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)

• summer - winter - spring• maiden - marriage - women• pre-initiate - initiation - initiate• pre-agricultural society - agriculture• prehistory - civilization

Lesser Mysteries

• 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

• In Athens

• Sacrifice of the pig

• animal sacred to Demeter

• animal that absorbed the evil from humans

5th day - 18

• 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 thingsbefore 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