WEBVTT - Mystery Cults, Part 3 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.080 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:16.120 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:18.760 And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with Part 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:22.600 three in our discussion of the mystery cults of the 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:28.160 ancient Mediterranean. Mystery cults are religions that are differentiated from 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:32.599 the mainstream public cults of the Greco Roman world because, 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.879 instead of focusing on the regular transactional tending to the 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.760 needs of the gods through ritual and sacrifice, mystery cults 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:46.320 were centered around the performance of secret mystic rites, which 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.760 were usually revealed only to the cult's initiates, and which 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:56.240 were often described as intense sensory experiences involving direct contact 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.600 with the power of the gods. In Part one of 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.320 this series, we talked mainly about the historical context of 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.479 the mysteries and how they differed from the most common 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:10.880 religious practices of Greek and Roman polytheism, and then in 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.000 Part two we looked at a couple of specific examples. 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:18.200 We looked at Mythraism, a mystery cult that flourished in 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.240 the Roman Empire, especially among members of the Roman army, 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:25.440 from roughly the first through the fourth century CE, and 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:29.759 then also we started talking about what was the most 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.680 famous and probably the most revered mystery cult for hundreds 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.240 of years among the Greeks and Romans, which was the 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:40.400 festival of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Secret Rites, which took 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:44.399 place in Eleusis, which was about twenty three kilometers west 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.960 of the center of ancient Athens. And we are back 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:48.840 today to talk. 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:50.040 About more, all right. 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:52.720 So in the last episode we had to leave off 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.560 in the middle of our discussion of the Eleusinian Mysteries 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:57.360 because we ran out of time. So I think that's 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.680 where we should jump back in today. We can start 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:04.120 off with that subject. We already talked last time about 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:08.400 the story of Demeter and Persephone, which is the primary 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.640 myth associated with the cult. Particularly we're focused on the 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.680 version told in the sixth or seventh century BCE Dactylic 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.680 Hexamit or poem known as the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:24.960 and I'll do a brief summary to refresh. In this story, 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.560 Demeter's daughter Demeter is the goddess of course of grain 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:34.679 and agriculture. Demeter's daughter Persephone, called Cory meaning maiden in 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:39.760 inscriptions associated with Eleusis is kidnapped to the underworld by Hades, 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.680 the god of the dead, and the grief stricken Demeter 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.240 searches for her around the world in vain. Along the way, 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.399 she has interactions with the royal family of Eleusis, including 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.880 a thwarted attempt to transform a baby prince named Demophoon 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.000 into an immortal, after which Demeter demands that the people 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.720 of that place build her a temple and perform special 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.880 rites for her, which they are not allowed to depart from, 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.960 ask questions about, or broadcast to the uninitiated. Eventually, in 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.000 the story the Daughter Corey or again that's the same 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.120 character as Persephone and other tellings, Corey is permitted to 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.720 leave the underworld, but because she has eaten of the 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:25.120 fruit of Hades, she cannot leave forever and must spend 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:27.640 part of every year back in the realm of the dead. 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:30.720 And this myth is often tied to seasonal cycles of 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:31.679 growth and harvest. 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:34.680 Yeah, we can't stress in enough everyone, if you venture 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:36.800 into a spirit realm, don't eat anything. 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:39.080 Yeah, exactly comes. 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:39.960 Up time and time again. 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.200 You gotta know the rules of the underworld. This came 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.560 up in another ancient poem we were talking about. Oh, 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:50.560 I think it's the poem of Gilgamesh and Ki Dou 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.720 in the Nether World, where in key Dou loses some 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.520 stuff down like it falls into the nether world and 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.440 he has to go down to get it, and Gilgamesh 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:01.440 is like, look, you gotta do all these things right. 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.200 You don't wear certain kinds of clothes, you don't clap 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.480 too loud or shout too loud. All this stuff will 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.120 attract negative attention down there. And then in Keto just 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.000 does it all wrong and he gets stuck. I don't 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:15.440 know what the other rules for persephone would have been, 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:19.720 apart from donate a pomegranate seed, but presumably there are 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.480 other rules as well. But anyway, we also talked last time, 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.800 not just about the myth itself, but about some things 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.919 ancient writers said about the effect of taking part in 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.960 the rights of ilusis. Many writers are, of course, reluctant 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:40.640 to share anything about the secret rituals themselves lest they 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.200 profane them. You don't talk about the mysteries. That's part 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.760 of what Demeter said, no talking about this, but they 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.560 do mention that the effect on the person who takes 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:55.240 part is a profound one and a positive one. To 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:59.440 illustrate that, I found the following passage from a dialogue 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:03.440 of Cis called on the Laws, where a character in 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:08.480 this dialogue is talking about the mysteries and says as follows, 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:12.440 much that is excellent and divine does Athens seem to 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:14.919 me to have produced and added to our life, But 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:19.200 nothing better than those mysteries by which we are formed 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.560 and molded from a rude and savage state of humanity. 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:27.720 And indeed, in the mysteries we perceive the real principles 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.040 of life and learn not only to live happily, but 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.240 to die with a fairer hope. So what does taking 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:36.719 part in the mysteries do for us? It seems that 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.880 it causes us to ascend from a rough, crude state 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.640 of existence, maybe an animalistic state of existence, into a 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.760 more refined type of being. Maybe it civilizes us in 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.000 some way. And this connects to something I've seen in 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.880 a few other sources having to do with the grain 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:59.039 and agriculture significance of the myth, that there's something about 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:03.599 the mysteries which is tied to the gift of agriculture, 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.440 of growing grain and the fruits of the harvest to 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:11.159 humans from the gods, and thus it's sort of like 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.400 perceived that that is the thing which separates us from 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.880 the animals. But beyond that, the mysteries also show us 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.760 what life is really about, or sort of the originating 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.480 principles of life. It makes us happier in this life, 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.240 and it makes us hope for better things after death. 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.360 And the last point has an interesting resonance. I don't 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:33.039 know if we alluded to this when we were talking 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:37.000 about the myth in full, but of course Persephone known 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:41.080 as Corey in the inscriptions at ilusis she is the 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.240 queen of the underworld, you know, so she's going to 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:46.000 be down there at least part of the year in 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.479 the nether world. I wonder if that has something to 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:52.120 do with the relationship between the mysteries and the fate 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:52.679 of the dead. 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:55.960 Yeah. Yeah, she ends up with a like a foot 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.440 in both worlds, in the agricultural world and then also 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.400 in the world of death in the afterlife. That's who 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:05.760 you want to get in good with a transitional being 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:10.000 that understands your world as well as the next world. 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.600 Though to be fair, that connection might just be a coincidence. 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.440 I mean it is possible also that those who have 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.000 experienced the mysteries might expect a better fate in the 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.720 afterlife simply because they have some kind of deeper connection 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.640 with the power of the gods. They have more God 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:29.080 intimacy in general than people who have not had who 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:30.360 have not gone through the mysteries. 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.080 Yeah. Yeah, or I mean, you know, to sort of 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:37.320 couch it in some sort of modern language, we could 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:40.320 say that at least while you're going through these rights, 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:42.960 you're very much living in the now. So that's got 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.960 to at least have a temporary effect on any anxieties 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:48.640 you have about the future. 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.520 Well, certainly, yeah, while you're doing the rights themselves. But 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:53.600 I mean to be clear, these authors do talk about 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.440 it as having a lasting effect, one that follows you home. 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:58.760 Yeah yeah, And I think, you know, there's probably a 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.880 case to be made that if you couple a sensational 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:09.520 experience with those elements of at least temporarily exiting your anxieties, 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.920 this could be the essentially the cocktail recipe for some 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:15.240 sort of lasting change. 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:17.080 Now, before I move on, I want to mention a 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.360 couple of my major sources. One is a book we've 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:23.640 already talked about in this series by a scholar named 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.920 Hugh Bowden, called Mystery Cults in the Ancient World The 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.000 Times and Hudson twenty twenty three edition, Bowden being an 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:33.679 ancient historian affiliated with King's College, London. But I also 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.520 wanted to point to a chapter in The Wily Companion 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.360 to Greek Religion edited by Daniel Ogden. The chapter is 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.560 called the Mysteries of Demeter and Corey, and it is 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.079 by Kevin Clinton, who is a professor emeritus of Classics 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.760 at Cornell. Both very good resources on the Elusinian mysteries, 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:55.760 and I'll refer back to both authors several more times. Now, 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.040 moving beyond what we've already talked about the myth and 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.640 the effect on people, what do we actually know and 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.959 what can we reasonably guess about the form the mysteries took? 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:10.120 What were these powerful rites? Well, there are some things, 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:14.040 the sort of public elements of the festival, the associated festival, 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:16.640 that we do know with a good bit of certainty, 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:18.880 and we'll we'll move from what we know more about 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.679 what we know less about. The Eleusinian mysteries were celebrated 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:26.880 in stages that took place at different times of the year. 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:31.839 So scholars think there was a primary stage of celebration 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.240 known as the Lesser Mysteries, which were held at a 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:39.080 place called Agrai within the city of Athens around the 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.080 end of the winter beginning of spring, so our February 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:46.960 March season, and that was a different, separate thing, but 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.360 people usually did this before the main thing, which was 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.679 the Greater Mysteries, which took place between Athens and Eleusis 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:59.000 during the autumn around our months of September October. Clues 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.720 from the literature of the time indicate that people generally 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:06.280 participated in the lesser Mysteries before doing the Greater Mysteries, 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.600 and the total festival of the Greater Mysteries lasted eight 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:14.120 days and began with public events. So when we talk 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.680 about the secret rights, it's not like the whole thing 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.640 of the Eleusinian Mysteries were secret rights. It was just 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:24.240 like one sort of climactic part of the festival. It 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.360 was made up of the secret rights. You had lots 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:31.600 of public events that included sacrifices to various gods. There 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:36.280 was a process of preparation and purification of the initiates, 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.480 the people who wanted to be initiated into the cult, 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.199 there was a solemn march from the center of Athens 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:45.920 to Eleusis, and then finally you would get to the 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:50.400 secret rights inside a closed hall of initiation called the Telesterion, 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.800 which was the sort of big central building inside the 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:58.800 sanctuary of Demeter and Corey in Ilusis. It's hard to 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:03.319 say exactly when these festivals began and when they ended 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:05.880 in history, but we know a couple of things to 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:09.920 sort of set the maximal boundaries in time. While the 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.520 archaeological record in the area directly around the sanctuary goes 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:15.800 all the way back to the Bronze Age, it appears 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.280 to have been abandoned for some time around twelve hundred BCE, 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.840 and then the site was continuously occupied beginning sometime in 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.079 the eighth century BCE for hundreds of years after that, 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.480 and then we know that the rites probably continued no 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.240 later than the end of the fourth century CE, when 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.600 Illusis was destroyed by the Goths, and after this there 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:42.359 appears to have been no attempt to rebuild the sanctuary. 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:46.880 By this time, the Roman Empire would have been largely 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:51.000 Christian anyway, and you know that would have produced some 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.360 severe friction for the cult of Iluses. 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:56.160 And we'll come back to the twilight of the mystery 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.280 cults here in a bit. Now. 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:00.760 An interesting thing is that during the time the cult 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:05.000 was in operation, lots of famous people in the ancient world, 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:09.719 including authors that we would read, including multiple Roman emperors 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.880 like Augustus Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, made the trip to 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:18.240 Ilusus to be initiated into the mysteries, and that in 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:22.959 itself kind of highlights a curious fact. While the core 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:27.240 rights themselves, the mysteries were secret and you couldn't share 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:31.480 them with outsiders, people would come from all over to 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:36.560 be initiated, so it seems that the secret rituals were 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.160 in a way more kind of open, more kind of 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:43.520 globally open to participation than many of the public the 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.720 so called public cults of the Greco Roman world would be, 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.400 which many of which were quite locally focused. So for 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.800 most of the time the mysteries existed, it seems that 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.800 anyone from anywhere was allowed to come and be initiated 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.120 as long as they met a couple of criteria. They 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.080 had to speak Greek or be a Roman later on 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.680 under the Roman Empire, and they had to have not 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:09.120 committed murder, and if you met those criteria, you could 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.480 you could be initiated, you could learn the you could 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:13.520 learn the secrets, you could take part in the mysteries. 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.280 And I assume you could lie about the second one, 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.760 or it could be left up to your interpretation what 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.080 murder was. It's not like you had like a designated 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:25.880 punch card that you would have to show. 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:28.280 Yeah, I guess, I guess. The question is like, do 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.480 local people know that you committed murder? 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:31.800 Right? 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.120 Did you commit murder anywhere around Athens? 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:35.040 Yeah? 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:36.880 Okay? So what else do we know about what took 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:40.760 place around the mysteries? Here again, I'm drawing largely from Bowden, 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.400 trying to pull together all these facts. One thing is that, 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:47.240 going back to what I was just saying about people 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.480 coming from all over before the festivities began in the autumn, 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.040 a truce went out through through the Greek cities ensuring 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.560 that anyone who wanted to be able to come to 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.600 the mysteries could travel safely to Athens to take part. 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.720 So a kind of period of sanctuary on travel around 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.360 the area. We also know something about the rights involving 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:12.720 specific sacred objects called heira or hyra. I'm sorry I 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:14.480 did not look up which way to say that it's 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:19.360 hi era. I'm going to say hira for now. These 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:24.160 were carried in enclosed vessels tied with a red ribbon, 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:28.720 and they were carried in a ceremonial procession by the 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.120 priests of Eleusis, first two Athens at the beginning of 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.680 the festival, and then back to Iluses for the end. 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:40.400 So what were these sacred hidden objects? That was one 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:44.200 of the secrets you don't get to know. Inside the telesterion. 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.520 The objects would probably be shown and interacted with in 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.080 some way by the initiates, but writers sympathetic to the 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.320 mysteries do not tell us what these sacred objects were. 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:00.360 Bowden argues that the hira were probably not stacked choose 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:02.920 of Demeter and Corey like you might get with other cults. 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:05.600 I mean, it would be very common for other public 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.240 cults in the Greco Roman world to have a cult 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:11.440 statue that you might even in some cases if it 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.800 was small enough like take out and carry in a parade. 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.120 That doesn't seem to be the case here. Instead, the 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.880 priests were probably bearing some collection of small sacred objects 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:27.680 which represented the goddesses in some way. One Christian writer 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:31.880 from the ancient world writing against so called heresies, claims 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:35.400 that the main secret object was an ear of grain. 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:37.760 So we don't know if this is correct or not, 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.840 but that would not be weird for grain imagery to 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:42.880 be used in these rituals, given the role of demeter. 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:44.000 It seems plausible. 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:46.920 Yeah, it feels like the ritual and the storytelling would 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:49.320 really have to do the heavy lifting if the sacred 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:51.840 object was just the grain, though there had to be 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.000 other objects as well. Right, here's a piece of wheat. 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.080 Yeah, I mean, but something we'll get into in a 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.240 minute here is you can present a a sheaf of 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:05.000 wheat in a much more or much less dramatic fashion. 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.920 That's right. The presentation is everything. Yes. 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.400 Another thing we know is that the procession of the 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:16.440 sacred objects between the cities got an armed escort made 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:18.920 of young men from Athens, so they were well guarded, 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.800 and the initiates were generally understood to have to do 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.320 some stuff beforehand before you go into the greater mysteries. 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.600 I don't know if it was actually required, but it 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.480 seems at least customary that people would usually go through 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:39.480 the lesser mysteries at Agri first. Agra is another place nearby, 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.760 sort of within the city of Athens, and people seemingly 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.200 did these other things before they went to the greater mysteries. 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.840 But it is hard to say for sure. There's a 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.760 lot we don't know about the lesser mysteries. They're kind 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:54.960 of passing references to them. This is one thing I 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:56.800 brought up in the last episode, where like in a 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:02.480 dialogue of Plato, Socrates just says to somebody by point 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:06.040 of comparison that like they figured out something big before 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:09.280 they figured out something small. They say, oh, you know, 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.560 you've been initiated to the greater mysteries before the lesser mysteries. 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:13.600 I didn't know you could do that. 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:17.639 You know, this is not the first time I was 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.320 reminded of this. I've thought about this a little bit 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.600 in the last episode, but I was thinking about side shows. 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:27.120 You know, you would have your main circus, and then 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:29.760 you would have the side show, which might have things 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:35.679 that were a little more specialized in maybe less public interest. 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.040 They might be, you know, have more to do with 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:43.720 you know, human abnormalities or other curios or you know, 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:49.879 fake specimens of imaginary creatures. And it seems like you 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:51.560 could at least compare this a little bit to the 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.320 idea of lesser and greater mysteries. You go through one, 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.240 then you go through the other, And there are variations 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:02.880 of this in other elements of entertainment. We kept talking 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.720 about haunted attractions or haunted houses, and one of the 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.480 big ones we have in the Atlanta area has almost 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.320 always two houses. There's the one larger house, and then 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.199 there's a smaller secondary house, which is generally like a 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:18.679 little harder in its horror, a lot more chainsaws and 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:24.120 blood and stuff. So you know, you have one set 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.560 of sensational experiences you might have, and then there's like 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.680 another the next level you go to if you dare 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:31.680 that's right. 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.480 And again I do not have direct evidence, and none 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.680 of the authors I read seem to indicate that we 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.679 know you had to do the lesser mysteries first. Instead, 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.080 it seems more like it was just understood that if 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:45.760 you were going to do them both, you would do 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:47.879 the lesser first. There was no reason to do the 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:49.560 greater and then do the lesser. 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:54.000 Yeah, lacking full context and understanding again of the mysteries, 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:56.359 it seems like I feel like a jerk if I 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.280 just did the greater mysteries enough the lesser mysteries, or 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:01.320 if I've done the less mysteries before, I might want 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.639 to like refresh. It's like watching season one before season 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.919 two comes out, right, you want to rewatch it? Yeah. 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.399 According to Plutarch, there is this it seemed to me 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:15.240 at least hilarious incident where a Hellenistic king named Demetrius, 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:18.040 who was ruling in the fourth to the third centuries BCE, 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:23.560 had the Athenians officially alter their calendar, the calendar of 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:25.840 the year, so that he could do the lesser and 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:28.639 then the greater mysteries back to back within a few days. 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.000 So it's kind of like I'm going to make the 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.600 Americans change their calendars so i can do Halloween, Christmas, 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:39.479 and then Valentine's Day all on a weekend. Demetrius, by 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:41.399 the way, he went all the way. He did another 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:46.159 thing called the epoptica, which meant seeing the greater mysteries 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:50.280 for a second time. And this is another thing referenced 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:52.360 commonly in the ancient world. It seems that you were 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.480 not fully initiated until you had taken part in the 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:59.040 greater mysteries twice, and you had a different role. It 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:01.800 seems the second time you were there. I'll talk more 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:13.520 about that in a minute. So at the beginning of 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.160 the festival you get a big announcement in the Agora 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:20.199 of Athens, than people wishing to be initiated would go 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.639 down to the sea with a young pig, wash it 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.160 in the water, and then they would sacrifice it. And 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.520 this was in some cases done by like thousands of 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.919 initiates at a time, so you can imagine the scene 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:38.080 as pretty bananas. At some point, new initiates would be 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.640 paired with a sort of guide figure called a mystic 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:45.360 goo goos, essentially like a sponsor. This would be somebody 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:47.960 who already knew what was going on or was initiated, 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:51.000 who would guide the newbie in the coming rights. On 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:54.840 the following days, there would be more sacrifices in Athens 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:57.879 to the Elusinian goddesses, and then beginning later in the 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:00.680 history of the festival, also to a Scleep, the god 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.240 of healing and medicine. There was like a tradition here 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.560 involving a sacred snake, and then after several days of 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.480 preparation and sacrifices, you'd get the procession going back from 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:14.640 Athens to eleusis to the cult center, and this would 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:18.080 have one group made of priests transporting the concealed sacred 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.240 objects the Hira underguard, and then there would be another 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:25.240 group that was made up of the initiates to the cult. 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:28.080 And the walk between the cities was pretty long. It 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:31.080 was like twenty two or twenty three kilometers, and at 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:33.680 one special place near the end of the journey, Bowden 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:38.040 mentions that the initiates endured a form of ritual mockery 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:43.520 by onlookers called the gepherismas, which I don't know that 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:45.520 stuck with me. I want to come back to that 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:47.760 in a minute. It's interesting. So it's like it's just 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.399 understood as part of it. You're taking part. People are 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.479 going to mock you, insult you, her whole things at 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:54.280 you as you go by. 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:56.520 It's like a roast, a mini roast. 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:01.040 Then finally you reach the sanctuary complex of Demeter and Corey, 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:03.800 and here there's like dancing that takes place outside and 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:08.120 then you would go inside for what lies beyond. Now, 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:12.320 how did this sanctuary compare to other religious sanctuaries in 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.920 the Greek world seemed to be a few differences. Bowden 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:19.640 mentions that there was probably no cult statue of the goddesses, 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:21.520 at least that we know of, not like we had 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.480 in other famous temples, and it also does not seem 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:30.520 that animal sacrifices were made on the altar here. The 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:34.680 central building was again the one I mentioned earlier, the Telesterion, 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:39.119 the Hall of Mysteries, and this was the big square 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.520 building that was clearly rebuilt and expanded a couple of 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.680 times in its history. In its largest form, it could 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:47.960 hold thousands of people at a time, maybe like three 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:51.679 thousand people inside, and had a sort of tiered stadium 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:54.520 standing room area so that people further in the back 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:56.560 could see, so you can think of it as a 0:22:56.640 --> 0:23:00.359 kind of big square theater. And then in side the 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:05.800 Telesterion was a smaller building called the Nacteraron, which means palace. 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:08.960 So the initiates got a day of rest after they 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:12.520 arrived at the sanctuary complex, and during the stay it's 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:15.280 not certain what they did, but they may have fasted 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:21.360 and possibly also consumed a prepared liquid that we talked 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:25.080 about in the last episode called Kukion spelled k y 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:28.560 k e n. Now that came up in the last 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:32.000 episode because it featured in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:36.440 That poem we talked about. The context was Demeter arrives 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:40.040 at King Celius's home in disguise and she is offered 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:43.560 wine by the Queen Medonaira, but she refuses it and 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:46.800 instead she drinks coukion. And that's supposed to be a 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:52.720 beverage or maybe a gruel made from grain, water and herbs. 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:56.240 Last time I mentioned mint, but I've also seen penny 0:23:56.280 --> 0:24:00.480 royal indicated here. And there appear to be different versions 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:04.199 of kukon described in ancient literature. Sometimes it's just this 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:08.640 grain gruel. Sometimes it was mixed with wine and perhaps cheese. 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:13.080 Sometimes it is described as intoxicating in nature. Sometimes it 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:16.560 is not described that way. Sometimes it appears to have 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:20.720 been a mundane drink consumed by peasants, and other times, 0:24:20.760 --> 0:24:24.840 mainly here, it seems to have deep ritual significance. And 0:24:24.920 --> 0:24:30.560 so kokion has attracted a lot of attention, even from 0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:33.600 people who are not primarily interested in ancient history, but 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:38.320 from people who are interested in questions of speculative religious pharmacology. 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:42.679 That's right. Yeah, Over the past several decades there's been 0:24:42.680 --> 0:24:44.679 a recurring question, and that question is still out there 0:24:44.800 --> 0:24:49.200 is still battering around in contemporary literature, the question being 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:54.480 was cook on a psychedelic substance of some sort? And 0:24:54.520 --> 0:24:57.639 this idea has been explored by various commentators over the years, 0:24:57.680 --> 0:25:04.040 including Robert Graves, storian and author, Albert Hoffman, the chemist, 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:10.720 and also ethnobotanist and mystic Terrence McKenna. Specifically, I had 0:25:10.720 --> 0:25:13.240 to bust out my copy of Terrence McKinnon's Food of 0:25:13.240 --> 0:25:16.960 the Gods because McKennon gets into this. He points out 0:25:16.960 --> 0:25:20.320 that the Graves Robert Graves suggested the possibility of the 0:25:20.320 --> 0:25:28.399 psychedelic mushroom psilocybin being involved and kind of initially champion 0:25:28.440 --> 0:25:32.880 this idea, while Albert Hoffman and R. Gordon Lawson presented 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:37.320 the theory of ergotized beer brewed from a strain of 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:40.800 the ergot fungus, those being two of the main sort 0:25:40.840 --> 0:25:44.399 of theories regarding what this could have been if it 0:25:44.560 --> 0:25:47.879 was a psychedelic substance. And there are some problems, especially 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:53.000 with the ergotized beer examples we'll get into, and Balbin 0:25:53.000 --> 0:25:55.199 discusses some of this in the book as well. He 0:25:55.280 --> 0:25:57.880 points out that, Okay, this is an idea that's never 0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:02.000 been particularly well received by expert and historians, though it 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:05.200 continues to generate a lot of interest in scholarship, and 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:10.520 he outlines two primary objections, the first practical in the 0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:14.960 second theoretical. So, first of all, the practical objection concerning 0:26:15.000 --> 0:26:18.120 specific theories that the mysteries in question depended on an 0:26:18.240 --> 0:26:22.520 ergot derived psychedelic which would have been similar to LSD. 0:26:22.960 --> 0:26:27.720 So as a reminder, ergot doesn't contain LSD, but contains 0:26:27.880 --> 0:26:32.400 lysergic acid as well as the precursor to LSD, Ergotyminge. 0:26:32.760 --> 0:26:35.760 But the main problem here, the practical objection, is that 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:40.000 psychedelic doses of ergot itself would result in just terrible 0:26:40.040 --> 0:26:45.199 illness and death rather than a temporary experience something that 0:26:45.240 --> 0:26:48.320 you would then you know that would be this defining 0:26:48.320 --> 0:26:51.480 moment of your life. Perhaps we did episodes on ergotism 0:26:51.640 --> 0:26:53.920 for stuff to boil your mind back in twenty fifteen, 0:26:54.520 --> 0:26:58.440 and yet generally it does not sound like an afternoon 0:26:58.440 --> 0:26:59.160 of Enlightenment. 0:26:59.760 --> 0:27:03.080 No, so, I certainly don't have expertise in this area, 0:27:03.080 --> 0:27:05.240 but from what I can tell, this seems like a 0:27:05.280 --> 0:27:06.720 pretty reasonable objection. 0:27:07.520 --> 0:27:10.440 Yeah, yeah, I mean, we're if memory serves getting into 0:27:10.440 --> 0:27:13.240 the details of ergotism. We're talking in times like flesh 0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:17.360 peeling madness, so nothing that's again seems like it would 0:27:17.359 --> 0:27:22.959 be part of an overall positive spiritual experience. And in 0:27:23.200 --> 0:27:25.840 Food of the Gods, Terence McKinnon also addressed this, joking 0:27:25.840 --> 0:27:29.200 that quote clearly unpleasant experiences may lie ahead for those 0:27:29.240 --> 0:27:32.040 who set out to prove by self experiment the Wasson 0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:37.359 Hoffman theory concerning Elusius. But then he also presents a 0:27:37.400 --> 0:27:41.560 couple of ideas that we're out there regarding, on one hand, 0:27:41.600 --> 0:27:45.120 a particular species or erga that might yield less toxicity 0:27:45.200 --> 0:27:49.280 and higher psychoactive results, as well as the notion presented 0:27:49.280 --> 0:27:53.359 by Wasson and Hoffman that if you were to properly 0:27:53.680 --> 0:27:57.199 macerate the argotized grain in water, you might have been 0:27:57.200 --> 0:28:01.520 able to separate the water soluble psychoactive alkaloids. But again 0:28:01.920 --> 0:28:04.320 McKenna stressed that the burden of proof is on those 0:28:04.320 --> 0:28:07.639 who assert, and no one at that point and sense 0:28:07.680 --> 0:28:09.199 has sufficiently proven any of this. 0:28:09.680 --> 0:28:12.399 But you can see why the example of the Lucian 0:28:12.480 --> 0:28:15.760 mysteries would be incredibly appealing to people who have a 0:28:15.840 --> 0:28:19.679 general theory that like psychedelics play some major role in 0:28:19.720 --> 0:28:22.199 the establishment of religious practices. 0:28:22.160 --> 0:28:26.199 Right right, And certainly that is the case with McKenna's 0:28:26.240 --> 0:28:31.800 overall thesis the role that psychedelics may have played and 0:28:31.960 --> 0:28:36.600 the evolution of humans into their current state, as well 0:28:36.640 --> 0:28:43.040 as the advancement of human civilization. But his discussion of 0:28:43.040 --> 0:28:45.240 this is interesting and I think ultimately a lot more 0:28:46.080 --> 0:28:50.480 balanced than some might expect. Overall, I think Food of 0:28:50.520 --> 0:28:53.880 the Gods is the scholarship is a lot better than 0:28:53.960 --> 0:28:56.520 some might think, because I don't want to overstress things, 0:28:56.560 --> 0:28:59.480 because I think with mckinna, you're dealing with someone who 0:28:59.760 --> 0:29:05.000 was a visionary, animistic and definitely has some key arguments 0:29:05.080 --> 0:29:09.080 for the about the trajectory of human civilization, what has 0:29:09.080 --> 0:29:12.320 gone wrong and what needs to be corrected, a number 0:29:12.360 --> 0:29:15.280 of opinions that I don't think are really all that 0:29:15.400 --> 0:29:18.680 off track. But we also shouldn't like overstate what Food 0:29:18.720 --> 0:29:22.480 of the Gods is compared to other works of dedicated scholarship. 0:29:23.240 --> 0:29:25.760 And I mean he does stress that again, there are 0:29:25.760 --> 0:29:28.720 a number of mysteries in play here, including just you know, 0:29:29.360 --> 0:29:32.240 what are we talking about here? Was it even something tangible? 0:29:32.880 --> 0:29:37.000 He references an example that was presented by Wilson and 0:29:37.040 --> 0:29:41.360 Hoffman in their thesis and all of this that there's 0:29:41.440 --> 0:29:45.800 this four fifteen BCE example in which an Athenian noble, 0:29:46.880 --> 0:29:48.320 a noble that we're going to come back to that 0:29:48.440 --> 0:29:52.960 is sometimes described as quote a flamboyant Athenian playboy. His 0:29:53.120 --> 0:29:59.360 name is Alcibiades, and he's recorded as having been fine 0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:04.320 for bringing the Eleusinian sacrament home for entertainment purposes with friends. 0:30:05.320 --> 0:30:07.560 And the argument here is, well, this would seem to 0:30:07.560 --> 0:30:11.000 suggest that it was not only tangible, but perhaps something 0:30:11.240 --> 0:30:15.720 entertaining in and of itself. Now, the theoretical objection to 0:30:16.120 --> 0:30:21.320 psychedelic theories concerning the kokion is referenced by Bowden. The 0:30:21.320 --> 0:30:24.320 theoretical objection basically blows down to the fact that drugs 0:30:24.600 --> 0:30:28.800 are not strictly necessary for these rights as we understand them. 0:30:29.240 --> 0:30:34.200 The ancient Greeks had plenty other tricks up their sleeves 0:30:34.200 --> 0:30:38.040 to create the experience, many based in performance and even 0:30:38.040 --> 0:30:43.480 mechanical theatrical effects, and so he stresses that even say, 0:30:43.520 --> 0:30:48.120 the nocturnal bachic revels of the Dionysus mystery cults might 0:30:48.200 --> 0:30:52.160 not have depended on wine. So if wine wasn't needed 0:30:52.360 --> 0:30:55.760 for the revels of bacchus, then do we really need 0:30:55.800 --> 0:31:02.040 psychedelic substances for these to work? That being that they 0:31:02.120 --> 0:31:04.840 might have had wine. And it's also very possible that 0:31:05.400 --> 0:31:08.400 the rights were discussing here involve substances of one form 0:31:08.480 --> 0:31:11.480 or another, either as a whole or at different points 0:31:11.600 --> 0:31:15.880 that they were laid out. But I think this is 0:31:16.040 --> 0:31:18.320 an excellent point about and raise this, and I think 0:31:18.360 --> 0:31:21.400 one way to think about it is to think about 0:31:21.440 --> 0:31:24.320 another like the modern version of like the spectacle that 0:31:24.360 --> 0:31:27.600 we indulge in with other people, that being going to 0:31:27.680 --> 0:31:30.040 a concert, like think of a big concert you went, 0:31:30.160 --> 0:31:32.600 or even a small concert, just a noteworthy concert you 0:31:32.640 --> 0:31:35.960 went to. If you've been to a concert at all 0:31:36.080 --> 0:31:40.680 over the past, I don't know, several decades, no doubt 0:31:40.880 --> 0:31:44.280 you've encountered folks that have imbibed in say alcohol that 0:31:44.400 --> 0:31:47.560 is generally sold freely at most of these events, or 0:31:47.600 --> 0:31:52.520 perhaps individuals who've imbibed in some level of illicit drug use, 0:31:52.600 --> 0:31:56.760 be it you know, simple marijuana or some psychedelic or stimulant. 0:31:57.320 --> 0:32:00.920 And you know, the question that raises is okay, well, 0:32:01.200 --> 0:32:03.320 is the resulting mental state from taking any of these 0:32:03.320 --> 0:32:07.960 substances going to enhance the experience of the show. Well, 0:32:08.080 --> 0:32:11.000 certainly a strong a case or a strong case can 0:32:11.040 --> 0:32:12.720 be made, like even if you're just talking about, Hey, 0:32:12.720 --> 0:32:14.560 I had a cup of coffee to help keep me 0:32:14.600 --> 0:32:18.040 awake until the headliner came on. Fair enough, But is 0:32:18.080 --> 0:32:22.080 any of this strictly necessary for a great time? And 0:32:22.360 --> 0:32:25.120 I realized that this sounds like a question posed in 0:32:25.200 --> 0:32:29.320 a dare program from high school for many people. But 0:32:29.840 --> 0:32:31.840 if we think about it logically, I think it works out. 0:32:31.880 --> 0:32:35.880 You know, all the technical, theatrical, social aspects of a 0:32:35.960 --> 0:32:41.120 concert are in place. They're generally very potent. You've probably 0:32:41.160 --> 0:32:44.120 bought that ticket and gone out to the show because 0:32:44.160 --> 0:32:47.880 you already have some invested interest in the spectacle. And 0:32:48.200 --> 0:32:52.080 as such substances they might be helpful in one regard 0:32:52.240 --> 0:32:55.280 or another, they might enhance things, but the spectacle is 0:32:55.320 --> 0:32:58.960 already the spectacle, the lights, the music, the communal energy, 0:32:59.040 --> 0:32:59.680 and so forth. 0:33:00.080 --> 0:33:02.640 Yeah, and imagine if you were approaching the concert with 0:33:02.720 --> 0:33:05.440 the knowledge that what happened there was was secret and 0:33:05.440 --> 0:33:06.360 couldn't be revealed. 0:33:06.840 --> 0:33:10.240 Yeah, yeah, which is just going to enhance everything. And 0:33:10.600 --> 0:33:12.720 certainly that's I mean, anytime you have any kind of 0:33:12.760 --> 0:33:18.160 a theatrical presentation, you know, either mildly theatrical or overtly theatrical. 0:33:18.520 --> 0:33:20.560 If there's a secrecy to it, oh well, that just 0:33:20.640 --> 0:33:23.080 makes it all the more special. Think about a speakeasy. 0:33:23.120 --> 0:33:25.600 Any of you have ever been to one of the 0:33:25.640 --> 0:33:29.200 modern speakeasies, not like a Prohibition era speakeasy, but if 0:33:29.200 --> 0:33:31.680 you if you did go to a Prohibition era speakeasy, 0:33:31.720 --> 0:33:34.840 you know, kudos to you for being up on podcasts 0:33:34.840 --> 0:33:37.479 and so forth. But you know, it's like there's generally 0:33:37.480 --> 0:33:39.360 this level of like, oh I had to go through 0:33:39.360 --> 0:33:42.320 a secret door to get into this bar. You know, 0:33:42.480 --> 0:33:44.320 it just makes everything all the more exciting. 0:33:44.400 --> 0:33:46.040 Right, I want to come back to that in a 0:33:46.080 --> 0:33:46.720 minute here. 0:33:46.960 --> 0:33:49.200 So Abouden writes, quote, if we are to look for 0:33:49.240 --> 0:33:53.640 an external explanation for the Elusinian experience, the theater seems 0:33:53.640 --> 0:33:56.600 a better place to look than the kitchen or brewery. 0:33:56.960 --> 0:34:00.240 Again, that seems quite reasonable to me. You can't totally 0:34:00.520 --> 0:34:04.320 rule out a pharmacological influence, but I don't think we 0:34:04.520 --> 0:34:06.920 need to go there to explain anything. 0:34:06.880 --> 0:34:09.520 Right, and it does create As McKenna pointed out, an 0:34:09.520 --> 0:34:14.759 additional burden of proof is that is required. Now. I 0:34:14.760 --> 0:34:20.040 looked at some more recent articles exploring the various psychedelic 0:34:20.080 --> 0:34:24.360 theories regarding the Lyusinian mysteries, and you do see proponents 0:34:24.360 --> 0:34:27.880 still arguing that some of these theories, at least the 0:34:27.880 --> 0:34:31.879 psychotropic mushroom one, the mushroom theory, seems to be more 0:34:32.160 --> 0:34:37.399 valid and less fraught with complications compared to the aragot beer. 0:34:39.280 --> 0:34:41.480 You know that one may be in the mix still, 0:34:41.880 --> 0:34:43.440 but at the end of the day, all we can 0:34:43.520 --> 0:34:45.839 really do is speculate, and again it just adds an 0:34:45.840 --> 0:34:49.120 additional level of evidence that would be required, evidence that 0:34:49.200 --> 0:34:53.719 we do not have, but certainly more possible, fewer complications 0:34:53.719 --> 0:35:05.360 than saying maybe it was aliens by all means. 0:35:06.400 --> 0:35:09.040 All right, So whether or not the people engaged in 0:35:09.080 --> 0:35:14.120 this were consuming hallucinogenic barley mush again, no reason to 0:35:14.440 --> 0:35:17.080 assume they needed to do that to explain anything we know, 0:35:17.239 --> 0:35:20.040 but who knows maybe whether or not that was happening 0:35:20.680 --> 0:35:23.040 after the public rituals at the end of the festival. 0:35:23.600 --> 0:35:25.200 Not quite at the end, actually there was a little 0:35:25.200 --> 0:35:27.760 bit after this, but basically the climax of the festival. 0:35:27.800 --> 0:35:31.320 Once night had fallen, you would get to the big deal, 0:35:31.400 --> 0:35:34.680 the secret rites inside the closed hall of mysteries, the 0:35:34.719 --> 0:35:38.600 Telesterion so what was going on there? Well, here's where 0:35:38.640 --> 0:35:42.440 we know a lot less, because, as we've discussed, those 0:35:42.560 --> 0:35:45.719 who had not been initiated were not supposed to know, 0:35:46.360 --> 0:35:49.520 and those who had been initiated were not supposed to tell. 0:35:50.320 --> 0:35:54.960 But we have some clues. So there are ancient references 0:35:55.000 --> 0:36:01.760 to the mysteries inside the Telesterion as quote things, things shown, 0:36:02.120 --> 0:36:06.160 and things said, which is sort of vague, but that 0:36:06.239 --> 0:36:08.239 still tells you a bit. It suggests there is a 0:36:08.320 --> 0:36:13.799 visual display things shown, a physically enacted element, things done, 0:36:13.920 --> 0:36:18.640 and a recited element things said aloud. The second to 0:36:18.719 --> 0:36:23.600 third century Christian Church father Clement of Alexandria claims that 0:36:23.800 --> 0:36:26.759 initiates to the Eleusinian mysteries had to recite a kind 0:36:26.760 --> 0:36:32.640 of passphrase which translates too. I fasted, I drank the kookion, 0:36:33.160 --> 0:36:36.080 I took from the chest, and having worked with the 0:36:36.120 --> 0:36:39.719 sacred implements, I removed them into the basket and from 0:36:39.760 --> 0:36:44.319 the basket into the chest. Which that last part sounds like, oh, 0:36:44.680 --> 0:36:47.080 the kind of activity that would just thrill my toddler 0:36:47.200 --> 0:36:50.440 right now. Is that a common thing for kids at 0:36:50.440 --> 0:36:50.879 this age? 0:36:51.040 --> 0:36:52.960 I don't know, I mean, does it ever go away? 0:36:52.960 --> 0:36:55.399 I love putting things in little boxes and taking things 0:36:55.440 --> 0:36:58.320 out of boxes. Yeah. I mean people watch whole videos 0:36:58.320 --> 0:36:59.919 online just to see unboxings. 0:37:00.160 --> 0:37:02.880 Right, so out of this box, into that box and 0:37:02.920 --> 0:37:03.680 then back again. 0:37:03.920 --> 0:37:04.160 Yeah. 0:37:05.000 --> 0:37:08.120 Anyway, as for the things shown in that phrase, a 0:37:08.200 --> 0:37:11.280 lot of ancient sources, while not saying what was shown, 0:37:11.880 --> 0:37:16.200 really emphasized the idea of the mysteries as a visual display. 0:37:16.320 --> 0:37:20.240 In fact, the priest of Demeter is known as the hyrafant, 0:37:20.360 --> 0:37:24.080 which means that name translates to a person who shows 0:37:24.280 --> 0:37:28.520 or displays sacred things. Now, this might be a good 0:37:28.520 --> 0:37:30.759 place to talk a bit about the idea of the 0:37:31.120 --> 0:37:34.280 profanation of the mysteries. Bowden's book has a good little 0:37:34.280 --> 0:37:37.320 subsection on this, and you were alluding to it earlier 0:37:37.760 --> 0:37:42.000 with the idea of that guy Alcibiades, the fifth century 0:37:42.040 --> 0:37:47.400 BCE Athens based general who he got in trouble because 0:37:47.520 --> 0:37:49.640 the deal was he was like right about to head 0:37:49.640 --> 0:37:53.120 off for a naval campaign to Sicily, so they're getting 0:37:53.160 --> 0:37:57.319 ready to go to launch this expedition, and suddenly he 0:37:57.480 --> 0:38:01.040 is accused by enemies of having revealed the mysteries of 0:38:01.040 --> 0:38:05.000 Eleusis to non initiates, and in fact, the idea was 0:38:05.040 --> 0:38:08.319 not just that he told secrets, but that he sort 0:38:08.320 --> 0:38:12.280 of privatized the mysteries by recreating them in his house 0:38:12.360 --> 0:38:16.600 with non initiated guests. I was trying to figure out, 0:38:16.640 --> 0:38:20.239 like what exactly was the spirit of this recreation of 0:38:20.280 --> 0:38:22.920 the mysteries, Like was he was he trying to get 0:38:22.920 --> 0:38:25.720 his own mysteries going, or was it in a spirit 0:38:25.760 --> 0:38:29.360 of mockery or irony. I'm not quite sure there. 0:38:29.800 --> 0:38:31.560 Or kind of like being It could have been a 0:38:31.600 --> 0:38:33.560 sense of he was like just a superfan. He's like, 0:38:33.600 --> 0:38:36.239 I love this stuff so much, you know, he's just 0:38:36.280 --> 0:38:38.279 s geeking out about it, wanting to share it with 0:38:38.360 --> 0:38:41.800 his buddies. But then in doing so, you know, commits 0:38:41.960 --> 0:38:45.040 at least minor heresy. You know, these things can get 0:38:45.040 --> 0:38:46.800 out of control sometimes. 0:38:46.840 --> 0:38:50.480 But this accusation is received as quite serious, like it 0:38:50.480 --> 0:38:54.360 would be a grave offense which would lead to divine punishment. 0:38:54.400 --> 0:38:56.560 The kind of implication is, if you know, you send 0:38:56.560 --> 0:38:59.960 out a general out to war who has just profane 0:39:00.080 --> 0:39:03.600 and the secret rights, the gods are going to work 0:39:03.640 --> 0:39:07.400 their wrath on him with defeat in battle. And so 0:39:07.520 --> 0:39:09.200 maybe this is a good place to come back and 0:39:09.280 --> 0:39:12.160 explore the idea of the secrecy of the rights a 0:39:12.160 --> 0:39:14.719 little more. We talked about this a minute ago, and 0:39:15.320 --> 0:39:17.600 I had some more thoughts about this. Specifically. I was 0:39:17.680 --> 0:39:20.920 reading about it in that book chapter by Kevin Clinton, 0:39:21.000 --> 0:39:26.400 where he cites a passage by Aristotle which makes reference 0:39:26.440 --> 0:39:30.200 to the mysteries, and I thought this was interesting. Aristotle says, 0:39:30.400 --> 0:39:36.320 in translation quote, the initiates are not supposed to learn anything, 0:39:36.600 --> 0:39:40.520 but rather to experience and to be disposed in a 0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:46.839 certain way, that is, becoming manifestly fit or deserving. So 0:39:47.120 --> 0:39:51.560 the cult has secrets which are only revealed to initiates. 0:39:51.920 --> 0:39:54.680 But according to Aristotle at least, and I trust he 0:39:54.719 --> 0:39:57.600 probably knew what he was talking about, the initiates are 0:39:57.640 --> 0:40:01.600 not supposed to learn any thing. That's not the point. 0:40:02.040 --> 0:40:04.359 Coming back to something we talked about in an earlier part, 0:40:04.400 --> 0:40:07.560 that the point of the cult is not an information puzzle. 0:40:07.640 --> 0:40:11.799 It's not to learn the secret password. Instead, you are 0:40:11.880 --> 0:40:16.600 supposed to have an experience. And even more interestingly about 0:40:16.600 --> 0:40:20.279 what Aristotle says here, You're supposed to have an experience 0:40:20.360 --> 0:40:26.239 and by virtue of that experience to become worthy. Now, 0:40:26.239 --> 0:40:30.279 according to Clinton, the Greek word Aristotle uses for experience 0:40:30.360 --> 0:40:32.920 here does mean what we mean by experience, but it 0:40:33.000 --> 0:40:38.200 also means to suffer. And Clinton argues that the secrecy 0:40:38.280 --> 0:40:41.879 of the mystery cults was not originally understood as the 0:40:41.960 --> 0:40:45.680 point of them. Rather, it came to be perceived as 0:40:45.719 --> 0:40:49.440 a defining aspect of them, sort of because of the 0:40:49.520 --> 0:40:53.960 drama it implied, especially to non initiates, and because of 0:40:54.000 --> 0:40:58.080 the severe penalties for violation of those secrets. It seems 0:40:58.160 --> 0:41:01.840 this wasn't the case always is, because you can find counterexamples. 0:41:01.880 --> 0:41:03.960 But it looks like, at least in some cases, the 0:41:04.000 --> 0:41:08.200 punishment was supposed to be death. So, given the assumption 0:41:08.400 --> 0:41:11.960 that the mystery cult was not actually about secrecy, the 0:41:12.880 --> 0:41:18.600 secrecy was not the point, Clinton asks an interesting question quote, 0:41:18.640 --> 0:41:22.920 we may then legitimately ask what actually was the point 0:41:23.160 --> 0:41:27.440 of the secrecy? But first one must consider what is 0:41:27.520 --> 0:41:30.800 so special about a secret? A secret is a fact 0:41:30.960 --> 0:41:34.120 or a representation of a human act that cannot be 0:41:34.160 --> 0:41:38.040 disclosed beyond a certain group. What could be so exciting 0:41:38.080 --> 0:41:40.839 about a fact or an act that could draw thousands 0:41:40.840 --> 0:41:43.439 of people from all over the Greek world each year 0:41:43.560 --> 0:41:46.160 to the mysteria? And of course we do get some 0:41:46.200 --> 0:41:48.279 attempts in the ancient world to kind of frame the 0:41:48.320 --> 0:41:52.440 secret of the Elusinian mysteries as something that would be 0:41:52.960 --> 0:41:56.120 concealed for a reason of it being i don't know, 0:41:56.200 --> 0:41:59.839 scandalous or titillating. And some of these reports come from 0:42:00.080 --> 0:42:02.760 from early Christian writers, and that kind of makes sense, 0:42:02.880 --> 0:42:06.239 like they would be maybe hostile to other religious practices 0:42:06.280 --> 0:42:09.920 and not worried about profaning them. But it's also unclear 0:42:10.000 --> 0:42:12.839 how accurate these these claims are and whether we should 0:42:12.840 --> 0:42:16.520 believe their descriptions. But one example is that Clinton mentions 0:42:16.600 --> 0:42:20.600 that some Christian authors claimed the big secret of the 0:42:20.600 --> 0:42:23.520 Elysian mysteries is you got to watch a priest and 0:42:23.560 --> 0:42:24.760 a priestess have sex. 0:42:26.600 --> 0:42:28.920 Again, I come back to the idea of some sort 0:42:28.960 --> 0:42:32.640 of a sideshow tent. You go into the back and 0:42:32.680 --> 0:42:34.919 you get to see like a little something extra that's 0:42:34.960 --> 0:42:37.280 not for everyone who came to the main circus. 0:42:37.520 --> 0:42:40.520 Yeah, so again we have no way of knowing that's 0:42:40.560 --> 0:42:43.319 not true. But Clinton kind of argues against it. He 0:42:43.400 --> 0:42:46.319 says this would not be sufficient to attract the kind 0:42:46.360 --> 0:42:49.480 of attention and like draw the kind of crowds from 0:42:49.520 --> 0:42:52.399 all around like are described like for one thing, it's 0:42:52.440 --> 0:42:56.279 not that unique, And to me it just sounds kind 0:42:56.280 --> 0:42:58.520 of like a like a slander that one religion says 0:42:58.520 --> 0:43:01.360 about another, And there were of slander's going the opposite 0:43:01.360 --> 0:43:05.799 way too, Slanders Greek and Roman polytheists accused Christians of 0:43:05.840 --> 0:43:09.319 being immoral, of engaging in cannibalism and incest and all 0:43:09.400 --> 0:43:10.040 kinds of stuff. 0:43:10.360 --> 0:43:12.959 Yeah, if you just wanted to see a sexual act 0:43:13.040 --> 0:43:15.600 or sexual act for performance, there are surely other shows 0:43:15.640 --> 0:43:18.799 in town. So yeah, this does sort of ring of 0:43:18.880 --> 0:43:21.600 some sort of a slander, doesn't it, right? 0:43:21.719 --> 0:43:25.400 So instead, Clinton argues that the purpose of the secrecy 0:43:25.920 --> 0:43:29.640 was in order to make the experience of the solemn 0:43:29.760 --> 0:43:35.080 rituals feel extraordinary. And I mean this rings true to me. 0:43:35.320 --> 0:43:41.800 That that which we receive as common knowledge feels trivial, 0:43:42.719 --> 0:43:47.080 that which is hidden and is specially revealed to us 0:43:47.600 --> 0:43:51.120 feels like it gets an automatic leg up in profundity. 0:43:51.520 --> 0:43:55.279 You know, it's just so much easier to interpret a 0:43:55.360 --> 0:43:59.040 secret revealed to you as something that is meaningful in itself, 0:43:59.080 --> 0:44:03.400 when in fact it doesn't need to be. And you 0:44:03.440 --> 0:44:06.759 know that got me thinking, like, I don't mean to 0:44:06.840 --> 0:44:11.400 insult the mysteries by this or profound religious experiences in general, 0:44:11.880 --> 0:44:14.520 but I kind of can't help make the comparison to 0:44:14.800 --> 0:44:18.520 a common sort of influencer who exists today that I 0:44:19.080 --> 0:44:23.640 would characterize as like the influencer mystic, a person who 0:44:23.800 --> 0:44:28.200 ostensibly traffics in insights somebody who is out there and 0:44:28.520 --> 0:44:30.640 maybe they've got media channels or whatever, and they do 0:44:30.719 --> 0:44:36.880 commentary and analysis or life advice. But their insights, at 0:44:36.960 --> 0:44:40.080 least as I judge, might not be especially interesting or 0:44:40.120 --> 0:44:43.960 seem especially valid if they were just presented in written 0:44:44.040 --> 0:44:48.080 form or paraphrased into plain language. But this kind of 0:44:48.360 --> 0:44:52.400 influencer mystic can achieve a fan base because they're able 0:44:52.480 --> 0:44:55.280 to talk in a way that makes whatever they're saying 0:44:55.400 --> 0:44:59.359 feel like a great occult secret is being unearthed, and 0:44:59.400 --> 0:45:02.120 by listening to them, you are the first witness to 0:45:02.160 --> 0:45:06.319 an unveiling of truths, which is an intoxicating feeling if 0:45:06.360 --> 0:45:09.440 somebody can pull it off. And so, of course I'm 0:45:09.440 --> 0:45:12.360 speaking with a little bit of derision about these modern examples, 0:45:12.400 --> 0:45:15.640 but you could also, at the same time use the 0:45:15.640 --> 0:45:20.239 theatrics of the unveiled secret to increase the salience of genuine, 0:45:20.280 --> 0:45:23.759 profound insights and experiences. So I'm not suggesting the Eleusinian 0:45:23.840 --> 0:45:28.560 mysteries were necessarily hollow at their core or anything like that. Again, 0:45:28.600 --> 0:45:30.520 there's just a lot we don't know about their core. 0:45:30.880 --> 0:45:34.120 It's really interesting to think about this too in terms 0:45:34.200 --> 0:45:39.800 of the secular modern world and even the religious modern 0:45:39.800 --> 0:45:44.160 world in many respects, Like we are so accustomed to 0:45:44.239 --> 0:45:47.200 the idea that you can skip to the end and read, 0:45:48.360 --> 0:45:51.880 read the finish, read the conclusion, it would get a 0:45:51.880 --> 0:45:54.960 bullet list of the main things that are important. And 0:45:55.000 --> 0:45:57.560 so the idea that there would be levels to something 0:45:58.080 --> 0:46:01.040 or some sort of a secret reveal that it is 0:46:01.120 --> 0:46:03.799 not for everyone else to know it does kind of 0:46:03.840 --> 0:46:08.440 run counter to sort of the informational DNA that a 0:46:08.480 --> 0:46:09.040 lot of us have. 0:46:09.760 --> 0:46:12.240 Yeah, and so while I think in the modern world 0:46:12.280 --> 0:46:15.840 this is often used for ill, it wouldn't necessarily have 0:46:15.920 --> 0:46:17.480 to be used for ill. But I think you can 0:46:17.520 --> 0:46:21.759 get you can get a lot of persuasive and attentional 0:46:21.800 --> 0:46:25.320 mileage just by framing your opinion or whatever you're about 0:46:25.320 --> 0:46:28.120 to say as a secret that is being unveiled to 0:46:28.200 --> 0:46:30.400 someone you know, Like I'm going to pull back the 0:46:30.400 --> 0:46:31.000 curtain now. 0:46:31.600 --> 0:46:34.800 I think the place, weirdly enough, where it is often 0:46:34.960 --> 0:46:40.880 the most respected is in terms of narrative storytelling, particularly 0:46:40.920 --> 0:46:44.400 with movies and the idea of no spoilers. You know, 0:46:45.320 --> 0:46:47.040 not only don't spoil this for me, but I think 0:46:47.080 --> 0:46:49.359 more profoundly, when you have an experience where there's some 0:46:49.360 --> 0:46:51.800 sort of a film out there and either is particularly 0:46:51.800 --> 0:46:54.759 well crafted or it does involve a particularly innovative twist 0:46:55.200 --> 0:46:58.520 or effective twist, or an emotional twist, and people will stress, 0:46:58.760 --> 0:47:01.360 don't read the spoilers, go into this without you know, 0:47:01.400 --> 0:47:03.800 don't watch the trailer, go into it so that everything 0:47:03.840 --> 0:47:07.359 is a surprise, you know. Outside of that, like, there's 0:47:07.400 --> 0:47:10.840 not much that we're we're we generally engage in where 0:47:10.640 --> 0:47:13.440 we're open to that sort of experience. I mean, I 0:47:13.480 --> 0:47:15.719 guess in some respects we are like like, you know, 0:47:15.760 --> 0:47:17.560 some one might say, have a child. You don't know 0:47:17.600 --> 0:47:19.360 how this is going to turn out, but you're in 0:47:20.120 --> 0:47:22.200 the long run, it's gonna be it's gonna be a surprise. 0:47:22.239 --> 0:47:24.880 There's gonna be some twists you're not expecting. It's true, 0:47:25.000 --> 0:47:27.759 but you know, the parenthood and movies, those are the 0:47:27.760 --> 0:47:30.160 two examples that come to mind. But when it comes 0:47:30.200 --> 0:47:32.360 to religion, we're more of the mind, well, what are 0:47:32.400 --> 0:47:34.719 they believe in? Give me a list? Is there a 0:47:34.719 --> 0:47:36.680 Holy book? All right? I'm gonna skip to the end 0:47:36.800 --> 0:47:38.920 is maybe there's some cliff notes on it and so forth. 0:47:39.440 --> 0:47:41.719 Well, I mean, and that goes back to something we 0:47:41.760 --> 0:47:44.600 talked about in the first episode of the series about 0:47:45.160 --> 0:47:49.440 that anthropological framework of the doctrinal religious model versus the 0:47:49.440 --> 0:47:54.400 imagistic or religious model. Bowden makes reference to these ideas, 0:47:54.800 --> 0:47:59.040 and the short version is that doctrinal modes of worship 0:47:59.120 --> 0:48:03.879 worship tend to be frequent, regular, low intensity, but also 0:48:04.080 --> 0:48:07.920 have clear meaning and function. You can kind of have 0:48:07.960 --> 0:48:12.480 a systematic explanation of what the purpose and meaning of 0:48:12.520 --> 0:48:16.960 the rituals are, versus what's known as the imagistic model 0:48:17.040 --> 0:48:22.480 of religious practice, where rituals tend to be rare, strange, 0:48:22.960 --> 0:48:26.479 high intensity, and more ambiguous in terms of meaning. Maybe 0:48:26.480 --> 0:48:29.279 nobody's even telling you what to make of the experience 0:48:29.320 --> 0:48:32.839 you had now, I guess the implication is that mysteries 0:48:32.880 --> 0:48:36.040 such as the mysteries of ill Usis would be much 0:48:36.080 --> 0:48:39.479 more firmly in the imagistic mode of worship. That there's 0:48:40.320 --> 0:48:44.920 something profound, high intensity going on, and it may well 0:48:44.960 --> 0:48:48.840 be very ambiguous, very open to your own contemplation and interpretation. 0:48:48.920 --> 0:48:51.040 Maybe nobody tells you what it means or even what 0:48:51.080 --> 0:48:54.319 it's doing. But that does bring us back to the 0:48:54.360 --> 0:48:57.960 Secret Rights themselves. So what else can we guess about 0:48:58.000 --> 0:49:01.000 the content of the mysteries? And here I'm going to 0:49:01.320 --> 0:49:06.040 synthesize from multiple accounts, including Clinton's and Bowden's and a 0:49:06.080 --> 0:49:09.480 few other things I've read. But it seems that, for 0:49:09.560 --> 0:49:15.799 one thing, the Secret Rights probably involved some reenactment of 0:49:15.880 --> 0:49:21.080 the myth of Demeter and Corey. Now it's questionable to 0:49:21.200 --> 0:49:24.799 what extent it followed the story completely, which parts of 0:49:24.840 --> 0:49:27.840 the story were represented, and what version of the story 0:49:27.840 --> 0:49:31.120 you got, but there are multiple clues pointing to the 0:49:31.200 --> 0:49:35.240 idea that some version of this story is being re enacted, 0:49:35.360 --> 0:49:39.000 at least in part in these rituals. This could include 0:49:39.080 --> 0:49:43.960 wandering around in the darkness, like searching for the kidnapped 0:49:44.040 --> 0:49:48.520 daughter after her disappearance, possibly witnessing or hearing the grief 0:49:48.560 --> 0:49:52.800 stricken cries of Demeter. For at least part of the ritual, 0:49:53.320 --> 0:49:56.760 initiates may have been blindfolded or shrouded with a hood. 0:49:56.800 --> 0:50:00.480 Ancient authors make reference to something about this where they 0:50:00.520 --> 0:50:03.120 would probably be guided by their mystagogue, you know, the 0:50:03.520 --> 0:50:06.799 more experienced guide would would show them the way to 0:50:06.840 --> 0:50:10.160 go while they were baffled, and you know, and they 0:50:10.160 --> 0:50:12.400 didn't know where to go, stumbling around in the dark, 0:50:13.520 --> 0:50:16.800 and all of this before the initiates were eventually made 0:50:16.880 --> 0:50:20.319 aware somehow of the reunion of mother and daughter of 0:50:20.320 --> 0:50:23.279 Demeter and Corey at the end of the myth, and 0:50:23.320 --> 0:50:27.160 then finally brought into the hall, like coming out of 0:50:27.200 --> 0:50:31.200 the darkness into a hall brightly illuminated by torches for 0:50:31.360 --> 0:50:36.120 a celebration and revealing of things hidden. Now again, those 0:50:36.200 --> 0:50:39.120 last parts are they seem reasonable based on what we know, 0:50:39.200 --> 0:50:41.359 but we don't know for sure. That's the form it took. 0:50:41.640 --> 0:50:43.920 Torches seem to play a role. There are a lot 0:50:44.120 --> 0:50:47.680 There are a lot of mentions of darkness and blindfoldedness 0:50:47.680 --> 0:50:51.040 and agony and struggles in the darkness and then coming 0:50:51.080 --> 0:50:51.680 into the light. 0:50:52.239 --> 0:50:54.680 You know. This brings me back. We talked again talking 0:50:54.680 --> 0:50:58.520 about haunted attractions and how you do encounter some that 0:50:58.600 --> 0:51:02.040 are church affiliated. I have distinct memories of going to 0:51:02.080 --> 0:51:05.360 one as when I was a youth, as a rural 0:51:06.760 --> 0:51:11.919 southern church affiliated haunted house. And at the end, as 0:51:11.960 --> 0:51:15.560 you wandered or perhaps rushed out of the darkness, pursued 0:51:15.600 --> 0:51:19.000 by chainsaws and the like, where do you enter into 0:51:19.080 --> 0:51:22.080 you enter into a tent where a preacher is then 0:51:22.160 --> 0:51:26.560 going to speak to you and sell you on eternal 0:51:26.600 --> 0:51:31.000 salvation and of course the alternatives that you just witnessed 0:51:31.000 --> 0:51:31.800 in the Haunted House. 0:51:32.640 --> 0:51:36.920 Yeah, so that high contrast creates an intensity, like an 0:51:36.920 --> 0:51:42.279 emotional motivation and intensity of experience that really I don't 0:51:42.280 --> 0:51:45.360 know in this case, again, we've already noted the difference 0:51:45.400 --> 0:51:49.080 between like the Christian hell House or whatever variation there 0:51:49.120 --> 0:51:53.000 where the goal is to I don't want to oversimplify, 0:51:53.040 --> 0:51:54.959 but I think it's fair to say usually at least 0:51:54.960 --> 0:51:56.920 the goal there is going to be to convert you 0:51:57.040 --> 0:51:59.840 into the doctrinal form of that religion, to say, like, 0:52:00.200 --> 0:52:03.440 you belong to us. Now you've been convinced by witnessing 0:52:03.440 --> 0:52:06.319 these horrors, you need to go to our church. That 0:52:06.400 --> 0:52:11.560 does not necessarily seem to be the goal here. I 0:52:11.600 --> 0:52:15.080 don't detect based on what I've read that the purpose 0:52:15.480 --> 0:52:18.799 of the mysteries is a persuasive one that you need 0:52:18.840 --> 0:52:22.359 to like join the cult of ill usis though. I mean, 0:52:22.400 --> 0:52:24.480 I guess the people who are who go through as 0:52:24.560 --> 0:52:28.480 mistas the first time, and this is a distinction the 0:52:28.520 --> 0:52:30.879 first time you are initiated to the mysteries. You were 0:52:30.880 --> 0:52:34.319 known as mistys or mistace, a term which seems to 0:52:34.360 --> 0:52:38.040 derive from the concept of having one's eyes closed, and 0:52:38.080 --> 0:52:41.520 then you would usually come back a second time and 0:52:41.560 --> 0:52:44.160 then you would be known as epop dase, which means 0:52:44.239 --> 0:52:48.160 look or viewer. So there is a kind of return 0:52:49.680 --> 0:52:52.160 and the difference between those terms is interesting too, by 0:52:52.200 --> 0:52:55.680 the way, because the difference between like mistace meaning eyes 0:52:55.719 --> 0:52:59.000 closed and a pop dase meaning looking or viewing, that 0:52:59.040 --> 0:53:01.120 could of course be little role like maybe the first 0:53:01.120 --> 0:53:03.440 time you do it you are blindfolded or hooded, and 0:53:03.640 --> 0:53:06.480 the second time you can look, or maybe there are 0:53:06.760 --> 0:53:11.279 particular elements that two time initiates are particular permitted to 0:53:11.320 --> 0:53:14.360 look upon the first time initiates or not. But this 0:53:14.440 --> 0:53:16.879 difference could also just refer to a kind of metaphorical 0:53:16.960 --> 0:53:19.719 perspective on what is happening, the same way that we 0:53:19.760 --> 0:53:23.400 say to have previous experience with something is to go 0:53:23.560 --> 0:53:25.080 into it with open eyes. 0:53:27.560 --> 0:53:29.880 For anyone out there who's listening with I don't know 0:53:29.920 --> 0:53:31.720 if this is really a listen with the whole family 0:53:31.760 --> 0:53:34.160 sort of episode, but in the case event that you are, 0:53:34.360 --> 0:53:38.239 I'm about to throw out some Christmas spoilers so feel 0:53:38.239 --> 0:53:42.520 free to skip a bit if you wish. But this 0:53:42.600 --> 0:53:47.160 also reminds me of the way that some parents approach 0:53:47.440 --> 0:53:51.800 Santa Claus and Christmas traditions, the idea being that instead 0:53:51.800 --> 0:53:55.480 of just not doing them, or trying to keep the 0:53:55.840 --> 0:53:59.680 myth and the or the fiction of Santa Claus going 0:54:00.120 --> 0:54:04.880 like well beyond it's a healthy phase, instead you kind 0:54:04.880 --> 0:54:07.200 of break it down like this, where it is kind 0:54:07.200 --> 0:54:09.480 of treated like a mystery when the child is young, 0:54:09.560 --> 0:54:11.839 and then when the child reaches a certain age, it's like, 0:54:11.960 --> 0:54:14.319 now you were part of the mystery, and now you 0:54:14.360 --> 0:54:18.120 can help create this mystery for perhaps younger siblings, other 0:54:18.160 --> 0:54:21.240 young people you know in the family or in the community, 0:54:21.280 --> 0:54:23.840 and so forth. And perhaps this is like a less 0:54:23.960 --> 0:54:29.000 doctrinal example compared to the Haunted House thing, because I 0:54:29.000 --> 0:54:32.880 guess there's not really a doctrine regarding Santa that is 0:54:33.520 --> 0:54:35.319 being pursued in the long run, though it is of 0:54:35.360 --> 0:54:38.759 course more certainly like narrative and so forth. And I 0:54:38.760 --> 0:54:41.400 guess perhaps the Santa Claus example is better than the 0:54:41.440 --> 0:54:43.799 Haunted House example because Santa Claus, there's not really a 0:54:43.840 --> 0:54:46.640 doctrine there that we're trying to drive home into children 0:54:46.920 --> 0:54:49.040 aside from be good or else, I guess. 0:54:48.880 --> 0:54:52.600 Yeah, Oh, but I guess I got sidetracked there talking 0:54:52.600 --> 0:54:56.719 about the mistakes versus the apoptaes from talking about how 0:54:56.960 --> 0:54:59.239 generally it seems like there is a difference between the 0:54:59.480 --> 0:55:03.560 hell house model and the mystery religion model because, or 0:55:03.560 --> 0:55:07.360 at least this particular case, because in the all Usinian mysteries, 0:55:07.400 --> 0:55:10.640 it's like the experience is the point. It's not just 0:55:10.719 --> 0:55:13.520 like a persuasive act to get you to do something 0:55:13.600 --> 0:55:18.640 else different right. Another interesting passage that is often cited 0:55:18.680 --> 0:55:23.520 in historical writing about the mystery religions is from Plutarch. 0:55:24.239 --> 0:55:29.320 Or Plutarch characterizes the mysteries generally by way of metaphor. 0:55:29.719 --> 0:55:32.560 What he's actually talking about is what happens to the 0:55:32.560 --> 0:55:35.400 soul at the end of life. But he's sort of saying, 0:55:35.560 --> 0:55:37.080 you know, what happens to the soul at the end 0:55:37.080 --> 0:55:39.320 of life is much like what you all know happens 0:55:39.360 --> 0:55:43.399 after you're initiated into the mysteries. And to be clear, 0:55:43.440 --> 0:55:46.360 he doesn't say specifically he's talking about the Eleusinian mysteries, 0:55:46.400 --> 0:55:49.480 but he probably is. These were the most famous. So 0:55:49.520 --> 0:55:54.120 what Plutarch says is quote wandering astray in the beginning, 0:55:54.400 --> 0:55:58.600 tiresome walkings in circles, some frightening paths in darkness that 0:55:58.719 --> 0:56:01.920 lead nowhere. Then, and immediately before the end, all the 0:56:02.000 --> 0:56:06.440 terrible things, panic and shivering and sweat and bewilderment. And 0:56:06.480 --> 0:56:10.080 then some wonderful light comes to meet you. Purer regions 0:56:10.120 --> 0:56:12.840 and meadows are there to greet you with sounds and 0:56:12.960 --> 0:56:17.239 dances and solemn sacred words and holy views. And they're 0:56:17.360 --> 0:56:20.520 the initiate, perfect by now set free and loose from 0:56:20.560 --> 0:56:24.319 all bondage, walks about, crowned with a wreath, celebrating the 0:56:24.360 --> 0:56:27.600 festival together with the other sacred and pure people. And 0:56:27.640 --> 0:56:31.399 he looks down on the uninitiated, unpurified crowd in this 0:56:31.440 --> 0:56:34.520 world in mud and fog beneath his feet. 0:56:35.480 --> 0:56:36.960 Oh wow, So. 0:56:37.760 --> 0:56:40.880 That square somewhat with what we've already talked about, like 0:56:40.960 --> 0:56:44.760 this feeling of lightness and sort of ascension that comes 0:56:44.800 --> 0:56:47.800 with having gone through the mysteries. There is some lasting 0:56:47.840 --> 0:56:50.320 effect on people that they cite that they say is 0:56:50.440 --> 0:56:54.400 very powerful and makes them feel better, makes them feel unafraid, 0:56:54.800 --> 0:56:59.279 set loose in some way, perfected in some way. But 0:56:59.320 --> 0:57:01.400 I also like that the first half of this passage, 0:57:01.800 --> 0:57:05.720 where it seems to be more describing, just in general 0:57:05.760 --> 0:57:08.560 and emotional terms, what the experience of going through the 0:57:08.600 --> 0:57:13.960 mysteries is like. And it's one that begins with confusion, bafflement, 0:57:14.160 --> 0:57:18.920 exhaustion and suffering and ends with hope and cathartic relief. 0:57:29.480 --> 0:57:31.200 And so I guess this brings us to the question 0:57:31.320 --> 0:57:34.880 of what did the mysteries mean to the people who 0:57:34.920 --> 0:57:40.200 practiced them Abouten explores this at length in his book Discussing. 0:57:40.280 --> 0:57:43.600 As we've already alluded to the possibility that the meaning 0:57:43.800 --> 0:57:47.960 of the mysteries was not made explicit. Instead, like the 0:57:48.000 --> 0:57:52.560 standard model of the imagistic mode of religion, it's sort 0:57:52.600 --> 0:57:57.320 of left ambiguous. It invites participants to reflect later and 0:57:57.400 --> 0:58:00.160 contemplate to figure out for themself what it means. And 0:58:01.240 --> 0:58:03.560 that's very interesting to me too, because I mean, a 0:58:03.720 --> 0:58:08.760 huge part actually of what religion is, at least in 0:58:08.800 --> 0:58:12.720 my experience, is exegesis on what things mean. It's like, 0:58:12.760 --> 0:58:17.640 you know, religions have, or many religions have, you know, 0:58:17.680 --> 0:58:20.960 they have contents, they may have texts and stories, they 0:58:20.960 --> 0:58:25.200 may have physical objects or places, they have rituals, and 0:58:25.240 --> 0:58:30.360 there's just so much effort devoted to clarifying what everything means, 0:58:30.440 --> 0:58:32.880 and that that's what a lot of people want out 0:58:32.880 --> 0:58:35.480 of religion today. You know, they want to understand how, what, 0:58:35.720 --> 0:58:38.280 why we do it? What how to make sense of it? 0:58:38.880 --> 0:58:41.480 But this version of religion may have been a kind 0:58:41.480 --> 0:58:45.520 of different one where it's like, instead, you witness something 0:58:45.840 --> 0:58:50.360 and you go through something that is strange and overwhelming 0:58:50.440 --> 0:58:52.840 and powerful, and then you're kind of just sent home 0:58:52.920 --> 0:58:54.160 to make your own sense of it. 0:58:54.480 --> 0:58:58.160 Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like abstract art and 0:58:58.200 --> 0:59:02.200 abstract cinema at its best right, where there's you go 0:59:02.280 --> 0:59:05.520 into it without any kind of expectations, you leave it 0:59:05.600 --> 0:59:11.440 without any i would say, prescribed interpretations. You know, you're 0:59:11.520 --> 0:59:14.160 left to try and figure out what it possibly meant 0:59:14.160 --> 0:59:16.600 all on your own, and maybe it meant nothing, but 0:59:16.680 --> 0:59:17.480 you won't forget it. 0:59:18.840 --> 0:59:21.920 Kevin Clinton, in his chapter writes, relying in part on 0:59:21.960 --> 0:59:25.760 his own hypothetical reconstruction of the rituals. So the following 0:59:25.800 --> 0:59:30.680 passage does include some assumptions based on guesses, but reasonable guesses, 0:59:31.640 --> 0:59:36.040 so Clinton writes, quote, the mysteria revealed simple things like 0:59:36.080 --> 0:59:38.840 the return of a lost daughter to her mother, a 0:59:38.920 --> 0:59:44.000 goddess in suffering parentheses, an extraordinary state for a Greek 0:59:44.040 --> 0:59:47.960 god or goddess, joy that accompanies the appearance of grain, 0:59:48.640 --> 0:59:53.800 the grain that is plutos, meaning wealth, the agrarian prosperity 0:59:53.880 --> 0:59:58.000 that sustains family and clan, all simple things that at 0:59:58.000 --> 1:00:01.919 the same time had profound signs magnificance. The impact lay 1:00:01.960 --> 1:00:05.600 in part in the dramatic presentation, which was an essential 1:00:05.680 --> 1:00:10.840 aspect of the experience, And that kind of takes me 1:00:10.920 --> 1:00:13.680 to another place, which is it makes me think I've 1:00:13.720 --> 1:00:16.200 been thinking about this primarily from the point of view 1:00:16.320 --> 1:00:19.760 of the new initiate, the mistas or the apoptes, you know, 1:00:19.840 --> 1:00:22.240 who's for the first or second time going through the 1:00:22.240 --> 1:00:25.280 greater mysteries and experiencing it and seeing what it means. 1:00:26.200 --> 1:00:28.280 But this kind of makes me think about it from 1:00:28.280 --> 1:00:30.640 the point of view of the priesthood. Say you are 1:00:30.960 --> 1:00:33.520 a hierofant or you're one of the people whose job 1:00:33.520 --> 1:00:37.640 it is to put on the show of the Eleusinian mysteries, 1:00:38.120 --> 1:00:40.960 it seems actually there's quite a burden. There's quite a 1:00:40.960 --> 1:00:45.280 burden to put on a good show because people are 1:00:45.320 --> 1:00:48.040 sort of relying on the fact that you put on 1:00:48.080 --> 1:00:51.919 a good show in order to find meaning in their life, 1:00:51.960 --> 1:00:55.000 to escape their fear of death, to feel like their 1:00:55.000 --> 1:00:58.240 life will have blessings yet to come, and they fit 1:00:58.360 --> 1:01:02.160 in a divine order, which is fascinating. And I guess 1:01:02.200 --> 1:01:05.640 something that people I don't know religious performers and in 1:01:05.760 --> 1:01:10.280 other situations probably do feel a similar kind of obligation. 1:01:11.360 --> 1:01:14.560 But it again made all the more alluring in this 1:01:14.640 --> 1:01:17.439 case because of the power of the secrecy, because there 1:01:17.520 --> 1:01:19.320 I think, we still don't know. There's some things we 1:01:19.360 --> 1:01:21.480 don't know. We don't know exactly what they were doing, 1:01:21.520 --> 1:01:23.880 and it's like it's agonizing. You want to know, but 1:01:24.320 --> 1:01:24.760 we can't. 1:01:25.080 --> 1:01:27.040 Yeah, we want it all laid out, Like from a 1:01:27.120 --> 1:01:31.640 historical standpoint, from an anthropology of religion standpoint, we want 1:01:31.680 --> 1:01:33.640 to know what were the things that were believe, what 1:01:33.680 --> 1:01:36.520 were the things that were enacted, and what was the 1:01:36.560 --> 1:01:40.480 import of those things, and for varying reasons, we have 1:01:40.520 --> 1:01:43.520 a lot of holes. All right, Well, on that note, 1:01:43.560 --> 1:01:45.280 we're going to go ahead and close out this episode, 1:01:45.320 --> 1:01:48.040 but we have decided we will come back with at 1:01:48.160 --> 1:01:51.400 least a fourth episode on the Mystery Cults, and it 1:01:51.440 --> 1:01:53.520 may not be the next episode of Stuff to Blow 1:01:53.560 --> 1:01:57.720 your mind, It may occur after that. So in the 1:01:57.760 --> 1:02:01.280 not too distant future, you will under a fourth episode 1:02:01.280 --> 1:02:04.720 and we'll continue this fascinating discussion. There are so many 1:02:04.800 --> 1:02:06.680 different mystery cults and we're not going to be able 1:02:06.680 --> 1:02:08.640 to discuss all of them, and we're of course not 1:02:08.680 --> 1:02:12.720 going to get into everything that Balden discusses in his book. Again, 1:02:13.280 --> 1:02:15.240 we do highly recommend you check that out if you 1:02:15.280 --> 1:02:17.840 are interested in the topic. The title of that book again, 1:02:17.880 --> 1:02:21.440 his Mystery Cults in the Ancient World by Hugh Bowden. 1:02:22.440 --> 1:02:25.080 In the meantime, we'd like to remind everyone that's Stuff 1:02:25.080 --> 1:02:27.800 to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, 1:02:27.840 --> 1:02:30.640 with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have a 1:02:30.680 --> 1:02:33.240 short form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays we set 1:02:33.280 --> 1:02:35.920 aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird 1:02:36.040 --> 1:02:38.280 film on Weird House Cinema. 1:02:38.640 --> 1:02:42.120 Huge things, as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. 1:02:42.480 --> 1:02:43.960 If you would like to get in touch with us 1:02:43.960 --> 1:02:46.360 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 1:02:46.440 --> 1:02:48.479 a topic for the future, or just to say hello, 1:02:48.800 --> 1:02:51.560 you can email us at contact Stuff to Blow your 1:02:51.560 --> 1:03:00.240 Mind dot com. 1:03:00.400 --> 1:03:03.320 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 1:03:03.440 --> 1:03:07.240 more podcasts, from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, 1:03:07.320 --> 1:03:22.680 or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.