Book Review: The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross

I will admit that I did not quite finish this book. Close to the end, I decided I'd gotten Allegro's point as well as I could expect to, and any further reading would merely confuse me further.

With only an English-department-mandated amount of linguistics background, coming to this book was incredibly difficult. I understood the point he was trying to make, and understood that there were already theories about Christianity rising from ancient pagan fertility religions, but I wasn't entirely convinced about the "Jesus mushroom" part. Due to my inability to understand his complex linguistics, I remain unconvinced.

The book is written as well as one can expect; Allegro does appear to be trying to offer his information as clearly, succinctly, and simply as possible. The serious linguistic work is relegated to the endnotes and not included in the immediate text, which helps readability quite a bit. However, this also leaves gaps in his argument which makes some of his points seem spurious or far-fetched, maybe stretching for the correlations he's making. Again, however, I do not have the linguistic background necessary to make any claims about his scholarship.

As an introduction to this theory, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross is not an easy book to read. But it tries, and perhaps to someone with more background in the subject or in linguistics it would be easier to follow.

3/5