September 14, 2012
Sacred Mushrooms
Sacred Mushrooms: Secrets of Eleusis by Carl A. P. Ruck
Thesis that psychotropic mushrooms were used in the Eleusinian Mysteries.
There is a more in depth version by same author called Road to Eleusis but I thought I’d get the main gist of it by reading shorter version since it ties in with Mysteries of Demeter: Rebirth of the Pagan Way
I thought that while Ruck made some interesting points about the role of mushrooms in ancient religions, he went too far. He incorporated everything that remotely resembled a mushroom including crosses. It just became ridiculous. The fact that the publisher seems to be focused on drug-related books (as advertised in the back of the book) did not add to his credulity. Obviously he was more motivated by the promotion of psychedelic drugs than the search for the truth about the role in ancient mystery religions.
I think the use of mushrooms or other entheogens in Eleusis may have been possible, but I would rather see this explored by a less biased and more academic source.
Read 2009
Roots, Leaves and Threads 