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Eleusinian Mysteries: Difference between revisions
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According to myth, Hades, lord of the underworld, kidnapped Persephone and carried her off to his kingdom. Bearing torches, Demeter wandered the world looking for her daughter until the god Hermes rescued her from Hades and returned her to the light of day. But Persephone was thereafter required to spend half of each year in the underworld, returning to earth in the spring. | According to myth, Hades, lord of the underworld, kidnapped Persephone and carried her off to his kingdom. Bearing torches, Demeter wandered the world looking for her daughter until the god Hermes rescued her from Hades and returned her to the light of day. But Persephone was thereafter required to spend half of each year in the underworld, returning to earth in the spring. | ||
The initiates found special meaning in this myth. For them it was not about agriculture or harvest but about the immortality of the soul. In one interpretation, Persephone represents the soul and Demeter represents the Divine Self. Each year as the celebrants reenacted the separation and union of Demeter and Persephone, they may have been celebrating their own hoped-for reunification with their Divine Self—their own divinization.<ref>See Karl Kerényi, ''Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter'', trans. Ralph Manheim, Bollingen Series 65 (1967; reprint, Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. | The initiates found special meaning in this myth. For them it was not about agriculture or harvest but about the immortality of the soul. In one interpretation, Persephone represents the soul and Demeter represents the Divine Self. Each year as the celebrants reenacted the separation and union of Demeter and Persephone, they may have been celebrating their own hoped-for reunification with their Divine Self—their own divinization.<ref>See Karl Kerényi, ''Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter'', trans. Ralph Manheim, Bollingen Series 65 (1967; reprint, Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 144–47, 174; and Edward F. Edinger, ''The Eternal Drama: The Inner Meaning of Greek Mythology'', ed. Deborah A Wesley (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1994), pp. 176–78.</ref> | ||
The Eleusinian ceremonies were a carefully guarded secret. But scholars consider today that the purpose of the ceremonies was to induce an experience of oneness, or union, with God.<ref>See James D. Tabor, ''Things Unutterable: Paul’s Ascent to Paradise in Its Greco-Roman, Judaic and Earl Christian Contexts'' (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1986), pp. 77–79; Jocelyn Goodwin, ''Mystery Religions in the Ancient World'' (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981), pp. 26–37; and S. Angus, ''The Mystery-Religions: A Study in the Religious Background of Early Christianity'' (1928; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1975), pp. 106–12.</ref> For the Greeks believed that men could become Gods. | The Eleusinian ceremonies were a carefully guarded secret. But scholars consider today that the purpose of the ceremonies was to induce an experience of oneness, or union, with God.<ref>See James D. Tabor, ''Things Unutterable: Paul’s Ascent to Paradise in Its Greco-Roman, Judaic and Earl Christian Contexts'' (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1986), pp. 77–79; Jocelyn Goodwin, ''Mystery Religions in the Ancient World'' (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981), pp. 26–37; and S. Angus, ''The Mystery-Religions: A Study in the Religious Background of Early Christianity'' (1928; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1975), pp. 106–12.</ref> For the Greeks believed that men could become Gods. | ||
By teaching people that they could become God, the mystery religions—and there were many that thrived in the Greco-Roman | By teaching people that they could become God, the mystery religions—and there were many that thrived in the Greco-Roman world—were not implying that there is more than one God. Although some mystery religions worshipped [[Isis]], others the god [[Serapis Bey|Serapis]] or [[Mithraic mysteries|Mithras]], they all believed that there is but one God and that the different gods were simply forms of the one universal and transcendent God. Mystery initiates believed that when they achieved deification, they, too, would be manifestations of the one God. The divinization of the mysteries was based on an internal conquest—the conquest of self. | ||
== The mystery religions and Christianity == | == The mystery religions and Christianity == | ||
When the scriptures of the New Testament, tell us to “be perfect,” they use the Greek word ''teleios'', which meant “initiated” in the terminology of the mystery religions. When Jesus and Paul told us to be perfect, they were telling us to be initiates—that is, to present ourselves ready to participate in the ''process'' of divinization. | When the scriptures of the New Testament, tell us to “be perfect,” they use the Greek word ''teleios'', which meant “initiated” in the terminology of the mystery religions. When Jesus and Paul told us to be perfect, they were telling us to be initiates—that is, to present ourselves ready to participate in the ''process'' of divinization. | ||
[[File:Overall_view_of_the_Telesterion,_the_-place_for_initiation-,_Eleusis_(16177191605).jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Remains of the Telesterion, the initiation hall where the most secret ceremonies of the Eleusinian Mysteries were conducted]] | |||
== C. W. Leadbeater’s interpretation of the mysteries == | == C. W. Leadbeater’s interpretation of the mysteries == | ||
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[[Mystery religions]] | [[Mystery religions]] | ||
[[Orphic Mysteries]] | |||
[[Mysteries of Isis]] | |||
== Sources == | == Sources == | ||