Ancient Greek mystery cult priestesses may have chemically tweaked fungi to induce psychedelic hallucinations

Priestess of a mysterious cult in ancient Greece and Rome may have used highly toxic fungi to induce psychedelic hallucinations during rituals, a new study suggests. But some experts say that while research shows it’s plausible, there’s no historical evidence that this happened.

The study, published February 13 in the journal Scientific Reports, reports the results of laboratory experiments to render the ergot fungus nontoxic while preserving its psychedelic properties. An important feature of this study is that it used only simple techniques known in ancient Greece. In ancient Greece, what is now known as the Eleusinian Mystery Cult began about 3,000 years ago.

The idea that the Eleusinian mysteries are based on hallucinogenic substances from ergot, or the “psychedelic Eleusinian” theory, has been popular since the 1970s. However, Evangelos Dadiotis, a pharmacologist at the University of Athens, told Live Science in an email that the researchers are the first to show experimental evidence.

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“The central question was whether it was possible to realistically process toxic ergot into something psychoactive but not lethal using anciently available methods,” he said. “We used a simple lye [sodium hydroxide] “Preparations made from water and ash are a well-known technique in the ancient world,” he said.

The wood ash produced an alkaline solution that over time broke down the toxic proteins in ergot (Claviceps purpurea), leaving behind non-toxic byproducts such as the hallucinogenic chemical lysergic acid amide (LSA). LSA is chemically similar to lysergic acid diethylamide (better known as LSD) and may be a precursor to this drug, but it is less potent.

This study suggests that the ancient Greeks may have processed ergot with lye to create a non-toxic psychedelic drink for the Eleusinian Mysteries. But whether they did so is questioned by other experts.

mystery cult

The Eleusinian Mysteries were ancient Greece’s most revered secret religious initiation and classic “mystery cult.” They centered around the worship of the fertility goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, the embodiment of spring. According to ancient mythology, Hades, the god of the underworld, kidnapped Persephone as his wife, and Demeter left the world barren with her grief, but the chief god Zeus made a deal so that Persephone could return every year. This cult originated in the ancient Greek town of Eleusis, hence the name. However, there was also a fusion of Roman and Greek religious beliefs that made it popular throughout the later Roman Empire. The details of the cult are unclear – and that was important – but its initiates gathered annually at Eleusis to honor Demeter and Persephone (also known as Kore) and the agricultural “mysteries” they shared. The mysteries were therefore thought to have a divine origin, and even Roman emperors like Augustus became initiates, known in Greek as “mishtai.”

The idea that the priestesses of the Eleusinian Mysteries administered hallucinogens to initiates was proposed in The Road to Eleusis: Uncovering the Secrets of the Mysteries (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978) by author Gordon Wasson, classical scholar Karl Ruck (co-author of the new study), and chemist Albert Hoffmann, who used ergot derivatives to make LSD. He was exposed to radiation in 1938 and himself in 1943.

However, “the main objection has always been toxicity. Ergot causes ergotism, which causes convulsions, gangrene, [and] Professor Dadiotis said no one had previously shown that treating ergot with lye can destroy the toxic chemicals while preserving its psychoactive properties, making it safe. “Our research fills that gap…that experimental bridge is what was missing.”

strange ritual

The annual rituals of the Eleusinian Mysteries were held twice a year: the Little Mysteries in the spring and the Great Mysteries in the fall. They often involved sacred processions to cult sites, ritual bathing in the sea, animal sacrifice, and several days of fasting followed by drinking a mystical elixir called kykeon made of barley and flavored with herbs.

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Dadiotis and his colleagues believe that processed ergot extracts were added to the kykeon, noting that in 2002 scientists announced they had found traces of psychoactive chemicals in ritual vases excavated from the Eleusis site in Spain and in the hardened dental plaque of individuals buried there.

The herbs added to the kykeon included a pungent type of mint, now called pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium), which Dadiotis thinks may have helped mask the bitterness of the ergot extract.

“The new study is an interesting and technically sensitive piece of analytical chemistry,” Shaday Mosrinjohn, a religious scholar at Queen’s University in Ontario, told Live Science in an email. Muslinjohn, who was not involved in the study, questions the idea of ​​psychedelic use in the Eleusinian mysteries.

“What it shows is chemical feasibility in a plausible ancient technological context,” but “chemical feasibility is not historical evidence,” Muslinjohn said. The study does not prove that this type of treatment was used in ancient times or that initiates ingested psychoactive drugs during the Eleusinian mystical rituals, she said.