Gnostic Media - Jan Irvin

In the original 1978 edition of The Road to Eleusis by R. Gordon Wasson, Dr. Albert Hoffman (the inventor of LSD) and Prof. Carl Ruck of Boston University, a proposal was made that the sacred (and secret) drink called kykeon of the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries was derived from Ergot. In this book Dr. Hoffman proposed that the Greeks could have used simple water extraction from Ergot to make an LSD-like substance that would account for the strong effects of the kykeon. However, over the decades since the book went to print, many people have tested Dr. Hoffman’s theories and were unable to make the drink psychoactive to the degree first proposed. But recent discoveries have been made by today’s guest that may correct and corroborate Hofmann’s original proposal.

In 1992 Terence McKenna published a book called Food of the Gods which made the claim that psychedelics, and especially Psilocybe mushrooms, were the catalyst for human evolution. But more than 15 years has passed since McKenna first published this book. How well as his proposal stood the test of time? Peter Webster will provide an updated and corrected proposal that goes far beyond McKenna’s original ideas.

Peter Webster started researching psychedelics in Mexico in 1968, became an underground chemist producing LSD in small quantities for a network of friends, but retired from such as activities as the 1960s ideals melted away in the 1970s. He took a vacation from psychedelic research to run a yacht-charter business in the Mediterranean and Red Sea during the late 70s and 80s, finally settled down in Southern France in the late 80s to take up matters psychedelic once again. Peter began writing drug policy articles for the International Journal of Drug Policy and other publications, and working on a general theory of psychedelic experience. He created The Psychedelic Library http://www.psychedelic-library.org/ in the early days of the internet, first as a branch of http://www.druglibrary.org/. Parts of his General Theory project then appeared at the website and elsewhere, one part as a suggested solution to the problem of Eleusis and its psychedelic potion, published first in the journal ELEUSIS (recently published in the 30th Anniversary edition of The Road to Eleusis), and a second part as a theory of how psychedelics influenced the emergence of modern man. Both of these subjects were then presented in lectures at the 2006 Basel Switzerland Hofmann Celebration. Recently Peter started a complete re-write of the General Theory with a view to publication in hard copy.