Stahl Shrine #
Recipe #
For millennia, what the ancients were brewing for their kykeon and soma rites has stumped alchemists, chemists, and scholars alike. Stahl’s case is laid out with loving care. Go buy the book—this is the cliff notes version.
Note: I suspect that to really appreciate kykeon, it would help to have some prior familiarity with THH (tetrahydroharmine). Stahl’s book offers coverage of THH.
What follows is not a historical reconstruction (the ancients had neither coffee grinders nor 95% ethanol). It’s Stahl’s proposed adaptation for the modern era. Treat it as a strong hypothesis awaiting archaeological proof. Kykeon is similar in effect to mescaline.
- Grind the seeds to a fine powder in the coffee grinder.
- In a shot glass, combine the seed powder with 30mg tartaric acid and the ethanol. Stir for ten minutes, as if coaxing the spirit free.
- Refrigerate for 20 minutes, a brief incubation in the cold and dark to let the seed fragments settle out of the solution.
- Pour only the clear liquid into the baking dish. Discard any cloudy liquid and spent seed matter. Let gentle heat and a fan carry the alcohol away.
- Scrape the remaining residue into a fresh shot glass with 10mg tartaric acid, barley grass powder, and water. Stir for ten minutes.
- With God’s grace, you have created LSI, LSV, and LSCr. Drink with reverence.
Materials #
Sacraments
- 25 HBWR (Argyreia nervosa, Hawaiian baby woodrose) seeds
- 40mg tartaric acid (30mg + 10mg)
- 30ml of 95% ethanol (or purer)
- 3g young barley grass powder (must be fresh; each serving should be in an individually sealed packet)
- 60ml holy water
Tools of the Rite
- Coffee grinder
- Shot glass
- Refrigerator
- Small glass baking dish
- Fan (and gentle heat source)
- Magnetic stir machine (optional)
Aldehydes TLC #
Tender young barley grass aldehydes (isovaleraldehyde, valeraldehyde, and crotonaldehyde) form relatively weak chemical bonds with ergine. They are also vulnerable to big bad aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), which can prematurely degrade these little beauties. Some foods inhibit ALDH (helping preserve the aldehydes) while others invigorate it (accelerating their breakdown). So, food choices in the days around the rite are key.
Eat:
Consider:
Avoid:
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Seeds
- Herbs and spices
We can guess why Stahl’s book has no chapter on ALDH-preserving foods: His default diet did not invigorate ALDH.7
Sample Rite #
Theory is nothing without a day to hang it on. Here’s how one rite might play out.
Prepare a one-pot dish:
- Combine 2½ cups water, ¼ cup peanuts, ½ cup dried beans (black, pinto, red, or a mix), ½ cup millet, 1 tsp black pepper, and ¼ tsp turmeric in the pressure cooker.
- Pressure cook for 50 minutes.
- Stir in ¼ to ½ pound frozen spinach and 1 cup pineapple chunks.
Split into two servings: one for T-1 dinner, one for T-0 lunch.
Round out dinner with rolled oats, cinnamon, and gooseberries in soy milk. Nibble peanut date clusters for dessert.
Mix the recipe above with 3-4 drops of peppermint essential oil. Chase it with a fruit salad of pineapple, papaya, and pomegranate.
Finish the portion from the one-pot dish that you set aside.
VEGAN SOS WFPB
Prepare a Thai peanut sauce flavored entrée:
- Blend ½ cup water, 1 tbsp vinegar, 2 tsp soy sauce, 25g fresh ginger, 160g peanut butter, and ¼ tsp turmeric until smooth.
- Pressure cook ⅔ cup millet for 10 minutes.
- Mix in ⅓ cup shelled edamame and ¼ to ½ pound frozen spinach, then ladle the peanut sauce over the top.
Split into two servings: one for T-1 dinner, one for T-0 lunch.
Round out dinner with rolled oats, cinnamon, and gooseberries in soy milk. Nibble peanut date clusters for dessert.
Mix the recipe above with 3-4 drops of peppermint essential oil. Chase it with a fruit salad of pineapple, papaya, and pomegranate.
Finish the portion from the Thai peanut sauce dish that you set aside.
VEGAN WFPB
Lest We Forget #
We lost this knowledge for a couple thousand years. Let’s not make it a habit. Write it down and pass it on. Keep the kykeon flowing.
Notes #
Srinivasan, S., Dubey, K. K., & Singhal, R. S. (2019). Influence of food commodities on hangover based on alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase activities. Current research in food science, 1, 8–16. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Elder, T. D., Segal, S., Maxwell, E. S., & Topper, Y. J. (1960). Some steroid hormone-like effects of menthol. Science, 132(3421), 225–226. ↩︎
Myristicin, present in both mace and nutmeg, is psychoactive in its own right. So treat these as an unknown wildcard rather than a straightforward ALDH-preserving spice. ↩︎ ↩︎
Wang, F., Li, Y., Zhang, Y. J., Zhou, Y., Li, S., & Li, H. B. (2016). Natural products for the prevention and treatment of hangover and alcohol use disorder. Molecules, 21(1), 64. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Ushida, Y., & Talalay, P. (2013). Sulforaphane accelerates acetaldehyde metabolism by inducing aldehyde dehydrogenases: relevance to ethanol intolerance. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 48(5), 526–534. ↩︎
Srinivasan et al. (2019) measured a 62.40% decrease in ALDH activity for fenugreek seeds, which would suggest “Eat.” But Wang et al. (2016) reported that fenugreek seed polyphenolic extract upregulated ALDH expression in alcohol-treated liver cells. In view of the disagreement, keep under “Avoid.” ↩︎
Stahl (pp. 216-217): “For as long as I can remember I have followed a ketogenic diet consisting of proteins like eggs, chicken, flank steak, brisket, turkey, pork, hamburger meat, fish. Fats consisting of olive oil, avocados, the fats in meats, salad dressing such as blue cheese, sour cream. Low carbs consist of non starchy vegetables like broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, squash, zucchini and cabbage.” But he must be eating minuscule amounts of broccoli and cabbage (ALDH-inducers). We should not follow Stahl here: Keto diets carry serious risks and few benefits. ↩︎
