Eleusinian Mysteries

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The Eleusinian Mysteries (Greek: ) 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.It is
acknowledged that their basis was an old agrarian cult which probably goes back to the
Mycenean period (c.1600-1100 BC) and it is believed that the cult of Demeter was established in
1500 BC.
[1]
The idea of immortality which appears in syncretistic religions of antiquity was
introduced in late antiquity.
[2]
The mysteries represented the myth of the abduction of
Persephone from her mother Demeter by the king of the underworld Hades,in a cycle with three
phases,the "descent" (loss),the "search" and the "ascent",with main theme the "ascent" of
Persephone and the reunion with her mother.It was a major festival during the Hellenic era, and
later spread to Rome.
[3]
The name of the town, Eleuss seems to be Pre-Greek and it is probably a
counterpart with Elysion and the goddess Eileithyia
[4]

The rites, ceremonies, and beliefs were kept secret and consistently preserved from a hoary
antiquity.The initiated believed that they would have a reward in the the afterlife.
[5]
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.
[6]

Contents
[hide]
1 Mythology of Demeter and Persephone
2 Mysteries
o 2.1 Participants
o 2.2 Secrets
o 2.3 Lesser Mysteries
o 2.4 Greater Mysteries
3 Demise
4 In art
5 Entheogenic theories
6 See also
7 References
8 Sources
9 External links
Mythology of Demeter and Persephone


Triptolemus receiving wheat sheaves from Demeter and blessings from Persephone, 5th century
BC relief, National Archaeological Museum of Athens
The Mysteries are 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, "maiden") was gathering flowers with friends,
when she was seized by Hades, the god of death and the underworld.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, Zeus relented and allowed Persephone to return to her
mother.
[7]

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.
[8]
Finally, by consulting Zeus, Demeter reunites with her daughter and the earth
returns to its former verdure and prosperity: the first autumn. (For more information on this
story, see Demeter.)
Zeus, pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their
anguish, forced Hades to return Persephone. However, it was a rule of the Fates that whoever
consumed food or drink in the Underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Before
Persephone was released to Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, Hades tricked her into
eating pomegranate seeds, (six or four according to the telling) which forced her to return to the
underworld for some months each year.She was obliged to remain with Hades for six or four
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. When Persephone returned to the
surface, Demeter became joyful and cared for the Earth again.
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.
[9]
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.
[10]
At the beginning of
the autumn when the seeds are planted, Persephone returns from the Underworld,is reunited with
her mother and the cycle of growth begins anew.
Her rebirth is symbolic of the rebirth of all plant life and the symbol of eternity of life that flows
from the generations which spring from each other.
[11]

Mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries are believed to be of considerable antiquity, deriving from religious
practice of the Mycenaean period and thus predating the Greek Dark Ages. 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."
[12]
Comparative study shows significant parallels between
these Greek rituals and similar systems-some of them older- in Near East (see Religions of the
Ancient Near East).These cults are the mysteries of Isis and Osiris in Egypt, the Adoniac of
Syrian cults, the Persian mysteries and the Phrygian Cabirian mysteries.
[13]
Some scholars argued
that the Eleusinian cult was a continuation of a Minoan cult,
[14]
probably affected by Near East.
The lesser mysteries were probably held every year; the greater mysteries only every five
years.
[15]
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.
[16]

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.
[17]

Participants
To participate in these mysteries one had to swear a vow of secrecy. Socrates refused to formally
participate because it would prevent him from discussing such knowledge with his
students.
[citation needed]

There were four categories of people who participated in the Eleusinian Mysteries:
1. Priests, priestesses and hierophants.
2. Initiates, undergoing the ceremony for the first time.
3. Others who had already participated at least once. They were eligible for the fourth
category.
4. Those who had attained popteia (Greek: ) (English: "contemplation"), 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.
[18]
The
contents of the chest might have been similar to Central American mushrooms of the genus
Psilocybe.
[19][verification needed]

The Church Father Hippolytus, writing in the early 3rd century, discloses that "the Athenians,
while initiating people into the Eleusinian rites, likewise display to those who are being admitted
to the highest grade at these mysteries, the mighty, and marvellous, and most perfect secret
suitable for one initiated into the highest mystic truths: an ear of corn in silence reaped."
[20]
[the
last in notes for an interesting episode story of Asha dosed and become Demeter/Astarte
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."
[21]

The Lesser Mysteries took place in the month of Anthesteria under the direction of Athens'
archon basileus. In order to qualify for initiation, participants would sacrifice a piglet to Demeter
and Persephone, and then ritually purify themselves in the River Illisos. Upon completion of the
Lesser Mysteries, participants were deemed mystai ("initiates") worthy of witnessing the Greater
Mysteries.
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.
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.
The Greater Mysteries took place in Boedromion (the third month of the Attic calendar, falling in
late Summer) and lasted ten days. On 15th Boedromion, called Agyrmos (the gathering), the
hierophants (priests or "those who show the sacred ones") declared prorrhesis, the start of the
rites, and carried out the "Hither the victims" sacrifice (hierea dero). 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
(pannykhs).
[22]

The procession to Eleusis began at Kerameikos (the Athenian cemetery) on 19th Boedromion
from where the people walked to Eleusis, along what was called the "Sacred Way" ( ,
Hier Hods), 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
"akch', O akche!" 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. Before mystai could enter the Telesterion, they
would recite, "I have fasted, I have drunk the kykeon, I have taken from the kiste ("box") and
after working it have put it back in the kalathos ("open basket").
[23]
It is widely supposed that the
rites inside the Telesterion comprised three elements: dromena ("things done"), a dramatic
reenactment of the Demeter/Persephone myth; deiknumena ("things shown"), displayed sacred
objects, in which the hierophant played an essential role; and finally legomena ("things said"),
commentaries that accompanied the deiknumena.
[24]
Combined these three elements were known
as the apporheta ("unrepeatables"); the penalty for divulging them was death. Athenagoras of
Athens, Cicero, and other ancient writers cite that it was for this crime (among others) that
Diagoras received the death penalty;
[25][26]
the tragic playwright Aeschylus was allegedly tried
for revealing secrets of the Mysteries in some of his plays, but was acquitted.
[27]
The ban on
divulging the core ritual of the Mysteries was thus absolute, which is probably why we know
almost nothing about what transpired there.
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.
[28]

Demise
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, the last pagan emperor of Rome, was also the last emperor to be initiated into the
Eleusinian Mysteries.
[29]

The Roman emperor Theodosius I closed the sanctuaries by decree in 392 AD. 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.
[30]
The closing of the Eleusinian Mysteries in the 4th century is reported by
Eunapius, a historian and biographer of the Greek philosophers. Eunapius 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 Eunapius, the very last Hierophant
was a usurper, "the man from Thespiae who held the rank of Father in the mysteries of Mithras."
In art


Henryk Siemiradzki. Phryne in Eleusus (1889).
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.
[31]
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 monumental Protoattic amphora
from the middle of the 7th century BC, with the depiction of Medusa's beheading by Perseus and
the blinding of Polyphemos by Odysseus and his companions on its neck, is kept in the
Archaeological Museum of Eleusis which is located inside the archaeological site of Eleusis.
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.
[32]

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 have proposed that the power of the Eleusinian Mysteries came from the kykeon's
functioning as a psychedelic agent.
[6]
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 (see set and
setting), may have been propelled by the effects of a powerful psychoactive potion into
revelatory mind states with profound spiritual and intellectual ramifications.
[33]
It is probable that
the goddess Demeter brought the poppy with her from Creta to Eleusis and it is certain that
opium was produced from poppies in Creta.
[34]

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.
[35][36]
Terence McKenna speculated that the mysteries were focused around a
variety of Psilocybe mushrooms. Various other entheogenic plants, such as Amanita muscaria
mushrooms, have also been suggested, but at present no consensus has been reached.
[37]
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 known in ancient Egypt,
[38]

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 species of Phalaris and/or Acacia.
[39]
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.
[40]
There is
little beyond tenuous circumstantial evidence to support the theory; indeed, the few facts that led
to the theory's formation in the first place are then invoked as supporting evidence, a form of
circular reasoning; the scientific method requires that confirming evidence, beyond the
observations used to form the hypothesis, be supplied before granting its veracity. While this
may be true, the Mysteries are generally accepted to be associated with the consumption of some
substance(s), possibly as a beverage, that induced visions and a feeling of oneness with at least
mankind, if not the universe. This made the event particularly reliable, necessarily secret, in
addition to special and certainly subject to strict sanctions if the secrecy were violated.
Use of potions or philtres for magical or religious purposes was relatively common in Greece
and the ancient world.
[41]
This would seem to argue against an entheogenic ceremony at Eleusis
being so closely guarded a secret.
Indirect evidence in support of the entheogenic theory is that in 415 BC Athenian aristocrat
Alcibiades was condemned partly because he took part in an "Eleusinian mystery" in a private
house.
[42]

See also
Persephone
Demeter
Cabeiri
Dionysian Mysteries
Orphism
Poppy goddess
References
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Demeter at Eleusis in the fifteenth century [BC] --- an event that must of course have had
a profound influence on the life and activities of the site
2. ^ Martin Nilsson.The Greek popular religion.The cult of Eleusis pp 42-44
3. ^ Ouvaroff, M. (alternatively given as Sergei Semenovich Uvarov, or Sergey Uvarov,
1786-1855) (Translated from the French by J. D. Price) Essay on the Mysteries of
Eleusis, London : Rodwell and Martin, 1817 (Reprint: USA: Kessinger Publishing,
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Mysteries is fraught with problems.
4. ^ Elysion:The island of the happy dead (Hesiod:Works and days 166ff).Eileithyia.A
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a

b
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11. ^ .Similar ideas appear in many ancient agricultural societies,like in the cult of Adonis in
Phoenecia,the cult of Osiris in Egypt and the cult of Ariadne in Minoan Crete.Also in
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27. ^ Nicomachean Ethics 1111a8-10.
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29. ^ Eleusis: Pathways to Ancient Myth
30. ^ Rassias, Vlasis. Demolish Them. (in Greek) Athens 2000.
31. ^ "Timeline of Art History: Italian Peninsula, 1000 BC1 AD". The Metropolitan
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32. ^ "The Niinnion Tablet (Image)". Wesleyan University.
http://mkatz.web.wesleyan.edu/cciv110x/hhdemeter/cciv110.Niinnion.html. Retrieved
July 25, 2007.
33. ^ Wasson, et al..
34. ^ Karl Kerenyi.Dionysos.Archetypal image of indestructible life.p 24
35. ^ Shulgin & Shulgin. Tihkal. Transform Press, 1997.
36. ^ Erowid Ergot Vault
37. ^ McKenna.
38. ^ Stephen R. Berlant (2005) (pdf). The entheomycological origin of Egyptian crowns and
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41. ^ Collins, Derek. Magic in the Ancient Greek World. Wiley, 2008
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trans. from the 8th edn. by W. B. Hillis, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1925; reprinted by
Routledge, 2000. cf. Chapter 6, "The Eleusinian Mysteries".
Shulgin, Alexander, Ann Shulgin. TiHKAL. Transform Press, 1997.
Smith, William, A New Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, Mythology
and Geography Vol. II. Kessinger Publishing, LLC 2006. ISBN 1-4286-4561-6.
Smith, William. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. London, 1875.
Taylor, Thomas, The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries: a dissertation. Amsterdam [i.e.
London] [c.1790], later editions, edited, and reprinted variously. (Fourth Edition, 1891)
Tripolitis, Antonia. Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age. Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, November 2001. ISBN 0-8028-4913-X.
Vaughn, Steck. Demeter and Persephone. Steck Vaughn Publishing, June 1994. ISBN
978-0-8114-3362-4.
Wasson, R, Ruck, C., Hofmann, A., The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the
Mysteries. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978. ISBN 0-15-177872-8.
Willoughby, Harold R. The Greater Mysteries at Eleusis, Ch. 2 of Pagan Regeneration: A
Study of Mystery Initiations in the Graeco-Roman World, 2003, Kessinger Publishing,
ISBN 0-7661-8083-2. Broad excerpts can be browsed online.
External links
A description of the Mysteries.
The Eleusinian Mysteries, Edward A. Beach.
The Eleusinian Mysteries, Thomas R. Martin, from An Overview of Classical Greek
History from Homer to Alexander.
Images of Inscriptions about the Mysteries at Eleusis, Cornell University Library.
Foreword and first chapter from The Road to Eleusis R. Gordon Wasson, Albert
Hofmann, Carl A. P. Ruck
Rosicrucian Digest vol. 87 devoted entirely to the Eleusinian Mysteries
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