John Allegro, a fine scholar and a translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls, once thought he had found the source of truth behind all religions. God was, he declared, a mushroom. All the ancient deities, from Osiris to Pan, had been mushrooms. Jesus was a mushroom. His famous cri de coeur from the cross was a paean of praise to the god of the mushroom. All sacred names, formulae, rituals and incantations had their origins in a set of Sumerian syllables: “mash-balag-antaâ€� which translates roughly to “the bald-crowned semen-smearedâ€� – in other words, mushroom.

Being but lightly-schooled in Sumerian I have long doubted the validity of these ideas, retaining as I do, the suspicion that “mash balag antar� is the sort of expression one is far more likely to hear at throwing-out time in the Kilburn High Road. Now at last, comes a book that resolves this and all other religious controversies, and reveals the primal source of human spirituality. If you are as sick as I am of chakras, avatars, horned gods and astral planes, this is the knowledge for which you have been thirsting. In a few deft strokes of the pen, author Chris Street demolishes eight millenia of religious nonsense. Throw away the “Da Vinci Code�, there is no Holy Grail. The quest upon which we should all be embarked is for the Holy Ale, for truth, wisdom and ultimate reality can only be found in the depths of a pint.

“When drinking beer,� writes Street, “you taste eternity and become as a god among men.�

Street is the prophet of beer, and The Beer Guru’s Guide stands in the same relation to the human spirit as The Analects of Confucius, the Gospel of Thomas, Ecclesiastes and the Rig Veda, whose mantra, “Om shanti, shanti�, recalls the Beer Guru’s blessing, “Om shandy, shandy�.

THE APOSTLES AND DIDACHE. “WHOSE ROUND IS IT, ANYWAY?�But The Beer Guru’s Guide is not just a sacred text, it is also a manual of life-practice for beer-worshippers. In this it may be compared to the Didache, a rule of life for early Christians. Both texts deal with the pitfalls of speaking “in the spirit� or, in the Beer Guru’s case, “while brewed up�

“You will not be able to speak to the Beer Guru in public.
No one else will be able to see him. People will think you
are talking to yourself. They will suspect schizophrenia
or drunken rambling rather than a conversation with a wise and
knowledgeable entity. ‘He’s not a guru . He’s a piss-artist.’â€�
(BGG V.iii-vii)

“Do not question any prophet who is speaking in the spirit,
‘for every sin shall be forgiven, but this sin shall not be
forgiven.’ But not everyone who speaks in the spirit is a
prophet. No prophet who orders up a meal while in the spirit
shall eat of it, or he is a false prophet.�
(DD XI.vii-ix)

Note that ordering up a beer is not prohibited. The Sumerian word for beer being “dida�, it is likely that “The Didache� itself was based on an early beer-worshipper’s guide.

BEER MAKING INSTRUCTIONS, URUK, 3100 BCTraces of the primaeval beer sacrament can be found in almost every culture. In Babylon, beer could be brewed only by priestesses. The Code of Hammurabi, humanity’s earliest body of law, provides that those who pour short measures shall be drowned, while an Egyptian medical text written some three and a half thousand years ago lists 700 remedies of which 100 are based on beer.

The Finnish saga Kalewala, devotes 400 verses to beer and only 200 to the creation of the earth. The name “Kalewala� echoes the Finnish word for beer, “kalja�, which is cognate with Slavonic “kvas� and Sumerian “kas�. Sanskrit “akash�, the heavenly realm is clearly derived from Sumerian “é-kas�, or “pub�. Moving to modern English, once we recall that the Sumerian word for “beermug� was “ébir�, we can easily see how arose the Beer Guru’s cult practice of holding up a mug or pint glass and calling in a loud voice, “mine’s ébeer�.

The beer sacrament is the oldest, deepest affirmation of our humanity, and marks the transformation from the bestial to the human. “I drink therefore I am�, says “The Beer Guru�, an earlier amen to this truth comes from the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh:

Enkidu knew nothing about eating bread for food,
and of drinking beer he had not been taught.
The harlot spoke to Enkidu, saying:
“Eat the food, Enkidu, it is the way one lives.
Drink the beer, as is the custom of the land.�
Enkidu ate the food until he was sated,
he drank the beer-seven jugs! — and became expansive and sang with joy!
He was elated and his face glowed.
He splashed his shaggy body with water,
and rubbed himself with oil, and turned into a human.

The Beer Guru’s Guide is a book that will be valuable to students of religion, philologists, natural philosophers and anyone who fancies getting a few down them

To read Indra’s other blogs, please go to www.indrasinha.com/blog/

Relayed telepathically from the Beer Guru’s temporary ashram at The Beerodrome, London.

Loyal followers, we have been called a cult.  A Cult ? What a nerve. Cults are piddly little groups of misguided misfits blindly following a heretical, charismatic and egotistical leader who is totally off his trolley (bit like political parties, innit?). The Beer Guru is wildly heretic, massively charismatic, egotistical and delightfully off his trolley, it is true. But his movement is not a petty cult. He is head of a worldwide religion with millions of followers. Moreover, following his path promises eternal life, infinite wisdom and unlimited enlightenment. Not a suicide pact to make the end of the world a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The Way of The Beer Guru lays claim to being the oldest religion in the world. The religious adoration of beer as a sacred fluid, has existed for at least six thousand years. That’s about four thousand years before Christ, who didn’t touch a drop of beer from one end of the gospels to the other. His only encounter with alcohol was the old Tommy Cooper trick of turning water into wine (just like that) at the Cana wedding.

“PLONK IS FOR PLONKERS� The Beer Guru

Beer might even be at the basis of modern civilisation. Seemingly, when we switched from hunter gatherers to farmers, squillions of years ago, all the smart academics thought it was to grow grains that make bread, cakes and other good grub.

New, more devious thinking now suggests that it was actually to make beer.

No surprise really. Beer is bigger than God. At  the last poll on the subject, only 59% of men said they believed in the existence of God, while 99% believed in the existence of beer.

“BEER IS BIGGER THAN GOD.� The Beer Guru.

The worrying element in that is the 1% who don’t believe in the existence of beer.

They must be a right bunch of little cults.

Relayed telepathically from the Beer Guru’s personal seat at the bar of The Beer Temple, near Llahsa, somewhere in the Himalayas.

When The Beer Guru revealed his plan for world domination, some people got the wrong idea. They immediately thought that the Beer Brothers had formed an extremist, paramilitary arm, set up a secret base and armed it with a stash of AK47s and a whole lot of beer.

Now, before this gets out of hand and ends in tears, The Beer Guru would like to remind everyone that his plan for world domination is a peaceful operation involving love, goodwill, laughter, smiles and, yes of course, beer.

He does not want to encourage anyone to mix beer and guns. Such combinations are always disastrous.

The paramilitary arm of the Beer Guru movement is therefore hereby disbanded. As of now.

“MAKE BEER. NOT WAR.�

As a general policy, the Beer Guru advocates surrender in every situation. Do not think of this as surrender to an enemy. The Beer Guru insists it is surrender to the will of the universe, or God’s will (or the Beer Goddesses’ will), so that we may fall in line with whatever plans the universe has for us.

All such surrender should be conducted ceremonially, in a sacred manner, in a recognised beer temple.

The Beer Guru’s campaign for world domination is a campaign for world peace and love and the sharing of beer and wisdom.

Only through surrender can we take over the world.

Initially, the Beer Guru held the opinion that this did not apply to the situation between China and Tibet. He believed that the imperialistic commie bastards in Peking needed their arses blown to kingdom come in order to encourage them to stop stomping over a country that clearly did not belong to them and and did not want them destroying its centuries-old unique culture.

He has since tasted Chinese beer and, in a moment of instant enlightenment, now understands what the real problem is.

Their beer is terrible.

Yet, much as they need it, they are not in Tibet to seek The Beer of Enlightenment.

The Beer Guru’s plan of world Domination must introduce them to it.

Relayed telepathically from the Beer Guru™ personal chapel, in the Temple of The Beer Goddess, Kylie, somewhere in the Himalayas.

There are disbelievers amongst us. Infidels, who raise doubts about the validity of the Beer Guru™ path and teachings. They do not believe that beer can be sacred. That it can bestow enlightenment. Worse they scoff at the Beer Guru™ teachings and say they are tosh. That he made them all up as a joke.

Actually, he did. But that doesn’t make them invalid, or nonsense. He had tapped into the universal stream of consciousness and wisdom. They were an inspired joke founded on eternal truths. As Zarathustra demonstrated, there is a very fine line between the wise man and the fool.

There is plenty of hard evidence that much of The Beer Guru™ teachings are based on fact.

For instance, there is a well-established historical link between beer and spiritual practices. In the distant past, as well as in many indigenous cultures today, beer was regarded as sacred, a brew which brought visions and personal experiences of the gods.

In mediaeval times, most British and European beer was brewed in monasteries by the monks. As it says in the book, “many divine beers (and some lethal intoxicants) were created by men of god in places of spiritual reverence”.

There is even a genuine, ancient Tibetan tradition of brewing and drinking the beer of enlightenment. It is part of the Doha Tradition and includes Tibetan drinking songs.

The Beer Guru™ path is an evolution of that tradition for modern times and western society. There are many men who worshipped beer before the Beer Guru came along. He is merely giving them a framework of belief and practice in their daily religious observances.

The Beer Guru™ teachings have a firm foundation in traditional mystic practice. For him and his followers, enlightenment and spiritual devotion are inextricably tied up with drinking beer and appreciating it as a spiritual experience.

The book (the Beer Guru™ Guide) is a step-by-step instruction manual of how to attain enlightenment through drinking beer.

As an intrinsic part of that process, the initiate has to undertake a quest for the Holy Ale, the beer of enlightenment, which flows from the font of all wisdom. So i a personal mystical adventure, a path of gnosis, or direct personal knowledge of the divine, and as with all Gnostic traditions, there a long process where that knowledge has to slowly ferment in your soul to first become understanding and eventually wisdom.

You can just read it as a bit of a laugh. Or you can take it seriously and have some strange, wonderful and enlightening experiences.

Please email us and tell us about them.
beergurusguide@googlemail.com

Men understand intuitively that drinking beer can be a religious experience.
– The Beer Guru

Relayed telepathically from the Beer Guru’s ashram, next to The Temple of The Beer Brothers, somewhere in the Himalayas.

Welcome to The Beer Guru’s Guide website and to the first Beer Guru’s blog.

The book and the website are fundamentally about Beer as a path of enlightenment, the Way of The Beer Guru.

Some people think that a path of spiritual enlightenment through drinking beer is a joke. It is. But it is also serious. Follow it and you will see how it works.

Like many mainstream religions, The Way of the Beer Guru is founded on a heady mix of eternal truths, half-truths, blatant misconceptions, downright lies and a smattering of jokes.

“Anyone who doesn’t understand how a useful religion can be based on lies, half-truths, misconceptions and jokes will not understand the Way of The Beer Guru, either.�

The most important element of the Beer Guru’s path is fun. The pursuit of happiness. The Beer Guru and his followers like a laugh. Actually, we like a laugh and a beer. The two go together. Inseparably. Like politicians and sleaze. If you understand that, you are a suitable candidate to become accepted into the Beer Guru’s band of followers, The Beer Brothers.

The Beer Guru is not interested, at this stage, in attempting to enlighten miserable, moody feckers. He recognises it is a futile endeavour, like pissing into the wind. The Beer Guru is far more interested in his modest master plan for world domination.

Like so many spiritual gurus, he is flawed by his human nature and an ego the size of a small galaxy.

He knows that because of man’s innate love of beer and a natural tendency to worship it, adore it and hold it in spiritual reverence, he could become The World’s most influential Spiritual Leader of all time.

He won’t let it go to his head and fill his life full of palaces, private jets, limos and lap dancers. He hopes to bring unity, peace, love and enlightenment to the entire world through the mystic gnosis of Beer and his Campaign for World Peace and Brotherhood (sisterhood, too, girls).

Who knows, with your help The Beer Guru might achieve his overblown dreams. After all, it is an undeniable fact that if more people followed his teachings and discovered the beer of enlightenment, the world would be a happier and wiser place.

Also, everyone knows that after a couple of beers, they could put all the world’s wrongs to rights. No problem. Bish. Bash. Bosh. Just like that.

Followers of The Beer Guru unite ! Spread the word.

Even if he doesn’t become the most influential Spiritual Leader of modern times, he’d make a very benevolent despot.

“I could become the most influential spiritual leader of modern times, or a benevolent despot.�
– The Beer Guru