For over 2000 years of human history, a cultural practice was held near Athens to commune with death, to honour the great journey of life, and to ‘die’ before you die.
It was known as the Eleusinian Mysteries and most of Greece and Rome’s top philosophers, poets and leaders were initiates. It is widely believed that Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pericles, Cicero, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius experienced the Mysteries. However women, slaves and children were also initiated.
Based around the story of Persephone’s abduction by Hades and her mother Demeter’s wild search to bring her back to the land of the living, the Mysteries honour the cycle of life and death, the wondrous unknowing of the afterlife.
Through the lens of modern science, especially through the fields of archaeology, philology, theology, anthropology, art history and classics, we have pieced together some information about the Mysteries. However, we don’t know much- reverence for the Mysteries compelled initiates to observe the mandatory law of silence about what happened in the Telesterion and so testimonies over those 2,000 years are scant.
We do know that initiates were guaranteed happiness in the afterlife and the initiations were physically, mentally and emotionally demanding. They involved mind-altering performances, substances and revelations. Participants emerged with a profound sense of peace which altered the rest of their lives.
“Happy are those among mortals who have seen these mysteries; but whoever is uninitiate, will never have the same (good) fortune once in the darkness of Hades.”Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 7th–6th century BCE