… a merging of the individual consciousness in a group consciousness: the worshipper θιασεύεται ψυχὰν [“joins his soul to the group”], he is at one not only with the Master of Life but with his fellow-worshippers; and he is at one also with the life of earth.

And yet, as I learned from thirteen years of Catholic school, there’s only one thing the Vatican finds more suspicious than drugs. And that’s women. For both of them to have been integral to a pagan ritual that turned humans into God is pretty much the most heretical thing you could

the newest Florentine got to work writing Oratio de hominis dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of Man): the

“Once you’ve plunged into the ocean, does it really matter whether or not you believe in water?”

The prophecy comes at a critical moment in the history of Western civilization when very little stood between Eleusis and the torches and pitchforks of the Christian mobs.

If we all died before we died, maybe we’d all discover the big secret that was known to the initiates of the Mysteries. We are all God.

In its heyday the temple attracted the best and brightest Athens had to offer, including Plato. To keep his experience classified, the godfather of Western philosophy used vague, cryptic language to describe the “blessed sight and vision” he witnessed “in a state of perfection”—

After my Ayahuasca experiences I’m no longer so sure that logic and reason can effortlessly reduce us to our bodies in this way. On the contrary, I’ve seen much to convince me that although consciousness manifests in the body during life it is neither made by the body, nor confined to the body, nor inevitably extinct on the death of the body.

“to be the student and beneficiary of all traditions, and the slave to none.”