| The town of Eleusis, where the mysteries were celebrated, was named after the Attic King Eleusis, which means “advent” which heralded the arrival of the Divine Child. The mother of King Eleusis was said to be Daira, daughter of Oceanus, the “Wise One of the Sea” who was identical to Aphrodite, the Greek sea-shell born goddess. The King was the representation of the male aspect of fertility, the Dionysian god (originally the mushroom), as he was reborn as a phallus each season. The sea is the feminine water that fertilizes the spores which are carried on the winds, engendered by the lightning and thunder. King Eleusis’s father was King Ogygus, the Theban King of Boeotia, both of whom are actually just mythologies and never existed as real people, according to Graves. (80) We’ve already seen how the Boeotian shield is a representation of the double-axe or two mushroom heads (48h). The Mycenaean foundations of the sanctuary of Eleusis date from the middle of the 15th century BC, in the second half of the Mycenaean age, which has led several researchers to believe the ritual and the story are pre-Hellenic in origin. (81) The Telesterion initiation hall at Eleusis was built on the site of a temple that was erected near the early 6th century BC. (82) The Eleusinian Mysteries were discussed by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) in De Legibus where he writes: “Among the many excellent and divine institutions that your Athens has developed and contributed to human life, there is none, in my opinion, better than these mysteries, by which we have been brought forth from our rustic and savage mode of existence, cultivated, and refined to a state of civilization: and as the rites are called “initiations,” so, in truth, we have learned from them the first principles of life and have gained the understanding, not only to live happily, but also to die with better hope.” (83) Carl Ruck, professor of Classical Studies, who specializes in the Greek mythology and the Mysteries of Eleusis, believes it could not have been wine which was consumed at Eleusis since the alcohol could not be very strong and stronger alcohol was unknown. According to Ruck: “Since the art of distillation was not known in Europe until the Middle Ages, the alcoholic content of Greek wine could not exceed about fourteen percent, at which concentration the alcohol from natural fermentation becomes fatal to the yeast that produced it and thereby ends the process. Stronger wines can be made only by fortifying the beverage with additional alcohol isolated through distillation: simple evaporation will not increase the alcoholic content since alcohol, which has a lower boiling point than water, will merely escape into the air, leaving the final product weaker instead of more concentrated. Alcohol itself was unknown and there is no word for it in ancient Greek.” (84) In the quest for the “Mystery” of Eleusis, or rather, what was served as the libation at the ceremony, many potential solutions have been offered up. In books like The Road to Eleusis, Persephone’s Quest, and others which have followed, it has been suggested that ergot alkaloids would have been used in order to provide enough for the massive amount of initiates each year. Claviceps purpurea grows on both wheat and barley as well as rye and lab analyzed samples of ergot on both wheat and barley provided alkaloids of ergotomine and ergotoxine group, ergonovine and sometimes traces of lysergic acid amide (LSD). (85) |
In Ruck’s book, Sacred Mushrooms of the Goddess, Carl Ruck excludes the possibility that psilocybin mushrooms could have been the sacrament at Eleusis because, “…the logistics of providing amanitas or Psilocybe mushrooms in great enough quantities for the initiation of thousands should have excluded that hypothesis out of hand, especially in view of the fact that mushrooms in Greece do not fruit in late September; and it would have required cartloads of the mushrooms, an event which would have been hardly disguisable, in view with keeping the kykeon a secret.” However, I do not agree with this. It appears to me it was always the mushroom and it continued to be. The mushrooms could have been ground down and preserved in honey or another preservative. Robert Graves asserts, and I agree with his premise, that the ingredients served at Eleusis were possibly a form of the milder psilocybin mushrooms such as panaeolus papilionaceus rather than the A. muscaria or even the ergot possibilities suggested first by Gordon Wasson in his book The Road to Eleusis. Various possibilities have been suggested throughout the years, but very few psychedelic mushroom enthusiasts have been familiar with Robert Graves work or even the fact that it was Robert Graves who first suggested to Gordon Wasson to investigate the A. muscaria for its potential as Soma. It was likely Graves’ book The White Goddess which first caught Gordon Wasson’s attention to mushrooms in the first place since Graves’ comments on Wasson’s book on Russia and Mushrooms, in his 1960 book, Food for Centaurs. (86) The idea that the Soma, Haoma, the main ingredient, combined with the knowledge of all the images of occulted mushroom depictions we have seen throughout history, would somehow change at Eleusis is not an idea I think is even worth considering for long. The mushroom has always been the “mystery,” though it may have been replaced with wine or other herbs during the later Greek and early Roman era. (80) White Goddess, p. 157 (81) K. Kourouniotis, Eleusis, Athens, 1936, pp. 14ff.; G. Mylonas, The Hymns to Demeter and Her Sanctuary at Eleusis, 1942; Kourouniotis-Mylonas, American Journal of Archaeology, xxxvii, 1933, p. 271ff (82) The Mystery of Manna, Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible, Dan Merkur, Park Street Press, Rochester, VT. 2000, p. 46; Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 285 (83) Occidental Mythology, p. 268; Cicero, de Legibus II.36 (84) The Road to Eleusis, Unveiling the Secret of The Mysteries, R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, Carl, A. Ruck, North Atlantic Books, 2008, p. 99 (85) ibid, p. 158 (86) White Goddess, p. 333-34 |