Elysian mysteries revealed after two thousand years of secrecy

 

The Mystai are approaching.

We can hear them approaching. Singing, playing drums, flutes and cymbals which resonate thru the valley, made hot by the setting sun. This is the month of fall harvest…and death. And rebirth.

They have been walking since dawn. The water carriers are tired, they run ahead the dusty brick road with the amphorae of sweet cool well water and wait for the slowly walking gathering to reach them. Men, women, and children dressed in white linen robes holding palms leaves to shield themselves from the hot sun of late afternoon.

Today is the first day of the Greater Eleusinian Mysteries.

Dromena, deiknumena, legomena. Things done, things shown, things said.

These are the esoteric teachings that could not be revealed, on pain of death. The mysteries were kept secret for between two to four thousand years. They were held about seventeen kilometres from Athens in an agricultural valley. These were the mysteries which could never, ever be revealed, in speech, writing or intimation. Otherwise, the initiate could suffer from the ire of the gods…something no Greek or denizen of the ancient world would risk.

The Mystai have  been preparing for these ceremonies for a year and one half. They have been on strict diets, given long passages to read and memorise, and encouraged to follow an honourable life without lying, cheating, sex or violence

But now the veil can be lifted, and the mysteries can be, at long last, be revealed. We are at a great crossroads in our evolution, and we need all the help we can get to make the next jump up in consciousness. The benefits of the wisdom of the mythology, rituals and plants used in the Kykeon, there at Eleusis and else where in Europe and the near East, can now be divulged - as people like me gradually remember and choose to share their past lives memoires.

Tonight, the Mystai will meet the gods, in person. But first their pride and arrogance must be shed with humour and licentious teasing. We put on our rags to imitate Hecate -who told Demetra who had kidnapped her daughter.  Once we have blackened our teeth and put on tattered rags, we join the other priestesses along the Sacred Road from Athens to Eleusis. Along the way, some priestesses leash up the black dogs of Hecate and lead them, snarling and barking down to the Kifissos bridge, the bridge of truth. When we arrive, the first Mystai are in sight. When they get close enough, we start hurling insults and shameless sexual innuendos at them. They must let go of the arrogance and hubris which initiates typically have. We must help them shed their self importance and indemnity so when the gods come into their bodies and minds tonight, they can welcome them with surrender and sweetness. We tease and make them laugh, the same way that Baubo made Demeter laugh when she was on her way to liberate her daughter. Baubo is the cunt goddess, she is depicted as a face on top of a huge cunt. She represents raw female sexuality and by extension, the fecundity of the earth herself.

This is the part of the lesser mysteries that we enjoy the most. We can say anything that comes into our heads to the tired pilgrims. For the wealthy initiates, easily identified by their expensive white silk robes, and followed by fawning slaves, we are particularly acerbic. The younger initiates tend to laugh along with us, but there are those, men in important positions in Athens, and other capitals around the Greek speaking world, who glare at us threatening. But we are assured in our position. We pick up our skirts and prance in front of them, revealing our own dark mystery between our legs.

“Would you like to drive your chariot into this Hades?’ I taunt a young man who looks positively resentful about the teasing. He shakes his head and keeps trudging over the bridge.

“Son of the underworld, would you like to abduct me?” I lift up my cotton tunic to show him my breasts. He is momentarily distracted, then smiles.

“Ah fair priestess, you know that I am a Mystai and can’t engage in dalliance with you fair maidens.”

Then we both laugh, he continues his journey with a lighter heart, and I spy another Mystai who needs some taking down.

No one can charge the priestesses of Eleusis. No one would dare to insult those who speak directly to the gods. Especially because we can have communication with Demeter the patron goddess of the mysteries.

For the poorer hierophants or those who are crippled or infirmed, we are a little kinder, we tease them gently about their handicaps. If they are struggling to get over the bridge, we discretely help them. Life has humbled them enough with their physical suffering. And we want all of them to reach their destination-that huge, cavernous temple called the Telesterion, or End place.

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As the last Mystai shamble into the courtyard outside the Telesterion, the Greater Propylaea, and our work is done until the evening. The Mystai are given a Kykeon, but not the sacred Kykeon they will receive tonight. They must have empty stomachs for the dramatics that will begin at night fall.

We have learned from painful experiences over the centuries, how to mange the ever-greater numbers of initiates who come for the Great Mysteries. They cope better with the emergence of the gods within if they are tired, humbled and have an empty stomach. We ask them to maintain silence, only absolutely necessary communications are allowed. We must orient them towards the sacred visions which will accompany tonight’s dramas. They are taken to segregated bathhouses, for men and women. Here slaves mix unashamed with their masters and mistresses. In the eyes of the gods, humans are equal in their weaknesses and perfidious fickleness.

The dramatic myth that we shared at the Eleusinian mysteries was the story of Demeter and Persephone-the mother goddess of the earth and her daughter.  And her husband of the underworld-Hades. We must remember that the culture and belief structures we live in today are vastly different from those ancient peoples of over two thousand years ago. They had not been educated in science and the dualistic beliefs of Christianity and later, the Western reductionist world view. They viewed the world more accurately and lovingly as a world where everything is animated with divine sentience-from ancient olive trees to storm clouds, to the whispering of wind in leaves or crawing of ravens. They believed the gods were present in all circumstances and events. Perhaps we could understand their deep faith as an emersion in the archetypal landscape of the inner psyche. Their inner worlds were not so separate from the outer world as we see this separation now. Dreams, omens, unusual events in every day were interpreted as powerful harbingers from the transpersonal realms of Soul.

When the Mystai were ready and brought into the telesterion, the drama of Greater mysteries begins gently with slow deep drumming while the priestesses gave out the Kykeon, literally a sacred mix of plants and herbs which only the privileged few know. The amphora were very heavy and young stronger priestesses and priests are chosen to carry the amphorae around the sleeping platforms of the Telestrion. We worked in twos or fours, depending on how many cups the amphora could hold on to its hooks. The amphora carrier poured the Kykeon into the cups, balancing the heavy pottery amphora on his or her knees. The cups were held by a priestess. Each priestess was in charge of one pottery cup. Her life depended on getting that same cup back from the initiate. Each cup had to be drunk to empty and then handed back to the supervising priestess. In this way, no Kykeon was split or stolen by crafty initiates.

The recipe for the Kykeon was a highly guarded secret. It was assumed by outsiders that the Kykeon was made by the priestesses but in fact, the recipe was held by only a handful of priests, castrated men who dedicated their entire lives to the temples of Eleusis. There were many secrets in these temples, and many camouflaged obscurities. The hierophants of the temples believed that giving the recipe to the women was dangerous- they were the ones who went out of the temple gates to gather the ingredients for the Kykeon., they could be captured, tortured and made to divulge the recipe. However, the castrated priests did not leave the compound, and only with guards at their sides. They brewed the sacred Kykeon in secret vaults underground, carefully guarded by the temple warriors-both male and female. However, the populace assumed because the Kykeon was given out by priestesses, they knew the recipe, but they did not. If any guard dared to try to peep during the brewing of the sacred Kykeon, they were blinded or executed depending on the extent of their crimes. There was utterly no mercy for any who tried to discover the mystery of the Kykeon. To this day, this protection spell is still active, a long term, multi dimensional curse not limited by time or distance. No on has yet to absolutely know what the ingredients of the sacred Kykeon were.

But as priestesses, we certainly knew its effects, which were relatively similar from one year to the next. We could gauge how long it would take for the gods to come into the bodies of the Mystai, when they would lie down and become quiet, when to begin the drama of Persephone returning to the world in a metaphoric play of re birth. What sweet tears of joy they shed. How thankful and amazed they were the next morning, when at last they could break their fast and return to everyday life. But with the visions which the gods gave them during the night.

The drama started with light flutes and string instruments, to bring to mind how the story begins with Persephone picking flowers in a meadow. During this time, the Kykeon was served. Verses are read out as we work thru the sleeping platforms carved into the rock, to imitate the chambers of Hades. There is little light, the Telesterion has no windows, we work by torch light. Then when every Mystai have drunk of the sacred Kykeon, we signal the actors, and the story can begin into its more dramatic narrative-the rape and abduction of Persephone by Hades.

Priestesses in the temples were divided into several categories, depending on their ability to predict the future and diagnose illnesses. The temples were funded by wealthy patrons who came to the temple at other times outside the Great Mysteries for guidance and prescience readings. The highest oracles were the women who were most easily possessed by the gods. They uttered prophecies, sometimes utterly incomprehensible, other times full of insights and wisdom. The prettiest and most gifted oracle was chosen every fall to play the part of Persephone during the dramatic presentations of the Great Mysteries This was a coveted position and honour, and there was much jealously and competition among the priestesses for this honour.

 There were also many slaves who were tasked with keeping the temple keepers feed, watered, dressed and overall happy. There were body workers, cooks, gardeners, midwives, wine makers, stone masons, carpenters, architects, herbalists, crones in charge of daily maintenance of the living spaces. The temples were busy all year around and filled with all sorts of people, animals and many kinds of plants grew in the gardens and around the fountains. If there was a paradise on earth at any time, it would be Eleusis. But its downfall was inevitable once the patriarchal bellicose religions got hold of the human imagination. This was the warning of the mysteries, then and now.

The oracles were encouraged to remain virgins, and never marry. They were allowed oral sex, usually with the castrated male slaves or other women. In this way they avoided pregnancy and could remain priestesses dedicated to their spiritual work. They were not celibate, but they avoided pregnancy and marriage at all costs. They had various birth control methods which they used themselves as well as selling birth control and abortive methods and herbs to the general public.

Priestesses were chosen from the near by villages, although the women could also come from as far away as Egypt, and many gifted girls were found among the Egyptians because of their past association with the gods.

The myth of Demeter and Persephone briefly, is about the earth goddess, Demeter who was the archetype associated with the gifts of grains, agriculture and climate. She has a beautiful daughter, Persephone who is abducted by the god of the underworld (the unconscious). Demeter is distraught when she can’t find Persephone anywhere, and no one has witnessed the abduction except the sun and a crone goddess, Hecate hear Persephone’s cries but didn’t see who had taken her. Although she has a good idea who. Meanwhile Demeter, in her sorrow and anger wrecks havoc upon the earth, there are droughts, fires, the seas rise, and the fields crops are damaged. Animals and plants die off, humanity entreats the gods to return the environment to normal.

Demeter has many adventures before she finds Hecate, who tells her what she heard. Then Demeter rushes down to the underworld and finds her daughter, but her daughter has married the king of the underworld, and because she ate seeds from the pomegranate while in the underworld, she must return to the underworld for as many months as the seeds she ate. Thus, when Persephone is in the underworld, we have fall and winter, when she emerges, we have spring and summer.

A simple myth explaining the seasons?

What really happened at Eleusis? These ceremonies formed the basis of our present civilization, the Western world took instructions from these mysteries, many if not all of the greatest thinkers, mathematicians, artists, poets and bards attended the mysteries. They have reported, by all their accounts, that the mysteries were the most profound experiences of their lives. These great souls include Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Plotinus, Sophocles, Aristotle, Epictetus, the military leader Alcibiades, the playwrights Euripides and Sophocles, and the poet Pindaros, emperor Marcus Aurelius. Pindar,

Or a narrative, not about the past, but about the future.

Next posting will continue with the revelation of what the mysteries really meant. Not only for the denizens of ancient Greece, but for us now.

Picture downloaded 

 The Return of Persephone - Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) - PD-art-100

https://www.greeklegendsandmyths.com/eleusis.html