The myth
• Abduction of Khore-Persephone by Hades
• Demeter caused everything to be hidden
in the ground. She would have destroyed
all mankind with evil famine
• Hades to bring Persephone back, but put
into her mouth the honey-sweet seed of a
pomegranate
Mith 2
• Persephone must spent one-third of the
year below the earth (winter), and only
for the other two-thirds could she
remain with her mother (summer)
• Demeter to permit the life-giving corn
to grow again
• the goddess went to the kings of
Eleusis, and taught them the sacred
rites, which may not be revealed
Life-Death-Rebirth
• Myth of transformation:
• old life - death - rebirth (new life)
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summer - winter - spring
maiden - marriage - women
pre-initiate - initiation - initiate
pre-agricultural society - agriculture
prehistory - civilization
Lesser Mysteries
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Anthesterion (March - maturation of crops)
in Agra
Preparation for the Great Mysteries
Purification of the blood-sin, preparation of
the foreigners
• Mythical Model: initiaton of Heracles
Great Mysteries
• 9 days of Boedromion (Late September)
• truce of 55 days
• Delegations
1th day: 14 of Boedromion
• Procession from Eleusis to Athens
• Carring of the Hiera (sacred objects) in
Kistai (sacred basket)
• The hiera were deposited in the Eleusinon
(in Athens)
• Rest at the sacred Fig Tree of Phytalos
2th day: 15 of Boedromion
• In Athens
• th Archon Basileus summoned the people
in the Agora
• Herald: silence
• The Hierophant: declared the start of the
rites
Day 3th - 16
• ”To the sea oh mystai (initiates)!”
• procession to the Phaleron for a bath in
the sea (purification)
• also a pig was bathed
• return to Athens
4th day - 17
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In Athens
Sacrifice of the pig
animal sacred to Demeter
animal that absorbed the evil from humans
5th day - 18
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Asklepia
rest
preparation of the ones who arrived late
mythical model: Asklepios (god of
medicine, son of Apollo)
6th day- 19
• Procession from Athens to Eleusis
• Statue of Iacchos (personification of the
joy of the initiates)
• Iakkhos was depicted as a young man
holding the twin torches of the Mysteries
• He personified the ritual cry of joy iakhe
Iakkhos - Aristophanes, Frogs
• Come, arise, from sleep awaking, come
the fiery torches shaking, O Iakkhos! O
Iakkhos!
• Call we now the youthful god [Iakkhos],
call him hither without delay, him who
travels amongst his Chorus, dancing along
on the Sacred Way
• O, come with the joy of thy festival song,
O, come to the goddess
Iakkhos
• O Iakkhos! O lakkhos! Come to tread this
verdant level, come to dance in mystic
revel
• O Lord of the frolic and dance, lakkhos,
beside me advance!
Procession to Eleusis
Two Rivers - Two Bridges
• Bridge of Rheitoi: a descendant of Krotos
(first inhabitant) fastened a ribbon to the
right hand and to the left leg of the initiate
• Rest
• Bridge of Kephisos: men with covered
heads shouted obscenities (rembering
Iambé, who made Demeter smile
7th Day - 20
• Fasting
• in Eleusis: the fast ended drinking the
kykeon (a drink of meal, water and mint)
• In the Myth, Demeter prepared the sacred
drink
The Telesterion, where the Eleusian Mysteries were held.
8th day - 21
• In the Thelesterion
• the Hierophant went in to the Anaktoron
and reemerged with the Hiera
• Contrast of Light and Darkness
The Thelesterion
• Eight tiers of seats, half hewn from the
rock, half built upon it, completely covered
in marble during Roman times, line all four
sides of the temple, allowing for over three
thousand spectators.
• In the center was the Anaktoron,
forbidden to all but the Hierophant. It was
from the inner sanctum that the
Hierophant would reveal the Hiera
Dromena
• The telete initiation can be divided into the
dromena : things acted, the legomena :
things said, and the deiknymena : things
shown.
• In the dromena the initiates may have
imitated in ritual fashion the actions and
feelings of Demeter in the original time.
Lactantius
• In the Mysteries of Demeter all night long
with torches kindled they seek for
Persephone and when she is found, the
whole ritual closes with thanksgiving and
the tossing of torches.
The birth of the child
• "The Hierophant himself … carried out the
great secret mysteries at Eleusis by night
to the light of a great fire and cries aloud
and shouts the words, ‘Our Lady has
borne a holy Son, Brimo Brimos."
• Greek Lyric V Folk Songs, Frag 862 (from
Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies)
Night of the 21 Boedromion
• Dancing in the Rharian Fields
TRIPTOLEMOS
• was the agricultural Demi- of the sowing
and the threshing of grain.
• After the return of Persephone from the
underworld, the goddesses gave him a
winged chariot drawn by Drakones and
sent him to spread knowledge of
agriculture throughout the world.
How to found a city
• "When Triptolemos came from Attika, he
[Eumelos] received from him cultivated
corn, and, learning how to found a city,
named it Aroe from the tilling of the
soil.
Rain - Conceive
• In Proclus' commentary on the Timaios
293c:
• In the Eleusinian rites they gazed up to the
heaven and cried aloud "rain" they gazed
down upon the earth and cried
"conceive."
Day 9th - 22 Boedromion
• Day dedicated to honour the dead
• Libation: the water flowed eastwards
(origin) and weswards (end)
• There were three degrees of initiation: the
Lesser Mysteries which were a preliminary
requirement, the Greater Mysteries or
telete, and the additional and highest
degree, the epopteia: the revelation of the
holy objects and transmission of the telete.
The initiation formula
• ”I fasted, I drank the draught (kykeon ); I
took from the chest; having done my task,
I placed in the basket, and from the basket
into the chest.”
Emotional experience
• But their procedure is like Bacchic frenzy like the leap of a man mad, or possessed
• men being initiated have not a lesson to
learn, but an experience to undergo
• (Synesius Dio 1133)
The emotion: terror
• Entering now into the secret dome, he is
filled with horror and astonishment. He is
seized with loneliness and total perplexity;
he is unable to move a step forward ... till
the prophet or conductor lays open the
anteroom of the Temple.
• (Themistius Orat. in Patrem. 50)
Terror
• Proclus says:
• In the most sacred Mysteries before the
scene of the mystic visions, there is terror
infused over the minds of the initiated.
Horror and Joy
• Within this hall, the mystics were made to
experience the most bloodcurdling
sensations of horror and the most
enthusiastic ecstasy of joy.
• Aristeides
• Myth of transformation:
• old life - death - rebirth (new life)
•
•
•
•
•
summer - winter - spring
maiden - marriage - women
pre-initiate - initiation - initiate
pre-agricultural society - agriculture
prehistory - civilization
Wealth in this life
• Right blessed is he among men on earth
whom they [Demeter & Persephone] freely
love: soon they do send Ploutos as guest
to his great house, Ploutos who gives
wealth to mortal men."
• - Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter 484
The afterlife
• "Beautiful indeed is the mystery given us
by the blessed gods: death is for mortals
no longer an evil, but a blessing."
• Inscription found at Eleusis
Pindar Fragment 102
• "Blessed is he who has seen these things
before he goes beneath the earth;
for he understands the end of mortal life,
and the beginning (of a new life) given of
God."
• Pindar Fragment 102
(Plutarch, 'On the Soul')
• The soul [at the point of death] has the
same experience are being initiated
into great mysteries. . . .
• At first one wearily hurries to and fro, and
journeys with suspicion, dark as one
uninitiated
• then one is struck with a marvellous
light, one is received into pure regions
and meadows, with voices and dances
and the majesty of holy sounds and
shapes
• among these he who has fulfilled initiation
wanders free, and released and bearing
his crown joins in the divine
communion, and consorts with pure and
holy men
• beholding those who live here
uninitiated, an uncleansed horde, trodden
under foot of him and huddled together
in mud and fog, abiding in their miseries
through fear of death and mistrust of the
blessings there
Cicero: Mystery and Civilization
• "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.”
• Cicero Laws II, xiv, 36