" The Road To Eleusis : Unveiling the Secret Mysteries " ???

[Mudshark]

In reference to " The Road To Eleusis : Unveiling The Secret Mysteries " , by Hofmann , Wasson , and Ruck ...

I have not actually read this book , however , I have read many times that the authors believed a psychedelic ergot derivative obtained from a local grain or grass was the basis of the legend of the Mysteries ...

Nevertheless , I have never been able to actually learn any specific details of what the actual alkaloid is / are that were responsible for the said psychedelic effects , claimed to be similar to an LSD experience ; or how the sacred potion - the " Kykeon " was prepared .

The accounts and quotes that I have read in various books suggest that " The Mystery " - [ a once in a lifetime experience only , and a secret punishable by death for blabbermouths ] - was indeed quite a spectacular trip ....

I am wondering what specifically the Kykeon potion actually was ?
And , can it be replicated nowadays ; and if so , how ?

[ hoping that somebody knows more on this most interesting mystery ??? ... ] .

 

[Ismene]

I think the whole theory is a load of bollocks to be honest. You don't need a drug to feel different - there's fucking preachers all over the world making people collapse hysterical just by laying hands on them and telling them to believe in the lord. People are gullible - and they were even more gullible back when they really thought bullshit like Gods and religions existed.

 

[Help?!?!]

People ingesting ergot to have trips is a very real thing. Philosophers in anicent Greece did this though it was clearly quite dangerous.

 

[Mudshark]

People ingesting ergot to have trips is a very real thing. Philosophers in anicent Greece did this though it was clearly quite dangerous.

Yes , this is what I believe was happening at Eleusis - but specifically what they were actually doing [ afik ] has not yet been explained ....

A cold water infusion and filtering might have separated out ergotoxine type dangerous / gangrenous alkaloids , leaving behind the water soluble alkaloids such as the more benign ergonovine , which is reported to be " entheogenic ". [ and ergine , etc . ]

Also , possibly mint and / or pennyroyal type herbs may have been added [ can't recall this reference , sorry ] - which were hypothesized to possibly react somehow via means of their essential oils with the alkaloids - [ but this was only hearsay speculation on some other forum ] .

AFIK , Hofmann et al did not go into specific details with their interpretation of the Mysteries ....

Curious in this day and age we don't really know what was going on at Eleusis , and only have speculation .

 

[Mudshark]

I think the whole theory is a load of bollocks to be honest. You don't need a drug to feel different - there's fucking preachers all over the world making people collapse hysterical just by laying hands on them and telling them to believe in the lord. People are gullible - and they were even more gullible back when they really thought bullshit like Gods and religions existed.

According to Hofmann et al , clearly something psychedelic was occurring at Eleusis ....

This puts it in a completely different context to the mumbo - jumbo nonsense of some fundamentalist religious sects . Participants of the Mysteries , according to the citations of the day , were experiencing something truly sensational - [ according to Albert and his mates , in other words - " tripping balls " , in contemporary lingo . ]

 

[Mudshark]

sorry , error made ..

 

[Ismene]

People ingesting ergot to have trips is a very real thing. Philosophers in anicent Greece did this though it was clearly quite dangerous.

Seeing as ingesting ergot doesn't make humans trip now why do you think it did then?

According to Hofmann et al , clearly something psychedelic was occurring at Eleusis ....

With all respect, Hoffman was a chemist. Just as vulnerable to looking at the past through the lens of the present as the next man. And maybe he felt it would be a positive thing for LSD if something vaguely related to LSD was being used back then.

Participants of the Mysteries , according to the citations of the day , were experiencing something truly sensational

Yeah but we're talking about different people in a different age with a very different mindset. If we go down that route then we end up believing the utter bullshit that the guy who saw the "burning bush" was tripping balls and the guy who "heard the voice of God" was tripping balls and the guy who wrote "revelations" was tripping balls. People can be very delusional all by themselves - they don't need to be tripping.

 

[max_freakout]

The whole "kykeon = mysterious unknown ergot derivative" theory of the Eleusinian mystery religion is unnecessarily strained and convoluted. A much simpler explanation for why the mystery initiates at Eleusis were all tripping balls and experiencing ego death/rebirth is that they had eaten psilocybin mushrooms.

It just complicates things to try to suggest some "mysterious unknown entheogen" when there are well-known and widely recognised entheogens that would have had the same exact effect.

 

[swilow]

Maybe they were using a now extinct psychoactive plant


...bring on Jurassic park I say :D

 

[Ismene]

A much simpler explanation for why the mystery initiates at Eleusis were all tripping balls and experiencing ego death/rebirth is that they had eaten psilocybin mushrooms.

Are there any magic mushrooms in Greece? Any evidence of their use?

 

[max_freakout]

Are there any magic mushrooms in Greece? Any evidence of their use?

There are psilocybe species throughout the world in every non-polar country including Greece, Liberty caps grow in Greece (see Stamets), and the ancient Greeks were renowned for their sophisticated knowledge of plant pharmacology, they would definitely have known about magic mushrooms (see Rinella).

The mushroom explanation for the Eleusinian mystery rituals is a much more satisfying explanation than some mysterious unknown ergot derivative

 

[Ismene]

That's only one possible species tho. The reason why there's genuine evidence for use in mexico is that there's upwards of 30 types of magic mushroom - if you bend down and pick up a mushroom in certain areas of mexico it's more likely than not to be psilocybin. That's not the case in Greece/Europe. If you bend down and pick up a brown mushroom it's more likely to kill you.

 

[Mudshark]

I think that Hofmann , Wasson and Ruck were suggesting that at Eleusis the ancient Greeks were removing the nasty alkaloids from ergot [ which are not water soluble ] by simply filtering them out , thus obtaining ergonovine , ergine , etc , which are more benign and a little safer .

Ott and Bigwood experimented with ergonovine during the 1970s , and found it to be " entheogenic " ; although said it caused pain and cramps in the thigh / groin region .

The book " Plants of the Gods " has a chapter devoted to the Eleusian Mysteries , as does Hofmann's " Problem Child " , Ott's " Pharmacotheon " , etc , etc , etc ... all suggesting an ergot derivative - but without going into specific details . Still a mystery it seems ....

 

[Ismene]

I think the idea that it has to be a drug is a little far-fetched tho. They're assuming that people thousands of years ago would react in exactly the same way to a psychedelic as modern-day man. I mean even now - when we know they're completely harmless and don't cause any damage and arn't psychotically religious people can still find psychdelics unpleasant. The idea that they would all be tripping balls and thinking it was fantastic a thousand years ago just strikes me as complete bullshit.

My guess is they'd think anything psychedelic was the work of Lucifer.

 

[Help?!?!]

How would that work? It's not like people were that stupid, they had understanding that certain plants elicited certain states. It's not like Albert freaked out or anything. Sure it was more modern times but psychedelics are known to elicit both states of surreal euphoria as well as dysphoria. I mean you could say the same thing about cannabis, and I'm sure there were people that thought it was devil devised evil. Either way there were people who liked Lucifer as well so....

Either way if there's one thing your always good for Ismene, it's having a healthy skeptiscism! Always appreciate that!

 

[perpetualdawn]

I really want it to be something like ergot extracts or psilocybe mushrooms, because that WOULD be cool, but it seems like wishful thinking. I remember another claim a while back that they were inhaling some kind of deleriant hydrocarbon gas/vapour that was leaking into an underground cavern from the earth. This idea was well enough received to be published in Scientific American some years back. I think there have been a multitude of speculations over the years, and not really any conclusive evidence for any specific mind-altering substance. I'm not super up on this, but I gotta go on the side of very skeptical here.

 

[Ismene]

How would that work? It's not like people were that stupid, they had understanding that certain plants elicited certain states.

It's possible Help but I just think we should be wary of automatically assuming that someone 2000 years ago would react to a heavy psychedelic the same way as we do and think it was something marvellous rather than devilish insanity. We certainly know that the Spaniards as late as the 1500s thought mushrooms were the work of the devil and caused complete insanity and slaughtered anyone who used them. So whether or not the Greeks were like the merry pranksters I dunno.

Always appreciate that!

I try my best :D

It's just that for the first 5 years of reading stuff about psychedelics I believed pretty much every theory I heard. The next 5 years have had me starting to question it. One of the worst examples was - I don't know if you've ever seen that "mushroom man" that Terence Mckenna always talks about - proof that the africans used mushrooms. I accepted that for years. Then I found out it's not the original drawing - it's a drawing by Mckennas wife - and if you see the original the "mushrooms" could be anything.

 

[Xorkoth]

I think the idea that it has to be a drug is a little far-fetched tho. They're assuming that people thousands of years ago would react in exactly the same way to a psychedelic as modern-day man. I mean even now - when we know they're completely harmless and don't cause any damage and arn't psychotically religious people can still find psychdelics unpleasant. The idea that they would all be tripping balls and thinking it was fantastic a thousand years ago just strikes me as complete bullshit.

My guess is they'd think anything psychedelic was the work of Lucifer.

The ancient Greeks didn't believe in an Abrahamic religion (I mention this because you mentioned Lucifer), they had their own religion and they were well known for their philosophy and higher thought. I would bet that the more intelligent individuals among them didn't take their cultural religious beliefs literally, just like some people don't today in our culture. It doesn't seem to me that these were people held under the sway of fear from ideas like devils and demons. And they were certainly evolutionarily modern humans. I don't see any reason why ancient Greeks wouldn't respond to psychedelics in similar ways as we do now. I'm sure plenty of them wouldn't have found them pleasant but neither do plenty of people today. And don't forget that native communities all over the world were experiencing psychedelic plants as part of their spiritual development in many different times throughout history... the shamans at least. I don't think a specific cultural framework is necessary to experience the psychedelic state in a beneficial and mind-blowing kind of way. Some individuals will experience that type of thing, while most will not, in any culture. At least I think so.

 

[Ismene]

I wonder what they told themselves when they were tripping tho. Even now after decades of science able to confirm to us that it's pretty much harmless, people can still feel it's dangerous and that they are "losing their mind". Imagine how that would be amplified 2000 years ago when you had absolutely no idea whether it was going to kill you or cause you serious harm - or whether it was the Gods that were angry at you. Whether you could use mushrooms and enjoy it in the same sense we do is something to consider.

 

[Mudshark]

I also am of the opinion that psilocybe shrooms are a more plausible explanation - however those suggesting an ergot derivative at Eleusis are not laymen ; they are noted scientists , scholars and authors ....[ ergot , afik , is very nasty stuff indeed ...]

The first psychedelic that I ever took was powerful brown microdot LSD in the 1970s . One aspect of that experience was the feeling of an ancient timelessness of the psychedelic state of mind - a feeling that still persists when tripping . Instead of something new and sensational , it always feels to be something ancient and sensational .

McKenna quite credibly wrote that the first type of drugs humans ever encountered might have been psychedelics ; probably pscilocybe mushrooms , when following herds about during their migrations or when hunting them ...
Other cultures discovered cacti , etc , ....

The notion that psychedelics are new to humans is , imho , wrong .
But perhaps , as our culture evolved over many 1000s of years , the knowledge of and use of psychedelics was suppressed and long forgotten by most people , except maybe shamans , witches , etc , ....[ e.g , it was some bigoted invader - I don't recall who , possibly Attila ?? - that destroyed the temple at Eleusis in the name of " God " , thus ending the cult of the Mysteries ; now long forgotten knowledge of the rites ...]