The Mystical Experience of Initiates








Apparitions

Just as persons who are being initiated into the Mysteries
throng together at the outset amid tumult and shouting, and
jostle against one another but when the holy rites are being
performed and disclosed the people are immediately
attentive in awe and silence, so too at the beginning of
philosophy: about its portals also you will see great tumult
and talking and boldness, as some boorishly and violently
try to jostle their way towards the repute it bestows; but he
who has succeeded in getting inside, and has seen a great
light, as though a shrine were opened, adopts another
bearing of silence and amazement, and "humble and orderly
attends upon" reason as upon a god.
(Plutarch, Progress in Virtue 81e)









Thus death and initiation closely correspond; even the
words (teleutan and teleisthai) correspond, and so do the
things. At first there are wanderings, and toilsome running
about in circles and journeys through the dark over
uncertain roads and culs de sac; then, just before the end,
there are all kinds of terrors, with shivering, trembling,
sweating, and utter amazement. After this, a strange and
wonderful light meets the wanderer; he is admitted into
clean and verdant meadows, where he discerns gentle
voices, and choric dances, and the majesty of holy sounds
and sacred visions. Here the now fully initiated is free, and
walks at liberty like a crowned and dedicated victim, joining
in the revelry; he is the companion of pure and holy men,
and looks down upon the uninitiated and unpurified crowd
here below in the mud and fog, trampling itself down and
crowded together, though of death remaining still sunk in its
evils, unable to believe in the blessings that lie beyond. That
the wedding and close union of the soul with the body is a
thing really contrary to nature may clearly be seen from all
this.  
(The passage from Plutarch's essay On the Soul survives
today only because it was quoted by Stobaeus (Florigelium
120). Grant, F. C. Hellenistic Religions p. 148)








"I was initiated long ago (or: elsewhere). Lock up Eleusis,
(Hierophant,) and put the fire out, Dadouchos. Deny me the
holy night! I have already been initiated into more authentic
mysteries.... (I have beheld) the fire, whence (...and) I have
seen the Kore.
(Kerenyi Eleusis p. 83-84)









Now the details of the initiatory rite are guarded among the
matters not to be divulged and are communicated to the
initiates alone; but the fame has traveled wide of how these
gods appear to mankind and bring unexpected aid to those
initiates of theirs who call upon them in the midst of perils.
The claim is also made that men who have taken part in the
mysteries become both more pious and more just and better
in every respect than they were before. And this is the
reason, we are told, why the most famous both of the
ancient heroes and of the demi-gods were eagerly desirous
of taking part in the initiatory rite; and in fact Jason and the
Dioscuri, and Heracles and Orpheus as well, after their
initiation attained success in all the campaigns they
undertook, because these gods appeared to them.
(Diodorus Siculus V, 48, 49)










It is reported that, in the middle of the fight, a great flame
rose into the air above the city of Eleusis, and that sounds
and voices were heard through all the Thriasian plain, as far
as the sea, sounding like a number of men accompanying
and escorting the mystic Iacchus, and that a mist seemed to
form and rise from the place from whence the sounds came,
and, passing forward, fell upon the galleys. Others believed
that they saw apparitions, in the shape of armed men,
reaching out their hands from the island of Aegina before
Grecian galleys; and supposed they were the Aeacidae,
whom they had invoked to their aid before the battle. The
first man that took a ship was Lycomedes the Athenian,
captain of the galley, who cut down its ensign, and
dedicated it to Apollo the Laurel-crowned. And as the
Persians fought in a narrow arm of the sea, and could bring
but part of their fleet to fight, and fell foul of one another, the
Greeks thus equaled them in strength and fought with them
till the evening forced them back, and obtained, as says
Simonides, that noble and famous victory, than which
neither amongst the Greek nor barbarians was ever known
more glorious exploit on the seas; by the joint valor, indeed,
and zeal of all who fought, but by the wisdom and sagacity
of Themistocles.
(Plutarch Themistocles 15)








In the Eleusinian mysteries, likewise, the initiated are
ordered to abstain from domestic birds, from fishes and
beans, pomegranates and apples, which fruits are as
equally defiling to the touch, as a woman recently delivered,
and a dead body But whoever is acquainted with the nature
of divinely-luminous appearances knows also on what
account it is requisite to abstain from all birds, and
especially for him who hastens to be liberated from
terrestrial concerns, and to be established with the celestial
Gods.
(Porphyry On Abstinence From Animal Food IV, 16)








Porphyrus gives us a description of initiation which
includes legomena and seems to indicate also much of the
content and feeling of the Epopteia.  Crowned with myrtle,
along with the other initiates we enter the entrance hall of
the temple, still blind, but the hierophant who is within will
soon open our eyes. But first, for nothing is to be done in
haste, let us wash in the holy water. We are led before the
hierophant. From a book of stone, he reads to us things
which we must not divulge, under penalty of death. Let us
say only that they are in harmony with the place and
circumstance. You would laugh, perhaps, if you heard them
outside the temple, but here you have no desire to laugh as
you listen to the words of the elder (for he is always old) and
as you look at the exposed symbols. And you are far from
laughing when, by her special language and signs, by vivid
sparkling of light and clouds piled upon clouds, Demeter
confirms everything that we have seen and heard from her
holy priest. Then, finally, the light of a serene wonder fills the
temple; we see the pure Elysian Fields; we hear the chorus
of the blessed ones. Now it is not merely through an
external appearance or through a philosophical
interpretation, but in fact and in reality that the hierophant
becomes the creator and the revelator of all things; the sun
is but his torchbearer, the moon, his helper of the altar, and
Hermes, his mystical messenger. But the last word has been
uttered: Knox Om Pax.
The ritual has been consummated, and we are seers forever.
(Schuré, Edouard The Great Initiates p. 406)








You ought to approach these matters in another way; the
thing is great, it is mystical, not common thing, nor is it given
to every man.
(Epictetus Discourses III, 21)








M: Then what will become of our Iacchus and Eumolpidae
and their impressive mysteries, if we abolish nocturnal
rites? For we are composing laws not for the Roman people
in particular, but for all virtuous and stable nations.
A: I take it for granted that you make an exception of those
rites into which we ourselves have been initiated.
M: I will do so indeed. For among the many excellent and
indeed divine institutions which your Athens has brought
forth and contributed to human life, none, in my opinion, is
better than those mysteries. For by their means we have
been brought out of our barbarous and savage mode of life
and educated and refined to a state of civilization; and as
the rites are called "initiations," so in very truth we have
learned from them the beginnings of life, and have gained
the power not only to live happily, but also to die with a
better hope.
(Cicero Laws II, xiv, 36)









Fear and Awe

Within this hall, the mystics were made to experience the
most bloodcurdling sensations of horror and the most
enthusiastic ecstasy of joy. Aristeides










But their procedure is like Bacchic frenzy - like the leap of a
man mad, or possessed - the attainment of a goal without
running the race, a passing beyond reason without the
previous exercise of reasoning. For the sacred matter
(contemplation) is not like attention belonging to
knowledge, or an outlet of mind, nor is it like one thing in
one place and another in another. On the contrary - to
compare small and greater - it is like Aristotle's view that
men being initiated have not a lesson to learn, but an
experience to undergo and a condition into which they must
be brought, while they are becoming fit (for revelation).
(Synesius Dio 1133)










Entering now into the secret dome, he is filled with horror
and astonishment. He is seized with loneliness and total
perplexity; he is unable to move a step forward, and at a
loss to find the entrance to the way that leads to where he
aspires to, till the prophet or conductor lays open the
anteroom of the Temple.
(Themistius Orat. in Patrem. 50)










In the most sacred Mysteries before the scene of the mystic
visions, there is terror infused over the minds of the initiated.
(Proclus, Casavis The Greek Origins of Freemasonryp. 111)









When, under Pluto's semblance, Jove divine
Deceiv'd with guileful arts dark Proserpine.
Hence, partly black thy limbs and partly white,
From Pluto dark, from Jove ethereal bright
Thy color'd member, men by night inspire
When seen in spectred forms, with terrors dire;
Now darkly visible involved in night,
Perspicuous now they meet the fearful sight.
Terrestrial queen, expel wherever found
The soul's mad fears to earth's remotest bound;
With holy aspect on our incense shine,
And bless thy mystics, and rites divine.
(Taylor, Mystical Hymns of Orpheus.)








The result of soul and body commingled is the irrational or
the affective factor, whereas of mind and soul the
conjunction produces reason; and of these the former is
source of pleasure and pain, the latter of virtue and vice. In
the composition of these three factors earth furnishes the
body, the moon the soul, and the sun furnishes mind to man
for the purpose of his generation even as it furnishes light to
the moon herself. As to the death we die, one death reduces
man from three factors to two and another reduces him from
two to one; and the former takes place in the earth that
belongs to Demeter (wherefore "to make an end" is called
"to render one's life to her" and Athenians used in olden
times to call the dead "Demetrians"), the latter in the moon
that belongs to Persephone, and associated with the former
is Hermes the terrestrial, with the latter Hermes the celestial.
While the goddess here dissociates the soul from the body
swiftly and violently, Persephone gently and by slow
degrees detaches the mind from the soul and has therefore
been called "single-born" because the best part of man is
"born single" when separated off by her. Each of the two
separations naturally occurs in this fashion: All soul,
whether without mind or with it, when it has issued from the
body is destined to wander in the region between earth and
moon but not for an equal time. Unjust and licentious souls
pay penalties for their offenses; but the good soul must in
the gentlest part of the air, which they call "the meads of
Hades," pass a certain set time sufficient to purge and blow
away the pollution contracted from the body as from an evil
odor. Then, as if brought home from banishment abroad,
they savor joy most like that of initiates, which attended by
glad expectation is mingled with confusion and excitement.
For many, even as they are in the act of clinging to the
moon, she thrusts off and sweeps away; and some of those
souls too that are on the moon they see turning upside
down as if sinking again into the deep. Those that have got
up, however, and have found a firm footing first go about
like victors crowned with wreaths of feathers called
wreathes of steadfastness, because in life they had made
the irrational or affective element of the soul orderly and
tolerably tractable to reason; secondly, in appearance
resembling a ray of light but in respect of their nature, which
in the upper region is buoyant as it is here in ours,
resembling the ether about the moon, they get from it both
tension and strength as edged instruments get a temper, for
what laxness and diffuseness they still have is strengthened
and becomes firm and translucent. In consequence they are
nourished by any exhalation that reaches them, and
Heraclitus was right in saying: "Souls employ the sense of
smell in Hades."
(Plutarch The Face of the Moon 28)









Laughter
…but in the case of Demeter they preferred that time for the
sacrifice when the sowing of the corn is first begun, and for
a period of ten days they hold a festive gathering which
bears the name of this goddess and is most magnificent by
reason of the brilliance of their preparation for it, while in the
observance of it they imitate the ancient manner of life. And
it is their custom during these days to indulge in coarse
language as they associate one with another, the reason
being that by such coarseness the goddess, grieved though
she was of the Rape of Kore, burst into laughter.
(Diodorus Siculus V, 4)








I say nothing of the holy and awe-inspiring sanctuary of
Eleusis, "where tribes from earth's remotest confines seek
Initiation," and I pass over Samothrace and those "occult
mysteries which throngs of worshippers at dead of night in
forest covert deep do celebrate" Lemnos, since such
mysteries when interpreted and rationalized prove to have
more to do with natural science than with theology.
(Cicero De Natura Deorum I, 52)










Aeschylus FRAGMENT 214  “With bright flashes, the
torches’ might.”
The  The Mystical Experience
of the Initates
during the Eleusinian Mysteries as
Described by Classical Authors