The Truth about Kykeon

Was the original Eucharist Jesus offered at the Last Supper psychedelic? Did it originate from the ancient Greek pagan rites known as the Eleusinian Mysteries and a psychedelic brew known as kykeon? To make it simple: no. The kykeon brew did not influence the Eucharist, and even if it hypothetically did, it was not psychedelic. This is a myth with very little evidence to support it, despite its popularity online in psychedelic spaces.

 

To argue against the Eucharist and kykeon being psychedelic, I will make three main points:

• The ingredients of kykeon could not have been psychedelic

• None of the original texts about kykeon mention hallucinations

• Evidence proposed for a psychedelic Eucharist is extremely weak

​

First, let me give a quick bit of backstory about sources, history, and where these ideas came from. Hundreds of years before Christianity, there were the Eleusinian Mysteries. Originally developed as a ritual cult near Athens, it celebrated agriculture and rebirth through the myth of the goddess Persephone’s kidnapping by Hades. She is forced to spend half of the year as Queen of the Underworld, during which time no crops grow on earth. Those who worshipped Persephone mirrored the myth cycles through their Mysteries, a set of rituals with rich meaning. Reenacting different details of the myth, initiates into the cult fasted, wandered in the dark of a cave, witnessed secret rituals, and drank kykeon, a drink made of water mixed with barley.

​

Amateur anthropologist R. Gordon Wasson, LSD-discoverer Albert Hofmann, and classics scholar Carl Ruck first proposed the kykeon was psychedelic in the 1978 book Road to Eleusius. This conjecture has become much more popular after the publication of the 2020 best-selling book The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name. In this book, author Brian Muraresku takes things a step further, claiming that psychedelic rituals were incorporated into early Christianity.

​

Now that we know a bit of the history, let us move onto why this hypothesis is wrong.

 

The Ingredients of Kykeon Could Not Have Been Psychedelic

While contemporary psychonaut true believers may be convinced kykeon was psychedelic, Muraresku also admits we “still do not know” which chemicals would cause a psychedelic experience in kykeon. Earlier writers like Wasson suggested that an infestation of the fungus ergot on the barley used in kykeon poisoned those who drank it, though this poisoning would lead to something closer to fever dreams. Unsatisfied with this explanation for obvious reasons, Muraresku and others identified artificially isolated ergonovine, ergine, and isoergine as the most probable cause of psychedelic visions. There’s just one problem: none of them are psychedelic, and we have known this for decades.

 

Ergonovine was once used as a medicine for tens of thousands of people, and psychedelic experiences were never a noted side effect. Researchers also experimented with isoergine and ergine, demonstrating that they do not have psychedelic effects. A 1966 study of these substances found that they were, at most, deliriant sedatives with significant differences from psychedelics. Likewise, in his famed TiHKAL underground chemistry volume, the psychedelic pioneer Dr. Alexander Shulgin said that isoergine and ergine do not have psychedelic effects. Albert Hofmann also self-experimented with these substances, discovering that they caused “tiredness, apathy, a feeling of mental emptiness and of the unreality and complete meaninglessness of the outside world.” He believed they were “qualitatively different” from LSD.

 

It must also be added that Muraresku and his followers believe these substances were purposefully added to kykeon in high doses. To be clear, while this is technically plausible, we simply have no evidence of it occurring in archeological and textual records. Even if true, there was no ingredient in kykeon which would have caused a psychedelic experience. At best, it would have caused a deliriant sedative experience, more similar to the confusion of a benadryl overdose than the bliss of LSD.

 

None of the original texts about kykeon mention hallucinations

 

But what of the textual sources? Could kykeon have been not psychedelic, but still psychoactive? There are no trip reports, not explicit links between the kykeon and visions. Instead, the Greek philosopher Plato cryptically wrote that some received “blessed sight and vision” in the context of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Psychedelic kykeon advocates believe this is a reference to hallucinations. However, when you dig down to it, a very different picture emerges.

​

For one, the Plato quote does not even refer to the Eleusinian Mysteries. Where this quote occurs in Phaedrus 250a-c, Plato is actually speaking about disembodied souls before they are incarnate as human beings. Souls which were “not entombed in this which we carry about with us and call the body” saw Zeus and the other gods before they were born. There are ways to have dim reminders of this reality while on earth, including love and sexual attraction as described in the next section of Phaedrus. 

 

While alluded to in the text, the Eleusinian Mysteries are not listed as a way to be reminded of the heavenly reality. In fact, Plato is elsewhere quite critical of the mystery cults, even mocking the Eleusinian Mysteries. Instead of praising them, he consistently portrays his philosophical path as superior to the all mystery cults. True “blessed sight” refers to those who have insight into his philosophical views, similar to how we would say someone who turned their life around has “seen the light.”

 

There is one more thing to note. In his essay “How a Man May Become Aware of His Progress in Virtue,” the philosopher Plutarch writes about mystery cults generally. He notes that while initiates to the Mysteries tended to be loud and boisterous, they become stunned into silence like students in a classroom learning philosophy. Total silence and rapt attention on a teacher’s lesson is not a good description of any psychedelic or psychoactive group experience. 

 

Simply put, there is no textual evidence for psychedelic visions in the Greek texts. Plato is actually portraying his philosophy as superior to the Mysteries, which he finds to be silly. Plutarch describes the Mysteries in terms quite unlike psychedelics. Very small references are exaggerated into huge claims of a psychedelic cult.

​

Evidence proposed for a psychedelic Eucharist is extremely weak

​

The evidence for a psychedelic kykeon is incredibly weak, but the evidence for a psychedelic Christian Communion is somehow even weaker. For example, Muraresku argues that the wine at the Last Supper was psychedelic by citing excavations from hundreds of years before Jesus that uncovered herbily infused wine as evidence, yet none of the discovered herbal ingredients mentioned such as mint or cedar oil are psychedelic. This is not evidence of psychedelic wine. It is evidence of flavoring and herbal ingredients added to wine, like a seasonal cocktail often drunk today in bars without causing a psychedelic trip. 

 

Muraresku also stretches the text of the Bible significantly. The Gospel of Mark 4:11 uses the word “mystery.” From this single Gospel word use, Muraresku declares that this was a secret reference to the Eleusinian Mysteries. He makes similarly exaggerated claims about Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 11:30 that some of the Corinthians had become ill or died because they took part in a Lord’s Supper while in a state of sin. Mainstream scholars see this as Paul blaming illness and deaths within the congregation on secret sins, leading God to punish them. That is what it says in the verses following. Muraresku, on the other hand, interprets this small, obscure passage to mean there was something dangerous about the Eucharist wine, like the ergot found in kykeon, that could kill participants.

 

When true believers’ sensationalized theological language is scraped away, this is not evidence of a psychedelic Eucharist or Last Supper. It is evidence of mulled wine, the word “mystery,” and a threat of divine judgment exaggerated into a fringe conjecture. 

 

Conclusion

​

Kykeon was not psychedelic. The Eleusinian Mysteries did not include hallucinations. The Eucharist was certainly not psychedelic.  To overcome the general lack of evidence demonstrated here, Muraresku and other proponents of these theories use a lot of rhetorical sleight of hand. Big words and legitimate peer-reviewed research are connected with phrases like “perhaps,” “the odds seem good,” “maybe,” “possible,” and “seemingly” even when they admit the evidence is nonexistent. Speaking of the spiked wine in Galilee, Muraresku says “even if he hasn’t found it yet, the odds of Koh eventually securing the hard evidence for overtly psychedelic wine seem good.” This is what the psychedelic kykeon and Eucharist thesis is actually based upon: theological faith that evidence will appear, not hard evidence for psychedelic wine itself.