Review: 'Road To Eleusis' by Wasson, Hofmann and Ruck

Originally published in 1978 'The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries,' by R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann and Carl A. P. Ruck, was only reprinted as a paperback in English for the first time in 2008, for its thirtieth anniversary edition. The work of an amateur mycologist, a chemist and a classicist, the text attempts to solve the mystery of the Eleusinian rites of ancient Greece by hypothesizing the use of an ergot-derived hallucinogen.

The first three chapters were initially read as papers, by the three respective authors, before the Second International Conference on Hallucinogenic Mushrooms, in Washington, on Friday, 28th October 1977. Essentially, there are two important objectives that are running in tandem with one another in this text. Firstly the hypothesis itself that draws on the relevant expertise of its authors; the multidisciplinary approach is highly effective. Secondly, it is a treatise on the entheogenic discourse; indeed, the term was originally coined/announced by the authors at the conference...