NP: Q re Jung Order

[David Morris]

Stanislav Grof interviews Dr. Albert Hofmann
Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California, 1984

http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v11n2/11222gro.html

Grof: I would like to ask you now about another project, your work with
Gordon Wasson concerning the Mysteries of Eleusis. In your book The Road to
Eleusis, you suggest the possibility that it was a psychedelic cult that
actually existed and practiced for almost 2000 years, from 1400 BC to 400
AD. And even then people did not just lose interest in it, but it was
terminated by an edict of the Christian emperor Theodosius who prohibited
and suppressed all pagan ceremonies.

Hofmann: In professional circles of Greek scholars, it is absolutely clear
that the ancient Greeks used some psychoactive substance in their cult.
There exist many references to a sacred beverage, kykeon, that was
administered to the initiates after preparations which took one week. After
the adepts got this potion, they had, all together, powerful mystic
experiences that they were not allowed to talk about and describe exactly.
I had worked about twenty years ago with the Greek scholar, Professor
Kerenyi, on this problem.


      The interesting question is: what were really the ingredients of this
kykeon, this sacred potion? We had studied many plants that Professor
Kerenyi had suggested as possible candidates, but they were not at all
psychedelic. Then came Gordon Wasson with his hypothesis; naturally, it
involved mushrooms, because he saw mushrooms everywhere! He asked me, if
the men in Greek antiquity had the possibility to prepare a psychedelic
potion from ergot. He came to this idea, because the Mysteries of Eleusis
were founded by the Goddess Demeter and Demeter is the goddess of grain and
ergot (Mutterkorn). That gave him the idea that ergot could be involved in
the preparation of kykeon.


      I had all the materials at hand because, as part of our studies of
ergot, we had collected all the literature and also many samples of ergot
from all around the world. This included the ergot that was growing in the
Mediterranean basin, in Greece, and so on. One or two of these wild ergots
growing on grasses can also be found in rye fields or in barley fields. Rye
did not exist in antiquity, but barley did, and in barley fields you can
find certain wild ergots.


      We had found and analyzed all this ergot before Gordon asked me his
question and in one species growing on wild grass (Paspalum) we had found
exactly the same components as in ololiuqui. Its main components were
lysergic acid amide, lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide, and also lysergic
acid propanolamide (ergonovine). Therefore, I had no difficulty answering
Gordon's question: Man in antiquity had the possibility to prepare a
psychedelic potion from ergot. He had to just collect the ergot, grind it,
and put it into the kykeon.


      Gordon, pursuing the problem of kykeon, addressed not only me, as a
chemist, but also a Greek scholar Professor Carl Ruck at Harvard, who was a
specialist on the role of medicinal plants in Greek mythology and Greek
history. Professor Ruck was able to direct Gordon to some allusions in the
Hymn to Demeter that provided support for his hypothesis. These passages
mentioned that, indeed, there was some kind of ergot which was used to make
this kykeon psychedelic. And the three of us then co-authored a book, which
explored this evidence.

Grof: That was the book The Road to Eleusis?

Hofmann: Yes, that was The Road to Eleusis, which was published here in the
United States and also came out in some other languages, such as Spanish
and German.


On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 3:37 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> As far as  New Age, channeling, the lovely and vivaciously weird Shirley
> Mclaine etc., not much to say . I was headed in a different direction at
> that time.  As far as psychedelics and meditation, It would be a very
> intense form of meditation, but there is  a guy named Mike Siegel who is
> trying to engineer a biofeedback system that might guide people toward
> transcendent mind states( let’s not quibble about terms, if you have taken
> psychedelics you know that none are adequate). His preparatory work
> included monitoring brain states for psychedelic use and for advanced
> practitioners of yoga/meditation. There did seem to be signifigant
> similarities in his research but  these were serious yogis. .  I have only
> started meditating daily for 2 months thoghh qi gong does similar things
> and I have been practicing for 4 years this month). With meditation I have
> only had 2 experiences even remotely resembling psychedelics.  I am an
> artist and pretty good with visual imagination, and these 2 times were very
> pleasant and mindbending experiences but far less psychologically or
> visually intense than psychedelics.  They are also for me anyway harder to
> achieve. Buddhism opposes inebriants  and that clouds the issue. but I know
> at least one  decades long Tibetan Buddhist who uses psychedelics. So to
> indulge what may come off as new age lingo-  the idea that plant compounds
> have a role in the spritual ecology of humans and the larger planet does
> not seem the least bit far fetched or problematic to me. But I do suspect
> there are other routes into very intense altered states.
>
> One thing that is rarely discussed with psychedelics is the long term
> effects on a person’s outlook  and thinking. IMO the thrill ride is great
> but not the main show.
>
> Siegel:
> https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-456-engineering-enlightenment-2/
>
>
>
> On Feb 16, 2016, at 12:33 PM, Allan Balliett <allan.balliett at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> The most misleading idea, though, would have to be the idea that
> meditation can be a replacement for psychedelics, if you ask me.
>
>
>
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