The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries [Paperback]

R. Gordon Wasson (Author), A Albert Hofmann (Author), Carl A. P. Ruck (Author), Huston Smith (Preface), Peter Webster (Afterword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 2008

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“[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

About the Author

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: North Atlantic Books; 30 Anv edition (November 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556437528
• ISBN-13: 978-1556437526
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #202,989 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #35 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Plants > Mushrooms

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important argument, beautifully produced book, November 6, 2000

By 

"adam_della_mirandola" (Luxembourg. Grand Duchy of Luxembourg) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Road To Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries (Hardcover)

The authors of `Road to Eleusis' - they include Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, and Gordon Wasson, the white man who in 1957 revealed the continued existence of the pre-Columbian sacred-mushroom rite to the non-Mexican Indian world - argue that a water-soluble alkaloid contained in ergot, a tiny fungus which attacks grains and grasses, was the principal psychoactive ingredient of the `kykeon', the sacred potion drunk before the celebration of the Mysteries of Eleusis by those awaiting initiation. The philological and psycho-pharmacological argument of `Road to Eleusis' is compelling but to get the most from the book, read it in combination with `Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter' by Karl Kerenyi, a disciple of Carl Jung, which provides an introduction to the history of Eleusis and contains a psychological study of the Mysteries.

In pre-Classical times, it is likely that almost the entire population of Athens walked the fifteen-mile distance to Eleusis at harvest time every year in order to drink the `kykeon' and experience the sense of the mythic reunion of Persephone, the Daughter, with Demeter, the Mother who taught men how to plant seeds and reap the fruit. The Christ, the draw in the psychological game of chess between the Hellenised Middle East and Israel, speaks distantly but clearly of Eleusis in John 12: 20-24 and Cicero, the Roman philosopher, author and statesman who coined the phrase `bread and circuses' to damn the spectacular politics of his time, was an initiate.

Iktinos, architect of the Parthenon, also designed the Telesterion, the classical-period temple of the Mysteries of which only broken columns survive. However, scattered throughout `Eleusis' by Kerenyi are bits and pieces of the psychological vocabulary of the Mysteries which with the help of ancient Greek and Indo-European comparative etymological dictionaries allow a reconstruction of the mind of the initiate. For example, `tele', from `telos', the full circle, the crown - today, we hear it many times every day in connection with technology; however, at Eleusis `tele' had a sacral meaning.

Eleusis was to religion in Athens what democracy was to Athenian politics: essential.

`Road to Eleusis' and `Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter' - read both; and when in Greece, don't miss Eleusis, 20 miles south of Athens on the mainland across the water from the island of Salamis, open every day from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. except Monday when the site is closed.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful document on attaining Greek wisdom, March 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Road To Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries (Hardcover)

If other books are dynamite, this is nuclear. It documents how the Mystai at Eleusis became Epoptes, a standard rite of passage for all the famous Greek minds we seek to understand. Full understanding is not possible without initiation such as is outlined in this volume. Eleusis is at the end of a line of mystical experience that goes back to 5000 BCE. Is is not so much that the Mystery of Eleusis is revealed, as that it points the sacred way how to unravel the mystery of our own existence. The Greeks knew, and if you do as they did, you can. Wasson tells us what the Greeks did.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important argument, beautifully produced book, November 6, 2000

By 

"adam_della_mirandola" (Luxembourg. Grand Duchy of Luxembourg) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Road To Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries (Hardcover)

The authors of `Road to Eleusis' - they include Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, and Gordon Wasson, the white man who in 1957 revealed the continued existence of the pre-Columbian sacred-mushroom rite to the non-Mexican Indian world - argue that a water-soluble alkaloid contained in ergot, a tiny fungus which attacks grains and grasses, was the principal psychoactive ingredient of the `kykeon', the sacred potion drunk before the celebration of the Mysteries of Eleusis by those awaiting initiation. The philological and psycho-pharmacological argument of `Road to Eleusis' is compelling but to get the most from the book, read it in combination with `Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter' by Karl Kerenyi, a disciple of Carl Jung, which provides an introduction to the history of Eleusis and contains a psychological study of the Mysteries.

In pre-Classical times, it is likely that almost the entire population of Athens walked the fifteen-mile distance to Eleusis at harvest time every year in order to drink the `kykeon' and experience the sense of the mythic reunion of Persephone, the Daughter, with Demeter, the Mother who taught men how to plant seeds and reap the fruit. The Christ, the draw in the psychological game of chess between the Hellenised Middle East and Israel, speaks distantly but clearly of Eleusis in John 12: 20-24 and Cicero, the Roman philosopher, author and statesman who coined the phrase `bread and circuses' to damn the spectacular politics of his time, was an initiate.

Iktinos, architect of the Parthenon, also designed the Telesterion, the classical-period temple of the Mysteries of which only broken columns survive. However, scattered throughout `Eleusis' by Kerenyi are bits and pieces of the psychological vocabulary of the Mysteries which with the help of ancient Greek and Indo-European comparative etymological dictionaries allow a reconstruction of the mind of the initiate. For example, `tele', from `telos', the full circle, the crown - today, we hear it many times every day in connection with technology; however, at Eleusis `tele' had a sacral meaning.

Eleusis was to religion in Athens what democracy was to Athenian politics: essential.

`Road to Eleusis' and `Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter' - read both; and when in Greece, don't miss Eleusis, 20 miles south of Athens on the mainland across the water from the island of Salamis, open every day from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. except Monday when the site is closed.