Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with Part
Speaker 3: three in our discussion of the mystery cults of the
Speaker 3: ancient Mediterranean. Mystery cults are religions that are differentiated from
Speaker 3: the mainstream public cults of the Greco Roman world because,
Speaker 3: instead of focusing on the regular transactional tending to the
Speaker 3: needs of the gods through ritual and sacrifice, mystery cults
Speaker 3: were centered around the performance of secret mystic rites, which
Speaker 3: were usually revealed only to the cult's initiates, and which
Speaker 3: were often described as intense sensory experiences involving direct contact
Speaker 3: with the power of the gods. In Part one of
Speaker 3: this series, we talked mainly about the historical context of
Speaker 3: the mysteries and how they differed from the most common
Speaker 3: religious practices of Greek and Roman polytheism, and then in
Speaker 3: Part two we looked at a couple of specific examples.
Speaker 3: We looked at Mythraism, a mystery cult that flourished in
Speaker 3: the Roman Empire, especially among members of the Roman army,
Speaker 3: from roughly the first through the fourth century CE, and
Speaker 3: then also we started talking about what was the most
Speaker 3: famous and probably the most revered mystery cult for hundreds
Speaker 3: of years among the Greeks and Romans, which was the
Speaker 3: festival of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Secret Rites, which took
Speaker 3: place in Eleusis, which was about twenty three kilometers west
Speaker 3: of the center of ancient Athens. And we are back
Speaker 3: today to talk.
Speaker 2: About more, all right.
Speaker 3: So in the last episode we had to leave off
Speaker 3: in the middle of our discussion of the Eleusinian Mysteries
Speaker 3: because we ran out of time. So I think that's
Speaker 3: where we should jump back in today. We can start
Speaker 3: off with that subject. We already talked last time about
Speaker 3: the story of Demeter and Persephone, which is the primary
Speaker 3: myth associated with the cult. Particularly we're focused on the
Speaker 3: version told in the sixth or seventh century BCE Dactylic
Speaker 3: Hexamit or poem known as the Homeric Hymn to Demeter,
Speaker 3: and I'll do a brief summary to refresh. In this story,
Speaker 3: Demeter's daughter Demeter is the goddess of course of grain
Speaker 3: and agriculture. Demeter's daughter Persephone, called Cory meaning maiden in
Speaker 3: inscriptions associated with Eleusis is kidnapped to the underworld by Hades,
Speaker 3: the god of the dead, and the grief stricken Demeter
Speaker 3: searches for her around the world in vain. Along the way,
Speaker 3: she has interactions with the royal family of Eleusis, including
Speaker 3: a thwarted attempt to transform a baby prince named Demophoon
Speaker 3: into an immortal, after which Demeter demands that the people
Speaker 3: of that place build her a temple and perform special
Speaker 3: rites for her, which they are not allowed to depart from,
Speaker 3: ask questions about, or broadcast to the uninitiated. Eventually, in
Speaker 3: the story the Daughter Corey or again that's the same
Speaker 3: character as Persephone and other tellings, Corey is permitted to
Speaker 3: leave the underworld, but because she has eaten of the
Speaker 3: fruit of Hades, she cannot leave forever and must spend
Speaker 3: part of every year back in the realm of the dead.
Speaker 3: And this myth is often tied to seasonal cycles of
Speaker 3: growth and harvest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can't stress in enough everyone, if you venture
Speaker 2: into a spirit realm, don't eat anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly comes.
Speaker 2: Up time and time again.
Speaker 3: You gotta know the rules of the underworld. This came
Speaker 3: up in another ancient poem we were talking about. Oh,
Speaker 3: I think it's the poem of Gilgamesh and Ki Dou
Speaker 3: in the Nether World, where in key Dou loses some
Speaker 3: stuff down like it falls into the nether world and
Speaker 3: he has to go down to get it, and Gilgamesh
Speaker 3: is like, look, you gotta do all these things right.
Speaker 3: You don't wear certain kinds of clothes, you don't clap
Speaker 3: too loud or shout too loud. All this stuff will
Speaker 3: attract negative attention down there. And then in Keto just
Speaker 3: does it all wrong and he gets stuck. I don't
Speaker 3: know what the other rules for persephone would have been,
Speaker 3: apart from donate a pomegranate seed, but presumably there are
Speaker 3: other rules as well. But anyway, we also talked last time,
Speaker 3: not just about the myth itself, but about some things
Speaker 3: ancient writers said about the effect of taking part in
Speaker 3: the rights of ilusis. Many writers are, of course, reluctant
Speaker 3: to share anything about the secret rituals themselves lest they
Speaker 3: profane them. You don't talk about the mysteries. That's part
Speaker 3: of what Demeter said, no talking about this, but they
Speaker 3: do mention that the effect on the person who takes
Speaker 3: part is a profound one and a positive one. To
Speaker 3: illustrate that, I found the following passage from a dialogue
Speaker 3: of Cis called on the Laws, where a character in
Speaker 3: this dialogue is talking about the mysteries and says as follows,
Speaker 3: much that is excellent and divine does Athens seem to
Speaker 3: me to have produced and added to our life, But
Speaker 3: nothing better than those mysteries by which we are formed
Speaker 3: and molded from a rude and savage state of humanity.
Speaker 3: And indeed, in the mysteries we perceive the real principles
Speaker 3: of life and learn not only to live happily, but
Speaker 3: to die with a fairer hope. So what does taking
Speaker 3: part in the mysteries do for us? It seems that
Speaker 3: it causes us to ascend from a rough, crude state
Speaker 3: of existence, maybe an animalistic state of existence, into a
Speaker 3: more refined type of being. Maybe it civilizes us in
Speaker 3: some way. And this connects to something I've seen in
Speaker 3: a few other sources having to do with the grain
Speaker 3: and agriculture significance of the myth, that there's something about
Speaker 3: the mysteries which is tied to the gift of agriculture,
Speaker 3: of growing grain and the fruits of the harvest to
Speaker 3: humans from the gods, and thus it's sort of like
Speaker 3: perceived that that is the thing which separates us from
Speaker 3: the animals. But beyond that, the mysteries also show us
Speaker 3: what life is really about, or sort of the originating
Speaker 3: principles of life. It makes us happier in this life,
Speaker 3: and it makes us hope for better things after death.
Speaker 3: And the last point has an interesting resonance. I don't
Speaker 3: know if we alluded to this when we were talking
Speaker 3: about the myth in full, but of course Persephone known
Speaker 3: as Corey in the inscriptions at ilusis she is the
Speaker 3: queen of the underworld, you know, so she's going to
Speaker 3: be down there at least part of the year in
Speaker 3: the nether world. I wonder if that has something to
Speaker 3: do with the relationship between the mysteries and the fate
Speaker 3: of the dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, she ends up with a like a foot
Speaker 2: in both worlds, in the agricultural world and then also
Speaker 2: in the world of death in the afterlife. That's who
Speaker 2: you want to get in good with a transitional being
Speaker 2: that understands your world as well as the next world.
Speaker 3: Though to be fair, that connection might just be a coincidence.
Speaker 3: I mean it is possible also that those who have
Speaker 3: experienced the mysteries might expect a better fate in the
Speaker 3: afterlife simply because they have some kind of deeper connection
Speaker 3: with the power of the gods. They have more God
Speaker 3: intimacy in general than people who have not had who
Speaker 3: have not gone through the mysteries.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, or I mean, you know, to sort of
Speaker 2: couch it in some sort of modern language, we could
Speaker 2: say that at least while you're going through these rights,
Speaker 2: you're very much living in the now. So that's got
Speaker 2: to at least have a temporary effect on any anxieties
Speaker 2: you have about the future.
Speaker 3: Well, certainly, yeah, while you're doing the rights themselves. But
Speaker 3: I mean to be clear, these authors do talk about
Speaker 3: it as having a lasting effect, one that follows you home.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And I think, you know, there's probably a
Speaker 2: case to be made that if you couple a sensational
Speaker 2: experience with those elements of at least temporarily exiting your anxieties,
Speaker 2: this could be the essentially the cocktail recipe for some
Speaker 2: sort of lasting change.
Speaker 3: Now, before I move on, I want to mention a
Speaker 3: couple of my major sources. One is a book we've
Speaker 3: already talked about in this series by a scholar named
Speaker 3: Hugh Bowden, called Mystery Cults in the Ancient World The
Speaker 3: Times and Hudson twenty twenty three edition, Bowden being an
Speaker 3: ancient historian affiliated with King's College, London. But I also
Speaker 3: wanted to point to a chapter in The Wily Companion
Speaker 3: to Greek Religion edited by Daniel Ogden. The chapter is
Speaker 3: called the Mysteries of Demeter and Corey, and it is
Speaker 3: by Kevin Clinton, who is a professor emeritus of Classics
Speaker 3: at Cornell. Both very good resources on the Elusinian mysteries,
Speaker 3: and I'll refer back to both authors several more times. Now,
Speaker 3: moving beyond what we've already talked about the myth and
Speaker 3: the effect on people, what do we actually know and
Speaker 3: what can we reasonably guess about the form the mysteries took?
Speaker 3: What were these powerful rites? Well, there are some things,
Speaker 3: the sort of public elements of the festival, the associated festival,
Speaker 3: that we do know with a good bit of certainty,
Speaker 3: and we'll we'll move from what we know more about
Speaker 3: what we know less about. The Eleusinian mysteries were celebrated
Speaker 3: in stages that took place at different times of the year.
Speaker 3: So scholars think there was a primary stage of celebration
Speaker 3: known as the Lesser Mysteries, which were held at a
Speaker 3: place called Agrai within the city of Athens around the
Speaker 3: end of the winter beginning of spring, so our February
Speaker 3: March season, and that was a different, separate thing, but
Speaker 3: people usually did this before the main thing, which was
Speaker 3: the Greater Mysteries, which took place between Athens and Eleusis
Speaker 3: during the autumn around our months of September October. Clues
Speaker 3: from the literature of the time indicate that people generally
Speaker 3: participated in the lesser Mysteries before doing the Greater Mysteries,
Speaker 3: and the total festival of the Greater Mysteries lasted eight
Speaker 3: days and began with public events. So when we talk
Speaker 3: about the secret rights, it's not like the whole thing
Speaker 3: of the Eleusinian Mysteries were secret rights. It was just
Speaker 3: like one sort of climactic part of the festival. It
Speaker 3: was made up of the secret rights. You had lots
Speaker 3: of public events that included sacrifices to various gods. There
Speaker 3: was a process of preparation and purification of the initiates,
Speaker 3: the people who wanted to be initiated into the cult,
Speaker 3: there was a solemn march from the center of Athens
Speaker 3: to Eleusis, and then finally you would get to the
Speaker 3: secret rights inside a closed hall of initiation called the Telesterion,
Speaker 3: which was the sort of big central building inside the
Speaker 3: sanctuary of Demeter and Corey in Ilusis. It's hard to
Speaker 3: say exactly when these festivals began and when they ended
Speaker 3: in history, but we know a couple of things to
Speaker 3: sort of set the maximal boundaries in time. While the
Speaker 3: archaeological record in the area directly around the sanctuary goes
Speaker 3: all the way back to the Bronze Age, it appears
Speaker 3: to have been abandoned for some time around twelve hundred BCE,
Speaker 3: and then the site was continuously occupied beginning sometime in
Speaker 3: the eighth century BCE for hundreds of years after that,
Speaker 3: and then we know that the rites probably continued no
Speaker 3: later than the end of the fourth century CE, when
Speaker 3: Illusis was destroyed by the Goths, and after this there
Speaker 3: appears to have been no attempt to rebuild the sanctuary.
Speaker 3: By this time, the Roman Empire would have been largely
Speaker 3: Christian anyway, and you know that would have produced some
Speaker 3: severe friction for the cult of Iluses.
Speaker 2: And we'll come back to the twilight of the mystery
Speaker 2: cults here in a bit. Now.
Speaker 3: An interesting thing is that during the time the cult
Speaker 3: was in operation, lots of famous people in the ancient world,
Speaker 3: including authors that we would read, including multiple Roman emperors
Speaker 3: like Augustus Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, made the trip to
Speaker 3: Ilusus to be initiated into the mysteries, and that in
Speaker 3: itself kind of highlights a curious fact. While the core
Speaker 3: rights themselves, the mysteries were secret and you couldn't share
Speaker 3: them with outsiders, people would come from all over to
Speaker 3: be initiated, so it seems that the secret rituals were
Speaker 3: in a way more kind of open, more kind of
Speaker 3: globally open to participation than many of the public the
Speaker 3: so called public cults of the Greco Roman world would be,
Speaker 3: which many of which were quite locally focused. So for
Speaker 3: most of the time the mysteries existed, it seems that
Speaker 3: anyone from anywhere was allowed to come and be initiated
Speaker 3: as long as they met a couple of criteria. They
Speaker 3: had to speak Greek or be a Roman later on
Speaker 3: under the Roman Empire, and they had to have not
Speaker 3: committed murder, and if you met those criteria, you could
Speaker 3: you could be initiated, you could learn the you could
Speaker 3: learn the secrets, you could take part in the mysteries.
Speaker 2: And I assume you could lie about the second one,
Speaker 2: or it could be left up to your interpretation what
Speaker 2: murder was. It's not like you had like a designated
Speaker 2: punch card that you would have to show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess, I guess. The question is like, do
Speaker 3: local people know that you committed murder?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Did you commit murder anywhere around Athens?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay? So what else do we know about what took
Speaker 3: place around the mysteries? Here again, I'm drawing largely from Bowden,
Speaker 3: trying to pull together all these facts. One thing is that,
Speaker 3: going back to what I was just saying about people
Speaker 3: coming from all over before the festivities began in the autumn,
Speaker 3: a truce went out through through the Greek cities ensuring
Speaker 3: that anyone who wanted to be able to come to
Speaker 3: the mysteries could travel safely to Athens to take part.
Speaker 3: So a kind of period of sanctuary on travel around
Speaker 3: the area. We also know something about the rights involving
Speaker 3: specific sacred objects called heira or hyra. I'm sorry I
Speaker 3: did not look up which way to say that it's
Speaker 3: hi era. I'm going to say hira for now. These
Speaker 3: were carried in enclosed vessels tied with a red ribbon,
Speaker 3: and they were carried in a ceremonial procession by the
Speaker 3: priests of Eleusis, first two Athens at the beginning of
Speaker 3: the festival, and then back to Iluses for the end.
Speaker 3: So what were these sacred hidden objects? That was one
Speaker 3: of the secrets you don't get to know. Inside the telesterion.
Speaker 3: The objects would probably be shown and interacted with in
Speaker 3: some way by the initiates, but writers sympathetic to the
Speaker 3: mysteries do not tell us what these sacred objects were.
Speaker 3: Bowden argues that the hira were probably not stacked choose
Speaker 3: of Demeter and Corey like you might get with other cults.
Speaker 3: I mean, it would be very common for other public
Speaker 3: cults in the Greco Roman world to have a cult
Speaker 3: statue that you might even in some cases if it
Speaker 3: was small enough like take out and carry in a parade.
Speaker 3: That doesn't seem to be the case here. Instead, the
Speaker 3: priests were probably bearing some collection of small sacred objects
Speaker 3: which represented the goddesses in some way. One Christian writer
Speaker 3: from the ancient world writing against so called heresies, claims
Speaker 3: that the main secret object was an ear of grain.
Speaker 3: So we don't know if this is correct or not,
Speaker 3: but that would not be weird for grain imagery to
Speaker 3: be used in these rituals, given the role of demeter.
Speaker 3: It seems plausible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like the ritual and the storytelling would
Speaker 2: really have to do the heavy lifting if the sacred
Speaker 2: object was just the grain, though there had to be
Speaker 2: other objects as well. Right, here's a piece of wheat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, but something we'll get into in a
Speaker 3: minute here is you can present a a sheaf of
Speaker 3: wheat in a much more or much less dramatic fashion.
Speaker 2: That's right. The presentation is everything. Yes.
Speaker 3: Another thing we know is that the procession of the
Speaker 3: sacred objects between the cities got an armed escort made
Speaker 3: of young men from Athens, so they were well guarded,
Speaker 3: and the initiates were generally understood to have to do
Speaker 3: some stuff beforehand before you go into the greater mysteries.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was actually required, but it
Speaker 3: seems at least customary that people would usually go through
Speaker 3: the lesser mysteries at Agri first. Agra is another place nearby,
Speaker 3: sort of within the city of Athens, and people seemingly
Speaker 3: did these other things before they went to the greater mysteries.
Speaker 3: But it is hard to say for sure. There's a
Speaker 3: lot we don't know about the lesser mysteries. They're kind
Speaker 3: of passing references to them. This is one thing I
Speaker 3: brought up in the last episode, where like in a
Speaker 3: dialogue of Plato, Socrates just says to somebody by point
Speaker 3: of comparison that like they figured out something big before
Speaker 3: they figured out something small. They say, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: you've been initiated to the greater mysteries before the lesser mysteries.
Speaker 3: I didn't know you could do that.
Speaker 2: You know, this is not the first time I was
Speaker 2: reminded of this. I've thought about this a little bit
Speaker 2: in the last episode, but I was thinking about side shows.
Speaker 2: You know, you would have your main circus, and then
Speaker 2: you would have the side show, which might have things
Speaker 2: that were a little more specialized in maybe less public interest.
Speaker 2: They might be, you know, have more to do with
Speaker 2: you know, human abnormalities or other curios or you know,
Speaker 2: fake specimens of imaginary creatures. And it seems like you
Speaker 2: could at least compare this a little bit to the
Speaker 2: idea of lesser and greater mysteries. You go through one,
Speaker 2: then you go through the other, And there are variations
Speaker 2: of this in other elements of entertainment. We kept talking
Speaker 2: about haunted attractions or haunted houses, and one of the
Speaker 2: big ones we have in the Atlanta area has almost
Speaker 2: always two houses. There's the one larger house, and then
Speaker 2: there's a smaller secondary house, which is generally like a
Speaker 2: little harder in its horror, a lot more chainsaws and
Speaker 2: blood and stuff. So you know, you have one set
Speaker 2: of sensational experiences you might have, and then there's like
Speaker 2: another the next level you go to if you dare
Speaker 2: that's right.
Speaker 3: And again I do not have direct evidence, and none
Speaker 3: of the authors I read seem to indicate that we
Speaker 3: know you had to do the lesser mysteries first. Instead,
Speaker 3: it seems more like it was just understood that if
Speaker 3: you were going to do them both, you would do
Speaker 3: the lesser first. There was no reason to do the
Speaker 3: greater and then do the lesser.
Speaker 2: Yeah, lacking full context and understanding again of the mysteries,
Speaker 2: it seems like I feel like a jerk if I
Speaker 2: just did the greater mysteries enough the lesser mysteries, or
Speaker 2: if I've done the less mysteries before, I might want
Speaker 2: to like refresh. It's like watching season one before season
Speaker 2: two comes out, right, you want to rewatch it? Yeah.
Speaker 3: According to Plutarch, there is this it seemed to me
Speaker 3: at least hilarious incident where a Hellenistic king named Demetrius,
Speaker 3: who was ruling in the fourth to the third centuries BCE,
Speaker 3: had the Athenians officially alter their calendar, the calendar of
Speaker 3: the year, so that he could do the lesser and
Speaker 3: then the greater mysteries back to back within a few days.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like I'm going to make the
Speaker 3: Americans change their calendars so i can do Halloween, Christmas,
Speaker 3: and then Valentine's Day all on a weekend. Demetrius, by
Speaker 3: the way, he went all the way. He did another
Speaker 3: thing called the epoptica, which meant seeing the greater mysteries
Speaker 3: for a second time. And this is another thing referenced
Speaker 3: commonly in the ancient world. It seems that you were
Speaker 3: not fully initiated until you had taken part in the
Speaker 3: greater mysteries twice, and you had a different role. It
Speaker 3: seems the second time you were there. I'll talk more
Speaker 3: about that in a minute. So at the beginning of
Speaker 3: the festival you get a big announcement in the Agora
Speaker 3: of Athens, than people wishing to be initiated would go
Speaker 3: down to the sea with a young pig, wash it
Speaker 3: in the water, and then they would sacrifice it. And
Speaker 3: this was in some cases done by like thousands of
Speaker 3: initiates at a time, so you can imagine the scene
Speaker 3: as pretty bananas. At some point, new initiates would be
Speaker 3: paired with a sort of guide figure called a mystic
Speaker 3: goo goos, essentially like a sponsor. This would be somebody
Speaker 3: who already knew what was going on or was initiated,
Speaker 3: who would guide the newbie in the coming rights. On
Speaker 3: the following days, there would be more sacrifices in Athens
Speaker 3: to the Elusinian goddesses, and then beginning later in the
Speaker 3: history of the festival, also to a Scleep, the god
Speaker 3: of healing and medicine. There was like a tradition here
Speaker 3: involving a sacred snake, and then after several days of
Speaker 3: preparation and sacrifices, you'd get the procession going back from
Speaker 3: Athens to eleusis to the cult center, and this would
Speaker 3: have one group made of priests transporting the concealed sacred
Speaker 3: objects the Hira underguard, and then there would be another
Speaker 3: group that was made up of the initiates to the cult.
Speaker 3: And the walk between the cities was pretty long. It
Speaker 3: was like twenty two or twenty three kilometers, and at
Speaker 3: one special place near the end of the journey, Bowden
Speaker 3: mentions that the initiates endured a form of ritual mockery
Speaker 3: by onlookers called the gepherismas, which I don't know that
Speaker 3: stuck with me. I want to come back to that
Speaker 3: in a minute. It's interesting. So it's like it's just
Speaker 3: understood as part of it. You're taking part. People are
Speaker 3: going to mock you, insult you, her whole things at
Speaker 3: you as you go by.
Speaker 2: It's like a roast, a mini roast.
Speaker 3: Then finally you reach the sanctuary complex of Demeter and Corey,
Speaker 3: and here there's like dancing that takes place outside and
Speaker 3: then you would go inside for what lies beyond. Now,
Speaker 3: how did this sanctuary compare to other religious sanctuaries in
Speaker 3: the Greek world seemed to be a few differences. Bowden
Speaker 3: mentions that there was probably no cult statue of the goddesses,
Speaker 3: at least that we know of, not like we had
Speaker 3: in other famous temples, and it also does not seem
Speaker 3: that animal sacrifices were made on the altar here. The
Speaker 3: central building was again the one I mentioned earlier, the Telesterion,
Speaker 3: the Hall of Mysteries, and this was the big square
Speaker 3: building that was clearly rebuilt and expanded a couple of
Speaker 3: times in its history. In its largest form, it could
Speaker 3: hold thousands of people at a time, maybe like three
Speaker 3: thousand people inside, and had a sort of tiered stadium
Speaker 3: standing room area so that people further in the back
Speaker 3: could see, so you can think of it as a
Speaker 3: kind of big square theater. And then in side the
Speaker 3: Telesterion was a smaller building called the Nacteraron, which means palace.
Speaker 3: So the initiates got a day of rest after they
Speaker 3: arrived at the sanctuary complex, and during the stay it's
Speaker 3: not certain what they did, but they may have fasted
Speaker 3: and possibly also consumed a prepared liquid that we talked
Speaker 3: about in the last episode called Kukion spelled k y
Speaker 3: k e n. Now that came up in the last
Speaker 3: episode because it featured in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
Speaker 3: That poem we talked about. The context was Demeter arrives
Speaker 3: at King Celius's home in disguise and she is offered
Speaker 3: wine by the Queen Medonaira, but she refuses it and
Speaker 3: instead she drinks coukion. And that's supposed to be a
Speaker 3: beverage or maybe a gruel made from grain, water and herbs.
Speaker 3: Last time I mentioned mint, but I've also seen penny
Speaker 3: royal indicated here. And there appear to be different versions
Speaker 3: of kukon described in ancient literature. Sometimes it's just this
Speaker 3: grain gruel. Sometimes it was mixed with wine and perhaps cheese.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it is described as intoxicating in nature. Sometimes it
Speaker 3: is not described that way. Sometimes it appears to have
Speaker 3: been a mundane drink consumed by peasants, and other times,
Speaker 3: mainly here, it seems to have deep ritual significance. And
Speaker 3: so kokion has attracted a lot of attention, even from
Speaker 3: people who are not primarily interested in ancient history, but
Speaker 3: from people who are interested in questions of speculative religious pharmacology.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, Over the past several decades there's been
Speaker 2: a recurring question, and that question is still out there
Speaker 2: is still battering around in contemporary literature, the question being
Speaker 2: was cook on a psychedelic substance of some sort? And
Speaker 2: this idea has been explored by various commentators over the years,
Speaker 2: including Robert Graves, storian and author, Albert Hoffman, the chemist,
Speaker 2: and also ethnobotanist and mystic Terrence McKenna. Specifically, I had
Speaker 2: to bust out my copy of Terrence McKinnon's Food of
Speaker 2: the Gods because McKennon gets into this. He points out
Speaker 2: that the Graves Robert Graves suggested the possibility of the
Speaker 2: psychedelic mushroom psilocybin being involved and kind of initially champion
Speaker 2: this idea, while Albert Hoffman and R. Gordon Lawson presented
Speaker 2: the theory of ergotized beer brewed from a strain of
Speaker 2: the ergot fungus, those being two of the main sort
Speaker 2: of theories regarding what this could have been if it
Speaker 2: was a psychedelic substance. And there are some problems, especially
Speaker 2: with the ergotized beer examples we'll get into, and Balbin
Speaker 2: discusses some of this in the book as well. He
Speaker 2: points out that, Okay, this is an idea that's never
Speaker 2: been particularly well received by expert and historians, though it
Speaker 2: continues to generate a lot of interest in scholarship, and
Speaker 2: he outlines two primary objections, the first practical in the
Speaker 2: second theoretical. So, first of all, the practical objection concerning
Speaker 2: specific theories that the mysteries in question depended on an
Speaker 2: ergot derived psychedelic which would have been similar to LSD.
Speaker 2: So as a reminder, ergot doesn't contain LSD, but contains
Speaker 2: lysergic acid as well as the precursor to LSD, Ergotyminge.
Speaker 2: But the main problem here, the practical objection, is that
Speaker 2: psychedelic doses of ergot itself would result in just terrible
Speaker 2: illness and death rather than a temporary experience something that
Speaker 2: you would then you know that would be this defining
Speaker 2: moment of your life. Perhaps we did episodes on ergotism
Speaker 2: for stuff to boil your mind back in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: and yet generally it does not sound like an afternoon
Speaker 2: of Enlightenment.
Speaker 3: No, so, I certainly don't have expertise in this area,
Speaker 3: but from what I can tell, this seems like a
Speaker 3: pretty reasonable objection.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, we're if memory serves getting into
Speaker 2: the details of ergotism. We're talking in times like flesh
Speaker 2: peeling madness, so nothing that's again seems like it would
Speaker 2: be part of an overall positive spiritual experience. And in
Speaker 2: Food of the Gods, Terence McKinnon also addressed this, joking
Speaker 2: that quote clearly unpleasant experiences may lie ahead for those
Speaker 2: who set out to prove by self experiment the Wasson
Speaker 2: Hoffman theory concerning Elusius. But then he also presents a
Speaker 2: couple of ideas that we're out there regarding, on one hand,
Speaker 2: a particular species or erga that might yield less toxicity
Speaker 2: and higher psychoactive results, as well as the notion presented
Speaker 2: by Wasson and Hoffman that if you were to properly
Speaker 2: macerate the argotized grain in water, you might have been
Speaker 2: able to separate the water soluble psychoactive alkaloids. But again
Speaker 2: McKenna stressed that the burden of proof is on those
Speaker 2: who assert, and no one at that point and sense
Speaker 2: has sufficiently proven any of this.
Speaker 3: But you can see why the example of the Lucian
Speaker 3: mysteries would be incredibly appealing to people who have a
Speaker 3: general theory that like psychedelics play some major role in
Speaker 3: the establishment of religious practices.
Speaker 2: Right right, And certainly that is the case with McKenna's
Speaker 2: overall thesis the role that psychedelics may have played and
Speaker 2: the evolution of humans into their current state, as well
Speaker 2: as the advancement of human civilization. But his discussion of
Speaker 2: this is interesting and I think ultimately a lot more
Speaker 2: balanced than some might expect. Overall, I think Food of
Speaker 2: the Gods is the scholarship is a lot better than
Speaker 2: some might think, because I don't want to overstress things,
Speaker 2: because I think with mckinna, you're dealing with someone who
Speaker 2: was a visionary, animistic and definitely has some key arguments
Speaker 2: for the about the trajectory of human civilization, what has
Speaker 2: gone wrong and what needs to be corrected, a number
Speaker 2: of opinions that I don't think are really all that
Speaker 2: off track. But we also shouldn't like overstate what Food
Speaker 2: of the Gods is compared to other works of dedicated scholarship.
Speaker 2: And I mean he does stress that again, there are
Speaker 2: a number of mysteries in play here, including just you know,
Speaker 2: what are we talking about here? Was it even something tangible?
Speaker 2: He references an example that was presented by Wilson and
Speaker 2: Hoffman in their thesis and all of this that there's
Speaker 2: this four fifteen BCE example in which an Athenian noble,
Speaker 2: a noble that we're going to come back to that
Speaker 2: is sometimes described as quote a flamboyant Athenian playboy. His
Speaker 2: name is Alcibiades, and he's recorded as having been fine
Speaker 2: for bringing the Eleusinian sacrament home for entertainment purposes with friends.
Speaker 2: And the argument here is, well, this would seem to
Speaker 2: suggest that it was not only tangible, but perhaps something
Speaker 2: entertaining in and of itself. Now, the theoretical objection to
Speaker 2: psychedelic theories concerning the kokion is referenced by Bowden. The
Speaker 2: theoretical objection basically blows down to the fact that drugs
Speaker 2: are not strictly necessary for these rights as we understand them.
Speaker 2: The ancient Greeks had plenty other tricks up their sleeves
Speaker 2: to create the experience, many based in performance and even
Speaker 2: mechanical theatrical effects, and so he stresses that even say,
Speaker 2: the nocturnal bachic revels of the Dionysus mystery cults might
Speaker 2: not have depended on wine. So if wine wasn't needed
Speaker 2: for the revels of bacchus, then do we really need
Speaker 2: psychedelic substances for these to work? That being that they
Speaker 2: might have had wine. And it's also very possible that
Speaker 2: the rights were discussing here involve substances of one form
Speaker 2: or another, either as a whole or at different points
Speaker 2: that they were laid out. But I think this is
Speaker 2: an excellent point about and raise this, and I think
Speaker 2: one way to think about it is to think about
Speaker 2: another like the modern version of like the spectacle that
Speaker 2: we indulge in with other people, that being going to
Speaker 2: a concert, like think of a big concert you went,
Speaker 2: or even a small concert, just a noteworthy concert you
Speaker 2: went to. If you've been to a concert at all
Speaker 2: over the past, I don't know, several decades, no doubt
Speaker 2: you've encountered folks that have imbibed in say alcohol that
Speaker 2: is generally sold freely at most of these events, or
Speaker 2: perhaps individuals who've imbibed in some level of illicit drug use,
Speaker 2: be it you know, simple marijuana or some psychedelic or stimulant.
Speaker 2: And you know, the question that raises is okay, well,
Speaker 2: is the resulting mental state from taking any of these
Speaker 2: substances going to enhance the experience of the show. Well,
Speaker 2: certainly a strong a case or a strong case can
Speaker 2: be made, like even if you're just talking about, Hey,
Speaker 2: I had a cup of coffee to help keep me
Speaker 2: awake until the headliner came on. Fair enough, But is
Speaker 2: any of this strictly necessary for a great time? And
Speaker 2: I realized that this sounds like a question posed in
Speaker 2: a dare program from high school for many people. But
Speaker 2: if we think about it logically, I think it works out.
Speaker 2: You know, all the technical, theatrical, social aspects of a
Speaker 2: concert are in place. They're generally very potent. You've probably
Speaker 2: bought that ticket and gone out to the show because
Speaker 2: you already have some invested interest in the spectacle. And
Speaker 2: as such substances they might be helpful in one regard
Speaker 2: or another, they might enhance things, but the spectacle is
Speaker 2: already the spectacle, the lights, the music, the communal energy,
Speaker 2: and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and imagine if you were approaching the concert with
Speaker 3: the knowledge that what happened there was was secret and
Speaker 3: couldn't be revealed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which is just going to enhance everything. And
Speaker 2: certainly that's I mean, anytime you have any kind of
Speaker 2: a theatrical presentation, you know, either mildly theatrical or overtly theatrical.
Speaker 2: If there's a secrecy to it, oh well, that just
Speaker 2: makes it all the more special. Think about a speakeasy.
Speaker 2: Any of you have ever been to one of the
Speaker 2: modern speakeasies, not like a Prohibition era speakeasy, but if
Speaker 2: you if you did go to a Prohibition era speakeasy,
Speaker 2: you know, kudos to you for being up on podcasts
Speaker 2: and so forth. But you know, it's like there's generally
Speaker 2: this level of like, oh I had to go through
Speaker 2: a secret door to get into this bar. You know,
Speaker 2: it just makes everything all the more exciting.
Speaker 3: Right, I want to come back to that in a
Speaker 3: minute here.
Speaker 2: So Abouden writes, quote, if we are to look for
Speaker 2: an external explanation for the Elusinian experience, the theater seems
Speaker 2: a better place to look than the kitchen or brewery.
Speaker 3: Again, that seems quite reasonable to me. You can't totally
Speaker 3: rule out a pharmacological influence, but I don't think we
Speaker 3: need to go there to explain anything.
Speaker 2: Right, and it does create As McKenna pointed out, an
Speaker 2: additional burden of proof is that is required. Now. I
Speaker 2: looked at some more recent articles exploring the various psychedelic
Speaker 2: theories regarding the Lyusinian mysteries, and you do see proponents
Speaker 2: still arguing that some of these theories, at least the
Speaker 2: psychotropic mushroom one, the mushroom theory, seems to be more
Speaker 2: valid and less fraught with complications compared to the aragot beer.
Speaker 2: You know that one may be in the mix still,
Speaker 2: but at the end of the day, all we can
Speaker 2: really do is speculate, and again it just adds an
Speaker 2: additional level of evidence that would be required, evidence that
Speaker 2: we do not have, but certainly more possible, fewer complications
Speaker 2: than saying maybe it was aliens by all means.
Speaker 3: All right, So whether or not the people engaged in
Speaker 3: this were consuming hallucinogenic barley mush again, no reason to
Speaker 3: assume they needed to do that to explain anything we know,
Speaker 3: but who knows maybe whether or not that was happening
Speaker 3: after the public rituals at the end of the festival.
Speaker 3: Not quite at the end, actually there was a little
Speaker 3: bit after this, but basically the climax of the festival.
Speaker 3: Once night had fallen, you would get to the big deal,
Speaker 3: the secret rites inside the closed hall of mysteries, the
Speaker 3: Telesterion so what was going on there? Well, here's where
Speaker 3: we know a lot less, because, as we've discussed, those
Speaker 3: who had not been initiated were not supposed to know,
Speaker 3: and those who had been initiated were not supposed to tell.
Speaker 3: But we have some clues. So there are ancient references
Speaker 3: to the mysteries inside the Telesterion as quote things, things shown,
Speaker 3: and things said, which is sort of vague, but that
Speaker 3: still tells you a bit. It suggests there is a
Speaker 3: visual display things shown, a physically enacted element, things done,
Speaker 3: and a recited element things said aloud. The second to
Speaker 3: third century Christian Church father Clement of Alexandria claims that
Speaker 3: initiates to the Eleusinian mysteries had to recite a kind
Speaker 3: of passphrase which translates too. I fasted, I drank the kookion,
Speaker 3: I took from the chest, and having worked with the
Speaker 3: sacred implements, I removed them into the basket and from
Speaker 3: the basket into the chest. Which that last part sounds like, oh,
Speaker 3: the kind of activity that would just thrill my toddler
Speaker 3: right now. Is that a common thing for kids at
Speaker 3: this age?
Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean, does it ever go away?
Speaker 2: I love putting things in little boxes and taking things
Speaker 2: out of boxes. Yeah. I mean people watch whole videos
Speaker 2: online just to see unboxings.
Speaker 3: Right, so out of this box, into that box and
Speaker 3: then back again.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, as for the things shown in that phrase, a
Speaker 3: lot of ancient sources, while not saying what was shown,
Speaker 3: really emphasized the idea of the mysteries as a visual display.
Speaker 3: In fact, the priest of Demeter is known as the hyrafant,
Speaker 3: which means that name translates to a person who shows
Speaker 3: or displays sacred things. Now, this might be a good
Speaker 3: place to talk a bit about the idea of the
Speaker 3: profanation of the mysteries. Bowden's book has a good little
Speaker 3: subsection on this, and you were alluding to it earlier
Speaker 3: with the idea of that guy Alcibiades, the fifth century
Speaker 3: BCE Athens based general who he got in trouble because
Speaker 3: the deal was he was like right about to head
Speaker 3: off for a naval campaign to Sicily, so they're getting
Speaker 3: ready to go to launch this expedition, and suddenly he
Speaker 3: is accused by enemies of having revealed the mysteries of
Speaker 3: Eleusis to non initiates, and in fact, the idea was
Speaker 3: not just that he told secrets, but that he sort
Speaker 3: of privatized the mysteries by recreating them in his house
Speaker 3: with non initiated guests. I was trying to figure out,
Speaker 3: like what exactly was the spirit of this recreation of
Speaker 3: the mysteries, Like was he was he trying to get
Speaker 3: his own mysteries going, or was it in a spirit
Speaker 3: of mockery or irony. I'm not quite sure there.
Speaker 2: Or kind of like being It could have been a
Speaker 2: sense of he was like just a superfan. He's like,
Speaker 2: I love this stuff so much, you know, he's just
Speaker 2: s geeking out about it, wanting to share it with
Speaker 2: his buddies. But then in doing so, you know, commits
Speaker 2: at least minor heresy. You know, these things can get
Speaker 2: out of control sometimes.
Speaker 3: But this accusation is received as quite serious, like it
Speaker 3: would be a grave offense which would lead to divine punishment.
Speaker 3: The kind of implication is, if you know, you send
Speaker 3: out a general out to war who has just profane
Speaker 3: and the secret rights, the gods are going to work
Speaker 3: their wrath on him with defeat in battle. And so
Speaker 3: maybe this is a good place to come back and
Speaker 3: explore the idea of the secrecy of the rights a
Speaker 3: little more. We talked about this a minute ago, and
Speaker 3: I had some more thoughts about this. Specifically. I was
Speaker 3: reading about it in that book chapter by Kevin Clinton,
Speaker 3: where he cites a passage by Aristotle which makes reference
Speaker 3: to the mysteries, and I thought this was interesting. Aristotle says,
Speaker 3: in translation quote, the initiates are not supposed to learn anything,
Speaker 3: but rather to experience and to be disposed in a
Speaker 3: certain way, that is, becoming manifestly fit or deserving. So
Speaker 3: the cult has secrets which are only revealed to initiates.
Speaker 3: But according to Aristotle at least, and I trust he
Speaker 3: probably knew what he was talking about, the initiates are
Speaker 3: not supposed to learn any thing. That's not the point.
Speaker 3: Coming back to something we talked about in an earlier part,
Speaker 3: that the point of the cult is not an information puzzle.
Speaker 3: It's not to learn the secret password. Instead, you are
Speaker 3: supposed to have an experience. And even more interestingly about
Speaker 3: what Aristotle says here, You're supposed to have an experience
Speaker 3: and by virtue of that experience to become worthy. Now,
Speaker 3: according to Clinton, the Greek word Aristotle uses for experience
Speaker 3: here does mean what we mean by experience, but it
Speaker 3: also means to suffer. And Clinton argues that the secrecy
Speaker 3: of the mystery cults was not originally understood as the
Speaker 3: point of them. Rather, it came to be perceived as
Speaker 3: a defining aspect of them, sort of because of the
Speaker 3: drama it implied, especially to non initiates, and because of
Speaker 3: the severe penalties for violation of those secrets. It seems
Speaker 3: this wasn't the case always is, because you can find counterexamples.
Speaker 3: But it looks like, at least in some cases, the
Speaker 3: punishment was supposed to be death. So, given the assumption
Speaker 3: that the mystery cult was not actually about secrecy, the
Speaker 3: secrecy was not the point, Clinton asks an interesting question quote,
Speaker 3: we may then legitimately ask what actually was the point
Speaker 3: of the secrecy? But first one must consider what is
Speaker 3: so special about a secret? A secret is a fact
Speaker 3: or a representation of a human act that cannot be
Speaker 3: disclosed beyond a certain group. What could be so exciting
Speaker 3: about a fact or an act that could draw thousands
Speaker 3: of people from all over the Greek world each year
Speaker 3: to the mysteria? And of course we do get some
Speaker 3: attempts in the ancient world to kind of frame the
Speaker 3: secret of the Elusinian mysteries as something that would be
Speaker 3: concealed for a reason of it being i don't know,
Speaker 3: scandalous or titillating. And some of these reports come from
Speaker 3: from early Christian writers, and that kind of makes sense,
Speaker 3: like they would be maybe hostile to other religious practices
Speaker 3: and not worried about profaning them. But it's also unclear
Speaker 3: how accurate these these claims are and whether we should
Speaker 3: believe their descriptions. But one example is that Clinton mentions
Speaker 3: that some Christian authors claimed the big secret of the
Speaker 3: Elysian mysteries is you got to watch a priest and
Speaker 3: a priestess have sex.
Speaker 2: Again, I come back to the idea of some sort
Speaker 2: of a sideshow tent. You go into the back and
Speaker 2: you get to see like a little something extra that's
Speaker 2: not for everyone who came to the main circus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so again we have no way of knowing that's
Speaker 3: not true. But Clinton kind of argues against it. He
Speaker 3: says this would not be sufficient to attract the kind
Speaker 3: of attention and like draw the kind of crowds from
Speaker 3: all around like are described like for one thing, it's
Speaker 3: not that unique, And to me it just sounds kind
Speaker 3: of like a like a slander that one religion says
Speaker 3: about another, And there were of slander's going the opposite
Speaker 3: way too, Slanders Greek and Roman polytheists accused Christians of
Speaker 3: being immoral, of engaging in cannibalism and incest and all
Speaker 3: kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you just wanted to see a sexual act
Speaker 2: or sexual act for performance, there are surely other shows
Speaker 2: in town. So yeah, this does sort of ring of
Speaker 2: some sort of a slander, doesn't it, right?
Speaker 3: So instead, Clinton argues that the purpose of the secrecy
Speaker 3: was in order to make the experience of the solemn
Speaker 3: rituals feel extraordinary. And I mean this rings true to me.
Speaker 3: That that which we receive as common knowledge feels trivial,
Speaker 3: that which is hidden and is specially revealed to us
Speaker 3: feels like it gets an automatic leg up in profundity.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just so much easier to interpret a
Speaker 3: secret revealed to you as something that is meaningful in itself,
Speaker 3: when in fact it doesn't need to be. And you
Speaker 3: know that got me thinking, like, I don't mean to
Speaker 3: insult the mysteries by this or profound religious experiences in general,
Speaker 3: but I kind of can't help make the comparison to
Speaker 3: a common sort of influencer who exists today that I
Speaker 3: would characterize as like the influencer mystic, a person who
Speaker 3: ostensibly traffics in insights somebody who is out there and
Speaker 3: maybe they've got media channels or whatever, and they do
Speaker 3: commentary and analysis or life advice. But their insights, at
Speaker 3: least as I judge, might not be especially interesting or
Speaker 3: seem especially valid if they were just presented in written
Speaker 3: form or paraphrased into plain language. But this kind of
Speaker 3: influencer mystic can achieve a fan base because they're able
Speaker 3: to talk in a way that makes whatever they're saying
Speaker 3: feel like a great occult secret is being unearthed, and
Speaker 3: by listening to them, you are the first witness to
Speaker 3: an unveiling of truths, which is an intoxicating feeling if
Speaker 3: somebody can pull it off. And so, of course I'm
Speaker 3: speaking with a little bit of derision about these modern examples,
Speaker 3: but you could also, at the same time use the
Speaker 3: theatrics of the unveiled secret to increase the salience of genuine,
Speaker 3: profound insights and experiences. So I'm not suggesting the Eleusinian
Speaker 3: mysteries were necessarily hollow at their core or anything like that. Again,
Speaker 3: there's just a lot we don't know about their core.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting to think about this too in terms
Speaker 2: of the secular modern world and even the religious modern
Speaker 2: world in many respects, Like we are so accustomed to
Speaker 2: the idea that you can skip to the end and read,
Speaker 2: read the finish, read the conclusion, it would get a
Speaker 2: bullet list of the main things that are important. And
Speaker 2: so the idea that there would be levels to something
Speaker 2: or some sort of a secret reveal that it is
Speaker 2: not for everyone else to know it does kind of
Speaker 2: run counter to sort of the informational DNA that a
Speaker 2: lot of us have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so while I think in the modern world
Speaker 3: this is often used for ill, it wouldn't necessarily have
Speaker 3: to be used for ill. But I think you can
Speaker 3: get you can get a lot of persuasive and attentional
Speaker 3: mileage just by framing your opinion or whatever you're about
Speaker 3: to say as a secret that is being unveiled to
Speaker 3: someone you know, Like I'm going to pull back the
Speaker 3: curtain now.
Speaker 2: I think the place, weirdly enough, where it is often
Speaker 2: the most respected is in terms of narrative storytelling, particularly
Speaker 2: with movies and the idea of no spoilers. You know,
Speaker 2: not only don't spoil this for me, but I think
Speaker 2: more profoundly, when you have an experience where there's some
Speaker 2: sort of a film out there and either is particularly
Speaker 2: well crafted or it does involve a particularly innovative twist
Speaker 2: or effective twist, or an emotional twist, and people will stress,
Speaker 2: don't read the spoilers, go into this without you know,
Speaker 2: don't watch the trailer, go into it so that everything
Speaker 2: is a surprise, you know. Outside of that, like, there's
Speaker 2: not much that we're we're we generally engage in where
Speaker 2: we're open to that sort of experience. I mean, I
Speaker 2: guess in some respects we are like like, you know,
Speaker 2: some one might say, have a child. You don't know
Speaker 2: how this is going to turn out, but you're in
Speaker 2: the long run, it's gonna be it's gonna be a surprise.
Speaker 2: There's gonna be some twists you're not expecting. It's true,
Speaker 2: but you know, the parenthood and movies, those are the
Speaker 2: two examples that come to mind. But when it comes
Speaker 2: to religion, we're more of the mind, well, what are
Speaker 2: they believe in? Give me a list? Is there a
Speaker 2: Holy book? All right? I'm gonna skip to the end
Speaker 2: is maybe there's some cliff notes on it and so forth.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, and that goes back to something we
Speaker 3: talked about in the first episode of the series about
Speaker 3: that anthropological framework of the doctrinal religious model versus the
Speaker 3: imagistic or religious model. Bowden makes reference to these ideas,
Speaker 3: and the short version is that doctrinal modes of worship
Speaker 3: worship tend to be frequent, regular, low intensity, but also
Speaker 3: have clear meaning and function. You can kind of have
Speaker 3: a systematic explanation of what the purpose and meaning of
Speaker 3: the rituals are, versus what's known as the imagistic model
Speaker 3: of religious practice, where rituals tend to be rare, strange,
Speaker 3: high intensity, and more ambiguous in terms of meaning. Maybe
Speaker 3: nobody's even telling you what to make of the experience
Speaker 3: you had now, I guess the implication is that mysteries
Speaker 3: such as the mysteries of ill Usis would be much
Speaker 3: more firmly in the imagistic mode of worship. That there's
Speaker 3: something profound, high intensity going on, and it may well
Speaker 3: be very ambiguous, very open to your own contemplation and interpretation.
Speaker 3: Maybe nobody tells you what it means or even what
Speaker 3: it's doing. But that does bring us back to the
Speaker 3: Secret Rights themselves. So what else can we guess about
Speaker 3: the content of the mysteries? And here I'm going to
Speaker 3: synthesize from multiple accounts, including Clinton's and Bowden's and a
Speaker 3: few other things I've read. But it seems that, for
Speaker 3: one thing, the Secret Rights probably involved some reenactment of
Speaker 3: the myth of Demeter and Corey. Now it's questionable to
Speaker 3: what extent it followed the story completely, which parts of
Speaker 3: the story were represented, and what version of the story
Speaker 3: you got, but there are multiple clues pointing to the
Speaker 3: idea that some version of this story is being re enacted,
Speaker 3: at least in part in these rituals. This could include
Speaker 3: wandering around in the darkness, like searching for the kidnapped
Speaker 3: daughter after her disappearance, possibly witnessing or hearing the grief
Speaker 3: stricken cries of Demeter. For at least part of the ritual,
Speaker 3: initiates may have been blindfolded or shrouded with a hood.
Speaker 3: Ancient authors make reference to something about this where they
Speaker 3: would probably be guided by their mystagogue, you know, the
Speaker 3: more experienced guide would would show them the way to
Speaker 3: go while they were baffled, and you know, and they
Speaker 3: didn't know where to go, stumbling around in the dark,
Speaker 3: and all of this before the initiates were eventually made
Speaker 3: aware somehow of the reunion of mother and daughter of
Speaker 3: Demeter and Corey at the end of the myth, and
Speaker 3: then finally brought into the hall, like coming out of
Speaker 3: the darkness into a hall brightly illuminated by torches for
Speaker 3: a celebration and revealing of things hidden. Now again, those
Speaker 3: last parts are they seem reasonable based on what we know,
Speaker 3: but we don't know for sure. That's the form it took.
Speaker 3: Torches seem to play a role. There are a lot
Speaker 3: There are a lot of mentions of darkness and blindfoldedness
Speaker 3: and agony and struggles in the darkness and then coming
Speaker 3: into the light.
Speaker 2: You know. This brings me back. We talked again talking
Speaker 2: about haunted attractions and how you do encounter some that
Speaker 2: are church affiliated. I have distinct memories of going to
Speaker 2: one as when I was a youth, as a rural
Speaker 2: southern church affiliated haunted house. And at the end, as
Speaker 2: you wandered or perhaps rushed out of the darkness, pursued
Speaker 2: by chainsaws and the like, where do you enter into
Speaker 2: you enter into a tent where a preacher is then
Speaker 2: going to speak to you and sell you on eternal
Speaker 2: salvation and of course the alternatives that you just witnessed
Speaker 2: in the Haunted House.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that high contrast creates an intensity, like an
Speaker 3: emotional motivation and intensity of experience that really I don't
Speaker 3: know in this case, again, we've already noted the difference
Speaker 3: between like the Christian hell House or whatever variation there
Speaker 3: where the goal is to I don't want to oversimplify,
Speaker 3: but I think it's fair to say usually at least
Speaker 3: the goal there is going to be to convert you
Speaker 3: into the doctrinal form of that religion, to say, like,
Speaker 3: you belong to us. Now you've been convinced by witnessing
Speaker 3: these horrors, you need to go to our church. That
Speaker 3: does not necessarily seem to be the goal here. I
Speaker 3: don't detect based on what I've read that the purpose
Speaker 3: of the mysteries is a persuasive one that you need
Speaker 3: to like join the cult of ill usis though. I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess the people who are who go through as
Speaker 3: mistas the first time, and this is a distinction the
Speaker 3: first time you are initiated to the mysteries. You were
Speaker 3: known as mistys or mistace, a term which seems to
Speaker 3: derive from the concept of having one's eyes closed, and
Speaker 3: then you would usually come back a second time and
Speaker 3: then you would be known as epop dase, which means
Speaker 3: look or viewer. So there is a kind of return
Speaker 3: and the difference between those terms is interesting too, by
Speaker 3: the way, because the difference between like mistace meaning eyes
Speaker 3: closed and a pop dase meaning looking or viewing, that
Speaker 3: could of course be little role like maybe the first
Speaker 3: time you do it you are blindfolded or hooded, and
Speaker 3: the second time you can look, or maybe there are
Speaker 3: particular elements that two time initiates are particular permitted to
Speaker 3: look upon the first time initiates or not. But this
Speaker 3: difference could also just refer to a kind of metaphorical
Speaker 3: perspective on what is happening, the same way that we
Speaker 3: say to have previous experience with something is to go
Speaker 3: into it with open eyes.
Speaker 2: For anyone out there who's listening with I don't know
Speaker 2: if this is really a listen with the whole family
Speaker 2: sort of episode, but in the case event that you are,
Speaker 2: I'm about to throw out some Christmas spoilers so feel
Speaker 2: free to skip a bit if you wish. But this
Speaker 2: also reminds me of the way that some parents approach
Speaker 2: Santa Claus and Christmas traditions, the idea being that instead
Speaker 2: of just not doing them, or trying to keep the
Speaker 2: myth and the or the fiction of Santa Claus going
Speaker 2: like well beyond it's a healthy phase, instead you kind
Speaker 2: of break it down like this, where it is kind
Speaker 2: of treated like a mystery when the child is young,
Speaker 2: and then when the child reaches a certain age, it's like,
Speaker 2: now you were part of the mystery, and now you
Speaker 2: can help create this mystery for perhaps younger siblings, other
Speaker 2: young people you know in the family or in the community,
Speaker 2: and so forth. And perhaps this is like a less
Speaker 2: doctrinal example compared to the Haunted House thing, because I
Speaker 2: guess there's not really a doctrine regarding Santa that is
Speaker 2: being pursued in the long run, though it is of
Speaker 2: course more certainly like narrative and so forth. And I
Speaker 2: guess perhaps the Santa Claus example is better than the
Speaker 2: Haunted House example because Santa Claus, there's not really a
Speaker 2: doctrine there that we're trying to drive home into children
Speaker 2: aside from be good or else, I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh, but I guess I got sidetracked there talking
Speaker 3: about the mistakes versus the apoptaes from talking about how
Speaker 3: generally it seems like there is a difference between the
Speaker 3: hell house model and the mystery religion model because, or
Speaker 3: at least this particular case, because in the all Usinian mysteries,
Speaker 3: it's like the experience is the point. It's not just
Speaker 3: like a persuasive act to get you to do something
Speaker 3: else different right. Another interesting passage that is often cited
Speaker 3: in historical writing about the mystery religions is from Plutarch.
Speaker 3: Or Plutarch characterizes the mysteries generally by way of metaphor.
Speaker 3: What he's actually talking about is what happens to the
Speaker 3: soul at the end of life. But he's sort of saying,
Speaker 3: you know, what happens to the soul at the end
Speaker 3: of life is much like what you all know happens
Speaker 3: after you're initiated into the mysteries. And to be clear,
Speaker 3: he doesn't say specifically he's talking about the Eleusinian mysteries,
Speaker 3: but he probably is. These were the most famous. So
Speaker 3: what Plutarch says is quote wandering astray in the beginning,
Speaker 3: tiresome walkings in circles, some frightening paths in darkness that
Speaker 3: lead nowhere. Then, and immediately before the end, all the
Speaker 3: terrible things, panic and shivering and sweat and bewilderment. And
Speaker 3: then some wonderful light comes to meet you. Purer regions
Speaker 3: and meadows are there to greet you with sounds and
Speaker 3: dances and solemn sacred words and holy views. And they're
Speaker 3: the initiate, perfect by now set free and loose from
Speaker 3: all bondage, walks about, crowned with a wreath, celebrating the
Speaker 3: festival together with the other sacred and pure people. And
Speaker 3: he looks down on the uninitiated, unpurified crowd in this
Speaker 3: world in mud and fog beneath his feet.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, So.
Speaker 3: That square somewhat with what we've already talked about, like
Speaker 3: this feeling of lightness and sort of ascension that comes
Speaker 3: with having gone through the mysteries. There is some lasting
Speaker 3: effect on people that they cite that they say is
Speaker 3: very powerful and makes them feel better, makes them feel unafraid,
Speaker 3: set loose in some way, perfected in some way. But
Speaker 3: I also like that the first half of this passage,
Speaker 3: where it seems to be more describing, just in general
Speaker 3: and emotional terms, what the experience of going through the
Speaker 3: mysteries is like. And it's one that begins with confusion, bafflement,
Speaker 3: exhaustion and suffering and ends with hope and cathartic relief.
Speaker 3: And so I guess this brings us to the question
Speaker 3: of what did the mysteries mean to the people who
Speaker 3: practiced them Abouten explores this at length in his book Discussing.
Speaker 3: As we've already alluded to the possibility that the meaning
Speaker 3: of the mysteries was not made explicit. Instead, like the
Speaker 3: standard model of the imagistic mode of religion, it's sort
Speaker 3: of left ambiguous. It invites participants to reflect later and
Speaker 3: contemplate to figure out for themself what it means. And
Speaker 3: that's very interesting to me too, because I mean, a
Speaker 3: huge part actually of what religion is, at least in
Speaker 3: my experience, is exegesis on what things mean. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, religions have, or many religions have, you know,
Speaker 3: they have contents, they may have texts and stories, they
Speaker 3: may have physical objects or places, they have rituals, and
Speaker 3: there's just so much effort devoted to clarifying what everything means,
Speaker 3: and that that's what a lot of people want out
Speaker 3: of religion today. You know, they want to understand how, what,
Speaker 3: why we do it? What how to make sense of it?
Speaker 3: But this version of religion may have been a kind
Speaker 3: of different one where it's like, instead, you witness something
Speaker 3: and you go through something that is strange and overwhelming
Speaker 3: and powerful, and then you're kind of just sent home
Speaker 3: to make your own sense of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like abstract art and
Speaker 2: abstract cinema at its best right, where there's you go
Speaker 2: into it without any kind of expectations, you leave it
Speaker 2: without any i would say, prescribed interpretations. You know, you're
Speaker 2: left to try and figure out what it possibly meant
Speaker 2: all on your own, and maybe it meant nothing, but
Speaker 2: you won't forget it.
Speaker 3: Kevin Clinton, in his chapter writes, relying in part on
Speaker 3: his own hypothetical reconstruction of the rituals. So the following
Speaker 3: passage does include some assumptions based on guesses, but reasonable guesses,
Speaker 3: so Clinton writes, quote, the mysteria revealed simple things like
Speaker 3: the return of a lost daughter to her mother, a
Speaker 3: goddess in suffering parentheses, an extraordinary state for a Greek
Speaker 3: god or goddess, joy that accompanies the appearance of grain,
Speaker 3: the grain that is plutos, meaning wealth, the agrarian prosperity
Speaker 3: that sustains family and clan, all simple things that at
Speaker 3: the same time had profound signs magnificance. The impact lay
Speaker 3: in part in the dramatic presentation, which was an essential
Speaker 3: aspect of the experience, And that kind of takes me
Speaker 3: to another place, which is it makes me think I've
Speaker 3: been thinking about this primarily from the point of view
Speaker 3: of the new initiate, the mistas or the apoptes, you know,
Speaker 3: who's for the first or second time going through the
Speaker 3: greater mysteries and experiencing it and seeing what it means.
Speaker 3: But this kind of makes me think about it from
Speaker 3: the point of view of the priesthood. Say you are
Speaker 3: a hierofant or you're one of the people whose job
Speaker 3: it is to put on the show of the Eleusinian mysteries,
Speaker 3: it seems actually there's quite a burden. There's quite a
Speaker 3: burden to put on a good show because people are
Speaker 3: sort of relying on the fact that you put on
Speaker 3: a good show in order to find meaning in their life,
Speaker 3: to escape their fear of death, to feel like their
Speaker 3: life will have blessings yet to come, and they fit
Speaker 3: in a divine order, which is fascinating. And I guess
Speaker 3: something that people I don't know religious performers and in
Speaker 3: other situations probably do feel a similar kind of obligation.
Speaker 3: But it again made all the more alluring in this
Speaker 3: case because of the power of the secrecy, because there
Speaker 3: I think, we still don't know. There's some things we
Speaker 3: don't know. We don't know exactly what they were doing,
Speaker 3: and it's like it's agonizing. You want to know, but
Speaker 3: we can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we want it all laid out, Like from a
Speaker 2: historical standpoint, from an anthropology of religion standpoint, we want
Speaker 2: to know what were the things that were believe, what
Speaker 2: were the things that were enacted, and what was the
Speaker 2: import of those things, and for varying reasons, we have
Speaker 2: a lot of holes. All right, Well, on that note,
Speaker 2: we're going to go ahead and close out this episode,
Speaker 2: but we have decided we will come back with at
Speaker 2: least a fourth episode on the Mystery Cults, and it
Speaker 2: may not be the next episode of Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: your mind, It may occur after that. So in the
Speaker 2: not too distant future, you will under a fourth episode
Speaker 2: and we'll continue this fascinating discussion. There are so many
Speaker 2: different mystery cults and we're not going to be able
Speaker 2: to discuss all of them, and we're of course not
Speaker 2: going to get into everything that Balden discusses in his book. Again,
Speaker 2: we do highly recommend you check that out if you
Speaker 2: are interested in the topic. The title of that book again,
Speaker 2: his Mystery Cults in the Ancient World by Hugh Bowden.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, we'd like to remind everyone that's Stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have a
Speaker 2: short form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays we set
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge things, as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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