The Eleusinian Mysteries

Demeter with Persephone

To this day the Eleusinian mysteries remains a subject enveloped by broken pieces of information, creating great controversy among historians who work under heavy assumptions while trying to puzzle out this ancient tradition. Complete details involving the rites and celebrations which took place during the mysteries were marked by a sworn oath of secrecy by the initiated and, therefore, vanished from our knowledge. In that respect, what do we know about the mysteries and what are the speculations involving it?

Although modern Historians still argue about different aspects regarding this mystic ritual, some ideas are often accepted among them, which are understood by the testimonials of the initiated.In Ancient Greece, the town of Eleusis, situated west of Athens, became the most important religious center of the pagan world during its time.

According to the old belief and relates in the Homeric Hymn, Demeter (goddess of agriculture) stopped to rest at Eleusis during her quest for her daughter, Persephone, who was kidnaped by Hades. There, Demeter ordered a temple and altar to be built in her honor. After the joyful reunion of the goddess with the missing Persephone, she instructed the leaders of Eleusis in how to perform her rites. The cult, then, is believed to have been taught directly by Demeter herself. Parts of the RiteIt is known that different levels of initiation took place in the cult, and that 3 categories of events existed: the dromena (the things which were enacted), the deiknumena (the things which were shown), the logomena (the things which were explained).

View over the excavation site towards Eleusis and the Saronic Gulf.

The Eleusinian mysteries was broken down into two parts, happening at different times of the year: the 'Lesser mysteries', a preliminary initiation involving purification which would have taken place in the spring at Agrae (a suburb of Athens), and the 'Greater mysteries' in Eleusis, which would have taken place during the Autumn, in late September, for those who had been purified in the previous rite. The participants would have spent a number of days in Athens preparing for this second part of the cult. I must point out that the duration and frequency of these events remains subject of great debate among different historians.A central part of the rite involved the drinking of a sacramental barley and mint beverage called 'kykeon'. It is suggested that the 'kykeon' might have been infused with the fungus ergot and possibly mixed with other hallucinogenic which would, then, produce a strong psychedelic experience, helping with the transformation of the initiates. After drinking the 'kykeon', the initiates entered the Telesterion, which resembled an underground theater, where the secret part of the ritual took place. Historians believe that this part of the rite was a symbolic re-enactment of the death and rebirth of Persephone.

Speculators on meanings

The meaning of the festivities is believed to revolve around the symbolic representation of Demeter's search for Persephone. A well accepted theory is that Demeter and Persephone symbolize life, death, and even immortality; that they gave the initiate confidence to face death and a promise of bliss in the dark domain of Hades. Whatever happened in the Telesterion, those who entered in would come out the next morning radically changed. New Study Shows Some Greek Temples Were Oriented to the Moon or Stars, Rather than the SunA marble slab inscription invoking a goddess sheds light on Thracian history.

According to studies done by George Mylonas, the popularity growth for this cult led to the expansion of the original temple of Demeter in Eleusis. In those days of antiquity, Mylonas states, "people from all over the civilized world, men, women, and children- free men or women unstained by crime- even slaves, aspired to be initiated into its mysteries and annually flocked to the sanctuary of Eleusis. Not only simple peasants but even the leaders of thought and politics were anxious to take part in the rites". But in order to participate in the Greater mysteries the initiates were required to have gone through the preliminary part of the ritual, as it was prescribed by Demeter.

A famous Aristotle fragment commenting about initiates to the mysteries reports that those individuals become worthy not so much because they learn something new ('mathein') but because they suffer or experience ('pathein') something appropriate to the proceeding, as Nancy A. Evans explained. The main determining factor for the participation in this powerful experience was access to resources, as it was open to all people who were free of crimes. Each initiate needed to purchase piglets and needed to pay 15 drachmae to the priest to cover the costs of the great civic sacrifices on the first and last days of the festival. Gender, age, ethnicity, and civic status-citizen, metic or slave- played a different role at Eleusis than in virtually every other type of Pan-Hellenic cult experience.

Tablets from Pylos record sacrificial goods destined for "the Two Queens and Poseidon" ("to the Two Queens and the King" :wa-na-ssoi, wa-na-ka-te). The "Two Queens" may be related with Demeter and Persephone, or their precursors, goddesses who were not associated with Poseidon in later periods. An exception is the myth of isolated Arcadia in southern Greece. Despoina, is daughter of Demeter and Poseidon Hippios, Horse-Poseidon. These myths seem to be connected with the first Greek-speaking people who came from the north during the Bronze age. Poseidon represents the river spirit of the underworld and he appears as a horse as it often happens in northern-European folklore. He pursues the mare-Demeter and she bears one daughter who obviously originally had the form or the shape of a mare too. Demeter and Despoina were closely connected with springs and animals, related to Poseidon as a God of waters and especially with Artemis, the mistress of the animals and the goddess of, among others, the Hunt.

Demeter as mare-goddess was pursued by Poseidon, and hid from him among the horses of King Onkios, but could not conceal her divinity. In the form of a stallion, Poseidon caught and covered her. Demeter was furious (erinys) at Poseidon's assault; in this furious form, she is known as Demeter Erinys. But she washed away her anger in the River Ladon, becoming Demeter Lousia, the "bathed Demeter". "In her alliance with Poseidon," Karl Kerenyi noted, "she was Earth, who bears plants and beasts, and could therefore assume the shape of an ear of grain or a mare." She bore a daughter Despoina (Δέσποινα: the "Mistress"), whose name should not be uttered outside the Arcadian Mysteries, and a horse named Arion, with a black mane and tail.In Arcadia, Demeter's mare-form was worshiped into historical times. Her xoanon of Phigaleia shows how the local cult interpreted her: a Medusa type with a horse's head with snaky hair, holding a dove and a dolphin, probably representing her power over air and water. The second mountain, Mt. Elaios, is about 30 stades from Phigaleia, and has a cave sacred to Demeter Melaine ["Black"]... the Phigalians say, they accounted the cave sacred to Demeter, and set up a wooden image in it. The image was made in the following fashion: it was seated on a rock, and was like a woman in all respects save the head. She had the head and hair of a horse, and serpents and other beasts grew out of her head. Her chiton reached right to her feet, and she held a dolphin in one hand, a dove in the other. Why they made the xoanon like this should be clear to any intelligent man who is versed in tradition. They say they named her Black because the goddess wore black clothing. However, they cannot remember who made this xoanon or how it caught fire; but when it was destroyed the Phigalians gave no new image to the goddess and largely neglected her festivals and sacrifices, until finally barrenness fell upon the land.— Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.42.1ff.