#demeter mysteries

Ἕκτη Μεσοῦντος/ Ἕκτη ἐπὶ δέκα /Ἑκκαιδεκάτη, XVI day
From today’s sunset: sixteenth day of Boedromion.
‘Elasis’ (from Halade mystai- initiates to the sea’) - “Halade mystai: a day of the Mysteries celebrated in Athens.”

‘Halade mystai’ is the command of the Hierophant. At dawn, the initiates, each along with his/her mystagogos, go down to the sea-shore of Phaleros or Pireos (or at the Rheitoi, or in Eleusis), to purify themselves and the piglets they have to sacrifice to Demeter on their return to Athens (“as a mystic initiate was washing a pig in the harbour of Cantharus”). This day is associated then with purifications of all kinds (sea-water, water from the Rheitoi lakes, piglets’ blood, Dios koidion, etc…)

“Chabrias won the naval battle of Naxos on the sixteenth day of Boedromion, considering it as an auspicious day for that battle, because it was one of the days during which were celebrated the Mysteries…Chabrias had as ally the cry ‘initiates to the sea’.”

“So, to those that approach the Holy Celebrations of the Mysteries, there are appointed purifications and the laying aside of the garments worn before…”
(Plotinus, First Ennead VI, 7)

(See Hesychius, s.v. halade mystai; Plutarch, Phokion 28.3, de Glor. Ath. 349; Mylonas 1961, pp. 249-50; Polyaenos 3.11.2; Etym. M. s. v.: hiera hodos; Suda s.v. Dios koidion)

(Kore purifying a candidate for initiation; Museum of Eleusis)

Πέμπτη Μεσοῦντος/ Πέμπτη ἐπὶ δέκα / Πεντεκαιδεκάτη, XV day
From today’s sunset: fifteenth day of Boedromion.
Full Moon
‘The day of the gathering’. Agyrmós- Prorresis (formal declaration bidding depart to those not qualified): this is the first ‘official’ day of the Mysteries. The Archon Basileus calls the gathering (agyrmós) in the Stoa Poikile, in Agorà, of those already initiated into the Lesser Mysteries of Agrai. In the presence of the Hierophant and the Dadouchos, the Sacred Herald delivers the formal proclamation (prorresis).
“The leader of the mystai proclaimed to the assembly that they must be pure in hands and soul and of Hellenic speech.”
“Whoever is pure from all stain and whose soul is conscious of no sin and who has lived a good and just life.”
“Come ye all who are pure of hands and of intelligible speech.”
“If there is someone who is not initiated into the venerable initiations, or who is atheist, or who has not a pure disposition, get out from the sacred ceremonies.”
“Citizens’ Assembly … the first day of the Mysteries.”

Obligation to fast during the day: “fasting on the sacred days of the Rarian Demeter” but “because She broke Her fast at nightfall, the initiates time their meal by the appearance of the stars.”

“…to the Mother, the first-born Earth, the Kybeleian Kore said:
…of Demeter…o Zeus who see everything…
o Helios, o Fire who go across all the cities, when
to the Goddesses of victory and to the Goddesses of fate and together with the Moira which oversees all things You appeared,
You increases the brightness, shining Daimon,
with Your dominion; by You everything can be subdued, everything supported,
everything blazed; everywhere we have to endure the works of the Moira.
Lead me, O Fire, to the Mother, if I can resist fasting,
and to accomplish a fast of seven nights, or after the day.
For You I have fasted for seven days, Olympian Zeus and Helios who see everything……”
Sicilian golden tablet- Otto Kern, Orphicorum fragmenta fr. 47

Registration of the initiates and payment of the fees that go to the various Eleusinian priests and priestesses.
(Hesychius, s.v. agyrmos ; Schol. on Aristoph. Ran. 369; Poll. viii. 90; Call. Aetia 10; Ovid Fasti 530)

(Relief with Demeter seated in the centre; Kore and Triptolemus at Her side. From Campania, I BCE, now in the Louvre…)

Εἰκοστή/ Εἰκὰς/ Εἰκοσάδες, XX day
From today’s sunset: twentieth day of Boedromion.
‘Teletè’
“Corn and teletè, the two gifts of Demeter, blessings that only the mystes can fully understand.”

“The initiates first gather together and push each other in an uproar and they cry, but when are executed and show the sacred rites, then they become careful, fearful and remain silent … who came in and saw a great light, as when a sanctuary opens, behaves differently, is silent and astonished … ”

Sacrifices to the Eleusinian deities, performed by the Archon Basileus and the epimeletai of the Mysteries.

The night of the Initiation.

“The soul in point of death has the same experiences as those who are being initiated into the Great Mysteries…at first one wanders and wearily hurries to and fro, and journeys with suspicion through the dark as one uninitiated; then come all the terrors before the final initiation, shuddering, trembling, sweating, amazement; then one is struck with a marvelous light, one is received into pure regions and meadows, with voices and dances and the majesty of holy sounds and shapes; among these, he who has fulfilled initiation, wanders free, and released and bearing his crown, joins in the divine communion, and consorts with pure and holy men, beholding those who live here uninitiated, as unclean horde, trodden under foot of him and huddled together in filth and fog, abiding in their miseries through fear of death and mistrust of the blessings there”
(Them. from Stobaios, ‘On the soul’)

“The perfective rite [τελετη] precedes in order the initiation [μυησις], and initiation, the final initiation, epopteia.” At the same time it is proper to observe that the whole business of initiation was distributed into five parts, as we are informed by Theon of Smyrna, in Mathematica, who thus elegantly compares philosophy to these mystic rites: “Again,” says he, “philosophy may be called the initiation into true sacred ceremonies, and the instruction in genuine Mysteries; for there are five parts of initiation: the first of which is the previous purification; for neither are the Mysteries communicated to all who are willing to receive them; but there are certain persons who are prevented by the voice of the herald [κηρυξ], such as those who possess impure hands and an inarticulate voice; since it is necessary that such as are not expelled from the Mysteries should first be refined by certain purifications: but after purification, the reception of the sacred rites succeeds. The third part is denominated epopteia. And the fourth, which is the end and design of the epopteia, is the binding of the head and fixing of the crowns. The initiated is, by this means, authorized to communicate to others the sacred rites in which he has been instructed; whether after this he becomes a torch-bearer, or a Hierophant of the Mysteries, or sustains some other part of the sacerdotal office. But the fifth, which is produced from all these, is friendship and interior communion with Gods, and the enjoyment of that felicity which arises from intimate converse with divine beings…he (Plato) denominates εποπτεια, a contemplation of things which are apprehended intuitively, absolute truths, and ideas. But he considers the binding of the head, and coronation, as analogous to the authority which any one receives from his instructors, of leading others to the same contemplation. And the fifth gradation is, the most perfect felicity arising from hence, and, according to Plato, an assimilation to divinity, as far as is possible to mankind”
(Proklos, Theology of Plato IV)

(cfr. Plutarch Mor. 81d-e; Plut. fr. 178 (Sandbach); Papiro di Tebtunis 20, col. I 18; Pr. Theol. Pl. III 19, 64; EM. s.v. muesis; schol. Arist. Ran. 456a; Psell. Op. 44, 1-2; Eur. Ion 1074- 7; Proklos in RP II, p. 185, 10-2; Porph. fr. 360 F)

(Detail of the Telesterion, Eleusis)