The Hierophant and Eleusinian mysteries

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 25 Feb 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Arnnaria	25 Feb 2005
So, I looked up the Hierophant on dictionary.com and got... 1. An ancient Greek priest who interpreted sacred mysteries, especially the priest of the Eleusinian mysteries. 2. An interpreter of sacred mysteries or arcane knowledge. 3. One who explains or makes a commentary. Does anyone (without googling) know anything about these Eleusinian mysteries? I'm intrigued!

Scion	26 Feb 2005
Well... I can scratch the surface a little for you. It's been a while since I did one of my freaky history posts, and I guess I'm overdue. :D The Eleusinian Mysteries are one of the most widespread and influential mystery cults of classical antiquity. Its rituals were among the most important in ancient Greece... One of the most amazing details about it is that the "Mysteries" remained just that. NONE of the initiates (including virtually every ancient Greek author, politician and thinker that you can imagine) ever disclosed the ultimate revelation imparted in the ceremonies. Amazingly, although the Mysteries were celebrated for over 8 centuries in the Telesterion at Eleusis, no one ever 'fessed up. Imagine! That said, the more public ceremonies (aka Lesser Mysteries) are well-documented and covered pretty completely in the extant literature of the period... From that MUCH has been extrapolated regarding the inner secret (Greater Mysteries) entrusted to the members, without anything ever being ultimately decided about the big question. What was the big secret? No one knows for sure. Anyways... At Eleusis, a town near Athens in Attica, the Mysteries were celebrated annually under the guidance of the Eleusinian priesthood (the Hierophants you mentioned). The Lesser Mysteries were celebrated in the spring at Eleusis and Agrae, the Greater Mysteries in the autumn at Eleusis and Athens. In fact, the rites predate Athens rise as a powerful city-state, and Athen's later role in the Mysteries only indicate the rising power the city enjoyed and the tenacity of the Eleusinian cult. The Greeks identified Eleusis as the location of the abduction of Demeter's daughter Persephone by Hades, King of the Underworld... with such specificity that the Mysteries identified the very gash which uncle Hades tore in the Earth to grab her. You probably know the story, but just for clarity: While picking poppies, Persephone (from phero phonos "she who brings destruction" and aka Kore which means "maiden") was stolen from her fertile Olympian mother and imprisoned in the realm of the dead; Hermes (as psychopomp and trickster) makes a deal which manages to carve the Seasons out of Demeter's grief and rage. And therein hangs a tale. Demeter (harvest/fertility goddess) searches for her stolen daughter above and below the earth, and in the course of her travels has several haunting, potent interactions that touch on themes of fertility, mortality, human frailty, cyclical time, natural rhythms, and purification... Strange, strange events: Demeter battles her brothers over ownership of her daughter, but one brother fathered the girl and the other wants marry her... the Goddess barters with kings for assistance and wetnurses a mortal prince... a crippled princess sings dirty songs to Demeter and an old crone makes Demeter laugh by revealing her vulva... Demeter turns a boy into a lizard for laughing... she burns a baby to make it immortal, but (oops!) kills it instead... a maiden eats a few seeds and is punished (?!) by being made Queen of the Underworld(?!?!)... Then Demeter almost extinguishes Life on the planet, haggles with Death and creates the Seasons out of spite. As if that werent't enough, Dionysos (who also had a thriving mystery cult of his own) even manages to make an appearance in these mysteries as a fetus in the womb of the old woman! The Mysteries seem to have focussed on several of the perplexing specifics of this myth cycle and a vast secret available to ordinary mortals willing to undergo initiation. Most scholars believe that the initiates received revelations (as in: revealed hidden truths) about rebirth, immortality, happiness in the afterlife, and some startling truth about the physical world. Theories abound. The impact of the Eleusinian Mysteries cannot be overstated. Their longevity and omnipresence in classical anitquity are balanced by the TOTAL silence about their central secrets. Obviously something important was going on, but what? And how did they manage to convince all those folks to keep their mouths shut for almost a millenium? BUT before I overwhelm you with details, that's probably a good start. Feel free to ask any further questions. (One interesting thing: the Eleusis myth is the reason pomegranates appear in the Tarot.) Robert Graves has phenomenal sources for the variants of the myth cycle and I did a massive project on Eleusis and ecstatic religion once upon a time, so I'll be as detailed as you'd like. Just say the word... Scion Interesting factoid: several primary sources indicate that Persephone's eating of the pomegranate seeds did not create winter, they created SUMMER, a season of relentless, blistering sunlight in the Aegean... (n.b. the association of Apollo with sunlight and plague). The "winter" reading of the Seasons' seed-creation doesn't pop up until the myth migrates into northern and western Europe post-Renaissance.

Fulgour	26 Feb 2005
Arnnaria wrote: Does anyone (without googling) know anything about these Eleusinian mysteries? I'm intrigued! Why "without googling" may I ask..? Well anyway, skip the Hierophant and go right to The High Priestess. Inanna-Astarte-Ishtar-Persephone. PS: Google has some cool stuff on Arnnaria.

Gyda	26 Feb 2005
Fulgour wrote: Why "without googling" may I ask..? Well anyway, skip the Hierophant and go right to The High Priestess. Inanna-Astarte-Ishtar-Persephone. PS: Google has some cool stuff on Arnnaria. The High Preistess in my Deck is Frigga. Gyda

Fulgour	26 Feb 2005
Gyda wrote: The High Preistess in my Deck is Frigga. The Rune Berkana can be related to resurrection. Berkana refers to the birch tree, a healing tree, and the Goddess Frigga. Frigga was also a grieving mother in the tales of the slain Balder. The birch goddesses are consistent with many other Indo-European traditions, which involve a yearly descent of a goddess into the underworld (such as Persephone or Innana). The birch goddess as Nerthus, wife of Odin (and Ullr alternately), is shown as sometimes chasing him, sometimes fleeing him, giving a whole picture that relates Odin, Nerthus, the year, the crops, other gods, the dead, etc. into one story.

Arnnaria	26 Feb 2005
Fulgour wrote: PS: Google has some cool stuff on Arnnaria. Woah! That's so creepy! Hehe.

Gyda	26 Feb 2005
Fulgour wrote: The Rune Berkana can be related to resurrection. Berkana refers to the birch tree, a healing tree, and the Goddess Frigga. Frigga was also a grieving mother in the tales of the slain Balder. The birch goddesses are consistent with many other Indo-European traditions, which involve a yearly descent of a goddess into the underworld (such as Persephone or Innana). The birch goddess as Nerthus, wife of Odin (and Ullr alternately), is shown as sometimes chasing him, sometimes fleeing him, giving a whole picture that relates Odin, Nerthus, the year, the crops, other gods, the dead, etc. into one story. Yes I know who Frigga is, she's one of the many who gets prayed to before I get married in May. Nerthus has never been link to Odin or Ullr as a wife in any of the surviving lore I've run across( the Sages the Edda's etc.) Here's a nice page on The germanic Goddesses http://www.wyrdwords.vispa.com/goddesses/ , The Germanic myths don't actually have a Goddess decending into the underworldon a year basis or anyother basis really, they have a Goddess who rules the underword her name is Hel and she was cast into by the Alfather (Odin) she's one of Loki's childern. I'd be interested in you sources for this information. Is it an archology book, history, myth or more new age. The Berkana is on the Temerance card in my deck which features Hel, and Hermond ( Alfathers' messager who makes the decent into Hel's realm to ask for Baldur back).

Fulgour	26 Feb 2005
Hello Gyda, I am very happy for you and hope your May Wedding is blessed. Thank you for the further insights and your knowledge of Frigga. Runes and Tarot are like fellow travellers, rather than twin forms. I like Berkana for The Moon, and Algiz for The High Priestess. :) For links between Frigga and Innana, just enter them into Google. Sincerely, Fulgour

Thirteen	27 Feb 2005
Scion wrote: Interesting factoid: several primary sources indicate that Persephone's eating of the pomegranate seeds did not create winter , they created SUMMER , a season of relentless, blistering sunlight in the Aegean... (n.b. the association of Apollo with sunlight and plague ). The "winter" reading of the Seasons' seed-creation doesn't pop up until the myth migrates into northern and western Europe post-Renaissance. That IS an interesting factoid--but I'm having a hard time making sense of it. I mean, I live in an area that's got pretty much the same climate as the Greek Isles and I can tell you that Pomegranates still come into season in October/November and last through December. That's not summer (would be in Australia, but not here or in Greece). October/November is usually when get your first rainstorms. Not, mind you, that I know what the weather was like so many centuries ago; global weather and seasons have changed and can have changed a lot over that time, but we are talking about a myth that has to do with planting and such. As I recall, during the mysteries special seeds were placing in a cave underground; then, come spring, the were brought out in an equally important ceremony and planted (i.e., Kore going underground, then coming back out again). The seeds went down underground at about the same time that pomegranates came into season. This would make them not only emblematic of the fruit of the dead (burial of the seeds), but also the fruit of Autumn/Winter (Demeter withholding her bountry).

Scion	27 Feb 2005
I hear you talking. :) The way I understood it was that the seeds didn't invert the wheel of the seasons/agriculture but that the world's climate went from being a single lush climate and was segmented... the creation of summer made winter necessarily consequent. I think I said that right. It's Sunday morning pre-java... Scion

Gyda	27 Feb 2005
Fulgour wrote: Hello Gyda, Runes and Tarot are like fellow travellers, rather than twin forms. I like Berkana for The Moon, and Algiz for The High Priestess. :) For links between Frigga and Innana, just enter them into Google. Sincerely, Fulgour In the Moon which is male in my deck, his name is Mani has the Isa rune and on the high prestess is Ear, which means cycles of change looking into the future etc. I've done the google, interesting, but still reading :)

Thirteen	27 Feb 2005
Scion wrote: The way I understood it was that the seeds didn't invert the wheel of the seasons/agriculture but that the world's climate went from being a single lush climate and was segmented... the creation of summer made winter necessarily consequent. But wouldn't a single lush climate be eternal summer? I mean, I understand the plague-in-summer-time danger, but it seems like the presence of diseases is related to the myth of Pandora, not Demeter. Demeter's myth seems related, exclusively, to the presence of food. And food is abundant in Summer, not winter--doesn't matter where you are, Summer is when the fruit is ripe and the fields get harvested. So why would she have to "create" summer? That lush world was already summer, wasn't it? She's have to create something "not lush" to segment it. And the myth stipulates that when Demeter got mad she blighted the world and caused there to be no more greenery, no more food--doesn't it? HOWEVER, on your side of the fence, summer can be a drought season--I know that from my climate. You get to the point where there's no water and everything that was once green gets brown and dry and catches fire. In this instance, the story comes closer to Egypt; there is a drought season and everthing is barren. No food. The flooding of the Nile and of the surrounding delta is what bring planting and fertility and greenery. In THAT instance, the winter months would be more welcome because they brought RAIN and the promise of food to come, rather than the Summer months, MOST ESPECIALLY the late summer months moving into October (we always get a heatwave in October). THIS kind of summer would, indeed, necessitate a winter of rain--which would, in spring, restore the lush, green world. Hmm. The more I think about it, the more this might work. I'm in Southern California and our seasons are: August-October is drought/fire season; November-January is Winter/rainy season, Feb-April is Spring (arrival of flowers, etc.) and May-July is Summer (lotta fresh fruit). I suppose one could argue that Demeter segmented the lush world with the drought season (appearence of pomegranates) and this necessitated the rainy season (winter). Is this anywhere close to what you read? Or am I completely mis-understanding it?

Scion	28 Feb 2005
That's exactly it. In a harsh Mediterranan climate, winter is a respite, the difficult time is the summer. Reminds me of all my Greek and Italian friends who get out of town when the Americans head over in June. :) It's too damn hot to live. I need to go dig up the original references to I can cite something other than vague memory. :D Scion

Vincent	01 Mar 2005
Scion wrote: (One interesting thing: the Eleusis myth is the reason pomegranates appear in the Tarot.) I thought that the pomegranates on Waite's High Priestess card came from the description of the Temple, in the Bible via a Masonic re-telling. Kings Chapter 7 And the chapiters upon the two pillars [had pomegranates] also above, over against the belly which [was] by the network: and the pomegranates [were] two hundred in rows round about upon the other chapiter.21 And he set up the pillars in the porch of the temple: and he set up the right pillar, and called the name thereof Jachin: and he set up the left pillar, and called the name thereof Boaz. Is there some carry over from the Mysteries to the Bible in general, and to the building of the Temple, in particular? Vincent

Scion	01 Mar 2005
Hey Vincent! That's an excellent question and one that actually goes back to the original question about the Hierophant and the Mysteries. Let's see... the Eleusinian Mysteries are now believed to have started around 1500 BCE, during the Mycenean Age. The trouble is our knowledge of the Myceanean culture is very slim compared to our knowledge of the Greeks. Nevertheless the Mysteries almost definitely predate the building of the Temple. The preOlympiian role of Demeter (and other goddesses) was much more central, so the Mysteries probably harken back to that time. But beyond that, who can say? I'll offer some conjectures though: :D In the ancient world pomegranates are pretty much universally associated with fecundity/fertility (nb: red juice (menses) and many seeds (children)). In fact, thanks to your query and my consequent digging, I just found out that Pomegranates are the oldest continuously cultivated fruit tree and that they're native to the area between ancient Persia and northern India. Also, there are definitely connections between proto-Judaism and the surrounding religions of the period. Aside from the fact that proto-Judaism begins as as rock worship and becomes increasingly abstract over the centuries of migration, the Bible commences with a creation myth (actually 2 separate myths in Genesis :))lifted almost wholesale from the Sumerian. So from the get-go we got syncretism. THEN there's the gradual removal of the sacred feminine from early Judaism as the religion becomes more abstract and patriarchal. Adios, Shekinah! Hello castration anxiety. So perhaps the pomegranates are a reminder of the importance of fertility for a nomadic culture. Or the feminine component of the Divine even i the very Temple that had thrown the feminine over for a more overt form of dominant deity. Then ya got your constant battle between Yahweh and the gods of neighboring tribes peppering all of the Old Testament. Complicating things is the schism between the tradition and the point at which it's recorded. We''re trying to work backwards so we can't be sure of later revisions and interpolations. At least with Christianity we have the Council of Nicea as a definitive, documented point at which the Church takes a deliberate stance on the editing of the canon. ANYways, Esther and Mordecai are almost without doubt Judaic appropriations of Babylonian deities Ishtar and Marduk. Ishtar and her lover/consort Tammuz are in turn linkable directly to Inanna and Dammuzi. Dammuzi was called Adonai by the Jews (aka the greek Adonis... yet another dying and rising demigod of the region). Fertility goddess Ishtar (aka Astarte) was an extremely old deity with many names. All of her names Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtoret derive from a Semitic verb denoting irrigation (nb: water in High Priestess, Death, etc AND connecting us back to the rape of Persephone) ... as in the water that gives life to the earth. The Greeks identified her with Aphrodite and Demeter. Her worship included sacred prostitutes... in the Bible kedeshot, "holy women" (although there were males as well); Greeks referred to them as hierodules or "servants of the holy"... Which almost gets us back to the HIEROPHANT question that started this thread. :) For that matter, the very idea of Hebraic High Priest was in a sense created by the building of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Papess/High Priestess' pillars are the foundation of the Hierophant's power. In a way, isn't that the reason the situation in Israel/Palestine remains so charged? The Temple changed the very character of the ancient Jews. The Ark was a force and a symbol, but the Temple was something immutable. No Temple without a Holy of Holies, right? And perhaps, no Hierophant without a Temple. So I'd say yes... there's an overlap between the Mystery traditions and Judaism, because the Mystery traditions were surviving threads of older religions. But it wasn't as simple as: a nice Jewish boy was an initiate of Eleusis and went on to carve some fruit on the pillars. It's so easy for us to forget that wasn't even a WORD in the period we're talking about. The idea of worship was not something separate, but rather the very fabric of your life. It's also easy to forget as we codify ancient cultures that none of these traditions were cut and dried, they were vibrant, contradictory and in a weird way, kleptomaniacal with each other. Judaism was part of the pandemic syncretism of all the polytheistic cultures. It just began shedding all its gods relatively early. These esoteric cults were religio-spiritual life-rafts, allowing battered myths and their gods to float through hostile environments. Remember, Christianity started out as a mystery cult too. :) And it follow this same model, borrowing what's useful and mutating to survive. (One of these days, if the mods don't kill me, I'm gonna post my article about religion as a virus on here.) When I called the Eleusinian Mysteries THE reason for the pomegranates appearance throughout the Tarot, it was an oversimplification for effect and wasn't as clear as it should've been; their appearance is attributable to this strong, subtle pulse of ancient polytheism that informs practically every idea about worship and, in fact, transcendence that we have today. God, this turned into a longie, but I'm insomniacal from rehearsals and I love thinking about this stuff. I'm hoping someone else finds it even a little useful. Scion

Fulgour	01 Mar 2005
As one who has wandered through the maze of contradictions that seems forever to surround these basic, and so very human verities relating to the emergence of worshipful belief systems, I can honestly say that you've provided us a minor masterpiece. The more it becomes about people, and the less about religion, the closer it is to the essence of humanity, living on this planet.

The Dreamer	01 Mar 2005
I strongly second Fulgour's last comments. More "freaky history posts", please, Scion! :) These myths are all about people, and the way we transmit our ideas of divinity in such tangled ways. It seems that I read somewhere that the word "hierophant" etymologically means "one who displays the hiero" and that hiero were supposed to be some kind of ritual objects which were displayed on a plate? Behind closed doors, a cloth is removed from a plate of... what? That always intrigued me after I read it, but I can't recall the source. Great thread.

Thirteen	01 Mar 2005
Applause! Bravo, Scion! Bravo! I think this forum could absolutely use an e-book from you on religious/mythical symbolism in the tarot! Please think about a series of essays on this subject. I'm all for it and I'm sure the mods would be as well! Scion wrote: These esoteric cults were religio-spiritual life-rafts, allowing battered myths and their gods to float through hostile environments. I especially like this! Nicely put! I think the only thing to add is to remember that the Tarot--Waite's and Crowley's--mixed and matched as they pleased. So there's Biblical references whipped up with Greek, Egyptian and every other ancient myth and magical/alchemical system they researched and admired. So yes, certainly, Waite used the Biblical reference quoted in creating his High Priestess--and relies heavily on Bible symbolism in most of his cards. But he also uses elements like Isis' crescent moon. And I've no doubt that the pomegranates on that card are cross-cultural (mythically speaking). Biblically speaking, after all, there should be no High Priestess, only High Priests--you have to cross-pollenate to get the HPS card. Unless, of course, we go New Testament and see her as the "bride" to divine bridegroom metaphor--which, heck, is probably also part of it as well. The Hierophant, like-wise, bows both to the original Pope card, with Peter's keys and acolytes, but also to the Greek mysteries. Mix and match was the way of the Golden Dawn boys, and I certainly have no objection to it. To me, it just makes things richer and more flavorful.

Fudugazi	01 Mar 2005
Scion wrote: (One of these days, if the mods don't kill me, I'm gonna post my article about religion as a virus on here.) Oh man, I can't wait for that one! (OK, I'm just greedy for more - and I second Thirteen's suggestion of essays :)) I've been re-reading a modern Iraqi poet - Badr Shakir al-Sayyab - who wrote about Tammuz dying: "Tammuz dies on the skyline His blood seeps away with twilight in the dim cavern. Darkness Is a black ambulance... ...Tammuz dies, never to return Coldness drips from the moon" Is this how mystery cults are born, out of the death of a god, and our mourning for him? And the High Priest is the who must replace Tammuz, and draw the moon in his embrace? Abraham came from the land of Tammuz and Innana, too, long before his descendents were brought there in exile. Was his act of departure, with it implicit rejection of Ishtar, the definitive death of her lover Tammuz, whom she could no longer redeem? In obliterating Ishtar - or in dismissing her as a demon - in condemning Tammuz, in forbidding their cyclical wedding and sacrifice, Abraham became not only first Patriarch, but also the first High Priest - a nomadic Priest with no Temple yet, though the Temple was in the making from the moment the mourning began. If Tammuz lives, if Ishtar can keep betraying him and saving him and reuniting with him, if there is no mystery of mourning, what role for a Patriarch but to sit at a lovers' banquet, neglected in a corner while the Bride and Groom have eyes only for each other? What role for a Priest but the downgraded one of celebrating a wedding? Tammuz has to die for there to be a High Priest, a Father, a Patriarch who can lead his people and offer them, through his intermediary, the consolation of his strange, disembodied male G-d, who was not born and never dies. Out of mourning one god, people began to worship another...and it was the High Priest who held the entrance to this worship. This makes me realise how revolutionary the Tarot was to have brought the Bride back (I always knew that High Priestess was more dangeous than she looked ;)). The High Priest did not disappear when she returned: together they created a new mystery.

TemperanceAngel	01 Mar 2005
Scion wrote: It's so easy for us to forget that wasn't even a WORD in the period we're talking about. The idea of worship was not something separate, but rather the very fabric of your life. I think this is such a key point and I agree with all before me, more freaky history posts from Scion and essays and e-books. Bring it on Scion, your posts make AT a joy to wake up to in the morning :D

Vincent	03 Mar 2005
Scion wrote: Hey Vincent! In the ancient world pomegranates are pretty much universally associated with fecundity/fertility (nb: red juice (menses) and many seeds (children)). In fact, thanks to your query and my consequent digging, I just found out that Pomegranates are the oldest continuously cultivated fruit tree and that they're native to the area between ancient Persia and northern India. The pomegranate had a wealth of symbolism attached to it by the Hebrews in addition to its fecundity/fertility significance, though the symbolism may have sprung from the fertility aspect. For example, there was an idea that a pomegranate held 613 seeds to symbolise the 613 laws of the Torah. It was also felt that the Tree of Life might be a pomegranate, (shades of Waites Priestess, where the pomegranates comprise the glyph behind her). Scion wrote: When I called the Eleusinian Mysteries THE reason for the pomegranates appearance throughout the Tarot, it was an oversimplification for effect and wasn't as clear as it should've been; their appearance is attributable to this strong, subtle pulse of ancient polytheism that informs practically every idea about worship and, in fact, transcendence that we have today. God, this turned into a longie, but I'm insomniacal from rehearsals and I love thinking about this stuff. I'm hoping someone else finds it even a little useful. Scion Thanks for taking the time to explain. Your post reminded me of a master's thesis I read a few years ago concerning the symbolism of pomegranates. I think she said that the myth of Persephone came from Egypt, and then went to Crete and then Greece. Perhaps when it left Egypt it also went to Israel. I could probably dig the thesis out if you wanted it... it is on a .pdf file somewhere. Vincent

Thirteen	03 Mar 2005
Vincent wrote: I could probably dig the thesis out if you wanted it... it is on a .pdf file somewhere. Yo! Don't go to a lot of trouble, but I, myself, would LOVE to read this. Ever since this thread started up I've been wondering about that. Given the seasons of Egypt (drought season, flood season, planting and harvest season....) it seems spot on that the Persephone myth might have started in Egypt where the pomegranate appears, I presume, at the end of drought season. Thus, the promise of abundance after flood season. Or something like that. Anyway, it seems right that it would begin in Egypt and spread, well everywhere. And we certainly know that the Hebrews stole more than a bit from the Egyptians not only culturally but mythically (there's an Egyptian story of a magican parting the waters--exactly like Moses). So I wouldn't be a bit suprised if they all shared and shared alike regarding myths about such an important fruit. In fact, I'd be more surprised if there were no sharing.

Vincent	06 Mar 2005
Thirteen wrote: Yo! Don't go to a lot of trouble, but I, myself, would LOVE to read this. Sorry to take so long to get back to this thread. Here is the pomegaranate lady and her thesis; http://www.kathrynhadley.com/symbol.htm Vincent

Scion	07 Mar 2005
Excellent! Thank you Vincent... Very much look forward to reading this when things calm down. Scion

Thirteen	07 Mar 2005
Thanks Vincent. Now all we have to do is get Scion to start writing up those essays... :D

The The Hierophant and Eleusinian mysteries thread was originally posted on 25 Feb 2005 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.