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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part

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Speaker 3: two in our discussion of the mystery religions or mystery

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Speaker 3: cults of the Ancient Mediterranean. Mystery cult is a category

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Speaker 3: used by scholars to refer to worship systems in the

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Speaker 3: ancient Greco Roman world that were centered around powerful, intense

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Speaker 3: experiences of secretive mystic rights revealed only to the cult's initiates. Now,

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Speaker 3: in part one of the series, we talked mainly about

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Speaker 3: the historical context of these rights and some about how

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Speaker 3: they overlapped with and differed from the most common religious

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Speaker 3: practices of Greek and Roman polytheism. We also talked about

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Speaker 3: a book that is going to be one of our

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Speaker 3: major background sources in these episodes. That is a book

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Speaker 3: called Mystery Cults in the Ancient World by Hugh Bowden,

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Speaker 3: who is an ancient historian at King's College, London. This

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Speaker 3: book was published by Thamson Hudson. The edition both Rob

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Speaker 3: and I were reading is the one from twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 3: There was an older edition before that, and today we

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Speaker 3: wanted to come back and get a little bit deeper

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Speaker 3: into the mysteries by going beyond the general and looking

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Speaker 3: at a couple of specific examples.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I feel like one of the really interesting

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Speaker 2: things about these various mystery cults is that a lot

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Speaker 2: of the mysteries really do remain, in part because any

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Speaker 2: knowledge that we have of the ancient world is incomplete,

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Speaker 2: at least to some degree. But also these guys were

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Speaker 2: just really good at keeping their mysteries intact in some cases,

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Speaker 2: and what went on behind closed doors remained behind closed doors,

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Speaker 2: and we just have to speculate regarding that details of

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Speaker 2: what say, initiation rights consisted of and what they meant,

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Speaker 2: both in terms of like personal meaning to the initiate,

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Speaker 2: but also within like the sort of the larger like

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Speaker 2: worldview of the particular cult.

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Speaker 3: That's right, and we do know a lot of things,

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Speaker 3: especially about the more public aspects of the mystery religions,

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Speaker 3: because they often had a kind of you know, public

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Speaker 3: facing elements and then the hidden elements. And it's particularly

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Speaker 3: those those secretive hidden elements that you know they are.

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Speaker 3: There are many cases where we still don't really know

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Speaker 3: today what they were about We may have some claims

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Speaker 3: from the ancient world, we may have some pieces of evidence,

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Speaker 3: but yeah, a lot of mysteries remain.

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Speaker 4: Though.

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Speaker 3: One thing I do want to mention, it's something we

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Speaker 3: got into in the last episode, is a bit of

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Speaker 3: clarification on the role of mystery in mystery religion, because

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Speaker 3: that can be somewhat misleading and could maybe cause people

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Speaker 3: to think about the idea of a mystery cult as

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Speaker 3: a religion where the the main goal is to solve

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Speaker 3: a kind of information puzzle. It's like to get the

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Speaker 3: hidden answer to a question, and that really doesn't seem

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Speaker 3: to be what these mystery religions were primarily about. They

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Speaker 3: had very elements that we could absolutely call mysterious. There

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Speaker 3: were secret rights, there were secret sacred objects that were

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Speaker 3: hidden from view, and all you know, you could only

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Speaker 3: see what they were if you were initiated. But the

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Speaker 3: main goal of these religions was, especially as argued by

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Speaker 3: Bowden in this book, we've been talking about, not primarily

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Speaker 3: to solve an information puzzle and like learn the secret,

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Speaker 3: but instead it was to have a profound experience to

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Speaker 3: take part in these mystic rights, these secret rights that

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Speaker 3: would cause some kind of experience or encounter directly with

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Speaker 3: the power of the gods.

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Speaker 2: So mystery very much in the sense of the Beatles

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Speaker 2: album from sixty seven, The Magical Mystery Tour.

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Speaker 4: I don't know what sense that would be.

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't think it really revolves around the particular

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Speaker 2: puzzle or a particular mystery is there, But it's more,

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Speaker 2: you know, versed in psychedelic weirdness and yeah, yeah, and

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Speaker 2: perhaps cryptic meaning. I mean, I am the Walrus, right,

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Speaker 2: What are we to make of this song? What are

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Speaker 2: we to make of the imagery associated with it?

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Speaker 3: I remember way back when I first heard that, I

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Speaker 3: was much younger, and the line about the like yellow

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Speaker 3: custard dripping from a dead dog's eye seemed especially unbeatlesy

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Speaker 3: to me.

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Speaker 2: They get pretty weird, they get pretty weird. There's kind

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Speaker 2: of the Beatles that you think you know and associate with,

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Speaker 2: sort of the mainstream understanding of the Beatles, But then

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Speaker 2: you can really dig into.

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Speaker 3: Some weird stuff in there as well, no doubt.

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Speaker 2: But setting aside the mysteries of the Beatles, I would

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Speaker 2: like to turn our attention now to the mysteries of mithraism.

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Speaker 2: We mentioned, you know, in the last episode, we're talking

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Speaker 2: very much about the Greco Roman world, and this is

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Speaker 2: definitely one from the Roman world.

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Speaker 3: Right, this is one coming later on the scene than

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Speaker 3: most of the other examples will we'll end up talking.

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Speaker 2: About right, Right, we're talking the first through the fourth

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Speaker 2: century CE, so it's taking off alongside another brand new religion,

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Speaker 2: that of the way, centered around the teachings of Jesus Christ.

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Speaker 2: This would of course come to be known as Christianity

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Speaker 2: at least by like one hundred CE. But this is

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Speaker 2: where I should I should throw out that we have

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Speaker 2: of course mentioned Mithraism in passing or in a few

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Speaker 2: details on the show. In the past. We mentioned mithra

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Speaker 2: in our Hogs of Hell episode as well as in

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Speaker 2: our episodes on Whistling. As I mentioned then, fans of

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Speaker 2: the Ridley Scott produced sci fi series Raised by Wolves,

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Speaker 2: which ran twenty twenty through twenty twenty two, we'll also

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Speaker 2: remember the name as in the fictional future of this series,

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Speaker 2: it is the predominant religion that is practiced by one

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Speaker 2: of the key factions in that show. So sort of

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Speaker 2: like an alternate future where instead of perhaps Christianity taking

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Speaker 2: off as this influential human religion, what if Mithraism is

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Speaker 2: the religion that took off and ended up defining a civilization.

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Speaker 3: Rob, would it be fair to say, based on what

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Speaker 3: you've read that it's kind of shocking how little we

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Speaker 3: know about Mythraism with certainty, given how popular it was

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Speaker 3: during its heyday in the Roman Empire.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that is something that impressed me as well,

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Speaker 2: because we're not talking about something that was just practiced

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Speaker 2: by say like a few elites, you know, in the

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Speaker 2: basement of a palace here and there, or something to

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Speaker 2: that effect, or a few deranged cultists to sort of

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Speaker 2: imagine the again the sort of Kolakuthulu dungeons and dragons

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Speaker 2: treatment of cults. Now, this was this was widely practiced

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Speaker 2: during this time period again, first through fourth century CE,

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Speaker 2: and it was wildly popular, especially in the Roman army.

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Speaker 2: H And wherever the Roman army went, so too traveled

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Speaker 2: the mystery cult of Mithra, with its temples popping up

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Speaker 2: just throughout the Roman Empire of the time, as far

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Speaker 2: north as the British Isles. And we have a surviving

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Speaker 2: archaeological evidence all these special temples, which we'll get back

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Speaker 2: to in a bit, and we can piece together some

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Speaker 2: of what went on. Now. One of the interesting things

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Speaker 2: here that we're going to dig into here is, of course,

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Speaker 2: the idea that we have a religion, a cult an

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Speaker 2: organization here, and its ideas are based on pre existing

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Speaker 2: religious ideas. And for a while, the way historians interpreted

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Speaker 2: it was to go back to some of the myths

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Speaker 2: that informed Roman mythraism and use that to try and

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Speaker 2: piece together what Roman mythraism was all about. So I

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Speaker 2: want you to keep that in mind as I read

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Speaker 2: a quote here from an older source. This is from

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Speaker 2: will Durant Caesar and Christ from nineteen forty four, in

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Speaker 2: which he writes that during the period of roughly thirty

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Speaker 2: CE through ninety six CE, one sees a great influx

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Speaker 2: of foreign faiths and to Rome and Roman life, and

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Speaker 2: these faiths, he writes, enter into Rome via returning soldiers,

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Speaker 2: war captives, and also merchants. A lot of people are

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Speaker 2: coming in and out of Rome. People brought their traditional

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Speaker 2: gods with them, and he writes that quote. The Roman

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Speaker 2: government treated these alien faiths for the most part with toleration.

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Speaker 2: Since it would not permit foreigners to its own worship,

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Speaker 2: it preferred that they should practice their imported rights rather

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Speaker 2: than have no religion at all. In return, it required

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Speaker 2: that each new faith should exercise a similar tolerance towards

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Speaker 2: other creeds, and should include in its ritual sum obsessence

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Speaker 2: to the Emperor's genius and the goddess Roma as an

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Speaker 2: expression of loyalty to the state. So we touched on

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Speaker 2: this before that. Generally the Romans were like, fine, you

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Speaker 2: practice whatever faith you already had or have or have

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Speaker 2: brought with you. Just make sure that it's you know,

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Speaker 2: checking off the right boxes and you know, not messing

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Speaker 2: up anything we have going on at the top.

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Speaker 3: Not questioning our authority. I don't think that the Roman

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Speaker 3: rule on this should be seen as generally merciful, because

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Speaker 3: the Roman Empire for the large part, was not very merciful.

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Speaker 4: It was more like they didn't really care about this.

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Speaker 3: Their idea of religion was not an evangelical one, and

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Speaker 3: they were not trying to convince other people to follow it. Instead,

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Speaker 3: it was just like, you need to obey us and

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Speaker 3: not cause problems otherwise, practice whatever you want.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I think that's a fair way of understanding it. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: And we don't need to lean into some idea that

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Speaker 2: the Roman the Roman authorities were just in general super tolerant.

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Speaker 2: But in this respect, you know, you can make an

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Speaker 2: argument that, okay, they kind of were, but only because

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Speaker 2: they didn't care what you're doing, as long as you

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Speaker 2: didn't upset the order of things. And in this section

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Speaker 2: of the book by Durant, he does mention Mithra. In Mithraism,

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Speaker 2: he writes, from hostile Parthia came the cult of another

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Speaker 2: sudden god, Mithras. Its devotees were enlisted as soldiers in

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Speaker 2: the great cosmic war of light against darkness, of good

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Speaker 2: against evil. It was a virile faith that won men

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Speaker 2: rather than women, and pleased the Roman legions stationed on

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Speaker 2: distant frontiers where they could hardly hear the voices of

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Speaker 2: their native gods. So already that's a lot to unpack.

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Speaker 2: We have this again, this the nineteen forty four text.

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Speaker 2: But the interpretation that Durant here seems to be making

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Speaker 2: is that of a foreign mystery cult taken up almost

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Speaker 2: exclusively by male Roman soldiers, and worshiped in every far

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Speaker 2: flung corner of the Roman controlled territory. Perhaps some deity

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Speaker 2: and faith that cast the role of the enlisted not

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Speaker 2: as mere protectors of Rome, but perhaps his warriors and

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Speaker 2: some sort of epic struggle against the darkness. All right,

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Speaker 2: So that was nineteen forty four's interpretation. But where are

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Speaker 2: we at now, So into Hugh Bowden's mystery Cults in

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Speaker 2: the Ancient World, which we've been looking at here, the

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Speaker 2: author does have a lot to say about Mithraism, but

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Speaker 2: as is often the case with some of these mystery cults,

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Speaker 2: there's a lot we don't know and we'll never know

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Speaker 2: concerning the details of the faith. And it seems like

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Speaker 2: the trend he says, for a while was to try

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Speaker 2: and use information regarding ancient worship of Mithra in ancient

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Speaker 2: Iran in the interpretations of this Indo Iranian faith as

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Speaker 2: a way to try and figure out what Roman Mythraism

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Speaker 2: was about. Because, to be clear, there was worship of

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Speaker 2: a deity known as Mithra in ancient Iran and accounts

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Speaker 2: date back to at least fourteen hundred bcee. And then

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Speaker 2: eventually Mithra becomes the central figure of these Roman mystery

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Speaker 2: cults of Mithraism, the details of which again are not

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Speaker 2: all that forthcoming, but we do have some literary references,

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Speaker 2: we have archaeological evidence, some of it fairly recent, you know,

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Speaker 2: and we also have some artistic imagery that has survived,

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Speaker 2: and from this a fair number of conclusions can be drawn.

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Speaker 2: But the current predominant interpretation, according to Bowden, is that

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Speaker 2: the cult of Mithra in the Roman Empire was something

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Speaker 2: mostly new. It was for the most part for Romans

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Speaker 2: and by Romans, despite these Persian motifs that were applied

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Speaker 2: to it. So in previous decades, again, it was common

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Speaker 2: for historians to try and piece together the details of Mithraism,

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Speaker 2: based in part on aspects of the ancient Indo Iranian

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Speaker 2: religion centered around Mithra, but current trends tend to dismiss this.

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Speaker 2: So in Bowden's chapter on Mithraism, he doesn't mention anything

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Speaker 2: about soldiers of light against darkness. I'm to assume that

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Speaker 2: perhaps that's something that previously historians drug in from the

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Speaker 2: more ancient model of Mithra's worship.

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Speaker 3: You know, you can very much see the appeal of

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Speaker 3: that older interpretive lens, which tries to figure out what

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Speaker 3: a religion means by searching out the earliest versions of it.

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Speaker 3: Because we tend to think about the primacy of originals

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Speaker 3: like originals in time, you know, we've talked about this

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Speaker 3: coming up before on the podcast when we were talking

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Speaker 3: about Greek myths. We're trying to find, like, what's the

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Speaker 3: earliest written version of this so that we can know

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Speaker 3: what the real version of the myth is, you know,

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Speaker 3: but that's not actually the real version of the myth.

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Speaker 3: And finding maybe the earliest version that was written down

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Speaker 3: that we still have access to and does not tell

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Speaker 3: you how people hundreds of years later, in a different

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Speaker 3: time in place understood the story or what it meant.

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Speaker 3: It just you know that, I mean, it is worth

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Speaker 3: knowing that tells you one thing, but it doesn't necessarily

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Speaker 3: tell you that thing. And so searching out what myth,

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Speaker 3: what a god or a religious figure mint in one

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Speaker 3: time and place, even though it came earlier, that doesn't

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Speaker 3: necessarily tell you what it meant to people in a

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Speaker 3: different time in a different place. And I think this

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Speaker 3: is still true today. I think actually, say, if you

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Speaker 3: just went to the New Testament and read the Gospels

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Speaker 3: and then tried to read from those and predict what

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Speaker 3: form Christianity would take as practiced, say in the United

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Speaker 3: States in the twenty first century, you'd be so far off.

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Speaker 3: You have no idea what to predict from that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I think we can point to examples

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Speaker 2: of this and other major religions as well, and also elsewhere.

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Speaker 2: I instantly thought to Dracula, perhaps because I had Dracula

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Speaker 2: on the mind a lot recently. But it's like, imagine

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Speaker 2: you were to examine the text known as Dracula three thousand.

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Speaker 2: Let's see what year did Dracula three thousand come out?

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Speaker 4: You think I know off the top of my head.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I expect you to two thousand and four.

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Speaker 4: Okay, okay, okay, that sounds right.

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Speaker 2: So imagine you watch a Dracula three thousand and then

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Speaker 2: you were like, I wish to understand what this film

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Speaker 2: is trying to say. I am going to read this

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Speaker 2: book by brim Stoker Dracula, and that shall answer all

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Speaker 2: my questions. I can take everything is in that book

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Speaker 2: and apply it to this movie and me, Yeah, to

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Speaker 2: a certain extent, there might be some useful connections to

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Speaker 2: be made there, But Dracula. Dracula movies are all built

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Speaker 2: around the central figure of Dracula, but the textual Dracula

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Speaker 2: in brim Stoker's original novel might not prove all that

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Speaker 2: useful and understanding. Some depictions of Dracula in other media,

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Speaker 2: including Bella Lugosi's Dracula, which we discussed in Weird Hoalse

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Speaker 2: Cinema recently, or say Marvel Comics Dracula, The Dracula and

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Speaker 2: Dracula three thousand, or whatever Dracula update you're looking at. Sometimes,

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Speaker 2: you know, a Dracula movie may just take Dracula out

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Speaker 2: of it and they're just ignoring everything else thematically, plot wise,

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Speaker 2: time period and so forth. Like the Dracula in Monster

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Speaker 2: Squad is only loosely related to the original novel.

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Speaker 4: That's right.

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Speaker 3: So it may in fact be a very interest exercise

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Speaker 3: to see which elements from the older version are poured

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Speaker 3: it into the newer version and which are left behind.

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Speaker 3: So it's not like it is useless to compare the versions,

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Speaker 3: but it is not necessary. But understanding the earlier version

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Speaker 3: does not necessarily tell you what to expect in the

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Speaker 3: newer version. Say, if we had pages missing from the

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Speaker 3: you know, all we had was like an incomplete script

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Speaker 3: of Dracula three thousand. We didn't have the movie, and

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Speaker 3: we were trying to figure out what was still in there.

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Speaker 3: Going back to the novel Dracula would not tell us.

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Speaker 2: Right, and that would be again assuming that all all

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Speaker 2: adaptations of Dracula and all Dracula media still holds the

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Speaker 2: original novel in some regard or looks to it in

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Speaker 2: some fashion. You know, you can look at all various

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Speaker 2: examples though, of religions where there is some sort of

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Speaker 2: old text that remains important and the particular like model

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Speaker 2: of that religion may still be unrecognizable across time even

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Speaker 2: though it's based on the book. And in the case

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Speaker 2: of Roman mythraism, I'm not it's my understanding that we're

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Speaker 2: not really dealing with any kind of like central texts

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Speaker 2: that would have been the authority. The main authority would

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Speaker 2: have been perhaps some collection of myths, but also a

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Speaker 2: modern understanding of astrology. And so it really sounds like

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Speaker 2: it takes mithra It takes this Indo Iranian deity and

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Speaker 2: then creates a new form out of it, you know,

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Speaker 2: almost kind of like propping up some astrological ideas with

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Speaker 2: the appeal of this foreign deity and again creating something

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Speaker 2: new that is by Romans for Romans, likely with its

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Speaker 2: origin according to Bowden, in Italy, if not in Rome itself,

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Speaker 2: rather than the frontiers. It was then carried out to

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Speaker 2: the frontiers by Roman soldiers.

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Speaker 3: Hmm.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So, based on what the evidence we do have

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Speaker 2: regarding Roman Mythriism, which again involves some texts, some archaeological evidence,

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Speaker 2: and also some artistic depictions, the cult would have met

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Speaker 2: in special cave like and sometimes partially cave based chambers.

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Speaker 2: These were called mithraeum. They were long, windowless rectangles with

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Speaker 2: chairs or seating down the long walls of the chamber

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Speaker 2: and so again no windows, so you just had to

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Speaker 2: depend on torches and or candles, and these would have

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Speaker 2: illuminated a strongly astrological decor so based on archaeological evidence,

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Speaker 2: the exclusively male devotees of Mithraism would often join together,

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Speaker 2: apparently in feasts that included a lot of meat, some wine.

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Speaker 2: And I have to note that I'm already getting like

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Speaker 2: a very strong Elks club vibe here. You know, it

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Speaker 2: sounds just like a men's club where they're all getting

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Speaker 2: together to drink and eat meat and maybe observe some rights.

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Speaker 3: I mean, if you can experience the power of the

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Speaker 3: gods and just drink with your bros at the same time,

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Speaker 3: that's a good two for one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So the astrological decor here would have included

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Speaker 2: depictions of the Sun is vitally important because Mithra is

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Speaker 2: even in Roman mythrism, a solar deity or a solar figure.

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Speaker 2: You have the Moon, the planets all coming together in

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Speaker 2: what we might think of as an astrological model of

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Speaker 2: the universe. And Balden argues that in the absence of

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Speaker 2: any key surviving text and only a few myths of

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Speaker 2: Mithra and his adventures slash live slash mythic existence, modern

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Speaker 2: understanding of astrology again like this would have been first

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Speaker 2: through third century understanding of the stars and then the

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Speaker 2: astrological model of how these stars and planets are impacting

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Speaker 2: our lives. This would have likely served as the unifying

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Speaker 2: factor of the religion across you know, its various far

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Speaker 2: flung forms. You'd see some changes in the way things

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Speaker 2: were depicted, but in the absence of any kind of

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Speaker 2: like top down doctrine, this is what you had, And

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Speaker 2: so a mithraem Again the temple where the Mithra worshipers

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Speaker 2: held their ceremonies and their feasts. It likely the building

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Speaker 2: itself likely served as a model, perhaps for further indoctrinization

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Speaker 2: into the astrological secrets of Mithraism, but also as a

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Speaker 2: model of the universe and the initiates place in it,

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Speaker 2: which I think that alone is kind of interesting to

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Speaker 2: think of in terms of soldiers in the Roman army,

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Speaker 2: you know, perhaps very close, if not on the frontiers

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Speaker 2: of this, you know, this vast region, and perhaps feeling

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Speaker 2: far from home and having some you know, maybe more

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Speaker 2: specific thoughts and questions about where I am in time

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Speaker 2: and space, but perhaps those are echoing you greater questions,

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Speaker 2: and maybe that's where Mithraism comes into their lives with meaning.

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Speaker 2: Now again, we have a lot of evidence, archaeological evidence

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Speaker 2: about what may have gone on at some of the

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Speaker 2: feasts that they had. There's at least one side and

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Speaker 2: what is now Belgium from the third century that suggests

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Speaker 2: ritual destruction of wine vessels as well as feasting. I

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Speaker 2: think they said that perhaps feasting exclusively on male animals,

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Speaker 2: but also some eels. That Bouten points out they might

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Speaker 2: not have been able to sex the eels. Maybe they

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Speaker 2: meant it meat eat only male eels as well, but

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Speaker 2: at any rate, they ate a lot of meat, they

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Speaker 2: drank and or ritually destroyed wine vessels. And then he

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Speaker 2: also says that there's evidence at this one side and

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Speaker 2: no other side of a wine vessel with a snake

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Speaker 2: motif that, when heated, would have resulted in steam escaping

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Speaker 2: from the serpent's mouth. Oh cool, Yeah, pretty cool. But

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Speaker 2: we don't know what that may or may not mean.

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Speaker 2: Maybe it was just cool.

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Speaker 4: Well.

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Speaker 3: I don't want to comment on mythraism specifically, but with

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Speaker 3: respect to many of the mystery religions, I think cool

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Speaker 3: on its own may have.

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Speaker 4: Been reason enough.

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Speaker 3: Again, a lot of these cults I think you could

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Speaker 3: you could think of as being oriented towards producing profound, exciting,

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Speaker 3: dazzling sensory experiences.

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Speaker 4: And so I don't know, a.

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Speaker 3: Snake breathing out wine steam that seems like that. Could

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Speaker 3: that could be one of those things?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I should also point out that I

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Speaker 2: believe the Belgium site indicates potentially potentially a large feast

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Speaker 2: like something like hundreds of individuals, But for the most part,

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Speaker 2: the mithraum were understood to be, you know, smaller places

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Speaker 2: where you would have a more intimate gathering. And if

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Speaker 2: there were, and you might have like more than one

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Speaker 2: mithraeum in a given area so that you could keep

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Speaker 2: the number small, so that that might also stack up

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Speaker 2: with some of how we're interpreting what the these spaces

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Speaker 2: and these meetings could have meant to these individuals. You know,

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Speaker 2: it would have perhaps been a smaller, comfortable meeting and

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Speaker 2: not necessarily like a grand feast, all right, so about see.

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Speaker 2: But obviously it can't all be cozy feasts, right because

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Speaker 2: as we've been discussing, mystery cults also involved at times

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Speaker 2: harrowing rights of initiation, sites and sounds that were unique

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Speaker 2: in life that gave you some insight into the inner

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Speaker 2: workings of the universe or the afterlife or what have you.

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Speaker 2: And as Bowden points out, there were apparently some rights

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Speaker 2: involved here. So there were like seven grades of mythraism,

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Speaker 2: and it's likely that each initiate that each grade of

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Speaker 2: mythraism involved a different ritual. But we do know a

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Speaker 2: little bit about the rituals that were involved, most notably

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Speaker 2: one that involves a sword and crown. For instance, Christian

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Speaker 2: writer Tertullian, who lived roughly one through two twenty ce

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Speaker 2: mentions a mithra in right by which the initiatet is

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Speaker 2: taken into a dark space. Obviously, the mithram and offered

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Speaker 2: a crown at sword point, and then he is expected

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Speaker 2: to strike the crown from their own head onto their

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Speaker 2: own shoulders and proclaim that no Mithra is my crown.

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Speaker 2: I do not need any other crown but Mithra. And

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Speaker 2: based on surviving frescoes and some evidence from some pottery,

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Speaker 2: we also have some vague ideas that the initiate would

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Speaker 2: have been brought into this ritual space bound and naked,

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Speaker 2: or at least blindfolded and naked, and then made kneel

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Speaker 2: for the placement of the crown, and then eventually made

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Speaker 2: to lay upon the ground or the floor of the mithram,

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Speaker 2: perhaps held down even And the general interpretation is indeed

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Speaker 2: that this, at least this grades initial would have been

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Speaker 2: rather terrifying. You know, you're at sword point, You're naked,

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Speaker 2: brought in blindfolded again, into a space that is either

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Speaker 2: a cave or partially a cave, or at least designed

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Speaker 2: to be as lightless as a cave and lit only

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Speaker 2: by torches, with also these added astrological signs around you.

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Speaker 3: It's funny, especially in this version, thinking about the comparisons

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Speaker 3: we have two more recent things in our own culture

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Speaker 3: like this strikes me as part religious ritual but also

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Speaker 3: just part fraternity initiation.

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00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it reminds me. I can't help but think of

433
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,399
Speaker 2: the episode of The Simpsons with it. What are there

434
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 2: the stonecutters stonecutters skin? Yeah, yeah, with the very all

435
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 2: the different initiation rights that were all essentially just ritually

436
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 2: spanking each other.

437
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 3: I mean in our culture, when that is depicted in

438
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 3: media and storytelling, it's usually played for comedy. Now, it's

439
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 3: kind of mocking the silliness of this, but I think

440
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 3: there are some pretty profound psychological reasons why, you know,

441
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 3: why a lot of brotherhoods or groups that are encouraging

442
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 3: people to form a deep bond and commit to secrecy

443
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:13,159
Speaker 3: and things like that, why they involve painful and confusing

444
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 3: initiation processes. And we'll talk about that more as we

445
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:19,119
Speaker 3: go on and discuss some of these other mystery religions.

446
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 3: But it seems like not an accident to me, Like

447
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 3: there's a kind of psychological triggering mechanism involved where when

448
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 3: you've been through some kind of pain and suffering, it

449
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:33,719
Speaker 3: for some reason triggers you to commit more deeply.

450
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:36,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like we just pretended to threaten to kill

451
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:40,879
Speaker 2: you with the sword, but now we're all bros. And

452
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 2: we can have some wines and meat that sort of thing.

453
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:46,679
Speaker 2: That's again oversimplification of what's going on here, but we

454
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 2: can't help withdraw those comparisons. So at the center of

455
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:53,679
Speaker 2: all this we still have this solar deity of sorts,

456
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 2: this Mithra at once the Sun itself and also seemingly

457
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 2: a servant of a greater Sun god, perhaps born out

458
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 2: of an egg. I think a little unsure in some

459
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 2: of these depictions, like if Mithra is supposed to be

460
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 2: emerging from an egg or maybe it's the sun. And

461
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 2: then Mithra rises to chase the lunar bull with a

462
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:15,480
Speaker 2: sword and eventually slay it, and that's where we get

463
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 2: to that symbol.

464
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is one of the main motifs I was

465
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 3: familiar with, not really knowing that much about Mithraism, but

466
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 3: I knew that there were artistic motifs that involved a

467
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 3: sort of fight or struggle with a giant bull or

468
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 3: maybe being killed by a bull or killing the bull.

469
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:39,159
Speaker 2: Yes, this is the Taroktini, and it is this recurring

470
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 2: visual motif of Mithraism. In it, we see the unconquered

471
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 2: sun god Mithra dressed in a cloak and what is described.

472
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 2: I don't think he's wearing this in every depiction, but

473
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 2: at least it's more prominent in some a Persian style hat,

474
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 2: and he is grappling a bull and stabbing it through

475
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 2: the neck with his sword. At the same time, a

476
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 2: scorpion is stinging the bulls testicles, and a dog and

477
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 2: a snake are drinking blood from the sword wound. Okay,

478
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 2: all while a sun watches on a moon watches on.

479
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 2: There are also two figures that are present that each

480
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 2: have a torch, and they're sometimes part of this is

481
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 2: two One is holding the torch high, one holding the

482
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 2: torch low. Everything is very astrologically charged here, with these

483
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 2: different symbols having zodiac references entailed. The central idea here, though,

484
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 2: which may not have been revealed or apparent to all

485
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 2: adherents to Mithraism, is that it has to do with

486
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 2: the position of the sun and the constellation Taurus during

487
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 2: the hottest months of the year late July till late August.

488
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 2: So Baldn contends that some elements of this faith may

489
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 2: have originally originated in Eastern Anatolia, but the cult of

490
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 2: Mithraism is again likely originated itself largely in Italy and

491
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 2: likely within Rome, and was then taken out to the

492
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 2: far flung frontiers by Roman soldiers. So and it's also

493
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 2: telling that apparently, despite its foreign elements and inspirations quite

494
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 2: clear inspirations, it was likely considered a very Roman thing

495
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 2: to do, and ultimately it backs up and acknowledges Roman ideals,

496
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:28,840
Speaker 2: and so it likely attracted initiates who wanted to be

497
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 2: more Roman, including foreigners in Rome, which is interesting to

498
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 2: think of. It may have offered some degree of social

499
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 2: upward mobility, but it also doesn't seem to have offered

500
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 2: any notion of privileged status in the afterlife, but instead

501
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 2: likely leaned heavily on an astrology fueled understanding of where

502
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 2: one stood in the world and maybe in the universe

503
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 2: in the larger sense. I mean, but this is just

504
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 2: me spitballing here, but it does like all these elements

505
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 2: they do they do sound like the things that might

506
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 2: be created by people who are having a certain crisis

507
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:09,920
Speaker 2: about like who they are and where they belong in

508
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 2: the world. That might you know, fit in in an

509
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 2: empire that is expanding at the same time absorbing different elements,

510
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 2: you know. And then this this structure of this cult

511
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 2: is built out to sort of give you some level

512
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 2: of assurance and say, no, no, no, don't worry. We know

513
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:32,240
Speaker 2: a lot about the movements of the stars and the planets,

514
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 2: and no matter how you know crazy, everything else is

515
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 2: getting out there, like this can tell you exactly where

516
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 2: you are and who you are in the grand scheme

517
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 2: of things.

518
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, the meaning is written in the sky.

519
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. But at the same time, also like, hey, this

520
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 2: thing's pretty popular. I want to fit in. I should

521
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 2: probably go to this too. I hear they sometimes have

522
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 2: meat and wine, So you know, I think you have

523
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 2: to factor all these different ideas into it. But it

524
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 2: does sound like the initiation rituals could be very terrifying,

525
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 2: at least based on the way that I am interpreting it,

526
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 2: And it seems like Bowden and others have interpreted maybe

527
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 2: it was played just for giggles, but I doubt it

528
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 2: based on so based on the comparisons we have in

529
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 2: other mystery cults.

530
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of other cults that would interface perfectly with

531
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 3: things that people in the ancient world wrote about. The

532
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 3: next example that I want to talk about. I don't

533
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 3: know if we'll have a chance to explore everything about

534
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 3: these in today's episode with the time we've got left,

535
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 3: but we can at least start talking about the Elusinian Mysteries,

536
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 3: probably the most famous mystery cult of the Greek world. Now,

537
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 3: we know about the Eleusinian Mysteries from a number of

538
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 3: sources of information, primarily from what ancient authors wrote about them,

539
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 3: including from literature that that attempts to describe things about

540
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 3: them directly, but then also from literature that makes oblique

541
00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 3: or incidental reference to them. And it turns out there's

542
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 3: a lot of the latter. I mean, there will just

543
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 3: there will just be little dialogues of Plato where you know,

544
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 3: Socrates says something that implies a certain understanding of what

545
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 3: the Elusinian mysteries meant, but is not meaning to talk

546
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 3: about them directly, not like here, let's have a discourse

547
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 3: about them.

548
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 2: That's another thing. I guess it's interesting, too important to

549
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 2: realize and discussions. It's like, there's there's stuff that is

550
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 2: forgotten because it was secret, and there's also plenty of

551
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 2: things that were forgotten because it was just common knowledge.

552
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 2: Why would you write that down?

553
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.

554
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 3: Also, apart from the ancient written sources, we have some physical,

555
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 3: archaeological remains, especially at eleusis the cult center, including artworks

556
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 3: that depict elements of the associated myth. One example of

557
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 3: the ladder is a marble fred from the sanctuary of

558
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 3: Demeter at el Usus, of which there are copies from

559
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 3: scattered about from the Roman period as well. But rob

560
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 3: I included an image in our outline for you to

561
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 3: look at this marble relief. It shows the goddess's Demeter

562
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 3: and Persephone standing on either side of a nude young man,

563
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 3: and they are just towering over the guy. They're much

564
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 3: bigger than he is. The youth is thought to probably

565
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 3: be a figure named Triptolemus, who is a figure in

566
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 3: mythology sent by Demeter to teach agriculture to the people,

567
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 3: sort of a kind of an intermediary Prometheus of grain

568
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 3: in a way. And one interesting thing about this marble

569
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 3: relief you're looking at, rob is that the Demeter and

570
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 3: Persephone here are they're like holding their hands out as

571
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 3: if they're each holding something out to this naked man,

572
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 3: and their marble fingers probably originally held some kind of object,

573
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,240
Speaker 3: but that object or those objects are gone.

574
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 4: And we don't know what they were.

575
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 3: Oh hell, so some basic facts to ground us about

576
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 3: the Eleusinian mysteries. They were based out of a city

577
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 3: called Eleusis, which was located in the region of Attica,

578
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:17,240
Speaker 3: only about twenty three kilometers west of the city of Athens,

579
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:19,319
Speaker 3: so pretty close to the city of Athens and also

580
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 3: close to another important ancient city called Megara. The myth

581
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:28,440
Speaker 3: associated with the mystic rights of Eleusis is a version

582
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:32,960
Speaker 3: of the story of Demeter and Persephone. Now, as with

583
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 3: most of the big Greek myths, there are multiple versions

584
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 3: of this story in circulation, with lots of differences in

585
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 3: the narrative. So I am specifically going to be talking

586
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 3: about the version of the story found in the Greek

587
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 3: hymn or poem known as the Homeric Hymn to Demeter,

588
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:54,279
Speaker 3: which was written in dactylic Hexameter, probably sometime between six

589
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,879
Speaker 3: fifty and five fifty BCE, and this is the take

590
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 3: on the story that seems to directly implicate the city

591
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:05,840
Speaker 3: of Eleusis. So in this myth, Demeter, the Greek goddess

592
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 3: of agriculture in the harvest, has a daughter with the

593
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 3: god Zeus, and in a lot of versions of the

594
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 3: story the daughter is named Persephone, but in the version

595
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 3: of the story told at Eleusis, the daughter is referred

596
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:24,840
Speaker 3: to only as Corey, Corey or Corey Kri, meaning maiden.

597
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 3: So core and Persephone are basically the same character, but

598
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 3: I'm going to use core in my telling here because

599
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 3: of the Eleusinian connection. So the trouble begins in the

600
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:39,279
Speaker 3: story when Zeus, without the consent of Demeter, allows his

601
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:42,279
Speaker 3: brother Hades, the god of the underworld and the king

602
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 3: of the Dead, to kidnap Demeter's daughter, Corey while she

603
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 3: is out gathering flowers upon a plane, and Hades takes

604
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 3: her away to his subterranean kingdom of the Dead. When

605
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 3: Demeter finds out that her daughter is missing, she spends

606
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 3: nine days scouring the earth, scouring the face of the

607
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 3: earth in grief, searching for her daughter by torchlight. It's

608
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 3: mentioned that she carries a torch and eventually a couple

609
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:13,400
Speaker 3: of other gods, Hecate and Helios, tell Demeter what happened,

610
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 3: and so here we get to the part involving the

611
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:21,120
Speaker 3: city of Eleusis. Demeter, disgusted with Zeus and with the

612
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 3: gods for allowing this to happen to her daughter, she

613
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 3: leaves Mount Olympus disguises herself as a human and then

614
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,839
Speaker 3: walks all over the world, and eventually she ends up

615
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:33,720
Speaker 3: in the city of Eleusis, where she meets the family

616
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 3: of a king named King Celius, and she is hired

617
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:41,399
Speaker 3: to work for the king's family as a nurse. Now,

618
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 3: in Bowden's retelling of this myth, there are a number

619
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:46,960
Speaker 3: of great details here that are very cryptic to the

620
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 3: modern reader and sort of fascinating.

621
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:50,760
Speaker 4: For this reason.

622
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 3: I love little details where it's like, why include that,

623
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:56,839
Speaker 3: what does that mean? So it says that she is

624
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:59,840
Speaker 3: invited into the house of the family of King Celius.

625
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 3: She has offered a chair to sit, but says no, no, no,

626
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 3: I'll just sit on this stool covered in a fleece instead.

627
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 3: M And then she has offered a cup of wine,

628
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:13,959
Speaker 3: but she refuses the wine and instead accepts a type

629
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:18,960
Speaker 3: of beverage. It's a beverage or perhaps a gruel, the

630
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:21,799
Speaker 3: name of which in Greek is spelled k y k

631
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:26,319
Speaker 3: e o n like kai kion, but I have heard

632
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:31,319
Speaker 3: it pronounced as kukion, so I'm gonna say kukon. It

633
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 3: is made of water grain and herbs. Bowden specifies that

634
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 3: the grain is barley, and the herb is mint. So

635
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 3: think of a kind of beverage or gruel made with

636
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 3: with barley, water and mint.

637
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 2: Could be good, could be good, could be could be

638
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:48,440
Speaker 2: rather refreshing.

639
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 3: Remember that drink. We may not It may not be

640
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 3: till the next episode that it comes back, but it

641
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 3: will factor in. At el usis also in here. It

642
00:37:57,080 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 3: says that Demeter smiles at a joke made by a

643
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 3: woman name I am Bi. Anyway, Demeter in disguise is

644
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 3: hired to nurse the newborn prince in this household. The

645
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 3: newborn prince is named Demophoon, but instead of feeding him

646
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 3: each night in secret, she anoints him with ambrosia and

647
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 3: then exposes him to the fire in the hearth. And

648
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 3: there's a reason for this. This is a process she's

649
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 3: doing to make the boy eventually immortal, so she's sort

650
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 3: of transforming this baby into a god. However, it doesn't

651
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 3: work because one night, Demeter in disguise gets caught. She

652
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 3: gets caught in the middle of doing this by medanaira

653
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:46,400
Speaker 3: Demophoan's mother, who screams in terror, which you can understand

654
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 3: why that would happen, but Demeter, Demeter is not happy

655
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:53,280
Speaker 3: about this, She explains what she was doing, and she says,

656
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:55,160
Speaker 3: you know now that the spell is broken. Now that

657
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 3: you've caught me, Demophoon cannot become immortal. And Demeter is

658
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 3: very angry by this reversal, and she says, Okay, what

659
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:05,760
Speaker 3: you've got to do now to appease me is build

660
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 3: me a temple. Build a temple to me in elyusis,

661
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 3: and I will teach you sacred rights that you need

662
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 3: to do in my honor in order to keep me

663
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 3: from getting really mad. Next, and I mentioned this in

664
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 3: the last episode, Demeter says, all grain on Earth is

665
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 3: going to stop growing right now. This is bad for

666
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:27,480
Speaker 3: humans obviously because we need that to eat, but it's

667
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,280
Speaker 3: also bad for the gods because they need to receive

668
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:34,919
Speaker 3: grain as sacrifices from humans. So it seems like this

669
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:37,759
Speaker 3: finally gets Zeus to do something about the problem that

670
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:41,160
Speaker 3: he created. He's like, Demeter, what can I do to

671
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 3: make you happy? And Demeter says, give me my daughter back,

672
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 3: and so Zeus agrees. He sends the messenger god Hermes

673
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 3: to Hades to the underworld to tell him that Corey

674
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 3: the Maiden must be allowed to return to the world above.

675
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,840
Speaker 3: But Hades has a trick up his sleeve. Before Corey leaves,

676
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 3: he gives her pomegranate seed, a pomegranate seed from the underworld,

677
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 3: and she eats it, and now having eaten the food

678
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:12,280
Speaker 3: of the underworld, she is ensnared. She cannot permanently leave,

679
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 3: and while she's free to spend two thirds of the

680
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 3: year up above, she has to return to the land

681
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 3: of the dead for one third of each year. And

682
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 3: this myth is often linked to seasonal cycles of growth

683
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 3: in agriculture, though not necessarily with the seasons you're thinking of.

684
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 3: I think the natural way that most people would interpret

685
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 3: it is okay, so the you know, the daughter of

686
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:39,440
Speaker 3: the grain goddess, she can come up to the upper

687
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 3: world during the you know, the spring, in the summer

688
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 3: the warm months, and then in the winter when the

689
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 3: when the plants die after the harvest, she disappears.

690
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:48,840
Speaker 4: Into the underworld.

691
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 3: That may be it, but actually Bowden says it could

692
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 3: be the other way around, because in Greece, the hottest

693
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 3: part of the summer was sort of often the least

694
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 3: productive agricultural seeds because things would be very dry, and

695
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:03,880
Speaker 3: the winter was actually used as a It was a

696
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 3: very productive agricultural season, and so maybe sort of that

697
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 3: way around instead of the way we naturally think. But

698
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 3: however it actually lines up with the seasonal timeline. It's

699
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 3: clear to understand why this myth has agricultural significance.

700
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:20,120
Speaker 4: Anyway.

701
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 3: At the end of the myth, after being comforted by

702
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 3: her own mother Raya, who is one of the Titans,

703
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 3: Demeter allows the grain to grow again. And then Demeter,

704
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 3: as she promised, comes back to the people of Eleusis

705
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:37,840
Speaker 3: to teach them the mysteries. She teaches them special rights

706
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:40,920
Speaker 3: that they would have to do in her honor. And

707
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:43,759
Speaker 3: then I want to read from What follows is a

708
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 3: translation of a passage in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter,

709
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:49,720
Speaker 3: the version that appears in Bowden's book.

710
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:52,960
Speaker 4: So it goes, so.

711
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:56,240
Speaker 3: The whole broad earth grew heavy with leafage and bloom,

712
00:41:56,680 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 3: and she went to the lawgiver kings Triptolemus and horse Goading, Diocles,

713
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 3: strong Eumolpus, and Celius, leader of hosts, and showed them

714
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 3: the conduct of her sacred matters, and taught her solemn rights,

715
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 3: which one cannot depart from or inquire about, or broadcast

716
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 3: for great awe of the gods restrains us from speaking.

717
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 3: Blessed is he of men on earth who has beheld them,

718
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,879
Speaker 3: whereas he that is uninitiated in the rights, or he

719
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:30,280
Speaker 3: that has no part in them, never enjoys a similar

720
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 3: lot down in the musty dark when he is dead.

721
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 2: Oh wow. So first of all, I love that this

722
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 2: is not for broadcast.

723
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:37,439
Speaker 4: Yeah.

724
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 2: And then but then also, unlike seemingly with our example

725
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 2: of mythraism, this mystery cult does seem to impart some

726
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 2: sort of privileged knowledge of and or destination in the afterlife.

727
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 3: It does, but I want to complicate that with something

728
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 3: in just a minute here. So yeah, so many interesting

729
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 3: things going on here. The goddess teaches the people of

730
00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 3: eleusis the secret rituals, says, you cannot depart from these rituals,

731
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 3: so don't change them, don't give them up. You cannot

732
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 3: ask questions about them, no talking, no questioning, and you

733
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 3: cannot talk about them with the uninitiated. You've got to

734
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 3: keep them a secret only to the people who have

735
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:19,840
Speaker 3: been initiated.

736
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:19,800
Speaker 4: To the cult.

737
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:24,439
Speaker 3: And of course, if you are initiated and you get

738
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 3: to witness these rights, you are blessed. If you are

739
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,319
Speaker 3: not initiated and know nothing of the mysteries, then you

740
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 3: are not blessed, and you will apparently have a worse

741
00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:37,359
Speaker 3: fate in Hades, down in the musty dark. And if

742
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:39,919
Speaker 3: I'm interpreting this right, it does not say that those

743
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:42,680
Speaker 3: who have been blessed by witnessing the rights will not

744
00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 3: go to Hades. Instead, it just seems like something is

745
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:49,839
Speaker 3: going to be different from them. You know, it's going

746
00:43:49,880 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 3: to be better for you. Now to explore that a

747
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 3: little more, this last part about the effect of initiation

748
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 3: to the mystic rights on a person's lot in the afterlife.

749
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 3: That is a major part of how mystery cults have

750
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 3: been understood by later scholars. Was, I think once widely

751
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 3: held that the mystery cults of the reco Roman world

752
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 3: were mainly about improving a person's lot in the afterlife.

753
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:29,319
Speaker 3: But Bowden argues that, at least in some cases, the

754
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:33,280
Speaker 3: evidence is this was not a major focus of the rights,

755
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:36,200
Speaker 3: and that any belief that you would have a better

756
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 3: afterlife by having been initiated was more of a side

757
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:44,800
Speaker 3: effect of having achieved a special closeness or direct encounter

758
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 3: with the gods through the mysteries. It was not the

759
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 3: primary goal or function of the mysteries, so we don't

760
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 3: have evidence that the goal was like to go to

761
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 3: heaven by doing these rituals. It was just kind of

762
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:01,640
Speaker 3: like there were blessings and good things about having this

763
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:04,839
Speaker 3: mystic encounter, about going through the rights, and one of

764
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 3: the things that came with it in some cases was

765
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:10,840
Speaker 3: that it's said that something is better for you after

766
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:11,279
Speaker 3: you die.

767
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:14,359
Speaker 2: Okay, so again, it's not that you're going to get

768
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 2: a better treatment in the afterlife. It's something maybe a

769
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 2: little more sublime. Hear me out. I don't know if

770
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 2: this is a good a good idea, a good one.

771
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 2: It may not be a good idea. Maybe it's not

772
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,280
Speaker 2: a good analogy. But imagine you're going to go see

773
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 2: the Android Lloyd Weber musical Cats, and beforehand, someone who

774
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 2: is wise and knowledgeable comes to you and says, before

775
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 2: you go, read this nineteen thirty nine poetry collection Old

776
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 2: Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Elliott. Just

777
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:46,360
Speaker 2: of course, these are the poems that the musical is

778
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 2: based upon. And you might then ask, oh, if I

779
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:52,319
Speaker 2: read this, will I have better seats? No, you will

780
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:54,960
Speaker 2: not have better seats. Based on reading this, but perhaps

781
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 2: you'll understand the musical more or you'll have some deeper

782
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 2: connection with the musical, and that will enhance the experience

783
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:05,000
Speaker 2: of it. Something to that effect, as opposed to like,

784
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:07,960
Speaker 2: will this secret knowledge actually get me closer to the

785
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:08,879
Speaker 2: front or give me more.

786
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 3: Legrom Yeah, that may well be a good analogy, except again,

787
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 3: it would not be about reading anything in particular here.

788
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 3: It would be like about having the experience. Maybe instead

789
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:21,239
Speaker 3: it's like should you go to see the play? Like

790
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 3: that's really the thing that it's more like, isn't it.

791
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 3: It's like going to take part in and witness something

792
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 3: kind of be part of a collaborative theatrical experience. But yeah,

793
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 3: I think that's a good way of thinking about it,

794
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 3: because I want to read another thing that an ancient

795
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 3: source that abouten mentions in the book. So you know,

796
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 3: many ancient authors, as we talked about last time, are

797
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 3: unable or unwilling to profane the cult of the Lusinian

798
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:48,359
Speaker 3: Mysteries by sharing the secrets of its hidden rights. So

799
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 3: we don't get you know, many ancient sources where people

800
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 3: are like trying to tell us what happened inside the

801
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 3: inside the secret chamber, but multiple writers attest to the

802
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 3: power of the mysteries and the positive effect they had

803
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 3: on those initiated. One of those passages cited in Bowden

804
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 3: is from the Greek anthology by Crnagoras published that was

805
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 3: written in the first century BCE, and what Krnagoras says

806
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 3: is quote, even if yours has always been a sedentary life,

807
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:23,319
Speaker 3: and you have never sailed the sea nor walked the

808
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:26,760
Speaker 3: roads of the land, you should nevertheless go to Attica

809
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 3: so that you may witness those nights of the festival

810
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:32,720
Speaker 3: of Great Demeter. For then your heart may be free

811
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 3: of care while you live, and lighter when you go

812
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 3: to the land of the dead. Oh wow, yeah, So

813
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 3: whatever happens, it is said by many to be a

814
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:46,520
Speaker 3: powerful experience that is perceived as life altering in a

815
00:47:46,560 --> 00:47:50,239
Speaker 3: good way. For a modern comparison, when you read some

816
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:53,239
Speaker 3: of these ancient passages where people talk like this, it's

817
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 3: kind of like how some psychedelic evangelists talk about taking

818
00:47:56,640 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 3: LSD for the first time you realize your cares and

819
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:02,960
Speaker 3: anxiety are meaningless, you lose your fear of death. Maybe

820
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 3: things like that. It's also kind of the way sometimes

821
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:11,280
Speaker 3: people talk about contemplative practices or experiences that they believe

822
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 3: are spiritually important, like meditation, though the way the mysteries

823
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:19,959
Speaker 3: are described it is a much less regular and more

824
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 3: high intensity experience than meditation usually is, I guess, but

825
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:26,800
Speaker 3: similar kind of descriptions of like a way of opening

826
00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 3: the mind, of changing your relationship to life. Your heart

827
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 3: is lighter, and you can be lighter when you go

828
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:34,360
Speaker 3: to the land of the dead.

829
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, in some ways, I'm reminded of going

830
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:40,960
Speaker 2: to a haunted attraction here in our modern world. You know,

831
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 2: go to a haunted house around Halloween, where the various

832
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 2: actors and various tricks will be utilized to scare you

833
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,400
Speaker 2: and give you a good laugh. I mean, it is

834
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 2: like a sensory overload experience. And granted it it has

835
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 2: no religious agenda. Well I take that back. Sometimes it

836
00:48:58,080 --> 00:48:59,600
Speaker 2: does have a religious agenda.

837
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 4: But yeah, there are those, Yeah, but.

838
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 2: In general it does. The idea of just scaring you

839
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 2: doesn't have a religious agenda. But now that I've accidentally

840
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:09,879
Speaker 2: mentioned it, I am reminded, Yeah, maybe there's a case

841
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:14,720
Speaker 2: to be made that like church themed or orchestrated haunted

842
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:20,280
Speaker 2: attractions like small town affairs are kind of in keeping

843
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 2: with mystery cults to some degree, I guess based on

844
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 2: my experience of those Christian haunted house haunted attractions, there

845
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 2: tended to be very little in terms of like supernatural

846
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:36,719
Speaker 2: content in them. Generally they were depicting like real life

847
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:41,359
Speaker 2: ours and not so much like here now you are

848
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:45,080
Speaker 2: witnessing angels, maybe you're witnessing demons, but you know you're

849
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 2: not going to see you glory from the other side.

850
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:51,040
Speaker 3: I think the common recipe is you get to see

851
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:53,920
Speaker 3: people go into hell, yeah, and that the point of

852
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:56,799
Speaker 3: the hell house also is a persuasive one, like it's

853
00:49:56,840 --> 00:50:00,320
Speaker 3: supposed to make you afraid that, oh, I'm to go

854
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:02,080
Speaker 3: to hell like the people in the play here, and

855
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 3: it's going to be scary if I don't say the

856
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:07,279
Speaker 3: Sinner's prayer and get saved or go to this church here,

857
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 3: And so it's like a way, it's like a foot

858
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:12,640
Speaker 3: in the door. It's trying to get you into the

859
00:50:12,920 --> 00:50:17,840
Speaker 3: actually the doctrinal religion, the regular, more low intensity experience

860
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:21,080
Speaker 3: of going to this church, whereas with the mysteries, it

861
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:24,440
Speaker 3: seems like the point of the mysteries was the experience

862
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 3: of the mysteries is like that was what it was about.

863
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:30,799
Speaker 3: At least in the case of the Elusinian Mysteries. It

864
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 3: wasn't like a persuasive event to try to get you

865
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:37,799
Speaker 3: into to show up every week. Instead, it was like,

866
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:40,160
Speaker 3: this is why you're here, this is what it's all about.

867
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 2: There there's often the sense that it's not something you

868
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 2: could even put into words exactly like it was that

869
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:50,160
Speaker 2: level of an experience, not I'm keeping again, not dissimilar

870
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 2: from some of the accounts of psychedelic experiences and paranormal experiences.

871
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 2: Rather different from in that regard compared to a haunted attraction,

872
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 2: where generally you can describe everything quite well once you

873
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:06,799
Speaker 2: leave the facilities.

874
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:09,839
Speaker 3: All right, So we've talked about a written version of

875
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 3: the myth associating the goddess Demeter with the city of

876
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:15,320
Speaker 3: l Jusis, and we've talked about how people in the

877
00:51:15,320 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 3: ancient world wrote about the personal effect of being initiated

878
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 3: or attending the mysteries. But what's beyond this, of course,

879
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 3: is to describe the rituals themselves. I think we do

880
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:29,759
Speaker 3: not have time left to do that today, so I

881
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 3: think that should be where we pick up in the

882
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 3: next episode.

883
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:34,800
Speaker 2: All right, So we'll meet you back here on Thursday

884
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:38,279
Speaker 2: for our continued look at the ancient mystery cults of

885
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 2: the Greco Roman world. In the meantime, we'll remind you

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00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:43,760
Speaker 2: that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science

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00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:46,919
Speaker 2: and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,

888
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:49,839
Speaker 2: short form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set

889
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:51,960
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

890
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:53,440
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema.

891
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:57,320
Speaker 3: Huge Things, as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

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00:51:57,640 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

893
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

894
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

895
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:06,680
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact, stuff to Blow your

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00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.

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00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:18,600
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:21,479
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:37,960
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.