Since my TV is dead, I've been listening to a lot of music! Tonight I was listening to Life's Rich Pageant by REM, which is their best album, and I was particularly moved by The Flowers of Guatemala. I have always been partial to this song, but tonight it struck more deeply than before. I had always understood that it was a very political song about the atrocities committed by the US installed fascist dictatorship, which it is. The beautiful but deadly Amanita flower covers the graves of the victims of this regime, and that in itself has always given this song rich meaning and symbolism, but tonight I looked deeper at this "flower" and the more I learned about it the more the song meant until I think I have finally reached the heart of this song, which is very complex! On the surface, it is about the flower, but underneath that the flower is a symbol of the poisonous regime and its genocide, but if you look even deeper the song becomes about the flower again and its relationship to the people of Guatemala and these peoples' relationship with the global society. Very deep, but let's look at what this flower really is!
The Amanita Muscaria, although widely referred to as a flower by the people of Guatamala is, in fact, an extremely hallucinogenic and entheogenic mushroom - a red and white one like the ones in Alice In Wonderland! Now this is where we really dive in head first, but just stick with me. These mushrooms grow under conifer - read Christmas - trees, and they are mostly red and white but sometimes gold. Children are often sent to collect them from under the trees and bring them back to their parents. Much like brightly wrapped presents under the Christmas tree or the way that we send children to hunt for colorful eggs under trees to bring back to their parents for treats on Easter! I'm not the only one who sees parallels here - John Marco Allegro was the only non-catholic priest out of 12 who were qualified to read the Dead Sea Scrolls and he believed that the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that Christianity came from fertility cults and that the Amanita is the forbidden fruit in the creation myth. Is it any wonder reindeer can fly?
The entheogenic mushroom's close ties to Christianity don't end with Catholics "borrowing" Easter from fertility cults either. We all knew that anyway, but let's look at the Amanita a little closer. Rain and dew collects in the "grail" stage of the mushroom, turning a deep red, and shamens would drink this water. "Take this, all of you, and drink from it: for this is the chalice of my blood..." The Eucharist is certainly rich with symbols of the Amanita.
So let's explore how the celebration of the birth of Jesus and the Ascension comes full circle and relates to the creation myth through the magical mushroom, the Amanita! The most commonly consumed and most hallucinogenic part of the mushroom is called the "eve" and it comes from the underside of the mushroom, known as the "ribs." Do I even need to explain the obvious implications of this in the creation myth? Eve, the enlightened one, came from Adam's rib... Remember that part from Sunday school? So, the idea that the Amanita is the forbidden fruit becomes very convincing here, and as the manifestation of enlightenment, it is celebrated through symbolic collection on both Easter and Christmas along with the role it plays in the Eucharist. So, wherever we see the felix culpa theme represented prominently in the Bible we will most likely see the Amanita. This is not surprising, as this magic mushroom has been a catalyst for enlightenment for shamens for ages, and in a very tangible way the "fortunate fall" is ever present in the duality of this mushroom as both a poison as well as a hallucinogen. People who indulge in the Amanita often get sick before they get "enlightened" so it is, in a very real way, a physical manifestation of the fortunate fall - "felix culpa."
It is clear to me that the Amanita is an ancient entheogenic mushroom that played a large role in fertility cults, and it is also clear to me that the people who penned the bible were well versed in the rites and lore of these cults as well. Certainly we shouldn't be surprised that some of this made its way into the Bible and thus into modern day Christianity, and I certainly wouldn't imply that this makes the messages contained in the good book any less relevant than they are to modern day Christians. It is also clear to me that Michael Stipe is aware of all of these things and is ingenious in the way that he weaves all of this into a song about pretty flowers that creates such a profound sociopolitical message. Ergo, Michael Stipe is a genius, but we already knew that too.
