What do you think?
Rate this book
LSI, Ancient LSD, Secret of the Eleusis Kykeon and Vedic SOMA
I am a lab chemist with decades of experience studying psychedelics, having been sober for over 6 years. This book describes the history of the Greek Eleusis Kykeon and India Vedic SOMA ritual psychedelic beverage and how I successfully simulated these ancient brews over 5 years ago to arrive at psychedelic effects just as powerful as LSD but beyond LSD like a combination of ALD-52 and mescaline.
The effects of LSI are described and how she was discovered. HBWR or Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds was a strong possible candidate for SOMA, described as a vine. Claviceps Paspali ergot infects and grows on the cereal grain barley of ancient Greece. HBWR seeds and Claviceps paspali ergot are ancient rich sources of LSA. The Priest served the psychedelic kykeon beverage to 300 initiates every September like clockwork for 2000 years.
I discovered around 7 years ago how to convert the LSA from HBWR seeds to LSI or Lysergic Acid Isovaleraldamide in 3 super easy steps in less than 1.5 hour using only a few over the counter common materials and a cereal grain in order to simulate the Eleusis kykeon and India Vedic SOMA. The trip reports are recounted in the book. Decades ago, I took LSD hundreds of times, Ayahuasca over 140 times, and Bridgesii cactus tea over 120 times and yet found this LSI to be my absolute favorite "ultimate" psychedelic at the time.
In the book I also describe several of my other psychedelic discoveries such as the psychedelic brain receptorome discovery, how to make THH or tetrahydroharmine and the important role she plays in traditional Ayahuasca, aloe vera enhanced penetration Ayahuasca capsules, and zero nausea Bridgesii cactus tea.
The effects of LSI are described and how she was discovered. HBWR or Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds was a strong possible candidate for SOMA, described as a vine. Claviceps Paspali ergot infects and grows on the cereal grain barley of ancient Greece. HBWR seeds and Claviceps paspali ergot are ancient rich sources of LSA. The Priest served the psychedelic kykeon beverage to 300 initiates every September like clockwork for 2000 years.
I discovered around 7 years ago how to convert the LSA from HBWR seeds to LSI or Lysergic Acid Isovaleraldamide in 3 super easy steps in less than 1.5 hour using only a few over the counter common materials and a cereal grain in order to simulate the Eleusis kykeon and India Vedic SOMA. The trip reports are recounted in the book. Decades ago, I took LSD hundreds of times, Ayahuasca over 140 times, and Bridgesii cactus tea over 120 times and yet found this LSI to be my absolute favorite "ultimate" psychedelic at the time.
In the book I also describe several of my other psychedelic discoveries such as the psychedelic brain receptorome discovery, how to make THH or tetrahydroharmine and the important role she plays in traditional Ayahuasca, aloe vera enhanced penetration Ayahuasca capsules, and zero nausea Bridgesii cactus tea.
243 pages, Paperback
Published December 22, 2025
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 14, 2026
The premise is amazing, but there is scientific debate over whether the process in the book is viable. I have actually tried to create it 3 times now, and so far, it seems mostly to just extract LSA from the seeds. The effects were definitely interesting, but were not any different from other times I have tried LSA from seeds. I will continue trying, as there may be variables I am screwing up. Still, I really enjoyed the book and had fun reading it. The recipe, and instructions are repeated quite a lot, word for word, so the book has a lot of copy and paste. The author said in an interview that it was because he wanted to make sure people understood the process. Just know that the book is kind of padded out with repetition, but if you have an interest in the subject matter it's worth the price.
June 11, 2026
There are books that arrive with ticker-tape parades. Publisher's Weekly profiles. A breathless NPR segment. A tote bag.
This is not one of those books.
Matthew Ray Stahl's *LSI, Ancient LSD, Secret of the Eleusis Kykeon and Vedic SOMA* materialized on Amazon with the quiet confidence of a man who knows what he has. No galley copies. No blurb from a celebrity neuroscientist. No podcast tour (or does the McKenna Academy count?). The cover depicts a woman serving a sacred brew in ancient Greece, which is, it turns out, not a metaphor.
For context: the Eleusinian priest served a sacred psychedelic beverage to approximately 300 initiates every September, like clockwork, for two thousand years. Stahl quietly pulled off a miracle: he reverse-engineered the recipe. The result is a psychedelic as powerful as LSD—reportedly resembling a combination of ALD-52 and mescaline. He cracked a two-thousand-year-old secret. With ingredients you can order online.
No big deal.
The brew, meanwhile, is described as producing no side effects, no nausea, no vasoconstriction, no cramping—just pure psychedelic bliss. And yet: no New York Times review. No think-piece asking whether Stahl has "gone too far." No Netflix documentary in development (yet). Its highest-profile accolade, as of late 2025, was hitting number four on Amazon's "LSD" book search results. He announced this cheerfully on a drug harm-reduction forum.
The gap between the modesty of the book's arrival and the scale of its ambition is comically disproportionate. Stahl writes like a man who solved a two-thousand-year puzzle in his kitchen and is now explaining it to you in the most straightforward way he can manage, because what else would you do?
This is not one of those books.
Matthew Ray Stahl's *LSI, Ancient LSD, Secret of the Eleusis Kykeon and Vedic SOMA* materialized on Amazon with the quiet confidence of a man who knows what he has. No galley copies. No blurb from a celebrity neuroscientist. No podcast tour (or does the McKenna Academy count?). The cover depicts a woman serving a sacred brew in ancient Greece, which is, it turns out, not a metaphor.
For context: the Eleusinian priest served a sacred psychedelic beverage to approximately 300 initiates every September, like clockwork, for two thousand years. Stahl quietly pulled off a miracle: he reverse-engineered the recipe. The result is a psychedelic as powerful as LSD—reportedly resembling a combination of ALD-52 and mescaline. He cracked a two-thousand-year-old secret. With ingredients you can order online.
No big deal.
The brew, meanwhile, is described as producing no side effects, no nausea, no vasoconstriction, no cramping—just pure psychedelic bliss. And yet: no New York Times review. No think-piece asking whether Stahl has "gone too far." No Netflix documentary in development (yet). Its highest-profile accolade, as of late 2025, was hitting number four on Amazon's "LSD" book search results. He announced this cheerfully on a drug harm-reduction forum.
The gap between the modesty of the book's arrival and the scale of its ambition is comically disproportionate. Stahl writes like a man who solved a two-thousand-year puzzle in his kitchen and is now explaining it to you in the most straightforward way he can manage, because what else would you do?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews