Personal experience of the divine
Key concerns- the future, illness and death
Eleusis- mystery cult:
● Offering personal initiation by choice
● Conscious decision to undergo an initiation and keep it a secret
● Along the coast of Athens- straight forward journey
● Had to be an "adult"
Eleusinian mysteries:
● Noone wrote anything down so having to guess
● Prepare to be initiation- cleanse or fast
● Have an experience
● Revelation of a secret- offer of eternal life, Elysian fields
Glossary:
Epopteia- revelation of the secret
Mystes- an initiate
● Part of the Athenian sacred calendar
● Famous and everyone would be a part
● Was well known- mystery is what happens in the cult
● For a certain group of people
Rules/regulations:
● Anyone could be initiated-old, young, man, woman, Greek, not
Greek, free, slaved
● Had to be able to speak Greek- couldn't have committed serious
crime like murder
● Had to pay to take part- one of payment, could mean some people
couldn't join
● Part of the club for life
● Couldn't talk about rituals, revelations of the secret- distinction
between the initiated and not
, The secret:
● More or less still a secret
● Revealing the secret was a capital crime
● Alcibiades revealed it and ran away
● Idea of what happens after you die/ what is the underworld like
Demeter and Persephone:
● Homeric hymn to Demeter- sits under a tree and cry (tree is in
Eleusis)
● Under the tree she decides to go look for P and would have left
from Eleusis
● Links to Eleusinian M because the link of death and afterlife
The site:
● Building with lots of columns- where the mysteries take place
● Benches all around the outside looking into the columns
● Purposely dark and lit by torchlight
Festivals and procession:
● Lesser mysteries in Spring- when the initiates hang out
● Great mysteries in Autumn- when people are initiated
● 3000 people were already initiated
● All get in the agora- lots of people
● Some sort of announcement- get sacrifice (baby pig) and go bathe
with the pigs
● 3 days of rest- pig sacrifice at some point
● 4th day- agora, get into procession to travel 15 miles- priests lead
Journey:
● Sacred dancing, songs, libations, sacrifices, flutes and singing of
hymns
● The young mocked the old
● Aphrodite and Iacchus (btec Dionysus) worshipped
● On arrival, special priests led the ritual activity
Next 2 days:
● Unclear
Key concerns- the future, illness and death
Eleusis- mystery cult:
● Offering personal initiation by choice
● Conscious decision to undergo an initiation and keep it a secret
● Along the coast of Athens- straight forward journey
● Had to be an "adult"
Eleusinian mysteries:
● Noone wrote anything down so having to guess
● Prepare to be initiation- cleanse or fast
● Have an experience
● Revelation of a secret- offer of eternal life, Elysian fields
Glossary:
Epopteia- revelation of the secret
Mystes- an initiate
● Part of the Athenian sacred calendar
● Famous and everyone would be a part
● Was well known- mystery is what happens in the cult
● For a certain group of people
Rules/regulations:
● Anyone could be initiated-old, young, man, woman, Greek, not
Greek, free, slaved
● Had to be able to speak Greek- couldn't have committed serious
crime like murder
● Had to pay to take part- one of payment, could mean some people
couldn't join
● Part of the club for life
● Couldn't talk about rituals, revelations of the secret- distinction
between the initiated and not
, The secret:
● More or less still a secret
● Revealing the secret was a capital crime
● Alcibiades revealed it and ran away
● Idea of what happens after you die/ what is the underworld like
Demeter and Persephone:
● Homeric hymn to Demeter- sits under a tree and cry (tree is in
Eleusis)
● Under the tree she decides to go look for P and would have left
from Eleusis
● Links to Eleusinian M because the link of death and afterlife
The site:
● Building with lots of columns- where the mysteries take place
● Benches all around the outside looking into the columns
● Purposely dark and lit by torchlight
Festivals and procession:
● Lesser mysteries in Spring- when the initiates hang out
● Great mysteries in Autumn- when people are initiated
● 3000 people were already initiated
● All get in the agora- lots of people
● Some sort of announcement- get sacrifice (baby pig) and go bathe
with the pigs
● 3 days of rest- pig sacrifice at some point
● 4th day- agora, get into procession to travel 15 miles- priests lead
Journey:
● Sacred dancing, songs, libations, sacrifices, flutes and singing of
hymns
● The young mocked the old
● Aphrodite and Iacchus (btec Dionysus) worshipped
● On arrival, special priests led the ritual activity
Next 2 days:
● Unclear
