Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of Left Podcast. This is a sample of our recent bonus episode usually only available to members.

These episodes are comprised of our crew of researchers, Amanda, and myself all getting together

for a roundtable discussion on topics that we find interesting. So here's a few minutes for free so you can

know what all the fuss is about.

It's a long form piece with a lot of insights about the author's personal life, but we're just going to be picking out the details about the history and context of this story.

The first major piece is, quote,

new archaeological evidence strongly suggests

that the earliest Christians, the ones persecuted by the Romans, used a form of barley with a

fungal parasite on it called ergot, which when mixed with wine became psychoactive. That ergot infused wine was believed to be

offered as the sacrament in church services. The mind-altering Eucharist would be an excellent

recruitment tool for the pagan converts.

Through the communion, early Christians directly experienced Christ. These experiences,

some scholars argue, helped spread the faith despite the persecutions.

And then he goes on to describe that a lot of Christian art in those early days, which is now

ancient dust, but some of it still survives. A lot of ancient

artwork included or featured psychoactive mushrooms, including in churches right there where people were taking communion and then ultimately of

course we know that eventually it was stamped out this actually came up in a

bonus show within the last few months and he writes that after a

1300-year battle within the Christian faith all forms of mysticism and psychedelia were banished, as was all mushroom-themed art in church mosaics

and stained-glass windows.

In our previous conversation,

what we focused on was that transition point

...