Ancient Greek Mysteries

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Ancient Greek Mysteries
By Ashley Couture
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Table Of Contents
The origin of ancient Greek mysteries
Mystery Religions
The Elusinian Mysteries
Orphism
Bacchic Mysteries
Mysteries Of Dionysos
Cults
Dionysos As A Wine God
Dionysos As A Death God
Oracles
Sacrifice And Theater
Mystery Sanctuaries
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The Origin Of Ancient Greek Mysteries
The origin of ancient Greek mysteries stem from a
variety of different locations. In Greece during
the archaic period, there were several schools
established that were called Mystery Schools.
The ultimate purpose of these was to free the
soul from the dominion of the flesh. It was said
that, "Easy is the path that leads down to Hell,
grim Pluto's gate stands open night and day. But
to retrace one's steps and escape to the upper
regions, this is a work, this is a task. As
tales and religion do today, mysteries served as
an explanation to the unanswered questions in
life. They gave people hope, knowledge and a
higher power to believe in. Greek Mysteries
were the last surviving relics of the archaic
wisdom enacted under the guidance of high
Initiates.
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Mystery Religions
Mystery religions were widespread religious
movements that existed in ancient Greece and
later, Rome. Orphism, Bacchism and the Elusinian
mysteries are the best known of the early Greek
mysteries. The mysteries vary widely, but
generally centered around an initiation rite
which featured revelation of cult secrets, the
mysteries. The mysteries also included some sort
of promise for a better life after death, which
accounted for much of their popularity. Through
the initiation, a worshipper became united with
the god and thus shared in divine power and,
perhaps, immortality. The different classical
mystery religions cannot always be easily
distinguished from one another, or from Greek
religion in its entirety. They were not in fact
entirely separate. The mysteries were parts of a
larger Greek polytheistic religion, not
independent religions themselves. Mystery
initiates worshipped the same gods as the rest of
the Greeks, though their ceremonies might have a
different focus, and their myths also varied.
http//www.thinkquest.org/library/site_sum.html?tn
ame28111url28111/newpage2.htm
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Orphism
Orphism is the teachings of an ancient Greek
philosophical cult which exerted great influence
on Greek culture, and later on Western mysticism
and occultism. It began in the sixth century BC,
and is attributed to the mythical Orpheus. The
chief teachings are of reincarnation and a
history of the universe. Other teachings are that
the body is the prison of the soul, animals were
not to be killed or eaten, the good were to be
rewarded while the evil were to be punished, and
there was emphasis on the teachings of
self-denial and seriousness in religious matters.
http//www.newgenevacenter.org/west/dionysianism.h
tm
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Bacchic Mysteries
Like the Elusinian mysteries, the Bacchic
mysteries involved initiations and offered hope
of life after death. Unfortunately, we have
considerably less of an idea of what went on at
the Bacchic mysteries than at the Elusinian. A
significantly smaller amount of writing about
them has survived. There was no great central
temple where the Bacchic mysteries were held, as
there was at Elusis, and it is possible that
different groups of Bacchics worshipped
differently. Drinking wine was most likely a
part of the Bacchic's worship, and Bacchic
revelers are said to have run wild in the woods
as maenads, handling live snakes, and tearing
wild animals apart and eating their flesh raw.
human sacrifice may also have played a role.
http//www.kristi.ca/orphika/bacchic.html
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The Elusinian Mysteries
The festival of the Eleusinian mysteries was held
every year at the temple of Demeter, the goddess
of grain. The Eleusinian mysteries were rites
that honored Demeter and her daughter
Persephone. The mysteries gave their initiates
the hope of life after death and nothing in
ancient Greek history was considered higher than
these mysteries. They not only taught the Greeks
how to live joyfully, but they also taught them
how to hope and avoid savage ways. The Elusinian
mysteries still remain mysterious, meaning that
we know little of the secret workings of the
worshippers.
"Beautiful indeed is the mystery given us by the
blessed godsdeath is for mortals no longer an
evil, but a blessing."Inscription found at
Eleusis
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Cults
Mystery cults were established so that
individuals who were passionate about practicing
religion and sacrifices could do so in a more
intense, personal religious fashion. Practices
within a cult are generally unknown because the
members were sworn to secrecy. What we do know
is that the individuals within cults would choose
a particular or a small number of god or
goddesses to worship.
After, there was a special ceremony for this
particular god. The Greeks thought that if you
did this, the god would pay special attention to
you and you would possibly be reborn, in a way,
so that if you had been having a lot of bad luck,
you would now have good luck, a fresh start. The
Greeks also thought that you might have a better
afterlife because of following these cults you
might be reborn after you died.
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Mysteries of Dionysos
Dionysos is the strangest and most mysterious
Greek god. Although he is best known as the god
of wine, he is also a vegetation deity, a death
god, the god of the theatre, a god who comes into
and changes, often irrevocably, the normal life
of a community.
http//dionysia.org/greek/dionysos/thompson/dionys
os.html
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Dionysos As A Wine God

• Dionysos as a metaphor for wine
• One would think that the god of wine would be
  pleasant but, the ancient Greeks knew that wine
  has both a positive and negative aspects and they
  were also well aware of the dual natures of wine,
  mirrored by the dual nature of its god.
• The story behind Dionysos is that he visited the
  house of a horticulturist, Ikarios.
• There he left vine-plant, telling him that by
  following the instructions he would be able to
  extract from the plant an unusual drink.
• Ikarios planted the vine, harvested the grapes,
  fermented the liquid exactly as he had been told
  to. He then invited his neighbors over to taste
  the new wine. The fragrance of the drink amazed
  them, and before long they were singing its
  praises. Then suddenly the drinkers began to
  collapse, falling over in drunken stupor. Those
  left standing accused Ikarios of poisoning them,
  and they beat him to death and threw his
  mutilated body into a well. His daughter hanged
  herself. This, according to myth, was the first
  manifestation of Dionysos, benefactor of mankind,
  giver of good things.

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Dionysos As A Death God

• One mystery surrounding Dionysos was that unlike
  all other Olympian gods who disapproved of murder
  of cannibalism, he seemed to revel in human
  sacrifice.
• There are a number of myths which involve women
  who Dionysos has driven mad as punishment. The
  best known example is that of Agave in The
  Bacchants by Euripides.
• Agave is running wild on the mountain with the
  rest of the women of Thebes, having been driven
  mad by the god, who is fighting to establish his
  worship in this city. Her son Pentheus, who
  opposes Dionysiac worship, is lured by the god
  into going to spy on the women. Agave and her
  sisters rush upon Pentheus and tear him apart
  with their bare hands, scattering the pieces of
  his body over the mountainside. Dionysos's
  worship is thus established by the simple means
  of killing the opposition. But the story has
  deeper connotations as well. Pentheus in this
  case has been dressed up in the same bacchic
  costume of fawnskin and thrysus that the god
  himself wears. It is possible that he is serving
  as a stand-in for the god, dying the death of
  Dionysos at the hands of his mother rather than
  the Titans.

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Sacrifice and Theater
It has been suggested that every tragic hero who
suffers and dies on stage at the Dionysia, the
great dramatic festival at Athens, is in fact
Dionysus himself, being killed. It has also been
proposed that the sacrifice plot was the original
plot of tragedy, and the festival of the Dionysia
honored Dionysus by re-enacting his death.
Classicists still debate over how much of a
role, if any, human sacrifice played in the
Bacchic worship of Dionysus. The symbolic deaths
on stage may have been a substitute for earlier,
more violent rites. The only record of actual
killing in Dionysus's honor is from later in
antiquity, from the time of Plutarch. According
to legend, the daughters of Minyas refused to
take a part in the dances in Dionysus's honor. In
revenge, the god drove them mad. They developed a
craving for human flesh, and drew lots to
determine whose child they would devour. Leukippe
drew the unlucky lot, and the Minyades tore her
son Hippasus to pieces and ate him, raw. The
women were later driven away, and the god Hermes
transformed them into owls and bats. The women
were given the name Oleiai, or "Destructive
Ones".
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Oracles
The ancient Greeks felt a need for guidance in
their lives. Many Greek citizens felt that
priests and religious texts were not as useful as
visiting an oracle. Any individual could bring
questions to the oracles and receive an answer
that expressed the will of the gods. Often time,
there was a storm of mystery surrounding these
oracles, where they got their power and how they
were ultimately correct in their supplied
answers.
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Mystery Sanctuaries
There were several different sanctuaries in
ancient Greece that the citizens visited for
meetings, worship, religious practices and many
other functions. Sanctuaries that were often
the most mysterious were those such as caves,
springs, elevations and places struck by
lightning. Here, the Greeks often witnessed
weird things such as smoke coming through the
floors and other unexplainable events. It is
thought the these sanctuaries were built on
special gas locations and the fumes made
individuals experience side effects as if they
were on drugs.
http//www.archaeonia.com/religion/oracles.htm
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THE END