Mysteries, Eleusinian

Ergot, the dark parasitic fungus shown here growing on rye, may have provided the ancient Athenians for 2,000 years with "kykeon, the psychedelic used in the Eleusinian mysteries. 

Hofmann wrote in his autobiography, The cultural-historical meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries, their influence on European intellectual history, can scarcely be overestimated. Here suffering humankind found a cure for its rational, objective, cleft intellect, in a mystical totality experience, that let it believe in immortality, in an ever-lasting existence. ... 

Albert Hofmann (who celebrated his ninety-ninth birthday in 2005), scientist, alchemist and nature mystic who found the Stone of the Wise, identified the crystal essence—psilocybin—of the holy mushroom, and fathomed the secret of the Eleusinian Mysteries. 

Greece s greatest lyric poet, Pindar, glorifies the Eleusinian Mysteries in the same manner ... 

The Tragedian Sophocles said the following about the Eleusinian Mysteries ... 

It was a grandiose system for conducting Souls, it was an extraordinary blessing, it had a character-forming effect, and it made the Greeks into a Nation of Philosophers In the times that followed, up to now, there have been no institutions, which can be compared or even come close in spiritual depth, religious seriousness and psychological mastery to the Eleusinian Mysteries. 

Virgil and Dante attempted poetically to sympathize with the Eleusinian Mysteries, but, through the mere word, they were never able to replace the immediate fascinating power of the liveliness of the sacred drama. 

Much of McKenna s book remains admirable however, for instance his presentation of evidence indicating the probable importance of psychedelic plants for the very early tribal societies which lived on the Tassili Plateau of southern Algeria, or atal Huyuk in central Anatolia. These are examples, along with ancient Greece and the Eleusinian Mysteries, which illustrate the rapid flowering of culture possible in societies in which there is strong, if not... 

Wasson et al. (1978) argued that the Greek Eleusinian mysteries involved the use of an aqueous concoction of ergot sclerotia that contained water-soluble alkaloids, perhaps including lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). These mystical ceremonies were held in ancient Greece at Eleusis, near Athens. The mysteries... 

The mystery of manna and the Eleusinian mysteries remain mysteries because of scant literary records. Uncertainty is magnified because no experimental studies have been conducted to evaluate whether primitive techniques for extracting or modifying bio-active components from ergot could have yielded preparations with the purported properties of manna or kykeon without causing destructive ergotism. 

A Greek priestess from southern Italy was in charge of the ritual of Ceres, parallel to the Eleusinian Mysteries in Athens. 

The Eleusinian mysteries, into which many Roman visitors to Greece were initiated. 

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