Wasson-Hofmann-Ruck / The Road to Eleusis (1978)
artifact
The man who discovered LSD teamed up with a mushroom expert and a classics scholar to argue the ancient Greeks were tripping in their holiest ritual.
Who they are
R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann and Carl Ruck, co-authors of the 1978 book The Road to Eleusis.
What they do
The engine treats their book as the founding text linking ancient religion to psychedelic drugs.
How it works
They proposed that the sacred drink used in the ancient Greek Eleusinian Mysteries contained a fungus-infected barley (ergot) that is chemically a natural precursor to LSD.
Why it matters
It launched the modern idea that psychedelic substances sat at the heart of religious experience, a cornerstone of today's entheogen theories.
The engine's record — word for word
Report #77. R. Gordon Wasson (ethnomycologist) + Albert Hofmann (discovered LSD) + Carl A. P. Ruck (classicist). Proposed that the Eleusinian kykeon contained ergotized barley — psychoactive precursor to LSD. Foundational modern entheogenic-Christianity hypothesis.
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