The Maidens

by Alex Michaelides

“The exact nature of the rites at Eleusis have remained secret for thousands of years,” he said. “The rites, the mysteries, they were ‘unspeakable’—because they were an attempt to initiate us into something beyond words. People who experienced them were never the same again. There were stories of visions and ghostly visitations and journeys to the afterlife. As the rites were open to everyone—men, women, slaves, or children—you didn’t even have to be Greek. The only requirement was that you understood Greek, so you could understand what was being said to you. In preparation, you had a drink called kykeon—which was made of barley. And on this particular barley there was a black fungus called ergot, which had hallucinogenic properties; thousands of years later, LSD would be made from it. Whether the Greeks knew it or not, they were all tripping slightly. Which might account for some of the visions.”