Bjorn Walker

[Paul F. Austin @PaulAustin3w]

For 50 years, the psychedelic theory of the Eleusinian Mysteries had a fatal flaw.

A new research paper may have just solved it.

The Eleusinian Mysteries were the most important spiritual rituals in the Western world for nearly 2,000 years.

Every autumn, thousands gathered outside Athens, drank a sacred brew called kykeon, and experienced something so profound that revealing its contents was punishable by death.

The initiates included Plato, Sophocles, Cicero, Plutarch, and Marcus Aurelius.

In 1978, Albert Hofmann (the discoverer of LSD), R. Gordon Wasson, and Carl Ruck proposed that kykeon contained ergot, a fungus that produces compounds structurally related to LSD.

The hypothesis was elegant, but there was one major problem:

Ergot is toxic. Historically, it caused convulsions, gangrene, and mass poisonings. No one could explain how ancient practitioners could have used it safely.

Until now.

Researchers recently demonstrated that grinding ergot into lye (wood ash dissolved in water) and heating it converts the toxic compounds into LSA and iso-LSA, naturally occurring psychoactive molecules in the same chemical family as LSD, while eliminating the dangerous components. The process requires nothing more than materials available in the ancient Mediterranean.

In other words, the preparation method may have been entirely feasible thousands of years ago.

The paper also proposes something fascinating: the mint in kykeon may not have been used JUST as flavoring. It may have created a synergistic effect, similar to terpene interactions in cannabis or the MAOI synergy in ayahuasca.

But the biggest insight here isn’t chemical. It’s actually psychological.

The priestesses of Eleusis understood what we now call "set" and "setting".

Before these mystery rites, initiates fasted for days, preparing mentally to enter a carefully designed ceremonial environment. The experience was then integrated into philosophy and daily life.

Which means, this experience wasn’t about the substance alone. It was about context.

We often talk about psychedelic therapy as if it’s a modern invention. But humans have been using structured altered states for transformation for thousands of years.

We’re not inventing this work.

We’re remembering it.

This is also exactly why training matters.

If you’re going to facilitate or guide others through altered states, you’re stepping into a lineage that is far older than modern psychology. It requires preparation, responsibility, and skill.

Our next Practitioner Certification cohort begins Thursday, February 19, and conversations like this are part of what we explore together: how ancient wisdom, modern neuroscience, and practical protocols intersect.

If you feel called to this work, there’s still time to join us.

What's your take on the psychedelic theory of the Eleusinian Mysteries? Is it for real? Or just a modern way of trying to rationalize psychedelic use?

[Bjorn Walker @Bjorn_Walker]

@bobbykennedyx What bunkers? @bobbykennedyx

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

A primary theme of right-wing politics throughout the 1990s and into 2000s (not GOP politics, but right-wing politics) was vehement opposition to armed federal agents on US soil acting against US citizens (things like WACO and the Randy Weaver shootings illustrated that).

Then a GOP administration exploited 9/11 to create DHS, and now armed federal agents under DC's control on US streets, operating against Americans, is a staple of right-wing politics.

[Children’s Health Defense @ChildrensHD]

🚨 BREAKING: RFK Jr. Suspends Presidential Campaign, Will Join Forces With Trump to ‘Save Millions of Children’

Children’s Health Defense founder Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today suspended his independent campaign for U.S. president but will remain on the ballot in most states.

He said he will join forces with former President Donald Trump to work together on “existential issues” where the two are aligned.

“I believe I have a moral obligation to use this opportunity to save millions of children.” @RobertKennedyJr

READ MORE ⬇️
https://t.co/NtNu6Bup81

[Natalie Winters @nataliegwinters]

"I got infected about two weeks ago. It was my third Covid-19 infection, and I had been vaccinated and boosted a total of six times."

🤡🤡🤡

[Mo Zarrinsadaf @MoZarrinsadaf]

Marriage should be a long-term emotional, financial, creative, and sexual partnership, with each partner helping the other person become the best version of themselves.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

What this Israeli is actually arguing on mainstream Israeli television is that not only does he support anal rape on detainees as an appropriate form or revenge and torture, but that the only thing he laments is that the Israeli state isn't using anal rape more systematically.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr @RobertKennedyJr]

Plato famously tells us of prisoners chained in a cave, unable to move their bodies, looking at a blank wall. Behind them are puppeteers holding up puppets and a fire. The prisoners can’t see the puppeteers, or the puppets, or the fire. What the prisoners see are conjured shadows on the wall. And the prisoners mistake those shadows for life, for reality, for truth.

This old story speaks to us now.

It describes the way the media projects a distorted shadow of reality onto our televisions and computer screens. It describes the way politicians from the two parties distort fellow Americans into black-and-white abstractions and hate-objects.

America, we need to escape this captivity. We need to leave the cave. We can no longer mistake shadows for the truth.

Outside the cave there are sobering problems, yes, but there are also rivers and trees and sunlight. And fellow human beings. And a beautiful nation. #Kennedy24

[Bjorn Walker @Bjorn_Walker]

@johnlovell275 @johnlovell275 The numbers referenced in the video don't align with the final results on your poll on July 29.

[ALX 🇺🇸 @alx]

BREAKING: Donald Trump calls for Robert F. Kennedy Jr to receive Secret Service

[Epoch Times Print Edition @EpochTimesPrint]

Recent study 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝘀𝘆𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗼𝗺𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗻 𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹𝘀 diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

How? Through personalized lifestyle and environmental changes.

https://t.co/I3CLjydxPu

[Lauren Lee @laurenlee]

The Real Debate, a parallel stream produced by Kennedy after being excluded from the debate stage by CNN, just shook the entire country.

With over SIX MILLION live viewers, the candidate achieved more than double CNN’s debate viewership.

This is historic. Nothing like this has ever happened before.

America is starting to wake up.

[Jimmy Corsetti @BrightInsight6]

The WEF has infiltrated the World’s oldest, largest and most mysterious ancient structure 🤯

📍Gobekli Tepe WILL NOT be fully excavated‼️

📍More than ~100 T-Pillars that contain answers to our lost past will remain underground indefinitely!

📍WHY ON EARTH is the WEF in charge of Gobekli Tepe???

[Orange Book 🍊📖 @orangebook]

A wealthy life:

- you are in control of your own schedule

- you can feel your own growth because you are keeping up with long-term investments in yourself: reading, writing, exercising, challenging yourself

- you feel at peace because you live around people you trust, who appreciate you, who are happy for your success

- you wake up excited every day because you do what you do best, and feel like you are contributing meaningfully to the next generations

- you don't feel anxious because life is uncertain, you feel confident that your clear mind and mental resources can tackle any problem

- you have plenty of meaningful, insightful, interesting conversations because you have a circle of ambitious friends who also seek to learn, grow, build a better life for themselves and for their family

[Tucker Carlson @TuckerCarlson]

Always trust your gut. If you feel like they're lying to you, they are.

[Cernovich @Cernovich]

On Suicide. A Twitter bro who was also good friends with mutuals killed himself. He left a child behind and also his girlfriend. His death was financial related. He killed himself over feeling like a failure over money.

A month ago he opened up. He was facing bankruptcy and financial ruin. I sent him vibes. Many others did. He still took his own life. Why?

I saw many friends go through the financial crisis of 08-09 and expected at least one to kill himself but none did. I talked some off a ledge. I’ll do this for others now.

- BANKRUPTCY IS NOT A BIG DEAL.

I had to help so many men understand this. It’s true. Bankruptcy isn’t what you imagine it to be.

It’s embarrassing. You feel like a loser, but you move on.

Two of my friends are multi-millionaires post-bankruptcy.

Society stigmatizes what is a pretty simple legal process.

MEN TIE THEIR SELF WORTH TO SUCCESS and MONEY.

Partially this is due to being a provider. Men who can’t pay the bills feel like scum. This is a weight men carry. Women carry a different weight which men will never understand. Women won’t ever understand how worthless a man who is broke feels.

If you’re a man struggling now…

Your children do not care if you are broke. I grew up poor. My dad was a kind person. It sucked not having money but it would have been worse to not have my dad.

As the economy falters, male suicide is going to SPIKE.

You will regret it if you harm yourself.

I have died before. Whatever problems you think you have fade away as you long for those you love. You don’t care about any of the stupid bullshit that you think matters.

Bankruptcy doesn’t matter. Love and your family do, and taking your life will only create new cycles of trauma in them, as people blame themselves and ask. “Why didn’t I do more?” “How did I not see the signs?”

You don’t want to lay that at anyone’s feet, especially over money.

You will get through it. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. TRUST ME.

The only way out is through.

[Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump]

https://t.co/MlIKklPSJT

[Michael Tracey @mtracey]

Sure, happy to clarify: you're calling for US intervention to topple a foreign government, also known as "regime change," which is probably the most reliably insane thing the US government ever does. And you frame it as some sort of great moral crusade to impose Gender Equity