Brian Muraresku

He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown UniversityBrown UniversityBrown University is a private nonprofit research university in Providence, Rhode Island, and a member of the Ivy League. Chartered by Rhode Island's colonial legislature in 1764, it is known for its undergraduate Open Curriculum, which has no common required core. Christina H. Paxson, president since July 2012, announced on August 3, 2026, that the 2026–27 academic year would be her last in office. As of October 1, 2026, the search for Brown's 20th president remained underway.Open the full entry with a degree in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit.⁠[1]

A member of Brown’s class of 2002, he comes from a working-class Philadelphia family and was the first in it to go to college.⁠[2]

In 2007, while a lawyer at the New York firm Milbank, he read an Economist article on the revival of psychedelic research, went back to The Road to Eleusis, which he had read in college, and later left the job for years of research and travel.⁠[2]

In 2016 he became the founding executive director of the physicians’ group Doctors for Cannabis Regulation.⁠[1]

In 2018, in arbitration with the NFLNFLThe NFL (National Football League) is a U.S. professional American football league of 32 clubs. Founded in 1920 as the APFA and renamed in 1922, it is organized into the AFC and NFC, with the season culminating in the Super Bowl.Open the full entry, he represented the first professional athlete in the United States to seek a therapeutic use exemption for cannabis.⁠[3]

On September 29, 2020, St. Martin’s Press published his first book, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name, and he then appeared on the Joe RoganJoe RoganJoe Rogan is an American podcaster, stand-up comedian and UFC commentator whose long-form interview podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, launched in 2009, is among the most listened-to podcasts in the world; he hosted the NBC reality show Fear Factor, and his show’s content and political statements have repeatedly drawn controversy.Open the full entry Experience to discuss it.⁠[4]

The book carries a foreword by Graham Hancock. The publisher’s description says the author pursues evidence in the ruins of Greece, the Louvre, the catacombs of Rome and the Vatican archives to ask whether the earliest Christians’ Eucharist was psychedelic, and reconstructs a history of women consecrating a drugged Eucharist later banned by the Church Fathers.⁠[5]

The Immortality Key became a New York Times bestseller in 2020 and was named Audible’s “Best of 2020” in the History category.⁠[6]

On February 1, 2021, he discussed his new book with Charles Stang, director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, in a series co-sponsored by the Esalen Institute and others.⁠[7]

On Vox Conversations in March 2021 he said the first half of his book rests on a find at a sanctuary in a Greek colony in what is now Spain, where researchers tested small ceremonial vessels under optical microscopy and found traces of ancient beer spiked with ergot, a result little known because it was published in Catalan.⁠[8]

In August 2021 he appeared on episode 211 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing ideas of God, psychedelics in ancient alcohol, The Immortality Key, the role of rituals in human society, the role of religion and the future of psychedelics research.⁠[9]

On December 22, 2023, he appeared on episode 346 of Sam HarrisSam HarrisSam Harris is an American author, philosopher and neuroscience PhD, host of the Making Sense podcast and founder of the Waking Up meditation app; he rose to prominence with The End of Faith and other critiques of religion and is regarded as a leading figure of the “New Atheism,” and has since written and spoken on morality, free will, meditation and politics, often provoking controversy.Open the full entry’s Making Sense, discussing the Mysteries of Eleusis, the “pagan continuity hypothesis,” the cult of Dionysus, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic Gospels, the chemical analysis of ancient wine and beer, and why he has not tried psychedelics.⁠[10]

An alumnus of Georgetown Law and a member of the New York and Washington, D.C., bars, he had practiced law internationally for more than fifteen years as of 2023.⁠[10]

In May 2024, on Luminous, a podcast of Wisconsin Public Radio’s To The Best Of Our Knowledge, he said he builds on scholars who have explored the idea since the 1970s; he acknowledged the speculative nature of the theory and said it is not known whether the Eleusinian drink kykeon contained ergot.⁠[11]

In February 2025 archaeological chemist Patrick McGovern, who had helped him assess ancient residue samples, said he overinterprets limited archaeological data and that the scientific evidence for a link between psychedelics and Christianity is “extremely weak to nonexistent.” Cornell UniversityCornell UniversityCornell University is a private research university in Ithaca, New York, and a member of the Ivy League. It is New York State's federal land-grant university, a distinction unique within the Ivy League. Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White founded the university in 1865, and it opened in 1868. In addition to its Ithaca campus, Cornell operates Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell Tech in New York City and a medical college in Qatar. It enrolled 26,793 students in fall 2024. Its president is Michael I. Kotlikoff.Open the full entry classicist Kevin Clinton noted that no evidence of drug use has ever been found at Eleusis; Jan Bremmer, a scholar of ancient mystery cults, said no cult is known to have used mushrooms in antiquity; and biblical scholar Bart Ehrman said he did not find the findings plausible.⁠[12]

He founded the Athanatos Foundation to promote interdisciplinary dialogue inspired by his book.⁠[13]

As of October 2026 his website describes Athanatos as a private foundation investigating prehistoric and ancient knowledge, mind–matter phenomena and the nature of reality through interdisciplinary collaboration with academic institutions. He is married with two daughters and lives outside Washington, D.C.⁠[6]

Personal website: Public link: https://www.brianmuraresku.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[9]

X: Public account: https://x.com/brianmuraresku (opens in a new window)⁠[9]

Athanatos Foundation: Official website: https://www.athanatosfoundation.org/ (opens in a new window)⁠[6]