Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. It is Saturday, so we have a
Speaker 1: vault episode for you. This is part of what part
Speaker 1: is this? This is part four of four in our
Speaker 1: mystery cult series that we've been re running. This one
Speaker 1: originally published three thirteen, twenty twenty five. This should wrap
Speaker 1: it all up. Let's jump right in and enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with
Speaker 3: the fourth and final part in our discussion of the
Speaker 3: mystery cults of the ancient Greco Roman world. We had
Speaker 3: a break in the series on Tuesday of this week
Speaker 3: to air a conversation that we had about amphibians with
Speaker 3: Mark Mandika of the Amphibian Foundation in Atlanta, and now
Speaker 3: we're back to finish our business with the mysteries.
Speaker 1: Yeah. By the way, we also aired the interview because
Speaker 1: I was out of town to attend the iHeart Podcast
Speaker 1: Awards in Austin at south By Southwest. We were nominated
Speaker 1: for Best Science Podcast, which was awarded to Ali Ward's
Speaker 1: Ologies well deserved, and I got to chat with her briefly,
Speaker 1: which was nice. But seeing is how our nomination might
Speaker 1: have some new eyes on Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: You might be wondering, well, why is a science podcast
Speaker 1: talking about mystery, cults and religion. Well, we talk about
Speaker 1: a lot of things here on Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: We consider ourselves a science and culture podcast, with science
Speaker 1: being the underlying bedrock, but we do explore topics that
Speaker 1: veer into historical, philosophical, mythic, and folkloric areas as well.
Speaker 1: And if you are new to the show, that's just
Speaker 1: happens to be where you're coming in. We should also
Speaker 1: let you know this is part four of a four
Speaker 1: part series, so there's that as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how many syllables are allowed? I call us an
Speaker 3: interdisciplinary science podcast. We try to bring most things back
Speaker 3: to science in one way or another, but we like
Speaker 3: to connect to lots of other topic domains.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if you asked me in an elevator what
Speaker 1: I do for a living, and I say podcast host,
Speaker 1: and you ask what kind of podcast, I may just
Speaker 1: go ahead and just say science podcast and that is
Speaker 1: still accurate.
Speaker 3: Now, I guess we should do a brief refresher on
Speaker 3: the first three parts of this series, which aired in
Speaker 3: the previous weeks. The subject once again is the mystery
Speaker 3: cults of the ancient Mediterranean, which are defined primarily by
Speaker 3: their emphasis on secret mystic rights of initiation. So whereas
Speaker 3: you'd have the public cults of the Greco Roman world,
Speaker 3: they would be mostly built around a transactional system of
Speaker 3: sacrifice and rituals performed by people in the expectation that
Speaker 3: the gods would give them blessings in return. I do
Speaker 3: sacrifices and rituals for you. You give me blessings for
Speaker 3: the you know, for outcomes in war, for outcomes in health,
Speaker 3: for the harvest, and so forth. And by contrast, the
Speaker 3: mystery cults seem to be driven by the need to
Speaker 3: create intense, emotionally powerful religious experiences. Experience is brought on
Speaker 3: by participation in these occult initiation rituals, which are all
Speaker 3: the more fascinating to us, certainly as consumers across the
Speaker 3: divide of history, but also fascinating to people even at
Speaker 3: the time, to outsiders of the time, because these rights
Speaker 3: were kept secret from non initiates. So in some cases
Speaker 3: historians have some strong guesses about what went on in
Speaker 3: the mysteries, and in other cases we really don't know
Speaker 3: much at all, and that just makes it all the
Speaker 3: more fascinating now and back then as well. So in
Speaker 3: part one of this series we primarily talked about the
Speaker 3: social and religious context in which the mystery cults existed,
Speaker 3: and many of the features of the public cults of
Speaker 3: Greek and Roman polytheism, and how these public cults differed
Speaker 3: in general from the features of mystery religions. In parts
Speaker 3: two and three we talked in detail about a couple
Speaker 3: of specific mystery cults, and we talked first about Mythraism,
Speaker 3: which flourished in the Roman Empire from the first to
Speaker 3: the fourth century CE, and then also we talked about
Speaker 3: the Elusinian mysteries based out of the Sanctuary of Demeter
Speaker 3: and Corey. At illusis a place just west of the
Speaker 3: city of Athens. Now. One of the best sources we
Speaker 3: have found on the subject, which we've referred to throughout
Speaker 3: the series, is a book by a historian named Hugh
Speaker 3: Boden called Mystery Cults in the Ancient World and Huge Apologies.
Speaker 3: I think I've been mispronouncing his last name in the
Speaker 3: previous episodes, I was calling him Hugh Bowden, but I
Speaker 3: listened to part of the audio book and the reader
Speaker 3: there calls him Boden, So apologies, Hugh Boden.
Speaker 1: I also made the same mistake, though I think I
Speaker 1: accidentally called him the correct name once, so I'll give
Speaker 1: myself backwards congratulation for that one mess up.
Speaker 3: If you want to go deep on the mystery cults,
Speaker 3: I do recommend reading this book because there's so much
Speaker 3: more interesting stuff the Boden discusses that we didn't even
Speaker 3: have time to get into in any way here, just
Speaker 3: to touch on briefly some of the other things that
Speaker 3: come up, but there are chapters on other specific mystery
Speaker 3: cults in the ancient world, such as the cult of Isis,
Speaker 3: the cult of Dionysus, the cults of nameless gods and
Speaker 3: gods without myths, the cults of a figure known as
Speaker 3: the Great Mother or the Mother of the Gods, and
Speaker 3: there are just so many things. One thing that I
Speaker 3: found really interesting in the book was there's a chapter
Speaker 3: on what Boden calls the private initiator. Is these sort
Speaker 3: of religious professionals who would be it would be different
Speaker 3: than say the example of the cult of ill usis
Speaker 3: where there is a cult of these secret rights that
Speaker 3: has a sort of specific home base and people come
Speaker 3: to the temple to take part in the mysteries. This
Speaker 3: instead would be versions of mystery cults that are sort
Speaker 3: of purveyed by a person who goes around claiming to
Speaker 3: be a religious expert who can teach you the secrets
Speaker 3: or can initiate you, and this figure being treated by
Speaker 3: some authors as a kind of con artist of the
Speaker 3: ancient world, someone of ill repute who prayed on the gullible.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I found this really interesting as well, in part
Speaker 1: because about the same time I was reading this, I
Speaker 1: also watched the season four debut of The Righteous Gemstones,
Speaker 1: which that episode features a Civil War flashback to a
Speaker 1: robber turned fake pastor turn perhaps real pastor in some senses,
Speaker 1: And of course the whole series comedically pokes at the
Speaker 1: line between sincere religiosity and deception.
Speaker 3: Right now, the book we're talking about, it's not making
Speaker 3: the argument that all of these people in the ancient
Speaker 3: world actually were necessarily con artists or deceivers. That's instead
Speaker 3: that seems to be a common way they were portrayed,
Speaker 3: and say dramas of the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, now, and particularly these yeah, private initiators. They
Speaker 1: come up a few different times in the book. And indeed,
Speaker 1: as he points out, they are called out in Plato's
Speaker 1: Republic as the sort that quote go to rich men's
Speaker 1: doors and make them believe that they, by means of
Speaker 1: sacrifices and incantations, have accumulated a treasure of power from
Speaker 1: the gods that can expiate and cure with pleasurable festivals.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're going they're going door to door, they'reknocking
Speaker 1: on the right doors and saying, hey, you interested in
Speaker 1: that whole mystery cult thing, because I have it here
Speaker 1: with me, and we can get you where you need
Speaker 1: to go. Or at least that's my interpretation of the
Speaker 1: allegations that are made here.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I feel like there's a thing that
Speaker 3: still exists. I think a lot of quite wealthy people,
Speaker 3: you know, there's the idea of they might have their
Speaker 3: own personal spirit ritual advisor who's kind of you could
Speaker 3: say in some cases, that's well, that's great, that's something
Speaker 3: everybody should have. You know, there's somebody who that can
Speaker 3: kind of bounce ideas off of and find sacred ways
Speaker 3: of looking at life. But then the more cynical way
Speaker 3: of looking at it is they're just looking to pay
Speaker 3: somebody money to make them feel good about themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, in reading about this, I was also reminded
Speaker 1: of another cult of deity that I don't believe Boden
Speaker 1: gets into in this book, or perhaps I'm just not
Speaker 1: remembering it, and that is the deity Glicon.
Speaker 3: I don't remember that coming up in the book.
Speaker 1: This is a snake god whose cult was popular during
Speaker 1: the second and third century. See, so you know, similar timeframe,
Speaker 1: just some of these other cults we've been discussing. He
Speaker 1: even pops up on some Roman coins. If you look
Speaker 1: up at an image of Glicon, this deity tends to look
Speaker 1: like a snake, with like long hair and maybe a
Speaker 1: slightly unserpentine head and face. It's an interesting look, and
Speaker 1: you also might be familiar with Glicon due to the
Speaker 1: fact that writer and comics legend Alan Moore has I
Speaker 1: think maybe partially in ingest sometimes it's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to tell with more, but he has expressed his devotion
Speaker 1: to Glyicon as first of all an obvious hoax and
Speaker 1: secondly being a hoax less likely to become problematic and
Speaker 1: dangerous in the way of other deities and religions.
Speaker 3: M yeah, sorry, I looked up the statues of Glaicon
Speaker 3: with the hair and he looks like he's got rock
Speaker 3: star hair.
Speaker 1: Yeah he really does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, lead singer snake.
Speaker 1: So criticism of Glycon's cult as a hoax goes back
Speaker 1: to the writings of the ancient world Lucian of Samosata,
Speaker 1: who wrote scathingly of the cult as being a creation
Speaker 1: of Greek mystic and oracle Alexander of Avnotitus centered again,
Speaker 1: centered around an enigmatic snake with human hair that allegedly
Speaker 1: might have consisted of a live snake with like a
Speaker 1: fake head or mask on, or perhaps a puppet of
Speaker 1: some sort. And this cult did apparently engage in both
Speaker 1: secrecy and overstimulating rituals. So it does seem like the
Speaker 1: sort of cult you could loosely classify as a mystery cult, or,
Speaker 1: if you're leaning into allegations of fraud here, as a
Speaker 1: pseudo mystery cult. Yeah, and I think this is all
Speaker 1: worth thinking about as we reflect on what we've talked
Speaker 1: about in the previous episodes, Because, as we discussed, theatrical
Speaker 1: effects were employed in the mystery cult initiations, it would seem.
Speaker 3: And strongly suspected.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And for that matter, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: to say, okay, theatrical effects are for fine, but no puppets, puppets,
Speaker 1: that's just a sception. Well then why shouldn't we become
Speaker 1: complete iconoclasts and refuse religious imagery all the game? You know,
Speaker 1: just say, well, likenesses, statues, altars, arguments can be made
Speaker 1: that all of that as well is part of a
Speaker 1: theatrical effect to create a feeling of the sacred and
Speaker 1: so forth.
Speaker 3: I'd argue one of the most powerful special effects that
Speaker 3: can be deployed by a religion is something a lot
Speaker 3: of people wouldn't even think about as a special effect,
Speaker 3: and that's music. Music has overwhelming emotional power and can
Speaker 3: certainly cause people to get into ecstatic states even a
Speaker 3: secular Even in a secular setting, you know, at concerts
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, people get into ecstatic states when
Speaker 3: they're not expecting to meet the power of a god.
Speaker 3: Imagine you go into a powerful musical experience and you
Speaker 3: are expecting to meet a god and experience their power. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so like, that doesn't even cross a lot of
Speaker 3: people's minds that like music is a special effect designed
Speaker 3: to sort of set you up to have a certain
Speaker 3: kind of emotional vulnerability or openness to an experience, maybe
Speaker 3: a religion of an experience or secular nature.
Speaker 1: That's a great point. And what's so interesting about that
Speaker 1: point is that I myself will be I'll be quicker
Speaker 1: to criticize a film for emotionally manipulating me with its
Speaker 1: music than I will some sort of religious ceremony where
Speaker 1: they're likely doing something of the same nature.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think this is funny because people get
Speaker 3: people get really excited and interested about the idea of
Speaker 3: hallucinogenic compounds possibly being used in these ancient cults, like
Speaker 3: you know, and we can't rule it out. They may
Speaker 3: or may not have been. I think some of the
Speaker 3: arguments for us we've just talked in the last episode
Speaker 3: about how say the arguments for ergotism is being used
Speaker 3: at lusis or probably not very strong. You know, you
Speaker 3: can maybe say it's a little more possible that mushrooms
Speaker 3: were involved, but there's not strong evidence for that. But
Speaker 3: people are really captivated by this idea. There's a lot
Speaker 3: less attention seems to be paid to how often music
Speaker 3: is mentioned, and a lot of these ceremonies as being
Speaker 3: like a key element. You know, the rights of Dionysus
Speaker 3: involve ecstatic dancing on the mountain side, out in the wild,
Speaker 3: with overwhelming loud music, shrieking and flutes and drums and singing.
Speaker 3: I don't know, that sounds to me like its own
Speaker 3: kind of hallucinogen in a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they the rhythm of the heat.
Speaker 3: In fact, it comes back to a strange comparison that
Speaker 3: Boden does make in his book. There's a part where
Speaker 3: he talks about, I think quite convincingly notices parallels between
Speaker 3: ecstatic religious experiences and rave culture.
Speaker 1: That's a great connection.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: We also mentioned in Passing some of the ideas that
Speaker 1: Terrence McKenna had. Terrence McKenna also was very much an
Speaker 1: advocate of, I guess more like the sort of cy
Speaker 1: trance culture, but adjacent to rave culture, and a part
Speaker 1: of that very much tying that in with the sort
Speaker 1: of the same sort of experience is that that may
Speaker 1: have played a part in ancient religions. Yes, Now, coming
Speaker 1: back to allegations of fraud in the ancient world concerning
Speaker 1: mystery cults, especially gl I couldn't hear. We also have
Speaker 1: to reflect on some of the things that Boden points
Speaker 1: out regarding critics of mystery cults who would often dwell
Speaker 1: on alleged spoilers regarding sacred items that are part of
Speaker 1: the initiation, such as you know, revealing, oh it's a
Speaker 1: grain of wheat or whatnot, you know, letting you know
Speaker 1: what's in the secret box, and by removing the spoiler
Speaker 1: from the context of the initiation, you know, attempting to
Speaker 1: sort of gut punch it a little bit and say, look,
Speaker 1: this religion is about nothing because this is what is
Speaker 1: in the box.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So some of these claims we have of
Speaker 3: the secret content of the mysteries come from Christian apologists
Speaker 3: who were opposed to the mystery cults, and we're talking
Speaker 3: about how, oh, these things are stupid. They're celebrations of error,
Speaker 3: or sometimes they even make these weird kind of numerological
Speaker 3: or kind of word play arguments that like, oh, actually,
Speaker 3: here's why, you know, they're instead of celebrating the wisdom
Speaker 3: of the gods, they're worshiping the error of Eve and
Speaker 3: eating the apple or something. So, yeah, they're not a
Speaker 3: fan of these rival religions and they're revealing the secrets
Speaker 3: in order to lampoon them in a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we have to keep all of that in
Speaker 1: mind when we're considering these criticisms. So on one hand,
Speaker 1: it's possible that a cult like that of Glycans could
Speaker 1: be considered in keeping with just theatrics of the time,
Speaker 1: like maybe you're just dwelling a little bit too much
Speaker 1: on the fact that, yes, they're using theatrical effects to
Speaker 1: enhance the initiation rights of the mystery, you know. And
Speaker 1: because in this particular case, the cult of Glican it
Speaker 1: was likely a spin on already established snake cults in
Speaker 1: the region, and it seems to have survived in some
Speaker 1: form or re emerged after its creator's death. It's also
Speaker 1: possible that Alexander, the creator, alleged creator of the religion
Speaker 1: was not that different from other mystics of the time.
Speaker 1: We just happened to have strong surviving criticism of him,
Speaker 1: whereas we might not have that regarding other particular mystery cults.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, if Alexander really was, as Lucian
Speaker 1: charges involved in murder plots against his critics, well, then
Speaker 1: perhaps there was something kind of singular about him, and
Speaker 1: he really was a heel. I was reading a bit
Speaker 1: more about this in an article titled Narcissistic Fraud in
Speaker 1: the Ancient World by Stephen A. Kent. This was published
Speaker 1: in Ancient Narrative back in two thousand and seven, and he
Speaker 1: contends that based on what we know about Alexander from
Speaker 1: these writings, he may well have been the sort of
Speaker 1: person that we'd now classify as a malignant narcissist.
Speaker 3: Oh it sounds juicy, Tell me more.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, Lucian had a lot to say. He really
Speaker 1: digs into this guy. I'll read a few quotes from him.
Speaker 1: He points out that Alexander quote was tall and good looking,
Speaker 1: really godlike, with a fair complexion, a beard that was
Speaker 1: not very thick, hair partially natural and partially false, but
Speaker 1: so well matched that most people couldn't tell the difference.
Speaker 1: His eyes flashed like one possessed, while his voice was
Speaker 1: very clear and pleasant. And he goes on to talk
Speaker 1: about various other positive attributes that this guy had, and
Speaker 1: talking about how when you met him, you believe that
Speaker 1: this guy you know, believe you know this guy, believe
Speaker 1: everything he's telling you is very sincere and he had
Speaker 1: all of these gifts, but quote he used them for
Speaker 1: the worst purposes, and equipped with noble instruments, he lost
Speaker 1: no time in becoming the most accomplished of those who
Speaker 1: have been notorious for wickedness. And he goes on to
Speaker 1: accuse him of being quote a quack, the type who
Speaker 1: offered magic spells and marvelous incantation, charms for love affairs,
Speaker 1: afflictions for your enemies, discoveries of buried treasure, and inheritances
Speaker 1: to estates. He also goes into detail about You're going
Speaker 1: to be tired of winning, and then he also goes
Speaker 1: in it goes on to discuss a little bit about
Speaker 1: the glycon puppet in question, about first of all, Alexander
Speaker 1: would he alleges that he would do some sort of
Speaker 1: an act where he would chew on soap wort that
Speaker 1: would cause him to foam at the mouth so that
Speaker 1: he could fake some sort of a fit of madness,
Speaker 1: and then also that the act of producing glycin involved
Speaker 1: quote a snake's head made of linen. It had a
Speaker 1: slightly human look to it and was painted to look
Speaker 1: completely lifelike. Its mouth opened and closed by means of
Speaker 1: horse hairs, and the tongue black and forked like a
Speaker 1: snake's would shoot out, also controlled by hairs.
Speaker 3: So I guess I don't fully understand the spirit of
Speaker 3: the allegation. Is it a problem that it's a puppet
Speaker 3: or is it that like, oh, he's trying to say
Speaker 3: it's not a puppet, it's a puppet. He's trying to
Speaker 3: pass off as a living organism.
Speaker 1: Well, his criticism here, and I should add that historians
Speaker 1: seem to agree that this is this is an actual
Speaker 1: historic individual. It is being criticized here. Yeah, I'm to
Speaker 1: understand the stronger criticism here is that he's a scoundrel,
Speaker 1: But I mean, he's also accused of being a quack,
Speaker 1: So the fakeness of what he is doing, the theatrical
Speaker 1: effects are also being criticized here, And it seems like
Speaker 1: one interpretation could be that those particular criticisms are perhaps
Speaker 1: maybe a little unfair compared to what is probably going
Speaker 1: on with other mystery religions of the time. However, again,
Speaker 1: if Alexander It really is as deceptive and awful as
Speaker 1: he is accused of being here, then we definitely have
Speaker 1: to take that into account too, and maybe that's what
Speaker 1: pushes it over the.
Speaker 3: Now. This could be totally off base because, as I said,
Speaker 3: I don't know much about what Lucian is doing here.
Speaker 3: But I wonder also could it be that a criticism
Speaker 3: like this could be aimed at such a puppet being
Speaker 3: in bad taste like ye, to the people of the time,
Speaker 3: you'd have a certain kind of sensibility about what is
Speaker 3: accept what are the acceptable special effects within a religious context,
Speaker 3: and what are the not acceptable special effects the same
Speaker 3: way that people would now, Like there are certain types
Speaker 3: of things that people think, oh, yeah, that fits right
Speaker 3: in at a church. Music, it fits in in most
Speaker 3: churches in some form. That's a powerful special effect. But
Speaker 3: there are other things that if you did them in
Speaker 3: a church, people in our culture would probably say, like,
Speaker 3: that's really gaudy, that's that's not the appropriate tone.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I wonder if something like that could be operative in
Speaker 3: other times and places in history as well.
Speaker 1: Like he is, he is crossing a line that critics
Speaker 1: are not ready for. But perhaps some of the initiates
Speaker 1: are cool with or have come to accept or just
Speaker 1: have a you know, a different threshold.
Speaker 3: For Yeah, like probably a lot of churches today would
Speaker 3: be fine with music, but not with the pyrotechnics display
Speaker 3: for the sermon, but I bet some some use them, probably.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I mean even you know, generationally in churches,
Speaker 1: for example, you'll have some that are like electric guitars
Speaker 1: in a service that's just that's not done. You shouldn't
Speaker 1: say that, and others are like, no, that's what we're
Speaker 1: doing and that's what's bringing people in. So you know,
Speaker 1: I think you could probably get into what might in
Speaker 1: the long term be silly disputes about what is proper
Speaker 1: and isn't proper given any particular religious right or service.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's I'm unsure exactly where to parse all
Speaker 1: of the Glycin situation here. But again, the cult of
Speaker 1: Glycon did deal in theatrics and secrets, and what Lucian
Speaker 1: here is doing is definitely spilling some tea about the secrets.
Speaker 3: That brings us back to an interesting subject that I
Speaker 3: did want to return to today. So there was a
Speaker 3: scholar I talked about in Part three named Kevin Clinton
Speaker 3: who wrote a chapter that dealt with the Alusinian mysteries.
Speaker 3: And there's a part where Clinton was exploring a passage
Speaker 3: in Aristotle making the case that the initiate who goes
Speaker 3: through the secret rights at ilusis is not supposed to
Speaker 3: learn anything. They're not there to get information, but rather
Speaker 3: to have an experience. And then Aristotle says, and thus
Speaker 3: by having the experience to become fit or deserving. I
Speaker 3: interpret that as deserving of a certain kind of relationship
Speaker 3: or intimacy with the gods. But this really goes against
Speaker 3: our normal idea of a secret, doesn't it. Like when
Speaker 3: we talk about secrets, a secret is almost always understood
Speaker 3: to mean information kept hidden from someone. So by becoming
Speaker 3: an initiate and going through the mystic rights, you gain
Speaker 3: access to the secrets. What is hidden from others is
Speaker 3: revealed to you. But it's emphasized over and over by
Speaker 3: all these sources we've been talking about that the point
Speaker 3: is not to gain information. The initiate is not expected
Speaker 3: to learn any informational content. So why the secrecy? What
Speaker 3: is it doing? What's the point of it? And I
Speaker 3: guess when you ask why about something like secrecy, you
Speaker 3: could mean that question in different ways. So in one sense,
Speaker 3: you might be asking why did the people who first
Speaker 3: decided these rights should be kept secret decide that? Like,
Speaker 3: what motivation did they have in their minds to establish
Speaker 3: a tradition of secrecy. It seems there's probably no way
Speaker 3: to answer that question with any content evil. All you
Speaker 3: could do is speculate, and then in a very different sense,
Speaker 3: you could ask why the secrecy, to mean, why were
Speaker 3: cults with secret initiation rights successful and appealing? In other words,
Speaker 3: why do secrets work in a religious context? Why does
Speaker 3: a cult with secrets make people want to come join it?
Speaker 3: And so this got me thinking about the psychology of secrets,
Speaker 3: which we have covered to some extent on the show before.
Speaker 3: I think years ago, we did a at least one episode,
Speaker 3: maybe a couple of parts about the psychological effects of
Speaker 3: having secrets. There's definitely research about how, like having a
Speaker 3: shameful secret, or one you perceive as shameful, causes psychological distress.
Speaker 3: This shouldn't come as any surprise. It tends to lead
Speaker 3: to feelings of isolation, to anxiety and so forth, especially
Speaker 3: if depending on the nature and nature of the secret,
Speaker 3: and like how it applies to say, relationships, and if
Speaker 3: you are forced to think about the secret a lot
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, and a lot of the psychological
Speaker 3: studies on secrets have this kind of focus. Essentially, they're
Speaker 3: about the effects of thinking about concealed personal information which
Speaker 3: people believe would be harmful to them if discovered by others.
Speaker 3: The classic example is the fact that you did something
Speaker 3: morally bad or something embarrassing you hope no one ever
Speaker 3: finds out, So now it's your secret. But when you
Speaker 3: think about it that way, that's actually a very different
Speaker 3: kind of secret than we're talking about with the mystery cults.
Speaker 3: If I am an initiate of a mystery cults, I
Speaker 3: am an apoptase of the Elusinian mystery. So I've gone
Speaker 3: through initiation the second time with open eyes. I've seen
Speaker 3: all the mystic rites of Demeter. I've witnessed something that
Speaker 3: is kept secret to outsiders, and I'm not allowed to
Speaker 3: talk about it or share it under pain of great penalty,
Speaker 3: possibly under pain of death. I will be in a
Speaker 3: state where I have to carry this secret with me
Speaker 3: and I can't tell people. But there's no evidence that
Speaker 3: there is any any feeling of shame associated with this secret.
Speaker 3: It's not bad or damaging information, certainly not about me,
Speaker 3: probably not about anyone. And in fact, there's not really
Speaker 3: much evidence that these secrets were perceived as a burden
Speaker 3: in any way. Also, the thing that is being kept
Speaker 3: secret is, as best I can tell, probably not a
Speaker 3: piece of discrete information that can easily be put into words,
Speaker 3: like you know, one thing like that would be the
Speaker 3: kinds of secrets that we trade in in regular, regular gossip.
Speaker 3: So those kind of secrets might be like a fact
Speaker 3: about something that somebody did you know, so and so
Speaker 3: cheated on their spouse, or so and so lied about something.
Speaker 3: Things like that, They're not really discrete things that you
Speaker 3: can put into words. Instead, it seems like these secrets
Speaker 3: were probably a kind of baffling, overwhelming emotional experience of sites, sounds,
Speaker 3: strange words, strange objects and rituals that you took part
Speaker 3: in yourself. So it would almost be as if like
Speaker 3: the secret were not information encoded in words, but like
Speaker 3: the experience of going to a concert or a great
Speaker 3: play like we've been talking about.
Speaker 1: So, for instance, an example of the former would be
Speaker 1: Bruce Wayne's secret being that he is Batman. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: the latter would be the secret that we all might
Speaker 1: realize that we are all Batman, something that maybe is
Speaker 1: a little, you know, harder to really explain, but if
Speaker 1: you know it, you know it well.
Speaker 3: It's also that that might be a good example, because
Speaker 3: it's the kind of thing that if you just say it,
Speaker 3: it sounds kind of banal. It's not a very interesting
Speaker 3: thing to hear. But if you saw a great story,
Speaker 3: like if you watched a movie that convinced you and
Speaker 3: your gut that yes, we are all Batman, then it
Speaker 3: would feel really powerful.
Speaker 1: Right, And it might might very well depend on a
Speaker 1: sensory overload experience like seeing a really good Batman movie.
Speaker 3: Also, ancient writers describe the effect of being in on
Speaker 3: the secret of a mystery cult as an extremely positive one.
Speaker 3: It's a good thing. It doesn't feel bad, it doesn't
Speaker 3: feel like a burden, it feels good. Instead, being in
Speaker 3: on the secret actually unburdens you of your worries. It
Speaker 3: allows you to go with lightness when it is time
Speaker 3: to enter the land of the dead. So I was
Speaker 3: looking to see if there's any research on positive secrets,
Speaker 3: and indeed there have been some experiments on this. One
Speaker 3: study I wanted to mention was by Michael Sleepian, Catherine Greenaway,
Speaker 3: Nicholas camp and Adam Galinsky called The bright Side of
Speaker 3: Secrecy The Energizing Effect of Positive Secrets in the Journal
Speaker 3: of Personality and Social Psychology twenty twenty three. Now, the
Speaker 3: author's here is start off by saying, like, yes, we
Speaker 3: do often associate secrets with burdens and distress, but this
Speaker 3: is in the scientific context. This is mainly because secrets
Speaker 3: have been studied in cases of adverse secrets. It's stuff
Speaker 3: we don't want people to find out about. What about
Speaker 3: when people have information that they are not sharing with
Speaker 3: other people, but it's information they feel good about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is going to be another silly example.
Speaker 1: But I'm reminded of a stand up bit from Uparna Manchula,
Speaker 1: who is hilarious, but she has a bit about reading
Speaker 1: in a women's magazine, the advice that she should walk
Speaker 1: around like she's carrying a sexy secret, and which is
Speaker 1: on the face silly, and I believe her bit is
Speaker 1: like it sounds like women's magazines are just written by spambots.
Speaker 1: That's what she that's her interpretation. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: I also kind of understand what they're getting at, like
Speaker 1: the idea of having some sort of a secret that
Speaker 1: is not an negative secret but positive that you know
Speaker 1: you're keeping it secret so you're not just expressing it everywhere.
Speaker 1: But perhaps the light of that secret is shining through you.
Speaker 3: Instead of walking around feeling like you are in hawk
Speaker 3: to the world by you know, the way you do
Speaker 3: when you have a shameful secret. Having a positive secret
Speaker 3: that you haven't shared with anyone feels like you have
Speaker 3: a you have like a plus, you have a credit.
Speaker 3: You know, you have a plus thing on the balance
Speaker 3: that hasn't cleared yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So in they're abstract to the author's right. In
Speaker 3: contrast to the prior research, five experiments total sample size
Speaker 3: of twenty eight hundred find that positive secrets increase feelings
Speaker 3: of energy relative to first of all content matched positive
Speaker 3: non secrets. So it's not just that positive news increases
Speaker 3: your energy, it's specifically when it is secret news, the
Speaker 3: other thing being other pieces of unknown positive information, and
Speaker 3: finally other kinds of secrets. So that last part might
Speaker 3: not be surprising. But yes, positive secrets are more energizing
Speaker 3: than negative secrets the author's right. Importantly, these energizing effects
Speaker 3: of positive secrets were independent of positive affect We further
Speaker 3: found that positive secrets are energizing because, compared to other
Speaker 3: kinds of secrets, people keep them for more intrinsically than
Speaker 3: extrinsically motivated reasons. That is, these secrets are more freely chosen,
Speaker 3: more consistent with personal values, and more motivated by internal
Speaker 3: desires than by external pressures. Using both measures and manipulations
Speaker 3: of these motivations, we found that a motivational mechanism helps
Speaker 3: explain the energizing effect of positive secrets. The present results
Speaker 3: offer new insights into secrecy, how people respond to positive
Speaker 3: life events, and the subjective experiences of vitality and energy.
Speaker 3: And for a little more explication of this study, I
Speaker 3: found a summary written for the Society for Personality and
Speaker 3: Social Psychology by first author Michael Sleepian here and Sleepy
Speaker 3: and explains their finding by first of all, by saying
Speaker 3: a lot of times we don't keep positive news secret.
Speaker 3: They started with a survey of five hundred people that
Speaker 3: found when people learn good news, seventy six percent of
Speaker 3: respondents said that the first thing they would do is
Speaker 3: go tell someone. And you can almost kind of feel
Speaker 3: that in those writings from the ancient world about the
Speaker 3: mystery cults, where people are like, you know, I can't
Speaker 3: tell you what the mysteries are, but I want it's
Speaker 3: like it's really good, it's really good stuff. Like you
Speaker 3: should go. You know, you talked to those multiple passages
Speaker 3: where they're just exhorting readers. Go for yourself, check it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no spoilers, but it's wonderful.
Speaker 3: But in contrast to this desire to immediately share good news,
Speaker 3: the authors found there are distinct psychological benefits to keeping
Speaker 3: good news a secret. So the authors one way they
Speaker 3: investigated this was they took a list of thirty eight
Speaker 3: common types of good news uh, and they found that,
Speaker 3: on average, people had between five and six pieces of
Speaker 3: good news that they were currently keeping to themselves for
Speaker 3: the time being. Now, you might think, well, like what
Speaker 3: kinds of good news? What would examples be? A very
Speaker 3: common one was a self gift. That's what the authors
Speaker 3: call it. It's when you have bought or otherwise treated
Speaker 3: yourself to something special. Apparently, this is a common type
Speaker 3: of secret people have and they feel good about it.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to feel good about those. I feel bad
Speaker 1: about this. I do too.
Speaker 3: Every time I'm trying to get over it. Whenever I
Speaker 3: like get myself something nice, I feel real guilty.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, same, Yeah, I'm struggle. I don't think I
Speaker 1: have any positive secrets I'm keeping myself at the moment,
Speaker 1: I think I've let them all out.
Speaker 3: Well, we'll see. We'll go down the list for a
Speaker 3: few more common examples. What about a gift to another
Speaker 3: person that they don't know about yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, none of those right now either. I'm like in
Speaker 1: one of those periods between birthdays and okay, in mother's
Speaker 1: days and so forth.
Speaker 3: How about having found something that the person was looking for.
Speaker 3: This apparently often people are walking around feeling good about
Speaker 3: having found the thing, but they didn't tell anybody they
Speaker 3: found it.
Speaker 1: I had one of those a couple of days ago,
Speaker 1: but then I gave it to them. So now that's tie.
Speaker 3: So finally completing a task. Oh, this is a common thing, right.
Speaker 3: Oh you know, I finished writing this thing I was
Speaker 3: working on, but I haven't talked to anybody about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, all right, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: So anyways, sleeping goes on to say, quote, across several studies,
Speaker 3: we asked participants to think of a positive secret they
Speaker 3: were keeping, and then measured their current mood and how
Speaker 3: energized they felt in that moment. Another group of participants
Speaker 3: were asked was asked to think of good news that
Speaker 3: was not secret for the same types of good news.
Speaker 3: Thinking about the secret good news was more energizing than
Speaker 3: thinking about non secret good news. Thinking about positive secrets
Speaker 3: was also more energizing than thinking about positive information that
Speaker 3: has not been shared for other reasons, such as when
Speaker 3: you intend to share good news with someone cannot talk
Speaker 3: to them until later in the day. So I thought
Speaker 3: that was a very interesting distinction to make there, at
Speaker 3: least within this sample, given these controls, there's something specially
Speaker 3: invigorating about having positive information that you specifically intend to
Speaker 3: keep secret that you have made the choice not to
Speaker 3: share with people, as opposed to just you haven't had
Speaker 3: a chance to tell them yet.
Speaker 1: And you know it could be a sexy secret. Just
Speaker 1: to come back to what we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 3: It's certainly good. So I thought this was very interesting. Obviously,
Speaker 3: these secrets being discussed here are also not a perfect
Speaker 3: analogy to the hidden truths of the mystery cults for
Speaker 3: multiple reasons, some of which we've already talked about, which
Speaker 3: I'll get to in just a minute. So it's not
Speaker 3: exactly the same kind of thing as being in on
Speaker 3: the Secret of Ilusus or any of these other cults.
Speaker 3: But I feel like it's closer than most of the
Speaker 3: research we look at on secrecy, which is about like
Speaker 3: something or you believe to be shameful that you're hiding.
Speaker 3: And I can see how this kind of I know,
Speaker 3: this bubbling up sense of energy that comes from thinking
Speaker 3: about the secret that is good news to you, but
Speaker 3: you are choosing not to share with others. It seems
Speaker 3: to be, as the author say, a kind of expression
Speaker 3: of one's own intrinsic personality, like the fact that you
Speaker 3: know this thing and others don't becomes a part of
Speaker 3: your identity. It becomes a way of thinking about who
Speaker 3: you are. Part of who I am is that I
Speaker 3: know this thing and I don't express it to other people,
Speaker 3: at least unless they're initiated as well. And then maybe
Speaker 3: that creates a whole second order thing of effects of
Speaker 3: the kind of bonding you might experience with other initiates,
Speaker 3: people you could talk to about the secret, and that
Speaker 3: that creates a whole other sense of bonding and you
Speaker 3: know their social benefits there as well.
Speaker 1: We mentioned in passing the idea of weird fiction ideas
Speaker 1: of cult, and it does occur to me that what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here does match up in interesting ways
Speaker 1: with some of the revelations that occur in weird fiction,
Speaker 1: with those revelations being kind of an inversion of what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here where I have I just went
Speaker 1: through some serious stuff and I got a real dark
Speaker 1: revelation about the secret nature of the universe, and it's
Speaker 1: sanity shredding, and I probably can't tell anyone about it
Speaker 1: or properly convey it to other people. So that's that's
Speaker 1: the sort of the negative version of what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here.
Speaker 3: And might not even be able to put it into.
Speaker 1: Words right right, It could be the opposite is like
Speaker 1: I just went through this amazing ritual initiation to a
Speaker 1: strength dark God, and it was amazing. I have this
Speaker 1: real clear cut vision of what the universe is all about.
Speaker 1: Now I can't convey it to you in words, but
Speaker 1: you've got to You've got to go to the cold
Speaker 1: as well. That's the only way you're going to be
Speaker 1: able to understand what I'm even getting at here.
Speaker 3: Well, in that vein, this got me thinking about another
Speaker 3: way of framing the secrecy. What these secret rights are?
Speaker 3: You know, it came up in the Boden book that
Speaker 3: it is something. Of course, there are there are mystic
Speaker 3: rights of Dionysus as well. You know, this is one
Speaker 3: of the famous mystery religions. It is sometimes said that
Speaker 3: the god Dionysus appears only in disguise. In fact, he
Speaker 3: is often represented by a mask, and that perhaps what's
Speaker 3: going on is that when women went out into the
Speaker 3: wild mountain side to participate in ecstatic music and dance
Speaker 3: and fulfill the mystic rights of Dionysus, something about that
Speaker 3: profound experience meant that you would get to see the
Speaker 3: god unmasked. You would see the true face of Dionysus,
Speaker 3: which is always kept in disguise with everyone else. And
Speaker 3: it struck me that this is another way of thinking
Speaker 3: about the type of secret that is revealed here, not
Speaker 3: as information divulged, but as either intimacy attained or true
Speaker 3: form revealed, and both connect to the idea of seeing
Speaker 3: someone uncovered, either like unmasked in the sense of true
Speaker 3: form revealed, or disrobed in the sense of intimacy. And
Speaker 3: I think this is often one of the most emotionally
Speaker 3: powerful types of Hiddennis revealed, of these moments of revelation
Speaker 3: that we get in storytelling or in religious ritual or
Speaker 3: whatever you know in storytelling, if you're watching a play
Speaker 3: or a movie when a masked character is suddenly unmasked,
Speaker 3: and let's say, this is not like revealing them to
Speaker 3: be some other character that we already know about. Instead,
Speaker 3: we're just seeing somebody's face for the first time. This
Speaker 3: might not really reveal much that can be encoded into words,
Speaker 3: except maybe in a loose way by describing the face,
Speaker 3: but it still feels like a profound type of revelation.
Speaker 3: It's one of the most potent revelations there is. But
Speaker 3: it's not really a clue or piece of information. It's
Speaker 3: an experience of knowing someone. And I wonder if the
Speaker 3: secrets of mystery cults actually felt a bit more like that.
Speaker 3: It's not so much the secret password that you have learned,
Speaker 3: though there are a few things like that, but a
Speaker 3: masked face unmasked and is it is the face of
Speaker 3: a god with unspeakable power over your life.
Speaker 1: Now, as we close out this four part look at
Speaker 1: the Mystery Cults, it makes sense to finally discuss properly
Speaker 1: the end of the mysteries, and in doing so, on
Speaker 1: a briefly come back to the writings of Terence McKenna,
Speaker 1: who We referenced Food of the Gods a little bit
Speaker 1: in a previous episode on the Mystery Cults here and again.
Speaker 1: The broader themes in the Food of the Odds concerned
Speaker 1: the possible roles that in theogens may have played in
Speaker 1: human evolution and the development of archaic human cultures with
Speaker 1: a falling off and gradual descent with the advent of
Speaker 1: Western civilization. And mckinna's does specifically point to the end
Speaker 1: of the Mystery Cults as one possible watershed moment in
Speaker 1: all of this, one that helped reinforce quote the emergence
Speaker 1: of the anti visionary dominator style of culture and this
Speaker 1: beginning to usher in a quote progressively more vacant, more
Speaker 1: ego dominated world whose energies were coalescing into monotheism, patriarchy,
Speaker 1: and male domination.
Speaker 3: Tell us what you really think, Terrence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like I say, this is all very much
Speaker 1: part of his archaic revival Bohemian thread messaging. And I
Speaker 1: will again say that I do think Food of the Gods.
Speaker 1: Whether you agree with with this some of the theories
Speaker 1: that he's throwing out there, I do think it's it's
Speaker 1: a better work of scholarship than some might assume, but
Speaker 1: I found this commentary interesting. You know. In fact, many
Speaker 1: of the mystery cults were centered on mother goddesses and
Speaker 1: or their consorts Sybil in the Roman Magna Mater clled
Speaker 1: isis Demeter and Corey, who have talked about, as well
Speaker 1: as the mother Goddess that we alluded to just several
Speaker 1: minutes ago. So I think a lot of what he's
Speaker 1: getting at does coalesce nicely with what we're discussing here.
Speaker 1: To bring up another theorist, sort of outside thinker that
Speaker 1: we've talked about on the show before, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go down the complete bicameral bicameral mind rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: But Julian James refers to this time period as one
Speaker 1: in which religions that adhere to more estatic or in
Speaker 1: his writings, possessive rights are falling to quote, a siege
Speaker 1: of rationalism as Christianity picks up steam and to be clear,
Speaker 1: changes during this time period to become an increasingly dominant religion,
Speaker 1: certainly within the Roman Empire. M Yeah. Now, to be sure,
Speaker 1: James was discussing all of this in his nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: six book to support his theory, regarding a gradual change
Speaker 1: in human consciousness from one of inherently experienced other voices
Speaker 1: in the mind toward their increasing silence. You can go
Speaker 1: back and listen to our episodes where we discussed the
Speaker 1: bicameral mind hypothesis in greater detail whether there is any
Speaker 1: truth to it. In the end, I do think James
Speaker 1: was in part exploring some of the same changes we're
Speaker 1: discussing here in the Manifestation of religious experiences.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been a while in that, but you know,
Speaker 3: I do remember thinking that despite obviously I'm not convinced
Speaker 3: of the bicameral mind hypothesis, but I remember thinking a
Speaker 3: lot of James's peripheral insights about the smaller matters were
Speaker 3: often quite interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think so. And you know, he is,
Speaker 1: you know, getting at some major shifts and changes that
Speaker 1: were occurring, but there are a lot of different ways
Speaker 1: to tease apart what was happening and why Now in
Speaker 1: in Boden's book, he of course gets into this and
Speaker 1: discusses the end of the mystery cults. As you know,
Speaker 1: we previously discussed the Roman Empire's relative tolerance toward various
Speaker 1: religions and cults was notable. As long as they didn't
Speaker 1: conflict with Roman authority and didn't stir up trouble with
Speaker 1: other faiths, then you know, things were generally tolerated.
Speaker 3: I mean, there are other cases in the book he
Speaker 3: talks about where other mystery religions were subject to some
Speaker 3: regulation or suppression, say, if Roman authorities thought they were
Speaker 3: contributing to disorder or thought that they might become a
Speaker 3: might become sort of a launching point for political conspiracy.
Speaker 3: In fact, I don't remember the specific example, but there
Speaker 3: was one case where they limited certain cults. It might
Speaker 3: have been ones related to Dionysus that you know, where
Speaker 3: it was like, you can't have too many people gathering
Speaker 3: in secret. At the same time.
Speaker 1: You could very well to sort of lean into Alan
Speaker 1: Moore's interpretation of GLIC and you can imagine them being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this snake puppet is obviously fake. They can totally have this,
Speaker 1: let's actually put it on some coins.
Speaker 3: But driving the point that you know, the Romans, what
Speaker 3: they were mainly concerned about was like actual here and
Speaker 3: now power. When they were concerned with stamping out other
Speaker 3: religious stuff, it was because they perceived it as some
Speaker 3: kind of here and now power threat exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you might well ask about Christian persecution during
Speaker 1: this time period as well, you know, feeding Christians to
Speaker 1: lions and so forth. As we've discussed on the show
Speaker 1: before in other episodes in the past, the persecution of
Speaker 1: Christians wasn't total and constant throughout this period. It's sort
Speaker 1: of varied depending on who was in charge, with different fluctuations.
Speaker 1: But after three thirteen CEE, Christian persecution comes to an
Speaker 1: end and in the Roman Empire and Christianity begins to
Speaker 1: receive active support from the Emperor Constantine the Great, and
Speaker 1: Boden writes that this resulted in more and more converts
Speaker 1: to Christianity, and baptism began to be seen as a
Speaker 1: preliminary ritual into this new popular faith, and notably Christian
Speaker 1: baptism began to also lose its imagistic features in Christian faith.
Speaker 1: So he gets to this, this is an interesting thing
Speaker 1: to think about. So we're at this time where Christianity
Speaker 1: is gaining in popularity, mystery cults are falling away, but
Speaker 1: Christianity arguably is losing its mystery cult like attributes as
Speaker 1: it rises in popularity. So there's a lot of interesting
Speaker 1: transitions going on here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now, one topic that often comes up is it
Speaker 3: does seem that the decline of mystery cults, like the
Speaker 3: general decline of Greek and Rome polytheism, is related to
Speaker 3: the rise of Christianity. But like, what is the explanation there?
Speaker 3: People have offered a lot of different theories over the
Speaker 3: years what led to the success of Christianity within the
Speaker 3: Roman Empire. People have tried to explain it in terms
Speaker 3: of like particular doctrines or attributes of Christian communities. Those
Speaker 3: arguments may have some weight to them, may not. But
Speaker 3: one argument about the success of Christianity and the Roman
Speaker 3: Empire that I find very persuasive is just sort of
Speaker 3: a mathematical argument that was made, at least in one
Speaker 3: case by a previous show guest, the historian bart Erman,
Speaker 3: who's been on our show before. I interviewed him a
Speaker 3: few years ago. He's a secular scholar of Christianity and
Speaker 3: of the Bible and historian of this time period of
Speaker 3: early Christianity, and he makes the point that really the
Speaker 3: main thing Christianity had going for it in terms of
Speaker 3: its success in the Roman Empire is that it was
Speaker 3: an exclusive cult, whereas when you look at, say, look
Speaker 3: at the other mystery cults. You will have powerful Roman
Speaker 3: people who are bragging about how many different mystery cults
Speaker 3: they've been initiated to. Oh yeah, I did the Alusini
Speaker 3: and I'm Demeter, I did this one, I did that one.
Speaker 3: Look at it. I'm racking them up. I'm becoming so accomplished.
Speaker 3: And Greek and Roman polytheism was generally of that sort.
Speaker 3: There was no need to be exclusive with one god
Speaker 3: or another. You could do some stuff for Apollo, you
Speaker 3: could do some stuff with Demeter, and and that was
Speaker 3: all fine. That Christianity was kind of unique, and that
Speaker 3: when you converted to Christianity, you you didn't just add
Speaker 3: that on to the list of gods you had some
Speaker 3: relationship with. You cut off relations with all the other gods.
Speaker 3: So every time somebody converted to Christianity and stayed a
Speaker 3: christian that all of the other cults lost permanently lost
Speaker 3: and adherent and everybody that you know that flowed downstream
Speaker 3: from their household and so forth. So it was the
Speaker 3: exclusivity of Christianity when paired to these other religions, according
Speaker 3: to Ermin's argument, which I find pretty convincing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean you can imagine the ripples that
Speaker 1: that creates in the religious ecosystem. Yeah, you suddenly can't
Speaker 1: just sort of, oh yeah, I'm a member of five
Speaker 1: different ones. No, you've got to commit. This religion wants
Speaker 1: you to commit and settle down. And as that becomes
Speaker 1: popular and that becomes an increasing in group, yeah, its
Speaker 1: power just grows socially.
Speaker 3: Right, it's like a one way valve. People are mostly
Speaker 3: just flowing in and not back out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't sort of have one foot
Speaker 1: in and one foot out so much orly is not
Speaker 1: as easily, not with as much social fluidity as had
Speaker 1: been possible before. Right. A lot has been written about
Speaker 1: the decline of mystery cults the rise of Christianity, about
Speaker 1: the possible links between the two, especially the extent to
Speaker 1: which early Christianity was in many ways a mystery cult
Speaker 1: and how you know, arguably Christianity becomes this sort of
Speaker 1: anti visionary religion as it rises. And one thing that
Speaker 1: that Boden points out is that you know that a
Speaker 1: lot of this comes down the scholarly debate often comes
Speaker 1: down to, you know, the agendas of whoever's making the argument.
Speaker 1: So Protestant voices might argue, might have argued that early
Speaker 1: Christianity was corrupted by mystery cult influences and therefore needed correcting.
Speaker 3: Oh because because they're doing an anti Catholic narrative. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so they're saying that stuff that the parts of Christianity
Speaker 3: as practiced today that we don't approve of that came
Speaker 3: from other religions.
Speaker 1: Right, right, And likewise, critics of Christianity in general, he says,
Speaker 1: might argue that Christianity itself borrows heavily from the likes
Speaker 1: of Mithraism, and that alone you can really get into
Speaker 1: like a nuanced discussion of like how much of it
Speaker 1: is Christianity potentially borrowing from Mithraism or them just sort
Speaker 1: of like being like on the same vibe, you know,
Speaker 1: and how much how much religious right is truly exclusive
Speaker 1: to anyone given faith.
Speaker 3: You could also argue that Christianity need not have borrowed
Speaker 3: from Mythraism to have similarities. They could in fact, I mean,
Speaker 3: of course, some similarities could just be coincidences in the
Speaker 3: way that a lot of religions have similar things, But
Speaker 3: you could also have a common ancestor, right, a lot
Speaker 3: of religions have common ancestors things that shared, shared rituals
Speaker 3: and stuff are derived from traditions that are found all
Speaker 3: over the place.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, so whatever the reason, mystery cults end up falling away,
Speaker 1: their temples when destroyed, are sacked, are just often not rebuilt.
Speaker 1: Things fall into ruin or disrepair and are not re repaired.
Speaker 1: And Boden gets into this a bit as well, pointing
Speaker 1: out that the rise of Christianity it doesn't completely eradicate
Speaker 1: static religious experience. Its watch, the history of Christianity is
Speaker 1: sprinkled with Christianistics and you know, no doubt many a
Speaker 1: squashed heresy that leans more into a static religious experience
Speaker 1: than is comfortable for the powers that be. And we
Speaker 1: can also point to various static religious practices from say,
Speaker 1: later Protestant movements. Snake handling is discussed in the book,
Speaker 1: but you can also apply this lens too much in
Speaker 1: the revival and faith healing tradition as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Boden has a long section on snake handling, where
Speaker 3: you know, when you read about snake handling, you really
Speaker 3: there's a lot of emphasis put on the snakes, or
Speaker 3: maybe on the other deadly things like the drinking of poison,
Speaker 3: And of course that is a big part of the practice,
Speaker 3: but it's also associated with just general ecstatic frenzy. You know,
Speaker 3: like a lot of these churches will have loud, powerful
Speaker 3: music to coming back to the music once again, you know,
Speaker 3: that gets you into a kind of trans and people
Speaker 3: described the way like they feel like they're leaving their body,
Speaker 3: or they feel like the Holy Spirit has entered them,
Speaker 3: they have become another person in these loud, raucous ceremonies
Speaker 3: where yes, dangerous, deadly things are happening, people are handling
Speaker 3: venomous snakes, but it's also just it's it's a wild
Speaker 3: array of sights and sounds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there are numerous examples of contemporary aesthetic dance
Speaker 1: you can point to that have the same effect. I
Speaker 1: believe speaking in tongues in some Protestant traditions that's also
Speaker 1: brought up. So, yeah, there are various examples of religious
Speaker 1: frenzy experienced by large groups. Boden does say that these
Speaker 1: are generally discouraged in the grand arc of Christian history,
Speaker 1: but they do exist, and you can also point to
Speaker 1: examples of it of it in other you know, surviving
Speaker 1: examples in other religions and contemporary faiths.
Speaker 3: This is not necessarily something that is backed up by
Speaker 3: say religious anthropolgy research is just a kind of gut
Speaker 3: feeling I have, But I would tend to think that
Speaker 3: people who practice mystical or ecstatic religious worship stuff where
Speaker 3: they get into an altered state of consciousness and believe
Speaker 3: they're having direct experience of the power of the gods,
Speaker 3: are sometimes perceived as dangerous by religious authorities because that
Speaker 3: kind of experience lends itself to the production of new doctrine.
Speaker 3: Like people, there's an idea that heresy emerges from that
Speaker 3: kind of behavior, and not to label it as heresy
Speaker 3: or say what doctrine is right or wrong, but I
Speaker 3: think often new beliefs and new doctrines do come out
Speaker 3: of that kind of religious behavior.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again going back to what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: doctrinal religion is very top down. The people who interpret
Speaker 1: the words of God, the will of God, or God's
Speaker 1: they they're at the top, and they're filtering that down
Speaker 1: to the followers. They're going to be very much opposed
Speaker 1: in general to the idea that anything would be bottom up,
Speaker 1: that anyone at the bottom would have new revelations, and
Speaker 1: that God or the gods would still be speaking on
Speaker 1: any level to anyone except the top of the hierarchy.
Speaker 3: Well, that's right. By definition, if you're on the top
Speaker 3: of a hierarchy, it is your job to maintain control.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But it's also interesting that we see, you know, a
Speaker 3: kind of top down control of some of these ancient
Speaker 3: mystery cults, Like so the culted Eleusis was administered, but
Speaker 3: you know, there was a religious hierarchy in place there,
Speaker 3: and we don't know all of the secrets, but it
Speaker 3: seems quite likely that they were inviting people in to
Speaker 3: become initiated, to go through these rights, to have these weird,
Speaker 3: powerful experiences, and then probably we're not told what it meant,
Speaker 3: and we're just like sending people off to make their
Speaker 3: own sense of it, which, on one hand, you would
Speaker 3: imagine from from the point of view of somebody trying
Speaker 3: to control a religious tradition, that seems dangerous for exactly
Speaker 3: the reasons we've just been talking about. But that seems
Speaker 3: like probably what was going on there, So I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe there are other ways in which it's it's empowering
Speaker 3: in the right ways, like it it creates the right
Speaker 3: kind of effect that sends more and more people your
Speaker 3: way every year, and that's a that's a fair trade
Speaker 3: maybe from some religious hierarchy's point of view.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this topic has just been so fascinating to
Speaker 1: think about, not only in exploring how ancient peoples thought
Speaker 1: about their faith, about their world and their place in
Speaker 1: the universe, but also the various ways we can apply
Speaker 1: what they seem to believe to what people believe today,
Speaker 1: and also the reverse, how we can take what we
Speaker 1: can and can't take from modern religiosity and apply to
Speaker 1: their world. Yeah. So it's been it's been really fun
Speaker 1: to research and record these Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, whenever you study something like this, there is
Speaker 3: always you always just keep catching yourself in turn cotting
Speaker 3: what you're reading about or seeing through a lens that's
Speaker 3: probably just too familiar, that's just too based on what
Speaker 3: something would mean in your own cultural context, and you're
Speaker 3: not remembering to let it be alien and ambiguous enough
Speaker 3: to you because you just don't know the context well
Speaker 3: enough to make sense.
Speaker 1: Of it, right.
Speaker 3: And and I know, whenever we do these historical topics
Speaker 3: or topics about you know, cultures other than our own,
Speaker 3: there's always a tendency to it's just too easy to
Speaker 3: feel confident that you understand what something means because you
Speaker 3: know what it would mean to you. It might not
Speaker 3: mean that to the person involved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the snake puppet. You know, we know what
Speaker 1: Lucian thought about it. We may have in our idea
Speaker 1: in our head, some idea of what we would think
Speaker 1: about it if we went to a religious service and
Speaker 1: there was an obvious puppet. But as for the people
Speaker 1: that were there in attendance and perhaps came back and
Speaker 1: didn't feel, you know, ripped off by what they experienced,
Speaker 1: you know, who's to say?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I guess all that just to say, like,
Speaker 3: you know, to survey the world past and present with
Speaker 3: open eyes, but be cautious about interpreting what you see.
Speaker 3: You might be jumping to conclusions. I know we do sometimes.
Speaker 1: All Right, We're going to go ahead and close the
Speaker 1: book here on the mystery cults, but we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from everyone out there if you have thoughts on
Speaker 1: the broader subject here, particular of mystery cults that we
Speaker 1: talked about, mystery cults that we didn't talk about write in.
Speaker 1: We would love to hear from you. Just a reminder
Speaker 1: once more that stuff to blow your mind is primarily
Speaker 1: a science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays
Speaker 1: and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we air a short form episode,
Speaker 1: and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
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Speaker 3: And let's see what else story is now denied to us?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the mysteries are denied to us. I think it
Speaker 1: was finally eradicate. Were just locked out of it for
Speaker 1: a long time and then it was fine, it's finally gone.
Speaker 1: But now we just have to build up the new one.
Speaker 1: Let's see. And then where else are we? Oh, we're
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Speaker 1: we are a weird house. And that's a great way
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Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
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Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
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