DMT and the Burning Bush

Was the prophet Moses tripping on DMT when he saw the burning bush, causing him to see a vision he thought was of God?

 

This idea was first proposed by Dr. Benny Shanon in his 2008 article “Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis,” which was published in Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness, and Culture. Shanon, who had undergone ayahuasca trips hundreds of times, took the first steps to argue that Moses may have experienced a DMT trip when he was on Mount Horeb, as well as other times over his life. Shanon suggested that this may have been the result of drinking a brew like ayahuasca. 

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Shanon thinks Moses drank a similar brew made out of the DMT-rich acacia wood and a shrub called Syrian Rue which contains chemicals called harmine and harmaline. They are monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), which allow DMT to become active when eaten. Having drunk an ayahuasca-like brew, he walked out to take care of his sheep in the desert and hallucinated that he saw a bush that was on fire but not burning up.

 

This theory morphed into something new and weirder still. Six years later in his 2014 book DMT and the Soul of Prophecy, psychedelics researcher Dr. Rick Strassman repeats Shanon’s claim, except he incorrectly states that Shanon believes DMT was vaporized and then inhaled by Moses when the burning bush caught fire. Like a natural vape, Moses got so much smoke inhalation from the burning bush that he went on a trip. In 2022, Joe Rogan talked to Rick Strassman on his podcast and repeated the vaporization hypothesis, broadcasting it to millions.

 

Is there any validity to these theories? Put simply: no. There is no evidence that Moses was on DMT, and there is a lot of evidence against this idea.

 

We will explore the arguments against this conjecture in three parts:

• It is impossible for burning acacia wood to create enough DMT for a trip

• There is no evidence of acacia and Syrian Rue use in the ancient world

• The story of Moses and the burning bush is probably mythological

 

It is impossible for burning acacia wood to create enough DMT for a trip

 

Let’s start with the vaporization theory. It can give us some important scientific insights before we move on to the ayahuasca-adjacent theory. We can imagine Moses standing in front of the acacia bush, which contains DMT, breathing in all this smoke… But would that send Moses, or anyone for that matter, on a trip? 

 

The amount of DMT in acacia species is actually relatively low. There are trace amounts in their leaves, twigs, and bodies, but the highest amount of DMT is in the bark in the roots, which would not burn since they are underground. This trace amount is not nearly enough to actually cause someone to get high on DMT from a burning bush. If the DMT content of the aboveground DMT were amount .01% by weight, high for an acacia bush, and an active DMT trip requires about 50 milligrams for an inhaled dose, this means Moses would have to inhale about 500 grams of acacia tree material, about a pound, within a matter of seconds. 

 

Smoked DMT is metabolized very fast. It could not have built up over time. A breath of air weighs about half a gram to a gram, but Moses would have to hyperventilate 500 to a thousand times that much, a small log, straight into his lungs in a matter of moments! It is  simply not possible. There is not enough DMT present in the wood. This is why people who smoke DMT have to use a vape or pure DMT crystals to get the trip they’re looking for.

 

There is no evidence of acacia and Syrian rue use in the ancient world

 

We can agree Moses did not inhale a log, but what about something like ayahuasca? In his article. Shanon points out that the DMT-containing acacia tree and MAOI-containing herb known as Syrian rue existed in the same region. He argues that awareness of these plants within the same proximity means someone must have experimented with them at some point. However, Shanon also admits in his conclusion that “there are no indications” in the archeological or written historical record that acacia was ever ingested for a trippy effect.

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Shanon, like others, assume that if people lived next to plants that had psychedelic properties, they must have learned how to use them. Yet, we have many examples of psychedelic substances which remain unknown to the traditions of indigenous peoples, including in the Americas. For example, 5-MeO-DMT, the strongest naturally occurring psychedelic, was discovered in the secretions of the Colorado River Toad in the latter 20th century. Yet, there is no known indigenous tradition, current or historical, like there are with psilocybin mushrooms or mescaline-containing cacti.

 

Even in the Amazon where ayahuasca was first used by Indigenous peoples, some tribes did not adopt ayahuasca until the late 20th century. The researcher Dr. Glenn Shepard describes two Amazonia peoples, the Matsigenka and Yora, who adopted ayahuasca only very recently. The Matsigenka started using it in the1950s, and the Yora people did not begin using ayahuasca until 1985, when they learned about it from other Indigenous peoples forced out of their ancestral land due to logging, mining, and disease. Merely being in the proximity of two plants containing psychoactive substances doesn’t guarantee they have been tried or combined. Since we have no evidence of acacia ever being brewed or used for psychoactive effect in ancient history, much less it being combined with an Syrian rue, the conjecture remains conjecture without evidence.

 

The story of Moses and the burning bush is probably mythological

 

I am a Christian minister, but I am also someone who has studied the Bible in its historical context and in light of modern secular scholarship. I actually do not think the Exodus happened or that Moses was a real person. There is no reason for someone without theological commitments to the Exodus story to take the burning bush story as literal history.

 

We have heaps of evidence that the Exodus did not happen. For example, Exodus 12:37-38 says 600,000 men left Egypt. Adding wives, children, and foreigners, a very conservative estimate is 2.5 million. The plagues add to population loss, as Pharaoh’s advisors say, “Egypt is in ruins.” (Exodus 10:7) However, from 2000-1000 BCE, Egypt’s population never topped 4 million and may have been as low as 1 million. So what evidence do we have of Egypt ever losing 2/3rds to all of its population virtually overnight? None. No mention of it by Egypt’s enemies. No catastrophe or mass population loss on this scale is recorded. Every age of lesser Egyptian decline has a clear explanation, such as invasion or civil war.

 

I do not think that undermines the essentials of the Christian faith found in the Apostle’s Creed, but it sure does make the DMT and Moses theory very dubious to me. And I think it should make the DMT-Moses hypothesis dubious to any listeners who are not Christian but chose to give it a chance anyways. 

 

Conclusion

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Moses, if he existed, was not high on DMT at the burning bush. The smoke could not have gotten him high, and there is no evidence of ayahuasca-like drinks being used in the ancient world. The mere fact that two plants containing MAOIs and DMT existed in the same area together does not mean they were combined. There is no indication of drug use in the Biblical text at all.