The Eucharist and Spiritual Transmission
From Thorburn to Esoteric Realism
Ed Reither, Beezone
Introduction
In every age, the Eucharist has drawn interpretation: as mystery, as metaphor, as miracle. For some it is a reenactment; for others, a divine presence; for still others, a poetic echo of vanished rites. But at its heart, the Eucharist asks something deeper: can spirit be transmitted? Can divine presence pass—not just symbolically, but actually—into the living body through a Realizer?
This same question has resurfaced in modern culture with surprising urgency, particularly in the renewed interest in psychedelics—substances like LSD, psilocybin, and ayahuasca—which are increasingly used in clinical, therapeutic, and spiritual settings. These substances, echoing the ancient kykeon of Eleusis, offer initiatory glimpses into altered states of awareness. Yet often, they lack the sacred frameworks, initiatory containers, and relational depth that characterized the true sacraments of old. This signals both a revived hunger for transcendence and a confusion about its authentic transmission.
My own discovery and subsequent interest in Thomas James Thorburn began when I came across his book, The Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels, published in 1916, while doing research work at the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo. The book was the outcome of the prestigious Bross Prize, awarded by an American foundation for outstanding religious writing. Specifically, the second decennial Bross Prize of $6,000 was awarded in 1915 to the Reverend Thomas James Thorburn, D.D., LL.D., of Hastings, England, for this very book, which was subsequently published as Volume VII of the Bross Library. This context revealed Thorburn to me not merely as an apologist, but as a serious thinker engaging with the intellectual and spiritual challenges of his day.
This essay explores the central question of spiritual transmission through two interwoven threads: the early 20th-century work of Thorburn, and a comparative, experiential reading rooted in esoteric traditions and modern scholarship.
Thomas James Thorburn
Writing in 1916 against the rising tide of mythicist and rationalist critiques, Thorburn sought to rescue the Gospels from the reductive readings of 18th- and 19th-century materialists. His book, The Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels, critiques attempts to classify Jesus among the solar deities or sacrificial harvest gods of comparative religion. In Chapter X, Thorburn directly challenges those who claimed the Eucharist was borrowed from Eleusinian mysteries, Mithraic meals, or the rituals of Isis and Cybele.
Rather than magic or myth, Thorburn insists the Eucharist is an act of divine-human transmission. Though he denies transubstantiation and avoids metaphysical excess, he embraces the idea that Jesus’ words at the Last Supper imparted a real spiritual force into the elements. He refers to this in vitalistic terms: the bread and wine become vehicles for a divine energy that moves into the soul of the receptive participant. Here, Thorburn is most profound—not merely defending the Eucharist, but hinting at its esoteric potency.
Beyond Thorburn
Thorburn dismissed the Eleusinian kykeon as a barley gruel, but later research—from Carl Ruck, Albert Hofmann, and Brian Muraresku—suggests otherwise. The kykeon may have contained psychoactive alkaloids, inducing visionary states that opened the initiate to divine encounter. This does not undermine Thorburn’s position but reframes it: the sacraments of the ancient world were not just stories—they were technologies of transcendence.
When approached through the lens of LSD or entheogenic experience, the Eucharist can be seen as part of a lineage of psycho-sacramental rites. Yet these sacraments—like the kykeon or soma—must be understood as initiatory. They open the perceptual doors, but they do not replace the presence of a true spiritual transmitter. The Eucharist, in its fullest meaning, is not about altered states. It is about relational transmission from the Divine through a realized human vehicle.
The initiatory nature of the kykeon, when placed in its ancient context, offered not only visionary access but transformation of identity—a symbolic death and rebirth within the sacred mysteries. In today’s world, such initiatory functions have resurfaced in the increasing use of psychedelics—particularly psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, and MDMA—within both clinical research and underground spiritual circles. These substances are often administered in therapeutic settings or guided retreats, sometimes aiming at healing trauma or inducing spiritual insight. Yet they are frequently detached from the ancient frameworks of sacred transmission. The popularization of psychedelic therapy and its emergence within pseudo-spiritual, commercial, and wellness cultures speaks to a revived hunger for transcendence, but often lacks the enduring initiatory container that marked the original rites. Like the Eucharist, the kykeon’s power was never in the substance alone—it lay in the sacred container, the community, the initiator, and the ritual transmission of meaning. Without these, the kykeon becomes, at best, a glimpse—at worst, a substitute.
In today’s world, such initiatory functions have resurfaced in the increasing use of psychedelics—particularly psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, and MDMA—within both clinical research and underground spiritual circles. These substances are often administered in therapeutic settings or guided retreats, sometimes aiming at healing trauma or inducing spiritual insight, yet frequently detached from the ancient frameworks of sacred transmission. The popularization of psychedelic therapy and its emergence within pseudo-spiritual, commercial, and wellness cultures speaks to a revived hunger for transcendence, but often lacks the enduring initiatory container that marked the original rites. In today’s world, however, such initiatory functions have been reframed within therapeutic, pseudo-spiritual, and increasingly commodified cultural settings. Entheogens are often administered in clinical environments, weekend retreats, or commercial ceremonies, divorced from the lineage, discipline, and transmission that once gave the sacrament its depth.
While these experiences can open one to the possibility of divine presence, they often lack the enduring context needed to integrate and embody that presence. Like the Eucharist, the kykeon’s power was never in the substance alone—it lay in the sacred container, the community, the initiator, and the ritual transmission of meaning. Without these, the kykeon becomes, at best, a glimpse—at worst, a substitute.
Prasad and the Eastern Lens on Sacrament
In the Vedic and Bhakti traditions, prasad is food offered by a realized master or deity, then returned to the devotee infused with divine presence. It is not a symbol; it is the carrier of spiritual force. Often given after darshan—a moment of sacred seeing—prasad operates through the same mechanism Thorburn intuits: the medium becomes charged by presence and passed through relationship.
Here, we see a cross-cultural pattern: food or drink, touched by grace, becomes the means of transmission. Faith, devotion, and receptivity condition the effectiveness of the sacrament. This vitalist sacramentalism contrasts with the symbolic memorialism of modern theology or the objectivist skepticism of materialist psychology.
Thorburn’s Relevance in a Post-Materialist Age
Thorburn’s critique of 19th-century allegorists remains pressing today. Modern biblical studies, cognitive psychology, and neurotheology still often reduce religion to projection, brain chemistry, or cultural narrative. But Thorburn reminds us: the earliest witnesses did not speak of metaphor—they spoke of presence. Not artful myth, but living power.
His vision—though constrained by the terms of his era—anticipates a post-materialist recovery of esoteric realism. Where science speaks of neurotransmitters, and historians of ritual development, the real question remains: Can Spirit move through form?
The Eucharist as Spiritual Transmission
Thorburn’s notion of ‘vital energy,’ as referenced in his chapter on the Eucharist and the Mystery Cults, gestures toward a deeper esoteric reality but remains framed within the language and conceptual boundaries of his era. He imagines divine power flowing into the communicant through touch, word, and elements—an early attempt to describe what would later be more richly articulated as spiritual transmission. His understanding is speculative and limited when measured against today’s expanded perspectives, which integrate lived spiritual experience with transpersonal psychology, energy medicine, and esoteric traditions. Yet, in recognizing that something more than symbolism was occurring in the Eucharist, Thorburn opens the door to a dimension modern materialism still resists: that Presence is not an abstraction, but a force that moves—subtle, luminous, and alive.
All true sacraments arise from one root: spiritual transmission. Whether through prasad, the kykeon, or the Last Supper, or the story of Passover, something greater than symbol is at work. Thorburn sensed this, even if his tools andd time were limited. Later scholars and students have expanded the field, and modern seekers have experienced what the ancient texts could only gesture toward.
The Eucharist is not merely remembered—it is received. It is the transmission of Presence through the HUMAN form. This, finally, is its meaning—and its mystery.
*Thomas James Thorburn (1858 – 16 January 1923), best known as T. J. Thorburn was a British Doctor of Divinity and writer. Thorburn was born in Derby. He was married to Emily Jane. They had two children, Charles and Evelyn.
He gained a B.A. degree in the Natural Science Tripos in 1879 at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and was second master at Chesterfield Grammar School from 1882 to 1885. He was then Senior Science Master at Sheffield Grammar School, before his appointment as Headmaster of Caistor School. In 1897 he was appointed headmaster of Odiham Grammar School, Hampshire. He was later the headmaster of Hastings Grammar School.
Thorburn was a firm believer in the historicity of Jesus and an opponent of the Christ myth theory. Though a theological conservative and defender of the canonical history as traditionally presented, Thorburn did dissent from common evangelical bibliology.
In his book The Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels (1916) he combated the ideas of mythicists Arthur Drews, J. M. Robertson and William Benjamin Smith.[6][7] It was entered into a competition and Thorburn won a prize of $6,000 from the Bross Foundation.
Read Chapter X