The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries

Description

The authors (a mycologist, chemist, and classics scholar, each respected in his field) make an informed and plausible case that the famed Mysteries conducted at Eleusis in Greece for a period of nearly two millennia in antiquity entailed psychoactive substances in a ritual context. In so doing, they find valuable lessons for the modern world in the solution of an ancient mystery. Although controversial when first published, the book's hypothesis has got much more serious attention in recent years, as scholars have increasingly come to realize the prime importance of entheogenic substances in religious rituals worldwide.All three authors have written significant books and papers relating to entheogens, and this book presents an authoritative exposition of their discoveries. This will be the first popularly accessible edition of a work that has acquired a cult reputation in the three decades since its first publication, and will attract an audience of open-minded students of earth-based spiritual practices as well as those familiar with the authors in related contexts. Its underlying theme of the universality of experiential religion, and its suppression by forces of exploitation and repression, should give it a receptive audience among many who are interested in earth religions and the reconciliation of the human and natural worlds.

R. Gordon Wasson (1898-1986) was a pioneer investigator of sacred indigenous mushroom rituals in Mexico in the 1950s. Albert Hofmann, the famed chemist who discovered the curious properties of LSD in 1943, recently celebrated his 100th birthday in Switzerland. Carl A. P. Ruck, an expert on ancient Greek ethnobotany, lives in Massachusetts.

"[Gordon Wasson has] made the specialty of mycology something of universal importance and one of the pillars of anthropology and the history of religions." -Octavio Paz, Nobel Prize-winning poet and author "The Road to Eleusis grew out of a three-way collaboration of scholar-scientists sparked by R. Gordon Wasson's insight into the true nature of an ancient religious ritual, the Eleusinian Mysteries. In collaboration with the world-renowned chemist, Albert Hofmann, and Carl Ruck, a Classical scholar specializing in the ethnobotany of ancient Greece, they give solid foundation to what Wasson deduced as the essence of the Mysteries. The three authors present their findings and their evidence, drawing the specialties of their three fields together in fascinatingly persuasive form. "The content of those Mysteries is, together with the identity of India's sacred soma plant, one of the two best kept secrets in history, and this book is the most successful attempt I know to unlock it. Triangulating the resources of an eminent Classics scholar, the most creative mycologist of our time, and the discoverer of LSD, [The Road to Eleusis] is a historical tour de force while being more than that. For by direct implication it raises contemporary questions which our cultural establishment has thus far deemed too hot to face." -Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions "The book's themes of the universality of experiential religion, the suppression of that knowledge by exploitative forces, and the use of psychedelics to reconcile the human and natural worlds make it a fascinating and timely read." -Gaia Media