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The Eleusinian Mysteries (Greek: Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια)
were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. Of all the mysteries celebrated in ancient times, these were held to be the ones of greatest importance. These myths and
mysteries, begun in the Mycenean period (c. 1700 BC) and lasting two thousand years, were a major festival during the Hellenic era,
later spreading to Rome.[1]
The rites, ceremonies, and beliefs were kept secret, as initiation was believed to unite the worshipper with the gods and
included promises of divine power and rewards in the afterlife.[2] There are many paintings and pieces of pottery that depict various aspects of the Mysteries. Since the Mysteries involved
visions and conjuring of an afterlife, some scholars believe that the power and longevity of the Eleusinian Mysteries came
from psychedelic agents.
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Mythology of Demeter and Persephone
The Mysteries seem to be related to a myth concerning Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and fertility as recounted in
one of the Homeric Hymns (c. 650 B.C.). According to the hymn, Demeter's daughter Persephone (also referred to as Kore, "girl") was gathering
flowers with friends, when she was seized by her uncle, Hades, the god of death and the underworld, with the consent of her father Zeus. He took her to his underworld kingdom. Distraught,
Demeter searched high and low for her daughter. Because of her distress, and in an effort to coerce Zeus to allow the return
of her daughter, she caused a terrible drought in which the people suffered and starved. This would have deprived the gods of sacrifice and worship. As a result of this
Zeus relents and allows Persephone to return to her mother.[3]
According to the myth, during her search, Demeter traveled long distances and had many minor adventures along the way.
In one instance, she teaches the secrets of agriculture to Triptolemus.[4] Finally, by consulting Zeus, Demeter reunites with her daughter and the earth returns to its former verdure and prosperity: the first spring. (For more
information on this story, see Demeter.) Before allowing Persephone to return to her mother, Hades offered her a great feast as she was hungry and Persephone ate
6 seeds of a pomegranate. As a result, Persephone could not avoid returning to the underworld for part of the year. According to the prevailing version
of the myth, Persephone had to remain with Hades for six months (one month per seed) while staying above ground with her mother
for a similar period. This left a large period of time when Demeter was unhappy due to Persephone's absence therefore she
did not cultivate the Earth and it withered, however, when Persephone returned to the surface she became joyful and cared
for the Earth again. However, six months of winter was unlikely and it is easier to believe that Persephone stayed with Hades
for four months and Demeter eight months. The end result was eight months of growth and abundance to be followed by four months
of no productivity.[5] These periods correspond well with the Mediterranean climate of Ancient Greece. The four months during which Persephone
is with Hades correspond to the dry Greek summer, a period during which plants are threatened with drought.[6] After the first rains in the fall, when the seeds are planted, Persephone returns from the Underworld and the cycle
of growth begins anew.
The Eleusinian Mysteries probably included a celebration of Persephone's return, for it was also the return of plants and
of life to the earth. Persephone had gone into the underworld (underground, like seeds in the winter), then returned to the land of the living: her rebirth is symbolic of the rebirth
of all plant life during Spring and, by extension, all life on earth.
.The Mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries are believed to have begun about 1700 BC, during the Mycenean Age. One line of thought by modern scholars has been that these Mysteries were intended "to elevate man above the human sphere
into the divine and to assure his redemption by making him a god and so conferring immortality upon him."[7]
The lesser mysteries were probably held every year; the greater mysteries only every five years.[8] This cycle continued for about two millennia. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, King Celeus is said to have been one of the first people to learn the secret rites and mysteries of her cult. He was also one of her
original priests, along with Diocles, Eumolpos, Polyxeinus and Triptolemus, Celeus' son, who had supposedly learned agriculture from Demeter.[9]
Under Pisistratus of Athens, the Eleusinian Mysteries became pan-Hellenic and pilgrims flocked from Greece and beyond to participate. Around
300 BC, the state took over control of the Mysteries; they were specifically controlled by two families, the Eumolpidae and the Kerykes. This led to a vast increase in the number of initiates. The only requirements for membership were a lack of "blood guilt",
meaning having never committed murder, and not being a "barbarian" (unable to speak Greek). Men, women and even slaves were
allowed initiation.[10]
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Participants
There were four categories of people who participated in the Eleusinian Mysteries:
- Priests, priestesses and hierophants.
- Initiates, undergoing the ceremony for the first time.
- Others who had already participated at least once. They were eligible for the fourth category.
- Those who had attained epopteia, who had learned the secrets of the greatest mysteries of Demeter.
Secrets
The outline below is only a capsule summary; much of the concrete information about the Eleusinian Mysteries was never
written down. For example, only initiates knew what the kiste, a sacred chest, and the kalathos, a lidded basket,
contained. The contents, like so much about the Mysteries, are unknown. However, one researcher writes that this Cista ("kiste")
contained a golden mystical serpent, egg, a phallus and possibly also seeds sacred to Demeter.[11]
Greater and Lesser Mysteries
There were two Eleusinian Mysteries, the Greater and the Lesser. According to Thomas Taylor, "the dramatic shows of the Lesser Mysteries occultly signified the miseries of the soul while in subjection to the body,
so those of the Greater obscurely intimated, by mystic and splendid visions, the felicity of the soul both here and hereafter,
when purified from the defilements of a material nature and constantly elevated to the realities of intellectual [spiritual]
vision." And that according to Plato, "the ultimate design of the Mysteries … was to lead us back to the principles
from which we descended, … a perfect enjoyment of intellectual [spiritual] good."[12]
The Lesser Mysteries were held in Anthesterion (March) but the exact time was not always fixed and changed occasionally,
unlike the Greater Mysteries. The priests purified the candidates for initiation (myesis). They first sacrificed a
pig to Demeter then purified themselves.
The Greater Mysteries took place in Boedromion (the first month of the Attic calendar, falling in late Summer) and lasted ten days
Greater Mysteries
| “ |
For
among the many excellent and indeed divine institutions which your Athens has brought forth and contributed to human life,
none, in my opinion, is better than those mysteries. For by their means we have been brought out of our barbarous and savage
mode of life and educated and refined to a state of civilization; and as the rites are called "initiations," so in very truth
we have learned from them the beginnings of life, and have gained the power not only to live happily, but also to die with
a better hope. |
” |
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—Cicero,
Laws II, xiv, 36 |
The first act (14th Boedromion) of the Greater Mysteries was the bringing of the sacred objects from
Eleusis to the Eleusinion, a temple at the base of the Acropolis.
On 15th Boedromion, called Agyrmos, the hierophants (priests) declared prorrhesis, the start of the rites, and carried out the "Hither the victims" sacrifice (hiereia deuro). The
"Seawards initiates" (halade mystai) began in Athens on 16th Boedromion with the celebrants washing themselves in the sea
at Phaleron.
On 17th Boedromion, the participants began the Epidauria, a festival for Asklepios named after his main sanctuary at Epidauros. This "festival within a festival" celebrated the hero's arrival at Athens with his daughter Hygieia, and consisted of a procession leading to the Eleusinion, during which the mystai apparently stayed at
home, a great sacrifice, and an all-night feast (pannychis).[13]
The procession to Eleusis began at Kerameikos (the Athenian cemetery) on the 19th Boedromion from where the people walked to Eleusis, along what was
called the "Sacred Way" (Ιερά Οδός), swinging branches called bacchoi. At a certain spot along the way, they shouted obscenities in commemoration of Iambe (or Baubo), an old woman who, by cracking dirty jokes, had made Demeter smile as she mourned the loss of her daughter.
The procession also shouted "Iakch' o Iakche!," referring to Iacchus, possibly an epithet for Dionysus, or a separate deity, son of Persephone or Demeter.
Upon reaching Eleusis, there was a day of fasting in commemoration of Demeter's fasting while searching
for Persephone. The fast was broken while drinking a special drink of barley and pennyroyal, called kykeon. Then on 20th and 21st Boedromion, the initiates entered a great hall called Telesterion; in the center stood the Anaktoron ("palace"), which only the hierophantes could enter, where sacred objects were stored.
Here, in the Telesterion, the initiates were shown the sacred relics of Demeter. This was the most secretive part of the Mysteries
and those who had been initiated were forbidden to ever speak of the events that took place in the Telesterion. The penalty
was death. Athenagoras of Athens claims that it was for this crime (among others) that Diagoras had received the death penalty.
As to the climax of the Mysteries, there are two modern theories. Some hold that the priests were the ones to reveal the
visions of the holy night, consisting of a fire that represented the possibility of life after death, and various sacred objects.
Others hold this explanation to be insufficient to account for the power and longevity of the Mysteries, and that the experiences
must have been internal and mediated by a powerful psychoactive ingredient contained in the kykeon drink. (See "entheogenic theories" below.)
Following this section of the Mysteries was the Pannychis, an all-night feast accompanied by dancing and merriment. The
dances took place in the Rharian Field, rumored to be the first spot where grain grew. A bull sacrifice also took place late that night or early the next morning.
That day (22nd Boedromion), the initiates honored the dead by pouring libations from special vessels.
On 23rd Boedromion, the Mysteries ended and everyone returned home.[14]
End of the Eleusinian Mysteries
In 170 AD, the Temple of Demeter was sacked by the Sarmatians but was rebuilt by Marcus Aurelius. Aurelius was then allowed to become the only lay-person to ever enter the anaktoron. As Christianity gained in popularity
in the 4th and 5th centuries, Eleusis' prestige began to fade. Julian was the last emperor to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries.[15]
The Roman emperor Theodosius I closed the sanctuaries by decree in 392 AD as part of his effort to suppress Hellenist resistance to the imposition of Christianity as a state religion. The last remnants of the Mysteries were wiped out in 396 AD, when Alaric, King of the Goths, invaded accompanied by Christians "in their dark garments", bringing Arian Christianity and desecrating the old sacred sites.[16] The closing of the Eleusinian Mysteries in the 4th century is reported by Eunapios, a historian and biographer of the Greek philosophers. Eunapios had been initiated by the last legitimate Hierophant, who had been commissioned by the emperor Julian to restore the Mysteries, which had by then fallen into decay. According to Eunapios, the very last Hierophant was a usurper,
"the man from Thespiae who held the rank of Father in the mysteries of Mithras."
The Mysteries in art
There are many paintings and pieces of pottery that depict various aspects of the Mysteries. The Eleusinian Relief, from late 5th century BC, displayed in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens is a representative example. Triptolemus is depicted receiving seeds from Demeter and teaching mankind how to work the fields
to grow crops, with Persephone holding her hand over his head to protect him.[17] Vases and other works of relief sculpture, from the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries BC, depict Triptolemus holding an ear of corn, sitting on a winged throne or chariot, surrounded by Persephone and Demeter with
pine torches.
The Ninnion Tablet, found in the same museum, depicts Demeter, followed by Persephone and Iacchus, and then the procession of initiates. Then,
Demeter is sitting on the kiste inside the Telesterion, with Persephone holding a torch and introducing the initiates. The
initiates each hold a bacchoi. The second row of initiates were led by Iakchos, a priest who held torches for the ceremonies. He is standing near the omphalos while an unknown female (probably a priestess of Demeter) sat nearby on the kiste, holding a scepter and a vessel filled
with kykeon. Pannychis is also represented.[18]
In Shakespeare's The Tempest, the masque that Prospero conjures to celebrate the troth-pledging of Miranda and Ferdinand echoes the Eleusinian Mysteries, although
it uses the Roman names for the deities involved - Ceres, Iris, Dis and others - instead of the Greek. It is interesting that
a play which is so steeped in esoteric imagery from alchemy and hermeticism should draw on the Mysteries for its central masque sequence.
Entheogenic theories
Some scholars believe that the power of the Eleusinian Mysteries came from the kykeon's functioning as a psychedelic agent.[19] Barley may be parasitized by the fungus ergot, which contains the psychoactive alkaloids lysergic acid amide (LSA), a precursor to LSD and ergonovine. It is possible that a psychoactive potion was created using known methods of the day. The initiates, sensitized by their
fast and prepared by preceding ceremonies, may have been propelled by the effects of a powerful psychoactive potion into revelatory
mind states with profound spiritual and intellectual ramifications.[20]
While modern scholars have presented evidence supporting their view that a potion was drunk as part of the ceremony, the exact composition of that agent remains controversial. Modern preparations of kykeon
using ergot-parasitized barley have yielded inconclusive results, although Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin describe both ergonovine and LSA to be known to produce LSD-like effects.[21][22] Terence McKenna argued that the mysteries were focused around a variety of Psilocybe mushrooms, and various other entheogenic plants, such as Amanita muscaria mushrooms, have also been suggested but at present no consensus has been reached.[23] The size of the event may rule out Amanita or Psilocybe mushrooms as active ingredient, since it is unlikely that there would have been enough wild mushrooms for all
participants. However a recent hypothesis suggests that Psilocybe cultivation technology was not unknown in ancient Egypt,[24] from which it could easily have spread to Greece.
Another theory is that the kykeon was an Ayahuasca analog involving Syrian Rue (Peganum harmala), a shrub which grows throughout the Mediterranean and also functions as a monoamine oxidase inhibitor. The most likely candidate for the DMT containing plant, of which there are many in nature, would be a species of Acacia.[25] Other scholars however, noting the lack of any solid evidence and stressing the collective rather than individual character
of initiation into the Mysteries, regard entheogenic theories with pointed skepticism.[26]
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