What Happens in Eleusis Stays in Eleusis

I’ve been fascinated by people who travel to faraway places to have a profound experience they can’t quite explain. They sit with a shaman. Drink ayahuasca in the Amazon.

They take part in a mushroom ceremony in Mexico. Sometimes they see things from their past. Sometimes they feel as though they’ve stepped outside themselves. Some say they lose their fear of dying. Others come back convinced they understand something about life they didn’t understand before. (I would totally do it, if only I had the courage!)

Then you ask them what happened, and they can’t really tell you. They try, but eventually it becomes some version of:

"You had to be there".

There’s a word for that: ineffability. It’s an experience so personal and profound that language simply isn’t adequate to describe it.

It’s exactly what I needed for my character, Mireille. You see, Mireille had a problem, which means I had a problem. Something had happened to her beautiful, kind son, Sundara, when he was just seven years old. He transformed into someone almost the opposite, and Mireille needed to know why.  Sundara wasn’t about to tell her. How could she find out? The only way… a profound experience that took her there.

Hello, Eleusis (ih-LOO-sis).

For real… for nearly 2,000 years, people traveled to this ancient Greek city to participate in the Eleusinian Mysteries. They prepared themselves, fasted, entered a massive initiation hall and drank something called kykeon, then underwent an experience that apparently changed the way they looked at life - and even death. What happened next wasn’t talked about. Secrecy? Ineffability? It didn’t matter.

My fictional problem collided with something very real, and I loved it!

Ancient Eleusis didn’t just become a possibility. It became a believable probability - an experience powerful enough to open Mireille’s mind and allow her to see something she couldn't possibly have witnessed herself. She sees Sundara at seven years old, a surviving Nephilim, and finally the moment that changed the trajectory of her little boy’s life.

And she can never unknow it.

Today the city is called Elefsina, twelve miles west of Athens. People don’t go there to undergo the Eleusinian Mysteries in the ancient sense. They travel there out of wonder. They visit the archaeological remains, including the Telesterion where the initiations occurred. They wonder about those ancient questions of life, death and what might lie beyond.

In fact, when Elefsina became a European Capital of Culture in 2023, it was called

“Mysteries of Transition.” 

Why? Because Elefsina hasn't completely let go of the idea of transformation.

What happens in Eleusis stays in Eleusis.

Curious what Mireille saw in Eleusis? Discover her journey in Roots of Fear, Book Two of the Privileged Secrets Trilogy.