 <unk> , <unk> , and Dead Sea <unk> scholar John Marco Allegro postulated that early Christian theology was derived from a fertility cult revolving around the <unk> consumption of A. muscaria in his 1970 book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross , but his theory has found little support by scholars outside the field of <unk> . The book was <unk> discredited by academics and theologians , including Sir Godfrey Driver , <unk> Professor of Semitic <unk> at Oxford University , and Henry <unk> , the Dean of Christ Church , Oxford . Christian author John C. King wrote a detailed rebuttal of Allegro 's theory in the 1970 book A Christian View of the Mushroom Myth ; he notes that neither fly agarics nor their host trees are found in the Middle East , even though cedars and pines are found there , and highlights the tenuous nature of the links between biblical and <unk> names coined by Allegro . He concludes that if the theory was true , the use of the mushroom must have been " the best kept secret in the world " as it was so well concealed for two thousand years . 
