The Eleusinian Mysteries () were initiations held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at the Panhellenic Sanctuary of Eleusis in ancient Greece. They are considered the "most famous of the secret religious rites of ancient Greece".Encyclopædia Britannica Their basis was a Bronze Age agrarian cult,Martin P. Nilsson, Vol I, p. 470 and there is some evidence that they were derived from the religious practices of the Mycenaean period.Dietrich (1975) The origins of Greek Religion. Bristol Phoenix Press pp. 166, 167Walter Burkert. (1985)Greek Religion. Harvard University Press. p. 285 The Mysteries represented the myth of the abduction of Persephone from her mother Demeter by the king of the underworld Hades, in a cycle with three phases: the descent (loss), the search, and the ascent, with the main theme being the ascent () of Persephone and the reunion with her mother. It was a major festival during the Hellenic era, and later spread to Rome.Ouvaroff, M. (alternatively given as Sergei Semenovich Uvarov, or Sergey Uvarov, 1786–1855) (Translated from the French by J. D. Price) Essay on the Mysteries of Eleusis, London : Rodwell and Martin, 1817 (Reprint: United States: Kessinger Publishing, 2004). Ouvaroff does write that fixing the earliest foundation date to the Eleusinian Mysteries is fraught with problems.
The rites, ceremonies, and beliefs were kept secret and consistently preserved from antiquity.Tripolitis, Antonia. Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, November 2001. pp. 16–21. For the initiated, the rebirth of Persephone symbolized the eternity of life which flows from generation to generation, and they believed that they would have a reward in the afterlife.Burkert, Walter. Ancient Mystery Cults. Harvard University Press (1987) pp. 20-25. Bremmer, Jan N. The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife. Routledge (2001) pp 11-25 There are many paintings and pieces of pottery that depict various aspects of the Mysteries. Since the Mysteries involved visions and conjuring of an afterlife, some scholars believe that the power and longevity of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a consistent set of rites, ceremonies and experiences that spanned two millennia, came from psychedelic drugs.Wasson, R. Gordon, Ruck, Carl, Hofmann, A., The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978. The name of the town, Eleusis, seems to be pre-Greek, and is likely a counterpart with Elysium and the goddess Eileithyia.Elysion: The island of the happy dead (Hesiod: Works and days 166ff.).Eileithyia. A Minoan goddess of childbirth and divine midwifery: F.Schachermeyer(1967). Die Minoische Kultur des alten Kreta. W. Kohlhammer Stuttgart. pp. 141–142
Etymology Eleusinian Mysteries () was the name of the mysteries of the city of Eleusis.
The name of the city Eleusis is pre-Greek, and may be related with the name of the goddess Eileithyia."Cretan dialect 'Eleuthia' would connect Eileithyia (or perhaps the goddess 'Eleutheria') to Eleusis". Willets, p. 222. Her name (Elysia) in Laconia and Messene probably relates her with the month Eleusinios and Eleusis,F. Schachermeyer (1967). . W.Kohlhammer Stuttgart, p. 141 but this is debated."In Laconia there is a temple of Demeter Eleusinia. The name was used very early, and cannot be an influence of the goddess of Eleusis": Nilsson, Vol I, pp. 313–314
The ancient Greek word from which English mystery derives, mystḗrion (), means "mystery or secret rite". and is related with the verb myéō (), which means "(I) teach, initiate into the mysteries",. and the noun mýstēs (), which means "one initiated".. The word mystikós (), source of the English mystic, means "connected with the mysteries", or "private, secret" (as in Modern Greek)..
Demeter and Persephone
The Mysteries are related to a myth concerning Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and fertility, as recounted in one of the Homeric Hymns (c. 650 BC). According to the hymn, Demeter's daughter Persephone (also referred to as Kore, "maiden") was assigned to paint all the flowers of the earth. Before completion, she was seized by Hades, the god of the underworld. Distraught, Demeter searched high and low for her daughter, with many minor adventures during her long travel; in one, she taught the secrets of agriculture to Triptolemus, a prominent hero of Eleusis.Smith, William. A New Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, Mythology and Geography Vol. II. Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2006. In her distress, and in hopes of persuading Zeus to allow the return of her daughter, she caused a terrible drought, killing many and depriving the gods of sacrifice and worship.
Zeus, pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, eventually allowed Persephone to return to her mother.Foley, Helene P., The Homeric "Hymn ro Demeter". Princeton University Press, 1994. Also Vaughn, Steck. Demeter and Persephone. Steck Vaughn Publishing, 1994 However, it was a rule of the Fates that whoever ate or drank in the underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Before releasing her to Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, Hades had tricked Persephone into eating pomegranate seeds (either six or four according to the telling); thus, she was forced to return to the underworld for four or six months each year. During this time each year, Demeter, in her sadness, neglects to cultivate the earth until Persephone returns to her, and the cycle repeats. Persephone's rebirth symbolizes the rebirth of all plant life, and the eternity of life as it flows from one generation to another.Similar ideas appear in many ancient agricultural societies: in the cult of Adonis in Phoenicia, the cult of Osiris in Egypt and the cult of Ariadne in Minoan Crete. Also in China: "There in the buried seed, the end of life is connected with a new beginning": The I Ching or book of changes, transl. Richard Wilhelm p. 45
In the central foundation document of the mystery, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter line 415, Persephone is said to stay with Hades during winter and return to her mother in the spring of the year: "This was the day [of Persephone's return], at the very beginning of bountiful springtime."The Homeric Hymns translated by Jules Cashford, Penguin Books, 2003, p. 24. However, one scholar has proposed a different version,Smith, 2006. according to which the four months that Persephone is with Hades correspond to the dry, drought-prone Greek summer.Greene, William C. "The Return of Persephone". Classical Philology. University of Chicago Press 1946. pp. 105–106
Mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries are believed to have ancient origins. Some findings in the temple Eleusinion in Attica suggest that their basis was an old agrarian cult.Nilsson, Vol I, p. 470 Some practices of the mysteries seem to have been influenced by the religious practices of the Mycenaean period, thus predating the Greek Dark Ages. Excavations have shown that a private building existed under the Telesterion in the Mycenaean period; it seems that originally the cult of Demeter was private. In the Homeric Hymn is mentioned the palace of the king Keleos.Nilsson, Vol I, pp. 474, 475
Some scholars argued that the Eleusinian cult was a continuation of a Minoan cult,Kerényi (1976), Dionysos. Archetypal image of indestructible life p. 79 and that Demeter was a poppy goddess who brought poppy from Crete to Eleusis.Kerenyi, 1976 p. 23" Persephone is probably the unnamable mistress of the labyrinth (Mycenean (Linear B) inscription : da-pu-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja) " : Kerényi. Dionysos. Archetypal image of indestructible life. pp. 89, 90. Some useful information from the Mycenaean period can be found from studying the cult of Despoina (the precursor goddess of Persephone) and the cult of Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth. For example, the megaron of Despoina at Lycosura is quite similar to the Telesterion of Eleusis.Burkert: Greek religion p. 285 Demeter is united with the god Poseidon, bearing the unnamable Despoina (the mistress).Pausanias, 8.37.9 In the cave of Amnisos at Crete, the goddess Eileithyia is connected to the annual birth of the divine child, as well as to Enesidaon (The Earth Shaker),Mycenean (Linear B) inscription :E-ne-si-da-o-ne the chthonic aspect of Poseidon.Dietrich The origins of Greek Religion pp. 220, 221
At Eleusis, inscriptions refer to "the Goddesses" accompanied by the agricultural god Triptolemus (probably son of Ge and Oceanus),Pseudo Apollodorus Biblioteca IV.2 and to "the God and the Goddess" (Persephone and Plouton) accompanied by Eubuleus, who probably led the way back from the underworld.Kevin Klinton (1993), Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches, Routledge, p. 11 The myth was represented in a cycle with three phases: the "descent", the "search", and the "ascent" (Greek anodos), with contrasted emotions from sorrow to joy meant to rouse the mystae (initiates) to exultation.
One line of thought by modern scholars has been that the Mysteries were intended "to elevate man above the human sphere into the divine and to assure his redemption by making him a god and so conferring immortality upon him".Nilsson, Martin P. Greek Popular Religion "The Religion of Eleusis" New York: Columbia University Press, 1947. pp. 42–64 The main theme was Persephone's ascent from the underworld and her reunion with her mother Demeter.Nilsson, Greek popular religion p. 51 At the beginning of the feast, the priests filled two special vessels and poured them out, one towards the west and the other towards the east. The people looking to the sky and the earth shouted in a magical rhyme, "rain and conceive".
In one ritual, a child was initiated from the hearth (the divine fire). The name pais (child) appears in the Mycenaean inscriptions;Burkert(1985) p. 285 this was the ritual of the "divine child", originally Ploutos. In the Homeric Hymn, the ritual is connected with the myth of the agricultural god Triptolemus.Wunderlich 1972 The secret of Creta p. 134 The goddess of nature survived in the mysteries where the following words were uttered: "Mighty Potnia bore a great son". Potnia (Linear B po-ti-ni-ja : lady or mistress), is a Mycenaean title applied to goddesses, probably the translation of a similar title of pre-Greek origin.Chadwick: The Mycenean world p. 92
The high point of the celebration was "an ear of grain cut in silence", which represented the force of the new life. The idea of immortality did not exist in the mysteries at the beginning, but the initiated believed that they would have a better fate in the underworld. Death remained a reality, but was also a new beginning, like the plant which grows from the buried seed.
A depiction from the old palace of Phaistos is very close to the image of the anodos ("ascent") of Persephone: An armless and legless deity grows out of the ground, and her head turns to a large flower.Burkert (1985)Greek Religion. Harvard University Press. p. 42
According to archaeologist George Mylonas, the lesser mysteries were held "as a rule once a year in the early spring in the month of flowers, the Anthesterion," while "the Greater Mysteries were held once a year and every fourth year they were celebrated with special splendor in what was known as the penteteris.Mylonas, George E. "Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries". Princeton University Press 1961, pp. 239, 243. Classical scholar Károly Kerényi concurs with this assessment: "The Lesser Mysteries were held at Agrai in the month of Anthesterion, our February... The initiates were not even admitted to the epopteía [Greater Mysteries] in the same year, but only in September of the following year."Kerenyi, Carl. Eleusis – Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Bollingen Foundation 1967, p. 48. This cycle continued for about two millennia.