Matt Beall Limitless
An Extinct Lotus Flower had Psychedelic Impacts on Ancient Egypt | #49 Luke Caverns
Thu, 10 Apr 2025
In this mind-expanding conversation, Luke Caverns returns tothe podcast to dive deep into ancient mysteries and overlooked truths. We kick things off with his recent travels through South America and how those experiences tie into broader patterns seen across ancient civilizations. From there, we confront the “Archaeological Wall of Shame”—the cultural and institutional forces that suppress uncomfortable discoveries. We then examine enigmatic ancient vases and why theircreation may have suddenly stopped. But the heart of the episode centers on an extinct variety of the lotus flower—once possibly used as a psychedelic sacrament in Ancient Egypt. What was its true purpose, and why has it vanished from history? Follow Matt Beall Limitless: https://x.com/MattbLimitlesshttps://www.tiktok.com/@mblimitlesshttps://www.instagram.com/mattbealllimitless/https://www.facebook.com/people/Matt-Beall-Limitless/61556879741320/ Listen on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mattbealllimitlessSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4PEaXTfAy8NkLjmukUJfXZ?si=b5fa7ee1b1d54736Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/matt-beall-limitless/id1712917413 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-6727221 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MattBeallLimitless Check out Luke Caverns:https://www.youtube.com/@lukecavernshttps://www.instagram.com/lukecaverns/?hl=enhttps://x.com/lukecaverns Episode Timeline:00:00 Introductions02:42 South American Travels29:31 Archeological Wall of Shame43:41 Vases01:03:36 The Lotus Flower01:47:39 Vase Creation Stopped?02:04:56 Pyramid Structures02:18:57 Origins of Western Civilization02:53:26 Kurt Cobain Updates03:04:44 ClosingThe views and opinions expressed on this podcast are not necessarily the views of the host or of any business related to the host.
Chapter 1: What sparked Luke's interest in ancient Egypt?
Like, I'm not saying that the acid could dissolve and soften the stone to make it like a cinnamon roll. I just mean it softened it where it was compressed by half an inch. With the Americas, it's like we're studying aliens, right? Because they're so different from the Western mindset.
The dilemma that we have with studying the Maya is the same dilemma that we have with studying the Egyptians in that we look at them the way they wanted to be looked at. Their propaganda worked and it worked for all of eternity. The big mystery here is that the ancient Egyptian lotus flower does not exist anymore. They used them so much and they were so popular that they went completely extinct.
He's like describing the experience of the lotus flower. He says, when you take of the lotus flower, your mind expands and your eyes become imbued with dynamic properties. And we have this idea of Egyptians living in the desert. They didn't live in the desert. They lived in the fertile oasis on the green Nile, walking on grass every single day. God's really out there. He's far away and distant.
It doesn't have a lot to do with our lives, but here's what we can do to control our lives. That began in Athens in the 5th century. That is such a perfect example of who the Athenians are as a people. Their central piece of public architecture is not a pyramid. It's not a coliseum. It's just an open colonnade building for people to meet and talk to one another.
And they drew the line in the sand on that day in the early 5th century BC between West and East. And that's where Western society was born on that day.
Appreciate you coming down, brother.
Yeah, man. Thanks for having me back. The studio has evolved so much since I've been here.
Yeah. What's your impression?
It feels like I'm in a real studio this time. I walked in, and it was like I was on the set of a TV show or something. I just love it. The colors are so vibrant, and I don't know. It's just like you guys have just evolved so much in the last, what's it been, a year and a half?
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Chapter 2: What are the connections between the Maya and ancient Egypt?
You know, these are just normal people trying to get through life and enjoy their life and not get caught up in anything that complicates them enjoying their life in the same way that we do, right? And I've just learned so much about, you know, having a greater perspective and a more realistic perspective of the world.
And also, I think somewhere along the way, I started having an appreciation for, like, the origins of Western society and, you know, where these things have come from. And as we'll talk about later, some of this began with me studying the vases and how ancient cultures interacted with the vases and how...
I think that some of this has to do with Egyptian, uh, mythology, mystery schools, you know, psychedelic usage or something. And it's kind of, you know, dripping into Greek society. And then somewhere along the way, you know, the Greeks have this, uh, they have this, you know, epiphany that, that, uh, is the origin of Western society. Anyways.
Um, yeah, just a lot has changed in the last three years. And, um, Yeah, so much, so much, yeah.
Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, you mentioned that Egypt was one of the safer places. Like, you weren't sure what to expect kind of going into it, but then, you know, we're kind of blown away by how peaceful it was and, you know, you could walk anywhere and...
Yeah, man. I could walk anywhere in Egypt and nobody's going to mess with you. Everybody is so, so nice. Latin America can be safe to travel to. You go where you're supposed to go. Go where tourists need to be. Go to archaeological sites, back to your hotel, town square where restaurants are at. You're going to be fine.
But, you know, outside of that, you know, you never know what can happen to Latin America. But in Egypt, you can go anywhere, do anything, visit anybody, and you're just perfectly safe. You know, it would be totally against the worldview and the religion of people living in Egypt to commit things like petty crime or to put your life in danger.
You know, Egyptians are very nice, and Egypt itself is very safe. I love traveling to Egypt.
So how does South America contrast then to Egypt? Like, what was it like there for you?
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Chapter 3: What happened to the ancient Egyptian lotus flower?
Did you give him your email address? No. Okay.
But my email address isn't hard to find. They could probably find it. Yeah.
Yeah. That's crazy.
I can't believe I just thought about this.
Definitely a connection there.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's crazy. So, so it's a state sponsored thing. I mean, it's gotta be a state sponsored thing. I would, I would assume.
That, like, the Mexican government is involved in it? Well, the Russian government is involved in it. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm sure, yeah. Well, you know, I'm sure, you know, all of those high-ranking Russian officials, I mean, Putin's a historian. He has an appreciation for history. You know, I'm sure it's a little side...
hobby for him you know to have his boys go all around the world and collect things to bring to him you know he doesn't have time to go like on a on a right tour across mexico or egypt or something so they just steal things and take them back yeah that's crazy yeah so they're getting it you think they're getting most of do you think they're doing it themselves going out to these places and like looting you think they're they're getting it yeah so um
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Chapter 4: How did the lotus flower influence Egyptian culture?
And so it's this, I went to the site that had 16 pyramids in this, I don't know, maybe thousand by thousand yard span that we went and looked at. And every pyramid was just cratered in, you know, looking for different artifacts because there's nothing on the surface other than pottery. So in the Americas, I mean, people are,
at least in, I should say, Central America and Mexico, yeah, it's a vicious war for preserving archeological sites. South America is a lot harder because I don't know too much about organized crime in South America as much as I'm more familiar with it in Mexico, but it doesn't seem to be as big of a problem, and it might be because the sites are even less accessible.
The jungle is considerably larger in South America. Um, so like in Peru, you don't have, you still have a big looting problem when you're talking about, uh, sites that are out in the desert, like Moche culture, Nazca culture, like the Nazca lines, you know, the Nazca have their own pyramids.
They have these huge mound sites that all of them have been looted, but most of the time it's done by locals. Um, you know, often the jungles, these old ancient Inca cities, um, they're completely inaccessible. You have to launch a state-sponsored expedition and send people out there for an incredibly long time just to find something like that. So South America, it's not as much of a problem.
So the Russian thing, do you think that they're working with the cartels directly? Or how do you think they're getting access to... They must be.
They must be, right? Yeah, yeah. Well... Yeah. I mean, if I don't know how much like geopolitics or whatever you'd want to get into, but I mean, you know, cartels are using, uh, Russian guns. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
So they're partnered there. That's probably how they're.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, there's, uh, Yeah, I think like mid-2023, there was something that went viral, and it was the cartels had new kits. They were completely kitted out, and it was whatever, some kind of AK-47 that they had that a gun expert that I follow, he said he zoomed in, and he did a whole analysis of it, and he's like, this is a Russian model. So, yeah. Wow.
So it's like a trade, like the Russians are helping them and then they're giving Russia the loots.
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Chapter 5: What role did psychedelics play in ancient rituals?
A lot of stuff, I'm sure. That's crazy, man. I had no idea.
I would say the loot is probably like a hobby. It's probably just a little side thing. There's probably many, many more lucrative things than that too.
And then, I mean, it's probably not that like Russia is selling the stuff or do you think that Russia, like, so all this stuff's in a big warehouse in Russia, like what is Russia doing with it? Are they just like holding it? I think so.
Yeah. That seems to be, you know, from the limited knowledge I know of it, it just sits in, it just sits in these airplane hangars in Russia. And I think it's, you know,
putin or whoever is is there that's interested in it and wants to study it and they have the means to bring it in you know um you know morbid curiosity because it's not like they care about selling it for you know no there's nobody else to sell it to right right right it's not like a big black market trade where it's making its way onto antiquities markets or anything it's probably it's like his collection of ancient that's crazy exactly yeah it's crazy well and you know um
Yeah, I mean, Putin's a, I wouldn't say, he has a value for history. He knows a lot about history. Certainly he's an expert in Russian history. And I think anybody that's a world leader like that probably has an appreciation for like world history on a grand scale. So I would imagine that he's got resources allocated to the little side hobby of collecting ancient artifacts, you know?
Yeah, that's crazy. Well, what else about South America? You know, I mean, we're going to talk a lot about Egypt today. We're going to talk about vases today for sure. I know you've done a lot of really cool research on the vase topic, but in South America, so as you know, I went there in November to Peru and Cusco, the Sacred Valley and that whole area. And
um one of the things that i wanted to talk to you about today was the the walls and the the possibility that acid was used to shape some of the polygonal walls that exist down there and um and your thoughts on that as a possibility what what are your thoughts there i talked to barnhart about yeah yeah so i so i think um
The huge Pollyanna walls, that's really the, whether they are the, whether they're the andesite or the granite or even the basalt, or I'm sorry, whether it's andesite, granite, basalt, or there's even some limestone ones. But then the limestones, they can be different. Like you can have smaller cellular stones. I think that's a big mystery.
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Chapter 6: How did the Minoans interact with Egyptian culture?
And I think that's where a lot of these guys like dibble are unconsciously. They don't realize that's where they are there. They literally think that their beliefs are true and, and, or, you know, and that the things that they don't believe in are false and have 0% chance of being true. Like
Like that's the whole problem with like just the nature of beliefs and confusing beliefs with truth and with fact. And you've got so many authorities that don't get that and continue to do that and don't operate with open minds that it really creates separation.
And like you said, they're creating a villain and they don't even know that they're creating the villain because they're creating separation and division amongst people who are just open-mindedly attempting to explore some of these mysteries.
Yeah, I think there's something worth touching on there. You know, poor Flint ends up being the middle of all this because he debated Graham. But, you know, but yeah, you know, it's a good example. You know, prefacing all this, everybody that I know that's met Flint personally likes him. They say that he's nice, you know, and that he's a nice guy.
Danny said that last night at dinner, Danny Jones, yeah.
Exactly. And personally to me, Flynn has been very nice to me. He gave me a bunch of resources for like Bronze Age archeology. This is almost two years ago when I was expressing to him my interest in Greece. Gave me a bunch of resources, spent a lot of time messaging me that he didn't have to take.
And then I even talked to him about when I, and we'll talk about this later, but this certificate program I'm doing at the University of Greece, he was one of the people that really encouraged me to take that next step. Um, and, um, you know, but I think that when he was on, um, when he was on Danny Jones and Danny brings up the vases and his first response is, yeah, I disagree with them.
It's like, well, Flint, come on, man. Like you're not winning on, you're not winning over anybody by saying that, you know? And I think the thing is, at least if you're going to be involved in the public sphere, you should want to win over people. Right. Um, but you know, maybe that's, I don't know.
I'm not sure what Flint does on his day-to-day job, but maybe that's more so the skill of an orator or a lecturer to know how to talk to people and win them over and be open-minded. I just don't know. But I think that... him saying that just that one thing is maybe indicative of so many people on that side, like people that put you high on the wall of shame.
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Chapter 7: What evidence exists for the use of lotus in ancient practices?
This is something I think about a lot, this place that we're in right now and thinking about what is our little space going to look like 10 years from now?
Yeah. Yeah, me too. Yeah. It's interesting, fascinating, and hopefully it gets more, more open, you know, hopefully it has, it's, it has to, you know, I mean, look at, I was thinking about this a minute ago.
I mean, look at your podcast studio 50 years ago. This isn't possible to do this. It's not possible to project your voice out and this.
whether you know uh whether gatekeepers of you know knowledge or academics or whatever uh like it or not this is the place that the world is in and um this you know yeah i just think it's so cool yeah true well you've been doing a lot of work on the vase topic over the last year so what's happening there yeah so i was trying to remember where i even got started on this um
So I've had an interest in ancient Greece my whole life. And when I announced that I was going to this continuing education certificate program at the University of Athens, a lot of people were shocked that it felt like I was stepping away from the Americas. But I stepped away from the classics to study the Americas. Anybody that's heard me on podcasts, my very first interest was ancient Greece.
It was the movie Troy, it was the ancient biblical world, reading the Iliad and the Odyssey as a little kid, as little as I could comprehend of it. And so, you know, eventually this just started creeping back in as I got older. And my bachelor's degree is in anthropology. And what that is, is the study of ancient cultural anthropology. So it's the study of ancient people, right?
So my preference of study, what I like to dig into is not necessarily the hard artifacts of these vases or how are the pyramids made. For me, the interesting idea is, okay, what can I learn about people at the time that these vases were made and their relationship to the vases? What can I learn about the people at the time of the pyramids and their relationship to the pyramids?
So one of the things I find really interesting there is there's this little village that existed on the Mahdi outcrop. And during the construction of the Menkaure pyramid complex, that village was displaced and those people were moved out of the way to build the valley temple.
And you can see the archeological evidence, like the upheaval of this village and all their trash gets dumped in the desert. And you can go look rummage through that trash and learn things about those people. I find that really interesting. And that can go endlessly deep. And so that was one of the pulls to me for Greece because, you know, you can study Greece from so many different angles, right?
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of the lotus flower's extinction?
During this time... Apologies if Conehead's derogatory, right?
Elongated skull guy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hopefully there's no Coneheads watching that are offensive. Right, right. But, you know, so during this time, there's like an artistic liberation happening. Now, it's only, you know, it's noticeable, but it's not like the artwork completely changes. But there are palatial floors that have these designs, which as far as we know, are completely foreign to the rest of Egyptian history.
And the Egyptologist that I was with when we were in the Cairo Museum, there's an Amarna period. Amarna period is Akhenaten's little kingdom that he establishes when he changes the whole Egyptian world and flips it on his head to worship the Aten. That's the Amarna period. And we call that because he moves the capital of Egypt from the...
the economic capital from Memphis and the religious capital from Thebes or Luxor to a place called Tell el-Amarna, which is, it's the modern name for it, but we just call it the Amarna period. One of his palace floors or one of his palatial floors is this completely foreign art style. And the Egyptologists that I were with, they were like, this is Minoan artwork. And there's this...
I was surprised to hear it. There's this commonly held idea, which I can't find anywhere online, but all the Egyptologists I spoke with in Egypt agreed that during Akhenaten's reign, maybe even before it, there were Minoan artists that were being pulled into Egypt. to create art pieces. And maybe they were doing other things as well.
And then I would tell them, well, you know, there's these really nice pre-dynastic vases that end up in Crete. And of course, you know, the Egyptologists, they weren't aware of this. But I was like, I was like, how do you think that they get there? And then they were like, I don't know, maybe a gift or maybe a part of, you know, maybe it's the Pharaoh showing appreciation back or whatever.
But clearly the Minoans are taking these things home with them. And they're fascinated by them. And there's so much more that I could go on with how Egyptian and Minoan culture can be connected. But I think everybody watching here thinks it's pretty obvious. Ryan, if you go to that lotus phase, this is something I found really interesting when I was going through them.
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