#646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin — The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, Lessons from Scholar Karen Armstrong, and Much More

The Tim Ferriss Show

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4.6 • 17.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2022

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brought to you by GiveWell.org charity research and effective giving and 5-Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter.

Welcome to The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is usually my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out their routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life.

This time around, we have a very special edition featuring Dr. Mark Plotkin and Brian C. Muraresku.

Mark takes over my duties as host and interviews Brian for an episode of the Plants of the Gods podcast. You, my dear listeners, are hearing the audio before anyone else, so this is a Tim Ferriss Show exclusive. I’ve previously featured some of my favorite episodes from that podcast at tim.blog/plantsofthegods. These episodes cover a lot of fascinating ground.

So, who is Dr. Mark Plotkin? Mark (@DocMarkPlotkin) is an ethnobotanist who serves as president of the Amazon Conservation Team, which has partnered with ~80 tribes to map and improve management and protection of ~100 million acres of ancestral rainforests. He is best known to the general public as the author of the book Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice, one of the most popular books ever written about the rainforest. His most recent book is The Amazon: What Everyone Needs to Know. You can find my interview with Mark at tim.blog/markplotkin.

And the guest today is Brian C. Muraresku. Who is Brian? Brian (@BrianMuraresku) graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with a degree in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name is Brian’s debut book. In 2020, it became a New York Times bestseller, and Audible named it “Best of 2020” in the History category. His website is brianmuraresku.com. You can also find him on Instagram @brian_muraresku.

This is a tightly packed 55-minute interview. Mark and Brian cover the Eleusinian Mysteries, the pagan continuity hypothesis, early Christianity, lessons from famed religious scholar Karen Armstrong, overlooked aspects of influential philosopher William James’s career, ancient wine and ancient beer, experiencing the divine within us, the importance of “tikkun olam”—repairing and improving the world as we go—and much, much more.

Please enjoy!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Give Well. Donating money to help other people is a wonderful act.
0:05.7	But how can you be confident? How can you know that your donations are actually improving or saving lives
0:11.2	effectively? It's hard to do. You could do weeks of research to find the charities that are out there,
0:16.4	what programs they run, what their administrative overhead is, how effective those programs are,
0:21.6	and on and on. It would be a full-time job. It could take forever. I know this from experience
0:26.3	because I tried to do it that way. Manually, it is a ton of work. Give Well spends more than 30,000
0:32.9	hours each year researching charitable organizations. Then they direct funding to a few of the highest
0:40.0	impact evidence-backed opportunities they've found. They do the work for you. More than 100,000 donors
0:46.4	have used Give Well to donate more than $1 billion, which includes $678,000 donated by you, my dear
0:54.2	listeners. It makes a difference. Regres evidence indicates that these donations will save more than
1:00.2	150,000 lives and improve the lives of millions more. That's why Give Well does what they do.
1:07.4	And using Give Well's research is free. Give Well wants as many donors as possible to make informed
1:13.3	decisions about high impact giving. So they publish all of the research and recommendations on their
1:18.7	site for free no sign-up required. They allocate your tax deductible donation to the charity or fund
1:25.9	you choose without taking a cut. If you've ever donated to Give Well's recommended charities before,
1:31.9	you can have your donation matched up to $100 before the end of the year. That's 2022. So one more
1:38.0	time. If you've never donated to Give Well's recommended charities before, you can have your donation
1:43.2	matched up to $100 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last. To claim your
1:48.8	match, go to givewell.org. Give giv.w.w.l.org. And when you get to check out, pick podcast and enter
1:59.5	Tim Ferris Show. It's that simple. Make sure they know that you heard about Give Well on the Tim
2:04.0	Ferris Show to get your donation matched. One more time that's givewell.org. And when you get to
2:09.3	check out, pick podcast and enter Tim Ferris Show. This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet
	...

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