Moses 'high' on Mt. Sinai.

Moses was stoned. That's what Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

"As far as Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Ten commandments, burning bush: voice of disembodied deity or psychotropic drugs--you decide!

More after the jump (bring your own deity/drugs)

This is just too good. Apparently, part of what clued him in was the Bible's description of "seeing sounds" (I really don't remember that from Sunday School, but then there were a lot of things that got glossed over). He relates this to trying ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, in the Amazon where he "experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations". He also said that in these religious ceremonies people "see music".

He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.

He also said:

"Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times."

Now I completely missed that part of the Old Testament. I remember the rams horn and marching around Jericho and the blood on the doorways and the locusts and all that. But I didn't hear no stories about getting high on plants. They always leave out the good parts. We never really got into the Song of Songs, either. And you can just forget about the dish on David and Jonathon.

So old Moses was a stoner. Boy is that gonna get some people riled up. Get the popcorn ready, this should be good.