The Welcome to the podcast.

This is the Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan.

I have a great guest today.

Someone I met in Penn Station six years ago by chance talked to about cannabis regulation.

He's a graduate of from Brown University. He has a degree in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit.

As a member of the New York Bar, it says in his book, he has been practicing international

for 15 years.

He lives outside Washington, D.C. with his wife and daughters, and has spent the last

few years disappeared down a rabbit hall, or rather catacombs of ancient history and the origins

of Christianity in what I think is probably one of the most

interesting and significant books to come out, bear it a little bit because this awful

election is going on. But this will last longer than that. I want to start, Brian, by asking you a very simple question.

This all comes from a very deep and ancient place.

The religion, as you call it, with no name.

And the book, by the way, I should have said, is the immortality key, the secret history of the religion with no name.

What the origins of psychedelics in human history? When did people first start figuring that when they ate a mushroom or had some infected barley or any other substance, that they figured out, wow, this has taken

me somewhere quite serious and spiritual. We're not talking about entertainment or giggling or

goofing off. We're talking about an insight into the ultimate reality. When did humans start doing this?

That's a question I would love to answer.

And the way I'm going to answer it for you, I hope shows my methodology.

So I'll start the answer this way.

Two weeks ago, I had one of the most fascinating conversations of my entire life with Lee Berger, who is National Geographic Explorer in Residence, the paleoanthropologists, paleoanthropologists in South Africa.

...