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Author Topic:   CERES/Demeter and the Eleusinian Mysteries
Valus
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posted July 17, 2009 04:28 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

There is little doubt that at Eleusis something was drunk by each initiate and each saw something during the initiation that was utterly unexpected, transformative, and capable of remaining with each participant as a powerful memory for the rest of their life. It is an incredible testament to the obtuseness of the scholars of the dominator society that not until 1964 did someone make bold to suggest that a hallucinogenic plant must have been involved. That person was the English poet Robert Graves in his essay 'The Two Births of Dionysus':


The secret which Demeter sent around the world from Eleusis in the charge of her protege Triptolemus is said to have been the art of sowing and harvesting grain... Something is wrong here. Triptolemus belongs to the late second millennium B.C.; and grain , we now know, had been cultivate at Jericho and elsewhere since around 7,000 B.C. So Triptolemus's news would have been no news... Triptolemus's secret seems therefore concerned with hallucinogenic mushrooms, and my guess is that the priesthood at Eleusis had discovered an alternative hallucinogenic mushroom easier to handle than the Amanita Muscaria; one that could be baked in sacrificial cakes, shaped like pigs or phalloi, without losing its hallucinogenic powers.

This was the first of many observations Graves made on the underground tradition of mushroom use in prehistory. He suggested to the Wassons [[who then "discovered" psillocybin mushrooms and brought them back to the "civilized" world]] that they visit Mazatecan Mexico for evidence supporting their theories on the impact of intoxicating mushrooms on culture. Graves believed that recipes in classical sources for the preparation of the ritual Eleusinian beverage contained ingredients whose first letters could be arranged to spell out the word "mushroom" -- the secret ingredient. Such a cypher is called an ogham after the similar poetic device in use in Irish riddlery and poetics. Graves readily grants that "you are at liberty to call me crazy," but then goes on to defend his thesis very well.

~ Terence McKenna, "Food of the Gods"


Valus
Ascendant/Ceres

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Lucia23
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posted July 17, 2009 10:48 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Lucia23     Edit/Delete Message
Very cool, Valus, thanks for posting this!

My Ceres is conjunct my Jupiter.

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Valus
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posted July 18, 2009 12:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message
http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum25/HTML/000279.html

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