Study suggests Israelites may have eaten
hallucinogens, but scholars scoff
MSNBC staff and news service reports
updated 2:48 p.m. ET, Thurs., June. 12, 2008
JERUSALEM - When Moses brought the Ten
Commandments down from Mount Sinai, he may
have been high on a hallucinogenic plant,
according to a new study by an Israeli psychology
professor.
Writing in the British philosophy journal Time
and Mind, Benny Shanon of Jerusalem's Hebrew
University said two plants in the Sinai desert
contain the same psychoactive molecules as
those found in plants from which the powerful
Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.
The thunder, lightning and blaring of a trumpet
which the Book of Exodus says emanated from Mount
Sinai could just have been the imaginings of a
people in an "altered state of awareness," Shanon
hypothesized.
"In advanced forms of ayahuasca inebriation,
the seeing of light is accompanied by profound
religious and spiritual feelings," Shanon wrote.
"On such occasions, one often feels that in seeing
the light, one is encountering the ground of all
Being ... many identify this power as God."
Shanon wrote that he was very familiar with the
affects of the ayahuasca plant, having "partaken
of the ... brew about 160 times in various
locales and contexts."
He said one of the psychoactive plants, harmal,
found in the Sinai and elsewhere in the Middle
East, has long been regarded by Jews in the region
as having magical and curative powers.
Shanon acknowledged that he had "no direct proof
of this interpretation" and said such proof cannot
be expected.
Biblical scholars scoffed at Shanon's suggestion.
Orthodox rabbi Yuval Sherlow told Israel Radio:
"The Bible is trying to convey a very profound
event. We have to fear not for the fate of the
biblical Moses, but for the fate of science."

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