Kybele's Forbidden Fruit
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Forbidden Fruit
The forbidden fruit of the mythic tree is Amanita muscaria (Ruck). Different toxins and alkaloids prevail depending on the concoction. We can't be sure if the divine entheogen was abandoned or replaced by surrogates, but it induced a visionary reality and cohesive worship. It was euphemistically and symbolically known as the "bull" for its power.
We don't know if the divine elixir was a single substance or a mixture. Psilocybin and Cubensis mushrooms were also found on the plains. Drug-induced initiations were practiced throughout the known ancient world with mushrooms, opium, ephedra, cannabis, ergot, acacia, henbane, Syrian rue (mountain rue; Peganum harmala), datura, and more.
In Sacred Mushrooms of the Goddess, Ruck (p. 73-84) describes the Lesser Mysteries of Artemis as based on the wild mushroom. They pushed human experiential boundaries to their limits and beyond the agonies of ecstasy. Modern reports of ingestion in wine describe energetic states, a strong desire to dance followed by sedative effects around 3 hours, and intense dreamlike trips for hours.
"The effects of Amanita muscaria are diverse and vary according to dosage, method of preparation and the cultural and psychological expectations of the consumer. A small dose (or the initial effect of a larger one) causes bodily stimulation and a desire for movement and physical exercise.
Responses to the fly-agaric varied widely. Sometimes an intoxicated individual had to be restrained from over-exerting himself, whilst on other occasions it would induce a tranquil state of bliss in which beautiful visions appeared before the eyes. The effects can be divided into three basic stages, which sometimes overlap. About fifteen minutes after taking the mushrooms the stimulating effects begin and there is much loud singing and laughing. This stage is followed by auditory and visual hallucinations in conjunction with the sensation that things increase in size."
The goddess's dark places are crowned with woodlands and high groves, speckled with seasonal mushrooms. The Phrygians had a consuming passion for their god plants. They loved undiluted fermented grain beer. Fermentation was another fungal mystery of transformation of mead and bread.
Rejuvenation comes from connecting with pristine consciousness, the eternal aspects or forces of nature--the infinite, transcendent Source. We cannot gloss over her mycological roots. Some of what we know today can be reflected back to the ancient cult. The cave is a crucible of transcendence and shamanic transport. Kybele and Attis are essentially womb and phallus.
Kybele generates and what she generates is the god within. In this mythic dimension within, her gleaming shape-shifting vision, god-perception, and cosmic consciousness were revealed in symbolic pyrotechnics. Ecstasy meant to 'stand outside oneself,' to enter another dimension, a world apart. It demonstrates the divine resides within.
Those who know her have done so through an imparting of secret knowledge. The secrets of Kybele were originally those of the divine pharmacopeia. Her secrets remain virginal and her mysteries are inviolable. Our experiences belong only to ourselves. Each has their own. Kybele had one that was foundational first, and became symbolic of magical potency.
Knowledge of the sacramental substance has been obscured. It is little known outside of ethnomycology. Yet, archaeology confirms it. There are numerous icons of Attis shaped like mushrooms. His legend also suggests the same. Pliny attributed a sexual character to Amanita muscaria. The splotchy red mushrooms mirrored 'the spilled blood of Attis.'
Mushrooms are a perennial metaphor for the penis. They still have erotic connotations. The cult consumed fly agaric (spiritual flight). Attis was the Paleo-European key to the rites of the Great Mother. Yet it has been largely under-reported, except as a communal regression into oceanic states, a mystical return to the mother.
Elements of ritual gender-blending, transvestitism or literal and symbolic androgyny are nearly universal among shamans. Transgender shamans are metaphorically described as changing into a woman or androgynous being. But, the terms "eunuch" and "transgender" are not synonymous. Yet, this ritual androgyny is considered a sign of spirituality.
We experience that larger world and self--the rhythmic pulse of all life in the womb of the cosmic mother. This mystical fusion is somewhat akin to an expanded experience of the world. It includes oceanic feelings, the experience of being expanded, quasi-larger or more spacious than one's own body.
Oceanic feeling is a sense of fuller vision extending to apparently limitless horizons. Consciousness is encountered as more like a field than a localized point, a field that transcends the body and yet somehow interacts with it.
