The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other Essays

by Roswell Park

The Eleusinian mysteries were most highly venerated among the Greeks; so much so that during their celebration hostilities were suspended between opposing armies, while those who witnessed them uninvited or betrayed the secret teaching, or ridiculed them, were executed or banished. So late even as the period of the Roman supremacy the Roman Emperors took an interest in maintaining these mysteries, and some of the early Christian Emperors, like Constantius II. and Jovian, while forbidding nocturnal festivals made an exception of these.

The sum of the original Eleusinian doctrine is a myth based upon the rape of Demeter's daughter Persephone by Pluto, all of which is the old story of the seasons and the changes brought about in their regular succession; and as Persephone was ultimately united with Bacchus but returned to the lower world for the winter, we see typified first, the fruitfulness of the Sun God; secondly, the fecundity of the soil, and, thirdly, the resurrection of the body, which having been dropped like the grain into the earth was supposed to rise from it again after a similar fashion. How much this may have to do with present Christian beliefs concerning the resurrection may not be easily decided. Nevertheless it is of interest that the doctrine of the resurrection is of pre-Christian origin and is traceable through heathen teachings, even if having no greater support than the analogy above cited. The central teaching of the mysteries was probably that of a personal immortality analogous to the return of bloom and blossom to plants in the spring.

There were two festivals held at Eleusis, the lesser in March, when the ravished Persephone came up out of the nether world into the sunlight; and the greater in October when she had to follow her sullen spouse into Hades again. The preliminary celebration was held at Athens, and lasted six days, from October 15th to 20th. They all assembled upon that day and went down to the seashore for the rite of purification, the other days being spent in sacrificing and marching in solemn procession. On the last of them came the grand Bacchic procession, when thousands of both sexes wended their way along the sacred road to Eleusis; the distance to be traveled was fourteen miles, but many stops were made. Arrived at Eleusis the first evening was devoted to drinking the decoction called kykeon, by which Demeter was originally comforted during her wanderings. During the first days the initiated feasted and performed their mystic rites, consisting largely of torch light processions at night. After these were over the festival became a scene of merriment and athletic competition. The fasting and solemn cup, along with others of their rites, remind one of certain Christian observations perpetuated to the present day, while the severe tests to which those desiring initiation were subject have been more or less imitated by the Free Masons and other secret societies of mediaeval or modern times. The Mystic House must have been furnished with all the resources of the stage and the most ingenious stage carpentry of that day, and makes one think of Scottish Rite Masonry of this. The initiates regarded their chances in the next world as much better than those of the common people, as all the ancient Greek writers acknowledge.

In age and renown the mysteries of the Cabiri, in the island of Samothrace, rank next to those of Eleusis. They date back to a time preceding the evolution of several of the Grecian deities. These Mysteries implied originally an astro-mythology, losing in time its astral meaning. In these Samothracian mysteries the reproductive forces of nature figured most prominently, and through them the Phallic worship of the Orientals was transmitted to the Greeks. Into these mysteries women and even children were initiated. There were also Cabirian mysteries in several other Islands in the Grecian Archipelago, as well as on the continent.

Mysteries were also celebrated in the Island of Crete, in honor of Zeus. We know but little concerning them save that in the spring time the birth of the God was commemorated in one place, and his death at another, and that amid loud noises the story of the childhood of Zeus was enacted by the young.

As already remarked the worship of Bacchus was imported and in him was personified the influence of the sun upon the growth of the vine, while the ultimate tendency was to the glorification of life and force; in other words, it was eminently materialistic and appealed to the grosser senses. The Dionysian mysteries originated in Thrace, and among a people of Pelasgian stock, who were naturally gloomy save when aroused, when their enthusiasm became exaggerated into transports of frenzy. In time a distinction obtained between the Dionysian mysteries and the festivals. At least seven different non-mystic festivals occurred in Attica during the year, which were of popular character, during which the Phallic worship, if any, predominated. The fabled adventures of Bacchus were enacted and the dramatic stage originated at this time and from this beginning. On the other hand, a triennial festival of Dionysos was held in which women participated who, saturated with wine, lost all restraint and humility and were called maenades or mad women, while their festivals were spoken of as orgia, whence our modern term orgies. These were conducted at night, upon the mountains, by torch-light, in mid-winter, while the women, who were clothed in skins, shunned all association with men, and drank, danced, sang and committed all sorts of excesses, finally sacrificing a bull, in honor of the god, whose flesh they devoured raw. They then raved about the death of their god and how he must be found again; all hope in rediscovering him centering in the quickening springtime.

Bacchus worship, bad as it was in Greece, was surpassed in Rome, Livy even comparing the introduction of the Bacchic cult into Rome to a visitation of the plague. In its Etruscan and Roman form it became simple debauchery with a thin veneering of religion. So abominable did it become in time that in 186 B. C., the Consul Albinus was compelled to suppress it. Seven thousand persons were implicated at that time, and the ringleaders and a multitude of their accomplices were condemned to death or exile. The senate decreed that the Bacchanalia should never again be held in Rome or Italy, and the places sacred to Bacchic worship were to be destroyed. These orgies continued unchecked outside of Italy, and in time reappeared again even upon Italian soil, until the days of the Roman Emperors, when they reached a pitch of absolute shamelessness, as in the case of the notorious Messalina.

Time fails in which to mention all of the other debased mysteries which were met with in the various parts of Greece and Italy. Among them, however, must be recorded those of the mother of Rhea, those of Sebazios, and those of Mithras, all of which were finally collected by the sect of Orpheans. Among the Persians Mithras was the Light, and his worship was perhaps the purest cult that could be imagined. Later it was combined with sun worship, and Mithras became a Sun God, and as such generally recognized among the different peoples. To the early Greeks Mithras was unknown, but in the later days of the Roman Empire his mysteries made their appearance and gained great prominence. The monuments represented a young man in the act of slaying a bull with a dagger, while all around are human and animal figures, the youth standing for the Sun God who, on subduing Taurus in May, begins to develop his highest power. The original beautiful rites later degenerated and became orgies. Among the original rites was a form of baptism and the drinking of a potion made of meal and water. Human sacrifices were in some places a part of the cult.

The most disreputable of all these mysteries appear to have been the Sabazian, which were made up of several earlier forms, and were mere excuses for gluttony and lewdness, while the priests of the cult were most impudent beggars.

Thus in time the mysteries were stripped of all the beauties of a heavenly origin and became of earth exceedingly earthy, while their initiates, lost to all shame and decency, persisted nevertheless in their sacred hypocrisy, until the hideous night of the Gods disappeared before the glow of a brighter morning.