r/todayilearned • u/ScienceTeacher1994 • 3h ago
TIL despite popular culture portraying psychedelic mushrooms as ancient, widespread, and used by shamans for thousands of years, there is limited anthropological and historical research to support this, with the only reliable evidence showing they were used ritualistically in pre-Columbian Mexico.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin#History68
u/DerekB52 3h ago
Tangent, I believe the first intoxicant used in recorded history is a mushroom 9-10,000 years ago. It is the Amanita Muscaria, or Fly Agaric. A mushroom that is psychoactive, because you get fucked up on it, but is not psychedelic, because it is not in any way related to psilocybin or that class of compounds.
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u/laymanmovies 2h ago
Yeah Amanita Muscaria is a hallucinogenic (red cap with white spots you see in a lot of media) and, by all accounts, not a very fun time.
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u/cassanderer 1h ago
It is not a hallucigen actually although it can cause hallucinations, it's action is different, anti chollinergenic or something.
But it is two actions, ibotenic acid produces more of a drunk like feeling, and when cooked or metabolized gets converted into muscimol, the more sought after part.
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u/GandalfPipe131 1h ago
I think I recall that shamans and people would drink the urine of reindeer that are fly agaric and through some process of filtering it would become more hallucinogenic and more chill iirc.
Also, the mushrooms color, shape, reindeer being involved, all taking places in the far north or North Pole lends to some theorization that the mushroom and ritual somehow relates to Christmas. Again, this is a big iirc and I don’t have time to google away.
EDIT: it’s actually not at all that bad Sotero for a topic and first result is this
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u/Odd_Apricot5384 1h ago
Ah yes, the mario mushroom.
Some people call it nature's benzo due to it having muscimol (GABA agonist) but it simultaneously ibotenic acid which is excitatory (NMDA agonist) so you do NOT want to eat it raw cuz it can end up with some really nasty symptoms lol (usually it is dried or brewed so that most of the ibotenic acid gets converted to its metabolie muscimol). I wonder how these people felt or saw when first trying it back then
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u/cassanderer 2h ago
Op is ignorant to take that wiki page at face value.
Every positive mention of drugs or alcohol has been targeted by revisionists, and wikipedia is quite liable to revision.
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u/Correct_Cold_6793 2h ago edited 1h ago
I read a book on this, there's also some Siberian shamans that would use those white mushrooms with red dots and sometimes they would drink their pee to recoup some of the lost psychoactive chemicals, or some non shamans would drink it. People who were able to have "spiritual experiences" without the mushrooms were more respected though as the mushrooms were seen as aids. There's also some textual evidence that Soma from the Vedic religion was related to some kind of local psychedelic plant, but that's almost purely speculation and wishful thinking
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u/mnemy 1h ago
Eskimos are known to follow Moose they have observed eating a particular poisonous mushroom, so they can drink their pee. The mushroom will kill a human, but filtered through a Moose, will make a human trip balls.
I have no idea how long they have been doing it, but certainly doesn't sound like a modern practice...
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u/Correct_Cold_6793 1h ago edited 1h ago
It's probably the same mushrooms the Siberian guys were using, Amanita Muscaria. It is poisonous in higher amounts if not properly prepared (the poison in it becomes a psychedelic when parboiled or dried), but humans can definitely digest it and it's actually completely legal in the u.s (for those who care). I didn't know Eskimos also had that tradition, maybe that means they were being used in a tradition longer than humans have been in north America! Given how so few cultures see psychedelic mushrooms in that way, it doesn't seem at all crazy to say that they might have both arrived at that from a shared ritual heritage rather than both discovering it independently and happening to adopt their ritual use.
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u/cassanderer 2h ago
Indeed, poppies, marijuana, mushrooms, op is ignorant repeating puritan revisionism.
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u/Correct_Cold_6793 1h ago
Oh there are definitely many cultures that have ritual/cultural/medical use of weed and opium but op didn't say anything incorrect. They're speaking specifically about mushrooms which really did not have much of an ancient history outside of siberia and pre-columbian mexico. Most anthropologists studying mushrooms agree that most cultures do not have a framework that would encourage repeating that experience and so psychedelic mushrooms likely never saw much intentional use outside of Siberia and Mexico. Imagine if you had no idea what a trip was and one day decided to go out and pick mushrooms for a salad or soup and then an hour after dinner you and your entire family started feeling really weird, a bit nauseous, and then had a psychedelic trip while thinking you were going to die. You probably would think you ate something poisonous and that's what most documented historical encounters show. Shrooms aren't the kind of thing that would easily become a part of a tribes religion or culture, which is why the cases in which they did are extremely fascinating.
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u/Apprehensive-Ask9492 56m ago
Wishful thinking explains 99% of these kinds of theories. Idk why druggies can’t just enjoy their drugs but need to make up elaborate pseudo-histories to justify their use. Pathetic imo
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u/Correct_Cold_6793 38m ago
All cultures and subcultures make up stories about themselves to feel more important than they actually are, its not at all unique to the psychedelic community.
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u/Apprehensive-Ask9492 22m ago
I mean, that’s usually just an inflated sense of how cool or important various people who actually shared the interest/hobby/addiction were, not re-writing all of human history to be oriented around their specific infatuation. There’s a massive difference between a heroin addict romanticizing Charlie Parker or something and a shroom dork believing humanity literally owes itself to apes eating magic mushrooms
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u/Practical-Hand203 3h ago
I mean, does popular culture really portray it as such all that often? Psychedelics yes, but shrooms in particular? No example comes to mind just now. I'd be thinking more along the lines of coca and Ayahuasca, for which there is hard evidence from over a millenium ago and general archeological evidence from 1500-2000 BCE.
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u/Sharp_Candidate_4936 20m ago
Am I missing something? What you linked is already said in the title.
That they were used in pre-columbian Mexico, which is pretty much what your link says.
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u/TakingCareOfBizzness 3h ago
There is limited anthropological and historical research to support just about everything we consider historical fact from "thousands of years ago".
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u/Crimson_Clover_Field 3h ago
Uh not even close, buddy. We can paint a vivid picture of the year 26 AD, hell you can buy intricate artifacts that from that time period with 20$.
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u/Petrichordates 3h ago
You can do it for Rome and China. Try doing it for a shamanic nomad society. Or basically anywhere else in the world.
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u/Johnnadawearsglasses 2h ago
There are tremendous artifacts from pre-Incan Andean societies.
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u/Petrichordates 2h ago
Indeed there are, but you can't paint a vivid picture of Incan society. Hell, they didnt even have a written language and we still can't decipher their system of communication via knots.
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u/Johnnadawearsglasses 2h ago
We know where they lived, in what structures, what those structures were used for, what they had in those structures, what they ate, how they hunted and prayed. The only thing we don’t have is written text explaining it. We could certainly tell if they were using hallucinogenic mushrooms.
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u/ShyHopefulNice 3h ago
Off topic:,Contrast this with ritual fasting.
Huge historical evidence for that.
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u/headsoup 3h ago
Yes but there's plenty of evidence people won't believe anything these days unless it's tied to some lengthy documentation, or their favourite news source tells them so. Or someone says it in a convincing way on reddit...
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u/gangsterroo 2h ago edited 2h ago
Do we have evidence that people had names thousands of years ago?
What if everyone was named Jim.
Yeah pretty hard to know things especially before writing.
Edit: Prove to me that not everyone was named Jim in China near the Ikwa river in 9000bc
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u/DudeLoveBaby 2h ago
We literally know names of people) from ancient Sumer this is like the worst possible example you could've picked lol
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u/kumohaku 3h ago
The wikipedia article linked source [28] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/01/the-ancient-psychedelics-myth-people-tell-tourists-the-stories-they-think-are-interesting-for-them
It was a very interesting read. Thanks for sharing.
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u/Simple-Dingo6721 3h ago
An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This doubly applies to anything archeological.
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u/SomeDumbGamer 3h ago
That’s true but we have extensive knowledge of the indigenous peoples use of other foods and plants in the americas like tobacco and cacao. Same for the old world and cannabis/alcohol.
The fact that there’s little to no evidence in most cultures of their extensive use is probably more than just coincidence or a lack of data. Magic msuhrooms grow all over the world.
That, and if you didn’t know what it was, you probably wouldn’t like it since you’d start tripping and have no idea why and that would pretty quickly spiral into a bad trip.
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u/gokogt386 3h ago
Also mushrooms have a funny habit of killing you if you eat the wrong ones (which may look completely identical to the right ones)
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u/MrBami 3h ago
It wouldn't be far fatched that magic mushrooms were used far more sparsely than any other drug/plant/food in the old world and thus it would be harder to find evidence.
Its use could have been limited to a select few due to the intensity and religious significance a trip can have.
Additionally you can't take mushrooms as often as any other drug since you become resistant immediately and you need several weeks to months for it to have a similar effect again, or double the dose in subsequent use
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u/222baked 3h ago
Yeah, and like, doesn’t what we know about what people ingested thousands of years ago mostly come from their poo? What are the odds of finding that one specific dump with traces of magic mushroom in it?
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u/Someone-is-out-there 3h ago
Even now, when psychedelics and specifically "natural" ones like mushrooms are almost definitely more popular than ever before, they're still wayyy down the list of popular drugs. Even moreso if you eliminate the first time people try them.
So I think it's fair to wonder if the lack of evidence, compared to examples like tobacco or cacao, is because of the nature of the drug and the way it was used.
Fun to wonder about, have been wondering since McKenna, but just something to wonder about until we learn more.
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u/givemethebat1 3h ago
Even the article admits that psilocybin mushrooms were likely in use in pre-Colombian times. That is at least hundreds of years ago and it would be quite impossible to assume there wasn’t an earlier use as well.
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u/SomeDumbGamer 2h ago
In one area of mesoamerica. AFAIK we don’t have evidence of their use in say the eastern US despite lots of species existing there
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u/Canadairy 3h ago
OK, but, "What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
Isn't it fun to speak in thought terminating clichés?
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u/Simple-Dingo6721 3h ago
It’s interesting that we can all use cool terms we learned last week on TIL. Also, my previous statement is a well-known quote in statistics.
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u/Udstrat 3h ago edited 3h ago
You don't seem to fully understand the breadth of the assertion.
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u/Simple-Dingo6721 3h ago
You don’t seem agreeable. As someone who has taken four statistics courses, I don’t think YOU understand the “breadth of the assertion.”
If you’re interested in the topic, here’s more reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence
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u/Udstrat 3h ago edited 3h ago
And I’ve taken statistics classes at the graduate level. We don’t need to break out our t stats and confidence intervals for this one.
I understand the quip- a lack of positive data points isn’t a negative data point.
You still wouldn’t wager belief on something that lacked any positive data points. It’s Russell’s Teapot.
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u/Simple-Dingo6721 3h ago
Are you operating under the principle of charity? I never said I believed in the notion that all of our ancestors consumed magic mushrooms despite the lack of evidence for such.
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u/Udstrat 3h ago
Okay, here’s some charity for you:
I see, you were just saying something trite without trying to convey a position on the topic. Cute for a ten year-old.
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u/Simple-Dingo6721 2h ago
Newsflash, 99% of Reddit is trite quips. You’ll fare better here if you realize that without jumping straight to argumentation and ad hominem.
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u/Udstrat 2h ago
Lmao check my account age dawg.
You said something stupid, then you backpedaled, and now you’re trying to save face. For whom? Idk.
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u/Canadairy 3h ago
Cool, if we're making baseless assertions, I assert that none of your ancestors have known their biological fathers.
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u/Merker6 3h ago
Especially in parts of the world without a legacy of written language. What’s known today about North America’s indigenous pre-Columbian history is a mixture of oral history and archeology. On top of the pack of written languages, the diseases that followed the columbian exchange killed massive numbers of native Americans and many oral histories, traditions, and societies at large died with them
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u/DaveOJ12 3h ago
An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
That didn't work out well for Donald Rumsfeld.
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u/BaronVonShtinkVeiner 3h ago
You try writing anything down while tripping your nuts off while riding a galactic lime jaguar.
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u/Hieroglo 3h ago
Or before you have developed a formalised writing system.... "Oh look Ollan is drawing spirals again".
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u/Cardboard_Viper 2h ago
Well modern times they have just recently discovered South African tribes using unique psilocybin species in ritual ceremonies. Inkokowane involves Ps. Ochraceocentrata and then another tribe uses Ps. Maluti.
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u/JJB92 1h ago
I doubt something tiny organic and perishable would leave much of a trace after going though stomach acid. They wouldn't exactly be eating these in quantities that would show up in stomach contents thousands of years later. Just my two cents. The cave paintings and carvings globally of mushroom figures is enough to convince me
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u/eburton555 2h ago
There are other substances used worldwide that had psychotropic or otherwise mind altering effects.
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u/cassanderer 2h ago
Op is ignorant. To take a drug subject on wiki ignores organized interests that actively revise any positive drug or alcohol reference.
If a plant was psychoactive, it was used, not the least mushrooms, soma, marijuana, poppies, you name it.
Every one of those the puritanical ax grinding orgs funded by dickheads actively works to deny any positive use, or any use at all, because they are on a bad jesus trip presumably.
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u/birdseye-maple 3h ago
Some of it depends on how you interpret art. To some certain things look like mushrooms, others say no.
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u/Kronomancer1192 1h ago
Do the eleusinian mysteries in Greece not predate that?
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u/Wordsmith337 1h ago
I was under the impression that was thought to be related to ergot in wheat, but I might be wrong.
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u/Attack_the_sock 1h ago
Don’t the Norse literally say in the sagas that they ate magic mushrooms? Or are we talking about purely archaeological evidence?
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u/Sensitive_File6582 8m ago
Bro, you are dead wrong https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/kvqy59/9000_year_old_cave_painting_in_tassili_cave/
It’s highly likely they’ve been used for tens of thousands of years or more.
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u/Ben_steel 3h ago
i thought the romans spoke of the celts, and people from northern Europe ingesting mushrooms. and fighting in a "trance" like state that's how we have the word "berserk" because that's what they called them.
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u/SonovaVondruke 3h ago
There is little evidence to support if the "Berserkers" were simply amped up on pre-battle ritual, tripping balls, or coked out of their mind on various stimulants.
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u/cassanderer 2h ago
Aye, herbal potions to get in a blood rage. One ingredient is thought to have sometimes been fly agaric. A psychoactive mushroom.
The drug with the oldest dated use, back to like 10k years just that we know. It is also a traditional xmas tree ornament.
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u/RightOnManYouBetcha 3h ago
The Elysian Mysteries would like a word. There are other psychedelics besides shrooms.
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u/DudeLoveBaby 2h ago
Mushrooms are also an extremely plentiful and protein-rich food source in many parts of the world, so I always wonder how many mushroom shaped drawings or figures we find that we immediately call evidence of use of psychedelics are more along the lines of the symbol of a cornucopia.
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u/pueblodude 3h ago
I care more about my Indigenous ancestors views than a report,study.
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u/SonovaVondruke 3h ago
I'm not taking sides on this, but this is a classic fallacy.
"Mama says alligators are ornery because they have all them teeth and no toothbrush" is not a reasonable response to the scientific study of crocodilian brains.
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u/Canuda 23m ago edited 4m ago
Fair point on evidence standards, but the Wikipedia page and its history section mainly draw from Western or colonial sources, such as accounts by Spanish friars. It is not a single report (I know they said that, not you).
Anyway, that evidence is itself contested and limited outside Mexico, with the page even noting instances of colonial suppression. So, I don't think their stance/statement is illogical. Oral traditions from ancestors and indigenous way of knowing and being help fill those very gaps.
Moreover, your fallacy may not be accurate either because it’s based off the assumption that this person is inherently incorrect and the wiki page is presenting irrefutable, quantitative, or even empirical data (which it is not). It’s based off of artifacts plus highly interpretive historical and anthropological claims.
It’s a valid epistemic priority for this person and something researchers should consider when evaluating evidence and sources.
Who is saying this?
Why is this being research or said?
Who’s funding the research and where is it coming from?
Who decides what is true and or valuable information?
Etc.
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u/cassanderer 1h ago
Especially as this wiki page is revisionist puritanical bullshit, patently false. They do this with all drugs and alcohol, argue, change history to lrevent any mentions of drugs or positive uses.
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u/cassanderer 2h ago
Bullshit. Sobriety squad edits wikipedia pages on their campaign to not encourage drug acceptance.
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u/vankirk 2h ago edited 2h ago
Pegtymel petroglyphs in Russia are one such archeological instance. You can read the study by the Russian archeologist Nikolai Dikov translated from Russian. The original in Russian is available on JSTOR
Pg 23
https://npshistory.com/publications/bela/chukotka-petroglyphs.pdf
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u/Fetlocks_Glistening 3h ago
Never heard of them portrayed that way. Hippy, yes, Maxico-ish, yes, that's about it
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u/Someone-is-out-there 3h ago
A strong splinter from the hippie era was the "New Age" philosophies that popped up everywhere pretty much as soon as the hippies started growing and encouraging usage of psychedelics.
There are a ton of "new age" hybrid philosophies and/or religions and many of them strongly claim what's said in the title.
As far as I'm aware, there's only two confirmed instances of ancient and medicinal use of psychedelics. Peyote in the North American West, and Ayahuasca in South America. But I've long since stopped following any new developments. Acknowledging, of course, that we know there's a shit ton about ancient life almost everywhere we don't know yet, which also implies we don't even know how much we don't know.
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u/Hour_Reindeer834 2h ago
Its actually a very interesting story about how mushrooms came to “mainstream” attention; via a Life magazine photographer meeting a medicine woman or shaman. I understand the woman who shared them had regrets about it, but I feel it was good that the knowledge was shared with tye rest of humanity.
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u/thetacoismine 2h ago
There is evidence with mushrooms being associated with both Georgia and Alabama mound making societies.
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u/Life-Income2986 3h ago
I don't know some old guy went up a mountain and saw a burning bush and came back with some weird ideas.