Mystical Initiation in Ancient Greece: The Eleusinian Mysteries

The words Ancient Greece conjure certain associations and ideas to many people. Democracy, philosophy, science, and rationalism are some of the concepts that come to mind. The great thinkers of Ancient Greece are portrayed as enlightened rationalists whose approach to knowledge was similar to the prevailing tendencies of our own age, forefathers even, to an enlightened intellectualism that was hindered during the Middle Ages and revived with the developments of modernity. But this view does not really hold up to historical scrutiny. We find that this view of the ancient philosophers is often an anachronistic way for us to project our own ideas and ideals back onto idols of the past. It says more about our own times and ourselves than it does about the ancient Greek context, for example, as it were. And in this series of episodes, I hope to paint a new picture of this world, one that is more historically accurate and also takes into account the full spectrum of nuances in great thinkers like Plato, for example. And we'll find that while rationalism is often very important to these people, it's a lot more complicated than that, too. And other aspects of what we would call mysticism or even esotericism are sometimes equally as important. We have already talked about the fascinating Pythagoras in an earlier episode, and today we're going to turn to the incredibly interesting world of the ancient mystery cults. In particular, we're going to talk about the probably most famous and popular of these mysteries in the ancient world, which was the Eleusinian mysteries and how its transformative mind-altering rituals served as a central part of religion and society in the ancient Hellenic world. The mystery cults of the ancient world is a fascinating topic, one that is key to understanding its complex religious landscape, but also a topic that is frequently misrepresented or sensationalized. The mysteries are of great interest not only to scholars, but also to occultists of the modern age, people involved in so-called western esotericism and the new age movement. The mystery cults are in fact a very complicated and difficult subject to define, because as the term suggests, there were many of them and they could look quite different from each other. The demographics, nature of its teachings or rituals varied and existed in a wide geographical span, especially in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. But in very generalizing and brief terms, the mystery cults were rites of initiation. Often associated with a specific deity at its center, the mystery cults often offered a ritual experience that would transform the life of the initiate in radical ways, bringing benefits in this life or indeed being key to a kind of salvific afterlife as well. Another common feature is that these rites somehow represented and enacted a spiritual death and rebirth of the person through this intense experience. Again, these are generalizations, but are some common characteristics of this vast phenomenon. And the most famous, popular and one of the oldest of these mystery cults are the so-called Eleusinian Mysteries, which was centered on the worship of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, also sometimes known as Corrie. This was an annual festival that took place in the town of Eleusis, a few miles outside Athens, where all of its activities were exclusively based. At the height of its popularity, hundreds or even thousands of people would have taken part in the rites and become initiated into these mysteries. In essence, thus, the mysteries is something that you partake in once, after which you are initiated and become part of the community whose lives have been transformed by the ritual. The problem with the cults at Eleusis, as with most mystery cults, is that we know very little about what was actually going on there. And this was on purpose. The secrets of the mysteries were not to be disclosed and could not be disclosed. It was all kept under a blanket of secrecy and silence, a silence that indeed was very well kept. There are some stories of individuals who publicly revealed some of the secrets, such as Diagoras of Milos, and they were exiled or tried as a result, showing you how seriously they took the whole secrecy thing. This leaves us with a lot of educated speculation on the scholars' part, but indeed we do have fragmentary descriptions from various writers that mention parts of what went on and give us tidbits here and there, so that we can piece together some idea of this elusive cult. Figures like the Platonist philosopher Plutarch, who seems to have been an initiate himself, gives us fascinating descriptions of the mind-boggling experiences had the Christian father Clement of Alexandria seems to have had some kind of first-hand knowledge of this stuff and gives us some valuable information too, even if he is a critical voice, being a Christian writing in later periods, looking back at a sort of sinful pagan days. And we even have indications in the writings of Plato himself that seem to allude to the mysteries and much else. Indeed, the Eleusinian Mysteries were a major affair. It wasn't some small secretive cult operating in secret, as some sometimes assume. It is claimed that perhaps the majority of adult Athenians were initiated into the cult and had even received state support. So anyway, with all of these obligatory disclaimers out of the way, what can we actually say about what went on in the Eleusinian Mysteries? Again, we are essentially dealing with an annual event, one that involved a number of stages and elaborate rituals. The festival took place in late summer around September and would last for 10 days in total. To open the festival, the participants or future initiates would purify themselves by bathing in the local waters and then rituals of animal sacrifice were performed by priests and this was a kind of way of opening the whole festival. After this, on the fourth day, they would all start walking the whole 22 kilometers from Athens to Eleusis on foot. On the way, the procession would sing songs in unison and swing branches called bakoi. This would have been a rather intense journey, especially in the summer heat, but it was only the beginning of the proceedings. Because once the group arrived at the destination, they would also fast for a full day while also continuing to perform various rituals such as all-night vigils. As we will see, the purpose of the whole ceremony is to induce intense altered states of consciousness in the initiates and all these aspects so far come off as preparatory techniques to make the person more susceptible to those kinds of experiences. Like the fasting, for example, we see this in many other rituals even today, which involves mind-altering experiences that you fast, for example, before a certain ritual takes place. Many of these things point to that direction that this would make the initiates more susceptible to altered states of consciousness. To some, this becomes even more clear when we get to the next step, which is to break the fast with a barley drink known as the kykeon. The ingredients of this drink is a subject of debate among scholars and we don't know much for sure. Many will, of course, argue that it may have contained some mind-altering or psychedelic compounds and that this became a central part of the ritual at Eleusis. But others also disagree or at least don't want to conclude anything based on speculation only. Because there is, after all, no direct evidence that any mind-altering substances were used in the Eleusinian Mysteries other than wine. So it depends on how careful you want to be. There is certainly a possibility that it did contain some wacky stuff and there are other indications pointing to this, like the fact that Demeter, the central deity in the ceremony, is depicted with poppies. But there are other interpretations for this as well. In any case, the kykeon drink was consumed to break the fast and just before the main ceremony itself started. At this point, the initiates, referred to as mustae, which is actually where we eventually get words like mystics, would enter a large hall called the telestereon and would come out a few days later completely transformed by the experience in that room. What actually went on in that place is still very much a mystery. Like we said earlier, initiates were forbidden from telling anyone what went on and this secret appears to have been kept really well for the most part. It forces scholars to have to make a lot of educated guesses and piece things together based on the accounts that we actually do have. We can be pretty sure that it was very intense and that, in a general sense, the initiates would be led by the priest through rituals that induced altered states of consciousness which could reveal truths about the divine myths or about reality itself. These altered states, which are referred to in Greek with terms like mania or bacheia, meant an ascetic transformation of the person that had lasting effects for the rest of his or her life and meant that they were now initiated into the mysteries. At the center of the Eleusinian mysteries is the myth of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, also known as Cori. In this famous myth, Hades, the god of the underworld, is enamored by the beauty of Persephone and is given permission by Zeus to take her as his bride. So one day when the goddess is out gathering flowers, Hades suddenly emerges from the ground and abducts her, bringing her down with him and making her queen of the underworld. Her mother, the goddess Demeter, is beside herself when she realizes Persephone has gone missing. She searches all around the world but cannot find her. Being the goddess of harvest and agriculture, Demeter then causes everything in the world to stop growing. The earth doesn't produce anything anymore which puts humans and gods in a real pickle. Humans start to starve obviously and neither can they make offerings to the deities. Eventually though, the sun god Helios helps Demeter by telling her what happened and because of the disaster her despair has created, Zeus forces Hades to return Persephone to the world of the living. But Hades tricks her at the same time and forces her to spend a few months each year in Hades and the rest of the year with the rest of the gods. This obviously is then a mythical account of the turning of the seasons. The time that Persephone spends in the underworld is of course the winter months when things stop growing and her triumphant return to the world is the triumphant return of spring and summer. But in the Eleusinian Mysteries, this myth also comes to symbolize significant aspects of the ecstatic spiritual experience. The descent into the underworld and subsequent return is reenacted by the initiates through a kind of spiritual death and rebirth. Throughout the ritual, they are plunged into the darkness of despair and death, perhaps even experiencing something like a near-death experience and they thus experience first-hand the pain of demeanor. But this darkness is then followed by an ecstatic rebirth as the initiate takes on a new life, one with a newfound understanding of death and the world generally. Whatever went on inside the Telestereon, it was all aimed at inducing these kinds of altered states within the initiate. Yulia Ustinova writes quote Mystery rites were intended to unsettle, disturb and horrify as only in absolute contrast to the initial terror could the initiate arrive at profound modification of his attitude to life. But how exactly was this achieved? Clearly, this stuff was very elaborate and included many stages and parts. From the scary death-like initial experience to the ecstatic culmination when the initiate reached transformation and even an experience of uniting with the god. What we do know is that there is reference to three aspects or elements to the ritual. Number one, the Dromena, things done. Number two, the Deknumena, things shown. And three, the Legomena, things said. What does this seem to indicate? Most agree that things done refers to some kind of reenactment of the myth of Demeter and Persephone. Things shown seem to indicate that certain sacred objects connected to the myth were revealed to the initiate and things said are words or phrases or even explanations of the meanings of these objects. You can see that the myth is at the center of the proceedings. But aside from these, there seems to have been many other factors, sounds, movements and sensations that helped induce a certain state of mind for the initiates that made these things incredibly intense. There was a group of priests, both men and women, who seemed to have led the proceedings and groups of previous initiates would sit on the sidelines of the hall watching the ritual unfold, like it was a performance of some sort. One other such factor may have been music. We all know that music can have a very strong impact on our state of awareness and that many spiritual and quote-unquote mystical traditions around the world have employed music in various ways. The Eleusinian mystery seemed to have been no different. During the ritual, there would have been instruments playing and probably intense dancing, which would have led to ecstatic states. The power of music and dance to alter states of consciousness has been well known to people across history and even someone like Plato seems to take it for granted. Whatever went on inside the Telestereon, it's clear that it was very profound. Initiates may even have been subjected to physical pain, being blindfolded and other factors that led them through experiencing a kind of dying. As we said, in many ways, the ritual seems to have been a kind of death and rebirth. After going through the painful experience of death, although not real death of course, the initiate would then ideally enter a state of ecstasy, a feeling of immortality and even of uniting with the divine. This peak was often accompanied by a vision of pure light and a feeling of transcendence. The experience at Eleusis was clearly very powerful as people who had gone through it report that their lives are changed completely after this experience, having a completely new perspective on life and death and many even report that they lose their fear of death entirely. The scholar Walter Burkert writes, mystery festivals should be unforgettable events, casting their shadows over the whole of one's future life, creating experiences that transform existence. That participation in mysteries was a special form of experience, a pathos in the soul or psyche of the candidate is clearly stated in several ancient texts. One of the most profound accounts of the experience of mystery initiation comes from the famous Platonist philosopher Plutarch, who himself appears to have been an initiate. He says the following, At first there was wandering and wearisome roaming and some fearful journeys through unending darkness. And just before the end, every sort of terror, shuddering and trembling and sweat and amazement. Out of these emerges marvelous light and pure places and meadows follow after, with voices and dances and solemnities of sacred utterances and holy visions. Among these, the completely initiated, mystes, walk freely and without restraint. Crowned, he takes part in rites and joins with pure and pious people. He observes the crowd of people living at this very time, uninitiated and unpurified, who are driven together and trample each other in deep mud and darkness and continue in their fear of death, their evils and their disbelief in the good things in the other world. Then, in accordance with nature, the soul stays engaged with the body in close union thereafter. He is clearly describing some very powerful out-of-body experience here, one that transforms the soul of the people who go through it. Now, of course, we can assume that everyone who went through the Eleusinian Mysteries had this same experience, but at the very least, it's clear that this ritual and the things that happened in the Telestereon had the ability to lead to some serious altered states of consciousness. The Eleusinian Mysteries were a major part of religious practice in the ancient Hellenic world. As we said at the beginning, a lot, if not the majority of Athenians, so people living in Athens and the surrounding region, were initiates and took part in this festival on an annual basis. It lasted for centuries, if not even millennia, which is attested, for example, in the fact that both Plato and Plutarch refers to it as a contemporary practice and they lived almost half a century from each other. It was, of course, only one among a multitude of different mystery rites in the ancient Mediterranean world, but it's probably the most famous. It lasted basically all the way until the spread of Christianity, a religion that, of course, doesn't look too kindly on things that are so clearly connected to polytheistic religious practice and belief. And so, with the spread of Christianity and the fact that it became the official religion of the Roman Empire eventually, the Eleusinian Mysteries closed down sometime in the 4th century AD. But before that time, it had remained a cornerstone of religious practice in ancient Greece and represents a feature of that religion and culture that I think not too many people are that familiar with. Alongside the rationalist writings of people like Aristotle or Plato, these same people were often also deeply involved in religious practices that many today would call mystical and they consider that to be an equal or even superior way of reaching knowledge about the world and its philosophical truths. It's an important reminder that we often project our own time back onto the idealized past and that there's a lot to learn about some of the most famous figures in history. In future episodes, we will continue to explore this world. There are other mysteries to uncover, more philosophers and religious figures to get to know and texts to study. For now, I hope this was an interesting introductory look into the Eleusinian Mysteries. It's a really fascinating topic to study and it's a privilege for me to share this topic and this passion with you out there. I really appreciate all of you watching and engaging in this community and in these episodes. It's a wonderful honor for me to be able to do this. With that said, I of course would like to, as always, thank all of my patrons who help keep this channel going. I say this every time, but I'll say it forever. I could never do this in the way that I am doing it without your help. So thank you all so much. Again, look forward to more videos on related topics like this one. And feel free to like the video, leave a comment or subscribe to the channel. And I will see you next time.