Η ΝΕA ΑΘΛΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΘΑΝΑΤΗΦΟΡΑ ΒΙΟΤΡΟΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ (bioterrorism)

Ο ΠΥΡΕΤΟΣ ΤΩΝ ΓΟΥΡΟΥΝΙΩΝ....

...γλώσσα λανθάνουσα...παρακολουθήστε προσεκτικά απο το 0.45-0'55. "Αυτός ο ιός κατασκευάστηκε σε εργαστήριο"..





Νέο κύμα τρομοκράτησης των λαών, αυτή την φορά με την μορφή βιολογικού πολέμου από τους παρασκευαστές καινούργιων λοιμών, εξαπλώνεται στον πλανήτη. Συλλογή απόψεων απο το διαδίκτυο και blogs σχετικά με τον "νέο συνθετικά κατασκευασμένο ιο", ενα σύνθετο βιολογικό όπλο μεγάλης αξίας και πρόδρομο γεωστρατηγικής επιβολής τελικών σχεδίων αποπληθυσμού οπως αναφέρεται... Μεγάλο ιστορικό ενδιαφέρον παρουσιάζει το Aρθρο "3". Αναφέρεται στο αντίστοιχο "σκηνικό" που στήθηκε πάλι με τον Πυρετό των Χοίρων το 1976 και οδήγησε στην κατάρρευση του τότε προέδρου Ford...

Αρθρο 1.

Who’d a knew, swine flew?
Pig flew.
Pig flu.
Whatever.This is no time for shitty jokes.MOTHERFUCKERS ARE DYING ALL OVER THE GLOBE. Do you know what this weird new Pig Flu is?
From AP:
CDC officials detected a virus with a unique combination of gene segments that have not been seen in people or pigs before. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.
Wow! Well, that sounds like the sort of crazy thing that drooling old harpie Mother Nature would come up with. That crazy ho. Good thing us clever humans are prepared. On March 19th, The Seagun Gazette reported on a “PANDEMIC VACCINE TRAINING” (!!!) exercise in to be carried out in Texas on Saturday, May 2, 2009. They had one in 2007, too. Learnt a lot from that, they did. Such foresight can only be applauded.
Why, only in February, an Indiana county municipal official near Chicago went on radio saying that he’d been having meetings with FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, who were inquiring “where mass graves could be placed in the county,” and “would they accept bodies from elsewhere?” These same keen public servants also suggested the nice people of Indiana “make plans for the possibility of up to 400,000 refugees from Chicago”. See! They learned from Katrina! They’re prepared!
In January, Panasonic Corp. ordered Japanese employees in parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Russia, former Soviet states and Latin America to send their families home to Japan in preparation for a possible flu pandemic. The firm decided to take the rare measure “well ahead of possible confusion at the outbreak of a global pandemic,” which was BLOODY CLEVER OF THEM.
If certain people are to be believed, between 2001 and 2005, fourty (40) micro-biologists were reported to have died in strange circumstances - found stabbed to death in the trunks of cars, thrown off bridges, that sort of thing, only to turn up years later “working for the government, or government contractors, on projects related to bio-terrorism, flu pandemics, or anthrax.” Which is good. I bet they were working on miracle vaccines! That’s the sort of thing they do!
Hell, they’ve been involved in the OLD pig flu. But this is NEW PIG FLU! This is SWINE FLU! For the naughties!
Man, there’s gonna be some serious panic. What the funk does a responsible government do in such a situation?
Well, back in the tropical spring of 2005, a company called Strategic Communication Laboratories went public. The small U.K. firm, started in 1993, and specializing in “influence operations” set up a “glitzy exhibit occupying prime real estate at Defense Systems & Equipment International, the United Kingdom’s largest showcase for military technology. The main attraction was a full-scale mock-up of its ops center, running simulations ranging from natural disasters to political coups.” The meat of the presentation, however, was a simulation of what the company could offer in the case of a FLU PANDEMIC.

From The Slate:

[SCL] steps in to help orchestrate a sophisticated campaign… Rather than alert the public to the smallpox threat, the company sets up a high-tech “ops center” to convince the public that an accident at a chemical plant threatens London. As the fictitious toxic cloud approaches the city, TV news outlets are provided graphic visuals charting the path of the invisible toxins. Londoners stay indoors, glued to the telly, convinced that even a short walk into the streets could be fatal.

“The [ops center] can override all national radio and TV broadcasts in time of crisis,” said SCL. Company literature described their niche specialties as “psychological warfare,” “public diplomacy,” and “influence operations,” and they called themselves “the first private-sector provider of psychological operations”. SCL’s public affairs director, one Mark Broughton, described his company’s work as “framing communications to do something that’s going to save lives.”

Hot crap! We might need them RIGHT NOW! Where’s their website? Ooh, they’re “upgrading their web presence to improve security and accessibility.” Sweet!
Crap though, we don’t just need to keep the brainless proles in order.
WE NEED A CURE!
Who do we think might be the best people to pay many millions of dollars to come up with a cure?WHO WE GONNA CALL?

Baxter.

That’s who.
From The Chicago Tribune:
With world health officials worried about the global outbreak of another deadly virus, Deerfield-based Baxter International Inc. once again finds itself involved in the action.
Woo hoo! ACTION!!!!!!!!! Sorry, I got excited. I shall let them continue.
Baxter confirmed over the weekend that it is working with the World Health Organization on a potential vaccine to curb the deadly swine flu virus… Baxter, which has an emerging vaccine business, has worked with the U.S. and foreign countries in the past to develop vaccines for the H5N1 virus commonly known as bird flu. Three years ago, the Bush administration awarded about $1 billion to vaccine makers as a way to increase and speed production… Several vaccine makers, including Baxter, GlaxoSmithKline and others, were awarded multimillion-dollar contracts.
That’s right. They did. And they do. Shit, you must have heard of Baxter. Baxter are FAMOUS! You know what Baxter did just two months ago?
Baxter International, sent a flu vaccine, which it had accidentally contaminated with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, for testing in the Czech Republic.
Baxter said it contaminated the vaccine with the dangerous virus by accident… Baxter shipped the infected vaccine to the Czech biomedical firm Biotest for testing on ferrets in late January. The exposed employees were given Tamiflu medicine and have been regularly tested… The infected ferrets had to be culled and the laboratory, which is located 70 kilometres east of the Czech capital Prague, was disinfected.
PHEW! That’s OK then. Just some dead ferrets. The situation was dealt with swiftly and with care, and nobody got hurt. Sweet!
Oh, hang, on, there was more to the story.
“The experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports Effect Measure, who continue:
One of the big fears is that people or animals co-infected with a seasonal flu virus of humans and a virulent avian flu virus like H5N1 will act as a mixing vessel. Flu viruses each have eight genetic packages within them and when co-infecting a cell they can mix and match, thus producing new hybrid bird-human viruses. Baxter put both viruses in the same vial, presumably for use as a vaccine. Baxter is calling the mixture an “experimental virus material,” whatever that is. All we know is that a nasty live virus cocktail of human and bird influenza virus was made. (Baxter says accidentally). Exactly to whom it was given, if anyone, is not being publicly divulged. We have a news report from an Austrian paper dated February 11, a Wednesday, that tells of 19 people being seen as outpatients at a Vienna hospital the previous Monday (February 9) because of exposure to “bird flu virus…”

Hang on, hang. Rewind. Ur… What? Mixing vessel? New hybrid Human viruses? EXPERIMENTAL VIRUS MATERIAL? ACCIDENT?
OH SHIT! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!LAME!
Oh well. Fuck it. Let’s all go play Pandemic 2, from CrazyMonkeyGames.com! “Customize your disease and wipe out the population!” The outbreak starts in Mexico!FUN!...

Αρθρο 2:
NWO Plans To
Depopulate The Earth
By Steve Jones



"If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels" -Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh
World population is, by all intents and purposes, completely out of control. Plans are underway now, implemented by the New World Order Elite, to depopulate the planet's 6-7 billion people to a manageable level of between 500 million and 2 billion.
There are many means and methods of depopulation that are being employed today, the 3 primary of which include; unsustainable/exploitative international development, which leads to massive hunger, starvation and famine worldwide (at least 40 million deaths annually), the fomentation of war, hatred and military procurements throughout the nations leading to millions of deaths worldwide, and finally, the creation and spread of infectious diseases leading to global pandemic, plague and pestilence on an unprecedented scale.
Other methods used include; the build-up and use of nuclear, chemical and biological agents, weapons and warfare, the poisoning and contamination of the planet's food and water supplies, the introduction and use of deadly pharmacuetical drugs in society, weather modification and the triggering of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis through electromagnetic psychotronic weapons both on Earth and in space, the promotion of homosexuality to limit population growth and spread the deadly AIDS virus, forced sterilization in countries such as China, forced vaccinations, abortion, euthanasia etc...
Death, and the management of who lives and who dies, has become the central organizing principle of the 21st century.
The previous century has been, by far, the bloodiest in human history. Hunger, famine and disease took billions of innocent lives. World Wars 1 and 2, along with the despotic regimes of Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Reagan, Bush and others, took hundreds of millions. The 21st century is shaping up to accelerate this dismal trend where hunger, famine and disease are reaping record levels of death (the equivalent of 7 jewish holocaust annually). Contemporary wars continue to rage on and proliferate. In the nation of Iraq, the killing fields have taken the lives of more than 2 million men, women and children (mostly children) this past decade from foreign and economic intervention. Vastly unreported is the genocide occuring in the Congo, where more than 4 million people have been slaughtered, mutilated and massacred recently with only scant world attention given. Add to this the unrestrained and very profitable build-up of weapons of mass destruction- nuclear, chemical and biological- in the world, particularily in the volatile Middle East region, with the expressed desire and willingness to actually use them, and you have an Apocalypse of World War 3 becoming a virtual inevitability. The death toll of THIS war is sure to surpass all previous in scale and in magnitude, as has been planned.
The international campaign to eliminate the "useless eaters" (according to the Club of Rome) on behalf of the planet's priviledged ruling elite, is surely to take a more voracious toll as global population levels continue to rise.
To implement their "final solution" to depopulate 4-5 billion people from the Earth, the world's elite will undoubtedly harness the newly emerging biotech and nanotechnology industries to create a super 'bioweapon' virus creating a global 'kill-off' pandemic through which only they will have the cure.

Steve Jones
P.O. Box 2902
Santa Fe, New Mexico
87504
USA


SOURCES:

1. Radio Liberty
Dr Stanley Monteith
P.O. Box 13, Santa Cruz, California 95063 USA
Website: http://www.radioliberty.com
The Global Depopulation Agenda: http://www.radioliberty.com/pca.htm
None Dare Call it Genocide: http://www.radioliberty.com/video.htm

2. Dr Len Horowitz
206 N. 4th Ave, Suite 147
Sandpoint, Idaho 83864 USA
Website: http://www.tetrahedron.org
***Books- Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola, Death in the Air: Globalism,
Terrorism and Toxic Warfare AND Star Wars Weapons and End Times Warfare

3. Population Connection
1400 16th St, NW, Suite 320
Washington, DC 20036 USA
Website: http://www.populationconnection.org

4. Q-Files/Steve Quayle
315 Edelweiss Dr
Bozeman, Montana 59718 USA
Website: http://www.stevequalye.com
***Books- Genetic Armageddon AND Breath No Evil

5. Global Poverty/Overpopulation
Website: http://www.geocities.com/lionofjudah2021/poppov.html

6. The Club of Rome
Rissener Landstr. 193
Hamburg, Germany, European Union
Website: http://www.clubofrome.org

7. Global Plague and Pestilence
Website: http://www.geocities.com/jahrastafari775/plague.html

8. The Nuclear Threat (Re-Visited)
Website: http://www.geocities.com/distantthunder774/nuke.html

9. Megacities
Website: http://www.geocities.com/crystallight721/mega.html

10. ***Books- Population Bomb and Population Explosion
by Paul and Anne Ehrlich
Center for Conservation Biology
Department of Biological Sciences
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305 USA
Book Search: http://www.amazon.com

11. Africa- Continent in Crisis
Website: http://www.geocities.com/furyofthelord7/africa.html

12. The Power Hour
P.O. Box 85, Versailles, Missouri 65084 USA
Website: http://www.thepowerhour.com

13. EIR- Executive Intelligence Review
P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041 USA
Website: http://www.larouchepub.com

14. United Nations Population Fund
220 E. 42nd St, New York, New York 10017 USA
Website: http://www.unfpa.org

15. World Hunger/Global Starvation/Planetary Famine
Website: http://www.geocities.com/blackbutte777/hunger.html

16. Prophets Links
Website: http://www.geocities.com/illiyin7/master.html

Αρθρο 3:

From main page
http://www.rense.com
The Disease Itself

Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza that regularly cause outbreaks of influenza among pigs. Swine flu viruses do not normally infect humans, however, human infections with swine flu do occur, and cases of human-to-human spread of swine flu viruses has been documented.
From December 2005 through February 2009, a total of 12 human infections with swine influenza were reported from 10 states in the United States. Since March 2009, a number of confirmed human cases of a new strain of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus infection in the U.S. and internationally have been identified. An investigation into these cases is ongoing.
The Virus Appears Man Made.This Swine Flu is not a naturally occurring event but instead is an Advanced Biological Warfare recombination DNA genetically engineered virus. Young healthy adults seem to be the most at risk. This virus is genetically spliced off the 1918 Spanish Flu.
The new Mexican Swine Flu has elements of DNA from the following: avian flu, human flu Type A, human flu Type B, Asian swine flu, and European swine flu. A strange combination never seen before and having less than 1/10% chance of being a natural event.
Figure the odds on a human and animal viruses from four or more continents suddenly recombine in a new flu, during a non-flu season, that spreads from human-to-human with a 10% fatality rating?
Sound too crazy? Think again...
Swine Flu vaccine Scam 1976
Swine Flu vaccine quotes
Swine flu vaccine
"The Rumsfeld history starts in 1976, when a military recruit in New Jersey died from a flu that experts speculated might be the "swine flu" virus of 1918 pandemic fame. As Sargent tells it, Rumsfeld, who was then and is again the nation's secretary of defense, made the imminent "swine flu" a political issue to add some spark to the campaign of President Ford, an interim leader without a cause. At Rumsfeld's urging, the administration would ensure that "every man, woman and child" was vaccinated. Huge amounts of vaccine were produced and distributed quickly."-- Lisa Parsons
"My involvement in the field of vaccine toxicity began in 1979 when I discovered that central nervous system demyelination (Multiple Sclerosis) had been caused, in some individuals, by the swine flu vaccine. My involvement was heightened when I found the same thing occurred after hepatitis B vaccination. These findings have been confirmed by many others and have been extended to include other untoward reaction to hepatitis B vaccine. Reactions include other autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, optic neuritis, postvaccinal encephalomyelitis and possibly juvenile diabetes."--Dr Waisbren
"At the present writing, October 1976, a group of medical opportunists have taken upon themselves the dictatorial authority to declare the threat of a sweeping epidemic of SWINE FLU which they said was similar to or related to the 1918 epidemic of Spanish influenza which wiped out 20,000,000 people world-wide. This declaration was supposed to scare all the people into their vaccination centers to be shot full of experimental vaccine poisons, while they, the promoters, raked in the profits."---Eleanora I. McBean, Ph.D., N.D.

THE FLU JAB SCAM

The flu, being truly an infectious disease, often proved itself most valuable to the CDC. Although the winter following the end of World War I was the last time a flu epidemic caused widespread death, the CDC has pushed annual flu vaccinations up to the present day. At times, the agency has even rung the alarm over an impending flu crisis, hoping to use memories of the 1918 epidemic to gain emergency powers and impose mass vaccinations. By using such tactics in 1957 over the Asian flu, the CDC managed to wrangle extra money out of Congress to expand the EIS and crash-produce a vaccine. But the flu season was already winding down by the time the vaccine was ready, and the flu itself turned out to have been as mild as in any other year.
By 1976, CDC director David Sencer wanted to try again, though on a grander scale. After one soldier in Pennsylvania died of a flu-related pneumonia in January, Sencer predicted that a pig-borne human virus nicknamed the "swine flu," would soon devastate the United States.
Panicked with visions of impending doom, Congress moved to authorize the CDC's immunization plan for every man, woman, and child in the country. Unexpectedly, the legislation suddenly stalled when the insurance companies underwriting the vaccine discovered that it had seriously toxic side effects.

more on:http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/04/dayintech_0324

THE "LEGIONAIRES DISEASE" SCAM

Sencer had to do something fast. He immediately set up a "War Room" in Auditorium A at the CDC headquarters, and put the EIS network on full alert to search for any disease outbreak that might resemble the flu. Within weeks, the War Room received word of a pneumonia cluster among men just returning home from the Philadelphia convention of the American Legion. Several Philadelphia-based EIS officers and alumni had detected the outbreak, and acted as a fifth column that not only helped arrange an invitation for the CDC to come in, but also took their orders from the arriving team of CDC and EIS Officers. Even the New York Times staff writer sent to cover the story, Lawrence Altman, was himself an EIS alumnus.
The CDC team allowed media rumors to circulate that this Legionnaires' disease was the beginning of the swine flu. Within days, Congress decided to pass the vaccine bill. Only later did the CDC admit that the legionnaires had not been infected by the flu virus, too late to stop the immunization program. Some 50 million Americans received the vaccine, leading to more than a thousand cases of nerve damage and paralysis, dozens of deaths, and lawsuits awarding almost $100 million in damages. In the ultimate irony, no swine flu epidemic ever materialized; the only destruction left behind by the phantom swine flu resulted from the CDC's vaccine.The agency later blamed Legionnaires' disease on a common soil bacterium, one that clearly fails Koch's postulates for causing the disease and is therefore actually harmless. The legionnaires' deaths are not so hard to understand, since the pneumonias struck elderly men, many of whom had undergone kidney transplant operations, and who had become particularly drunk during the Bicentennial celebration - the classic risks for pneumonia. Thus Legionnaires' disease" is not an infectious condition, but merely a new name for old pneumonias."---Bryan J. Ellison
In what is now known as "the Great Swine Flu Massacre," the President of the United States, Gerald Ford, was enlisted to persuade the public to undergo a national vaccination campaign. The moving force behind the scheme was a $135 million windfall profit for the major drug manufacturers. They had a "swine flu" vaccine which suspicious pig raisers had refused to touch, fearful it might wipe out their crop. The manufacturers had only tried to get $80 million from the swine breeders; balked in this sale, they turned to the other market, humans. The impetus for the national swine flu vaccine came directly from the Disease Control Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Perhaps coincidentally, Jimmy Carter, a member of the Trilateral Commission, was then planning his presidential campaign in Georgia. The incumbent President, Gerald Ford, had all the advantages of a massive bureaucracy to aid him in his election campaign, while the ineffectual and little known. Jimmy Carter offered no serious threat to the election. Suddenly, out of Atlanta, came the Centre for Disease Control plan for a national immunization campaign against "swine flu." The fact that there was not a single known case of this flu in the United States did not deter the Medical Monopoly from their scheme. The swine breeders had been shocked by the demonstrations of the vaccine on a few pigs, which had collapsed and died. One can imagine the anxious inferences in the headquarters of the great drug firms, until one bright young man remarked, "Well, if the swine breeders won't inject it into their animals, our only other market is to inject it into people."The Ford-sponsored swine flu campaign almost died an early death, when a conscientious public servant, Dr. Anthony Morris, formerly of HEW and then active as director of the Virus Bureau of the Food and Drug Administration, declared that there could be no authentic swine flu vaccine, because there had never teen any cases of swine flu on which they could test it. Dr. Morris then went public with his statement that "at no point were the swine flu vaccines effective." He was promptly fired, but the damage had been done. The damage control consisted of that great humanitarian, Walter Cronkite, and the President of the United States, combining their forces to come to the rescue of the Medical Monopoly. Walter Cronkite had President Ford appear on his news program to urge the American people to submit to the inoculation with the swine flu vaccine. CBS then or later could never find any reason to air any analysis or scientific critique of the swine flu vaccine, which was identified as containing many toxic poisons, including alien viral protein panicles, formaldehyde, thimerosal (a derivative of poisonous mercury), polysorbate and some eighty other substances. Meanwhile, back at the virus laboratories, after Dr. Anthony Morris has been summarily fired, a special team of workers was rushed in to clean out the four rooms in which he had conducted his scientific tests. The laboratory was filled with animals whose records verified his claims, representing some three yean of constant research. All of thr animals were immediately destroyed, and Morris' records were burned. They did net go so far as to sow salt throughout the area, because they believed their job was done.
On April I5, 1976, Congress passed Public Law 94-266, which provided $135 million of taxpayers' funds to pay for a national swine flu inoculation campaign. HEW was to distribute the vaccine to state and local health agencies on a national basis for inoculation, at no charge. Insurance agencies then went public with their warning that they would not insure drug firms against possible studies from the results of swine flu inoculation, because no studies had been carried out which could predict its effects. It was to foil the insurance companies that CBS had Gerald Ford make his impassioned appeal to 215,000,000 Americans to save themselves while there was still time, and to rush down to the friendly local health department and get the swine flu vaccination, at absolutely no charge. This may have been CBS' finest hour in its distinguished career of "public service."Hardly had the swine flu campaign been completed than the reports of the casualties began to pour in. Within a few months, claims totalling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the swine flu vaccine. The medical authorities proved equal to the challenge; they leaped to the defense of the Medical Monopoly by labeling the new epidemic, "Guillain-Barre Syndrome." There have since been increasing speculations that the ensuing epidemic of AIDS which began shortly after Gerald Ford's public assurances, were merely a viral variation of the swine flu vaccine. And what of the perpetrator of the Great Swine Flu Massacre, President Gerald Ford? As the logical person to blame for the catastrophe, Ford had to endure a torrent of public criticism, which quite naturally resulted in his defeat for election (he had previously been appointed when the agents of the international drag operations had ushered Richard Nixon out of office). The unknown Jimmy Carter, familiar only to the super secret fellow members of the Trilateral Commission, was swept into office by the outpouring of rage against Gerald Ford. Carter proved to be almost as serious a national disaster as the swine flu epidemic, while Gerald Ford was retired from politics to life. Not only did he lose the election, he was also sentenced to spend his remaining years trudging wearily up and down the hot sandy stretches of the Palm Springs Golf course. --Eustace Mullins
Full Story:http://www.whale.to/a/swine_fluq.html

PS: my dear friend Robin Died from this "Guillain-Barre Syndrome." in 1976 leaving a new husband and 2 babies behind.


Monday, 27 April 2009

The Haig-Kissinger depopulation policy March 10, 1981
"There is a single theme behind all our work-we must reduce population levels," said Thomas Ferguson, the Latin American case officer for the State Department's Office of Population Affairs (OPA). "Either they [governments] do it our way, through nice clean methods or they will get the kind of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran, or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it "The professionals," said Ferguson, "aren't interested in lowering population for humanitarian reasons. That sounds nice. We look at resources and environmental constraints. We look at our strategic needs, and we say that this country must lower its population-or else we will have trouble. http://home.iae.nl/users/lightnet/world/depopulation.htm
So steps are taken. El Salvador is an example where our failure to lower population by simple means has created the basis for a national security crisis. The government of El Salvador failed to use our programs to lower their population. Now they get a civil war because of it.... There will be dislocation and food shortages. They still have too many people there."
Strange Cluster Of Microbiologists' Deaths Under The Microscope
By Alanna Mitchell, Simon Cooper, and Carolyn Abraham The Globe and Mail 5-4-2
It's a tale only the best conspiracy theorist could dream up.
Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months. Some of them world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others, experts in the theory of bioterrorism.
Throw in a few Russian defectors, a few nervy U.S. biotech companies, a deranged assassin or two, a bit of Elvis, a couple of Satanists, a subtle hint of espionage, a big whack of imagination, and the plot is complete, if a bit reminiscent of James Bond. The first three died in the space of just over a week in November. Benito Que, 52, was an expert in infectious diseases and cellular biology at the Miami Medical School. Police originally suspected that he had been beaten on Nov. 12 in a carjacking in the medical school's parking lot. Strangely enough, though, his body showed no signs of a beating. Doctors then began to suspect a stroke. Just four days after Dr. Que fell unconscious came the mysterious disappearance of Don Wiley, 57, one of the foremost microbiologists in the United States. Dr. Wiley, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Harvard University, was an expert on how the immune system responds to viral attacks such as the classic doomsday plagues of HIV, ebola and influenza. He had just bought tickets to take his son to Graceland the following day. Police found his rental car on a bridge outside Memphis, Tenn. His body was later found in the Mississippi River. Forensic experts said he may have had a dizzy spell and have fallen off the bridge.For a list of over 80 suspicious scientist and microbiologists deaths, click on this story, Now 88 Dead Scientists And Microbiologists
http://www.rense.com/general66/deadmicro.htm
Certainly, some of these 88 deaths would be labeled "normal," but there's a lot that are suspicious, like these:

Feb. 9, 2002 - Victor Korshunov, 56

-- Expertise: Expert in intestinal bacteria of children around the world
-- Circumstance of Death: bashed over the head near his home in Moscow.

Feb. 14, 2002 - Ian Langford, 40
-- Expertise: expert in environmental risks and disease.
-- Circumstance of Death: found dead in his home near Norwich, England, naked from the waist down and wedged under a chair.

....RIP-ed,further reading on depopulation:

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_sociopol_depopu.htm

ΜΑΙΟΣ 2009: Η ΛΕΣΧΗ ΜΠΙΛΤΕΡΜΠΕΡΓΚ, ΡΑΝΤΕΒΟΥ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΘΗΝΑ

The most powerful elite will meet in Athens

The Bilderberg club is famous for gathering the most powerful people in the world at least once per year. There, they can talk behind closed doors. This year, the club will organize its meeting in Athens between 14th and 16th of May.
In the list of invited guests are the Queen of Netherlands Beatrix, the Spanish Queen Sophia, and diplomats from the rank of the US National Security Council James Jones. Also among the invited are ministers of foreign affairs like the Turkish one Ali Babacan, who will get the chance for a tête-à-tête meeting with the Greek minister of foreign affairs Dora Bakoyanni. Except for political figures, the meeting will host representatives of giant companies like Domenico Siniscalco from “Morgan Stanley”.
From Greek side participants will be the Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis and the leader of the opposition party PASOK Georgios Papandreou, as well as ministers and powerful figures from political and public life of the country like the president of the National Bank of Greece Takis Arapoglou and the chairman of the public telecommunications company OTE Panayotis Vourloumis.
Except for the 30-35 permanent members of the Bilderberg Club, the list of invited people change every year depending on who can influence the developments on the international scene. On the meeting will be present also the management of NATO, politicians, publishers, and journalists.
“The silence law” is the first rule, which all invited to the world of Bilderberg must abide to. This is why the daily schedule remains secret but the current events leave no doubt that the main topic of discussion will be the global economic crisis.
The history of Bilderberg Club passes through secret meetings in distant hotels and discussions, which no one learns about. The three day meetings in the club are covered by a veil of mystery and many conspiracy theories start, which create different hypothesis for the activities in the club. “Times” daily newspaper writes that “the Bilderberg Club is the camarilla of the richest economically and politically powerful people in the Western world, who meet in secret, in order to plan events, which later on just happen.”
The headquarters of the club is in the Dutch city Leiden, and the first meeting of the club takes place in May of 1954 in Hotel Bilderberg, which name has the club. The main rules are that the meetings continue for three days from 08:00am until 08:00pm with a small lunch break. For each topic, the orators have five minutes to put forward their arguments and after that, the rest have 2 minutes each for a comment.
The key figure in founding this club was Joseph Retinger, who is the supporter of the economical and military unification idea of Europe. By using his strong connections, Retinger realizes his idea for a secret meeting, where all discussions are done behind closed doors. He remained the secretary of the club until his death in 1960.

ed-ΕΝΘΕΣΗ ΑΠΟΨΗΣ ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΜΕ ΤΟΝ ΚΥΡΙΟ ΣΚΟΠΟ ΙΔΡΥΣΗΣ ΤΗΣ ΛΕΣΧΗΣ ΜΠΙΛΤΕΡΜΠΕΡΓΚ

...Η λέσχη δημιουργήθηκε για να οργανώσει και προετοιμάσει τον πληθυσμό για την αποκάλυψη της επίσημης επαφής με εξωγηίνους πολιτισμούς και τις μέχρι τώρα συνθήκες και συμφωνίες ανάμεσα στην κυβέρνηση των ΗΠΑ ,(Μajestic12) και τους εξωγηίνους στις βάσεις τους στην περιοχή 51 και αλλού...-ed

Richard Boylan, Ph.D.
1999


A correspondent writes:

"you mention the Bilderberg entity as having a strong guiding role in western politics...and also covertly the UFO/ET scenario. I note with interest that the American chapter of Bilderberg was initiated by Walter Bedell Smith ( then head of CIA) and also mentioned I believe in Truman's Majestic or M-12 debriefing documents... Is it possible that Bilderberg are acting in the role of benevolence??... Perhaps they feel it necessary to subdue the globe under one system of law and government before releasing potential ET technologies...

Richard Boylan, Ph.D. replies:

It is my assessment that division exists within the Bilderberg Council, as in the U.S. Administration and elsewhere, over disclosure versus continued cover-up of extraterrestrial contact. The "progressives" within Bilderberg and within the National Security apparatus of the U.S. have as their objective that the world's conflicts be ended, and that thus, there be no temptation to weaponize ET technology, before ET high-tech such as zero-point energy devices are allowed to go into public circulation.
In fact, in a May 17 conversation with Dr. Michael Wolf, consultant to the UFO policy management division of the National Security Council, Dr. Wolf explicitly stated that a principal concern, blocking official disclosure of ET contact, is over worries that ET technology will be harnessed by megalomaniacs ..... the Bilderberg Council generally meets about the time of year of the meeting you cite. The real interest item would be to see their full agenda. As noted above, Bilderberg was conceived in response to the 1952 ET repeated overflights of Washington, DC and the following year's meeting between President Eisenhower and ET representatives at what is now Edwards Air Force Base, CA. It is no coincidence that Walter Bedell Smith, President Eisenhower's CIA Director, was also his designee to the 1954 inaugural meeting of the Bilderberg Council.
Bilderberg is an attempt for world leaders to draw together in concerted action to create a unified policy in world matters of peace, democracy, and coordinated preparation of world institutions and the populace for the massive changes which public disclosure of extraterrestrial presence will bring.
Of course, as everywhere else, the reactionaries within Bilderberg want to harness this powerful institution to feather their nests in terms of power, profits and prestige. Such is the "human factor".
We must pray that the progressives at every level of society prevail. And we must BE those progressives, and speak out and act boldly for global peace, economic justice, self-determination, and collective mutual concern...

ENDGAME & OUTSIDE THE BOX: THE NEW WORLD HISTORY



AND

FIAT EMPIRE - (Why the Federal Reserve Violates the U.S. Constitution)

Find out why some feel the Federal Reserve's practices are a violation of the U.S. Constitution and others feel it's simply "a bunch of organized crooks." Discover why experts agree the Fed is a banking cartel that benefits mainly bankers and their corporate clients as well as a Congress that would rather increase the National Debt to over $10 trillion than raise taxes. Find out how the corporate media facilitates the partnership between the Fed and Congress and why it fails to disclose what's going on. Lastly, find out how the Federal Reserve-member banks are owned and controlled by an elite group of insiders. Produced by attorney William L. Van Alen, Jr., this documentary is a co-production between Matrixx Productions and Cornerstone Entertainment. In addition to interviews by G. Edward Griffin and Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), FIAT EMPIRE features interviews with media expert/MOVIEGUIDE founder, DR. TED BAEHR, as well as Constitutional attorney, EDWIN VIEIRA, Ph.D., (four degrees from Harvard). FIAT EMPIRE was written and directed by Hollywood filmmaker, James Jaeger, and narrated by Kris Chandler(http://voice123.com/krischandler) with music by Jack Rooney (http://home.att.net/~JackRooney). Associate producers are Ted Pollard (author and former Commissioner of Radnor Township); James E. Ewart (well-known author of MONEY, published by Principia Publishing http://www.principiapub.com) and Kenneth Gullekson (formerly with DISNEY). For UPDATES on current Matrixx projects (such as "TESLA" and "ORIGINAL INTENT -- How Cultural Marxism Stole America's Consitution, visit www.mecfilms.com/update.htm.

Ο ΠΡΟΕΔΡΟΣ ΟΜΠΑΜΑ, Η ΜΕΞΙΚΑΝΙΚΗ ΜΑΡΙΧΟΥΑΝΑ, ΚΑΙ Η ΤΑΜΠΑΚΙΕΡΑ

Καθώς συνεχίζει την πρώτη περιοδεία μέσα στο διάστημα των πρώτων 100 ημερών της προεδρίας του, με επόμενο σταθμό το Μεξικό, ο Πρόεδρος Ομπάμα φαίνεται αποφασισμένος να συνεχίσει τις ίδιες καταστροφικές πολιτικές και την ίδια ολοκληρωτικά αποτυχημένη Αμερικάνικη τακτική στον «πόλεμο κατά των ναρκωτικών.» Από το 2006, περισσότεροι από 10.000 άνθρωποι έχουν δολοφονηθεί στο Μεξικό ως άμεση συνέπεια του εμπορίου ναρκωτικών.



Αυτό το αιματοκύλισμα άρχισε όταν, με την ευλογία και τη χρηματοδότηση από την Αμερικανική κυβέρνηση, ο Μεξικανός Πρόεδρος Felipe Calderon διέταξε τους μεξικάνους στρατιωτικούς να τσακίσουν τα καρτέλ .Τέτοια βίαια καταστολή αύξησε ως αναμενόταν το επίπεδο βίας, καθώς οταν ένας του καρτέλ τρώγεται, δέκα καινούργιοι «συνωστίζονται στην αποβάθρα» για να καλύψουν το κενό χώρο. Αυτή είναι μιά πρακτική «Λερναίας Υδρας» τόσο παλαιά και προβλέψιμη όσο η ποτοαπαγόρευση, όμως οι πολιτικοί δεν φαίνεται ποτέ να θέλουν να μάθουν.




Η μόνη και μόνιμη πρόδηλη βέβαια λύση στο αιματοκύλισμα στο Μεξικό είναι αυτή που και φυσικά θά λείπει απο την αντζέντα : η νομιμοποίηση της μαριχουάνας στην Αμερική.
Τον περασμένο μήνα, όταν το Μεξικό επισκέφτηκε η γραμματέας του κράτους κα Χίλαρυ Κλίντον, εξέφρασε την μεγάλη «ανησυχία» σχετικά με την κλιμακούμενη βία... και έπειτα εξήρε τον Calderon και τον συνεχάρη για την καταστολή. Φυσικά, δεν παρέλειψε να υποσχεθεί οτι θα τον υποστηρίξει με περισσότερη χρηματοδότηση και περισσότερο στρατιωτικό υλικό. Η μαριχουάνα αποτελεί 60 έως 70 τοις εκατό του μεξικάνικου εμπορίου ναρκωτικών προς τις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες. Η νομιμοποίηση της μαριχουάνας στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες θα ξερίζωνε την σημαντικότερη πηγή χρηματοδότηση για τα «Μεξικάνικα» και τα «συνεργαζόμενα» εντός των τειχών καρτέλ και εμπλεκόμενες "μαύρες υπηρεσίες".
Βέβαια ο Ομπάμα άλλα έλεγε στήν προεκλογική του εκστρατεία παραδεχόμενος την πλήρη αποτυχία της DEA μιάς και τα πάσης φύσης ναρκωτικά κατακλύζουν πλέον την Αμερική, κι άλλα φαίνεται πως ειναι αναγκασμένος να κάνει.



Η καινούργια τοποθέτηση και στάση του προέδρου Oμπάμα για αύξηση της καταστολής και των πολεμικών επιχειρήσεων ενάντια στα καρτέλ ειναι μια εντυπωσιακή διαφοροποίηση από εκείνη που παρουσίαζε στο προεκλογικό βίντεο του 2004. Δεν πήρε πολύ για να μεταλλαχθεί από έναν στοχαστικό κριτικό αναλυτή και πιθανό αναμορφωτή του θέματος "ναρκωτικά" σε έναν χαρακτηριστικό και τυπικό "ναρκοκυνηγό" παλαιάς κοπής και απολογητή του συστήματος διαπλοκής».
Τό θέμα βέβαια ειναι πολύπλοκο και τα εμπλεκόμενα συμφέροντα διάσπαρτα στην αμερικάνικη κοινωνία και διοίκηση. Ο οικονομολόγος Jeffrey Miron του Χάρβαρντ υπολογίζει ότι αν ο πρόεδρος Ομπάμα νομιμοποιούσε την μαριχουάνα, θα ειχε ένα καθαρό όφελος 77 δισεκατομμυρίων δολαρίων ετησίως, καθώς θά γλίτωνε από αυτό το μεγάλο μέρος των «δημοσίων» εξόδων για την επιβολή του μη λειτουργικού νόμου και των συστημικώς εμπλεκομένων υπηρεσιών , της DEA , των δικαστικών, αστυνομικών, τελειωνιακών, κλπ . Τα δε χρήματα από την πώληση της μαριχουάνας που, κάτω από το κρατικό σύστημα φορολόγησης αντίστοιχο των οινοπνευματωδών, θα πήγαινε στην Αμερικανική οικονομία αντί στα «καρτέλ» και τα διαπλεκόμενα συνδικάτα εγκλήματος, ο Miron τα υπολόγισε σε μια μελέτη του 2005 ότι θα ήταν αλλα 10 έως 14 δισεκατομμύρια δολάρια, ένας αριθμός επικυρωμένος από 530 άλλους οικονομολόγους.







Σχετική βιβλιογραφία



Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulop, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, the plants have also benefited at least as much from their association with us. So who is really domesticating whom?










Βιντεο του συγγραφέα με αμεσες αναφορές (απο τα >+29min)-στα "Ελευσίνια" και άλλα "χαμένα" προγονικά μας κοινωνικά και θρησκευτικά στοιχεία-ταμπού...

AMERICAN BEAUTY

AMERICAN BEAUTY

Ivan Gorsky
07 Απρ 2009
http://www.klik.gr/blog/american-beauty



Για μια ακόμη φορά οι Αμερικανοί αποδεικνύουν το πόσο μπροστά είναι από τους υπόλοιπους στο θέμα του χειρισμού της εικόνας
Τα ευρωπαϊκά Μέσα Ενημέρωσης ανακάλυψαν ξαφνικά μια καινούργια «αγαπημένη». Η Μισέλ Ομπάμα, η σύζυγος του νέου Προέδρου των ΗΠΑ, είναι πια γεμάτα με φωτογραφίες της, ενώ ακόμη και σοβαρές εφημερίδες, όπως ο βρετανικός Γκάρντιαν για παράδειγμα, γεμίζουν πολλές στήλες τους, με αναλύσεις για τη γοητεία, της πρώτης μαύρης Πρώτης Κυρίας στην Ιστορία των ΗΠΑ. Στην κεντρική πλατεία της Πράγας, το συγκεντρωμένο πλήθος άκουγε με τρόπο που θύμιζε τους Βερολινέζους κατά την επίσκεψη του Τζων Κένεντι στο Βερολίνο πριν από μισό σχεδόν αιώνα, ενώ συχνά ο ομιλητής διακοπτόταν από την ιαχή «Ομπάμα-Ομπάμα». Η οκταετία του Τζωρτζ Μπους μοιάζει να έχει ξεχαστεί εντελώς, μοιάζει σαν μια πραγματικότητα, που συνέβη κάπου αλλού, σε κάποια άλλη εποχή. Δεν υπάρχει αμφιβολία, ότι οι Αμερικανοί παραμένουν πάντα πρώτοι στο θέμα του χειρισμού της εικόνας των διασήμων προσώπων, μια ικανότητα που τους δίνει τη δυνατότητα να αλλάζουν τις εντυπώσεις σε χρόνο μηδέν. Ένα ταξίδι στις ΗΠΑ είναι αρκετό για να πείσει τον καθ’ ένα πως οι περισσότεροι Αμερικανοί μοιάζουν να έχουν μια έμφυτη ικανότητα στο χειρισμό της προσωπικής τους εικόνας, ότι θα μπορούσαν εύκολα να σταδιοδρομήσουν στον κινηματογράφο. Είναι η κοινωνική άνεση, είναι ο μακροχρόνιος εθισμός τους στην κινηματογραφική και τηλεοπτική συμπεριφορά, είναι η κουλτούρα τους που είναι συνυφασμένη με την εικόνα, κανείς δεν αμφιβάλλει ότι οι Αμερικανοί είναι πρώτοι στο να δημιουργούν εντυπώσεις. Είναι χαρακτηριστικό ότι και οι προεκλογικές τους εκστρατείες, με τους πολύμηνους αγώνες για τη θέση του υποψηφίου του κάθε κόμματος, δημιουργούν τέτοια αναμονή, που η τελική εξασφάλιση του χρίσματος, να μοιάζει με την κατάκτηση κάποιου Όσκαρ. Η τελετή της ορκωμοσίας του Ομπάμα, ήταν και αυτή προσαρμοσμένη, στις επιταγές του μεγάλου θεάματος. Και το πιο χαρακτηριστικό από όλα είναι ίσως το ότι έχουν καταφέρει να κάνουν ακόμη και τις πολεμικές τους εκστρατείες, ένα μεγάλο πολεμικό τηλεοπτικό υπερθέαμα. Γι αυτό μην έχετε αμφιβολία οι πρώτοι που θα ξεπεράσουν την κρίση θα είναι οι Αμερικανοί. Θα βρουν κάποιο τρόπο να κάνουν και την κρίση και το ξεπέρασμα της θέαμα και μετά από πάνω θα μας το πουλήσουν κιόλας.

ICH BIN EIN BERLINER
από ΠΛΟΗΓΟΣ 11 Απρ 2009



Πολλές σχεδιασμένες υπερπαραγωγές ξεμένουν όμως από "καύσιμα". Ειδικά αυτήν την εποχή, οι χρηματοδότες τέτοιων ταινιών είναι λίγο στριμόκωλα με τα budget μετά τα κανόνια που σκάσανε, και επίσης τέτοια σενάρια χρειάζονται στελεχιακή και καλλιτεχνική φρεσκαδούρα. Και κοιτάζοντας κανείς την ομάδα διαχείρισης εξουσίας ΠΙΣΩ από τον Ομπάμα, βλέπει τους ίδιους καμμένους παίκτες και ληγμένους ηθοποιούς πού πρωταγωνίστησαν τα τελευταία χρόνια στην Ουάσιγκτον. Κι δεν θα μας πείραζε τόσο η επανάληψη σεναρίου, ένα σέκουελ τύπου Ρόκυ 15 λ.χ., αν το δολάριο δεν είχε γίνει πλέον πραγματικός χαρτοπόλεμος που θα ρίπτεται -στην ταινία- από ελικόπτερα Απάτσι.(ίδε Helicopter Money!!!)...Στο Βερολίνο, αγαπημένο προορισμό και σύμβολο τόσων Αμερικανών προέδρων, ας μην ξεχνάει ο πρόεδρος Ομπάμα πως κάποιοι "άλλοι" παρέδωσαν μαθήματα υψιστης υποκριτικής πολιτικής τέχνης και απάτης, καίγοντας σε "κινηματογραφική βραδιά" το κοινοβούλιο σαν ένα πρώτο συμβολικό μηντιακό βήμα προς την "κοινωνική συναίνεση" της κατάλυσης της Δημοκρατίας της Βαϊμάρης και την "επίσημη" έλευση της Γ Αυτοκρατορίας (Ράιχ). Οπότε και σενάρια δουλεμένα υπάρχουν, και κορόιδα (suckers) να ψωνίσουν είναι γεμάτος ο πλανήτης. Να περιμένουμε τα sequels σύντομα ?

DOLLAR BLOW JOBS

Η Βιομηχανία της Ευτυχίας και της Δυστυχίας...Μαξ Κάιζερ, παρακολουθήστε τον:

ΕΝ_ΘΕΩ_ΓΕΝΕΣΙΣ ( entheogen, entheogenesis)

ΈΛΕΥΣΙΣ, ΕΛΕΥΣΊΝΙΑ, ΚΥΚΕΏΝ, ΠΑΝΑΘΗΝΑΙΑ
ΑΝΑΣΥΝΘΕΤΟΝΤΑΣ ΤΟΝ ΚΥΚΕΩΝΑ, ΤΗΝ ΙΕΡΗ ΜΕΤΑΛΗΨΗ ΤΩΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΩΝ ΣΤΑ ΕΛΕΥΣΙΝΙΑ ΜΥΣΤΗΡΙΑ...
(reconstructing kykeon, the ancient "holly" drink offered at the Eleusinian Mystic rituals)

Hypotheses advanced in The Road to Eleusis (1) concerning the possible composition and method of preparation of the kykeon are evaluated in light of published criticism. Objections to the Eleusis theory are countered, and based on a largely overlooked aspect of the chemical hydrolysis of ergot alkaloids, a new hypothesis is suggested that reinvigorates the Eleusis debate. In part 2 of this essay, organic chemist Daniel M. Perrine provides further considerations that build upon the new idea, and a technical discussion of the practicality and realisability of the “Ergine Hypothesis” paves the way for new chemical and psychopharmacological research. In part 3, co-author of The Road to Eleusis Carl A. P. Ruck re-examines the Eleusis mythologies and ritual practises from which appear a much expanded understanding of the entheo-pharmacology of the ancient world.

Part 1
by Peter Webster
Introduction
In The Road to Eleusis, R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann and Carl A. P. Ruck attempted to resolve a long-standing debate concerning the famous Eleusinian Mysteries of Ancient Greece. Earlier suggestions attributed variously to Karl Kerényi, R. G. Wasson, or Robert Graves had proposed that the autumnal phase of the rite might have involved the use of a psychoactive drug, and it was the task of The Road to Eleusis to propose a testable theory as to the nature of the kykeon, the revered sacramental potion that would have been a likely vehicle for such a substance.
The principal hypothesis proposed by the three authors suggests that the ergot species Claviceps purpurea, collected by the hierophantic priests from its natural and common parasitisation of barley growing in the Rarian plain adjacent to Eleusis, was the probable source of psychoactive ingredient for the elixir. C. purpurea and related parasitic fungi produce lysergic acid alkaloids, among which are several known psychedelic compounds as well as other important pharmaceuticals.
The partaking of the kykeon marked the climax of the famous autumnal ceremony at Eleusis, performed for nearly two thousand consecutive years and whose initiates included essentially all the great names of Greek antiquity. Claims for the potency and revelatory effect of the kykeon and the profound nature of the secrets revealed at the Eleusinian celebration are
widespread in Greek literature and historical writings, so there can be little doubt that the rite was of major importance to the course of Greek civilisation or that the potion must have been more than a symbolic sacrament like the Christian Eucharist of bread and wine: the kykeon surely contained a powerful psychoactive substance similar to one of the major visioninducing and psychedelic plant alkaloids that Western science has only recently rediscovered.Albert Hofmann, writing in The Road to Eleusis, further suggested that the hierophants might have processed the C. purpurea ergot with a simple water extraction, dissolving off the water-soluble alkaloids containing ergonovine and methylergonovine, the principal hypothesised psychoactive compounds. Ergonovine, also known as ergometrine or ergobasine, is a psychoactive lysergic acid amide similar in structure to, but far less potent than lysergide, or LSD. The proposed water-extraction process would also supposedly have prevented the toxic ergopeptine alkaloids of C. purpurea, abortifacient and dangerously vasoconstrictive but not at all psychedelic, from entering the potion. Ergopeptine alkaloids such as ergotoxine and ergotamine were the agents responsible for the recurring plagues of ergotism known throughout European history, so it may safely be assumed that they were somehow excluded from the kykeon.
Hofmann also proposed an alternate hypothesis that the kykeon might have been prepared from another species of ergot (Claviceps paspali), growing not on barley (or only rarely) but on wild grasses of the region such as Paspalum distichum. The hypothesis appeared attractive because C. paspali produces a much more psychedelic blend of alkaloids than C. purpurea, similar to that contained in the redoubtable Western hemisphere psychedelic plant of the Aztecs, ololiuhqui. In addition, the toxic ergopeptine alkaloids are largely if not completely absent in this ergot species.
This paper examines these hypotheses in light of more recently published material, and introduces additional considerations in an attempt to take the Eleusis debate to a level from which further research might lead to a breakthrough. New hypotheses concerning the composition of the kykeon and the ways it might have been prepared are advanced. We will attempt to evaluate what is known and suspected about the possible composition of the kykeon employing several important clues gleaned from Greek literature and modern research. Such clues need to be kept in mind during the evaluation of kykeon hypotheses, for considered apart from these clues, even the proposal that an ergot was the psychoactive ingredient can be doubted, and the way left open for the suggestion of several other possible psychoactive plants as the key ingredient. Indeed, certain authors have done so, in a paper to be discussed
below.

The Clues

The fact that the Rite was practised like clockwork for large numbers of communicants (a thousand or more, in later years), and for nearly two millennia must require that the psychedelic entity employed was of constant characteristics and dependability, that sufficient quantities could be easily obtained every year independent of varying conditions, and that the method of preparation was also little subject to the vagaries of error or changing conditions.
Other facts relevant to the kykeon and the Rite, and the two hierophant families which controlled and kept secret the recipe for the sacrament for nearly two millennia, are several.
Of special importance is the fact that the recipe was successfully kept secret for this very long period, when documentation shows that many would probably have desired to discover its particulars. The kykeon, or perhaps the secret of its preparation, was apparently stolen on at least one occasion for use at Athens “cocktail parties,” profaning the sacred rite and its potion.
If the kykeon could have been simply duplicated, if it were obvious which ingredients were used and how they were prepared, it would presumably have not been necessary to steal it, and its profane use might well have become common. We must assume not only that the recipe was effectively kept secret, but more importantly that some critical feature of the recipe was easy to keep secret. Perhaps the true identity of the active ingredient, but more likely the way in which it was processed or prepared was the key secret.Such processes must of coursehave been simple and reproducible, in line with technical abilities of the time, yet not easily observed by spies nor intuited by outsiders.
Further clues can be gleaned from Greek literature, and pertaining to the characteristics of ergot and the way and frequency with which it infests its hosts, and similar botanical characteristics of other proposed active ingredients such as Psilocybe mushrooms. I shall introduce these further clues as necessary during the discussion to follow.


The Objections

Recently, objections have been raised concerning the ergot hypothesis, most notably in an article by Ivan Valencic in Jahrbuch fur Ethomedizin und Bewusstseinsforschung: “Hasthe Mystery of the Eleusinian Mysteries Been Solved?”. The main complaints of the authorare as follows, in the order in which they appear in the article:
Objection 1. The proposed psychoactive ingredients of C. purpurea,
ergonovine and methylergonovine, are not exceptionally psychedelic when
ingested as synthesised compounds.
Objection 2. Preparations of C. purpurea itself have not been made and pharmacologically tested which demonstrate it might have been sufficiently
psychoactive to have provided the undoubted powerful psychedelic reaction to
the kykeon.
Objection 3. These same proposed active ingredients, at the doses necessary to produce the moderate psychoactive effects they are capable of producing, also produce significant discomfort, cramping, and lassitude. Presumably the effect of the kykeon was a quite enjoyable experience or it wouldn’t have been sought after by rich Athenians to entertain guests, nor would the experience of the sacrament at Eleusis have been written about so glowingly by everyone who partook of the Rite and its potion.
Objection 4. In addition, ergonovine at these dose levels is capable of producing spontaneous abortion, and since women were often initiates in the Rite
and no such problems were ever described, we must doubt that the full story has
been discovered in the C. purpurea hypothesis as advanced in The Road to Eleusis.
Objection 5. Concerning the C. paspali variant of the hypothesis, it is objected that this fungus is known to produce tremors in cattle grazing on infected grass, and, similarly to C. purpurea, that no one has processed the fungus into a preparation shown to be psychedelic to a degree in agreement with the properties of the kykeon.
Objection 6. The reference to the composition of the kykeon in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter is obviously incomplete, or even false, the recipe given there containing only water, barley, and a type of mint known to be at most only
slightly psychoactive. It is thus proposed that this formula was merely a red
herring, a way to deceive and disguise the true recipe. Barley may have had
nothing to do with the true ingredients. Thus other psychedelic entities such as
Psilocybe mushrooms or even opium must be considered as possibilities.
These would appear to be important reservations. And as the author points out, both the C. purpurea and C. paspali hypotheses are conspicuously testable, yet the only testing that has been accomplished has not produced very promising results. (An overview of several selfexperiments with the proposed ergot alkaloids is given in Valencic's article, as well as in part 2 of this essay.) Let me work backwards through these objections, and bring to bear the clues I have mentioned.

Analysis

It is only possible to entertain objection 6 if we believe that the lack of positive results of testing the two ergot hypotheses precludes further experimental developments. Indeed, this appears to be Valencic’s position as he concludes that the ergot hypotheses are “not very likely,” and he “agree[s] with Robert Graves and Terence McKenna that there exists also reasonable possibility that psilocybian mushrooms might have helped to produce the astonishment and ecstasy in ancient initiates…” Given that the references to barley and mint in the Hymn to Demeter fit well in several respects with the C. purpurea hypothesis, and that further evidence from Greek literature as discussed by Carl Ruck in The Road to Eleusis also
implicates barley and mint, more than mere “doubts” should be required before insinuating that the recipe of the Hymn to Demeter was mere fabrication. The best and most believable lies or deceptions are ones closest to the truth, and even better are deceptions which actually are the truth disguised by the way of telling, or by leaving out some critical detail. If the Hymn to Demeter specifies barley, it is very likely that the kykeon has something to do with barley.(2)
Psilocybe mushrooms have no relationship with barley whatsoever. And the mint
specified in the recipe also would support the ergot hypothesis, since mint is a known remedy for the slight nausea often encountered with various lysergic acid compounds including the psychedelic ones as well as ergotamine taken as a remedy for migraine. The preponderance of evidence indicates we must further explore the ergot hypothesis, rather than abandon it for other possible psychedelic plants.
The proposal that the barley-mint recipe was a total fabrication designed to conceal the true secret also begs the question of why barley and mint would have been chosen as the fictitious ingredients. Why not other herbs, or plants, or even rare substances that were generally unavailable? Why implicate a principal foodstuff if in reality there were not the least connection? The barley-mint recipe cannot be abandoned so easily. In addition, some facts relevant to Psilocybe mushrooms, discussed below, make this alternate hypothesis rather far-fetched.
Objection 5 has recently become a moot point, as it has been convincingly shown that C.paspali was almost certainly not present in ancient Greece, neither its host paspalum grass.(3)C. paspali might well have made a suitably psychoactive potion due to its alkaloidal content,very similar to the Aztec psychedelic, ololiuqui. Although several self-experiments with ololiuqui (seeds of two species of morning glory) or with its purified alkaloids ergine and isoergine have been inconclusive (see the mentioned examples in part II of this paper), I can personally assure readers that the alkaloids of ololiuqui are, when prepared correctly, quite capable of producing the entire range of powerful psychedelic effects. Ergine and its stereoisomer isoergine are the two principal psychoactive compounds of ololiuqui, and also
the major alkaloids found in C. paspali, yet they are not found in C. purpurea. But the story of ergine and isoergine might be more important than has previously been suspected, as will be evident from what follows here.
Objections 1 through 4 all depend on the assumption that ergonovine and
methylergonovine are the active principles resulting from the processing that was required to make the kykeon from C. purpurea. But self-experiments with these compounds, and the lack of other suitably psychoactive chemical candidates in C. purpurea, seem nearly to disqualify the ergot hypothesis from serious consideration. We seem to be at an impasse, with the best hypothesis marred by experimental weaknesses, and alternate hypotheses rapidly diverging from our most solid clues.
Although one might imagine that C. purpurea naturally parasitising barley in ancient
Greece contained a more psychoactive blend of alkaloids than has been found in C. purpurea grown and tested in recent times, the fact that the psychedelic kykeon was so reliable for so long would indicate a corresponding long term reliability of content of the fungus which should thus have continued into the present, i.e., today’s C. purpurea is very probably quite similar in its alkaloidal spectrum to that of the same fungus parasitising barley in ancient Greece. Thus some suggestions that the known variability of ergot with varying hosts and growth conditions might resolve the question is unconvincing. Similarly unconvincing are proposals that the Eleusinian priests had discovered and cultivated some other species of ergot.
Further Considerations
Following are some further observations which should guide hypothesis formation: facts and probabilities drawn from what we know about ancient Greece, the Rite, the biology and chemistry of ergot and other proposed psychedelic plants, and other sources.
Relatively large amounts of the ingredient were needed,(4) at a certain time of year, on demand. This fact argues against wild mushrooms or wild ergots such as C. paspali, and in favour of the hypothesis that the priests harvested the item from a plentiful, known, reliable, naturally-occurring and nearby supply. It is possible, however, that they had discovered how to augment supplies by simple procedures.(5) Even with modern agricultural techniques, C. purpurea remains a common infestation of cereal grains, thus we may assume that this ergot was also common in the barley of the Rarian harvest, no doubt a large one. Thus even with a mild ergot infestation, sufficient quantities should have been obtainable. The grain harvest,
and consequently the possibility to select out the ergot therein, occurs in late spring or summer, just in time for the September Eleusis celebration. The separation of ergot from the grain might also have been easy for the priests to do without undue observation, or without raising suspicions of what it was to be used for. A “purification” of the harvest in which
“malformed grains” (see again footnote 1) as well as other contaminating material were removed might have been a cover-story.
However, as discussed above, C. purpurea, in its natural state, contains an alkaloidal content that is at best only moderately psychoactive, and with unfavourable toxic side-effects.C. paspali would have been a far more likely candidate on the basis of its alkaloid content, but is now ruled out. In fact, we might have ruled out naturally-occurring C. paspali on the basis of availability: Growing wild, it probably wouldn’t have been reliable or copious enough to produce the quantities necessary, and collecting large amounts would have entailed
scouting the countryside at great length, an activity easily observed by spies, and thus the recipe become easily known. Similarly, if C. purpurea were the active ingredient, and easy to process with a simple water extraction as suggested by Hofmann, could the secret so easily have been kept for so long?
Psilocybe mushrooms are ruled out, however. Several aspects of the Rite and what we
know about wild mushrooms make the Psilocybe hypothesis unlikely. The rite was held every year and at a precisely defined time in the month of September. Thousands of specimens of even the strongest Psilocybe mushrooms would have been needed, at a time of year when the climate of Greece was just barely subsiding from the summer heat and dryness. Although cooler mountainous areas of 1000 meters in altitude are within ten or twenty kilometres of Eleusis, it is very unlikely that such vast quantities of an uncommon wild mushroom could have been located so early in the year, like clockwork and in advance of the autumn rains, or that the hierophants could have collected such quantities every year and transported them back to Eleusis without the secret of their activity escaping. And as anyone who has collected
wild mushrooms knows, they seldom appear on-schedule, in such dependable quantities, even when an area known to produce a certain variety has been identified.
If it is proposed that a Psilocybe species growing on the dung of domesticated herbivores might have been the kykeon’s secret, again we run into trouble. In the typical summer climate of Greece, herbivores’ excretions would have dried so quickly in the heat that the hierophants would have had to irrigate them to even hope that mushrooms would appear, and they would have been lucky to produce even a handful under those conditions. And once again, it would have been a difficult operation to keep secret. After autumn rains, in November and December, animal dungs might well have produced their fungal consequences, too late for the rite unless we hypothesise that December’s Psilocybe was stored for the following year:
Again, a highly unlikely hypothesis for reasons too obvious to mention. But this observation does indicate another argument for ergot: the easily-dried sclerotia of ergot are quite capable of being stored, retaining their alkaloids for considerable periods, and certainly could have been stored for at least a year without preservatives, in containers of minimal size easily secreted in the confines of the temple. Thus stored ergot might have augmented supplies in lean years.
And of course the idea that the hierophants had perfected the cultivation of Psilocybe mushrooms is even more fantastic. I doubt that such a hypothesis even needs to be criticised.
But one final argument might indicate that there weren’t even any Psilocybe of note growing in Greece at the time. As noted in The Road to Eleusis, (p. 42) the Greeks were well acquainted with a wide range of inebriants and herbs, and how to prepare “wines” suitable for many purposes. If Psilocybe mushrooms had been common enough to use for the kykeon, they would no doubt have long been known and written about, and their secret impossible to keep.
Neither the Psilocybe hypothesis, nor the hypotheses of naturally-occurring alkaloids of Claviceps purpurea, nor naturally-occurring Claviceps paspali, nor of course any of the other hypotheses that the kykeon was some kind of alcoholic beer made from barley, or that it was merely symbolic, etc. etc., will suffice.
We seem to have shown that C. purpurea is the most likely kykeon candidate while simultaneously proving its insufficiency to deliver a safe dose of alkaloids powerful enough to produce the full range of psychedelic effects. What is amiss? The most straightforward hypothesis is that the Greek priests had discovered some way to transform naturally-occurring supplies of C. purpurea: they must have found a technologically-simple process to alter the alkaloidal spectrum of ergot. At first this surely sounds like an impossible idea, yet some ergot alkaloid research of the 1930s, recently confirmed and until now overlooked by the various participants in the Eleusis debate, provides the key.

Ergine and Isoergine

Years ago, with the threat of my impending draft into the U.S. Army for an extended tour of Southeast Asia, I decided instead to “go on the lam,” and departed for Mexico with the intention of researching the distribution and chemistry of some of the famous Central American psychoactive plants such as ololiuqui. It was during the course of these investigations that I prepared astonishingly powerful extracts of ololiuqui, alluded to above. I had also been interested in the possibility of hydrolysing the alkaloids of ololiuqui in an attempt to prepare pure lysergic acid. This is a simple process, requiring only that the extracted ergine / isoergine content of the seeds be boiled for some time with a strong base such as potassium hydroxide. Although my researches were ended prematurely by unfortunate
events, an important result for the present question was that I became well-acquainted with the chemical literature concerning lysergic acid, its production via hydrolysis, and the various conversions possible when treating ergot alkaloids in differing conditions.
I learned from the early chemical literature that the base-catalysed hydrolysis of
ergopeptine alkaloids typical of C. purpurea apparently proceeded via a two-step process, the first and most rapid step resulting in ergine (6) which was then more slowly hydrolysed to lysergic acid. The discovery of ergine was in fact accomplished in such a manner: Early work in the 1930s had found that treating ergotoxine (a mixture of three ergot alkaloids from C.purpurea extracts) with a base such as potassium hydroxide, yielded both lysergic acid andergine.(7) The details of the various experiments indicated that longer reaction times and higher
temperatures favoured the complete transformation to lysergic acid, while short reaction times and lower temperatures resulted in significant amounts of ergine. Subsequent unpublished work by myself indicated the strong dependence of the hydrolysis on temperature, but weak dependence on base concentration.
Over the years I gradually forgot about these results until recently, musing over the
objections to the theory of The Road to Eleusis, the “Ergine Hypothesis” suddenly appeared to me as a possible key to countering the objections. The hierophantic priests might well have discovered how to achieve a partial hydrolysis of the mostly toxic alkaloids of C. purpurea, resulting in an extract of ergot containing a blend of psychedelic compounds closely similar to the Aztec’s ololiuqui. The partial hydrolysis might thus also eliminate the toxic ergopeptine alkaloids, converting them to psychoactive ergine and isoergine.
But how were the hierophants to accomplish this feat, seemingly not duplicated until the 20th Century? It must have been a technologically simple procedure, and employed common ingredients, yet been easy to keep secret. Although potassium hydroxide was surely not available to the Greeks, the ashes of wood fires certainly were, and in fact a mixture of wood ash in water results in a solution of potassium of reasonably strong basicity. Is it possible that merely digesting powdered ergot with wood ash and water (and possibly wine containing 10% or so of ethanol to improve the solubility of the alkaloids), heating the mixture for a short period and then filtering off the liquid might have been the method of mixing the kykeon? I decided to ask the opinion of a colleague, an associate professor of chemistry at
Loyola College in Maryland, and author of The Chemistry of Mind-Altering Drugs.

Footnotes to part 1:
1. The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, R. Gordon Wasson, Carl
A.P. Ruck, Albert Hofmann. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1978. Republished in a Twentieth
Anniversary Edition with additional material, Hermes Press, 1998.
2. It should be remembered that the appearance of ergot on its host has all through history led to the conclusion that ergot was merely malformed or sun-burned or “rusted” grains of the cereal host in question. It wasn’t until the 20th Century that ergot was generally recognised as another species altogether, a fungal parasite of the grain on which it appeared. Thus the Greeks very probably also made this error.
3. See Francesco Festi & Giorgio Samorini, “Claviceps paspali and the Eleusinian
Kykeon: A Correction.” The Entheogen Review, Volume VIII, Number 3, Autumn 1999.
4. A quick calculation of quantities necessary: Total alkaloid yield of C. purpurea may be about 1%, most of it ergopeptines with only a few percent ergonovine. The dose of ergine /isoergine (the active ingredients according to the arguments to follow concerning the method of preparation) should be between 1 and 5 mg as it has been recorded that its potency is about 1/10 that of LSD. Thus, per 1000 Eleusis participants we require up to 5 gm total alkaloids,corresponding to 0.5 kg of ergot. Modern yields of ergot from cultivation on rye can yield hundreds of kilograms per hectare. Thus it seems reasonable that the Greek priests couldeasily have harvested enough ergot from the nearby barley fields. Ripe ergots can easily be collected from the grain in the field, as they fall off the grain head even with strong wind. By contrast, the ergonovine hypothesis of The Road to Eleusis would require far greater quantities of C. purpurea since ergonovine only represents a small fraction of the alkaloid content of the fungus.
5. A likely possibility is that the priests had discovered how to spread an ergot infection using a water solution of the honeydew produced. Early in the growth of ergot on grain, the fungus causes the production of droplets of a sticky syrup on the grain heads, and insects attracted to this exudation transmit the ergot mycelium therein to other developing heads of grain. A solution of a few drops of honeydew in a litre of water produces a mixture that when shaken or sprayed onto other developing grain heads readily spreads the infection.
6. The process also produces isoergine, for in basic solution all such amides of lysergic acid rapidly approach an equilibrium mixture of the two associated stereoisomers.
7. References for the technical articles mentioned are to be found in the second section of this paper.

Mixing the Kykeon

Part 2
by Daniel M. Perrine, Ph.D.
Entheo-pharmacological Considerations
In agreement with what Peter Webster has discussed in the preceeding portion of this
article, it seems to me that it is quite possible that a “potion” containing as its main active ingredient lysergamide (ergine, the active entheogen in ololiuqui) and free from any more toxic alkaloids, could be reliably produced from ergot harvested from Claviceps purpurea infected barley using materials and processes available to the ancient Greeks. That is, such a procedure seems chemically possible for reasons which will shortly be presented in detail —although, of course, this possibility cannot be truly proved without actually carrying out aseries of experiments in which ergot would be processed as hypothesized. Chemical possibility is, of course, not historical fact or even historical plausibility, but it can at least establish historical possibility.A first objection to the suggestion that the Eleusinian mysteries owed some of their powerful effects and passionate loyalty to the entheogenic action of lysergamide in the kykeonis that lysergamide is not really a very good entheogen, certainly not when compared to the psilocybin in nanacatl or the mescaline in peyote. Indeed, the few documented descriptions of ololiuqui intoxication are far less dramatic than those employing LSD, mescaline, or psilocybin. Here is the full record, as far as I have been able to ascertain:
1. In 1955, Humphrey Osmond1 took 60 to 100 seeds and experienced, according to
Schultes and Hofmann, “a state of apathy and listlessness, accompanied by increased
visual sensitivity. After about four hours, there followed a period in which he had a
relaxed feeling of well-being that lasted for a longer time.”(2)
2. Hofmann compares the effects of ololiuqui rather unfavorably with those of LSD in his book, LSD: My Problem Child 3 His description is as follows: “After the discovery of the psychic effects of LSD, I had also tested lysergic acid amide [lysergamide] in a selfexperiment and established that it likewise evoked a dreamlike condition, but only with about a tenfold to twentyfold greater dose than LSD. This effect was characterized by a sensation of mental emptiness and the unreality and meaninglessness of the outer world, by enhanced sensitivity of hearing, and by a not unpleasant physical lassitude, which ultimately led to sleep.” As for the effects of the Mexican morning-glory seeds, he continues: “The psychic effects of ololiuqui, in fact, differ from those of LSD in that the euphoric and the hallucinogenic components are less pronounced, while a sensation of mental emptiness, often anxiety and depression, predominates. [Such]...weariness and
lassitude are hardly desirable effects...in an inebriant.”
3. Solms, in a systematic comparative study of the psychopharmacology of lysergamide,
confirmed Hofmann’s impressions, concluding that it “induces indifference, a decrease in psychomotor activity, the feeling of sinking into nothingness and a desire to sleep… until finally an increased clouding of consciousness does produce sleep.”(4)
4. Hofmann also tested the effects of isoergine (which is formed in much smaller amounts with ergine in the basic hydrolysis of ergot shortly to be described) and found that 2.0 mg orally produced a syndrome not very different from ergine, characterized by sensations of “tiredness, apathy, a feeling of mental emptiness and the unreality and complete meaninglessness of the outside world.”(5)
These seem to be the effects of ergine and/or isoergine when taken in the context of a scientific, clinical effort to disclose their psychopharmacology; and we can therefore presumethat these would also be the effects of our hypothesized κυκεώv under the same conditions.
For the process we will describe would transform all the ergot alkaloids into ergine or isoergine. Even ergobasine (lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide, found in small amounts in ololiuqui and in some samples of ergot from Central Europe) would be converted to ergine.
The only other likely psychoactive ingredient in the κυκεώv would be wine.(6)
But these rather humdrum effects of ergine taken in the context of a dispassionate clinical experiment by volunteers already well-acquainted with the overwhelming visual and psychological effects of LSD and psilocybin by no means preclude the possibility, even the likelihood, that a potion containing ergine could powerfully catalyze and amplify the religious experience of the Eleusinian communicants of ancient Greece. Among the most important reasons for affirming this are the following:

Clinical versus Ritual Setting

There is no doubt that ololiuqui has been valued for centuries as a sacred entheogen in Oaxaca by curanderos of the Zapotec, Chinantec, Mazatec, and Mixtec tribes. And the principle psychoactive agent in ololiuqui (Rivea corymbosa, Ipomoea violacea) is just what we propose to have been the active agent in the kykeon: ergine (with smaller amounts of isoergine).(7) If, to the vague and directionless alteration of mental state provided by ergine in the jejune setting of the research clinic, there is added the governing mind-set of religious belief coupled to the external setting of a centuries-old ritual, participants can and do
experience a many-fold entheogenic intensification of the awe and dread felt before anecstatic theophany of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans.Indeed, other pharmaka with far less likely a priori plausibility if judged solely by their
clinical psychopharmacology have been exploited for millennia in various cultures for their entheogenic effects: I am thinking particularly of Amanita muscaria (which despite its likely identity with the archetypical Vedic entheogen, soma, produces in secular settings only a bizarre state of incoherent delirium) and the presently much-despised Nicotiana, which “is not generally considered to be a hallucinogen. Yet, like the sacred mushrooms, peyote, morningglories,Datura, ayahuasca, the psychotomimetic snuffs, . . . tobacco has long been known to play a central role in North and South American shamanism, both in the achievement of shamanistic trance states and in purification and supernatural curing. Even if it is not one of
the “true” hallucinogens . . . tobacco is often conceptually and functionally indistinguishable from them. We know that Indians from Canada to Patagonia esteemed tobacco as one of their most important medicinal and magical plants and that some employed it as a vehicle of ecstasy.”(8) Of course, many of these groups used tobacco or tobacco extracts in massive dosages in order to deliberately provoke a near-death experience. Yet, even in moderate amounts, and despite endless condemnation from Christian missionaries and Surgeons General, tobacco continues to be revered to this day as an integral part of the peyote ceremony by many adherents of the Native American Church.

Fasting

The kykeon was drunk after a nine-day fast. It was perhaps the sole beverage/food which broke that nine-day fast, and the drinking of the kykeon took place at the peak of a most solemn religious ritual.(9) Probably few or none of the readers of this article have carried out a strict fast for nine days in the integral context of a life-transforming religious observation, and still less likely have any of them followed this by consuming, at the approach to the Holy of Holies, a dreaded sacrament with potent mind-altering effects. Peter Webster has given testimony to being himself deeply affected by ololiuqui. Let me add my own testimony to the
effects of set, setting, and fasting:
About a quarter of a century ago, in the company of a dozen or so other recently-ordained Jesuits my age, I entered upon the consummatory event of the Jesuit spiritual training, the second and final 30-day Ignatian retreat. During the first part of Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises, which are the guide for this retreat, the “exercitant” is expected to unceasingly consider his utter unworthiness before God of aught but damnation, all the while living in total silence and solitude except for attendance at Mass and brief colloquies with one’s director. Following
these directives to excess, I soon fell prey to the Moloch of Christianity’s most negative doctrines. By the third day, I had ceased eating, attending services, or talking with my director, walking alone instead for miles each day lashing myself with doubts and despair.
After more than three days of eating nothing, I reached a rather grim metastable state at the nadir of resigned desperation: if I could never attain the love of/for God, I would simply go through the dead motions of devotion during the rest of the retreat. It was dawn. For the first time in four days, I ate, with total absence of any appetite: one slice of toast and a cup of sugarless black coffee. As I stared then blankly at the blank pages of my retreat journal, I was suddenly and overwhelmingly “transported.” In some indescribable way and for what seemed like only a few seconds, I was suspended from the world of space and time and experienced myself in the immediate presence of “God.” I say “God” because It was nothing at all like anything my imagination had ever before constructed. But it was true with an ineluctable certitude I have never been able to doubt. And it was probably the most pivotal moment of my life: whatever I have done since (including leaving the priesthood many years later) can be
traced in some sense back to this experience; everything I have thought since of myself or “God” has been radically different. Was it the set and setting? Of course. Was it the fasting? I doubt that it would have occurred had I not fasted those four days — but then, I would never have fasted those four days (it was a completely spontaneous lack of interest in eating, not a planned exercise) had I not been gripped by an overpowering mind set which was completely reinforced by the setting.
Perhaps the experience was even to some extent the “entheogenic” effects of black coffee and toast. In the early part of the last century, week-long fevers could leave a sick person delirious and emaciated, and Thomas De Quincey writes in 1822, by way of comment on his own opium habit, that “Some people have maintained, in my hearing, that they had been drunk upon green tea; and a medical student in London, for whose knowledge in his profession I have reason to feel great respect, assured me, the other day, that a patient, in recovering from an illness, had got drunk on a beef-steak.”(10) I purchased a few seconds of Eternity with four days of fasting and a cup of black coffee; had I paid with nine days, ergine,and Pramnian wine, might I not have bought an hour?
I am certain that the duration and perhaps even the depth of this experience (although the second aspect seems much less quantifiable than the first) would have been greatly intensified if, say, I had drunk a cup of peyote tea instead of black coffee. Indeed, when I try to imagine what would have been the likely outcome of such a switch in beverages I am terrified and find myself quite grateful that only coffee was available. As Huston Smith says, “awe is not fun,” (11) and the experience was sufficiently awesome as it was.
Two reasons convince me that an entheogen would have powerfully intensified the
duration and particularly the likelihood of such an experience (for in-depth experiences of this sort are not that common, even among the many earnest Jesuits who have made this final retreat — at least not among the Jesuits I knew and know from my generation). The first is that I am now able to extrapolate backwards in time from a number of quite beautiful,awesome — even occasionally terrifying — religious theophanies which I experienced years later under the influence of entheogens.(12) The psychological and spiritual set and setting of these later experiences could not approach the once-in-a-lifetime situation of the retreat experience described above (although it was intentionally and earnestly religious), and so I was all the more impressed that the simple ingestion of a plant or chemical could invoke in such ordinary circumstances so profound an emotional and religious response.
The second reason is of course the famous “Good Friday Experiment” of Walter Pahnke,
the “Miracle at Marsh Chapel,” where a group of seminary professors and students, under double-blind conditions, were given either psilocybin or an active placebo13 immediately before a three-hour Good Friday service. Those receiving the true entheogen experienced an intensity of religious emotion and exaltation greatly exceeding in statistical significance the experience of the controls, and they evaluated their experience just as highly when they were interviewed in a long-term follow up by Rick Doblin some 25 years later.(14) This is as close to
a scientific demonstration of the efficacy of entheogens in intensifying and facilitating religious experience as has yet been conducted. And yet, one can only guess how much even this profound entheogenic catalysis of a religious setting might have been still more amplified had it been experienced following a multi-day fast!

Sacred versus Profane Setting

No one disputes that ergine unmistakably and profoundly alters everyday consciousness
— the only dispute concerns whether this alteration has, considered in isolation, properly “entheogenic” qualities. But as a matter of fact, even those psychoactive agents which by general consensus produce an alteration of consciousness most closely resembling and most likely productive of religious ecstasy (mescaline, psilocybin, LSD) fail, in the vast majority of cases, to produce anything like a religious experience when taken in a totally profane context.
I am thinking of the hundreds of first-hand written accounts the college students I teach have given me over the years describing their use of psilocybe mushrooms or LSD. I would characterize fewer than 20% as empathogenic, and fewer than 10% as entheogenic. Doubtless the common use of large amounts of alcohol at the same time has much to do with this, but I suspect the usually banal intra- and interpersonal context, a context augmented by a nearly total absence of prior religious experience in any depth, is what succeeds in quenching so utterly the sacred flame. All of which is to say that entheogens, even the best of them, cannot create the “divine within” in and of themselves (to this extent, “entheogen” is a misnomer or
an overstatement) absent anything at all numinous in set or setting.
Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo admonishes Horace.Synergine
It may seem to the reader that the arguments I have been making here could be turned on their head: if set and setting are so important to religious experience, why is there any need to hypothesize the presence of an entheogenic drug in the kykeon at all? Why? Because herbs, drugs, and potions were widely investigated in the ancient Greco-Roman world; because the kykeon was regarded with awe and dread as having an intrinsic psycho-spiritual potency (in a culture in which the distinction between divine or demonic possession and psychopharmacological alterations of consciousness barely existed: for most people, there was only the former, even with regard to Dionysian alcohol); and, consequently, because in such a cultural context the hierophants of a so deeply a revered and successful initiatory rite as that of Eleusis must have devoted their best efforts over the millennia of its existence to endow the kykeon with the most powerful and appropriate pharmaka they could find. Reflecting again on the results of Walter Pahnke’s study, it is clear that when an appropriately intense set and setting are present, nearly every participant who receives an entheogen experiences an unforgettably transformative theophany. On the other hand, those who experience only set and setting have such intense experiences relatively rarely. The stories and testimony from the Eleusinian participants, filtered through the darkening lens of history, seem to suggest that mystical and
near-mystical experiences were so usual that we must postulate the synergetic and catalytic effects of an entheogen.
For all the numerous descriptions of entheogenically catalyzed religious experience
suggest that the triad of set, setting, and drug (which last of course becomes an “entheogen” only in virtue of a particular context of set and setting) operate as independent variables, since each is indispensable. Yet despite this independence, they act in consort to affect and effect the final outcome not merely as their arithmetic sum but (particularly in the case of entheogenic drugs) in a deeply interpenetrating synergisis. Participants at Eleusis came away convinced that they had seen and experienced (“hierophant” means one who makes the Holy itself manifest, to be seen),(15) in a numinous revelation, that they were individually destined for
happiness after death. This is extraordinary in Greco-Roman religiosity, otherwise striking for its near hopelessness regarding the fate of the individual after death: Immortalia ne speres, admonishes Horace again; and yet “the Mysteries of Eleusis, . . . both to the community and to the individual, . . . supplied confidence in the face of all-devouring death.”(16) And the
experience commanded immense loyalty: quite astonishingly, the secrets of the Eleusinian mysteries were never divulged. It seems to me that Something, something well beyond the sacrifice of a few animals and the attendance at a solemn ritual, must be invoked to account for this: what better Something than that central feature of so many primordial religions throughout the world — an entheogenic sacrament? And hence, abandoning all semblance of etymological propriety, and employing the argot of the pharmaceutical corporations, we might christen the generic drug ergine, when employed exclusively as an entheogen, as Synergine.

Chemistry

Due credit should be given to Peter Webster for his laudably tenacious and accurate
memory. When he first suggested to me that ergine could be isolated by alkaline hydrolysis of ergot alkaloidal material, I was somewhat skeptical — why, if the other peptide bonds of ergot had been hydrolyzed, would not the amide linkage of ergine itself be hydrolyzed and the product be lysergic acid itself? Other organic chemists I proposed this to felt likewise. But Peter was right: ergine, not lysergic acid, was in fact the first characteristic ergot compound to be isolated in pure form. In 1932, Sidney Smith and Geoffrey Willward Timmis of the Wellcome Chemical Works in Dartford, UK, were the first workers to report a non-trivial product from the degradation of ergot alkaloids.(17) The crystalline compound resembled the
ergotinine or ergotoxine from which it was isolated in that it was an alkaloid which displayed all the characteristic color tests for the presence of an indole ring system. However, when its effect on rabbit uterine contractions were tested it was disappointingly found to be over 400 times less potent than ergotoxine. They named the compound ergine; later, it would be shown to be the simple amide of lysergic acid.
Two years later, Jacobs and Craig at the Rockefeller Institute in New York confirmed the results of Smith and Timmis and found that by using aqueous instead of methanolic alkali they could get a better yield of a new substance, lysergic acid.
(18) Later communications between these groups in England and the U.S. allowed a determination that ergine was indeed the simple amide of lysergic acid.(19) Since the yield was greater and since lysergic acid proved to be a far more useful starting-point for further studies either of ergot itself or of any new
derivatives with its properties, little further attention was given to the procedure of Smith and Timmis; instead, all efforts were directed to improved methods of isolating the commercially important lysergic acid. (Indeed, these efforts continue to this day, and in the course of writing this article, Peter Webster put me in touch with Vladimír Kren, a highly regarded ergot researcher from the Czech Institute of Microbiology, who sent us a preprint of an article disclosing a procedure for maximizing the yield of lysergic acid from ergot.(20)) It appears that
preoccupation with the production of lysergic acid has led to some chemists to forget that simpler and milder versions of these same procedures will result in the production of ergine — and it is precisely these simpler and milder conditions which would be accessible to the hierophants of Eleusis.
How did the experimental conditions of Smith and Timmis (ST), in which ergine was
produced from ergotinine, differ from those of Jacobs and Craig (JC), in which lysergic acid was produced from ergotinine? Fundamentally, the difference was a matter of concentration and temperature. ST refluxed ergotinine for one hour in a 1.0 M solution of potassium hydroxide (KOH) in methanol, which boils at 65° C, while JC refluxed ergotinine for an hour in a 1.4 M solution of KOH in water, which of course boils at 100° C. The reason that ST used methanol is that pure crystalline ergotinine21 is insoluble in water and unreactive even in boiling aqueous KOH. JC found that the resinous material remaining after ergotinine was rapidly dissolved in methanolic KOH and then evaporated would slowly dissolve with liberation of ammonia in boiling aqueous 1.4 M KOH. Martínková, Kren, et al. have been able to maximize the production of ergine/isoergine from ergotamine by using a less concentrated solution of KOH. They produce a mixture consisting principally of ergine and isoergine (total: 10.3 g) with relatively small amounts of lysergic acid/isolysergic acids (total: 1.65 g) from 30 g of ergotamine by refluxing for two hours in a 0.60 M solution of KOH, the solvent being a 1:3 mixture of water:ethyl alcohol.(22) These results can be compared to a standard procedure for producing lysergic acid from ergotamine as given in Shulgin’s TIHKAL, where 3.5 g lysergic acid is obtained by stirring 10 g ergotamine in a 1.2 M aqueous KOH at 70° C for 3 hours.(23)
We suggest that conditions of solubility, pH, and temperature which would be equivalent in effect to ST’s process, and result in the conversion of ergot to ergine, could be readily obtained by boiling crude ergot for several hours in water to which the ashes of wood or other plant material, perhaps barley, had been added. These are, of course, conditions easily achieved by the hierophants of Eleusis. Why would these conditions produce ergine? Wood ash contains potassium carbonate (pearlash), a strong base which for millennia was the usual
material used to produce soap from animal or vegetable fats — an hydrolysis process
(saponification) almost identical to the hydrolysis of the amide bonds of ergot. Wood ash has a pH of about 12, while the 0.60 M KOH used by MK has a pH of almost 14. But the Greek priests would have employed water as a solvent, since distilled methanol or ethanol was then unknown, and the resulting higher temperatures (and quite likely longer cooking times, which would tend to concentrate both product and alkali reagent) would compensate for the less concentrated base. As for the solubility problem encountered by ST and JC, we suggest that it would not obtain when crude ergot was used instead of crystalline ergotinine. This is because
crude ergot contains from 30-35% fatty acids (24) which would both solubilize the ergot
alkaloids of their own accord and even more so by virtue of the micelles formed when these fats were saponified by the hot pearlash.(25)
Why would the hierophants consider ashes as a suitable ingredient in a sacred potion?
We suggest the possibility that some sort of symbolism involving the resurgence of life from inanimate ashes may be involved. Kerényi points to a symbolic cluster of images surrounding birth in death, birth in fire, the ashes of the cremated votaries — all linked to the hope of life after death.(26) Persephone herself was looked upon as the goddess of fire, for “through her power the evil element was transformed into a kindly one.”(27) Perhaps also the ashes symbolized the immortality which Demeter wished to bestow on the little prince Demophoön,
who was able to thrive and grow without food as long as she secretly placed him each night in the fire like a log. When Demophoön’s mother, Metaneira, observes Demeter’s strange action and protests it, Demeter takes the boy from the fire — but now he is doomed with the rest of mankind to death. “Unknowing are ye mortals and thoughtless: ye know not whether good or evil approaches.”(28) An augmenting motive to any of the preceding is simply the reverence naturally felt towards the ashes remaining after a whole-burnt offering to the gods on a sacred altar. These are not ashes to be simply disposed of as one would ordinary hearth ashes; they partake of the sacral nature of the offering, and it is natural to attempt to incorporate them in some further sacral function. The same instinct can be seen at work in the custom, observed to this day in the Roman Catholic tradition, of reserving the ashes of the palms blessed on Palm Sunday to be used on Ash Wednesday of the following liturgical season. Would a potion containing enough ashes to hydrolyze ergot alkaloids be too basic and caustic to drink? We suggest several possibilities: most simply, a solution of potassium carbonate, if allowed to stand exposed to the air for a few days, would absorb enough carbon dioxide from the air to be turned into the relatively harmless potassium bicarbonate.
Alternatively, as we have suggested earlier, a final addition of wine to the kykeon would neutralize the ashes, and this seems reasonable since in Homer the kykeon always contains wine. But in the Eleusinian myth, Demeter pointedly refuses to accept any wine to assuage her grief, since it would be “contrary to themis,” against nature. This is thought to be more than just an expression of her unwillingness to drink a beverage of joy while still in grief for
her daughter; rather, she declines because wine comes from Dionysus, and the rape of
Demeter’s daughter occurred on the Nysan Plain, where the Dionysian ground opened.(29)
Indeed, the kykeon is possibly the Eleusinian drink in part because it stood as an alternative in opposition to Dionysian wine. A third possibility, then, is that the final mixture was neutralized (more effectively in any case since it is more acidic) by the addition of vinegar, which as spoiled wine, might not offend Demeter and/or might even be symbolic of participation in her grief.
We finally come to the most technical part of this discussion, which is a mechanism
justifying the chemical transformation of ergot peptide alkaloids into ergine/isoergine and non-toxic secondary products. For this I owe much to discussions with Professor David Nichols of Purdue University, whose numerous discoveries and internationally acknowledged expertise in the realm of psychedelic chemistry, and whose much greater familiarity with the chemistry of lysergic acid, make him far more qualified to address this issue than I.
We feel that the mechanism shown in Scheme 1 accounts adequately for the known
experimental facts. We show ergotamine with a hydrogen bond forming an eight-membered
ring from the carbonyl at C-18 to the hydroxyl group at C-12’ since Ott, Hofmann, and Frey have given persuasive evidence that this corresponds to the internal structure of the natural alkaloids.(30) There are three mechanisms which could be invoked to account for the partial hydrolysis of ergotamine to ergine. The first and simplest would be an attack by hydroxide at the amide N of lysergic acid (the N bonded to C-18), which would cleave off ergine in one step. However, as Dr. Nichols points out, this would involve an SN2 attack at a quite hindered center. A more accessible point of attack would be the removal by base of the proton of the
C-12’ hydroxyl, which would induce a cascade effect essentially similar to what we have pictured in Scheme 1. However, part of the data provided by Ott et al. supporting the existence of an intramolecular hydrogen bonding at this center is the reduced acidity of this hydroxyl group at C-12’ relative to the unnatural aci isomers, where epimerization at the C-2’ center excludes the possibility of hydrogen bonding to the lysergic acid carbonyl for steric reasons. (Nonetheless, the OH in question is still considerably more acidic than an ordinary alcohol due to the cumulative electron withdrawal of a nitrogen and an oxygen on C-12’.) In
any case, a third point of attack is possible that obviates both of these difficulties, and that is what we have drawn in Scheme 1, where solvent hydroxide removes a proton from the methyl group attached to C-2’, thereby initiating a cascade of reactions (probably more or less simultaneous) involving the intramolecular hydrogen bond and leading to the enol tautomer of ergine, 1, which rapidly rearranges to ergine. The other product of this cleavage is 2, which
should rapidly form 3 by extracting a proton from the solvent to regenerate hydroxide ion. 3 should itself be quite easily hydrolyzed in mild base to pyruvic acid and L-phenylalanyl-Lproline lactam, a harmless dipeptide formed from two essential amino acids. Under the mild conditions we envisage it is unlikely that any significant quantities of lysergic acid itself would be formed, since the amide bond of ergine would be hydrolyzed only very slowly by potassium carbonate. In any case, lysergic acid itself has almost no psychotropic effects.

Scheme 1
























Footnotes to part 2
1. Osmond, H., Ololiuqui: The ancient Aztec narcotic. Remarks on the effects of
Rivea corymbosa (ololiuqui). J. Ment. Sci., 101:526-537.
2. Schultes, R. E.; Hofmann, A., The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens.
Springfield, IL, Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1973 [Henceforward BCH],
p.147.
3. Hofmann, A., LSD, My Problem Child: Reflections on Sacred Drugs, Mysticism,
and Science, trans. J. Ott, Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1983, pp. 124-126.
4. Solms, H., Relationships between chemical structure and psychoses with the use
of psychotoxic substances,” J. Clin. Exp. Psychopath. Quart. Rev. Psychiat.
Neurol., 17:429-433, 1956; quoted in BCH, p. 153.]
5. Hofmann, A., The active principles of the seeds of Rivea corymbosa and Ipomoea
violacea. Bot. Mus. Leafl., Harvard U., 20:194-212, 1963]; quoted in BCH, p.
153.

Mixing the Kykeon
6. The κυκεώv which “fair-tressed Hecamede” mixes for Nestor and his comrades in
the Iliad (xi. 624-641) contains barley-groats, grated goat cheese, and Pramnian
wine. In the Odyssey, the κυκεώv which Circe mixes to transform Odysseus’s
companions into swine (Odyssey, x. 234-235) similarly consists of “cheese,
barley-meal, and Pramnian wine” — but she has added a drug (φαρμακov) to
bewitch them. Later, Odysseus is able to rescue them by first taking the antidote
“moly” provided him by Hermes (Odyssey, x. 290, 316-320). Interestingly, the
unusual word “moly” (μώλυ) is probably related to the Sanskrit mulam, a root,
with the compound mula-karma, meaning the “magical use of roots.” As well as
making likely the presence of wine (or vinegar) in the Eleusinian sacrament, these
citations show that an interest in drugs and potions added to a κυκεώv is as old as
the earliest Greek literature.
7. Schultes, R. E., “An Overview of Hallucinogens in the Western Hemisphere.” In:
Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens, Furst, P. T., ed., Prospect
Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1972, p. 20.
8. Wilbert, J., “Tobacco and Shamanistic Ecstasy among the Warao Indians of
Venezuela.” In: Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens, Furst, P. T.,
ed., Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1972, p. 55.
9. Kerényi, C., Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter, trans. Manheim,
R., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 177.
10. De Quincey, T., Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Ticknor, Reed, &
Fields: Boston, 1853 [reprint of the 1822 edition], p. 73.
11. Quoted in: O’Reilly, D., “Drugs were his door to the sacred,” The Philadelphia
Inquirer, Sunday, June 18, 2000. Huston Smith, a widely-respected historian of
religions who himself experienced a profound mescaline-catalyzed theophany at
Harvard in the 1960s, was being interviewed about his recent book, which
provides perhaps the best and most balanced evaluation of the phenomena of
entheogen-altered or entheogen-induced religious states: Smith, Huston, Cleansing
the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants
and Chemicals, New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 2000.
12. I wish I could say this with the same aplomb with which William James discusses
his use of nitrous oxide and ether. But unfortunately, the present legal and
emotional climate is not as open-minded as it was in his day. And so I feel
compelled to add by way of legal exculpation, and while emphasizing that the
United States Constitution still grants the presumption of innocence, that
entheogenic experiences do not necessarily involve the violation of any law, even
laws which are arguably adjudged as excessive and immoral. (Cf. Husak, D.,
Drugs and Rights, [Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy, D.
MacLean, Ed.], New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.) This is because
1) in some countries some entheogens are legal which are illegal in the United
States; 2) some entheogens which are generally illegal in the United States are not
necessarily illegal in all circumstances; and that 3) a number of quite effective
entheogenic chemicals have never been declared illegal in any country — some
of these are easily synthesized and others can be ordered from most of the major
chemical supply houses.
13. Pahnke, W., “Drugs and mysticism: An analysis of the relationship between
psychedelic drugs and the mystical consciousness.” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard
University, 1963. The experiment is also described in: Pahnke, W., “Drugs and
mysticism,” The International Journal of Parapsychology, viii, (1966), pp. 295-
313; reprinted in: Psychedelics: The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic
Drugs, Aaronson, B.; Osmond, H., Eds., Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday,
pp. 145-165. The “active placebo” was nicotinic acid, which provokes a harmless
flushing of the skin, tachycardia, and a rush of pounding blood to the head —
symptoms which, although not very different from those caused by a cup of black
coffee on an empty stomach — might suggest to the suggestible that they had
taken a psychoactive drug. Using an active placebo was Pahnke’s supererogatory
effort to completely level the playing field between placebo and psychedelic.
(Such probative integrity is rarely employed today: when, for example, a new
drug with purported antidepressant effects is first tested on depressed subjects it
is thrown into competition against a look-alike sugar pill which can have no
psychic effect except through the subject’s imagination. Nonetheless, those given
placebo always show significant improvement over baseline, though not as much
improvement as those given the genuine antidepressant. Such is the power of that
most addictive of placebos, Hope.) However, in Pahnke’s experiment, so intense
and unique were the effects of high-dose (30 mg) psilocybin that within an hour it
became apparent who had received the entheogen to both the controls and to the
recipients of the active drug. See the discussion and evaluation by Rick Doblin
cited below.
14. Doblin, R., “Pahnke’s ‘Good Friday experiment’: A long-term follow-up and
methodological critique,” Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1991, 23, 1-28.
15. Kerényi, C., Eleusis, p. 90-91.
16. Kerényi, C., Eleusis, p. 16.
17. Smith, S.; Timmis, G. M., “The Alkaloids of Ergot. Part III. Ergine, a New Base
obtained by the Degradation of Ergotoxine and Ergotinine,” J. Chem. Soc., 1932,
763-766.
18. Jacobs, W. A.; Craig, L. C., “The Ergot Alkaloids: II. The Degradation of
Ergotinine with Alkali. Lysergic Acid,” J. Biol. Chem., 104 (1934), 547-551.
19. Jacobs, W. A.; Craig, L. C., “The Ergot Alkaloids: III. On Lysergic Acid,” J.
Biol. Chem., 106 (1934), 393-399.
20. Martínková, L.; Kren, V.; Cvak, L.; Ovesná, M; Prepechalová, I., “Hydrolysis of
lysergamide to lysergic acid by Rhodococcus equi, J. Biotechnol. In press.
21. Ergotinine is actually an equimolar eutectic mixture of ergocornine, ergocristinine,
and ergocryptinine isolated by Tanret from ergot in 1875 (Compt. Rend. 81,
891), but this was only discovered a decade later by Stoll and Hofmann (Helv.
Chim. Acta, 26 [1943], 1570).
22. Martínková, L.; Kren, V.; et al., ut supra. These workers intentionally maximize
the production of an ergine/isoergine mixture because they have developed a
Mixing the Kykeon
19
high-yield enzymatic procedure for converting this mixture into d-lysergic acid.
23. Shulgin, A.; Shulgin, A, TIHKAL: The Continuation, Berkeley, CA: Transform
Press, 1997, pp. 490-491.
24. Buchta, M.; Cvak, L., “Ergot Alkaloids and other metabolites of the genus
Claviceps.” In: Ergot: The Genus Claviceps, Kren, V.; Cvak, L., Eds.,
Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 1999, pp. 173-200. Cf. p. 194.
25. In modern times soap is made by treating fats with sodium hydroxide, NaOH, a
base essentially as strong as KOH. But this process was developed by Leblanc
and Chevreul only around 1790. Soap has been known since at least 300 BC, but
had always been made by the much slower process of employing the potassium
carbonate in wood ash, commonly called pearlash. After the Leblanc’s work it
became evident that soap could also be made from “lixivated pearlash” or potash,
which was made by adding calcined limestone (lime, calcium hydroxide, CaOH)
to the pearlash and precipitating out calcium carbonate. Lime was well-known to
the Romans, who used it extensively in mortar for construction purposes, and
oddly enough, the process of lixiviation was also known — it is mentioned by
Pliny, who also discusses soap. But lixiviated pearlash appears not to have been
applied to the production of soap until modern times. Indeed, the ancients did not
use soap for cleansing; the usual process was to rub olive oil onto the skin after a
bath, and then to scrape off the excess oil and dirt. Soap was used to some extent
medicinally as a laxative, but primarily as an ointment for giving a bright hue to
the hair — “rutilandis capillis.” Pliny, Historia naturalis, xxviii. 51. There are
numerous studies which have confirmed that micelles can greatly augment the
rate of chemical reactions, particularly those which involve two phases as would
be the case with our relatively insoluble material.
26. Kerényi, C., Eleusis, p. 92-93.
27. Kerényi, C., Eleusis, p. 101.
28. Kerényi, C., Eleusis, pp. 40-41.
29. Kerényi, C., Eleusis, p. 40.
30. Ott, H.; Hofmann, A.; Frey, A. J., “Acid-catalyzed isomerization in the peptide
part of ergot alkaloids,” J. Am. Chem. Soc., 88, (1966), 1251-1256.

Part 3

by Carl A. P. Ruck
Barley-groats, water, and fresh mint. Alphi (or more fully, alphiton), hydor, and glechon (also called blechon). These are the known ingredients for the Eleusinian potion, the mixed drink or kykeon; these were the elements publicly announced and not part of the secret.
Symbolically, the two plants represent various dichotomous antitheses that the aqueous kykeon mediates. First, the botanical, with the cultivated agricultural foodstuff as opposed to the wild gathered herb, the former the staff of life, the latter supposedly soporific. And the socio-political, with the sanctioned nuptial rite replacing illicit abduction and concubinage.
And the religious, with the incorporation of the older chthonic deities into the Hellenized family of celestial Olympians. And both plants, in the pharmacopoeia of the midwife, the latter an abortifacient, the former an aid in parturition, inducing uterine contractions.
Cultivars, it was thought, are the product of human scientific intervention, without which they will revert to their poisonous inedible avatars. Sometimes, this is actually true. Thus the olive requires repeated pruning to prevent it from sending up a thicket of sprouts from its rootlets and returning to its fruitless natural state. The vine, too, needs pruning since it fruits only on new growth; and in ancient lore, its avatar was seen in the ivy, its sinister mimic, whose leaves and diminutive berries supposedly deranged the mind in their natural state,
unlike the sophisticated intoxicant manufactured from the crushed grapes of the cultivar. An example from the New World is Indian corn, which if left unattended, drops its cobs of kernels to sprout all in the same spot, too close to grow without crowding each other out and becoming increasingly stunted like the original grasses from which it is hybridized. More to the point is the barley of the Eleusinian potion whose avatar was seen in the grassy weed that invades the tended plowland, the grain called tares, cockle, or darnel, Lolium, with the botanical epithet temulentum, 'drunken Lolium,' whose drunken toxicity derives from the
ergot Claviceps purpurea, 'purple club-head,' descriptive of the enlarged deformed kernels formed by the dried sclerotia of the fungus, which spreads its poisonous contamination to the barley. In Greek, the weedy grass is named solely for these deformed kernels as aira or 'hammer.' The ergot itself was called 'rust' or erysibe, a metaphor that occurs also in English.
As such, the botanic rust had its analogue in the destructive oxidization of iron that corrupts the metal utensils, returning them to the original ore. Demeter, the goddess of grains, could have the epithet Erysibe, for Greek deities often bear apotropaic names of their more sinister personae, just as Persephone is called the 'killer of Deadly Perse,' as the goddess who has displaced her more fearsome aspect as Perse.
It is only when we distance ourselves from the Eleusinian Mystery that we can expect to find mention of the ergot potion. Melampous, called 'black-foot' and the founder of a family of shamans, was a medicine-man, expert in understanding the speech of animals, birds, and insects, a gift he had received when two serpents licked his ears as he lay asleep. While attempting to win a herd of estrual cows as the bride price for the maiden Pero, named as the 'leathern food-pouch' like the pera in which was hidden some secret of the Eleusinian Mystery, Melampous was held prisoner by the 'Jailer' Phylakos, but he was able to gain his release by curing his captor's son of impotence. He learned from an old vulture, who had witnessed the event years ago, that Phylakos had inadvertently frightened his son when he approached him while gelding rams, bloody knife in hand. Phylakos had plunged the knife into an oak tree and gone to comfort the terrified child. It had lain there forgotten, rusting.
Melampous scraped off he rust and administered it as a potion.
The symbolism of the rust is its mediation between primitivism and culture. From it can be extracted via alkaline hydrolysis, as we have seen, the visionary agent for the Eleusinian initiation. Pearlash or potash, called tephra and spodos in Greek, was known as an eye salve at least as early as Aristotle; and a century earlier, we know that the alkaline fluid called konia ('ash-water') was used for washing. There was also a konia derived from holy water and the ashes from sacrificial burnings that was used as a medicine. Hence, the procedure was within the expertise of the ancient pharmacologist, an art whose divine patroness was the third of the Eleusinian deities, Hekate. The Melampous myth also indicates a transition from human
offerings to animal substitutes, for Iphiklos, the son of the Jailer, was probably not mistaken that the knife was originally intended for him and not the ram. Fiery immolation of human socalled volunteers and funeral pyres are frequent in the traditions of Eleusis. And in particular, Demeter, before teaching the Mystery, had laid the Queen's son Demophoön, lulled to sleep with poppy juice, nightly in the hearth like a log to burn off his mortality, intending to make him celestial, like the daughter Persephone, whose contamination with flesh she had not yet
come to accept. This event of the myth was commemorated each year at the Eleusinian rite by the 'boy from the hearth,' a child from a noble Athenian family whose initiation was funded at public expense. The secret agency of the potash would, therefore, not be without significance, as the mediation between body and soul, the reconciliation of chthonic and celestial realms.
As to when the potion was drunk, there are those who would imagine it prepared well in advance and perhaps sipped sometime while on route to the sanctuary on the day of the initiation; this view is intended to allow time for the barley-groats to ferment slightly, producing some kind of weak beer. If, however, it were prepared in advance and in the possession of the initiates, it could hardly be a secret; nor were the Greeks, who were never interested in beer, although they knew of it, likely to interpret a mild alcoholic intoxication as an entheogenic experience, especially since wine, in other circumstances, or more exactly, strong ancient Greek wine fortified with herbal inebriants, offered precisely that in the rites of
the god Dionysos. The only supposed evidence for the mixing of the kykeon in advance is a papyrus fragment of a comedy of Eupolis where a foreigner is seen with barley-groats (krimnon) on his upper lip while still in Athens; the circumstances, however, are probably the affair of the Profanation of the Mysteries, which involved exactly this, the drinking of the kykeon illegally at home as a recreational inebriant, since certain well-placed Athenians with connections to the Eleusinian priesthood had apparently learned the secret of the potion. And indeed, Eupolis's foreigner is described as being overtaken by a hallucinatory fever (epialos, like a nightmare) while on the way to the marketplace because of the kykeon he had drunk.
The ten-day fast imposed upon the candidates for the initiation has also been called into evidence to help explain how some mild inebriant could have induced the visionary experience that by all testimony occurred at the Eleusinian sanctuary. This fasting, however, could hardly have been total, but just the avoidance of certain foods; and the offering of the mystic sacrificial pigs, washed in the sea, would certainly imply a day of feasting during this
period of the fast. The vessel for mixing the kykeon was emblematic of the initiation ritual; both metal and ceramic exemplars still exist, the latter imitating in clay the style of the former. Ninnion's tablet depicts the procession that left Athens in the morning of the final day to walk the Sacred Road to the village of Eleusis. The women carry the vessel on their heads, with boughs of myrtle inserted in its handles: the symbolism of the myrtle indicates that the
potion is a mediation, both as the rite of marriage, which will supplant the abduction of Persephone and unite the chthonic realm with the celestial and also as the redemption of Semele, since this is the plant with which Dionysos paid for his dead mother's resurrection.
Appropriately, therefore, the initiates are led by Iakchos, who is Dionysos personified as the call that leads them into the netherworld. The potion, however, was not drunk from the kykeon vessel (nor is its style suitable for this purpose), but from cup-sized jugs, which the men in the procession carry in their hands. Each of the events along the way suggests that the Mystery procession was a mimesis of a journey to the otherworld, whose gateway awaited them in the Cave of Plouto beside the great Hall of Initiation at Eleusis. As they left the plain of Attica, the bridge over the River Kephisos and the ritual of the gephyrismos (or 'bridging') was practice for the narrow and dangerous passageway whose final locale would be the deep subterranean channel at the back of the Cave. Similarly, at the shallow saline lake called the Rheitoi or 'Streams' that marked the boundary of the Rarian plain in which lay the Eleusinian acropolis, the narrow bridge required that their carts be left behind and everything for the ceremony now be carried by hand. Here they were met by the hereditary priesthood of the
Krokonidai, whose name suggests they are descended from the Athenian King Ion, Apollo's son via the krokos flower (supposedly the 'crocus') and after whom this month of Boëdromion ('Aid,' our September) was named for the alliance he made with Eleusis. The Krokonidai tied a 'string' or kroke to the right hand and left foot of each initiate, for such bows are emblematic of the joining between the realms. Their journey would be reversible, replacing earlier rites of human immolation. Hence, they had rested in Apollo's grove of laurel trees or daphne at the crest of Mount Aigeleos, before descending to the Rheitoi; and Artemis's temple lay still ahead of them at the entrance to the Eleusinian enclosure, beside the Well, the 'Well of Flowers,' the 'Virgin's Well,' where Demeter had rested when she first arrived at Eleusis, beyond whose watery surface at the base of the narrow shaft now resided her abducted daughter. (The grove of Apollo's entheogen, the temple of Artemis: because these were the two deities most implicated in the older rites of human sacrificial offerings.) There the initiates danced until nightfall, then passed with torches into the forbidden sanctuary, each accompanied by a sponsor, the mystagogue, up the incline, past the 'Laughless Rock,' which
none would dare sit upon for fear of becoming stuck, like Theseus when he visited
Persephone, and on into the Hall or Telesterion of 'Completion,' such being the metaphor in Greek for what we call by the Latin of initiation or beginning.
Inside, but certainly not the exaggerated thirty thousand of them as has been claimed, for the Hall could accommodate perhaps only a thirtieth of that, they ranged themselves along the peripheral steps, sitting probably, not standing all packed together, and watched as the priestesses danced in the darkness with lanterns and incense burners on their heads. The Mystery Baskets or Cista Mystica were opened, whatever they contained hidden until now from profane view. Then the kykeon was mixed. Barley. Mint. Water. One of the Eleusinian priests called the Hydranos was specifically responsible for the water, for this would have to be prepared in advance, with its hydrolyzed visionary agent from the ergots that, we may surmise, had been specifically encouraged to grow by contaminating some portion of the crop with the 'honey dew' of Claviceps purpurea, the sweet exudation of its ascospores. "I have opened the basket; I have drunk the potion," was the final password. The unused portion of this special water figured in the rite, probably now just as the initiates prepared for their spiritual descent into the netherworld to encounter the Goddess. Two round urns on unstable bases where emptied, with the chant, no doubt repeated again and again by the whole
congregation, Hye kye, "Rain conceive." After their descent, she would surface back up with them all, amidst a brilliant light, a fire that supposedly (although it may be just a metaphor) could be seen from miles away, as the Hierophant opened the door on the antique temple within the great Hall, at the moment of her giving birth to the Mystery child Brimos, who is otherwise known in the Eleusinian myth as Triptolemos, the prince to whom Demeter entrusted the Mystery and the sacrament of cultivating barley. Brimo, as Persephone now was called, had given birth to Brimos, a son named after her in the older matrilineal fashion: the 'Terrible Queen with her Terrible son.' This Queen is ultimately the reunion of the three phases of the goddess, as maiden, mother and crone, represented as Hekate, three women in
one, and the patroness of witchcraft and herbalism; and the son similarly triform as the 'Triple Warrior' Triptolemos. With the conclusion of the Initiation, the winter rain would begin and the seed of Persephone would be hidden in the plowland to fruit again six months hence.
The mint in the potion, Mentha pulegium or pennyroyal, in addition to its symbolism as the wild antithesis to the cultivated barley, may have functioned merely to scent the drink, for without infusion in boiling water it would not be likely to release enough of its toxins -- and it is specifically denoted as fresh mint; hence the potential abortifacient was surpassed by the superior magic of the ergot's birthing drug. It is possible, however, that the pennyroyal functioned in some way either to calm nausea (which is one of its uses in herbal pharmacology) or to potentiate or catalyze in some way the psychoactive toxins of the hydrolyzed ergot. This would require further experimentation to determine. Pennyroyal, commonly called fleabane and fleawort, also would have been noted for its apotropaic effect
on flies; hence its botanic name of pulegium, from pulex, 'flea.' In concentration, the terpenoid ketone pulegone from pennyroyal is lethal for humans.
This greater Initiation was called the 'Vision,' the epopteia, something that even a blind man could see, as is testified by the votive of Eukrates, found in the excavation of the sanctuary, who without eyes saw, like everyone else, the Resurrection of Persephone. It was the culmination of the rite that had begun six months earlier in February, in the month of 'Flowering' called Anthesterion. That was the Lesser Mystery, so-called, the myesis or 'Closing of the Eyes' and being lulled to rest. It was the time to plant the other crop that would fruit at the end of summer. If one observed the ground carefully at that time, the ergots from the winter crop, which readily detach from the ears of barley and which for centuries would be thought to be nothing more than sun-baked kernels amongst the healthy grains, display their other mode of propagation, as the mycelia of the sclerotia, like any other fungus, send up their fruiting bodies, the mushroom caps with their spore-bearing gills. It is as if these special kernels of barley had become the seed of the wild and seedless mushroom. This Mystery was the rite of death that was prelude to the resurrection. In myth, it was the Abduction of Persephone as she plucked a special flower that was called the narkissos, a word from the Minoan language that was assimilated into Greek and which is the root for our word 'narcotic.' Similarly, the place where she found the narkissos was called Nysa in the myth, a word that persists into modern Greek as nystazo, to 'get drowsy.'
It is unlikely that every initiate could attend the public part of this rite since the dangerous winter seas would not be navigable until at least a month later, although on occasion the rite was performed out of season to accommodate personages of importance. It is probable that versions of the ceremony were enacted in locale Eleusinian sanctuaries. Nor is it likely that the narkissos aspect of the fearsome rite was enacted by anyone more than just the titular Sacred Queen of the city of Athens, who experienced a hierogamos or 'Sacred Wedding' with the god Dionysos as some kind of maenadic ritual with her female attendants in the temple in the Swamps, also considered as a part of her house called the 'bull stall.' This was the transmutation of a ritual that went back to Minoan religion and had once required the
offering of human victims. In Athens, some aspect of the rite was enacted at the so-called 'Hunting Preserve,' the mystery sanctuary of Agrai, on the banks of the River Ilissos, where as late as the mid-eighteenth century there still stood a temple of Artemis. In myth, it was remembered as the place where the nymph Oreithyia (or 'mountain ecstatic female') was abducted from her sisterhood of maidens called the 'drug-ladies' or Pharmakidai to establish Athens' own special family relationship with the world beneath the earth. These maidens were also known as the Hyakinthidai or 'hyacinth ladies,' in commemoration of the Hyakinthos whom Apollo 'unwillingly' (for such is always the ruse in human immolation) escorted to
Paradise. Both the narkissos and the hyakinthos are flowers from the pre-Greek language, as is also the name of the river. In this essay, I summarize for the purpose of clarity and directness ethobotanical and metaphoric items that are documented in other writings (most recently, RUCK & STAPLES & HEINRICH 2000).
The narkissos flower figures prominently in Minoan art, on a sacrificial knife and wall paintings and a golden ring, probably the emblem of a shamanic priestess, depicting women as 'bee ladies' experiencing a vision, and even a ceramic plate showing a Persephone snakegoddess with her flower. We can identify it as Pancratium maritimum, the sea daffodil, of the amaryllis family. Its ethnopharmacological traditions (as well as its botanical family, which includes the toxic daffodil, whose poisons from the bulb can be absorbed through the skin, and the autumn crocus (Colchicum sps.), the latter associated with Medea and Prometheus) suggest psychotoxicity. Some fifteen species of amaryllis are toxic. Pancratium trianthum,
because of its entheogenic properties is reputedly often found growing around shrines and sacred areas (EMBODEN 1979: 79, fig 44). It bears lily-like flowers of pink and white stripes on a naked scape. The bushmen of Dobe, Botswana, know this bulbous perennial as kwashi, a powerful sacred hallucinogen, capable of producing vivid and colorful visions. The bulb is not eaten, but rather it is slashed open and pressed onto self-inflicted wounds on the foreheads of participants. (One might compare the ritual flagellation of Spartan youths with squills.) The intoxicating principle is transported directly into the circulatory system, creating an
immediate reaction. A related species is Pancratium speciosum, used by the Caribs of the West Indies under the name of ognon or gli as a powerful emetic. Some species are quite narcotic and are purported to have caused death by paralysis of the central nervous system; still others are classified as cardiac poisons. As always, ethnopharmacological expertise is essential for the ritual use of toxins.
The botanical name of Pancratium means the 'all-powerful,' like Christ as the Pankrator in Byzantine art, for its numinosity was assimilated in Christian mystery rites as the plant called chreston, an ancient corruption of Christ's name as the 'good' instead of the 'anointed' in Greek. It still goes by the name of the Virgin Panaghia in modern Greek. But somewhere along the way it also assumed the sanctity of the hoama or Soma which the Iranian Magoi used in their shamanic initiations, which is to say that it was assimilated to Amanita muscaria,
the fly-agaric mushroom. This fungal sacrament persisted in Gnostic Christian sects, often labeled as heretical, most notably amongst the Manichaeans, whose rites, which thrived in the orient, were repeatedly reintroduced into western Europe by the Crusades. The role of flyagaric in Eleusinian lore can no longer be denied now that the plant elevated between the two goddesses, and apparently extracted from the Mystery wallet or pera, on the bas-relief from Pharsalia, Thessaly, in northern Greece, has been definitively identified as a large mushroom.
Fly-agaric in Greek mythopoeia is involved with the Gorgon Medusa and the hero
Perseus, as well as the mooing of estrual cows and the purple-red heifer maiden Io, who is herself a female version of the same name as the Athenian king Ion, both with names that are cognate with 'violet,' a holy plant in Greek ethnobotany and involved with the linguistic root for 'drug,' as in the word for drug-man, iatros. This entheogen of the primordial times was hidden away from profane view, hidden until it was revealed on the night of the Great Initiation, within the rockrose, kisthos, after which the Cista Mystica or mystery hamper of the Eleusinian rite is named, a wild rose with single petals. Hence the prominence of rose motifs in the decoration of the sanctuary. Some claimed that it was the phallus of Dionysos that lay hidden within; others that it was a kteis; with either, it was emblematic of fly-agaric, a
hermaphroditic phallus that penetrates its own vulva as it grows, like the Baubo creature who first served the potion to Demeter. The rose, itself, resembles the opium poppy flower, for that entheogen is well attested in Minoan religion; and after its assimilation to the Hellenized rite, it, too, enclosed the secret. The opium capsules, moreover, resemble little pomegranate fruits, another Eleusinian motif; one common weed in fields of grain is called the pomegranate poppy because of the likeness of its capsules. The pomegranate itself as it fruits on its tree
resembles apples, like the golden apples of the Hesperides, which one ancient vase painting identifies explicitly as mushrooms, for as the pomegranate hangs on its bough, the long calyx gives the red fruit a stipe like fly-agaric.
The fly-agaric is so named because of its attractiveness to flies, who seek out its toxins and were thought to be killed by it, although actually they revive after the experience. It would have been noted that the honey dew of the ergotized barley is similarly attractive to flies; it was long thought that it was just the sap of the grain exuded when the insects bore into the kernels. Fleabane, of course, represents the antithesis, repelling flies.
As for what the ordinary initiate could expect to experience at the myesis, we have only the traditions of the Purification. The rite is difficult to separate from the other aspects of the Anthesteria, which was a three-day wine festival (open to all and not restricted to the candidates for initiation) to which the ghosts of departed family members were invited.
Orestes was said to have visited Athens during the festival, pursued by the netherworld sisterhood of Furies and the ghost of his mother Clytaemnestra, whom he had murdered, under orders from Apollo. He was exonerated and cured of his madness. Similarly, Herakles was purified of the murder of his wife and children. Anyone guilty of murder was offered the same ritual purification in preparation for the greater initiation; but certainly not many candidates could have been murderers.
Perhaps we get closer to the meaning with Melampous, the same shaman who discovered
the rust potion. Another of his spectacular cures was the daughters of Proitos, the Proitidai. They had gone mad, becoming consubstantial with the fly-agaric (for such is the common experience of those who partake of the sacramental food): they grew bald with scabby patches on their skin, like the white fragments of the shattered universal veil adhering to the flyagaric's cap, and went mooing like cows in heat. Such estrual mooing was thought to be caused by the goading of the gad-fly or oistros (which gives us our word estrus) and which was also called the myops, 'squint-eye,' as in myopia, metaphorically appropriate for the myesis. He purified them at a temple of Artemis in Arcadia on the River Lousios. One of them
died, but the other two he and his brother married, as replacements for Pero, the Mystery wallet, whom both of them had claimed as wife in the affair of the rust potion.The purification of Herakles, Orestes, and the Proitidai is always depicted as involving the sacrifice of a pig, for the animal offering was the substitute for human immolation; while the candidate sat, head shrouded, enthroned, the thronosis, on the 'fleeceling of a ram,' which is another metaphor for fly-agaric. The ordinary initiate, however, probably began this indoctrination for the Greater Initiation simply by becoming at peace with the revenant spirits and by feasting on the slaughtered pigs -- the pig offered in sacrifice as a token substitute for the death and myesis experienced by Persephone.

Footnote to Part 3

1. As would be expected, two crops were planted. The times of planting do not
correspond exactly to the two Mysteries, which appear to be religious preliminaries for the actual plantings. Hesiod's Works and Days directs that the winter crop of Demeter's grain (presumably barley) should be planted when the voice of the migratory crane is first heard, i.e., mid November (448), whether or not the rains have begun. The field should have been plowed in the spring and left fallow. If you wait for the winter solstice to plant, it is too late for the spring harvest. The winter crop should be planted when the cuckoo first calls, i.e., March (486), if it has rained within three days as much as the height of an ox's hoof, which
will assure a crop as good as the winter one. This crop is winnowed when Orion first rises at dawn, i.e., July (587).

REFERENCES

EMBODEN WILLIAM, 1979, revised and enlarged edition, Narcotic Plants, Collier
Books, division of MacMillan Publishing, New York.
RUCK CARL & BLAISE DANIEL STAPLES & CLARK HEINRICH, 2000, The
Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist, Carolina Academic Press,
Durham, NC.