What is the Sacred?
From the furthest recesses of human history — when the creative spark of humanity first manifested in paintings drawn with infinite care on the walls of caves, to stories told as night falls and the cool of the evening descends, when images and insights fly like sparks from a fire; from the time of rhythmic and ecstatic dances; from the birth of religion and philosophy when the susurration of mystery captured attention, when the realm of the holy and humanity seemed porous and touching — the Sacred has been an intrinsic part of human experience.
What is the Sacred? Is it objectively real — something external to the human world, something that enters the world — or is it a perception or an illusion, a mental phenomenon, a creation of theology, a construct of biology, an indication of neural misfires, or the phenomenological presence of supernatural being(s)?
If the Sacred is not real, what is the experience of the Sacred? How does this experience, testified by thousands, if not millions, turn hearts, create the metanoia of conversion, transform lives, and birth hope in the midst of despair-the promise of salvation in a world surrounded by evil, greed, lies, and terror?
Is the Sacred True?
This question lies at the heart of our exploration. To answer it, we must first grapple with the nature of truth in the context of the Sacred. The Sacred, by its very definition, transcends ordinary experience and eludes empirical measurement. It is not an object that can be dissected under a microscope or quantified in data. Yet, it exerts a profound influence on human lives, shaping cultures, inspiring art, and transforming individuals.
How might we know if the Sacred is true? The quest for this knowledge demands a methodology that can bridge the gap between the tangible and the intangible, the empirical and the experiential. In the context of this paper, which seeks to explicate the psychological alterations that may have occurred through initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries, we turn to a multidisciplinary approach-drawing from philosophy, psychology, phenomenology, and historical analysis.
Psychological Transformation as Evidence
The Eleusinian Mysteries were designed to induce profound psychological and emotional states. Through ritual, silence, darkness, and sudden illumination, initiates underwent experiences that transcended ordinary reality. By analyzing these experiences phenomenologically, we can explore how the Sacred manifests in human perception and whether this manifestation constitutes a form of truth.
The lasting changes in behavior, attitude, and worldview reported by initiates provide another avenue for considering the truth of the Sacred. Psychological transformation can be observed and, to some extent, measured. If participation in the Mysteries led to enduring positive changes-such as increased piety, justice, and a sense of peace-this suggests that the initiates encountered something profoundly real to them.
Contemporary psychology recognizes the impact of transformative experiences on the human psyche. Concepts such as metanoia (a fundamental change of mind or heart) align with the reported effects of the Mysteries. By studying these psychological alterations, we can assess the authenticity of the Sacred experience from a psychological perspective.
Comparative Analysis
Comparing the Eleusinian Mysteries with other mystical traditions and religious experiences across cultures can also shed light on the universality of the Sacred. If similar patterns of transformation, ritual, and experience emerge in disparate cultures and eras, this may indicate an underlying reality to the Sacred that transcends individual belief systems.
Mircea Eliade’s concept of the hierophany — the manifestation of the Sacred in the profane world –supports this approach. By identifying common elements in Sacred experiences worldwide, we can argue for a universal truth that the Sacred represents a fundamental aspect of human experience.
The Limits of Empirical Evidence
While empirical methods can provide valuable insights, they have limitations when applied to the Sacred. The Sacred, by nature, transcends empirical verification. It resides in the realm of personal experience, symbolism, and meaning. Therefore, our methodology must be flexible enough to accommodate the intangible aspects of the Sacred.
A Synthesis of Approaches
To explore whether the Sacred is true, we must synthesize these methodologies:
- Phenomenology helps us delve into the subjective experiences of the initiates.
- Psychology allows us to understand the transformations that occurred.
- Comparative analysis situates the Mysteries within a broader context of human religiosity.
- Historical research grounds our exploration in the reality of the ancient world.
By integrating these approaches, we can construct a comprehensive understanding of the Sacred as it was experienced in the Eleusinian Mysteries.
The Sacred as Transformative Truth
Perhaps the Sacred is true as a transformative reality that impacts human lives. The experiences of the initiates, the profound changes they underwent, and the enduring legacy of the Mysteries all point to a truth that is lived and felt rather than measured. The Sacred, then, may be considered true in its capacity to inspire awe and connect individuals to something greater than themselves. It is a truth that manifests in the silence of anticipation and the light of revelation, in the crisis that strips away illusions and the quietude that opens the heart.
The Eleusinian Mysteries offer a window into how the Sacred was experienced and revered. Through the initiates’ psychological alterations, we witness the profound impact of the Sacred on human consciousness. Whether the Sacred is an external reality or an internal construct may remain a matter of personal belief, but its effects are undeniably real.
In the end, the question Is the Sacred true? may lead us not to a definitive answer but to a deeper engagement with the mystery of being-a mystery that the Eleusinian initiates sought to understand and that continues to beckon us across the ages.
The Experience of the Sacred
To begin this quest, I propose that the Sacred is an objective reality. By this, I mean that the Sacred can be known by experience, and this experience can, indeed must, create a change in behavior, attitude, and living-in-the-world. Mircea Eliade, a prominent historian of religion, posits that the Sacred manifests itself as something wholly different from the profane. In his work The Sacred and the Profane, Eliade describes the Sacred as “a reality of a wholly different order from ‘natural’ realities.”[1] He argues that the Sacred is an irruption of the wholly other into the world, creating a profound transformation in those who experience it.
The Sacred is the ground of, if not religion, then spirituality. The religious experience is the ark of the Sacred, the vessel through which, for millennia throughout human history, the Sacred has been transmitted-a holy meme, a transmission of human perception and interaction with the Sacred. This transmission has been in the form of art and architecture, literature, music, intellectual release and creativity, and even dogma.
Silence in the Eleusinian Mysteries
Silence was the cornerstone of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Initiates were bound by a Sacred oath-a solemn promise to keep the secrets of the rites unspoken. This enforced silence, known as euphemia, was not merely a prohibition but a profound spiritual discipline. It created a space where words could not reach, allowing the ineffable to be encountered directly.
The silence served multiple purposes. It heightened the senses, making initiates more receptive to the experiences that lay ahead. It fostered a sense of unity among participants, as they shared in the unspoken mysteries. Most importantly, it acknowledged that some truths transcend language-that the Sacred resides beyond the grasp of words.
This deliberate cultivation of silence prepared the initiates for the profound revelations to come. In the quietude of their minds and the hush of their surroundings, they became vessels ready to receive the divine.
Crisis and Quietude: Pathways to the Sacred
How does the Sacred, if it is objective, irrupt into the world, enter, and stimulate the human heart? If this is a god-world-Shiva dreaming on the lotus, the creator god creating out of nothing-then the Sacred can be considered somewhat like white noise: omnipresent, existent, just barely out of the realm of conscious awareness. It is something that we are not tuned to unless we are receptive to it. Two conditions that can jar us into an awareness of the Sacred or lull us into its embrace are the environmental conditions of crisis and quietude.
Our daily lives of work, family, and activities-the busyness of living-tend to cocoon our receptivity, wrapping and placing away the wholly Otherness of the Sacred. That is not to say that the Sacred does not or cannot irrupt into the busyness of life-the sight of a child asleep, the sudden awareness that creatively intrudes during a business meeting; these can all be experiences of the Sacred. However, busyness tends to dull us, insulating us from the sense of wonder, the knowledge and experience of something deeper, more real.
Both crisis and quietude tear us away from the soothing routines of life. When the protective layer of normalcy is torn from our lives, as in crisis, or when we can escape-even if only briefly-the continuous demands on time. When we retreat into silence, we become receptive, open. When the heart opens in quietude, when it expectantly awaits, then at times of wonder, the silence can cascade and fill, and an awareness, a realization, an insight can occur-new and alien to one’s normal life.
Conversely, during times of crisis, the normalcy of the world can be torn from us. We can be left beaten and bruised from the pounding fates, have every sense of safety and security ripped from us, each sense of love and belonging stripped like a bandage from a wound. As we scream in pain and despair, our cries and whimpers dissolve into silence. In that silence, broken and beaten, the Sacred enters-the balm of healing, the embrace of the Other, the peace that passes all understanding.
In both conditions, we are transported from our daily lives and enter, willingly or not, into receptivity. In that quiet calm, we become aware.
Enthusiasm, Possession, and Altered States of Consciousness
The predisposition of initiates in the Eleusinian Mysteries to experience an altered state of consciousness that would lead to lasting changes of behavior was dramatically influenced by the set and setting of the ceremonies. The dreamlike quality of the experience was enhanced by the fact that most of the group activities of the Mysteries took place at dusk and during the night.
Three general hypotheses may explain the dynamic underlying religious experiences such as those provided by the Mysteries:
- Divine Encounter: Initiates truly come into contact with a divine being. There was a Sacred experience that was objectively real. This argument, while compelling to believers, cannot be empirically proven.
- Psychotropic Substances: The kykeon that initiates drank had hallucinogenic properties. This is the hypothesis of Wasson et al.[2] Eleusinian iconography often features poppies. Kykeon was drunk, soon afterward apparitions were reported. However, during my research, I am unaware of any secondary hallucinogenic symbology that one often finds when a potent drug is part of a ceremony. An even more pressing question revolves around “bad trips”-negative experiences persons may undergo while under the effects of hallucinogens. Participants reported engaging in an experience that was terrifying and chaotic. If a large majority of persons had been under the influence of hallucinogens, their experiences might have been so negative that it is unlikely the Mysteries would have continued to grow.
- Physiological and Psychological Induction: Religious experience has a physiological component connected with the physical evolution of neural circuitry within the brain and the effects of ritualized behavior that lead to alterations of consciousness. The brain’s arousal, quiescent, and limbic systems react to the external stimuli of the nine days of Mysteries that included fasting, frantic dancing and running, repetitive rhythms, and choreographed information resulting in an altered state of perception that transformed lives. This argument follows Andrew Newberg’s hypothesis[3] and incorporates Aristotle’s conjecture that initiates have an experience to undergo and a condition into which they must be brought while they are becoming fit for revelation.
The Neuroscience of Ritual and Transformation
When contemporary researchers study brain activity through Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) and other brain imaging techniques, they observe physiological states associated with religious experiences. A hyperquiescent state-an extraordinary state of relaxation occurring during meditative phases-is associated with “slow” ritualistic behavior such as chanting or prayer. In contrast, when persons engage in frenzied ritual behavior such as dancing or running, a hyperarousal state occurs. This state is associated with keen alertness and concentration.
The hyperarousal state with the eruption of the quiescent system occurs when arousal activity is so extreme that the quiescent system becomes activated. When this happens, people may experience an orgasmic, rapturous, or ecstatic rush resulting in trance-like states.
The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca once asserted, “The majority of persons do what they do without knowing why.” [4] This is especially true in ritualistic behaviors because both the reason why the behaviors are repeated and the psychological and neurological results of the behaviors are often unknown to participants, especially as time distances them from the origination of the practices.
Ritual Behaviors in the Mysteries
From accounts spliced together from the guarded reminiscences of classical authors, we can identify a number of ritual behaviors engaged in by the initiates over nine days:
- The oath to keep a Sacred silence.
- Walking to Eleusis in ecstatic procession.
- Engaging in ritual worship along the way.
- The mockery at the bridge.
- Ritual purifications and sacrifices.
- Healing ceremonies during the Epidauria.
- Fasting and abstinence from certain foods.
- Nighttime ceremonies / Torch processions.
- The drinking of the kykeon.
- Running, confusion, anxiety, panic.
- Sacred enactments.
- Sensory stimulation by loud sounds and bright light.
Throughout time and across cultures worldwide, religious rituals serve as precursors to what appear to be trance-like states. 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.[5]
Whatever the single or combined causes, it seems evident that over a period of more than a millennium, the leaders of the Mysteries chanced upon the emotional and dramatic forms that would elicit a series of altered states of consciousness in the participating initiates. W.T. 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.[6] It is in the multi-day participation in religious ritual that the Mysteries built upon these suggestions over time.
Conditioning and Crowd Dynamics
An initiate would undergo months of preparation beginning with participation in the Lesser Mysteries. During that time, there would be discussions, a deeper immersion into the myths essential for the initiates to know, and heightened expectations. The initiates would participate in processions, dances, and ritual behavior.
Benjamin Karney, building on the work of Kurt Lewin and others, developed a model on crowd behavior consisting of four major points:
- Weaken the Power of Authority: During the Mysteries, the power of authority was 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.
- Establish a Competing Impulse: By the fourth day, for those who may have participated in the Asclepian ceremonies, and most notably on the fifth day during the glorious procession to Eleusis, the entire crowd was whipped into an ecstatic frenzy. The procession of the god Iacchos would precipitate the first dramatic experience of altered consciousness.
- Strengthen the Competing Impulse: This impulse was reinforced throughout the period leading to the days of initiation when the initiates engaged in ritual dancing and religious observances that became increasingly manic. The many influences on the initiates, including religious symbolism and group effects on crowd behavior, combined to form a unique constellation of events channeling the initiates’ attention and resulting in a complete ideational absorption that acquired remarkable persistency.
- Triggers: The trigger for the ecstasy was both frenetic dancing and the physiological response to loud noises, brilliant light, and flickering apparitions produced by the priests.
The Role of Stagecraft in Inducing Transformation
Aristotle is said to have expressed the view that initiates did not learn a lesson but rather underwent an experience that prepared them for revelation.[10] How did the ancients accomplish this change of perception-really an altered state of consciousness?
Within the Eleusinian Mysteries, the preparation of initiates was well choreographed through a wide variety of strong and competing sensory experiences. Whatever the single or combined causes, it seems obvious that over the course of millennia, the leaders of the Eleusinian Mysteries, either through chance, design, or both, developed the emotional and dramatic forms that created a series of altered states of consciousness in the participating initiates.
An initiate would undergo months of preparation beginning with participation in the Lesser Mysteries. During that time, there would be discussions, a deeper immersion into the myths that were essential for the initiates to know, and heightened expectations. The initiates would participate in processions, dances, and ritual behavior. Through multi-day participation in religious ritual, the Mysteries created a progression from simple states of altered consciousness, reinforced by positive feelings and group interactions, to more complex states of altered consciousness that resulted in visions of deities. The process of repetition over time and in a variety of settings strengthened the core beliefs and teachings of the Mysteries.
One of the initial stages, then, is the catharsis or purging of emotion. “Through pity and terror,” wrote Aristotle in his Poetics, “tragedy brings about the purification of such emotions.”[11] Spectators at public performances of dramatic plays-which themselves throughout the ancient Near East were religious festivals-had no need to build up a state of concentration by ritual preparation; they neither fasted, nor drank the kykeon, nor marched in a procession. The poet, the chorus, and the actors created an external vision through the theater. Without effort on their part, the spectators were transported into a world transformed by what they passively experienced by watching a dramatic performance, in the same way we often are when we become totally engrossed in a performance at the movies or a theatre.
The technology was available to sensorily stun and amaze audiences; ancient authors speak of it. A systematic development occurred in the presentation of religious ceremony that arrived at its greatest height in classical times. The great playwright Aeschylus was Eleusinian by birth. He awed spectators of his plays with exotic vestments and the use of machines such as the deus ex machina. The anonymous Life of Aeschylus, which probably was written by a Peripatetic philosopher, implies that Aeschylus terrified his audiences through the use of dramatic forms. The stagecraft was the basis of what is called the dromena-that which was enacted.
Athenaeus comments that Telestes, the director of Aeschylus’ choruses, was such a master of technique that he was able, in at least one play, to make the entire storyline plain through dance alone.[12] This harkens to the beginnings of Greek theatre, which arose from sung ancient Greek hymns and dances upon a circular threshing-floor.
An intriguing suggestion of nighttime flickering in Maya caves may give an insight into the phenomenological perceptions of initiates during the Mysteries:
“The world is a richer place with fire close at hand in the night. I have watched flames playing on convoluted cave walls, patterns of flickering light and shadow on the gray-pink-white-black mottled surfaces of crevices and alcoves and niches, tube-like channels winding further into the depths-and witnessed a variety of special effects that would inspire any stage designer concerned with creating an atmosphere of mystery and the supernatural.”^[13]
The Eleusinian priests employed sophisticated stagecraft designed to elicit profound psychological and emotional responses. The use of dramatic lighting, sound effects such as the striking of gongs and perhaps large rocks rolling down sheets of metal to imitate thunder, and theatrical reenactments of mythological narratives served to immerse the initiates fully in the experience. The sudden extinguishing of torches as the initiates entered the Telesterion plunged participants into darkness, heightening their senses and vulnerability. The unexpected illumination and visual spectacles that followed would have had a powerful impact, inducing altered states of consciousness and facilitating encounters with the Sacred.
The Great Light: Revelation in the Telesterion
As the culmination of the Eleusinian Mysteries approached, the initiates were led into the Telesterion-the Hall of Initiation. Here, silence enveloped them like a shroud. The torches were extinguished, plunging the hall into profound darkness. In that silence and darkness, the senses heightened; anticipation mingled with fear.
Suddenly, a brilliant light burst forth-a blinding flash that pierced the darkness. This phōs (light) was not just a physical illumination but a symbol of divine revelation. The great light represented the unveiling of the Sacred, the moment when the initiates would behold the ineffable truth that had been concealed.
Ancient testimonies speak of this light as a transformative vision. The initiates might have witnessed sacred objects unveiled, or perhaps a dramatic reenactment of the return of Persephone from the underworld. The combination of sensory deprivation and sudden illumination created an overwhelming emotional and psychological impact.
This experience of the great light was the climax of the Mysteries-the moment when silence gave way to revelation, when the veil between the mortal and the divine was lifted. It was a moment that transcended words, imprinting itself indelibly upon the souls of the initiates.
The Transition to Ecstasy
Anyone who has studied classical Greek religion and society must be struck by the oddly harmonious interplay of two apparently conflicting impulses: the rational and the ecstatic. This duality is most clearly seen in festivals and orgia. The word orgia, found in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, signifies the performance of ritual, and it was only in later times that it came to connote ecstatic worship.
On the road to Eleusis, the ecstatic procession of the god Iacchos would have been a pivotal moment. The initiates 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. He who leads the throngs becomes Dionysus.
One can suppose that, like participants in Cardeña’s study, initiates would experience aftereffects such as spontaneous reports of timelessness, bright light, a sense of oneness with the world, and profound peace.[7]
The nine days of ritual behavior of the Mysteries were choreographed to induce what Proclus described as sympathy of the soul resulting in panic, awe, assimilation, and possession.[8] A lack of sleep, a mounting sense of expectation, and frenetic physical activity all led to physical, emotional, and neural hyperarousal. The experience of great chaos breaks down standard behavior and allows for a new restructuring of belief, awareness, and reality.
Plutarch describes initiation as similar to dying, with shivering, trembling, sweating, and utter amazement as a prelude.[9] The initiates were taken out of their day-to-day lives and placed within an environment carefully choreographed to prepare them for the psychic and social reorientation that would soon occur.
Enthusiasm and Possession in Ancient Context
Altered states of consciousness were part of the awareness of the average citizen in the Greek polis. During festivals, they would often have witnessed ecstasy (often associated with alcohol in Dionysian religious festivals), enthusiasm (en-theos, a state where a god enters a person and the person acts out in ways other than their normal behavior), and mystic orgia-a group dynamic where whole gatherings of persons are in ecstatic and enthusiastic states.
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. Others work themselves up into a state of inspiration by deliberate actions.”[12]
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 catharsis, that led 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.[13]
Although it was not viewed in this way at the time of the Mysteries, a conditioning process-through the initiates’ immersion into dromena (religious ritual)-prepared them for an intense mystical experience. Structured ritual is rhythmic and repetitive behavior that acts to synchronize the affective, perceptual-cognitive, and motor processes within the central nervous systems of individual participants and can synchronize these processes among all participants, leading to a common experience.
Conclusion: The Sacred
The Sacred is that which transcends the mundane, piercing through the veil of ordinary existence to touch the deepest parts of our being. It is an objective reality that manifests in subjective experience-a paradox that defies easy explanation. Through silence and light, through ritual and revelation, the Sacred reveals itself.
The Sacred is the silence before the revelation and the light that follows. It is the crisis that shatters our illusions and the quietude that opens us to new understanding. It is the ineffable truth that words cannot capture but that experiences can convey.
In a world surrounded by evil, greed, lies, and terror, the Sacred offers a promise of salvation, a birth of hope in the midst of despair. It turns hearts, creates the metanoia of conversion, and transforms lives.
Bibliography
– Arbman, Ernst. Ecstasy or Religious Trance. Stockholm: Norstedts, 1963.
– Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1942.
– Burkert, Walter. Ancient Mystery Cults. Harvard University Press, 1987.
– Cardeña, Etzel. The Phenomenology of Trance: A Review of Cross-Cultural Studies. In Trance and Possession States, edited by Raymond Prince, 45–71. Montreal: R. M. Bucke Memorial Society, 1996.
– Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Translated by Willard R. Trask. Harcourt, 1959.
– Kerenyi, Karl. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton University Press, 1967.
– Newberg, Andrew, Eugene G. d’Aquili, and Vince Rause. Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.
– Plutarch. Moralia. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt. Harvard University Press, 1927.
– Proclus. On the Signs of Divine Possession. Translated by Thomas Taylor. From Fragments of the Lost Writings of Proclus. London: Chiswick Press, 1825.
– Seneca. Epistles. Translated by Richard M. Gummere. Harvard University Press, 1917.
– Wasson, R. Gordon, Albert Hofmann, and Carl A. P. Ruck. The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.
– Welch, W.T. Conditioning and Trance Induction. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 6, no. 1 (1963): 21–26.
Footnotes
[1] Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, 10.
[2] Wasson, R. Gordon, Albert Hofmann, and Carl A. P. Ruck, The Road to Eleusis.
[3] Newberg, Andrew, Eugene G. d’Aquili, and Vince Rause, Why God Won’t Go Away.
[4] Seneca, Epistles, 95.51.
[5] Bateson and Mead, Balinese Character.
[6] Welch, W.T., Conditioning and Trance Induction, 21–26.
[7] Aristotle, as referenced in Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 89.
[8] Aristotle, Poetics, VI.
[9] Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, I.21.
[10] Puleston, Dennis, Experiences in Maya Caves, 217.
[11] Proclus, On the Signs of Divine Possession.
[12] Arbman, Ernst, Ecstasy or Religious Trance, 45.