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Rosicrucian Digest Vol 87 No 2 2009 Eleusis

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Rosicrucian Digest Vol 87 No 2 2009 Eleusis Each issue of the Rosicrucian Digest provides members and all interested readers with a compendium of materials regarding the ongoing flow of the Rosicrucian Timeline. The articles, historical excerpts, art, and literature included in this Digest span the ages, and are not only interesting in themselves, but also seek to provide a lasting reference shelf to stimulate continuing study of all of those factors which make up Rosicrucian history and thought. Therefore, we present classical background, historical development, and modern reflections on each of our subjects, using the many forms of primary sources, reflective commentaries, the arts, creative fiction, and poetry. This magazine is dedicated• to all the women and men throughout the ages who have contributed to and perpetuated the wisdom of the Rosicrucian, Western esoteric, tradition. May we ever be •worthy of the light with which we have been entrusted. In this issue, we explore• the Eleusinian Mysteries which were celebrated outside Athens for 2,000 years. Combining the mysteries of life, death, fertility, immortality, transcendence, and divine union, they were the very soul of Hellenistic civilization. Today we can glimpse their glory, still calling to us across the millennia. No. 2 - 2009 Vol. 87 - No. 2 Peter Kingsley, Ph.D. “Paths of the Ancient Sages: A Pythagorean History” Giulia Minicuci and Mary Jones, S.R.C. “Pythagoras the Teacher: From Samos to Metapontum” What We Can Learn about 2 RutOfficialh Phelps, S.R.C.Magazine “The Schoolof the of Pythagoras”the Eleusinian Mysteries AnonymousWorldwide “The Golden Verses of Pythagoras”George Mylonas, Ph.D. AntoineRosicrucian Fabre d’Olivet, Order “Excerpt fromDe mExaminationeter and Persephone of the Golden Verses” 7 Hugh McCague, Ph.D., F.R.C. “PythagoreansCharlene and Spretnak, Sculptors: M.A. The Canon of Polykleitos Established in 1915 by the Supreme MelGrandanie Richards,Lodge of the M.Mus., English Language S.R.C. “PyThthagorase Wisdom and of Music” the Sages: On the 12 Jurisdiction, AMORC, Rosicrucian Homeric Hymn and the Myth of Demeter LisaPark, Spencer, San Jose, M.A.O.M., CA 95191. S.R.C. “The Neo-Pythagoreans at the Porta Maggiore in Nicholas P. Kephalas, F.R.C. Rome” Copyright 2009 by the Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC, Inc. All rights At Eleusis 20 Jeanreserved. Guesdon, Republication S.R.C of any portion “Silence” of Rosicrucian Digest is prohibited Ella Wheeler Wilcox, S.R.C. Fraterwithout X, prior written permission“Music of of the Spheres and Pythagorean Numerology” The Lesser Mysteries of Eleusis 21 Benpublisher. Finger, “Apollonius: Man or Myth?” Stefanie Goodart, M.A., S.R.C. RalphROSICRUCIAN M. Lewis, F.R.C. DIGEST (ISSN“Reviewing our Acts” #0035–8339) is published bi-annually Eleusis 26 Stafffor of $12.00 the Rosicrucian per year, single copiesResearch $6.00, Library “A Pythagorean Bookshelf” by the Grand Lodge of the English Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Language Jurisdiction, AMORC, Inc., at 1342 Naglee Ave., San Jose, CA The Ritual Path of Initiation into 28 95191. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ROSICRUCIAN DIGEST the Eleusinian Mysteries at 1342 Naglee Ave., San Jose, CA Mara Lynn Keller, Ph.D. 95191–0001. The Eleusinian Mysteries and the Bee 43 Julie Sanchez-Parodi, S.R.C. Eleusis: The Card Game 49 Robert Abbott, John Golden and the Staff of the Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια Rosicrucian Digest The Message of the Eleusinian 52 Mysteries for Today’s World Albert Hofmann, Ph.D. Rosicrucian Digest No. 2 2009 Page What We Can Learn about the Eleusinian Mysteries George Mylonas, Ph.D. From Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries, © 1961 Princeton University Press, 1989 renewed Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press. r. George Mylonas (898-988) What we can learn about the Eleusinian was a Greek archaeologist and Mysteries is certainly very limited. We know Dscholar renowned worldwide for his of certain rites that were not, however, part expertise, erudition, and wit. Having received of the secret celebration; we can figure out his doctorate from the University of Athens in certain acts that were part of the Mysteries, 97, he continued his study at Johns Hopkins such as the enactment of the sacred pageant; University, where he earned a second Ph.D. we know nothing of the substance of the He later taught at Washington University Mysteries, of the meaning derived even from in St. Louis from 933-968, founded the the sacred drama which was performed. Department of Art History and Archaeology Explanations suggested by scholars thus far, there, and directed the university’s archaeological and philosophic conceptions and parallels, digs at Mycenae. After retirement, he returned are based upon assumptions and the wish to Greece to serve as Secretary General of the to establish the basis on which the Mysteries Archaeological Society and oversaw the dig at rested. These accounts do not seem to Mycenae until his death. Mylonas was in the correspond to the facts. The secret of the forefront of efforts to protect the Acropolis in Mysteries was kept a secret successfully and Athens from air and water pollution. we shall perhaps never be able to fathom it or For Dr. Mylonas, archaeology and history unravel it. were far from dry or dead. In a 985 interview For years, since my early youth, I have with Michael Wood on his series In Search tried to find out what the facts were. Hope of the Trojan War, Mylonas chuckled when against hope was spent against the lack he told the interviewer that he converses with of monumental evidence; the belief that Agamemnon “all the time.” His definition of inscriptions would be found on which the the work of an archaeologist is to “infer from Hierophants had recorded their ritual and its withered flowers the hour of their bloom.”1 meaning has faded completely; the discovery of a subterranean room filled with the archives In this selection from his work on Eleusis, of the cult, which dominated my being in Dr. Mylonas explores the nature of what we can my days of youth, is proved an unattainable know about the ancient Mysteries. dream since neither subterranean rooms nor archives for the cult exist at Eleusis; the last Hierophant carried with him to the grave the secrets which had been transmitted orally for Rosicrucian untold generations, from the one high priest Digest No. 2 to the next. A thick, impenetrable veil indeed 2009 still covers securely the rites of Demeter Page and protects them from the curious eyes of We may assume that the pageant of modern students. How many nights and days the wanderings of Demeter, the story of have been spent over books, inscriptions, and Persephone, and the reunion of mother and works of art by eminent scholars in their daughter formed part of the dromena; that effort to lift the veil! How many wild and it was a passion play which aimed not only The main initiation, thetelete , included at least three elements: the things which were enacted, the things which were shown; and the words which were spoken. Things enacted were the drama of Demeter and Persphone. The spoken words and the sacred objects revealed by the Hierophant remain unknown. ingenious theories have been advanced in to unfold the myth of the Goddesses to superhuman effort to explain the Mysteries! the initiates but also to make these initiates How many nights I have spent standing on partake of the experiences of the Goddesses the steps of the Telesterion, flooded with the to share with them the distress, the travail, magic silver light of a Mediterranean moon, the exultation, and the joy which attended hoping to catch the mood of the initiates, the loss of Persephone and her reunion with hoping that the human soul might get a the mother. Certainly the story of the Mater glimpse of what the rational mind could not Dolorosa of antiquity contains elements that investigate! All in vain—the ancient world appeal to the human heart and imagination. has kept its secret well and the Mysteries of “With burning torches Persephone is sought, Eleusis remain unrevealed. and when she is found the rite is closed with general thanksgiving and a waving of What We Know torches.” We may assume that the fortunes The few details that we know are of Demeter and Persephone symbolized inadequate to give us a complete under- the vegetation cycle—life, death, and life standing of the substance of the rites. What again: “the sprouting of the new crop is a do we know about those rites? We know symbol of the eternity of life”; that they that different degrees of initiation existed, gave the initiates confidence to face death the most advanced of which was known as and a promise of bliss in the dark domain the epopteia. of Hades whose rulers became his protectors and friends through initiation. But can we We know that all people of Hellenic go beyond this point and imagine more fully speech and untainted by human blood, with the substance of the Mysteries? the exception of barbarians, were eligible to be initiated into the Mysteries—men, There are a good many scholars who women, children, and even slaves. We know believe that there was no more to the that the main initiation, the telete, included at Mysteries than the few facts and surmises least three elements: the dromena, the things we have summarized; there are others who which were enacted; the deiknymena, the believe that their substance was so simple things which were shown; and the legomena, that it escapes us just because of its simplicity. the words which were spoken. The spoken There are even a few who maintain that the words and the sacred objects revealed by the secret was kept because actually there was Hierophant remain unknown.
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