In Greek, enchrista means “ointment”. The pagans of Antioch called the new devotees Christians because of one clearly visible feature: they were drenched from head to toe with an odiferous enchrista. They also exhibited a peculiar form of intoxication.

Saul’s “dark night of the soul” endured, until along came an Anointed One, summoned by God, who offered salvation to this afflicted and vengeful soul. For when Saul was anointed for the first time, everything changed, and he was born again as Paul, a Messiah/Christ. He had been taught by the Holy Spirit and was a new man!

Scholars and churchmen alike have long wondered why these mighty manifestations of the Spirit vanished and left nothing obvious in their wake.

According to the Bible, John baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. In the original Hebrew ceremony, and also in the later Christian, baptism was always just a preparatory step to the anointing itself.

One common, though often forgotten, approach is to rub drug-laden ointments into the skin, which happens to be a highly effective drug delivery system. Skin is easy to find, and it’s big—the largest organ—teeming with capillaries, pores, and hair follicles that readily absorb whatsoever is massaged in.

All were ordained following the explicit instructions spelled out in Exodus. Each would strip naked, be ritually washed, and then the holy unguent would be

Before the sacred salve lost every last drop of its pharmacological function, it was also used as a medicine for more prosaic purposes, such as healing skin ulcers. Disciples would also use it cast out “devils”, which might refer to the treatment of people suffering from psychiatric or psychosomatic disease.

Sacred anointing was not practiced by the semi-nomadic, pastoral Hebrews prior to their sojourn in Egypt, which lasted for over 400 years; quite enough time to pick up a great deal of advanced Egyptian culture and technology. Moses himself was raised as the pharaoh’s adopted grandson and would surely have been initiated into the secrets of the Egyp

By the 4th century A.D., psychedelic Christianity came to be replaced by a dull, centralized, Stalinist creed, wherein visions, prophecy, and other ecstatic phenomena, once the very foundation of the faith, are no longer encouraged but frowned upon. At the same time, absolute obedience to the Catholic, meaning “true” Church becomes paramount.