Eleusis: The Pilgrimage to Death

Encountering the Greek rites in “The Poet as Shaman”

Sometimes, it seems like everything is about drugs.

In her first lecture in the “Poet as Shaman” series from the 1970’s on the Naropa Archives, Anne Waldman briefly touches on the Rites of Eleusis, and the book Road to Eleusis by ethnomycologist Gordon Wasson.

Wasson‘s research in the realm of medicinal mushrooms brought him to the study of psychedelics in the rituals at Eleusis. We know almost nothing…