This submit is devoted to the reminiscence of Mara Lynn Keller, who handed away on 12/23/23. Mara was an knowledgeable on the Eleusinian Mysteries, and far of this submit is predicated on her scholarship. Mara was a life-long good friend and ally of Carol Christ’s, going again to their days within the Ph.D. program at Yale. She co-founded the Ladies’s Spirituality program on the California Institute of Integral Research (CIIS) with Eleanor Gadon (The As soon as and Future Goddess). Mara was an unusually heat, welcoming, and beneficiant presence, and should have been a superb instructor.
The Eleusinian Thriller Rites have been practiced in Athens and Eleusis from 1450 BCE to 329 CE, a interval of virtually 2,000 years, earlier than they have been expressly forbidden by the newly Christian Roman Empire, and years later the temple was destroyed. The Rites had originated on Crete, and continued to be practiced in Knossos and within the caves there for a lot of centuries. It’s probably no coincidence that the origin of the Mysteries in Eleusis in 1450 BCE is identical date as the autumn of Knossos.
The faith is predicated on the parable of Demeter and Persephone, To Deo, the mom and daughter. Because the story goes, Persephone was choosing flowers along with her girlfriends when the earth opened and Hades, god of the underworld, carried her off to be his queen. Demeter was inconsolable on the lack of her daughter; she raged and withheld the bounty of nature, when Zeus didn’t comply with return her. In her grief, she wandered over the countryside coming to relaxation within the city of Eleusis. There she disguised herself as a nanny and went to work for the kindly king and queen who had provided her lodging.
When she is caught passing their son by the fireplace, in a ceremony to provide him immortality, she is pressured to disclose her divinity. In the meantime, Zeus had change into alarmed at Demeter’s withholding of the fertility of nature, and pressured his brother into releasing Persephone. The title Eleusis means “introduction” and it’s right here that Persephone is joyfully reunited along with her mom, however as a result of she has eaten a number of pomegranate seeds in Hades, she is destined to return there for a 3rd of every yr.
The Larger Mysteries, referred to as the Thesmophoria, have been carried out over 9 days, from 9/15 to 9/24, and imitated the 9 days that Demeter looked for her daughter. Initiation into the Mysteries was thought-about one of many nice experiences of a lifetime, and it required a month’s wage, along with elaborate fasting and purification.
The Rites would start with the priestesses transporting the sacred objects from Demeter’s Temple in Eleusis, the Telesterion, to her temple on the north slope of the Acropolis. As they went, they issued a name to take part.
- Day 1. The Gathering, within the Agora in Athens.
- Adelade, Mystai! The initiates walked a number of miles to wash within the Aegean Sea to purify themselves within the therapeutic salt water.
- Fasting, sacrifice of a piglet, feasting at night time. In the course of the 9 days, initiates fasted through the day, consuming solely after dusk. On this means, they recognized with Demeter, who fasted the 9 days that she sought Persephone. Pigs have been sacrificial animals through the Neolithic and past, the shortly fattening animals representing the richness and fertility of the soil. Seeds have been discovered embedded into the votive collectible figurines of pigs in previous Europe, and in Egypt pigs trod the seeds into the black soil left by the receding Nile.
- Incubate a therapeutic dream on the dormitories of the temple of Asklepios on the southwest slope of the Acropolis. Asklepios’ main therapeutic heart was in Epidaurus, however there was a smaller temple on the Acropolis. “Therapistes” spoke to the initiates about methods to implement the motion the dream spoke to, the brand new sense of function.
- Pomp. Start the 14 mile stroll to Eleusis, passing sacred shrines and comes. Crossing over the Bridge of Jests—the place they’re ceremonially mocked and ridiculed, stripping away pleasure—onto the temple grounds. The little bridge can nonetheless be seen, though it’s starting to sink into the creek. Iambe (Baubo) is well known, the lewd, jesting determine that appeared to Demeter to lighten her spirits, extolling the facility of laughter to alleviate grief. Saffron strings have been mounted on the wrist and ankle of every provoke to point belonging to Demeter.
- Evening of revelry—singing, dancing, feasting, festivities across the nicely exterior the Telesterion to have a good time their arrival. Staying up all night time, adopted by a quiet day.
7, 8) Nights of Mysteries—contained in the Telesterion, Demeter’s Temple, the Corridor of Completion. There are dramatic enactments of the parable of Demeter and Persephone, recitation of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. A fireplace on the Anaktoron (shrine), presumably housing the hieros gamos or sacred marriage of a hierophant and priestess of Demeter. The magical return of Persephone from Hades, and the overcome loss of life and grief. The expertise of the Epotopia, a brand new means of seeing. The consuming of the Kykion—barley water infused with mint and pennyroyal, which after fasting may need had some mind-altering results. If there was ergot (mildew) on the barley, the drink would have been a robust hallucinogen, as robust as LSD, and none apart from Albert Hoffman, the inventor of LSD, weighs in on the topic. In his view historical individuals weren’t solely able to harvesting such a drug, however this was the first function of the Rites, the hallucinogenic journey the Epotopia, or new means of seeing, the belief of the divinity throughout the self. (This view is much from common, and Keller didn’t subscribe to it.)
9) The Epistrophe, or the Return. The arrival of Triptolemos, who Demeter empowers to exit and train the world her sacred agricultural rites, legal guidelines for a profitable harvest, the thesmoi. The goddesses are reunited with Hekate, the grandmother, the triple goddesses of abundance, barrenness, and renewal.
Half 2, tomorrow
BIO: Sally Mansfield Abbott is the writer of MIAMI IN VIRGO , a mystical feminist coming-of-age novel. She taught lessons on Goddess Worship in Prehistory at plenty of faculties within the Bay Space.
