The Mysteries of Eleusis, located near Athens, can be thought of as the “Mysteries of Mysteries.” Its cult was based on the myth of the abduction of Persephone by Hades, the god of the underworld; the mourning of her mother Demeter; the resulting barrenness of the Earth; and the renewal when Persephone again reappeared on Earth. The soul’s entry into the realm of death and the overcoming of death are the deeper meaning of its initiation.
In the Greek mythical worldview according to Rudolf Steiner, the recurring motif of the passage into the underworld (the katábasis) means “overcoming the temporal and a resurrection of the eternal within the soul.”1 Orpheus descends into Hades to bring back his deceased Eurydice, Heracles rescues Alcestis from death, and Odysseus enters Hades to seek counsel from the blind Teiresias. In Rudolf Steiner’s words, “the descent into the underworld [is]. . . the initiation into the Mysteries, the crossing of the gate of death even during life.”2
In the myth of Demeter and Persephone, however, the theme of crossing of the gate of death during life becomes recurrent. Demeter comes to Eleusis in search of her daughter, who had been abducted by Hades, and takes up work in disguise as the nurse of the king’s son, Demophon. Demeter wants to bestow immortality upon him, and so she holds him in the fire at night. When the queen mother becomes aware of this, she’s frightened, weeping and lamenting, so Demeter must reveal herself as a goddess and, as a consequence, can no longer nurse the queen’s son. Demeter retreats to her temple in mourning until Zeus allows Persephone to return to her and, from then on, rhythmically live a third of the year in the underworld as the wife of Hades and two-thirds of the year with her mother on Earth.
As a yearly remembrance of Persephone’s return in the very first springtime, Demeter bestows holy rites upon her temple. They are enigmatic Mysteries: “which one cannot depart from or enquire about or broadcast, for great awe of the gods restrains us from speaking. Blessed is he of men on Earth who has beheld them . . . ,” says the Homeric hymn to Demeter.3 Thus, it becomes clear: Eleusis is the place of initiation into the Mysteries of the fundamental destiny of the soul, for “It is easy to recognize the meaning of the Demeter-Persephone myth. What is alternately in the underworld and the upper world is the soul. The eternity of the soul and its eternal transformation through birth and death is depicted in the myth.”4
Mysteries of the Earth
In the tenth lecture in Mystery Knowledge and Mystery Centres (CW 232),5 Rudolf Steiner speaks of Eleusis as a “chthonic” Mystery—Mysteries of the Earth—but he uniquely saw the Mysteries of the Cosmos connected with Eleusis as well. As such they were Mysteries of the Earth and of Heaven, to be explored hereafter. The immortality of the soul was a common understanding in the ancient world. Of concern was the meaning of the experience of life on Earth for the soul when, after death, it detached itself from the body and entered the spiritual world. Would it be just a shadow, a memory of life on Earth, as in the well-known Homeric phrase “rather a beggar upon the Earth, than a king in Hades”?6
Plutarch, priest of Delphi, in Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb of the Moon,7 explains the difference between the death of Demeter and the death of Persephone. The first death separates the soul from the body of the human being on Earth; the second death separates the spirit from the lower soul in the Moon sphere. Upon the first death, Demeter—living nature—is lost to it, as without a physical, living body, it is separated from Demeter in Hades. But, as Plutarch tells us, human beings must die a second time and separate the spirit from the lower soul that binds human beings to their shadowy existence. They unleash themselves from Persephone—or, in other words, perhaps she or Hades sets them free. Thus, we have a philosophical formula for the fundamental Mystery of Eleusis. When Demeter mourns, fertile nature dies and the fields wither, while nature comes back to life when Persephone returns from Hades. However, the Mystery is not primarily the celebration of the annual death and resurrection of nature but rather reveals the secrets of where the soul goes and “how” it fares after death in the realm of Persephone and Hades.
Seen but Not Known
Sadly, our understanding of the Eleusinian Mysteries remains limited, with only sparse accounts and revelations about their contents from a few early Christian authors. What’s certain is that the Mysteries of Eleusis were a spiritual centre of the ancient world and involved Demeter, Hades and Persephone, even if they weren’t well documented. The importance of their myth is stressed by their representation in the sky, in the constellation of Virgo with Spica, the ear of grain—a Mystery image from Eleusis.8 Not only Athenians sought to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, in their beginnings, but also other peoples, such as the Romans, in later epochs. Cicero, himself an initiate of Eleusis, said: “I say nothing of the holy and awe-inspiring sanctuary of Eleusis, where tribes from Earth’s remotest confines seek Initiation.”9
Nevertheless, we still consider the Mysteries of Eleusis the “best-documented Greek cult,” which was celebrated for a thousand years (until the destruction of their sanctuary in 396 AD).10 We know of the Athenian public festivals associated with it, the processions on the sacred road to Eleusis, and that the Lesser Mysteries were held on the river Ilisos in February and the Greater Mysteries in Eleusis in September. During the Lesser Mysteries in February, people sacrificed and purified themselves (the Romans called this month Februārius, from februum, “a means of purification.”) The marriage of Persephone and Dionysus was probably celebrated in a festival play. In September (at the harvest festival, when we reap the fruits as “offspring” of dying nature), the mystai (initiates) from the Lesser Mysteries were able to take part in the great procession to Eleusis, which is said to have lasted nine days. Ultimately, the admitted mystai would become epoptai. They had seen the Mysteries in the telesterion, the stage hall of consecration, or “perfected” the initiation in the house of “perfection” (telete). The Mystics had reached their goal (telos) through the initiation.
It’s assumed that the Hymn to Demeter was presented in the Telesterion. Rudolf Steiner concluded: “The symbolic representation of the world and human drama formed the final act of consecration in the Mysteries.”11
The Central Position of Eleusis
Eleusis is not far from Delphi, which, for the Greeks, was the omphalos, the navel of the world. This central position of Eleusis speaks for itself. We find the three most important oracles—Dodona, Olympia, and Delphi—more to the west, and the three most significant Mysteries—Eleusis, Samothrace, and Ephesus—more to the east. The oracles were the voices of the Olympian folk gods, the sky gods, but the Mysteries, on the other hand, were closer to chthonic (earthly) gods or demigods and heroes (the Dioscuri, Heracles, and Theseus), as they were located in the area of a mountain, trees (forest), or a cave.
The oldest oracle of Kronos, for instance, was located at the foot of the Hill of Kronos. The oracle of Zeus in Dodona was revealed in the talking oak trees in woods of the northwest. The oracle of Apollo in Delphi lay above a fissure in the Earth. This sequence of oracles represents three generations of the gods: Father Kronos, then Zeus and Apollo—the descent of the human being to Earth. The Mysteries of the Cabeiri were located on the mountainous island of Samothrace. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus—the goddess of the Moon, becoming, birth, and hunting—was surrounded by a forest. The Telesterion in Eleusis was built next to a cave, the sanctuary of Hades. In the middle of the Telesterion stood the Anaktoron, a building erected over an underground tomb from which the figure of Persephone emerged during the act of consecration, depicting the return to her mother. Eleusis can be described as being in the middle between mountain and cave and between east and west, especially when we consider that, in one version, the myth of the abduction of Persephone is said to have taken place on Thrinacia (Sicily) and Eleusis would thereby have related to the west. The Orphic motif comes from northern Thrace. Dionysus came from the east on his journey across India, making Eleusis a sort of crossroads. Furthermore, the founder of Athens is said to have been King Cecrops from Egypt, who, according to Herod, brought the Mysteries of Isis to Eleusis, later to become the Mysteries of Demeter. Thus all directions of the compass converged in the Mysteries of Eleusis.
Chthonic Gods: Earth and Sea—Demeter and Poseidon
Eleusis can be understood as the centre from another perspective as well. The chthonic gods, embodied by Demeter and Poseidon, reign both on Earth and in the Sea. Poseidáon was his original name, from Poteidan or “husband of the goddess Da.” It’s assumed that Da or Da-Mater was Gaia, the Earth mother, because Poseidon also bore the name Gaie-ochos. Thus, it is understood that Poseidon is also the “earth-shaker” who “moves” (okheĩ) the Earth, makes it shake, or “holds” (échei) the Earth, as the harbour does to the ships, and the Sea encompass the land of which he is the ókhos (“protector” or “man”.)12 Thus, the water in the ground and the water in the deep belong to him as well, for no land can be fertile without water. In the Mystery festival of Eleusis, people therefore sang “Hyé, kyé:” rain (heaven), receive (Earth).13
The culture of ancient Egypt was governed by the Nile, a river surrounded by land, while in Greece, culture developed like a counter-image on land surrounded by sea. Thus, Greek culture can be perceived as the fourth post-Atlantean epoch—according to Rudolf Steiner, a cultural-historical reminder of the fourth Earth epoch of Atlantis—in a time when Poseidon reigned in the being of water and Demeter in the exuberant life forces.
Mythically, Poseidon is also father to Eumolpus. Eumolpus’ mother, Chione, concealed his birth and threw him into the sea, where his father Poseidon received him and took him to his sister, who raised him. Eumolpus later became king of Thrace and thereon served as hierophant at the Mysteries of Eleusis. His name (Eúmolpos, the beautiful singer) serves as an indication of the dramatic form of the Mysteries. The depths of the sea held secrets even before the reign of Poseidon, due to the fact that among the more ancient Oceanids, there was a goddess named Telesto, who became known as a goddess of the Mysteries (teletai). Demeter and Poseidon are thus the chthonic gods of fertile and undulating Hellas. Just as Poseidon rages and storms (think of The Odyssey), Demeter rages and mourns. They belong to the older Atlantean gods. Persephone and Dionysus are protagonists of the post-Atlantean drama. Persephone embodies the ancient clairvoyance of the divine nature, the seeing soul that penetrated down into the body, which was, however, dominated by the forces of Hades, the forces of death. The new self-awareness could only arise when Demeter’s life force released a part through which the soul could connect with the forces of death by turning the body into a mirror of the soul and the world. Dionysus was a being born of the divine but no longer an instrument of the will of the upper world, rather one that attained earthly culture independently, as demigod of viticulture and founder of culture in the broader sense.
Orpheus and Eleusis
A two-fold myth is told about Dionysus. As a god, he was born from Zeus and Demeter or, by the Orphic account, from Persephone. He’s then torn apart by the Titans, due to jealous Hera. Demeter (Pallas Athena in another version) collects his remains, and Zeus conceives him again with the Theban king’s daughter Semele. Dionysus begins his worldly mission as god of wine, but one day, he also rescues Persephone from Hades.
Dionysus and Orpheus, both demigods, share a twist of fate. Like the first Dionysus, Orpheus was also torn apart by the human Maenads, although not by the divine Titans. The fact that gods and the deceased should not be seen unveiled is another link between the two myths. Orpheus goes against the commandment and looks at Eurydice, losing her once again to Hades. Semele sees Zeus as Hera does (probably “naked”) and dies from the power of the vision. Dionysus descends into the underworld to Persephone in Lerna, where the mysteries of Demeter and the cult of Poseidon are celebrated. There, the threshold is guarded by the twelve-headed Hydra (symbolized by twelve springs). Through the sacrifice of his pure devotion, Dionysus is able to retrieve his mother, something Orpheus was unable to do.14
Such is the path of culture through the Mysteries with the lower, chthonic gods, whose culture domesticate nature. By contrast, Pallas Athena is one of the Olympian goddesses. These gods give good advice (Athena), bestow beauty (Aphrodite), and provide guidance (Hermes). They admonish the soul or impart gifts of vision (Apollo). But they avoid death. They don’t live on Earth, as Agamemnon reports in The Iliad (2:412), but rather in the ether, in the heavenly realm—in other words, still above the physical Mt. Olympus. The first three gods gave their names to the planets that we know today as Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury. They are sky gods. With these gods’ guidance via the oracles, the path leads to technology, philosophy, and science.
Between the heavenly and the chthonic gods, between heaven and the subterranean world, the life of human beings takes place upon Earth. Loss of the intuition of divinities is common to the myths of Persephone and Orpheus. After all, Hades simply means haides: the invisible or the one who makes invisible.15 But what makes the gods, the spiritual macrocosm, invisible to us? It is the body, our will, through which we are physically present upon Earth as an ‘I.’ Everything living, as it soulfully expresses itself in passion, habit, and memory, appeared from the etheric macrocosm in the imagination of Poseidon. The physical body (mythically represented as Hades) expresses the will; the astral body (macrocosmically, Zeus) belongs to thinking.16 The physical body became denser in the post-Atlantean period. Thus, the Greek felt or remembered how the naturally given clairvoyant perception (Persephone) of Demeter, in other words the direct, intuitional access to the divine world, was lost. This is what is meant by the mythical story of the abduction by Hades. The Hades-like will is not visible at first—it works from the internal depths of the soul in the body and is opposed to the luminous world, which had become the distant realm of a spiritual world. What was to become of this contrast?17
The Platoon of Argonauts
The myth of the Argonauts tells how Jason gathered all the heroes of Greece to fetch the golden fleece from Colchis. Colchis lies between the Black Sea and the Caucasus. A golden ram had once brought Phrixus to Colchis, who sacrificed it to the gods and then gave the ram’s skin, the golden fleece, to Aeetes, the king of Colchis.
Poseidon disguised himself as ram and fathered the golden ram with Theophane (“divine appearance”), the granddaughter of both the Sun and the Earth (Helios and Gaia).18 Once again, we encounter the union of the chthonic couple Poseidon and Demeter. However, time and space changed. King Aeetes is the son of the sun god Helios and his sun wife Perse, and his sister is Circe. Aeetes was enthroned in eastern Colchis, in the city of Aea. Circe lived on the island of Aeaea in the west. They were the two “houses” where the Sun rose in the east and set in the west. With the ram, Phrixus had flown to Colchis, otherwise he was unable to cross the Bosporus. And Jason had to fly likewise with the Argo, which means “swift one” or “shining one,” related to “silver one,” so that the ships of Aeetes wouldn’t catch up with him when he fled Colchis with the golden fleece. Still in Colchis itself, the king’s own daughter, Medea, helped Jason to pass the difficult tests. But Aeetes refused to give Jason the fleece, so Jason and Medea had to flee and on the way killed her little brother Absyrtus, dismembered him, and thereby delayed her father as he needed to collect the body parts for burial. The motif of dismemberment also appears here—as it does with Orpheus, Dionysus, and Osiris.
Orpheus takes part in this journey of the Argo. During the voyage, he mediates between Apollo and the Mysteries, between above and below, even between primeval times and the future. When the Argonauts, following Orpheus’ advice, allow themselves to be initiated on Samothrace and then pass through the Bosporus, Apollo appears to them on the island of Thynias. They circumnavigate the entire Greek world. The escape from Aea proceeds across the Black Sea, across the Danube, to the Sea of Kronos (Adriatic Sea), along the rivers Eridanos (Po) and Rhodanus (Rhône), and back to the Mediterranean. So, they arrive at the other end of the Greek world, where on the island of Aeaea, Circe cleanses Jason and Medea of their fratricide. As Orpheus sings, they’re able to pass the sirens. Then, a storm drives them to the Gulf of Syrtes (Sidra) near Libya (where the ancient Greek Cyrene was situated). The Argonauts carry the ship through the desert for twelve days and manage, favoured by Poseidon, to sail back to Hellas. They pass Crete as if they descend through dark Hades. Apollo then appears for the second time. Now on the southernmost island of the Cyclades, which is since called Anafi (from ana-phaínein, to appear). And so, they return the golden fleece home for good. The journey thus rounds and encompasses the entire area of ancient Greek culture.
There’s a deeper reason in the myth as to why Apollo appears twice. He doesn’t seem to intervene in the action, although he inspires Phineus, the seer, who shows the Argonauts the way to Aea before they reach the Bosporus. Apollo’s relationship to the golden fleece, Rudolf Steiner explains as follows: “The fleece is something that belongs to the human being, something that is infinitely valuable to us; something that was separated from us in ancient times and whose recovery is linked to the overcoming of terrible powers. Thus, it concerns the eternal in the human soul; the eternal is experienced as separated from the human being.”19
This eternal in the human being, the unborn, the part of the universal human soul that remains in the spiritual world, is, again according to Rudolf Steiner, nothing other than “the sister soul of Adam,” the non-fallen part of the original human being, which was to be born in the primordial night as the Nathan soul in one of the Jesus boys. Gradually, the Nathan soul approached the Earth, and appeared in the Greek mythology as the divine figure of Apollo.20 In Atlantean times, this being had a harmonizing effect on the relationship between the Sun, Moon, and Earth and thus on human thinking, feeling, and willing. Of which, as Rudolf Steiner explains, the mythical story of Apollo, who overcomes the dragon and leads the nine muses becomes reminiscent. Singing is, indeed, a harmony of thinking, feeling, and willing, of brain, breath, larynx, and heart. Singing with the limbs is dance; in general, the dancing of the muses is all that is named “music”.21 In moral terms, Apollo, by way of Orpheus, was the educator in Greek culture by means of speech, the founder of cities and art.22 All culture is, as expressed in the myth, the education of the astral body. This is the battle against the dragon, just as Jason has to fight with the help of Medea against the dragon or the serpent that watches over the fleece. The second death, the death of Persephone, is not suffered by those who experience the catharsis of initiation and can separate the spiritual soul from the soul of desire. It is not for Demeter, who had her daughter back, but for the human being that the original spiritual vision of Persephone is regained. And such is how we may understand the old saying, quoted by Plato: “that he who is not initiated sinks into the mud; and that only he enters eternity who has lived a mystical life.”23
Ancient and Future Times in Eleusis
Finally, Eleusis can be regarded as the middle of times because it points, on the one hand, back to ancient times, right into the Atlantean period, and, on the other, “Eleusis” means “arrival” or the “coming,” like “advent” from advenīre. Neither the deep dimension of the past, nor that of the future are revealed by the usual descriptions of the Mysteries of Eleusis. Rudolf Steiner’s indications, however, extend back to the Atlantean period when the aforementioned harmonization of the soul forces took place through sacrifice by the Nathan soul. The planetary beings from Saturn, Jupiter, all the way down to the Moon worked into the microcosm of the human being. Their cosmic impulses were also tempered by this Nathan being that moved through the individual planetary spheres.24 In mythology, these processes were reflected in the planetary spirits of the figures of Zeus, Ares, Hermes, etc. It’s all too easy to imagine mythology as expressing a naive form of polytheism, since a common, unifying thread runs through the planetary gods, of which Zeus, Ares, etc. are only the various images.25 This balancing of the planetary effects in human beings took place precisely in the early epochs in which the metals sank from the cosmos into the Earth. This secret has been preserved in the Eleusinian Mysteries as an initiation into the nature of the metals. By allowing its forces to sink into the Earth in the form of metals, the cosmos freed human beings from the excess of metallic forces in their constitution. In this way, the human being’s environment coagulated soul forces that would otherwise overwhelm the human being.26 If, for example, human beings only had the cosmic effect of lead within them, then, as Rudolf Steiner describes it, this would not only have led to an ‘I’ formation based upon memory but would also have brought about an alienation of the human from the cosmos. Thus, the counterbalancing force of the Moon had to reincorporate the human being into the cosmos. We owe this balance to the Nathan-soul being, who both here and later, was shone upon by the Christ’s working from the Sun. This can be recognized as part of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Rudolf Steiner reports, by the fact that the God who brought about the planetary effects on Earth was set up as a statue of the Father in the sanctuary. He hands over the metals to the statue of Earth mother Demeter. These statues were intended to take the mystic back to ancient times, thereby opening up life in the cosmos to him on the path to the soul’s self-understanding.
In the figure of Dionysus, the future was present too, whether he be husband, child, or saviour of Persephone. The Dionysia, the cults surrounding the Eleusinian festivities, represented the impulse to bring the Mystery culture into the world. The sacred drama of Eleusis gradually developed into the dramas and comedies in the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, and the wisdom of the Mysteries was brought to the public by Plato in the form of philosophy. The secret was still preserved, but the soul was to gradually educate itself by art and science. However, the greatest sacrifice of the Nathan being was still to come. It was to enter a human body and give itself to the Christ spirit. The Argonauts’ search for the golden fleece, the purification of the astral body, was already a foreshadowing of the coming age of the Ram, when the golden lamb, the Nathan being, would offer its sacrifice to Christ. In Eleusis stood a third statue, a female figure carrying a child at her breast, the Iakchos child, an imagination of the human being into whom the Christ impulse at the Turn of Time was to manifest itself.27 Dionysus Zagreus once had died the “death of Demeter” at the hands of the Titans. In one of the variations of the myth he was saved and reborn by Athena and Zeus together, that is, by thinking. Thus, Dionysos would become the creator of an earthly culture, of which viticulture is the general symbol. Iakchos, whose image from the Iakcheion in Athens was carried in the procession to Eleusis, is named the “third Dionysus’: it is the Dionysus, the earthly human ‘I’, who passed through the death of Persephone. His time ever was and is the future, as “the coming god” of Eleusis (“Advent”).
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Title image Overall view of the Telesterion, the “place for initiation,” Eleusis. Photo: Carole Raddato, Wikimedia
Footnotes
- Rudolf Steiner, Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity, CW 8 (Tiburon, CA: Chadwick Library Edition), ch. 5.
- Rudolf Steiner, Concerning the Astral World and Devachan, CW 88 (Hudson, NY: SteinerBooks, 2018), lecture in Berlin on Nov. 18, 1903.
- Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Lives of Homer, translated by Martin L. West, Loeb Classical Library 496 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 68–71.
- See footnote 1.
- Rudolf Steiner, Mystery Knowledge and Mystery Centres, CW 232 (Forest Row, East Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2013), lecture in Dornach on Dec. 14, 1923.
- Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Spiritual Science, CW 13 (Tiburon, CA: Chadwick Library Editions, 2021), ch. 4.
- Plutarch, Moralia, vol. XII: Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb of the Moon . . . , Loeb Classical Library 406, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 193 ff (942 D).
- Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods. Academics, translated by H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library 268 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933), 115.
- Walter Burkert, Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche (Greek Religion of the archaic and classical Epochs), 2nd edn. (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2011), pp. 429–430; cf. Greek Religion, 1st edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985).
- Ibid., p. 425 f.[
- See footnote 1.
- Karl Kerényi, Die Mythologie der Griechen (The Mythology of the Greeks), vol. 1: Die Götter- und Menschheitsgeschichten (The History of the Gods and Humankind) (München: dtv, 1983), pp. 144–147; cf. Gods of the Greeks (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1980).
- See footnote 9, p. 430.
- See footnote 12, pp. 203–204.
- Der kleine Pauly [The little Pauly], vol. 2 (München: dtv, 1979), pp. 903–905; cf. Brill’s New Pauly (Leiden: Brill, 2006).
- Rudolf Steiner, Wonders of the World, Trials of the Soul, Revelations of the Spirit, CW 129 (Forest Row, East Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2021), lecture in Munich on Aug. 20, 1911.
- See footnote 5, lecture in Dornach on Dec. 1, 1923.
- See footnote 12, p. 145.
- See footnote 1.
- Rudolf Steiner, Christ and the Spiritual World: The Quest for the Holy Grail, CW 149 (Forest Row, East Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2023), lecture in Leipzig on Dec. 30, 1913.
- Ibid.
- Cf. Friedrich Hiebel, The Gospel of Hellas (New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1949) and Ernst Uehli, Mythos und Kunst der Griechen im Geiste ihrer Mysterien (Myth and art of the Greeks in the Spirit of their Mysteries) (Dornach: Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, 1979).
- See footnote 1, ch. 2; further sources in Pindar, Sophocles, and Isocrates; cf. footnote 9, p. 430.
- See footnote 20.
- Ibid.
- See footnote 17.
- Ibid.