The Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites

lchre of the soul, and in the Cratylus acquiesces in the doctrine of Orpheus that the soul is punished through i

ep, for this

l such novel rea

terial abode, or the

less

rage, and count

is united with the body for the sake of suffering punishment, and that it is buried in the body as in a s

obscurely by splendid visions the felicity of the soul here and hereafter when purified from the defilements of a material nature. The intention of all mystic ceremonies, according to Sallustius, was to conjoin the world and the gods. Plotinus says that to be plunged into matter is to descend and then fall asleep. The initiate had to withstand the d?mons and spectres, which, in later times, illustrated the difficulties besetting the

ho earnestly employed themselves in divine concerns were, above all others, in a vigilant state, and that imprudent men who pursued objects of an inferior nature were asleep, and engaged

be derived from initiation. Not only were the initiates placed under the protection of the State, but the very act of initiation was said to assist in the spreading of goodwill among men, keep the soul from sin and crime, place the initiates under the special protection of the gods, and provide them with the means of attaining perfect virtue, the power of living a spotless life, and assure them of a peaceful death and of everlasting bliss hereafter. The hierophants assured all who participated in the Mysteries th

om of the Ancients intended to signify by the descent into Hades and the speedy return from those dark abodes. They were held to contain perfective rites and appearances and the tradition o

nd enjoying undefiled fruits, obtained at length a perfect establishment among the god

rch w

elm us; but, as soon as we are out of it, we pass into delightful meadows, where the purest air is breathed, where sacred concerts and discourses are heard; where, in short, one is impressed with celestial visions. It is there that man, having become perfect through his new initiation, rest

origin to sources anterior to the rise of the Mysteries. At Eleusis the way was shown how to secure for the sou

in human nature. For in these rites it was of old signified to the aspirants that those who died without being initiated stu

but according to evidence, and proceeding with all these dialectical exercises with an unshaken reason-he who cannot accomplish this, would you not say that he neither knows the good itself, nor anything which is properly demonstrated good? And would you not assert that such a one whe

bour in the Hesperian regions, signifying by this that, having vanquished an obscure and terrestrial life, he afterwards lived in open day-that is, in truth and resplendent light. So that he who in the present state vanquishes as much

d over the Stygian lake, meets with the three-headed Cerberus. By Cerberus must be understood the discriminative part of the soul, of which a dog, by reason of its sagacity, is an emblem. The three heads signify the intellective, dianoetic, and doxatic powers. "He dragg'd the three-mouth'd dog to upper

species of fable-theological, physical, animistic, and material. According to the arcana of ancient theolog

e dwellings of her mother which she prepared for her in inaccessible places, exempt from the sensible world. But she likewise dwells with Pluto,

or Bacchus by an ineffable intercourse with Jupiter. Porphyry asserts that the wood pigeon was sacred to her and

nd the seed disappears quickly from the face of the earth when it is strewn on the ground. The dreaded monarch of the underworld has taken possession of it. In vain the mother searches for her child, the whole face of nature mourns her loss, and everything sorrows and grie

me, men neither cultivated corn nor tilled the ground, but roamed the mountains and woods in search for the wild fruits which the earth produced. Isocrates wrote: "Ceres hath made the Athenians two presents of the greatest consequence: corn, which brought us out of a state of brutality; and the Mysteries, which teach the initiated to entertain the most agreeable expectations touching death and eternity." The coins of Eleusis represented Demeter in a car drawn by dragons or serpents which were sometimes winged. The goddess had

we properly determine intellect, and Persephone that vital, self-moving, and animate part which we call soul. Pluto signifies the

ere we see the first cause of the soul's descent, viz. her desertion of a life wholly according to intellect, occultly signified by the separation of Demeter and Persephone. Afterwards Jupiter instructed Venus to go and betray Persephone from her retirement, that Pluto might be enabled to carry her away, and, to prevent any suspicion in the virgin's mind, he commanded Diana and Pallas to bear her company. The three goddesses on arrival found Persephone at work on a scarf for her mother, o

y of the mere energies of nature. Plato, forcing his passage through the earth, seizes on Persephone and carries her away, despite the resistance of Minerva and Diana, who were forbidden by Jupiter to attempt her deliverance after her abduction. This signifies that the lapse of the soul into a material nature is contrary to the genuine wish and proper condition. Pluto having hurried Persephone into the infernal regions, marriage succeeds. That is to say, the soul having sunk into the

fferent body and employing different energies in each, finally becoming connected with the sublunary world and a terrene body on the ninth. Demeter and the foundation of the art of tillage are said to signify the descent of intellect into the rea

d Plato owned it to be "difficult to find the Creator of the Universe, and, when found, impossible to discover Him to all the world." Varro, in his work Of Religions, says that "there were many truths which it was inconvenient for the State to be generally known; and many things which, though false, it was expedient the people should believe, and that, therefore, the Greeks shut up their Mysteries in the silence of their sacred enclosures." The Mysteries declared that the future life was not the shadowy, weary existence which it had hitherto been supposed to be, but that through the rites of purification and sacrifices of a sacramental character man could secure a better hope for the future. Thus the E

s of interment, and several facts of a like nature that were concealed with so much care. Diagoras, the Melian, was accounted an atheist because he revealed the real secret of the Eleusinian. Mysteries. The charge of atheism was the lot of any who communicated a knowledge of the one, only God. Pindar says, referring to the Mysteries: "Happy is he

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