• FuglyDuck
    link
    English
    218 months ago

    Communal worship can put people into suggestible states, for example. Throw in some attention whores with dubious affinity for truthfulness, and suddenly you get some pretty wild stories. Throw in some hottie swaying and going ‘ooooOOOooOoo, AahhaAAAAhhhh’ or whatever to whatever was their contemporary version of a hipster playing a musical instrument…

    Alternatively, we’ve all seen the videos of experiments with conformity.

    no need to blame psychedelics.

    • @Boingboing
      link
      148 months ago

      He quite literally wrote the book on the island of Patmos. A place famous for its magic mushrooms.

      • FuglyDuck
        link
        English
        3
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Assuming it was John of Patmos. The author only identified himself as “John”; but it was also super common to use pseudonyms as a way to get more authoritative.

        The fact is we don’t really know for sure. The only evidence in the book itself is that that is where the revelation happened. One leading theory is that “John” was exiled there. For being Christian.

        Keep in mind a lot of the rhetoric is a direct criticism of Domitian and Roman’s.

        Maybe they did use psychedelics and maybe they didn’t. We don’t know.