Dan Merkur,
The Mystery of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the
Bible
Park Street Press, 2000.
www.InnerTraditions.com
Reviewed by Robert M. Price
I
know I’m going to be sorry I wrote this if I ever happen to meet
Professor Merkur, but here goes. Let me first say that I do not regard
as implausible the suggestion that biblical prophets and psalmists
(“Thus have I beheld thee in the sanctuary, beholding thy power and thy
glory”…) might have employed psychedelic drugs for visionary purposes.
Such usage is well known among the ancient Vedic priests, whose hymns to
Soma, the sacramental hallucinogen, are among the most strikingly
beautiful of ancient hymnody. In fact, it would make a lot of sense. But
is there any reason, any evidence to make us think they did use
hallucinogens (specifically, Merkur suggests ergot, a psychoactive wheat
rust or mold)? I cannot see that The Mystery of Manna provides
the least whit.
Merkur adduces two Old
Testament texts which he considers explicit in their reference to
hallucinogens. The first is Exodus 16:6-7a, 8b-10. Basically, the
Israelites eat the manna, and it is said that they then behold a vision
of Yahve. Here we have a classic instance of the post hoc ergo(t?)
propter hoc fallacy: nothing at all is said to connect the eating of
the manna with the vision, as if the first caused the second. It would
have been quite easy to say that the manna induced the vision, but no
such thing is said. Besides, what about all the other stories in which
the Israelites behold God—were they all tripping every time they saw the
pillar of fire? Nothing is said of tuning in, turning on, and dropping
out in any of those passages. Add to this the problem, like that long
recognized in Acts 2, of Moses and his staff being able to distribute
sufficient of the hallucinogen to all of the children of Israel! How
could Peter have baptized all those thousands on the Day of Pentecost,
either? I am reminded, too, of Bishop Colenso’s hilarious computations
of how many lambs a second the priests of Exodus must needs have
slaughtered given the population statistics.
The second perspicuous
hallucinogen text is Isaiah 30:20: “And my Lord will give you the bread
of hardship and the water of affliction, and your teacher will no longer
hide himself, and your eyes shall see your teacher.” Well, this is just
ridiculous. Need the text mean more than that Israel will “see”
(experience) their God only once they have been thoroughly chastised? If
you want to see what explicit references to sacred hallucinogens in
scripture would look like, take a look at the Rig Vedic hymns to Soma:
I
have tasted the sweet drink of life, knowing that it inspires good
thoughts and joyous expansiveness to the extreme, that all the gods and
mortals seek it together, calling it honey. When you penetrate inside,
you will know no limits… We have drunk the Soma; we have become
immortal; we have gone to the light; we have found the gods… The
glorious drops that I have drunk set me free in wide space… Inflame me
like a fire kindled by friction; make us see far; make us richer,
better. For when I am intoxicated with you, Soma, I think myself rich.
(8:48:1-2a, 3a, 5a, 6a, Wendy O’Flaherty trans.)
Wouldn’t it have been easy
enough for the biblical writers to have said something like that? That’s
all I’m asking. But if Merkur’s pair of “explicit” texts are such poor
proofs, the rest of the book offers us a mass of citations, some
discussed at pointless length, from various Church Fathers, Philo,
famous Rabbis, Christian mystics, Kabbalists, and others whom Merkur
feels must have been familiar with the psychoactive sacrament of manna,
though even he admits the insinuation is to be discovered only by a
reader, like himself, who is already “in the know.” He has shouldered an
impossible hermeneutical burden: taking as his evidence texts which he
himself admits never deal with the supposed subject matter in direct
speech. He admits the desired significance may only be read into
the texts. But that means the whole argument is circular. There is no
way in from outside. A “public” reading will not yield the key. And that
is the sort of reading scholarship requires. Otherwise the “exegete”
finds himself on the same level as teenage potheads confusedly imagining
drug allegories in Hey Jude. We may agree, however, that in this
one case, the Bible has caused Professor Merkur to hallucinate.