The Eleusinian Mysteries: Feelings of Futility
Someone once said they won't enjoy old age because there's no future in it. More profound words were never uttered if we cannot see beyond our own lifetimes. Could it be that we live just a few decades on the face of this earth, struggling as best we can to make the most of this short time, only to fade away to nothing but whatever legacy we've left behind when we die? Do any of us really believe in our heart of hearts that that's all there is? Could it be that there is no further purpose for our existence – not so much as even some mysterious purpose beyond our human perceptions or understandings? To believe in your heart and mind that this life is all there is seems incomprehensible to me. If you are in touch with your own soul, you intuitively know there is more.
In previous essays I've discussed the pleroma, hierosgamos, the union of opposites, the bridal chamber, the esoteric knowledge of the Gnostics, pagan myths and their relationship to modern day religious beliefs, the Deep Feminine, the link between sexuality and spirituality, and the art of creation. There is one more nearly forgotten ancient practice, or sacred ritual, that may help provide the spiritual vision necessary to see what is in front of our face: the teachings of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
But there are problems with the teachings of the Eleusinian Mysteries: We're not sure what they were, or are. We know when they were taught, and where, as well as why. But the penalty of revealing what these teachings entailed was death, and for some, perhaps obvious, reason those who were initiated into those esoteric teachings honored the secrecy of them almost without exception. A few executions of those with loose tongues must have convinced the rest to honor the silence.
We know that the goddesses Demeter and her daughter, Korè Persephone, were the principle deities in the Eleusinian Mysteries, and we know that the mysteries included ritual sacrifices of pigs, sacred fertility rites, blessings of the agricultural harvests, and the likely ingestion of some kind of hallucinatory potion – kykeon – that aided in the visionary enlightenment of the initiates. Scholars, including Plato, believed that the Eleusinian Mysteries – of which there were two separate ceremonies, the Greater and the Lesser – 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." (Nilson), and to "lead us back to the principles from which we descended, – . . . a perfect enjoyment of intellectual (or spiritual) good." (Plato)
As always seems to be the case with the pre-Christian religions – especially those of the goddesses – the Eleusinian Mysteries were ended by bigotry and decree, as well as force and desecration, by the powers of patriarchal religion and politics, including Arian Christianity, which was imposed as the sole Greek religion in 392 AD, coincidently close to the time that the great Greek Platonist philosopher, Hypatia of Alexandria, was born. She was a pagan, and may have known the secrets of the Eleusinian Mysteries, but in the spring of 415 AD she was attacked in the streets of Alexandria by a mob of Coptic Christian monks, her body torn or cut to pieces by oyster shells or shards of pottery, and burned at the stake, yet another victim of patriarchal politics, religious zealotry, and misogyny.
In the 5th century, Socrates Scholasticus provided the first known account of Hypatia's death:
"Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her by scraping her skin off with tiles and bits of shell. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them."
The never-ending story of the constant persecution of the Deep Feminine and the goddesses' fertility religions and sexual rituals, including the Eleusinian Mysteries and the biblical pagan cults of Ashtoreth and Baal, leaves a macabre chill in one's spine, and perhaps a distinct feeling of hopelessness or futility. But if one reflects upon the unrelenting oppression of the sanctity of the goddess and the feminine way, perhaps the very real horror of it all proves beyond any doubt that the greatest conspiracy in the history of mankind is alive and well today. And that should give us pause to realize that the compassionate, nurturing, creative world of the feminine aspect (Sophia, or Wisdom) is unavoidably at cultural war with those who would dominate and persecute, even eliminate, those who diametrically support eros, world peace, and unqualified love for all living things including Gaia.
It is personally appalling to me that nearly the whole world of Christian, Jewish, and Islam influence has been spiritually and secularly conditioned – socialized into acceptance of the archetypical doctrine that a unique, one-of-a-kind, jealous, hubristic, old man with a long white beard somewhere up there in his kingdom of heaven, is the one and only god of human kind. Even our own Holy Bible contradicts that dogma.
We are asked to have faith in the hereafter, but in truth there is no need to have faith, for the reality of what we are seeking does not require faith, but rather knowledge and wisdom – the ability to know what is beyond our rapidly approaching earthly graves. That was the purpose of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and I hope with all my heart that someday, for the good of mankind, that we will know and practice the teachings of all the subverted Gnostic and Pagan creeds – including those of the true Christian followers of Jesus Christ, such as Mary Magdalene and John.
In my profile to this blog, I mention to you all that "my soul reaches out for something I don't have, don't see, but so desperately need," and it is vision that I seek – the vision to see what is "in front of my face." So much has been taken from us by more than two thousand years of patriarchal dominance, duplicity, censorship, and oppression that our sensibilities are mere shells of what they must once have been.
If there are others out there who can help me see, or would like to join me in my search for vision, I welcome you all into my heart and my life.
In previous essays I've discussed the pleroma, hierosgamos, the union of opposites, the bridal chamber, the esoteric knowledge of the Gnostics, pagan myths and their relationship to modern day religious beliefs, the Deep Feminine, the link between sexuality and spirituality, and the art of creation. There is one more nearly forgotten ancient practice, or sacred ritual, that may help provide the spiritual vision necessary to see what is in front of our face: the teachings of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
But there are problems with the teachings of the Eleusinian Mysteries: We're not sure what they were, or are. We know when they were taught, and where, as well as why. But the penalty of revealing what these teachings entailed was death, and for some, perhaps obvious, reason those who were initiated into those esoteric teachings honored the secrecy of them almost without exception. A few executions of those with loose tongues must have convinced the rest to honor the silence.
We know that the goddesses Demeter and her daughter, Korè Persephone, were the principle deities in the Eleusinian Mysteries, and we know that the mysteries included ritual sacrifices of pigs, sacred fertility rites, blessings of the agricultural harvests, and the likely ingestion of some kind of hallucinatory potion – kykeon – that aided in the visionary enlightenment of the initiates. Scholars, including Plato, believed that the Eleusinian Mysteries – of which there were two separate ceremonies, the Greater and the Lesser – 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." (Nilson), and to "lead us back to the principles from which we descended, – . . . a perfect enjoyment of intellectual (or spiritual) good." (Plato)
As always seems to be the case with the pre-Christian religions – especially those of the goddesses – the Eleusinian Mysteries were ended by bigotry and decree, as well as force and desecration, by the powers of patriarchal religion and politics, including Arian Christianity, which was imposed as the sole Greek religion in 392 AD, coincidently close to the time that the great Greek Platonist philosopher, Hypatia of Alexandria, was born. She was a pagan, and may have known the secrets of the Eleusinian Mysteries, but in the spring of 415 AD she was attacked in the streets of Alexandria by a mob of Coptic Christian monks, her body torn or cut to pieces by oyster shells or shards of pottery, and burned at the stake, yet another victim of patriarchal politics, religious zealotry, and misogyny.
In the 5th century, Socrates Scholasticus provided the first known account of Hypatia's death:
"Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her by scraping her skin off with tiles and bits of shell. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them."
The never-ending story of the constant persecution of the Deep Feminine and the goddesses' fertility religions and sexual rituals, including the Eleusinian Mysteries and the biblical pagan cults of Ashtoreth and Baal, leaves a macabre chill in one's spine, and perhaps a distinct feeling of hopelessness or futility. But if one reflects upon the unrelenting oppression of the sanctity of the goddess and the feminine way, perhaps the very real horror of it all proves beyond any doubt that the greatest conspiracy in the history of mankind is alive and well today. And that should give us pause to realize that the compassionate, nurturing, creative world of the feminine aspect (Sophia, or Wisdom) is unavoidably at cultural war with those who would dominate and persecute, even eliminate, those who diametrically support eros, world peace, and unqualified love for all living things including Gaia.
It is personally appalling to me that nearly the whole world of Christian, Jewish, and Islam influence has been spiritually and secularly conditioned – socialized into acceptance of the archetypical doctrine that a unique, one-of-a-kind, jealous, hubristic, old man with a long white beard somewhere up there in his kingdom of heaven, is the one and only god of human kind. Even our own Holy Bible contradicts that dogma.
We are asked to have faith in the hereafter, but in truth there is no need to have faith, for the reality of what we are seeking does not require faith, but rather knowledge and wisdom – the ability to know what is beyond our rapidly approaching earthly graves. That was the purpose of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and I hope with all my heart that someday, for the good of mankind, that we will know and practice the teachings of all the subverted Gnostic and Pagan creeds – including those of the true Christian followers of Jesus Christ, such as Mary Magdalene and John.
In my profile to this blog, I mention to you all that "my soul reaches out for something I don't have, don't see, but so desperately need," and it is vision that I seek – the vision to see what is "in front of my face." So much has been taken from us by more than two thousand years of patriarchal dominance, duplicity, censorship, and oppression that our sensibilities are mere shells of what they must once have been.
If there are others out there who can help me see, or would like to join me in my search for vision, I welcome you all into my heart and my life.
vvv
Copyright (2009) by Albert Lloyd Williams
Comments
Post a Comment