The ‘kykeon’ was a beverage of the ancient Greek rites involved in the initiation into the cult of Demeter and Persephone, known as ‘The Eleusinian Mysteries’. These rites were held annually for over 2,000 years at Eleusis, outside of Athens, at the temple of Dionysus in the Elysian Fields, from around 1500 B.C.E until the imposition of Roman Christianity by the Gothic King Alarich, who invaded Greece in 396 A.D. and destroyed the sanctuary at Eleusis. The celebrations lasted six days, beginning with a procession and involving fasting prior to the consumption of kykeon. The initiates, sensitized by their fast and prepared by preceding ceremonies, were propelled by the effects of a powerful psychoactive potion into revelatory mind-states with profound spiritual and intellectual ramifications.

The ingredients of kykeon are given in the Homeric hymn to Demeter as water, mint and barley. It is known that around the area in which the Mysteries took place the inedible grass Lolium temulentum, sometimes called ‘cockle’ or ‘darnel’, grew and was believed by the Ancient Greeks to be a primitive form of barley. Like the grain around which Lolium temulentum grows, it is prone to ergot infestation, which is the fungus from which Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD, is derived, and is itself psychoactive.