Reflections from Eleusis

On Mythology and Ancient Drugs

Eleusis

The archeological site at Eleusis might not crack many top ten lists of things to do while in Greece, but it stood out as the highlight of our trip when I visited with my lovely fiance during the COVID era in September of 2021. It possesses none of the sweeping architectural drama of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon still crowns the ancient city of Athens. But the intricately-carved marble blocks that litter the site seem to thrum with the same pulse of history. Everyone who was anyone in the Classical world paid Eleusis a visit, from Plato right on up to Julius Caesar. They came here to participate in a mystical ceremony centered around a potion called the kykeon. Solemn vows shrouded the goings-on here in secrecy, but rumor had it that the magic brew brought on some kind of death and rebirth. New clues about the contents of the mystical kykeon may explain where it’s magic power came from, and why all the most famous names of Antiquity beat a path to Eleusis to sample it.   

Mythology

Eleusis is situated on the fertile plain where the grain that fed Athens was grown. It’s mythology is fittingly an agricultural origin story of the annual death and rebirth of the crops. The story concerns Demeter, the Olympian goddess of the harvest, and the rape of her virginal daughter Persephone. One day, while innocently plucking flowers, Persephone was abducted and dragged into hell by the dark god of the underworld. Like any distraught mother, Demeter searched in vain for her lost little girl until she was exhausted and could search no more. Eventually, the goddess was revived by the kykeon given to her by the good people of Eleusis. Renewed by the potion, she descended into the bowels of the underworld. The grain goddess eventually rescued her daughter from hell and rewarded the Eleusinians with the knowledge of agriculture. But Persephone had been tricked into eating sox pomegranate seeds during her captivity, and was therefore condemned to return to the underworld for six months out of every year. The desolation of her mother during this annual absence is manifested as the bleak winter when nothing grows. This melancholy tale of death and rebirth was the theme of the harvest ceremony that took place at Eleusis each September, when the kykeon of Demeter was ritualistically consumed. 

The Kykeon

This mysterious kykeon is the stuff of legend. It pops up in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, where Homer describes it as a mixture primarily of barley and water. But of course, something else must have been lurking in the real-life version of the brew served up at Eleusis. Something extraordinary enough that, for a thousand years, the most important people in the world made sure they didn’t miss their chance to try it. There has been little choice but to savor this mystery until 2020 when Brian Muraresku’s book The Immortality Key offered us a tantalizing clue. In it, he reveals that copycat rites of Demeter were simultaneously being carried out 1,000 miles to the east at a remote Greek colony in modern-day Spain. That’s where telltale traces of ergot have been discovered by a Spanish archaeobotanist by the name of Jordi Juan-Tresserras. Muraresku writes: “The fungus was found embedded between several teeth of a human jawbone. Microscopic evidence of the same organism was additionally identified in one of the miniature chalices that once contained a ‘special beer.’ Given the ‘cultic’ context of the area where both relics were unearthed in 1997, Juan-Tresserras linked whatever potion filled the tiny cup to ‘the consumption of the kykeon’ during the Mysteries of Eleusis.” 

Ergot

Ergot is a hallucinogenic fungus that infests cereal grains such as rye, barley, or wheat. It’s accidental ingestion has been blamed for chaos of the Salem Witch Trials. The psychedelic hippie drug LSD was first synthesized from ergot back in the 1930s. We’re talking about magic mushrooms here. Is this the secret ingredient that lent its mystical power to the kykeon? Could it be that the greatest minds of classical civilization were being blown by psychedelic drugs each September at Eleusis? One thing is for sure; modern science is only just beginning to grapple with the miraculous qualities of these funguses. They have proven stunningly effective at treating depression and smoking cessation. When compared to conventional drugs, they really do seem like magic. Under lab conditions, these mushrooms are also inducing powerful spiritual experiences that participants rate as being among the most profound and important of their lives. Because ergot grows on cereals, the uniquely Eleusinian connection between mystical underworld journeys and the goddess of grain suddenly starts to make a lot of sense.

Biotechnology

Ergot is an absolutely horrific way to do magic mushrooms. Those who accidentally ingest it in bread or beer are lucky if their mystic visions are merely accompanied by agonizing pain. Limbs may rot and fall off, and death can result. Ergot poisoning happened often enough during the Middle Ages that it earned the nickname “St. Anthony’s Fire”. This is not the mushroom to try if you are curious. If ergot was indeed the active ingredient in the kykeon, a second secret ingredient would have been needed to neutralize the poisonous effects. Traditional drug combinations of that kind are far from unheard of. Ayahuasca has been used in a religious context for centuries in the Amazon basin. The active ingredient in ayahuasca is Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, which is another vision-inducing hallucinogen. It can be found heavily-concentrated in the coffee-like Psychotria viridis plant. Since the DMT molecule is destroyed in the stomach, a second ingredient is needed to complete the potion by making the drug orally active. A monoamine oxidase inhibitor, or MAOI, does the trick by neutralizing stomach enzymes. Such a thing can be found today at any drug store, but it is somehow known in the Amazon to mix in some Banisteriopsis caapi vine. The rainforest is bursting with diverse plant species. We can only wonder how many generations of trial-and-error it must have taken to arrive at this very specific combination from among the cornucopia. Once discovered, it became a reliable piece of biotechnology passed down as folk knowledge. Just like the kykeon of Demeter. 

Destruction

As Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire, the church claimed a total monopoly on access to the divine. Sources of spiritual awakening other than the church became heresy, and partaking of the kykeon became a crime. After the emperor outlawed it, Alaric the Visigoth came to Eleusis. During our recent visit there, we could vividly picture this mustachioed figure throwing a rope around one of the columns whose base is still visible, tying it off to the pommel of his saddle, and giving his horse a hearty slap on the ass that would pull down the column and collapse the roof. Alaric and his band of merry cutthroats would go on to pillage their way into history by sacking Rome itself. But it was their Christianity that made them destroy Eleusis. The Etch-A-Sketch was being shaken and the pagan past was being swept away. The future was to be Christian and under strict control of the church. The Rite of Holy Communion replaced the Rite of Demeter, and all knowledge of the wonderous kykeon passed out of history.

Science

Science and medicine tend to take a dim and derisive view of traditional folk biotechnology like the kykeon or ayahuasca. Guessing-and-checking over hundreds of years is the exact opposite strategy than the one professed by science. Rather than understanding how reality works at the most basic level, folk tradition chalks it up to magic. But an understanding of how the gears are really turning is something that continues to elude science; we don’t even know why human brains need to sleep at this point. Meanwhile, folk knowledge has often passed the acid test of generations. We have been too quick to dismiss the value of our own heritage.

The Crone

It took a few centuries for Christianity to progress from persecuted minority to state religion. The new faith borrowed heavily from existing pagan traditions during this evolution. When the emperor finally put the screws to paganism, he was swapping out the sign on the door more than he was committing his subjects to some wholesale religious change. Where the magic potions of Eleusis were seen as a threat, the Parthenon could be converted into a massive church. The concept of three-gods-in-one was one example of an old pagan idea that ended up baked into Christianity. In addition to the familiar male trinity, there was also a female version celebrated by the pagans. All three goddesses that make up this feminine trinity are known to us today, but only two are sanctioned by the church. The virginal Persephone and the mother figure Demeter live on as Mary the Virgin and Mary the Mother. The third aspect of femininity is the wise old woman. As the keeper of ancient biotechnology, the Crone knows the magical and healing properties of all the plants in the forest. The Greeks called her Hecate, but the church portrays her as the evil witch. Since spirituality was to be accessed only within the confines of the church, old ladies who could blow minds by whipping up a kykeon were a threat that had to be stamped out. The thing to understand about Eleusis was that it was run entirely by women. Priestess ran the whole show. The destruction of Eleusis was a part of a much larger campaign to stamp out mystical veneration of the feminine, because that threatened the church’s monopoly. As everyone knows, those suspected of practicing magic outside of the church were burned as witches for many centuries.

The Da Vinci Code

Suppression of the sacred feminine was a major theme in Dan Brown’s 2003 mystery thriller The Da Vinci Code. Brown explored the notion that the Holy Grail itself is symbolic of the same ancient tradition of venerating femininity that is the legacy of Eleusis. Rather than being a literal chalice that held the blood of Christ, Brown suggested perhaps it was really a symbol of the bloodline of Christ as survived by his wife and their unborn child. Where the wise old Crone was recast as a witch, Mary Magdalene was transformed into a prostitute. But given that the Kykeon of Demeter actually was a real drink served in a cup, perhaps the legend of the Holy Grail is more literal than Dan Brown supposed.

The Pomegranate

At Eleusis, the only people picking their way through the lonely ruins with us was a pair of older Greek ladies. At a certain point, the four of us stood silently gazing together into the black hole that used to be the entrance to hell. Suddenly one of our fellow pilgrims produced out of nowhere a blushing red pomegranate, the enduring symbol of the lost little girl. With a reverent toss and a distant splash, we all watched the fruit vanish into the black void. In that moment, the plight of the lost little girl and the magic of antiquity felt hauntingly real to us. We didn’t expect a whole lot when we set out to pay a visit to the windswept ruins. But with so much dysfunction and chaos mounting during our own COVID era, it was beyond gratifying to find such a tangible connection to the past waiting for us. Despite the best efforts of Alaric the Visigoth and the passage of so many centuries, the lost virgin and her distraught mother have not been forgotten. Eleusis is still very much alive.