The Evolution of Dionysus

From Pan to Satan • In Greekreligion and mythology, Pan is the god of the wilderness, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs. • His name originates within the Ancient Greek language, from the word paein (πάειν), meaning "to pasture.“ • He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. • With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. The ancient Greeks also considered Pan to be the god of theatrical criticism. • The god Pan has much in common with the look and spirit of Dionysiac satyrs and sileni. • He is part man, with the horns, ears, and legs of a goat. • His mother was a nymph, variously named, and his father often identified as Hermes; like him, he is a god of shepherds and of music. His haunts are the mountains, particularly of Arcadia, and he is often accompanied by a group of revelers dancing to the tune of his panpipe. He was extremely amorous. • In the Orphic theogony (which differs substantially from the more well-known cosmogony of Homer and Hesiod), Dionysus appears successively in three forms: Phanês-Dionysus, the bisexual god of Light, burst from the silver egg of the cosmos (the so-called Orphic Egg is sometimes depicted as an egg girt with a serpent) at the beginning of time. • Phanês was also known by the names of Protogonos, Ericapaeus, Eros and Mêtis . • Alone, Phanês created a daughter, Nyx (Night), with whom he begot Gê or Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos or Uranus (Heaven). • These begot the Fates, the Centimani, the Cyclôpes, and the Titans, with their leader Cronus. • Dionysus was born on the winter solstice in a cavern in Mount Nusa (one theory of the origin of the name Dionysus derives the name from words meaning "God of Nusa"). Having been born twice, once as Zagreus and once as Lyseus, Dionysus is known as Dithyrambos, the "twice-born." • Hêra, always jealous of her mate's numerous lovers and their children, disguised herself as Semelê's maidservant and convinced Semelê that she deserved to behold Zeus in his true splendor. The next time she saw him, Semelê tricked Zeus into swearing to grant her a wish; which was, of course, that he reveal his true form to her. He reluctantly complied, and she was instantly burned to ashes by the intolerable glory of his manifestation. • Zeus placed Dionysus in the care of the Nysaean Nymphs, who nurtured him through his childhood, and for which they were rewarded by Zeus by being placed among the stars as the Hyades. [Another version of the legend states that Zeus hid the child within his own thigh until the child had attained puberty • When fully grown, Dionysus discovered the methods of culturing the vine and extracting and fermenting its juice; • Hêra, ever jealous, struck him with madness and caused him to aimlessly wander the earth. • In Phrygia, he was cured of his madness by the Great Mother Goddess, his grandmother Rhea (also known as Cybelê, Bona Dea and Magna Mater), who initiated him into her mysteries. He then set out to teach viticulture and to establish his cult among the peoples of the world. • He marched through Syria, Lebanon, Caucasian Iberia (modern Georgia), India, Egypt and Libya accompanied by a retinue of his votaries, dancing ecstatically and shouting the mystic word "euoi" (Latinized as the familiar "evoe"). • Pan was depicted as a man with the horns, legs and tail of a goat, and with thick beard, snub nose and pointed ears. • He was often appears in the retinue of Dionysos alongside the other rustic gods. Greeks in the classical age associated his name with the word pan meaning "all". • However, it true origin lies in an old Arkadian word for rustic. • The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques (like dance and music) to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. • The Dionysian Mysteries were a source liberation for those marginalized by Greek society: women, slaves and foreigners. • In latter stages of worship the Mysteries shifted their emphasis from an earthly, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical one, with Dionysus changing his nature accordingly. • By its nature as a mystery religion reserved for the initiated, many aspects of the Dionysian cult remain unknown and were lost with the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism; our knowledge is derived from descriptions, imagery and cross-cultural studies. • The rites were based on a seasonal death-rebirth theme (common among agricultural cults) and spirit possession; a similar set of practices known as the Osirian Mysteries were a part of Egyptian rituals. • Spirit possession involved liberation from civilization's rules and constraints. It celebrated that which was outside civilized society and a return to origins— which would later assume mystical overtones. • It also involved escape from the socialized personality and ego into an ecstatic, deified state. In this sense Dionysus was the beast-god within people; our animal instincts • Such activity has been interpreted as fertilizing, invigorating, cathartic, liberating and transformative, so it is not surprising that many devotees of Dionysus were those on the margins of society: women, slaves, outlaws and "foreigners" (non-citizens, in Greek democracy). The roles held by members were of equal status. • Although the Greek Dionysian rites were associated with women (freeing themselves from suppressive Greek society), the cult officers' titles were of both genders—belying the claim that the cult was solely for women. • The trance induction central to the cult involved not only chemognosis, but an "invocation of spirit" with the bullroarer and communal dancing to drum and pipe and characteristic movements • Rhythms are also found preserved in Greek prose referring to the Dionysian rites (such as Euripides‘ Bacchae). This collection of classical quotes describes rites in the Greek countryside in the mountains, to which processions were made on feast days: • Following the torches as they dipped and swayed in the darkness, they climbed mountain paths with head thrown back and eyes glazed, dancing to the beat of the drum which stirred their blood' [or 'staggered drunkenly with what was known as the Dionysus gait']. 'In this state of ekstasis or enthusiasmos, they abandoned themselves, dancing wildly and shouting 'Euoi!' [the god's name] and at that moment of intense rapture became identified with the god himself. They became filled with his spirit and acquired divine powers. • Many Greek rulers considered the cult a threat to civilized society and wished to control it or suppress them. The latter failed; the former would succeed in the foundation of a domesticated Dionysianism as a state religion in Athens. • This was only form of Dionysianism—a cult which assumed different forms in different localities (often absorbing indigenous divinities and their rites, as did Dionysus himself). • The officially sanctioned Athenian version of the Dionysian rites were more orderly and took on a familiar, scripted form • To pay their respect to Dionysus, the citizens of Athens, and other city-states, held a winter-time festival in which a large phallus was erected and displayed. • After competitions were held to see who could empty their jug of wine the quickest, a procession from the sea to the city was held with flute players, garland bearers and honored citizens dressed as satyrs and maenads (nymphs), which were often paired together. • At the end of the procession a bull was sacrificed symbolizing the fertility god's marriage to the queen of the city. .

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