THE SACRED MUSHROOM AND THE CROSS: Fertility Cults and the Origins of Judaism and Christianity
Doubleday, 1970. First Edition. Hardcover with Dust Jacket. First American Edition, First Printing. xxii, 349 pp. 8vo, black cloth, gilt stamped spine lettering. Some very trivial wear to the tips, else FINE, a clean and fresh copy with crisp pages, sharp corners, and tight, square binding; DJ tips a bit worn with some shallow loss to spine head, clean and bright otherwise with price of 7.95 intact. Uncommon in this condition. John Allegro came to some scholarly prominence with his standard introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls in Penguin's Pelican series, which had sold over 200,000 copies by the time of his author bio for this book. His sexualized interpretation of Judaeo-Christian origins with particular emphasis on the role of Amanita Muscaria in ancient rite had less wide appeal initially but gained a wide audience in the work of Graham Hancock. 'The whole point of a mystery cult was that few people knew its secret doctrines. So far as possible, the initiates did not commit their special knowledge to writing. Normally the secrets of the sect were transmitted orally... Another way of passing information was to conceal the message, incantations, or special names within a document ostensibly concerned with a quite different subject. Plant mythology, known for thousands of years over the whole of the ancient world, provided the New Testament cryptographers with their 'cover.' Mushroom stories abounded in the Old Testament. The Christians believed that they were the true spiritual heirs to ancient Israel. So it was an obvious device to convey to the scattered cells of the cult reminders of their sacred doctrines and incantatory names and expressions concealed within a story of a 'second Moses,' another Lawgiver, named after the patriarch's successor in office, Joshua (Greek lesous, 'Jesus'). Thus was born the Gospel myth of the New Testament.'. FINE / NEAR FINE. Item #508616
Price: $350.00