Die Eleusinischen Mysterien

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Die Eleusinischen Mysterien
Ulrich Wendlandt - wendlandt@mythen-lexikon.de
Die Eleusinischen Mysterien, (Eleusinien) (Griechische Religion), große Feste der Demeter (Ceres), ihrer Tochter Proserpina, und des mit beiden in enger Verbindung gedachten Bacchus, wiewohl die Verehrung des letzteren Gottes bei diesen Festen nicht gleich alt mit der der beiden erstgenannten Gottheiten war.

Der Name ist genommen von der Stadt Eleusis in Attika, deren fruchtbare Ebenen frühzeitigen Betrieb des Ackerbaues veranlaßt hatten, welcher dann zur Verehrung der in der Tiefe der Erde waltenden Gottheiten aufforderte. Als Eleusis mit Athen zu einem Staate vereinigt wurde, breitete sich dieser Gottesdienst nach Athen aus und wurde einer der glänzendsten Hauptbestandteile des eigentümlichen Festbrauchs der Athener. Was diesen Festen ihre besondere Anziehungskraft verlieh, und sie am berühmtesten machte, sind die damit verbundenen Mysterien, oder geheimnisvollen Einweihungen, durch welche die darein Aufgenommenen zu einer geschlossenen Verbrüderung wurden; aber gerade über das Innerste dieser Gebrauche haben wir nur die unzulänglichsten Nachrichten, da die Eingeweihten in der Regel das ihnen unter den heiligsten Verpflichtungen auferlegte Geheimnis auf das Strengste bewahrten.
http://www.mythen-forum.de/Mysterien.htm

The Mysteries of Eleusis
Sanderson Beck
The aim of this essay is to present before the reader translations of the ancient writings relating to the Eleusinian Mysteries in Greece. No modern scholars could justly impose their opinion of these most mysterious and holy rites on the contemporary reader as too little is known to give a complete and well-informed picture in summary. The strict secrecy, though practiced for two thousand years, has not been significantly violated, and we shall never know, save through clairvoyance transcending centuries, what the initiates actually experienced in the final beatific vision. Therefore we are forced to rely on the obscure statements of those who were initiated and the ignorant and often prejudiced judgments of those who were not initiated.

http://www.san.beck.org/Eleusis-Intro.html

Eleusis
The Eleusian Mysteries were an ancient Greek religion in which initiates celebrated a communion between gods and men. The Eleusinian Mystery was an annual celebration of a fertility cult, over which the goddess Demeter presided. Any Greek citizen could be initiated into the cult - but only once in a lifetime. The "Greater Mystery" was celebrated in the Fall in a sanctuary at Eleusis, bordering the Rarian Plain, near Athens. For nearly 2000 years the annual celebration was held. Never the secret of the mystery was revealed. Initiates passed the night together in the darkened telesterion or initiation hall, where they beheld a great vision which was "new, astonishing, inaccessible to rational cognition." Of the experience, they could only say that they had seen ta hiera, "the holy" - it was forbidden by law, under penalty of death, to say more (Wasson et al, 1978). Plutarch recorded that Alcibiades was sentenced to death for profaning the Mysteries in Athens. Ruck (1981) proposed that Socrates was also executed for revealing the Mysteries.
http://electrophys2.ucsf.edu/eleusis.html

Demeter
She is mother nature; goddess of the harvest, fertility, and she is specificially associated with wheat. She has a gentle character, but once her ire brought about a disaster. Hades fell in love with Demeter's daughter, Persephone, and went to Zeus for permission to marry her. Zeus would not offend his brother with an outright refusal, but knowing that Demeter would not wish her daughter committed to Tartarus, he answered that he neither gave nor withheld his consent. This was enough for Hades. As Persephone was picking flowers newar Eleusis, the earth opened, and Hades in his chariot drawn by black hors es carried the shrieking girl down to Tartarus. Demeter searched in vain for her daughter, until Triptolemus, who had seen the abduction, told his story. Demeter was so angry, that instead of returning to Olympus, she wandered about the earth forbidding any plants to yield fruit, until the race of humans approached extinction...

The worship of Demeter at Eleusis became one of the most important cults in Greece. Festivals in honor of the goddess were attended by rites so secret that the penalty for initiates who betrayed the secrets was death. The ceremonies, the Eleusian mysteries, were held twice a year, with the ceremonies in September having more importance than the ones in March. In September candidates were initiated. Initiation was open to all, Greeks and barbarians, freemen and slaves , on the condition that they had not committed the sin of murder. The ceremony lasted several days from first purification to initiation night. The hereditary priest, whose families were as old as the sanctuary, led the initiates through the ceremony to the darkened center room of the sanctuary which was suddenly illuminated to reveal some secret and sacred object. Eleusinism brought its followers a hope of survival after death that probably was accompanied by moral obligations.
http://jcccnet.johnco.cc.ks.us/~jjackson/deme.html

Eleusis
The main reason that visitors go to Eleusis today is because of the presence of an ancient cult of Demeter (see Pausanias 1.36.3).  This is the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which lasted here for more than two thousand years.  In 392 A.D., the Roman Emperor Theodosius finally decided that he needed to put an end to all the pagan rituals and he had the doors at Eleusis closed.  The site was abandoned a few years later when the pesky Goths invaded.  If you go to Eleusis today a plan of the site is an absolute necessity to understand the entire archaeological site.  You will need to make sure that you locate the Greater Propylaea once you enter the site gates.  A large paved forecourt leads up to it.  A set of Roman triumphal arches has also been reerected on either side of the forecourt.  To the left of the path you can see highly decorated sewer grates cut from marble.  Once you make your way further into the site you will pass through the Lesser Propylaea.  You can see the deep indentations where the wheels of carts have cut away at the marble over the centuries.  At this point do not miss the fragments from the Lesser Propylaea which show sheaves of grain and poppies (pictured above).  There is also a cave to the right where Pluto supposedly returned Persephone to earth. You will then enter the Telesterion, the Temple of Demeter, where the mysteries actually occurred.  The plan of the Telesterion is a confused mass of columns and walls to most visitors, but you can still sit on the steps cut away on two sides of the building's interior.  There are many other interesting archaeological remains at the site, but I will stop my description here.   If you continue through the Telesterion you will arrive at the small museum, the next stop on our tour.  By the way, I hope that they have cut the grass recently when you go because the first time I visited the site I could hardly walk around since the grass was so tall and determining the layout with my maps was not easy.
http://web.missouri.edu/~c750802/eleusis.html

Eleusis
The settlement of Eleusis was founded in ca. 2000 B.C. on the slopes of the hill, and during the Mycenaean period it developed into a large fortified settlement, mostly due to its strategic position. During this period the cult of Demeter was introduced, as the worship of a deity connected to nature and the growing of cereals. The continuity of Demeter's cult is attested until Roman times, by the erection of successive temples on the east side of the hill.

In the 8th century B.C. the sanctuary aquired a panhellenic character, and in the time of Solon, the Eleusinian Mysteries were established as one of the most important Athenian festivals. During the tyranny of Peisitratos the sanctuary and the settlement were enclosed with a massive fortification wall reinforced with towers. Splendid buildings were erected during the Classical and Roman periods, but with the spread of Christianity and especially after the invasion of the Ostrogoths, the sanctuary was abandoned.
http://www.culture.gr/2/21/211/21103a/e211ca04.html

Archaeological Museum of Eleusis
The museum was designed by J. Mousis, and was built in 1889 in order to house the excavation finds from the site. The westernmost, sixth room is a later addition.
http://www.culture.gr/2/21/211/21103m/e211cm02.html

El Mensaje de los Misterios Eleusinos para el mundo de hoy
(The Message of the Mysteries of Eleusis for the world of today)
Albert Hofmann

Cualquiera de los que pueblan esta tierra que haya contemplado estos misterios, será bendecido, pero cualquiera que no haya sido iniciado y no haya recibido su parte del rito, no habrá recibido lo mismo que los demás, una vez muerto y viviendo en el moho donde el sol se pone.

Así dice el poema épico conocido como "El Himno Homérico a Demeter" Los misterios referidos aquí son los de Eleusis, los mas importantes de la Grecia antigua. Durante casi 2000 años, desde aproximadamente 1500 a.c. hasta el siglo IV d.c., estos se celebraban en Eleusis, Grecia, en honor a la diosa Demeter y su hija Perséfone.
http://www.mercurialis.com/emc/eleusis/eleusis_intro.htm

HAS THE MYSTERY OF THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES BEEN SOLVED?
IVAN VALENCIC
In ancient Greece near Eleusis, about 20 kilometers north-west from Athens, a special event was celebrated every September. According to the tradition the goddess Demeter was said to have been reunited here with her daughter Kore, who was also known as Persephone, after she had been kidnapped by the god of the underworld Pluto.

The festival of the mysteries took place twice a year, in spring and in autumn, but the former was not so great and important as the latter. The mysteries, whose origins date to the prehellenic era, became particularly popular when Eleusis came under sovereignty of Athens. In the 5th century B.C. telesterion - the great hall of mysteries was built there. In this building the most important part of the ritual is supposed to have occurred: the ingestion of the kykeon, the mysterious sacrament that caused in participants intensive psychic changes, which cleared their souls, and made them accept death not so much as harm as a blessing, as one of the ancient diarists reported. In the late Roman period the mysteries no longer took place every year, and the cult was finally destroyed in 395 A.D. or the year after it when the troops of Alaric demolished the temple at Eleusis.

The central mystery of the Eleusinian mysteries pertains to the nature of the kykeon - the mixture drunk by initiates at the autumnal Eleusinian festival. It was no doubts of palpable nature, so that something was drunk in telesterion in reality and not only in effigy as some historians supposed. This is well supported by the infamous scandalous event that took place in 415 B.C. when the powerful political and military leader of Athens Alkibiades stole the kykeon at Eleusis and entertained by it himself and his friends.

The ingredients of the kykeon were revealed in the seventh century B.C. in the so called Homeric Hymn to Demeter (it was written by an anonymous poet and not by Homer) as follows; water, barley and blechon or glechon - a fragrant Mediterranean mint, probably Mentha pulegium or Mentha aquatica (Rätsch, 1992). This is the only known reference to the composition of the kykeon and it seems somehow incompatible with the secret tightly guarded by the two hierophantic families who were in charge of making it and dispensing at Eleusis. After all, if the recipe for the kykeon had been as simple as that mentioned in the Homeric Hymn, many in ancient Greece would have been mixing their own kykeon, which was, of course, not the case..

Researchers who attempted to solve the Eleusinian mystery according to the Hymn to Demeter directed their attention to barley since few if any mints are psychoactive. Barley has been known to have been infested like other grains by rust - ergot fungus (Claviceps purpurea and Claviceps paspali) since ancient times. Many written testimonies exist about that. Ergot does have established psychedelic effects, it is after all the source of lysergic acid, the precursor of many psychedelic substances, among them LSD. It seemed only natural that the parasitic fungus growing on barley rendered to the Eleusinian sacrament its psychedelic power. The theory that the kykeon derived its psychoactive effects from ergot was proposed at the Second International Conference on Hallucinogenic Mushrooms near Port Townsend, WA on October 28, 1977, by R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann and Carl A. P. Ruck. Next year appeared the famous book The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries by the same authors.
http://personal.l-sol.si/SreckoKovacic/ivan.htm

Eleusinian Mysteries
Throughout the world, in earlier ages, cultures developed ceremonies and rituals of initiation within their spiritual traditions. Across the Mediterranean region, these practices evolved into sophisticated religions of their own. What differentiated the newer mysteries from their primitive forebears was the central premise that individuals had the right to make personal choices and opinions regarding spiritual belief.

The concept of religious individualism was seeded by the mysteries of Orpheus, known as the Orphic tradition. The Orphic school never developed a wide scale following in Greece, but must be credited with establishing respect for individual views. It was upon this ground work that the Eleusinian mysteries would grow and prosper.

The rites of Eleusis were the most influential of the Mystery religions. These ceremonies were accessible to both sexes. What initiates came away with was a sense of security in the afterlife, and a sense of bounty guaranteed in this world. Above all, Demeter was a provider, a premier mother. Through the rituals, regeneration of growth on earth was secured by mortal union with the goddess. Less of a secretive mystery, than intimate participation in the cycles of life.
http://www.elore.com/elfs1012.html

Eleusinian Mysteries
In Greek myth, Demeter is the daughter of the deities Cronus and Rhea and is the sister of Zeus. She commonly appeared as a grain goddess, but her influence eventually grew to include almost all vegetation, making her into an earth mother figure. Demeter was represented by many objects, ranging from ears of grain to flower baskets and pigs. Demeter was worshipped as Ceres in Rome, but all of the myths and rituals were based on the Greek traditions.

In the central myth, Kore (called Persephone by the Romans), the daughter of Demeter was kidnapped by Hades and taken to his kingdom, the underworld. As Demeter searched for her daughter, she neglected the grain and harvests, causing a great famine. Along her journeys, Demeter came to the city of Eleusis. There she befriended the royal family. When the queen refused to let Demeter grant immortality to her son, Demeter revealed her true identity to the people of Eleusis. She demanded that the city build a temple to house her and their worship of her became the Eleusinian Mysteries.
http://hermes.richmond.edu/dave/Cults/demeter.html

Persephone In the Fields Of Eleusis
The Homeric tale of the rape of Persephone forms the prototype of the Greek mystery school as found at Eleusis. The school survived for hundreds of years, and has been written about many times. Central to the mystery is a question about the role of the ceremonial drink called kykeon used to produce the visionary awakening known as epoptia. The Greek myth is complex, but the players have well-defined roles. I will touch only the highlights here. It is a story of an abducted child, lost innocence, and the making of a new Queen. Consider Persephone to be your inner child in this shortened version of the story.
http://www.theion.com/journal/mystery/eleusis.htm

The Eleusinian Mysteries: Healing and Transformation
iacchos@geocites.com

These activities represent the "stations" through which the Mystai were required to pass on their initiatory travels to Eleusis. Although there is some dispute from text to text as to the order of their occurrence in the nine day journey to Eleusis, authors seem to agree upon the nature and symbolism of the stations (or events) themselves.

1. Agrymos Assembly: Fifteenth (some say the nineteenth) day of Boedromion

2. Purification-attended to by the "Hydranos" Priest of Purification: Journey to the Sea (Rhetoi-place favored by the Eleusinians here it was said that salt water flowed to the sea) the 16th. day of Boedromion

3. Sacrifices: Offerings for Demeter as the Sorrowing One, (a sow, barley, fish (mullet) . Prayers for women and children.

4. Solemn procession in honor of Asklepios, god of healing on the eighteenth day of Boedromion. Libation (trygetos)offered to Dionysius and to other gods. Preparation of the Kykeon. Carrying of sacred baskets, chest of sesame, carded wool, salt, pomegranates , poppies, a serpent, boughs of ivy and cakes.

5. Day of Iacchus (Dionysos' alter-ego), Divine child of Zeus (Hades) and Demeter (Persephone). Revelry - procession by sacred fig tree. Day of Torches. Bridge of Jests. Through 'mystical entrance' to Eleusis. Dance with the fifty daughters of Ocean, stars and moon. Games are celebrated. Tying of Kroke on the right hand and left foot. Myrtle branches. Women carry the Kykeon.

6. Day of Rest: Sacrifice and Purification preparation.

7 & 8. Initiation Ritual: Dromena [things Done]; Legomena [Things Said]; Deicymena [Things Shown]. Vision of ineffable things [a golden serpent, an egg, and the phallus and Persephone [Queen of the Dead]. Those who entered the Telestarion for the Vision [Epoptai] fasted for nine days, drank the Kykeon - fermented barley and mint drink probably containing 'Ergot' (the mold which grows on wheat that is the base for LSD).

• Divine Marriage enacted by Heirophant and Priestess.
• The vision of the 'great fire'. Birth in fire by Brimo of Brimos.
• Elevation of a single grain of wheat.
• Libations to the dead.

9. Plemochoai: the 'pourings of plenty'. Hye - Kye. "Flow - Conceive".

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/3193/index.html

Eleusis
Carlos Parada - maicar@swipnet.se

http://hsa.brown.edu/~maicar/Eleusis.html

Eleusis
Trckova-Schulzova Alena
Eleusis is the place, where the cult of the goddess Demeter existed many centuries and where the most famous religious festival, called the Eleusinian mysteries were performed in the honour of this deity. According to the "Homeric Hymn to Demeter" (7th c. BC.), when the goddess Demeter was desparetely looking for her daughter (=Kore) Persephone -kidnapped by Aidoneus (Hades)- during her wandering she came to the city Eleusis.

The sanctuary and its cult have roots in the Mycenaean period (1500 - 1425 BC.). The ritual was originally local and it could have had probably from the beginning an agrarian aspect. The Athenians established this cult as Panhellenic during the period of Peisistratus. It was florishing under the Roman supremacy until the proscription of the cult by Theodosius and the destruction of the sanctuary by the Goths about 400 AD.

The name "Eleusinian mysteries" is connected with two Greek words eleusis,- eos - arrival, tó mystírion - secrecy. The people were arriving to this place to performed secret rites. The mysteries were kept in absolute secrecy, so it was strictly forbidden to talk about them under penalty of death. Nevertheless we have some informations from the different sources - many reflections in the literature, the epigraphical evidence, the archaeological findings (architectonical, sculptural, paintings on the vases, votive objects, cult vessels) related to the Eleusinian religious rites. All of these materials are used for the reconstruction of events.
http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles/e/eleusis.html

Fungi and the Eleusinian Mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries were one of the most sacred rites of the ancient Greeks. It was forbidden for initiates to speak openly of exactly what transpired during the sacred ritual, and the proceedings remain shrouded in mystery today. However, some hypotheses have been advanced which fit the available data, and some of these ideas have mycotheological significance.

A lengthy and quite convincing argument for the role of entheogens -- and most likely mycologically-based ones -- in the Mysteries was made by Gordon Wasson and others in The Road to Eleusis. It may be significant that the mythological originator of the Eleusinian mysteries was named Erysibe -- "ergot" (Claviceps purpurea). This is a fungus which grows on wheat, and from which an assortment of medicinal, hallucinogenic, and poisonous substances may be derived.

Robert Graves suggested a different fungal source for the kykeon, a Panaeolus mushroom containing psilocybin and related substances.

http://www.namyco.org/mycoth/eleus.html

THE GREEK VIEW OF THE AFTERLIFE AND THE UNDERWORLD: THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

Initiation: myein, mysteria and teleia.

Ritual celebration: orgia.

Achieve a state of enthousiasmos (en theos).

Eleusinian Mysteries center around the Demeter and Persephone myth.

Exact nature of the mysteries unknown.

Cult accepted women, slaves and foreigners, as well as citizen males.

Nine-day festival held once a year in September.

Days 1-4: arrival, purification, sacrifice and feasting in Athens.

Day 5: Procession to the Telesterion at Eleusis.

Days 6-7: Initiation at Eleusis.

---- dromena (things done).

---- legomena (things spoken).

---- deiknymena (things shown).

Day 8: Rites to the Dead.

Day 9: Return to Athens.

Although we do not know the exact nature of the mysteries, it is clear that for the initiants the fear of death was removed, and death was seen not simply as an end, but also a beginning.

Class Images:
Demeter, Triptolemos and Persephone (RF skyphos, attributed to Makron, ca. 490-480 B.C.)

http://www.trinity.edu/mgarriso/Myth/MythEleusis.html

Perseus: Eleusis
The city of Eleusis (birthplace of Aeschylus) is located 22 km W of Athens on a ridge above the bay of Eleusis and at the S side of a large plain. The site has been occupied since the Early Bronze Age and the acropolis fortified at least as early as the Late Bronze Age. The location commands the land routes from Athens to the Peloponnese and NW Greece.

The sanctuary of Demeter is located within the city walls of Eleusis, occupying the area between the E slope of the acropolis and the E fortification wall, and is isolated from the rest of the city by a separate cross-wall at the NE. Within the sanctuary another cross-wall, breached by the Lesser Propylaia divides the N area of the priests' dwellings and administration buildings from the sacred inner peribolos. The main architectural features of the inner sanctuary are the Kallichoron or sacred well, the cave of Pluto adjacent to a triangular court and the Telesterion of Demeter (an almost square building that could seat 3000) where the secret initiation rites were completed and entrance to the uninitiated was forbidden on pain of death. An anaktoron or separate shrine was maintained within the Telesterion. From the outer sanctuary the Greater Propylaia opened onto the grand Sacred Way which joined the sanctuary to Athens.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/siteindex?entry=Eleusis

The Eleusinian Mysteries
Edward A. Beach - nbeach@erols.com
The Eleusinian Mysteries, held annually in honor of Demeter and Persephone, were the most sacred and revered of all the ritual celebrations of ancient Greece. They were instituted in the city of Eleusis, some twenty-two kilometers west of Athens, possibly as far back as the early Mycenaean period, and continued for almost two thousand years. Large crowds of worshippers from all over Greece (and later, from throughout the Roman empire) would gather to make the holy pilgrimage between the two cities and and participate in the secret ceremonies, generally regarded as the high point of Greek religion. As Christianity began to spread, the Mysteries were condemned by the early Church fathers; yet the rites continued for hundreds of years more and exercised considerable influence on the formation of early Christian teachings and practices.

Our sources of information regarding the Eleusinian Mysteries include the ruins of the sanctuary there; numerous statues, bas reliefs, and pottery; reports from ancient writers such as Aeschylos, Sophokles, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Plutarch, and Pausanias--all of whom were initiates--as well as the accounts of Christian commentators like Clement of Alexandria,  Hippolytus,  Tertullian, and Astorias. Yet for all this evidence, the true nature of the Mysteries remains shrouded in uncertainty because the participants did, with remarkable consistency, honor their pledge not to reveal what took place in the Telesterion, or inner sanctum of the Temple of Demeter. To violate that oath of secrecy was a capital offense. (Aeschylos, for example, once had to fear for his life on account of coming too close to revealing forbidden truths.) For these reasons, scholars today must make use of circumstantial evidence and inferences, with the result that there is still no consensus as to what did or did not take place. Hence, we shall sometimes be forced to engage in the tentative weighing of alternative hypotheses, without always reaching definite conclusions.
http://users.erols.com/nbeach/eleusis.html

The Festival at Eleusis
Demeter, the goddess of corn and fertility, was seduced by a mortal called Iasion. Infuriated, Zeus killed Iasion with a thunderbolt and made love to Demeter himself. The result of this union was a daughter, Persephone.
Hades, "god of the Underworld, asked Zeus for Persephone as his wife. Zeus agreed, but, thinking that Demeter would not accept the match as she would lose her daughter forever to the Underworld, assisted Hades in Persephone's abduction. He asked Gaia to send up many lovely flowers near where Persephone dwelt, whilst she was picking them with her friends, Hades came up from the Underworld in a chariot and took the poor girl back with him. Demeter searched the world for many days and nights in the guise of a mortal. At every town she visited, she told men the secrets of the harvest...Demeter threatened famine to the earth unless her daughter was returned; but Persephone had eaten several pomegranate seeds which meant that she would have to stay in Hades for one-third of the year, during which period Demeter refused to allow the crops to grow. Festivals were held for the return of Persephone every spring. At Eleusis, Demeter leant her winged chariot, drawn by dragons, to the youth Triptolemus; he was to use it every year to scatter seed over the earth."
http://home.fireplug.net/~rshand/streams/scripts/eleusis.html

Topographie, Griechenland, Eleusis

http://www.phil.uni-erlangen.de/~p1altar/photo_html/topographie/griechenland/eleusis/ebene4.html

Virtual Tour of Eleusis
The virtual tour of Eleusis actually begins in Athens, at the City Eleusinion near the agora (ancient marketplace). Try to imagine that you have come there with a large group of other initiates, as shown above. (Note the presence of both men and women, slave and free: the mysteries of Eleusis were open to all, provided they understood Greek.) Most of you are carrying torches--both to commemorate Demeter's torch-lit search for Persephone, and because much of your trip to Eleusis (which is 14 miles away) will take place by night.

All that remains of the City Eleusinion nowadays is a few sorry pieces of stone, most of the year covered in weeds. The thousands who pass by them on their way to the Agora Museum below are usually unaware that they are walking by one of the holiest sites in ancient Athens.
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/clas/eleutou1.htm