The Eleusinian Mysteries, the secret ceremony of the ancient Greeks that lasted almost 2,000 years, reached the coast of Girona by the hands of merchants and, with it, the drug used in the ritual
More than two thousand years ago, thousands of Greeks made pilgrimages to attend a very special festival. The Mysteries took place in September in the town of Eleusis, 18 kilometers from the center of Athens. At its peak, more than 3,000 people participated in a week-long ritual.
In those days, participants fasted, participated in ritual dances and chants, and finally made a pilgrimage to the temple, where they drank ciceon (Greek κυκεών, kykeon), a drink made with water, barley, and herbs. What happened next was a secret that no one could reveal on pain of death.
The mysteries were part of the cult of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and her daughter Persephone. According to the myth, Persephone is kidnapped by the king of the underworld, Hades. This allows Persephone to eat pomegranate seeds, thus connecting her to the underworld, from which she can only emerge for half a year, coinciding with spring.
It was an egalitarian rite, attended by men, women, citizens and slaves
The origin of the Eleusinian mysteries goes back to the mists of time, since the rite of death and resurrection related to harvests already existed in the Mycenaean civilization, around 1500 BC, and certainly much earlier. Over the centuries, the ritual became more and more popular, until, under Peisistrat of Athens, the Eleusinian Mysteries became pan-Hellenic and later came to be administered by the state. Pilgrims came from all over the Hellenic world to participate in them.
It was an egalitarian rite, attended by men, women, citizens and slaves. The only requirements to participate were no blood feuds and being able to speak Greek to understand the ceremony.
The last mysteries took place around the third century. The ceremony disappeared, first swept away by the persecution of pagan rites by the Romans and later by the destruction of the temples in 396 by Alaric, the Christian Gothic king.
According to the researchers, the Eleusinian Mysteries aimed at “elevating man above the human sphere to the divine sphere and guaranteeing his redemption, making him a god and thus conferring on him immortality”. It seems very promising for a few days of dancing and singing, and it doesn’t explain how the rite could last almost unchanged for nearly two millennia.
Votive plate known as Tablet of Ninnion, representing elements of the Eleusinian Mysteries, discovered in the sanctuary of Eleusis (mid-4th century BC)
But it all makes sense when we look at the ciceon recipe, the drink that accompanied the rituals.
The LSD of the Greeks
It has been speculated for decades that ciceon was not just a soda, but a psychedelic drug, which would explain the visions, revelations and transformations that all initiates experienced.
A common barley pest is ergot or ergot (Claviceps purpurea), a toxic fungus that can cause ergotism, a disease characterized by seizures, hallucinations, and arterial contraction, which can lead to tissue necrosis and gangrene in the extremities.
One of the toxic substances present in this fungus is ergot, from which lysergic acid (LSD) is derived. While other researchers speculated that the Greeks mixed their ciceon with hallucinogenic mushrooms, opium poppies or even plants containing DMT (the active ingredient in ayahuasca), ergot was the most likely ingredient.
The suspicions were confirmed with the works on the Mas Castellar site in Girona, where there was a temple dedicated to Demeter and Persephone, and where all kinds of objects related to the cult of these goddesses were found.
But Castellar is located about 17 kilometers from present-day Ampurias, formerly Emporion, a Greek colony founded in 575 BC by settlers from Phocea, the “Greek Vikings”. Seals were more traders than looters, originating in present-day Anatolia, Turkey. They were the founders, in addition to Masalia, what is now Marseille, in France, and Velia, in southern Italy.
Investigators found ergot remains in the temple of Mas Castelar in two places: inside a vase and in the tartar of the teeth of a 25-year-old man’s remains. The contamination may have been accidental, however, analyzes from nearby grain mills found no traces of the fungus. All these facts demonstrate two things: that the ergot was added to the drink on purpose and that it was later consumed.
Also, the pot with traces of the hallucinogen is very small, like a toy. Which indicates that whatever it contained, it was so potent that a tablespoon was enough. The Greek Vikings had broken the secret. They brought with them the mysteries of Eleusis and the mixtures that were consumed in the ceremony
The kernos of the Museum of Archeology of Ampurias
To see the remains of the Eleusinian Mysteries, you have to travel to the city of Ampurias (Empuries in Catalan) and visit the excellent Archaeological Museum, located inside the monastery of Sant Pere de Galligants, a Benedictine abbey from the 10th century, and which has been the seat of the museum since 1857. Here you can visit the most important remains of the ancient Greek city of Emporion, as well as those found in nearby areas, including Mas Castellar.
Greek vase of offerings or kernos (κένος or κenchaχνος) found in excavations carried out in 2008 in the port district of the Greek city of Emporion. Catalonia Archeology Museum in Ampurias
Among the pieces, there is a beautiful Kernos, a vase formed by a ceramic ring that has small bowls glued around it. Its unusual design is described in literary sources, indicating that this strange piece was used mainly in the cults of Demeter and Korah, and Cybele and Attis.
In the Eleusinian Mysteries, the kernos was carried in procession on the head of a priestess (liknophoros), as seen in various decorated vases and mosaics depicting the rite. Sometimes a lamp was placed in the center of a kernos.
One possible explanation for this strange container is that it was a dispenser. What was poured into the little bowls was something that needed to be taken in small doses, that needed to be measured, probably because they were potentially toxic.
Athenaeus of Naucratis, a 3rd century AD classical historian, describes kernos thus:
A terracotta pot with many small bowls attached to it. In them are sage, white poppy heads, wheat, barley, peas, veterinarians, vegetables, lentils, beans, spelled, oats, compressed fruit cakes, honey, oil, wine, milk and unwashed sheep wool. When we carry this container, like a Liknophoros, we experience its contents.
That way, we can get an idea of which elements were included in the ciceons cocktail. The original recipe was lost with the death of the ancient world, and today we only have myths, although little by little they reveal themselves as what they really were: a transforming experience, as Aristotle told us, that made those who participated in it never return to being equal, because they died and were reborn.
“Fears, terrors, tremors, death sweats, and a lethargic stupor come and overwhelm us,” historian Plutarch later said, talking about one of these ceremonies. «But as soon as we leave it, we pass to enchanting meadows, where the purest air is breathed, where concerts and sacred speeches are heard; where, ultimately, one is impressed by heavenly visions.
At a time in history when millions of people travel every year to Peru and other countries to take the psychedelic medicine ayahuasca, or to Africa in search of ibogaine, or consume mushrooms with psilocybin in hopes of healing their trauma or discovering their path in life, it is worth remembering that 25 centuries ago the Greeks did something similar, en masse, to the point of being part of their life in society.
REFERENCES
The Key to Immortality: The Secret History of Nameless Religion. Brian C. Muraresku
Quo Science Travel Section sponsored by Hyundai