In the ancient world, men and women joined cults known as Mysteries to unite with the deities of the otherworld and achieve eternal life. The most important of the Mysteries existed for two millennia at the village of Eleusis. Its deities were Demeter and Persephone, interchangeable in their roles as mother and daughter. The initiations and other rituals of this goddess-based cult were a profound secret: divulging information was punishable by death. For centuries, scholars have probed the secrets of the Eleusinian Mysteries and
kykeon, its sacramental Eucharist — a sacred drink containing psychoactive chemicals similar to those in LSD. Their discoveries have been buried in the arcane language of alchemy, the occult sciences, and secret societies. Here, in prose accessible to all readers, Carl Ruck unravels the Mysteries, revealing the awesome powers of the goddesses, as well as the pagan underpinnings of Western culture.
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Carl Anton Paul Ruck is a Professor of Classics at Boston University where he specializes in the study of the irrational and religious sources of the stories told as myths. In his forthcoming book: THE HIDDEN WORLD: SURVIVAL OF PAGAN SHAMANIC THEMESS IN EUROPEAN FAIRYTALES, (forthcoming 2005, Carolina Academic Press) he discusses the persistence of pagan psychoactive religious rites encoded as fairytales and secret Christian heresies. Dr. Ruck has author over a dozen academic books, which space does not permit listing.
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