The Dionysian
Mysteries were a ritual of ancient
Greece and Rome which
used intoxicants and
other trance-inducing techniques (like dance and music) to remove inhibitions
and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state.
It also provided some liberation for those marginalized by Greek society:
women, slaves and foreigners. In their final phase the Mysteries shifted their
emphasis from a chthonic, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical
one, with Dionysus changing
his nature accordingly (similar to the change in the cult of Shiva). By its nature as a mystery
religion reserved for the initiated, many aspects of the
Dionysian cult remain unknown and were lost with the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism;
our knowledge is derived from descriptions, imagery and cross-cultural studies.
Origins
The Dionysian
Mysteries of mainland Greece and the Roman Empire are thought to have evolved
from a more primitive initiatory cult of unknown origin (perhaps Thracian or Phrygian)
which had spread throughout the Mediterranean region by the start of
the Classical Greek period. Its spread was
associated with the dissemination of wine, a sacramentor entheogen with
which it appears always to have been closely associated (though mead may have been
the original sacrament). Beginning as a simple rite, it evolved quickly within
Greek culture into a popular mystery
religion, which absorbed a variety of similar cults (and their gods)
in a typically Greek synthesis across its territories; one late form was the Orphic
Mysteries. However, all stages of this developmental spectrum appear
to have continued in parallel throughout the eastern Mediterranean until
late in Greek history
Early
Dionysus cult
The ecstatic cult of
Dionysus was originally thought to be a late arrival in Greece
from Thrace or Asia Minor,
due to its popularity in both locations and Dionysus' non-integration into the Olympian
Pantheon. After the deity's name was discovered on Mycenean Linear B tablets,
however, this theory was abandoned and the cult is considered indigenous,
predating Greek civilization. The absence of an early Olympian Dionysus is
today explained by patterns of social exclusion and the cult's marginality,
rather than chronology. Whether the cult originated on Minoan Crete (as
an aspect of an ancient Zagreus) or Africa - or in Thrace or Asia, as a proto-Sabazius -
is unanswerable, due to lack of evidence. Some scholars believe it was an
adopted cult not native to any of these places and may have been an eclectic
cult in its earliest history, although it almost certainly obtained many
familiar features from Minoan culture.
Role of wine
The original
rite of Dionysus (as introduced into Greece) is associated with a wine cult
(not unlike the entheogenic cults of ancient Central
America), concerned with the grapevine's
cultivation and an understanding of its life cycle (believed to have embodied
the living god) and the fermentation of wine from its dismembered
body (associated with the god's essence in the underworld).
Most importantly, however, the intoxicating and disinhibiting effects of wine
were regarded as due to possession by the god's spirit (and, later, as causing
this possession). Wine was also poured on the earth and its growing vine,
completing the cycle. The cult was not solely concerned with the vine itself,
but also with the other components of wine. Wine includes other ingredients
(herbal, floral and resinous) adding to its quality, flavour and medicinal
properties. Scholars have suggested that, given the low alcoholic content of
early wine, its effects may have been due to an additional entheogenic
ingredient in its sacramental form. Honey and bees wax were
often added to wine, introducing an even older drink (mead). Károly Kerényi postulated that this wine
lore superseded (and partly absorbed) earlier Neolithic mead
lore involving bee swarms associated by the Greeks with Dionysus. Mead
and beer (with
its cereal base) were incorporated into the domain of Dionysus, perhaps through
his identification with the Thraciancorn
deity Sabazius.
Other plants
believed to be viniculturally significant were also
included in wine lore such as ivy (thought to counteract drunkenness—thus the
opposite of the grapevine—and seen as blooming in winter instead of summer);
the fig (a purgative of toxins) and the pine (a wine preservative).
The bull (from whose horn wine was drunk) and goat (whose flesh provided
wineskins, and whose browsing pruned the vines) were also part of the cult,
eventually seen as manifestations of Dionysus. Some of these associations had
been linked with fertility deities (like Dionysus) and became part of his new
role. An understanding of vinicultural lore and its symbolism is key to
understanding the cult which emerged from it, assuming a significance other
than winemaking that would encompass life, death and rebirth and providing
insight into human psychology.
Assuming the
Dionysus cult arrived in Greece with the importation of wine, it probably first
emerged about 6000 BC in one of two places—the Zagros
Mountains and borderlands ofMesopotamia and Persia (with
a rich wine culture via Asia Minor), or from wild vines on the mountain slopes
of Libya and
other regions in North Africa. The latter provided wine toancient Egypt wine
from about 2500 BC, and was home to ecstatic rites involving animal
possession—notably the goat and panther men of the Aissaoua Sufi cult of Morocco(although
this cult may have been influenced by the Dionysian one). In any case Minoan Crete was the next link in the
chain, importing wine from the Egyptians, Thracians and Phoenicians and exporting it to its
colonies (such as Greece). The Mysteries probably took shape in Minoan Crete
from about 3000 to 1000 BC, since the name "Dionysus" exists nowhere
other than Crete and Greece.
Rites
The rites
were based on a seasonal death-rebirth theme (common among agricultural cults)
and spirit possession; the Osirian Mysteries paralleled the Dionysian, according to
contemporary Greek and Egyptian observers. Spirit possession involved
liberation from civilization's rules and constraints. It celebrated that which
was outside civilized society and a return to the source of being—which would
later assume mystical overtones. It also involved escape from the socialized
personality and ego into an ecstatic, deified state or the primal herd
(sometimes both). In this sense Dionysus was the beast-god within, or the unconscious
mind of modern psychology. Such
activity has been interpreted as fertilizing, invigorating, cathartic,
liberating and transformative, so it is not surprising that many devotees of
Dionysus were those on the margins of society: women, slaves, outlaws and
"foreigners" (non-citizens, in Greek democracy). All were equal in a
cult that inverted their roles, similar to the Roman Saturnalia.
Although the Greek Dionysian rites were associated with women (freeing themselves
from suppressive Greek society), the cult officers' titles were of both
genders—belying the claim that the cult was solely for women.
The trance
induction central to the cult involved not only chemognosis, but
an "invocation of spirit" with the bullroarer and communal dancing to drum
and pipe—much like modern-day raves. The trances are described in familiar anthropological
terms, with characteristic movements (such as the backward head flick found in
all trance-inducing cults) found today in Afro-American Vodou and its counterparts. As in Vodou
rites, or a rave, certain rhythms were associated with the trance. Rhythms are
also found preserved in Greek prose referring to the Dionysian rites (such as Euripides' Bacchae).
This collection of classical quotes describes rites in the Greek countryside in
the mountains, to which processions were made on feast days:
Following the
torches as they dipped and swayed in the darkness, they climbed mountain paths
with head thrown back and eyes glazed, dancing to the beat of the drum which
stirred their blood' [or 'staggered drunkenly with what was known as the
Dionysus gait']. 'In this state of ekstasis or enthusiasmos, they abandoned
themselves, dancing wildly and shouting 'Euoi!' [the god's name] and at that
moment of intense rapture became identified with the god himself. They became
filled with his spirit and acquired divine powers.
This practice
is demonstrated in Greek culture by the Bacchanals of
the Maenads, Thyiades and Bacchoi;
many Greek rulers considered the cult a threat to civilized society and wished
to control it (if not suppress it altogether). The latter failed; the former
would succeed in the foundation of a domesticated Dionysianism as a state
religion in Athens. This was but one form of Dionysianism—a cult which assumed
different forms in different localities (often absorbing indigenous divinities
and their rites, as did Dionysus himself). The Greek Bacchoi claimed that, like
wine, Dionysus had a different flavour in different regions; reflecting their
mythical and cultural soil, he appeared under different names and appearances
in different regions.
Emergence and
evolution
The mystery
religions consisted of a series of initiations, benefiting the individual or
their society. Initially associated with puberty, they later became an
evolutionary rite. It was in the form of a mystery religion that the cult of
Dionysus evolved, probably in the civilization of Minoan Crete. The rationale
for the Dionysian Mysteries was to affirm the primeval, bestial side of
mankind, while integrating it into civilization. The dual role of Ariadne (as
Mistress of the Minoan Labyrinth and consort of Dionysus) and the Minotaur story
may derive from the mastery of mankind's animal nature. The self-mastery thus
achieved was not one of domination, as in similar cults (George and the Dragon,
and the original Minotaur myth), but one of integration. While the Mysteries
lightened the cult's darker aspects, they failed to reassure its civilized
critics and were regarded as dangerously liberative (particularly in their
egalitarianism).
In Athens,
spiritual possession was channelled into dramatic masked rituals within the
Bacchic Thiasos (Greek equivalent of a coven or lodge), sowing the seeds of
acting and theatre—crafts
sacred to Dionysus, in the forms of tragedy and comedy. The
Dionysian Mysteries were seen not only as recognizing and casting off the
repressive, over-civilised masks all humans wear and the realisation of true
human nature—the creation of new, authentic masks, the deeper function of drama
and comedy (in other words, the development of genuine character rather than a
socialised persona). In time, as Dionysus became less bestial and more mystical
with the general shift of pagan orientation, this was viewed as the
preservation of the soul and the survival of death. These themes would become
central to the later Orphic manifestations of Dionysianism that would influence early Christianity (according to Roman
commentators, but denounced as a devilish mockery of Christ by Justin Martyr).
Male initiation rituals
The basic
rituals for men involved identifying with the god Dionysus in an enactment of
his life, death and rebirth (including some form of ordeal). This involved a
ritualised descent into the underworld or katabasis,
often performed in caverns or catacombs (sometimes,
more symbolically, in temples). This process was an original part of the rites;
one form of it may be seen in Aristophanes'
play The Frogs (405
BC). The Frogs features the descent of Dionysus into Hades with the aid of
a surreal chorus of amphibious guardians and his half-brother Heracles (who
also appears in the iconography of the Dionysian Mysteries). In these
narratives someone (or something) is sought after and brought back, with
varying degrees of success. However, in classical Greek culture this probably
involved more theatre (with the initiate playing the role of the Heroes) than
the spirit- possession of the original rites. Following this, there was
communion with the god through shared wine. The initiate was then known as a
"Bacchus" (the alternative name for Dionysus), shown the secret
contents of the liknon and
presented with the thyrsos wand.
Female initiation rituals
In contrast,
the female initiate was prepared as Ariadne (bride of Dionysus), and united
with him in the underworld. In reference to this, the ritual symbol of
Dionysus—hidden in theliknon until the culmination of the female
rites—was first a goat's penis, and later a fig-wood phallus. After this rite,
she participated in a similar communion or wedding feast. Flagellation also
seems to have been a basic ordeal (at least for women, according to depictions
of Dionysian initiations), and there may have been ritualised hangings. The
female rituals took place at the same time as the traditional Dionysian
revelries.
Villa of the Mysteries
Insight into
the female initiation process may be gained through the murals of the Bacchic Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii.
Here a series of murals painted on the walls of an initiation chamber have been
almost perfectly preserved after the eruption of Vesuvius,
although there is controversy about its interpretation.
§ The first
mural shows a noble Roman woman (possibly the initiate's mother, who can cross
no further) approaching a priestess or matron seated on a throne, by which
stands a small boy reading a scroll - presumably the declaration of the
initiation. On the other side of the throne the young initiate is shown in a
purple robe and myrtle crown, holding a sprig of laurel and a tray of cakes.
She appears to have been transformed into a serving girl, but may be bringing
an offering to the god or goddess.
§ The second
mural depicts another priestess (or senior initiate) and her assistants
preparing the liknon basket; at her feet are mysterious
mushroom-shaped objects. At one side a sileni (a horse
element) is playing a lyre. (Silenus was the tutor and companion of Dionysus.)
§ The third
mural shows a satyr playing
the panpipes and
a nymph suckling
a goat, in an Arcadian scene. To their right, the initiate is in a panic. This
is the last time we see her for a few scenes; when she appears again, she has
changed. Some scholars think katabasis has occurred.
§ In the
direction to which she stares in horror, another mural shows a young satyr
being offered a bowl of wine by Silenus while behind him, another satyr holds
up a frightening mask which the drinking satyr sees reflected in the bowl (this
may parallel the mirror into which young Dionysus stares in the Orphic rites).
Next to them sits a goddess (Ariadne or Semele), with
Dionysus/Bacchus lying across her lap.
§ The next
mural shows the initiate returning. She now carries a staff and wears a cap,
items often presented after the successful completion of an initiation ordeal.
She kneels before the priestess, and appears to be whipped by a winged female
figure. Next to her is a dancing figure (a Maenad or Thyiad) and a
gowned figure with a thyrsus (an initiation symbol of Dionysus) made of long
stalks of wrapped fennel, with a pine cone on top.
§ In her
penultimate appearance we see her being prepared with new clothes, while Eros holds
up a mirror to her. After this scene, there is another image of Eros.
§ Finally, the
initiate is shown enthroned and in an elaborate costume. This is all we know of
the Roman rites of initiation.
Roman Empire
The evolution
of Dionysianism continued in the Roman Empire with the Bacchic Mysteries (as
they were known in Italy after their arrival in 200 BC). Dionysus merged with
the local fertility god Liber (whose consort, Libera, inspired the Statue of
Liberty). The Roman Bacchic cult emphasised sexuality, inventing
terrifying ordeals for its Mystery initiation. It was this aspect which caused
the cult to be banned by Roman authorities in 186 BC, for sexual abuse and
other criminal activities (including murder). Whether these charges were true
is unknown; there may have been individual cases of corruption but no evidence
of widespread abuse. Scholarly opinion is that these were trumped-up charges
levelled against a cult perceived as a danger to the state. The Roman Senate
sought to ban Dionysian rites throughout the Empire, restricting their
gatherings to a handful of people under special license in Rome. However, this
only succeeded in pushing the cult underground. They gained further notoriety
due to claims that the wife of Spartacus (leader
of the Slave Revolt of 73BC) was an initiate of the
Thracian Mysteries of Dionysus and considered her husband an incarnation of
Dionysus Liber. The Mysteries were revived in a tamer form under Julius Caesar around
50 BC, with his onetime ally Mark Anthony becoming an enthusiastic devotee and
obtaining popular support. They remained in existence (along with theircarnivalesque Bacchanalian
street processions) until at least the time of Augustine (A.D. 354-430) and
were an institution in most Romanised provinces.
Mystery and
public rites
The Dionysian
Mysteries are believed to have consisted of two sets of rites: the secret rites
of initiation and the public rites, or Dionysia.
The public rites are believed to be the older of the two. In Athens and
classical Attica,
the main festivities were held in the month of Elaphebolion (around
the time of the spring equinox). The greater (or city) Dionysia
had evolved into a dramatic festival; Dionysus was the god of acting, music and
poetry for the Athenians, and the festival became an urban carnival (or Komos). Its older
precursor was the lesser (or rural) Dionysia, which preserved ancient customs
centred on celebrating the first wine. This festival was timed to coincide with
the "clearing of the wine" (a final stage in the fermentation
process), which occurred during the first cold snap after the winter
solstice when Dionysus was said to be reborn.
This was
later formalised to January 6 (now Epiphany), a day on which Dionysus changed
water into wine.[citation needed] The
festivals at this time were wild (as were those of the grape harvest); its
carnivalesque ritual processions from the vineyards to the wine press had
occurred earlier in the autumn. It was at these times that initiations into the
Mysteries were probably held. Dionysus was also revered at Delphi, where
he presided over the oracle for three winter months beginning in November
(marked by the rising of the Pleiades) while Apollo was
away "visiting the Hyperboreans". At this time a rite known as the
Dance of the Fiery Stars was performed; little is known, but it may have been
devoted to the dead and continued in Christian countries as All Souls Day on
November 2.
In contrast
with the daytime festivities of the Athenian Dionysia were the biennial
nocturnal rites of the Tristeria, held on Mount
Parnassus in winter. These celebrated the emergence of Dionysus
from the underworld, with orgies (orgia) in the mountains. The first day was
presided over by the Maenads in their state of Mainomenos (madness),
during which animals—and perhaps humans—were hunted, torn apart with bare hands
and eaten raw. This was the Sparagmos,
once associated with goat sacrifice and marking the harvest (and trampling) of
the vine. The second day saw the Bacchic nymphs in their Thyiadic (or raving)
state. Although still orgiastic, this was a more sensual and benign bacchanal
(assisted by satyrs). Mythographers claim that the Maenads (or wild women)
resisted the Bacchic urge and were driven mad, while the Thyiades (or
ravers) accepted the Dionysian ecstasy and kept their sanity.
While the
Athenians celebrated Dionysus in various one-day festivals (including those
during the Eleusinian Mysteries), a far older
tradition was the two-year cycle where the death and absence of Dionysus (in
his aspect of Dionysus Chthonios, Lord of the Underworld) was mourned for a
year. During the second year, his resurrection (as Dionysus Bacchus) was
celebrated at the Tristeria and other festivals (including one marked by the
rising of Sirius).
Why this period was adopted is unknown, although it may have reflected a long
fermentation period. All the oldest Dionysian rites reflected stages in the
wine-production process; only later did the Athenians (and others) synchronise
the Bacchic festivities with agricultural seasons.
The first
large-scale religious worship of Dionysus in Greece seems to have begun in Thebes about
1500 BC, around a thousand years before the development of the Athenian
Mysteries. Cultic worship of Dionysus (and his mother Semele, a moon
goddess) was performed in the earliest Dionysian temples (usually located
beyond the city walls, on the edges of swamps and marshes). Its first rituals
probably originated in the Mycenaean period, but were probably similar (even in
classical times) to rites still held on Greek islands such as Keos and Tenedos.
Here the first wine was offered to Dionysus and the now-growing vine; a bull
was sacrificed with a double axe, and its blood mixed with the wine.
There are
indications that at one time the sacrificer of the sacred bull was himself then
stoned to death, although this became a symbolic act quite early. The
more-economical practise of goat sacrifice was later added to the rites. The
goat (like the bull) was regarded as a manifestation of Dionysus. However, it
was also seen as the "killer of the vine" by eating it—welcome in
times of pruning, less so in times of growth. The death of the goat could thus
be interpreted as a combined sacrifice of Dionysus and the sacrificer. The goat
was usually torn apart, as the vine had been at harvest. Other archaic rites
found on Greek islands include festivals to his consort Ariadne, which include
a tree-swinging game (said to date to a time when Ariadne hanged herself from a
tree). In Rome the Bacchanalia (a milder form of the
Tristeria) were held in secret and originally attended by women only; they were
held over three days (around March 16 and 17), in the grove of Simila near the Aventine Hill.
Admission to the rites was then opened to men, and celebrations took place five
times a month. Initiation could take place at any of these times.
Within the
public rituals were the secret rites of initiation, the public festivals
largely setting the stage for these private rites:
"Whatsoever
may have remained to represent the original intent of the rites, regarded as
Rites of Initiation, the externalities and practice of the Festivals were
orgies of wine and sex: there was every kind of drunkenness and every
aberration of sex, the one leading up to the other. Over all reigned the
Phallus, which—in its symbolism à rebours—represented post
ejaculationem the death-state of Bacchus, the god of pleasure, and his
resurrection when it was in forma arrecta. Of such was the sorrow
and of such the joy of these Mysteries".
The phallus
appears to have been a connecting link between the outer and inner rites. Not
only was it prominent in the Bacchic carnival in Rome (carried by the Phallophoroi at
the head of the procession), it also appears to have been the secret object in
the liknon (the sacred basket, or Arc, revealed only after
final initiation). Other possible contents could have been sacred fruit, leaves
or loaves (possibly with entheogenic qualities). Some sources suggest that the
phallus was made from fig wood (Prosymnus), while even older sources indicate it may have once
been the phallus of a sacrificed goat. The contents probably changed over the
centuries and in different modes of initiation, the general idea being that the
final stage of the initiation involved the revelation of the god in one form or
another.
Temple and
officers
The sacred
loci of the Dionysian Mysteries have varied over time and place, as the rituals
themselves have. The earliest rites took place in the wilderness—in the
forests, the marshes and in the mountains (where the low oxygen content is
suitable for trance induction). Later the priest would simply cast his staff
into the ground at a suitable location, and hang a mask and animal skin from
it; the circle around this centre was the sacred precinct for however long the
staff remained. This practise became archaic, but was revived by the nomadic
healers of the Orphic Mysteries. In classical times temples were built for
Dionysus, the earliest being circular buildings open to the sky—probably the
origin of Greek theatres and forums—and later no different from any other Greek
temple as Dionysus was assimilated. The lenos (the building
that housed the wine press) also became a temple to Bacchus, and was often
solely used as such. Underground chambers were often used for initiations,
which may have originally taken place in natural caves (particularly those by
the shoreline). Although boundary zones were sacred to Dionysus, by the final
days of the cult any temple could be dedicated or rededicated to him.
Most mystery
religions had a hierarchy of priests maintaining them, but it is uncertain if
this was the case with the Dionysian Mysteries. The Orphic texts of the late
period record aboukolos (or "cowherd") as an offerer of
sacrifice, sayer of prayers, and hymn singer, who seems to have been the
equivalent of a priest. Other inscriptions record an archiboukolos("chief
cowherd") presiding over the boukoloi; in some records there
is also mention of boukoloi hieroi ("holy
cowherders") as well as hymnodidaskaloi ("hymn
teachers"). According to Athenian sources, when the Dionysus cult was
state-controlled a high priest (hierophant) and a high priestess
(referred to in Rome as the matrona, with two assistant
priestesses) were appointed as overseers. One late text describes a complex
hierarchy of three archiboukoloi, seven boukoloi hieroi and
eleven boukoloi. The names of many senior priests and priestesses
reveal them to be aristocrats, although the high priest in at least one text
has the name of a slave (indicating equality within the cult, where slaves and
masters were encouraged to exchange roles). There is no evidence of a complex
hierarchy in the Bacchic Mysteries of Rome, which seem to have been presided
over by aDomina and Dominus (priestess and
priest), so it is possible that only the Athenian form of the Mysteries and the
Orphic religion had this structure. The original Mysteries of Dionysus seem to
have had no hierarchy at all; only ritual functionaries (such as the Phallophoroi)
are mentioned, the rest being participant Bacchoi, Thyiades or Maenads.
However, a key role was always reserved for the Heroes and his
"bride" (who were possessed by the god), and initiates may have
played officiating roles in this process.
Ritual
details
Dionysian paraphernalia
§ Kantharos: Drinking
cup with large handles, originally the Rhyton (drinking horn
from a bull), later a Kylix, or wine goblet
§ Thyrsos: Long
wand with pine cone on top, carried by initiates and those possessed by the god
§ Stave: Once
cast into ground to mark ritual space
§ Krater: Mixing
bowl
§ Flagellum: Scourge
§ Minoan Double
Axe: Once used for sacrificial rites, later replaced by the Greek kopis (curved
dagger)
§ Retis: Hunter's
net
§ Laurel crown
and cloak: Purple robe, or leopard or fawnskin nebix
§ Hunting Boots
§ Persona: Masks
§ Bull Roarer
§ Salpinx: Long,
straight trumpet
§ Pan Pipes
§ Tympanon,
Bells and Drums
§ Liknon: Sacred
basket, with fig
Animals
sacred to Dionysus
The bull and
goat and their "enemies", the panther (or any big cat - after the
Greeks colonised part of India, Shiva's tiger sometimes
replaced the traditional panther or leopard) and the serpent (probably derived
from Sabazius, but also found in North African cults); in addition, the
fawn/deer, the fox, the dolphin, the lion and the bee.
Invocation of
Dionysus (from Orphic hymns)
"I call
upon loud-roaring and revelling Dionysus,
primeval,
double-natured, thrice-born, Bacchic lord,
wild,
ineffable, secretive, two-horned and two-shaped.
Ivy-covered,
bull-faced, warlike, howling, pure,
You take raw
flesh, you have feasts, wrapt in foliage, decked with grape clusters.
Resourceful
Eubouleus, immortal god sired by Zeus
When he mated
with Persephone in unspeakable union.
Hearken to my
voice, O blessed one,
and with your
fair-girdled nymphs breathe on me in a spirit of perfect agape".
"In
intoxication, physical or spiritual, the initiate recovers an intensity of
feeling which prudence had destroyed; he finds the world full of delight and
beauty, and his imagination is suddenly liberated from the prison of everyday
preoccupations. The Bacchic ritual produced what was called 'enthusiasm', which
means etymologically having the god enter the worshipper, who believed that he
became one with the god".
Credit : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysian_Mysteries
