In
the Greek town Eleusis cultist rituals took place from the 4th century BC
to roughly the 4th century AD, known as the Eleusinian Mysteries. In the course
of these rituals, the initiated would consume a wheat based drink laced with
mushroom spores (from which in the 20th century LSD was synthesized). At Eleusis
Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Proclus and other Neoplatonists, Cicero, Caesar,
Tertullian and many more underwent initiation. During the reign of Caesar
the Eleusinian Mysteries gained a position of central significance to the
state. A crucial element of the Mysteries was to experience a traversing the
'internal self' through the death of the personality, followed (ideally) by
a resurrection.
