Sacred Mushrooms of the Goddess: Secrets of Eleusis

In the ancient world, men and women joined cults known as Mysteries to unite with the deities of the otherworld and achieve eternal life. The most important of the Mysteries existed for two millennia at the village of Eleusis. Its deities were Demeter and Persephone, interchangeable in their roles as mother and daughter. The initiations and other rituals of this goddess-based cult were a profound secret: divulging information was punishable by death. For centuries, scholars have probed the secrets of the Eleusinian Mysteries and kykeon, its sacramental Eucharist — a sacred drink containing psychoactive chemicals similar to those in LSD. Their discoveries have been buried in the arcane language of alchemy, the occult sciences, and secret societies. Here, in prose accessible to all readers, Carl Ruck unravels the Mysteries, revealing the awesome powers of the goddesses, as well as the pagan underpinnings of Western culture.

• The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries
• Mushrooms, Myth and Mithras: The Drug Cult that Civilized Europe
• Persephone's Quest
• The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist
• Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers
• Entheogens, Myth, and Human Consciousness
• Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter
• The World of Classical Myth: Gods and Goddesses, Heroines and Heroes
• The Hidden World: Survival of Pagan Shamanic Themes in European Fairytales
• Plants of the Devil