Claims

Psychoactive plants and fungi were deliberately used in ritual contexts in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East.

Greco-Roman pharmacology included wine-based preparations deliberately compounded with psychoactive botanicals.

The kykeon recipe given in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter consists of barley meal, water, and pennyroyal/mint, and names no psychoactive ingredient.

Ergot (Claviceps purpurea) remains were identified inside a ceremonial vessel and in human dental calculus at Mas Castellar de Pontós, an Iberian site with a sanctuary linked to the two Eleusinian goddesses (4th–2nd century BCE).

The transformative experiences reported by Eleusinian initiates required a pharmacological agent — fasting, procession, secrecy, ritual drama, and collective emotion being insufficient to explain them.

The kykeon administered at the Eleusinian Mysteries contained deliberately prepared ergot.

Wood-ash lye processing, technically available in antiquity, can convert the toxic ergopeptides of Claviceps purpurea into the psychoactive lysergamides LSA and iso-LSA.

In the factorial experiments reported in the 2026 paper, complete hydrolysis of the toxic ergopeptides was achieved only with 5% w/v ergot in initial pH 12.5 lye refluxed for at least 120 minutes.

Ergometrine and ergometrinine remained detectable in the kykeon preparation reported in the 2026 paper (5% w/v ergot, pH 12.5 lye, 120 min) in which the predominant peptide ergot alkaloids were no longer detected.

About one gram of ergot per initiate, processed under the optimal lye conditions of the study published in 2026, would supply the literature minimum effective dose of LSA (about 0.5 mg).

The host plants of Claviceps paspali became naturalized in Europe only in the 19th century.

An LSA/iso-LSA-rich ergot preparation, at doses achievable from about a gram of ergot, would reliably produce the profound and largely positive visionary experience attributed to Eleusinian initiation.

The Gospel of John deliberately engages Dionysian imagery in its presentation of Jesus and wine.

Some early Christian communities consumed psychoactive substances in their Eucharistic meals.

The original Eucharist — the Last Supper and the rite of the earliest documented Christian communities — was a psychedelic potion.

The earliest Greek-speaking Christians inherited a psychoactive sacramental practice from the Greek mystery traditions in historical continuity — the "pagan continuity hypothesis with a psychedelic twist."

The early Christian Eucharist developed out of pagan mystery-cult ritual rather than out of Second-Temple Jewish meal practice.