Albert Hofmann

R. Gordon Wasson

Carl A. P. Ruck

"...one of the two best kept secrets in history, and this book is the most successful attempt I know to unlock it. ... [A] historical tour de force." --Huston Smith, author of The World’s Religions The secretive Mysteries conducted at Eleusis in Greece for nearly two millennia have long puzzled scholars with strange accounts of initiates experiencing otherworldly journeys. In this groundbreaking work, three experts—a mycologist, a chemist, and a historian—argue persuasively that the sacred potion given to participants in the course of the ritual contained a psychoactive entheogen. The authors then expand the discussion to show that natural psychedelic agents have been used in spiritual rituals across history and cultures. Although controversial when first published in 1978, the book’s hypothesis has become more widely accepted in recent years, as knowledge of ethnobotany has deepened. The authors have played critical roles in the modern rediscovery of entheogens, and The Road to Eleusis presents an authoritative exposition of their views. 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. This 30th anniversary edition includes an appreciative preface by religious scholar Huston Smith and an updated exploration of the chemical evidence by Peter Webster.

Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries

The Road to Eleusis

John Marco Allegro

Jan R. Irvin

"First published by ... Hodder and Stoughton, London, May 1970, ... Doubleday & Company, Garden City, NY, August 1970"--T.p. verso.

A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity Within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East

The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross

Clark Heinrich

Blaise D. Staples

Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the  Eucharist

The Apples of Apollo

Blaise Daniel Staples

When the apostle Paul proclaimed the new Christian Mystery to the factious congregation at Corinth, there was no one who would not understand that this Eucharist was meant to replace the pagan Mystery that had been celebrated for over a millennium just a short distance away up the shore at the sanctuary of Eleusis. These essays attempt to uncover the original food of the sacramental communion."--BOOK JACKET.

Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist

Mark Alwin Hoffman

ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS is a much needed accessible exploration into the role of psychoactive sacraments - entheogens - in religion, mythology, and history, and also includes most treatments of the subject focus on modern scientific research, psychotherapy, are auto-bibliographic accounts, or are agenda-driven or otherwise naive and myopic. A great mystery of altered states of consciousness and species development is expanding with new archeological and anthropological discoveries. Religious story telling (myth) is a timeless journey. Surprisingly it’s not about truth. It’s about finding one’s self in the midst of the discovery of the “Other.” It is the story of what is separate and unknown that creates self-consciousness. Our entire life consists ultimately in the discovery of the “Other,” which gives meaning to the discovery of the self. The arts and language are the fossil remnants scattered on our path. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS discusses the influence of psychoactive substances on consciousness, human evolution and mystical experiences. It explores how religion, mythology, art and culture stem from entheogenic consciousness and why it's important to us today. "Entheogens, or psychoactive sacraments, have a long, storied history that has played an essential role in the evolution of consciousness, mythology, culture, religion, art - and even history and politics. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS outlines this suppressed - yet seminal - undercurrent of history, giving examples of the role of entheogens from the primal shamanic religions through, the historical religions, esoteric mystical traditions including the Mystery Religions, alchemy and Freemasonry, and into contemporary expressions. Authors Ruck and Hoffman draw upon decades of research and personal experience in discussing the best documented examples of historically important entheogenic evidences, various ongoing threads of research and speculation to muse upon the 'meaning' of it all..." Our hominid ancestors experienced a spiritual wakening at the very dawn of consciousness that set them apart from the other creatures of our planet. It was a journey to another realm induced by a special food that belonged to the gods. This was a plant that was animate with the spirit of deity. It was an entheogen. It was the visionary vehicle for the trip of the first shaman. The story was told over and over again until it achieved the perfect form of a myth. The realm was imagined as a topographical place, the outer limit of the cosmos, the fiery empyrean, or its geocentric opposite, our own planet Gaia. Myths multiplied over time, but they always preserved this primordial truth. These myths provide a road map, a scenario, if you can read them, for whoever today wants to follow. However, it is not an easy journey, and it is also fraught with many dangers, of getting lost, of finding no return. Access to the entheogens is now largely prohibited or strictly licensed. The restrictions constitute an infringement of cognitive freedom, limiting the further evolution of human potential into productive creative imagination and experiences that lie beyond the normal, the traditional province of shamans, who can understand the speech of plants and animals, change shape at will, and journey, both physically and in the spirit, to distant exotic realms. In addition, religions have staked out territorial claims to this realm of spiritual consciousness. They have colonized it, identified it with their god, often reserving the access for their own elite. Similarly, trade in drugs, both medicinal and illegal, has colonized the etheogens, making them only chemicals, rationally depriving them of their spirit. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS is a guide for the curious that provides a historical overview of the role that entheogens have played in the development of our unique supremacy as a species and offers also pathways and advice for reconnecting with the primordial sources of nature’s power. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS investigates the role entheogens have played in the evolution of humankind’s attempt to define reality in a context of metaphysical or theological dimensions. Although other botanical intoxicants will be considered (cannabis, daphne, opium, Syrian rue, datura, mandrake), none, with the possible exception of mandrake, seem to have lent themselves so readily to metaphoric personifications, which make this the subject for a course on mythology. The source of humankind’s fascination and repulsion for fungi, indeed, leads to a fundamental consideration of the psychological nature of mankind’s fascination or awareness of what in the categorization of religions is termed animism and rituals of ecstatic shamanism. In addition, the linking of bread and wine as sacramental foods is due to parallel concepts of controlled fungal growth as a simulacrum of the cosmos itself. The goal is not so much to acquire factual knowledge of this vast subject, but to open up pathways for reflection upon the basic nature of human existence and consciousness. The narrative is the awesome history of discovery and the findings of ancient rituals that meld into twentieth-century controversy and criticism of psychedelics. The future of humanity and the direction of twenty-first century brain science is challenged as well as our sense of social convention. Entheogens have been deemed be prohibited controlled substances and as such is an infringement of cognitive freedom. Whatever the danger of potential abuse, the substance is not the fault, but the user. The hammer is not guilty, but the carpenter who misuses it because of deficient training. In order to exonerate the executioner in Classical antiquity, the axe was brought to trial and found guilty. The prohibition has drastically retarded the investigation into the therapeutic potential of proscribed drugs, including their efficacy in curing addiction. Some of these substances also offer the potential for accessing levels of cognition and consciousness beyond the ordinary, the traditional provenance of mystics and shamans, like bilocation, clairvoyance, and zoomorphism.

Entheogens, Myth, and Human Consciousness

This new edition of Carl Ruck's text keeps its experimental approach and felicitous style, while including substantial changes that make the material easier to teach and learn. The book has been consolidated into a more concise and direct format so that the material can be covered in less time, and the somewhat intimidating aural-oral emphasis that characterized the first edition has been reduced. These improvements, together with the accessibility inherent in the structural approach to grammar, make Ancient Greek: A New Approach useful not only as an innovative text in the text in the classroom but for general self-instruction as well.

A New Approach

Ancient Greek

Robert Gordon Wasson

Alla scoperta dei misteri eleusini

José Alfredo González Celdrán

"It was mainly just the European urban centers that converted to Christianity, and often more for political or commercial interests, rather than as a matter of faith. The old religions persisted in the villages or pagani, pejoratively named after them as Paganism. The Christians built their sanctuaries upon the pagan sites, expropriating their numinous past, commonly incorporating the actual architectural remnants and assimilating the symbolism of the former deities. The wisdom of those deposed gods and their rites persisted in less objectionable forms, disguised to delude the censors, as country festivals and quaint tales, often about the fairy folk who coexisted with this world and could be accessed by magical procedures that perpetuated ancient visionary sacraments of ecstatic shamanism. Encoded in tales seemingly as simple as Snow White with her poisoned red and white apple are themes traceable back to the great epic of Homer, about a hibernating bear hero called Odysseus, and the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh, as well as the cherished lineage of the leading families of Europe who derived their original empowerment from the pre-Christian fairy deities."--BOOK JACKET.

Survival of Pagan Shamanic Themes in European Fairytales

The Hidden World

In the ancient world, men and women joined cults known as Mysteries to unite with the deities of the otherworld and achieve eternal life. The most important of the Mysteries existed for two millennia at the village of Eleusis. Its deities were Demeter and Persephone, interchangeable in their roles as mother and daughter. The initiations and other rituals of this goddess-based cult were a profound secret: divulging information was punishable by death. For centuries, scholars have probed the secrets of the Eleusinian Mysteries and kykeon, its sacramental Eucharist — a sacred drink containing psychoactive chemicals similar to those in LSD. Their discoveries have been buried in the arcane language of alchemy, the occult sciences, and secret societies. Here, in prose accessible to all readers, Carl Ruck unravels the Mysteries, revealing the awesome powers of the goddesses, as well as the pagan underpinnings of Western culture.

Carl A. P. Ruck

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