RAPE, RAGE, AND REVELATION
RAPE, RAGE AND REVELATION:
Can Psychohistory Illuminate the Mysteries of Eleusis?
Todd Swanson, MPA, MA
So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of
anything by history.
Plutarch: Life of Pericles
A Skeptic’s Query
Picture the disciplines of history and psychology as great
rivers cascading down the timelines of human existence.
One can vividly imagine the turbulence generated at their
confluence. This image represents the tumult that has
characterized the field of psychohistory since its early
twentieth century origins.
A skeptic might ask: If twenty-first century science is unable
to fully determine the cause of an action of an individual or
group in modern America, how can one hope to explain
actions of groups in Greece, eight centuries before the birth
of Christ?
Let’s amplify the skeptic’s concern. We are separated, s/he
may insist by time, culture, language and experience. We
may have written documents, but do we understand what
the words meant when they were written? We may have
access to visual arts, but do gestures and symbols
contained within convey the same meaning over thousands
of years? Lastly, even if one could dutifully trace the
etymology of a word, or development of a symbol over time,
how can one discern meaning of an event purposefully
hidden, whose history is lost or at best hidden in shadows?
This precise situation faces the person who studies the
greatest of classical religious movements: the Eleusinian
Mysteries. What we know of this cult born in Eleusis are
often mere fragments bracketed with silence, warnings, and
somewhat suspect accounts of apologists. Adherents to the
cult were bound by silence; opponents to the cult generally
did not participate in it. An example of the former is the
Roman Emperor Julian (known as “the Apostate”), who
attempted to revive Greek and Roman religion and ritual after
the triumph of Christianity. He pondered: “Ought I to say
something on this subject also? And shall I write about
things not to be spoken of and divulge what ought not to be
divulged? Shall I utter the unutterable?” An extreme
example of the latter is Diagoras of Melitos who is said to
have told everyone the secret of Eleusis making it seem
unimportant. Sadly, although Diagoras shouted in the
marketplace, his words were never quoted in the ancient
writings.
Aristotle wrote the Mysteries contained “not a lesson to
learn, but an experience to undergo and a condition into
which they (the initiates) must be brought, while they are
becoming fit (for revelation”). In another place describing
the cathartic cures of drama, Aristotle describes the results
of initiation: “All who use these rites experience release
mixed with joy.”
The historian Plutarch noted the similarity of the Greek verbs
teleutan (to die) and teleishai (to be initiated). He observed
that people who die and people who are initiated undergo
comparable transformations.
The Experience Described
Revealing the Mysteries was considered an act of impiety
punishable by death. This accounts for classical authors’
reticence on this matter. One method of obtaining a general
sense of the experience is to assemble the accounts from a
variety of sources describing the Mysteries. This is perilous
because these accounts are disconnected by hundreds of
years. However, taking this leap, the following description
coalesces. The initiates’ testimony speak of the Mysteries as
“the most frightening and most resplendent.”
Imagine a multitude gathering two thousand years ago. As
dusk falls, thousands of torches blaze under star strewn
skies. Suddenly, those gathered are thrust into a frenetic
dance. Loud cries punctuate the din of stamping feet. They
push and jostle each other amid tumult and shouting. The
initiates wander, and run about in circles over uncertain
roads. So much dust rises from this human stampede that
from miles away an army mistakes the dust cloud for an
opposing army on the march. Almost violently, the initiates
try to gain entrance to the great hall of initiation. Night falls.
Suddenly a gong sounds. An enormous burst of fire fills the
sky. The initiates experience the most bloodcurdling
sensations of horror and the most enthusiastic ecstasy of
joy; then, just before the end, there are all kinds of terrors,
with shivering, trembling, sweating, and utter amazement.
Filled with horror and astonishment, initiates are seized with
loneliness and total perplexity. Unable to move a step
forward, they are at a loss to find the entrance to the way that
leads to where they aspire. Filled with horror and
astonishment, initiates able to find their way thrill with
rapture.” A goddess appears. The initiates enter clean and
verdant meadows, where gentle voices, choric dances, and
the majesty of holy sounds and sacred visions surround.
Looking down upon the uninitiated and unpurified crowd
below in the mud and fog, trampling itself down and
crowded together, initiates are unable to believe in the
blessings that lie beyond.” The metanoia and conversion
that results leave the initiates feeling “thrice blessed”
because “Only for them is there life; all the rest suffer an evil
lot.” Mystic views abound, along with strange sounds.
Darkness and light appear in sudden changes. Beauty
shone bright amidst these visions. “The thing is great, it is
mystical,” the initiates proclaim. At the conclusion, the
initiate “came out of the mystery hall feeling like a stranger.”
Genesis of a Cult
Within the classical world of Greece and Rome, the
Eleusinian Mysteries were the largest and most famous of
the Mystery Cults. Burkert defined the Mystery Religions as
“initiation rituals of a voluntary, personal, and secret
character that aimed at a change of mind through experience
of the sacred.” Begun as a local cult over three thousand
years ago in the city of Eleusis, a day’s walk from Athens, the
Eleusinian Mysteries presented an intense family drama.
Held annually in late September- early October over a nine-
day period, the Mysteries were open to all who understood
the Greek language and were without, or purified from,
bloodguilt.
Participation in Groups
Until modern times, mass gatherings of people occurred
primarily in wars, revolutions and religious movements. The
original Olympic Games, an event in Classical times as
thoroughly sacred as athletic, drew up to fifty-thousand
participants, vastly larger than the populations of most city-
states of the period. The Eleusinian Mysteries rivaled this
concentration of humanity.
In the contemporary world, why are sports stadiums packed
with spectators who pay enormous sums, the vast majority
of whom could better see and follow the game watching on
TV? The answer lies partly in the excitement and immediacy
of the crowd that generates and channels powerful,
stimulating emotions.
There’s a connection between spectators in a modern
soccer stadium, the original Olympic games straddling the
border between the sacred and the profane and mystery
cults such as Eleusis. At Eleusis, prayer was raised in the
midst of a glorious clamor. The sky pierced with shouts, the
earth threaded with activity. This generated movement
swirled like rushing water into a hollow, spinning, winding
and thrusting out to follow a course predetermined by all
events surrounding it.
Such would be the mood of the procession of Iacchos, one
of the great events that initiated the Mysteries. The
clamorous procession danced its fourteen miles from
Athens to Eleusis. Before the assembly entered the temple
precincts, a bridge wide enough only for a single person at a
time to pass had to be crossed. Atop it waited men with
heads covered. They hurled insults and pointed jabs on the
dignitaries and the well known within the crowd. This rough
jesting was an opportunity to puncture the pride of the
eminent. This had two effects: it evoked merriment from the
crowd and acted as a “leveler”, a coarse “democratization”
of the assembly. The crowd now entered a sacred space,
where nothing was quite the same as before.
Psychohistory postulates that groups are driven by
emotions and fantasies. Behaviors and motives are due
essentially to emotions felt by persons and/or emotions felt,
experienced and reacted to, in shared contexts such as
families or groups. These emotions are expressed in group
fantasies that develop over time, are shared and created by
individuals. DeMause states that traumas expressed by the
Group Fantasies are related to “our deepest fears” and that
these are “so intense and compelling that they take on a life
of their own.” According to DeMause, history, therefore, is a
dissociative disorder designed to help achieve homeostasis
by discharging increasing anxieties experienced in common
with others. This paper examines the ways the fears
expressed by the Homeric Hymn to Demeter relate to sexual
trauma and infanticide.
The Group Fantasy Portrayed in the Eleusinian Mysteries
In many ways, the stories of the gods of the Greeks and
Romans reflect a dream world expressing the emotional life
of citizens of the Classical World. A perfect example of this
is the group fantasy at the core of the Mysteries. The
Homeric Hymn to Demeter was put in its final form about 800
B.C. The Hymn describes how the god Hades, brother to
Zeus and Demeter, with Zeus’ permission, abducted Demeter’
s daughter.
The Maiden had been playing among the flowers when “the
wide-path earth yawned…and the lord, Host of Many, with
his immortal horses sprang out upon her…”(5-15) The
Maiden screamed as she was torn into the underworld.
Demeter heard her daughter’s screams. “Bitter pain seized
her heart and she…sped, like a wild-bird…seeking her child.
But no one would tell her the truth, neither god nor mortal
man… For nine days she wandered the earth with flaming
torches in her hands.” (40-50)
Her search was in vain. She came to the town of Eleusis and
assumed the form of an old woman. The King’s daughters
found her and brought her to the palace. There, the queen,
Metaneira, sensed Demeter is “nobly born” (215) and offered
her a job as nursemaid to her youngest son, Demophoon.
The Queen repeats a second time a passage which her
daughters had earlier cited: “But we humans endure the
gifts of the gods, even under grievous compulsion, for a
yoke lies upon our neck.” (216-220) The fact that this is the
only line which is repeated speaks to its importance. By day
Demeter anointed Demophoon with ambrosia, and at night
she would hide him like a brand in the heart of the fire. As a
result, Demophoon “grew beyond his age; for he was like
the gods face to face.” Demeter, by this magic, planned to
make Demophoon “deathless and unageing.” But the
Queen, one night saw Demeter place her child in the fire.
“She wailed and smote her two hips, because she feared for
her son and was greatly distraught in her heart.” (235-245)
Then Demeter drew Demophon from the fire, thrust him at
his mother's feet, and said: “Humans are short-sighted,
stupid, ignorant of the share of good or evil which is coming
to them. You, by your foolishness have hurt him beyond
curing. Let my witness be the oath of the gods sworn by the
intractable water of Styx, that I would have made your son
deathless and ageless all his days, and given him
imperishable honor. But now it is not possible to ward off
death and destruction. Still he will have imperishable honor
forever since he stood on my knees and slept in my arms; in
due season, as the years pass around, the children of the
Eleusinians will conduct in his honor war and the terrible
battle-cry with each other for ever and ever.”(255-275).
She commanded the citizens of Eleusis to build her a
temple. After its completion “she caused a most dreadful
and cruel year for mankind over the all-nourishing earth; the
ground would not make the seed sprout, for rich crowned
Demeter kept it hid…She would have destroyed the whole
race of man with cruel famine and have robbed them who
dwell on Olympus of their glorious right of gifts and
sacrifices, had not Zeus perceived and marked this in his
heart.”(300-310) Zeus sent one god after another to placate
Demeter, unsuccessfully. Demeter vowed that “she would
never set foot on fragrant Olympus nor let fruit spring out of
the ground, until she beheld with her own eyes her own fair-
faced daughter.
Zeus relented and sent Hermes to Hades to release her
daughter “that her mother may see her with her own eyes
and cease from her dread anger with the immortals.” The
Maiden emerged from the earth. Her mother ran to her “like a
madwoman” and embraced her. The mother asked the
daughter if she had eaten anything while in hades, because
if she did, “you must go back again beneath the secret
places of the earth, there to dwell a third part of the seasons
each year.”(400)
The Eleusinian Group Fantasy as the Expression of Sexual
Trauma and Infanticide in Prehistoric and Classical
Civilizations of the Mediterranean
Why did this particular Group Fantasy resonate throughout
the ancient world? Life in classical and archaic times was
difficult. A harsh winter would foreshadow famine. War was
an ever-present threat. The victors watched their surplus
waste away. The losers faced death and slavery. Infanticide
and sexual abuse were rampant. This had a far broader
influence Greek society than is reflected in calculations or
arguments about numbers of infants actually exposed or
killed.
The theme of rape is explicit in the Homeric Hymn to
Demeter. The group fantasy appears to refer to the status of
women in Greek culture. In Athens there was a class of
women known as epikleroi. As Michael Grant maintains,
they were “assignable, compelled to marry their nearest
relative on their father’s side, in a fixed order of priority,
starting with his brother.” This clearly reflects the status of
Persephone. The fact that, as a result of Demeter’s anger,
she could escape her husband’s abode for nine months a
year represents a liberation unavailable to other women in
Greek culture literally removed from sight. The Mysteries,
though, were of supreme importance for both females and
males. Does an examination of the Hymn focusing on the
behavior of participants reveal a second, complementary
interpretation? I propose this embedded group fantasy
implicitly refers to the practice of child exposure and
infanticide.
Focusing on behavior, the action of the story is as follows:
A child plays alone. Someone swoops down, carries the
child away, and hides her underground. The mother begins
a frantic search. Inquiries are met with silence. A second
child is offered to the mother. This child she places in a fire.
The earth is cursed. Famine covers the land. Sacrifices
cease. Finally, the father relents. The daughter is brought
up from underground and reunited with the Mother.
Group fantasies are often conveyed by subliminal messages
rather than clear, overt language. Groups speak this
embedded language when they are in a group trance. On
the level of symbol and image, the method of exposure is
similar to what is depicted in the Hymn. Practiced
throughout the classical world, it was the most common
method of disposing of a child “not worth the rearing.” The
second century B.C. historian Polybius criticizes the
practice of child exposure as one of the causes of the
serious depopulation of Greece that occurred in the second
century B.C. In the Politics, Aristotle speaks of “the
offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other sort
who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in
secret, so that no one will know what has become of them.”
Aristotle prefaces his comments on infanticide and possible
objections to the practice with the absolute requirement that
no deformed child shall be reared. In a metaphor used in
the Republic (460c) Plato speaks of something maimed or
mutilated that should be hidden away in some secret place.
“The offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other
sort who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in
secret.”
A child, when alone, could be seized and taken away. The
mother in her grief would search for it. Although this
happened in front of everyone, no information on the child’s
location would be given.
In the Hymn, Demeter attempts to give the king’s son
immortality by burning off his mortality in the fire. This may
have reminded the initiates participating in the ceremonies of
the amphidromea, (the “walking around” the hearth) a rite
that took place five days after a child was born. The child
was carried around the fireplace, and through this ritual was
accepted in the family. The ritual was not conducted if the
child was to be exposed.
Part of the joy and relief experienced by the initiates at
Eleusis may relate to their selection or adoption (and
therefore protection) by Demeter. On the fifth day of the
Mysteries, the initiates arrived at Eleusis in a joyous
procession and began the initiation ceremonies. An
inscription at the entrance to the sanctuary of Meter at
Phaistos in Crete proclaims that the goddess is offering “a
great miracle” to those “who guarantee their lineage,” but is
averse to “those who wrongly force themselves into the race
of the gods.” During the initiation, there was a special
function of the “boy who is initiated into the Mysteries from
the hearth of Athens.” He seems to have been a young boy
(in later years it could also have been a girl), who belonged
to one of the aristocratic and important families of Athens
and was elected to be initiated at the expense of the State.
The actual penalization of exposure came in 374 A.D. from
the Christian Emperor Valentinian, twenty-five years before
the suppression of the Eleusinian Mysteries that were then
at their height of influence. Some fragments of evidence
from the time of the Severi suggest that pagan disapproval
had already reached considerable proportions.
The exposure of infants resulting in death was widespread
in many parts of the Roman Empire as well. In the
foundation myth of ancient Rome, the god of war raped a
vestal virgin. She gave birth to twins (Romulus and Remus)
and abandoned them. They are found and suckled by a she-
wolf. This image of protection by a wolf may have grown up
to compensate for the parental fear of what may happen to a
child that was exposed. DeMause points out that the
“parental holocaust of children that has been the central
cause of violence and misery throughout history.”
It was precisely this passion that consumed Demeter when
her daughter was taken away that initiates repeated in the
festival. It was this passion, and its katharsis, that lead to the
visions and joy that thousands experienced every year. As
Arbman points out, certain very acute religious crises –
states of inner duress, tension, conflict, struggle and
anguish, clamoring for a solution frequently find their release
in hallucinatory experiences.
Enthusiasm, Possession and Altered States of
Consciousness
It was a different world. Shape shifting gods walked the
earth. Oracles were consulted. Vapors issuing from the
earth threw priestesses into prophetic frenzy. The future
was divined from careful examination of the flight of birds,
the examination of entrails of sacrificial animals, the
whispering of wind through the leaves of trees, the random
chattering of children. Manic gods entered the hearts of
individuals and crowds and imposed their will.
These behaviors, so weird and abnormal, caught the interest
of philosophers. Plato and Aristotle offer a somewhat
systematic rendition of human psychology. Both dwell in a
number of areas on mania and enthusiasm (literally
“entering of the god”) on behavior. For example, in the
Phaedrus, Plato describes the effects of a curse and how the
madness it caused led to recovery:
When grievous maladies and afflictions have beset certain
families by reason of some ancient sin, mania has appeared
amongst them, and breaking out into prophecy has secured
relief by finding the means thereto, namely by recourse to
prayer and worship; and in consequence thereof rites and
means of purification were established, and the sufferer was
brought out of danger, alike for the present and the future.
Thus did madness secure, for him that was maddened aright
and possessed, deliverance from his troubles.
Here is, perhaps, an explanation of the rites of Eleusis. The
curse of infanticide, a “grievous malady and affliction” lay at
the heart of the Classical world. By madness were initiates
cured.
Proclus Diadochus in On the Signs of Divine Possession
breaks down the extraordinary variations in consciousness
experienced in the ancient world. “Inanimate objects are
often filled with Divine Light, like the statues which give
oracles under the inspiration of one of the Gods or Good
Daemons. So too, there are men who are possessed and
who receive a Divine Spirit. Some receive it spontaneously,
like those who are said to be ‘seized by God’, either at
particular times, or intermittently and on occasion. There are
others who work themselves up into a state of inspiration by
deliberate actions. When divine inspiration comes there are
some cases where the possessed become completely
besides themselves and unconscious of themselves.
However, there are others where, in some remarkable
manner, they maintain consciousness. In these cases it is
possible for the subject to work the Theagogy on himself,
and when he receives the inspiration, is aware of what it [i.e.
the Divine Power] does and what it says, and what he has to
do release the mechanism [of possession]. However, when
the loss of consciousness (ekstaseôs) is total, it is essential
that someone in full command of his faculties assists the
possessed".
From these authors, and there are many more, we see
descriptions of wide spread dissociation experienced by
individuals and groups in the ancient Mediterranean area.
Trauma, Trance and Healing
It is impossible to ascertain whether there is a difference in
quality or quantity of “mystical” states experienced in the
ancient world compared to contemporary times. Even in
contemporary America, mystical experiences seem to be
surprisingly common, at least those of the mild sort. Several
national random sample polls have investigated this
phenomenon over the last generation. In one of the best
known of these studies, Greely polled 1,460 Americans and
asked, “Have you ever felt as though you were very close to
a powerful, spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of
yourself.” Thirty-five percent responded “yes.”
Traumatic events serve as powerful activators of the
capacity for trance. This was demonstrated most recently in
the terrorist attacks on Manhattan and Washington D.C.
National commentators throughout the days following
referred to an entire nation “in a trance,” “in a daze,” or
describing the experience “as if we were dreaming.” If
infanticide and sexual trauma are major precipitators of a
dissociative trance state, then an increase of dissociation
and its manifestations would occur where abuse is greatest,
and decrease where abuse is lessened.
In normal consciousness, spontaneous trances can either
be internally aroused (e.g. daydreaming, fugue state) or
instigated by external cues (fear, seduction, intense
concentration.) The individual is generally unaware of the
shifting into and out of this kind of trance experience and
hence it can be unstructured and undisciplined.
Throughout time and cultures worldwide, religious rituals
appear to have served as preceptors for what appear to be
trance like states. As an example, a classic text by Gregory
Bateson and Margaret Mead, in a 1924 study of Bali, spoke of
the “schizoid” nature of the Balinese character due to the
rapid and culture wide ability of individuals in Bali to enter a
trance state.
Whatever the single or combined causes, it seems obvious
that over a period of over twenty centuries, the leaders of the
Mysteries chanced upon the emotional and dramatic forms
that would elicit these states. Welch in an ingenious
application of conditioning theory, pointed out that trance
induction begins with suggestions that are almost certain to
take effect and proceeds to ones that are more difficult.
We can note a progression from simple to complex ritual
behaviors in a participant in the Mysteries over time. An
initiate would undergo months of preparation beginning with
participation in the Lesser Mysteries. During that time, there
would be discussions and heightened expectations. A
sacred truce proclaimed approximately one month before
the Mysteries began reinforced these expectations, allowed
secure travel to Eleusis and marked the boundary of sacred
time.
On the road to Eleusis, the ecstatic procession of the god
Iacchos would precipitate the first dramatic experience of
altered consciousness. The initiate would have been
conditioned and reinforced into suggestive absorption of a
complex of beliefs that constituted the sole, exclusive or
totally dominating object of consciousness resulting in
ecstasy.
The predisposition an initiate would have would be
dramatically influenced by the set and setting of the
ceremonies. The dream like quality of the experience was
enhanced by the fact that most of the group activities of the
Mysteries took place at dusk and during night. A pre-
electric, primarily agricultural society member’s usual day
went from sunrise to sunset.
On the fourth night, the initiates meditated on Askleipios, the
god of healing, whose sleep incubation temples were famed
throughout the classical world. Perhaps falling asleep,
watching the Milky Way swirl above them, the initiates
awaited a dream oracle that would bring healing, the first
movement into an altered state. The fifth night, immediately
before the initiation, was one of high expectations. Initiates
participated in a raucous daylong journey from Athens to
Eleusis. It was an exciting journey where they called out
“Iacchos!!! Iacchos!!!”, a name of a god that symbolized
ecstatic transport. It was a day that was physically
demanding and emotionally inspiring, that left initiates
feeling enthused, in its original meaning, filled with a god.
Suidas notes that Iacchos means ‘a certain day’ ‘a certain
song’ but he puts, first, what is the root diea of Iacchos, he is
‘Dionysos at the breast.’ He is of the cradle, whom, year after
year, on Parnassos, the Thiades wakened to new life.
Again, the image of infancy and new life is at the forefront.
The initiates would have been touched deeply by the highly
emotionally charged atmosphere of the Mysteries where the
Group Fantasy of sexual trauma and infanticide were
enacted. As both survivors, and potential perpetrators of
sexual trauma and infanticide, we can assume that nearly all
initiates had suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder.
The chaotic experience that marked participation in the
Mysteries would have exacerbated this. Herman states, “the
alterations of consciousness…are the third cardinal
symptom of PTSD…and similar to hypnotic trance states.
They share the same features of surrender of voluntary
action, suspension of initiative and critical judgment,
subjective detachment or calm, enhanced perception of
imagery, altered sensation, including numbness and
analgesia, and distortion of reality, including
depersonalization, derealization and change in the sense of
time. While the heightened perceptions occurring during
traumatic events resemble the phenomena of hypnotic
absorption, the numbing symptoms resemble the
complementary phenomena of hypnotic dissociation.
Social and cultural expectations would also condition
initiates to behave according to group norms. By engaging
in rituals that enacted the group fantasy, initiates could recall
and work through experiences previously blocked out of
awareness but which continued to exert negative
influences.
In a society that condoned infanticide and exposure, a
sufferer from compulsions and prohibitions would behave
as if s/he were dominated by a sense of guilt, of which,
however, s/he knows nothing. This may, in every sense, be
called an unconscious sense of guilt. While an individual
exhibiting these symptoms is unpredictable, social control of
a crowd may have offered more predictability.
Benjamin Karney, building on the work of Kurt Lewin and
others, developed a new model on crowd behavior. This
consists of four major points:
1. Weaken the power of authority.
2. Establish a competing impulse (in many cases, people
have reasons to feel angry, people generally have
transgressive impulses.)
3. Strengthen the competing impulse
4. Triggers The first person takes a risk, the hundredth
person does not.
Anyone who has studied Classical Greek Religion and
society must be struck by the oddly harmonious interplay of
two apparently conflicting impulses of reason and the manic
impulse most clearly seen in festivals and orgia. Karney’s
model of crowd behavior explains the transition well.
1. During the Eleusinian Mysteries, the power of authority
was most notably weakened when the initiates crossed the
bridge over the river Cephisus. Hooded men stood atop the
bridge and hurled insults at the wealthy and powerful of the
time to the vast amusement of the crowd.
2. The competing impulse was established on the fifth
day, on the glorious pompe to Eleusis, where the entire
crowd was whipped into an ecstatic frenzy that was followed
by all night dancing.
3. This impulse was strengthened throughout the period
leading to (and including) the days of initiation when they
were lead into group exercises of the group fantasy that
became increasingly manic.
4. The trigger for the ecstasy, I believe, was the first
person who exclaimed, as did Hercules, “I have seen Kore!”
The result of this working through appears to have resulted
both in a sense of cathartic relief, and often ecstasy. The
therapeutic potential of mainly spontaneous mystical
experiences has been noted in relationship to threats to life,
solitary ordeals, unresolved grief and posttraumatic stress
disorders.
There were many influences on the initiate: religious
symbolism; group effects on crowd behavior; working
through of traumatic experience. These combined to form a
unique constellation of events channeling the initiates’
attention and resulting in a complete ideational absorption
that acquired a remarkable persistency. The initiate
underwent an extraordinary enhancement in point of clarity
and intensity and merged into an ecstatic rapture or
absorption. One can suppose that like participants in
Cardena’s (1996) study, initiates would experience
aftereffects such as spontaneous reports of timelessness,
bright light, a sense of oneness with the world, and profound
peace.
Modern Theories of Trauma and Recovery Bear Out the
Insights Of the Leaders of the Mysteries
Judith Herman has conducted exemplary research in the
areas of trauma and recovery. She maintains the
fundamental stages of recovery are establishing safety,
reconstructing the trauma story, and restoring the
connection between survivors and their community.” When
we review the sequence of the Mysteries, we find that each
of these conditions is met. Each initiate first took part in the
Lesser Mysteries, in the early Spring. Each had a
mystagogue, a friend, a leader who assisted the initiate in
preparation. Although the initiation itself had aspects that
were fearsome, it all took place within the sacred space of
the sanctuary.
The sacred drama of the abduction of Persephone, and
Demeter’s frantic search for her were acted out, quite
probably with the initiates participating in physically and
emotionally demanding activities. At the conclusion of
initiation, initiates found themselves in a new structure, one
where they could refer to other initiates as “brother” and
“sister.” A new family structure was created. In this way,
initiates are lead to a recovery based upon the
empowerment of the survivor and the creation of new
relationships.
Fantasy Analysis of Selected Documents Relating to
Eleusinian Mysteries
Fantasy Analysis is a method developed by Lloyd De Mause
to discover the underlying content of the Group Fantasy
preserved in historical documents. A fantasy analysis of
three documents relating to the Eleusinian Mysteries
brought forth the following results:
The first is the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
heart…father…mother…daughters…death…dark…eyes…so
n…child…bosom…anger…grief…gloom…fear…fire…cry
The second sample comes from Apuleus’ novel, The Golden
Ass in which the hero of the story describes an initiation into
the Rite of Isis. There is strong scholarly support for the idea
that the Eleusinian Mysteries were initially the Mysteries of
Isis. In the Graeco-Roman world, Isis was identified with
Demeter. This sample reveals, I believe, the fear of initiates
in revealing the content of the Mysteries.
ear...tongue...guilt...daring...racked...longing...torture...
anguish...death...threshold (no images after)
The last sample comes from an opponent of the Mysteries,
Clement of Alexandria, considered to be one of the Fathers
of the Church. In his Exhortation to the Greeks, Clement
seeks to reveal the content of all of the Mystery Religions.
An analysis brings out
Mysteries…Persephone…Demeter…initiated…Zeus…night…
orgies
This reflects to me, the real secret, the overturning of the
powers that be, to the extent where Zeus, father of the Gods,
approaches Persephone and Demeter for initiation.
CONCLUSION
Can PsychoHistory illuminate the Eleusinian Mysteries?
Over the years, De Mause has offered evidence on the
universal mistreatment of children through the ages and
cultures. Contemporary psychiatry has delineated the
dissociative response to abuse. Fantasy Analysis of
classical documents and the psychological/ philosophical/
historical writings of ancient Greece reveal the dissociative
states common to people of that era.
The experience and description of initiates resemble that of
persons traumatized and recovered from trauma. De Mause
predicted that religious movements would be among the first
to benefit from psychogenic theory. A society that western
civilization looks back as “golden,” we find afflicted with the
trauma and abuse. Within the Eleusinian Mysteries, we find
this trauma restaged in a religious ritual that captured the
emotions and imagination of entire civilizations for
millennia.
Even though the rituals were successful in discharging pent
up emotional trauma, the initial preceptors of the trauma
remained. In the myth contained within the Homeric Hymn,
Demeter’s wrath was sufficient to temporarily bring her
daughter back to her for several seasons each year.
However, it was not a permanent solution. Each winter the
trauma was renewed, Demeter’s wrath reawakened. The
skies turned grey. The ground turned hard. The wind grew
chill and the earth ceased its bounty.
Todd Swanson, M.P.A., M.A., lived overseas for nearly a
decade, counseling in South East Asia and humanitarian
relief with refugees in former Yugoslavia. He may be
contacted at toddswanson@netscape.net.
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Can Psychohistory Illuminate the Mysteries of Eleusis?
Todd Swanson, MPA, MA
So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of
anything by history.
Plutarch: Life of Pericles
A Skeptic’s Query
Picture the disciplines of history and psychology as great
rivers cascading down the timelines of human existence.
One can vividly imagine the turbulence generated at their
confluence. This image represents the tumult that has
characterized the field of psychohistory since its early
twentieth century origins.
A skeptic might ask: If twenty-first century science is unable
to fully determine the cause of an action of an individual or
group in modern America, how can one hope to explain
actions of groups in Greece, eight centuries before the birth
of Christ?
Let’s amplify the skeptic’s concern. We are separated, s/he
may insist by time, culture, language and experience. We
may have written documents, but do we understand what
the words meant when they were written? We may have
access to visual arts, but do gestures and symbols
contained within convey the same meaning over thousands
of years? Lastly, even if one could dutifully trace the
etymology of a word, or development of a symbol over time,
how can one discern meaning of an event purposefully
hidden, whose history is lost or at best hidden in shadows?
This precise situation faces the person who studies the
greatest of classical religious movements: the Eleusinian
Mysteries. What we know of this cult born in Eleusis are
often mere fragments bracketed with silence, warnings, and
somewhat suspect accounts of apologists. Adherents to the
cult were bound by silence; opponents to the cult generally
did not participate in it. An example of the former is the
Roman Emperor Julian (known as “the Apostate”), who
attempted to revive Greek and Roman religion and ritual after
the triumph of Christianity. He pondered: “Ought I to say
something on this subject also? And shall I write about
things not to be spoken of and divulge what ought not to be
divulged? Shall I utter the unutterable?” An extreme
example of the latter is Diagoras of Melitos who is said to
have told everyone the secret of Eleusis making it seem
unimportant. Sadly, although Diagoras shouted in the
marketplace, his words were never quoted in the ancient
writings.
Aristotle wrote the Mysteries contained “not a lesson to
learn, but an experience to undergo and a condition into
which they (the initiates) must be brought, while they are
becoming fit (for revelation”). In another place describing
the cathartic cures of drama, Aristotle describes the results
of initiation: “All who use these rites experience release
mixed with joy.”
The historian Plutarch noted the similarity of the Greek verbs
teleutan (to die) and teleishai (to be initiated). He observed
that people who die and people who are initiated undergo
comparable transformations.
The Experience Described
Revealing the Mysteries was considered an act of impiety
punishable by death. This accounts for classical authors’
reticence on this matter. One method of obtaining a general
sense of the experience is to assemble the accounts from a
variety of sources describing the Mysteries. This is perilous
because these accounts are disconnected by hundreds of
years. However, taking this leap, the following description
coalesces. The initiates’ testimony speak of the Mysteries as
“the most frightening and most resplendent.”
Imagine a multitude gathering two thousand years ago. As
dusk falls, thousands of torches blaze under star strewn
skies. Suddenly, those gathered are thrust into a frenetic
dance. Loud cries punctuate the din of stamping feet. They
push and jostle each other amid tumult and shouting. The
initiates wander, and run about in circles over uncertain
roads. So much dust rises from this human stampede that
from miles away an army mistakes the dust cloud for an
opposing army on the march. Almost violently, the initiates
try to gain entrance to the great hall of initiation. Night falls.
Suddenly a gong sounds. An enormous burst of fire fills the
sky. The initiates experience the most bloodcurdling
sensations of horror and the most enthusiastic ecstasy of
joy; then, just before the end, there are all kinds of terrors,
with shivering, trembling, sweating, and utter amazement.
Filled with horror and astonishment, initiates are seized with
loneliness and total perplexity. Unable to move a step
forward, they are at a loss to find the entrance to the way that
leads to where they aspire. Filled with horror and
astonishment, initiates able to find their way thrill with
rapture.” A goddess appears. The initiates enter clean and
verdant meadows, where gentle voices, choric dances, and
the majesty of holy sounds and sacred visions surround.
Looking down upon the uninitiated and unpurified crowd
below in the mud and fog, trampling itself down and
crowded together, initiates are unable to believe in the
blessings that lie beyond.” The metanoia and conversion
that results leave the initiates feeling “thrice blessed”
because “Only for them is there life; all the rest suffer an evil
lot.” Mystic views abound, along with strange sounds.
Darkness and light appear in sudden changes. Beauty
shone bright amidst these visions. “The thing is great, it is
mystical,” the initiates proclaim. At the conclusion, the
initiate “came out of the mystery hall feeling like a stranger.”
Genesis of a Cult
Within the classical world of Greece and Rome, the
Eleusinian Mysteries were the largest and most famous of
the Mystery Cults. Burkert defined the Mystery Religions as
“initiation rituals of a voluntary, personal, and secret
character that aimed at a change of mind through experience
of the sacred.” Begun as a local cult over three thousand
years ago in the city of Eleusis, a day’s walk from Athens, the
Eleusinian Mysteries presented an intense family drama.
Held annually in late September- early October over a nine-
day period, the Mysteries were open to all who understood
the Greek language and were without, or purified from,
bloodguilt.
Participation in Groups
Until modern times, mass gatherings of people occurred
primarily in wars, revolutions and religious movements. The
original Olympic Games, an event in Classical times as
thoroughly sacred as athletic, drew up to fifty-thousand
participants, vastly larger than the populations of most city-
states of the period. The Eleusinian Mysteries rivaled this
concentration of humanity.
In the contemporary world, why are sports stadiums packed
with spectators who pay enormous sums, the vast majority
of whom could better see and follow the game watching on
TV? The answer lies partly in the excitement and immediacy
of the crowd that generates and channels powerful,
stimulating emotions.
There’s a connection between spectators in a modern
soccer stadium, the original Olympic games straddling the
border between the sacred and the profane and mystery
cults such as Eleusis. At Eleusis, prayer was raised in the
midst of a glorious clamor. The sky pierced with shouts, the
earth threaded with activity. This generated movement
swirled like rushing water into a hollow, spinning, winding
and thrusting out to follow a course predetermined by all
events surrounding it.
Such would be the mood of the procession of Iacchos, one
of the great events that initiated the Mysteries. The
clamorous procession danced its fourteen miles from
Athens to Eleusis. Before the assembly entered the temple
precincts, a bridge wide enough only for a single person at a
time to pass had to be crossed. Atop it waited men with
heads covered. They hurled insults and pointed jabs on the
dignitaries and the well known within the crowd. This rough
jesting was an opportunity to puncture the pride of the
eminent. This had two effects: it evoked merriment from the
crowd and acted as a “leveler”, a coarse “democratization”
of the assembly. The crowd now entered a sacred space,
where nothing was quite the same as before.
Psychohistory postulates that groups are driven by
emotions and fantasies. Behaviors and motives are due
essentially to emotions felt by persons and/or emotions felt,
experienced and reacted to, in shared contexts such as
families or groups. These emotions are expressed in group
fantasies that develop over time, are shared and created by
individuals. DeMause states that traumas expressed by the
Group Fantasies are related to “our deepest fears” and that
these are “so intense and compelling that they take on a life
of their own.” According to DeMause, history, therefore, is a
dissociative disorder designed to help achieve homeostasis
by discharging increasing anxieties experienced in common
with others. This paper examines the ways the fears
expressed by the Homeric Hymn to Demeter relate to sexual
trauma and infanticide.
The Group Fantasy Portrayed in the Eleusinian Mysteries
In many ways, the stories of the gods of the Greeks and
Romans reflect a dream world expressing the emotional life
of citizens of the Classical World. A perfect example of this
is the group fantasy at the core of the Mysteries. The
Homeric Hymn to Demeter was put in its final form about 800
B.C. The Hymn describes how the god Hades, brother to
Zeus and Demeter, with Zeus’ permission, abducted Demeter’
s daughter.
The Maiden had been playing among the flowers when “the
wide-path earth yawned…and the lord, Host of Many, with
his immortal horses sprang out upon her…”(5-15) The
Maiden screamed as she was torn into the underworld.
Demeter heard her daughter’s screams. “Bitter pain seized
her heart and she…sped, like a wild-bird…seeking her child.
But no one would tell her the truth, neither god nor mortal
man… For nine days she wandered the earth with flaming
torches in her hands.” (40-50)
Her search was in vain. She came to the town of Eleusis and
assumed the form of an old woman. The King’s daughters
found her and brought her to the palace. There, the queen,
Metaneira, sensed Demeter is “nobly born” (215) and offered
her a job as nursemaid to her youngest son, Demophoon.
The Queen repeats a second time a passage which her
daughters had earlier cited: “But we humans endure the
gifts of the gods, even under grievous compulsion, for a
yoke lies upon our neck.” (216-220) The fact that this is the
only line which is repeated speaks to its importance. By day
Demeter anointed Demophoon with ambrosia, and at night
she would hide him like a brand in the heart of the fire. As a
result, Demophoon “grew beyond his age; for he was like
the gods face to face.” Demeter, by this magic, planned to
make Demophoon “deathless and unageing.” But the
Queen, one night saw Demeter place her child in the fire.
“She wailed and smote her two hips, because she feared for
her son and was greatly distraught in her heart.” (235-245)
Then Demeter drew Demophon from the fire, thrust him at
his mother's feet, and said: “Humans are short-sighted,
stupid, ignorant of the share of good or evil which is coming
to them. You, by your foolishness have hurt him beyond
curing. Let my witness be the oath of the gods sworn by the
intractable water of Styx, that I would have made your son
deathless and ageless all his days, and given him
imperishable honor. But now it is not possible to ward off
death and destruction. Still he will have imperishable honor
forever since he stood on my knees and slept in my arms; in
due season, as the years pass around, the children of the
Eleusinians will conduct in his honor war and the terrible
battle-cry with each other for ever and ever.”(255-275).
She commanded the citizens of Eleusis to build her a
temple. After its completion “she caused a most dreadful
and cruel year for mankind over the all-nourishing earth; the
ground would not make the seed sprout, for rich crowned
Demeter kept it hid…She would have destroyed the whole
race of man with cruel famine and have robbed them who
dwell on Olympus of their glorious right of gifts and
sacrifices, had not Zeus perceived and marked this in his
heart.”(300-310) Zeus sent one god after another to placate
Demeter, unsuccessfully. Demeter vowed that “she would
never set foot on fragrant Olympus nor let fruit spring out of
the ground, until she beheld with her own eyes her own fair-
faced daughter.
Zeus relented and sent Hermes to Hades to release her
daughter “that her mother may see her with her own eyes
and cease from her dread anger with the immortals.” The
Maiden emerged from the earth. Her mother ran to her “like a
madwoman” and embraced her. The mother asked the
daughter if she had eaten anything while in hades, because
if she did, “you must go back again beneath the secret
places of the earth, there to dwell a third part of the seasons
each year.”(400)
The Eleusinian Group Fantasy as the Expression of Sexual
Trauma and Infanticide in Prehistoric and Classical
Civilizations of the Mediterranean
Why did this particular Group Fantasy resonate throughout
the ancient world? Life in classical and archaic times was
difficult. A harsh winter would foreshadow famine. War was
an ever-present threat. The victors watched their surplus
waste away. The losers faced death and slavery. Infanticide
and sexual abuse were rampant. This had a far broader
influence Greek society than is reflected in calculations or
arguments about numbers of infants actually exposed or
killed.
The theme of rape is explicit in the Homeric Hymn to
Demeter. The group fantasy appears to refer to the status of
women in Greek culture. In Athens there was a class of
women known as epikleroi. As Michael Grant maintains,
they were “assignable, compelled to marry their nearest
relative on their father’s side, in a fixed order of priority,
starting with his brother.” This clearly reflects the status of
Persephone. The fact that, as a result of Demeter’s anger,
she could escape her husband’s abode for nine months a
year represents a liberation unavailable to other women in
Greek culture literally removed from sight. The Mysteries,
though, were of supreme importance for both females and
males. Does an examination of the Hymn focusing on the
behavior of participants reveal a second, complementary
interpretation? I propose this embedded group fantasy
implicitly refers to the practice of child exposure and
infanticide.
Focusing on behavior, the action of the story is as follows:
A child plays alone. Someone swoops down, carries the
child away, and hides her underground. The mother begins
a frantic search. Inquiries are met with silence. A second
child is offered to the mother. This child she places in a fire.
The earth is cursed. Famine covers the land. Sacrifices
cease. Finally, the father relents. The daughter is brought
up from underground and reunited with the Mother.
Group fantasies are often conveyed by subliminal messages
rather than clear, overt language. Groups speak this
embedded language when they are in a group trance. On
the level of symbol and image, the method of exposure is
similar to what is depicted in the Hymn. Practiced
throughout the classical world, it was the most common
method of disposing of a child “not worth the rearing.” The
second century B.C. historian Polybius criticizes the
practice of child exposure as one of the causes of the
serious depopulation of Greece that occurred in the second
century B.C. In the Politics, Aristotle speaks of “the
offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other sort
who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in
secret, so that no one will know what has become of them.”
Aristotle prefaces his comments on infanticide and possible
objections to the practice with the absolute requirement that
no deformed child shall be reared. In a metaphor used in
the Republic (460c) Plato speaks of something maimed or
mutilated that should be hidden away in some secret place.
“The offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other
sort who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in
secret.”
A child, when alone, could be seized and taken away. The
mother in her grief would search for it. Although this
happened in front of everyone, no information on the child’s
location would be given.
In the Hymn, Demeter attempts to give the king’s son
immortality by burning off his mortality in the fire. This may
have reminded the initiates participating in the ceremonies of
the amphidromea, (the “walking around” the hearth) a rite
that took place five days after a child was born. The child
was carried around the fireplace, and through this ritual was
accepted in the family. The ritual was not conducted if the
child was to be exposed.
Part of the joy and relief experienced by the initiates at
Eleusis may relate to their selection or adoption (and
therefore protection) by Demeter. On the fifth day of the
Mysteries, the initiates arrived at Eleusis in a joyous
procession and began the initiation ceremonies. An
inscription at the entrance to the sanctuary of Meter at
Phaistos in Crete proclaims that the goddess is offering “a
great miracle” to those “who guarantee their lineage,” but is
averse to “those who wrongly force themselves into the race
of the gods.” During the initiation, there was a special
function of the “boy who is initiated into the Mysteries from
the hearth of Athens.” He seems to have been a young boy
(in later years it could also have been a girl), who belonged
to one of the aristocratic and important families of Athens
and was elected to be initiated at the expense of the State.
The actual penalization of exposure came in 374 A.D. from
the Christian Emperor Valentinian, twenty-five years before
the suppression of the Eleusinian Mysteries that were then
at their height of influence. Some fragments of evidence
from the time of the Severi suggest that pagan disapproval
had already reached considerable proportions.
The exposure of infants resulting in death was widespread
in many parts of the Roman Empire as well. In the
foundation myth of ancient Rome, the god of war raped a
vestal virgin. She gave birth to twins (Romulus and Remus)
and abandoned them. They are found and suckled by a she-
wolf. This image of protection by a wolf may have grown up
to compensate for the parental fear of what may happen to a
child that was exposed. DeMause points out that the
“parental holocaust of children that has been the central
cause of violence and misery throughout history.”
It was precisely this passion that consumed Demeter when
her daughter was taken away that initiates repeated in the
festival. It was this passion, and its katharsis, that lead to the
visions and joy that thousands experienced every year. As
Arbman points out, certain very acute religious crises –
states of inner duress, tension, conflict, struggle and
anguish, clamoring for a solution frequently find their release
in hallucinatory experiences.
Enthusiasm, Possession and Altered States of
Consciousness
It was a different world. Shape shifting gods walked the
earth. Oracles were consulted. Vapors issuing from the
earth threw priestesses into prophetic frenzy. The future
was divined from careful examination of the flight of birds,
the examination of entrails of sacrificial animals, the
whispering of wind through the leaves of trees, the random
chattering of children. Manic gods entered the hearts of
individuals and crowds and imposed their will.
These behaviors, so weird and abnormal, caught the interest
of philosophers. Plato and Aristotle offer a somewhat
systematic rendition of human psychology. Both dwell in a
number of areas on mania and enthusiasm (literally
“entering of the god”) on behavior. For example, in the
Phaedrus, Plato describes the effects of a curse and how the
madness it caused led to recovery:
When grievous maladies and afflictions have beset certain
families by reason of some ancient sin, mania has appeared
amongst them, and breaking out into prophecy has secured
relief by finding the means thereto, namely by recourse to
prayer and worship; and in consequence thereof rites and
means of purification were established, and the sufferer was
brought out of danger, alike for the present and the future.
Thus did madness secure, for him that was maddened aright
and possessed, deliverance from his troubles.
Here is, perhaps, an explanation of the rites of Eleusis. The
curse of infanticide, a “grievous malady and affliction” lay at
the heart of the Classical world. By madness were initiates
cured.
Proclus Diadochus in On the Signs of Divine Possession
breaks down the extraordinary variations in consciousness
experienced in the ancient world. “Inanimate objects are
often filled with Divine Light, like the statues which give
oracles under the inspiration of one of the Gods or Good
Daemons. So too, there are men who are possessed and
who receive a Divine Spirit. Some receive it spontaneously,
like those who are said to be ‘seized by God’, either at
particular times, or intermittently and on occasion. There are
others who work themselves up into a state of inspiration by
deliberate actions. When divine inspiration comes there are
some cases where the possessed become completely
besides themselves and unconscious of themselves.
However, there are others where, in some remarkable
manner, they maintain consciousness. In these cases it is
possible for the subject to work the Theagogy on himself,
and when he receives the inspiration, is aware of what it [i.e.
the Divine Power] does and what it says, and what he has to
do release the mechanism [of possession]. However, when
the loss of consciousness (ekstaseôs) is total, it is essential
that someone in full command of his faculties assists the
possessed".
From these authors, and there are many more, we see
descriptions of wide spread dissociation experienced by
individuals and groups in the ancient Mediterranean area.
Trauma, Trance and Healing
It is impossible to ascertain whether there is a difference in
quality or quantity of “mystical” states experienced in the
ancient world compared to contemporary times. Even in
contemporary America, mystical experiences seem to be
surprisingly common, at least those of the mild sort. Several
national random sample polls have investigated this
phenomenon over the last generation. In one of the best
known of these studies, Greely polled 1,460 Americans and
asked, “Have you ever felt as though you were very close to
a powerful, spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of
yourself.” Thirty-five percent responded “yes.”
Traumatic events serve as powerful activators of the
capacity for trance. This was demonstrated most recently in
the terrorist attacks on Manhattan and Washington D.C.
National commentators throughout the days following
referred to an entire nation “in a trance,” “in a daze,” or
describing the experience “as if we were dreaming.” If
infanticide and sexual trauma are major precipitators of a
dissociative trance state, then an increase of dissociation
and its manifestations would occur where abuse is greatest,
and decrease where abuse is lessened.
In normal consciousness, spontaneous trances can either
be internally aroused (e.g. daydreaming, fugue state) or
instigated by external cues (fear, seduction, intense
concentration.) The individual is generally unaware of the
shifting into and out of this kind of trance experience and
hence it can be unstructured and undisciplined.
Throughout time and cultures worldwide, religious rituals
appear to have served as preceptors for what appear to be
trance like states. As an example, a classic text by Gregory
Bateson and Margaret Mead, in a 1924 study of Bali, spoke of
the “schizoid” nature of the Balinese character due to the
rapid and culture wide ability of individuals in Bali to enter a
trance state.
Whatever the single or combined causes, it seems obvious
that over a period of over twenty centuries, the leaders of the
Mysteries chanced upon the emotional and dramatic forms
that would elicit these states. Welch in an ingenious
application of conditioning theory, pointed out that trance
induction begins with suggestions that are almost certain to
take effect and proceeds to ones that are more difficult.
We can note a progression from simple to complex ritual
behaviors in a participant in the Mysteries over time. An
initiate would undergo months of preparation beginning with
participation in the Lesser Mysteries. During that time, there
would be discussions and heightened expectations. A
sacred truce proclaimed approximately one month before
the Mysteries began reinforced these expectations, allowed
secure travel to Eleusis and marked the boundary of sacred
time.
On the road to Eleusis, the ecstatic procession of the god
Iacchos would precipitate the first dramatic experience of
altered consciousness. The initiate would have been
conditioned and reinforced into suggestive absorption of a
complex of beliefs that constituted the sole, exclusive or
totally dominating object of consciousness resulting in
ecstasy.
The predisposition an initiate would have would be
dramatically influenced by the set and setting of the
ceremonies. The dream like quality of the experience was
enhanced by the fact that most of the group activities of the
Mysteries took place at dusk and during night. A pre-
electric, primarily agricultural society member’s usual day
went from sunrise to sunset.
On the fourth night, the initiates meditated on Askleipios, the
god of healing, whose sleep incubation temples were famed
throughout the classical world. Perhaps falling asleep,
watching the Milky Way swirl above them, the initiates
awaited a dream oracle that would bring healing, the first
movement into an altered state. The fifth night, immediately
before the initiation, was one of high expectations. Initiates
participated in a raucous daylong journey from Athens to
Eleusis. It was an exciting journey where they called out
“Iacchos!!! Iacchos!!!”, a name of a god that symbolized
ecstatic transport. It was a day that was physically
demanding and emotionally inspiring, that left initiates
feeling enthused, in its original meaning, filled with a god.
Suidas notes that Iacchos means ‘a certain day’ ‘a certain
song’ but he puts, first, what is the root diea of Iacchos, he is
‘Dionysos at the breast.’ He is of the cradle, whom, year after
year, on Parnassos, the Thiades wakened to new life.
Again, the image of infancy and new life is at the forefront.
The initiates would have been touched deeply by the highly
emotionally charged atmosphere of the Mysteries where the
Group Fantasy of sexual trauma and infanticide were
enacted. As both survivors, and potential perpetrators of
sexual trauma and infanticide, we can assume that nearly all
initiates had suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder.
The chaotic experience that marked participation in the
Mysteries would have exacerbated this. Herman states, “the
alterations of consciousness…are the third cardinal
symptom of PTSD…and similar to hypnotic trance states.
They share the same features of surrender of voluntary
action, suspension of initiative and critical judgment,
subjective detachment or calm, enhanced perception of
imagery, altered sensation, including numbness and
analgesia, and distortion of reality, including
depersonalization, derealization and change in the sense of
time. While the heightened perceptions occurring during
traumatic events resemble the phenomena of hypnotic
absorption, the numbing symptoms resemble the
complementary phenomena of hypnotic dissociation.
Social and cultural expectations would also condition
initiates to behave according to group norms. By engaging
in rituals that enacted the group fantasy, initiates could recall
and work through experiences previously blocked out of
awareness but which continued to exert negative
influences.
In a society that condoned infanticide and exposure, a
sufferer from compulsions and prohibitions would behave
as if s/he were dominated by a sense of guilt, of which,
however, s/he knows nothing. This may, in every sense, be
called an unconscious sense of guilt. While an individual
exhibiting these symptoms is unpredictable, social control of
a crowd may have offered more predictability.
Benjamin Karney, building on the work of Kurt Lewin and
others, developed a new model on crowd behavior. This
consists of four major points:
1. Weaken the power of authority.
2. Establish a competing impulse (in many cases, people
have reasons to feel angry, people generally have
transgressive impulses.)
3. Strengthen the competing impulse
4. Triggers The first person takes a risk, the hundredth
person does not.
Anyone who has studied Classical Greek Religion and
society must be struck by the oddly harmonious interplay of
two apparently conflicting impulses of reason and the manic
impulse most clearly seen in festivals and orgia. Karney’s
model of crowd behavior explains the transition well.
1. During the Eleusinian Mysteries, the power of authority
was most notably weakened when the initiates crossed the
bridge over the river Cephisus. Hooded men stood atop the
bridge and hurled insults at the wealthy and powerful of the
time to the vast amusement of the crowd.
2. The competing impulse was established on the fifth
day, on the glorious pompe to Eleusis, where the entire
crowd was whipped into an ecstatic frenzy that was followed
by all night dancing.
3. This impulse was strengthened throughout the period
leading to (and including) the days of initiation when they
were lead into group exercises of the group fantasy that
became increasingly manic.
4. The trigger for the ecstasy, I believe, was the first
person who exclaimed, as did Hercules, “I have seen Kore!”
The result of this working through appears to have resulted
both in a sense of cathartic relief, and often ecstasy. The
therapeutic potential of mainly spontaneous mystical
experiences has been noted in relationship to threats to life,
solitary ordeals, unresolved grief and posttraumatic stress
disorders.
There were many influences on the initiate: religious
symbolism; group effects on crowd behavior; working
through of traumatic experience. These combined to form a
unique constellation of events channeling the initiates’
attention and resulting in a complete ideational absorption
that acquired a remarkable persistency. The initiate
underwent an extraordinary enhancement in point of clarity
and intensity and merged into an ecstatic rapture or
absorption. One can suppose that like participants in
Cardena’s (1996) study, initiates would experience
aftereffects such as spontaneous reports of timelessness,
bright light, a sense of oneness with the world, and profound
peace.
Modern Theories of Trauma and Recovery Bear Out the
Insights Of the Leaders of the Mysteries
Judith Herman has conducted exemplary research in the
areas of trauma and recovery. She maintains the
fundamental stages of recovery are establishing safety,
reconstructing the trauma story, and restoring the
connection between survivors and their community.” When
we review the sequence of the Mysteries, we find that each
of these conditions is met. Each initiate first took part in the
Lesser Mysteries, in the early Spring. Each had a
mystagogue, a friend, a leader who assisted the initiate in
preparation. Although the initiation itself had aspects that
were fearsome, it all took place within the sacred space of
the sanctuary.
The sacred drama of the abduction of Persephone, and
Demeter’s frantic search for her were acted out, quite
probably with the initiates participating in physically and
emotionally demanding activities. At the conclusion of
initiation, initiates found themselves in a new structure, one
where they could refer to other initiates as “brother” and
“sister.” A new family structure was created. In this way,
initiates are lead to a recovery based upon the
empowerment of the survivor and the creation of new
relationships.
Fantasy Analysis of Selected Documents Relating to
Eleusinian Mysteries
Fantasy Analysis is a method developed by Lloyd De Mause
to discover the underlying content of the Group Fantasy
preserved in historical documents. A fantasy analysis of
three documents relating to the Eleusinian Mysteries
brought forth the following results:
The first is the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
heart…father…mother…daughters…death…dark…eyes…so
n…child…bosom…anger…grief…gloom…fear…fire…cry
The second sample comes from Apuleus’ novel, The Golden
Ass in which the hero of the story describes an initiation into
the Rite of Isis. There is strong scholarly support for the idea
that the Eleusinian Mysteries were initially the Mysteries of
Isis. In the Graeco-Roman world, Isis was identified with
Demeter. This sample reveals, I believe, the fear of initiates
in revealing the content of the Mysteries.
ear...tongue...guilt...daring...racked...longing...torture...
anguish...death...threshold (no images after)
The last sample comes from an opponent of the Mysteries,
Clement of Alexandria, considered to be one of the Fathers
of the Church. In his Exhortation to the Greeks, Clement
seeks to reveal the content of all of the Mystery Religions.
An analysis brings out
Mysteries…Persephone…Demeter…initiated…Zeus…night…
orgies
This reflects to me, the real secret, the overturning of the
powers that be, to the extent where Zeus, father of the Gods,
approaches Persephone and Demeter for initiation.
CONCLUSION
Can PsychoHistory illuminate the Eleusinian Mysteries?
Over the years, De Mause has offered evidence on the
universal mistreatment of children through the ages and
cultures. Contemporary psychiatry has delineated the
dissociative response to abuse. Fantasy Analysis of
classical documents and the psychological/ philosophical/
historical writings of ancient Greece reveal the dissociative
states common to people of that era.
The experience and description of initiates resemble that of
persons traumatized and recovered from trauma. De Mause
predicted that religious movements would be among the first
to benefit from psychogenic theory. A society that western
civilization looks back as “golden,” we find afflicted with the
trauma and abuse. Within the Eleusinian Mysteries, we find
this trauma restaged in a religious ritual that captured the
emotions and imagination of entire civilizations for
millennia.
Even though the rituals were successful in discharging pent
up emotional trauma, the initial preceptors of the trauma
remained. In the myth contained within the Homeric Hymn,
Demeter’s wrath was sufficient to temporarily bring her
daughter back to her for several seasons each year.
However, it was not a permanent solution. Each winter the
trauma was renewed, Demeter’s wrath reawakened. The
skies turned grey. The ground turned hard. The wind grew
chill and the earth ceased its bounty.
Todd Swanson, M.P.A., M.A., lived overseas for nearly a
decade, counseling in South East Asia and humanitarian
relief with refugees in former Yugoslavia. He may be
contacted at toddswanson@netscape.net.
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| The following article was first printed in the Journal of Psychohistory Volume 29, No. 4, Spring 2002, pp407-424 |
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