the bottom of this?
Mitragynine
9-methoxy-corynantheidine, C23H30N2O4 (mol. wt. 398.50)
Primary active principle of Kratom
"The mitragyna-tree is a tree growing in Thailand and, locally, known as 'Cratôme'. It contains an unusual, poorly-known, psychotropic molecule called mitragynine. Mitragynine is reported by local people as having tranquillising properties, at low doses, shifting to stimulant properties at higher doses! I have experimented with, apparently, low doses consisting of three smoken leaves(leaves of the mitragyna-tree are fairly equal in size), in order to collect first-hand information about the psychotropic effects of mitragynine. What I observed, subjectively, more or less reminds the effects of the serotonin re-uptake blockers, such as zimelidine or fluvoxamine. Mitragynine, mainly, blocks motivations and induce indifference, together with a strong sense of laziness! Everything becomes borring to do. It would be interesting to know if mitragynine has serotonin re-uptake blocking properties. ... It would also be interesting to investigate mitragynine and the negative schizophrenic symptoms (blunting of emotions).
Mitragyna leaves are used, locally, as a treatment for opiate addiction."
Ergine
Phytochemistry
The psychotomimetic principles of I. violacea are ergot alkaloids of which some have also been isolated from the sclerotium of the fungus Claviceps purpurea.
The biosynthesis of these alkaloids is initiated in the leaves and from there precursor-molecules are distributed to the seeds: the heart-shaped leaves contain d-lysergic acid amide (ergine), d-isolysergic acid amide (isoergine) and ergometrine and the seeds ergine, isoergine, chanoclavine, lysergol and the N-1-hydroxyethylamides of both isomeric amides. 4 The fresh seeds have an alkaloid content of 0.02-0.1 %.
Elymoclavine and lysergol (reduction products of lysergic acid) and penniclavine have also been isolated. Ergine is active in doses of 2-5 mg
Does anyone know how to get in contact with Dennis McKenna?
Icono wrote:
Yeah, both Mitragynine and Ergine look subbed at the indole-4 position and they both occur in nature...
This is a good place to look up the structures:
http://chem.sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemidplus/
(requires java)
Also, I have to ask, what do you mean by "most advanced single chemical compound on earth"? Advanced in what way? I have a degree in chem and chemists usually don't refer to chemicals as "advanced" or not. Maybe "unusual" or "rare" or "novel", but generally not advanced.
By the way, that whole connection of the phosphoryl group in psilocybin and phosphoresence is kinda strange. The phosphoryl group is ubiquitious in nature, all throughout the human body in fact, and doesn't have much to do with phosphorescence. By the way, I've heard that the phosphoryl group is immediately dissociated as an ion when you ingest psilocybin (like salt breaks up into Na+ and Cl- in your body) so the phosphoryl group has no part in the psychedelic quality of the molecule.
I don't mean to be too critical...I found the video very enlightening, especially as regards the religious symbology...keep up the good work!
J Irvin wrote:
Not a problem at all. We wouldn't post the errors if we weren't concerned with making sure things are correct.
This topic was moved to the Research forum.
This was the conclusion:
on 1/17/05 12:28 PM, JIrvin wrote:
Dear Dennis,
My name is Jan Irvin. I’m writing in regard to some work of yours and Terence’s. ...
We are just completing our book on Astrotheology and Shamanism in Christianity.
Someone has informed us that the statements made by you and Terence about the nature of psilocybin, are incorrect. We have been informed that psilocybin in not the only naturally occurring 4-indole, and Terence had (I believe) at one time mentioned that 4-hydroxy is only found in psilocybin mushrooms, and was therefore a sort of “alien” substance.
We quote you and Terence all throughout the book, so it is important to us to make sure this is exactly right.
Any help you could offer in rewording/correcting this would be most helpful and appreciated.
Dear Jan,
Terence was not a chemist, and occasionally made statements that were less than accurate when it came to chemistry. …
I don’t believe I ever said that psilocybin and/or psilocin are the only 4-substituted indoles in nature. They are not common, but they do occur. Mitragynine from Mitragyna speciosa, the notorious kratom from Thailand, has a 4-methoxy on the indole ring; lysergic acid derivatives could also be viewed as, in some sense, 4-substituted indoles, although in this case the 4-substitution is tied into another couple of rings. That’s all I can think of offhand, but there may be other examples in nature. I do believe it’s correct to say that psilocybine (and its derivatives, eg baocysteine) are the only 4-phosphorylated indoles in nature.
BTW, we can’t take credit for discovering psilocybin or psilocin. That distinction goes to Dr. Albert Hoffman, now going strong and about to celebrate his 99th birthday!
Best
Dennis
Tue 1/18/2005 9:52 AM J Irvin wrote:
Dennis,
I wanted to ask you about the 4-substitution making psilocybin orally active, can you shed more light on this subject?
This is from chemist [icono], who is also a fan of yours and Terence’s. He asked me to forward you his comments. He’s helping us make sure this section about DMT clears up the mistakes in Terence’s description, and to ‘hopefully’ make it still work. We think Terence could well be right about Psilocybe acting as a catalyst for evolution, but we have to get this as accurate as possible.
Thanks again
Jan Irvin
forward from Icono:
the 4-sub position is actually quite important, even if it's not
unique. Ever wonder why you can take ps orally and it's active
without an MAOI unlike, say DMT, or 5MEO? It's because the NNdimethyl
"tail" can swing around and form a complex with the "O" at the 4
position, making it impervious to MAO in the gut. That's from a
Dennis McKenna talk by the way.
So if you don't chuck the whole idea, you might say something like the
4-subbed position makes it active orally all by itself, allowing mind
expansion with simple ingestion, unlike its parent structure, DMT
which has to be combined with an MAOI to be effective through the gut.
When you think about how humans evolved via the hunter gatherer route,
a DMT analogue that works via simple ingestion becomes very important.
on 1/18/05 11:52 AM, Dennis McKenna wrote:
Jan,
Regarding [Icono's] comments [above], he has it exactly right. It’s true that apparently Psilocin is orally active is because, in the charged, physiological state you get a weak hydrogen bonding between the indole HO- (which is deproteinated) and the side-chain nitrogen (which is protonated). So you do get that steric hindrance happening that protects it from MAO. This is not from me, by the way, this is straight from the guru of chemistry himself, Dave Nichols!
And, [icono] is further correct in that a single-ingredient psychedelic, active with little or no processing (and what needs less processing than a cluster of fresh, succulent Psilocybes?) suggests itself as a more likely catalyst of hominid consciousness; especially as they would tend to migrate with the populations as they dragged their cattle along with them. It’s probable that some tropical mushroom, probably Ps. Cubensis, could have been widespread in hotter, wetter paleolithic times.
I also think it’s possible that people could have accidentally stumbled on the DMT/MAO combinations pretty early. After all, tryptamines are pretty widespread in plants, and so are B-carbolines. So I think it’s entirely possible that you could have foraging hominids, calmly munching on DMT containing plants, and suspecting nothing because it’s not orally active. But one day somebody decides to add something new to the salad, maybe that little sprig of Peganum harmala that she found on the path, and viola! The lights come on, at least for a little while. Now whether they are pharmacologists enough to figure out that it was the combination of the two plants is another matter; but eventually they did, obviously, because we now have ayahuasca and numerous analogs.
So I think probably both scenarios may be correct. The pastoral, mushroom eating semi-nomads on the plains, while the forest dwelling populations may have been more likely to encounter (or invent) ayahuasca-like combinations.
Best
Dennis
