Psychedelic futures and altered states in the religions of the ancient Mediterranean

This article in the Harvard Theological Review begins: "The origins of the ancient Greek Eleusinian Mysteries are lost to time. We know that from the classical period onward, on a specified day in the third month of the Attic calendar (roughly September or October), initiates would walk the fourteen miles from Athens to the town of Eleusis along the “Sacred Road” to celebrate the Greater Mysteries: a commemoration of Persephone’s return from Hades’ underworld, a reunion with her grieving mother Demeter, and thereby a celebration of life’s cyclical dance with death. The initiates would approach the Greater Mysteries having already celebrated the Lesser Mysteries in February a year and a half earlier. These Lesser Mysteries were a commemoration of Persephone’s abduction by Hades and held at another site just outside of Athens. Those who had undertaken this prior “initiation” or μύησις were called “initiates” or μύσται (singular μύστης). They would have spent the time between the first and second phases of the Mysteries immersed in myths and practices associated with both. Only then would the μύσται approach the Greater Mysteries, called the “vision” or ἐποπτεία, which would render them “visionaries” or ἐπόπται (singular ἐπόπτης). But what did these initiates see, such that they earned this title?"

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