Reading this post by Galina on Wiccanate privilege and cosmic money shots, I was reminded of one my favorite Greek myths:

Jove, Neptunus, and Mercury came as guests to King Hyrieus in Thrace. Since they were received hospitably by him, they promised him whatever he should ask for. He asked for children. Mercury brought out the hide of the bull which Hyrieus had sacrificed to them; they ejaculated on it, and buried it in the earth, and from it Orion was born. (Hyginus, Fabulae 195)

With such an origin it’s hardly surprising to learn that Orion was a total prick, but thankfully Dionysos was there to gave him a proper comeuppance:

Orion was a hunter with an immense body, who on numerous occasions undertook tasks for King Oenopion. But on one occasion he violated his daughter, as a result of which the enraged king invoked the power of Father Liber who was his father. The god then sent the satyrs, who poured sleep upon Orion and in this manner bound him and handed him over to Oenopion for his judgment and retribution. So Oenopion took out his eyes while he slept. (Servius, Commentary on Vergil’s Aeneid 10.763)

Hear the words of your people! May they be pleasing to you!

… they roam together – the night-walkers, the magicians, the Bakchai, the Lenai, the participants in mysteries full of unholy rites. Their processions and phallic hymns would be disgraceful exhibitions if it wasn’t for the fact that they are done in honor of Dionysos – that Dionysos who is the same as Haides; it is in his honor that they rave madly and hold their revels. (Herakleitos, Fragments 76-77)

I suppose I should probably talk about this though it’s something I have an extremely strong aversion to discussing in public. However I’ve been asked about it now on four separate occasions since the allusion in this piece on Dionysian purity and experiences I’ve had at several recent House Sankofa ceremonies suggest I should probably tackle it anyway.

But I don’t want to. In the abstract I love all of the gods and spirits and want to see their traditional forms of cultus properly restored and flourishing. I don’t want to write anything that could even inadvertently result in someone deciding not to worship any of the holy powers.

And yet I find this development rather interesting on an abstract, theological level and it’s not something I’ve seen addressed much before, so here goes.

It appears that I am developing an allergic reaction to participating in ritual for divinities that are too far removed from my micro-pantheon. When I do I find myself getting physically uncomfortable, internally agitated, irritable, overly sensitive to sensations and like clockwork about an hour after things commence I get violently ill, sometimes lasting all evening. Although this has intensified since I immersed myself in Bacchic Orphism I’ve tended to avoid gods and spirits of a certain type within the Pan-Mediterranean region and rarely had occasion to encounter the divinities of cultures outside that complex except when I was working with a coven in Las Vegas and the couple of interfaith or neopagan events I attended back in the day.

Have I been drawn to certain gods and spirits and instinctively avoided the rest because of something odd about me from the beginning or has the work I’ve done to get closer to my little collective rewired me in some way so that I’m “out of alignment with their vibrational frequencies” (to appropriate new ager jargon) when it comes to anyone else or am I just getting old and feeble?

I’m inclined to go with option two (without denying the possibility of one – I will skullfuck with a chainsaw option three however) because I’ve noticed that there are gods and spirits I don’t have this reaction to in ritual (despite their having no direct relationship to Dionysos and his retinue) but they all tend to fall within certain archetypal patterns (as people who are prone to misinterpreting Carl Jung would say) while Brigid and the goddess we honored yesterday (both of whom were deeply triggering in this way) occupy very different space than I am used to.

I don’t want to give them or you, dear reader, the impression that I dislike either of these wonderful, beautiful, gracious ladies or that there was some problem with the ceremony or the participants. That couldn’t be further from the truth – in fact I suspect that if these ceremonies hadn’t been so effectively conducted and the presence of the goddesses so palpably felt I wouldn’t be writing this post.

If I had to hazard a guess it’s that this is somehow connected to the process of acquiring taboos I’ve been going through which is related to the chthonification of my practice. The deeper I delve into the underworld the harder it’ll be to relate to the sunny Olympians and cognate powers. Because of the work I’m doing I’m in a constant state of miasma – and yet this spiritual dirtiness is the source of my own fertile inspiration and power, so that won’t be changing any time soon.

I just need to be more discriminating in the rituals I attend and start paying better attention to my instincts. Leading up to both Imbolc and Saturday’s observance I kept getting this vague sense that I shouldn’t be in attendance but I pushed it aside for the sake of hospitality and a desire to support the folks putting on those rites. (Plus I couldn’t be entirely sure that these pre-ritual jitters weren’t just holdover from my dislike for Michael Flatley and Loreena McKennitt until I’d given it a shot.) I stuck it out the whole time for Brigid, but decided to bail midway through yesterday which resulted in me only being sick for half the night. Progress!

It’s kind of ironic in a way that I who am always crowing so loudly about listening to the gods and spirits and doing more, more MOAR!!! for them is having to scale back my participation in cultus. This shit takes you in unexpected directions sometimes, especially when you’re walking the path of story.

After all, a common critique of Orphikoi was that they worshiped strange gods through bizarre rites instead of participating in the conventional cults of the polis. Perhaps something similar was behind that.

I’ve been having some interesting conversations with folks about the thiasos of the Starry Bull which has helped clarify my own thinking on certain matters and brought up others I hadn’t considered before. So by all means keep the questions coming, folks!

To begin with, here’s the story of how I became an archiboukolos.

I found my way to the Hellenic polytheist community through Dionysos back in 1998. Unlike a lot of Dionysians I tend to focus on very specific, localized forms of the god and this has lead me into some rather interesting territory - Ptolemaic Egypt, for instance.

Back around 2007 I began having a series of visionary and other experiences that I realized in hindsight were my initiation into the Bacchic Orphic mysteries. At the time I felt it was only loosely connected to that since I had something of an aversion to the Orphic label because of some of the Orphic-identifying people I’d met in the community and how the tradition was often presented in scholarly works. I just figured this was my own weird thing and went bumbling along with it until I came across some studies that have radically challenged and in some cases even altered the status quo understanding of Orphism in academia. Creepily, this new understanding conforms to a lot of the experiences I’d had and gave greater context to certain other things that had been puzzling me for years.

Since no one else had come up with a Bacchic Orphic cult quite like I was envisioning, it fell to me to do so and it’s going to be awesome.

At this stage I am systematizing the information I’ve collected and will be turning it into a bunch of articles for this blog and possibly a book at some point. I am also working out a set of practices and traditions for the thiasos. Mostly this involves figuring out how to explain to others what I’ve already been doing, something that’s a lot more difficult than it may seem since all of this is so labyrinthine and has been so idiosyncratic up to this point.

The thiasos will consist of four grades:

• Akousmatikoi (Ἀκουσματικοί, “listeners”)
• Boukoloi (βουκόλοι, “tenders of the bull”)
• Speirarchoi (Σπείραρχοι, “troop-leaders”)
• Mystai (Μύσται, “those who have been intiated”)

The first stage consists of everyone who is interested in learning more about this tradition and have begun honoring the gods and spirits of the thiasos. Anyone who wishes to identify as an akousmatikos is free to do so and the title comes with no prescriptions or obligations.

After the person has spent at least six months in this stage and determined that they would like to progress they can contact me and we’ll begin preparation for them to take on the role of boukolos. After extensive conversation with the candidate, including an in person meeting and divination, I’ll begin a phase of personal instruction and entrust them with the rituals and other spiritual techniques of our tradition. Once they have demonstrated their competency in these by successfully leading a ritual in my presence I will ordain them as an acting boukolos of the thiasos. All boukoloi will be expected to maintain a schedule of weekly devotions and observe the festivals of the thiasos as well as adhere to any prescriptions laid upon them by the gods or spirits through divination.

Once they have served in this capacity for a year we will meet to see how things are going, if there are any modifications that need to be made and whether they wish to continue. This check-in is required to be performed annually for the first three years and at that point the individual may choose to remain a boukolos (though without the obligation for an annual check-in) or become ordained as a speirarchos with the ability to found and operate their own speira (religious club) under the auspices of the thiasos should they choose to – though they are under no obligation to. (Also note that a person may lead whatever groups they want, including a Bacchic Orphic group, it simply will not be considered part of the thiasos until they have received ordination.)

Except in very rare instances no one will be considered for initiation into the mysteries of the thiasos of the Starry Bull until they have completed three years of service as a boukolos.

Membership in the thiasos is non-exclusive: you may have any outside associations and honor whatever other gods and spirits you feel called to, in whatever manner you and they deem appropriate as long as you do nothing inimical to Dionysos and his retinue. My only concern is how you conduct yourself as a member of the thiasos.

And that’s it for now!

“Were Orphikoi ascetic vegetarians?”

I was asked this question tonight and it’s an important one because I know for me personally that was a pretty huge stumbling block to involvement with this tradition.

After I left Christianity I spent a couple of years wandering around and trying on different faiths. At one point I was pretty seriously into Chan (Zen) Buddhism and briefly even considered becoming a monk. Towards that end I swore an oath not to take life or consume meat. Despite the reputation this school often has in the West on account of its adoption by Beatniks and Hippies I found it to be extremely conservative, stifling, escapist, overly intellectual and sacrophobic and eventually decided it just wasn’t for me and parted ways with the dhamma path. For a number of years – through my time as a Wiccan and even a while after being (re)claimed by Dionysos – I faithfully maintained my oaths until I came to realize that they were empty structures in my life, devoid of meaning and holding me back by limiting my possible experiences. So I did what any decent Dionysian would do and transgressed those oaths in order to draw closer to his raw, embodied ecstasy. Indeed a large part of why I had initially found that branch of Buddhism so appealing is that it offered a flight from life and the pains and frustrations of this world. Dionysos helped me face that about myself and has ceaselessly encouraged me to be engaged and celebratory.

So of course when I read accounts of Orphism by the likes of Thomas Taylor, Jane Ellen Harrison and W. K. Guthrie which made it seem like a reformist Protestant sect that espoused pacifism, celibacy, teetotalism, vegetarianism and an escape from metempsychosis through spiritual enlightenment I avoided it like the plague and wondered how the hell this had anything to do with Dionysos.

Well, it didn’t – and it had precious little to do with the ancient Orphics either.

Pick up any decent study on Orpheus and you’ll find at least one chapter devoted to the shifting trends within Orphic studies. Jesus, have people come to some wild conclusions about these guys, most of which radically contradict each other. It’s quite amusing, really – at some point I may post a bunch of statements scholars have made about them over the years to show how absurd all of this is – plus we can all use periodic reminders that the mere fact that someone in academia has said something does not make it true.

The reason that there’s so much confusion, I believe, is because there was never an ancient Orphic church, a set of universal doctrines or myth or even really an Orphic movement for that matter. What we’ve got are a lot of individuals and sometimes small, isolated groups who attach authority to the name of Orpheus, many of whom attributed their own writings and rituals to him. This process began around the 6th century BCE and continued more or less until the closing of the Platonic Academy by Justinian. (There was also some Christian and Renaissance pseudoepigraphica though this is quite outside the bounds of any discernibly Orphic tradition. Little can be said with certainty about the historical Thracian arch-poet and founder of mysteries, but I think it’s a safe bet to say that Orpheus was not a crypto-monotheist who prophesied the coming of Jesus.)

Although we’ve come a long way in our understanding of the ancient Orphics you still find a lot of people holding on to these outdated notions, especially with regard to their supposed vegetarianism. There are some issues (interpretation of the “hard and grievous circle” and how much of the Zagreus myth was known, and when) where cases can be made in a variety of ways, but I simply do not believe that we can ascribe vegetarianism to them across the board.

To begin with, out of the wealth of material we have on Orpheus and the Orphics (over four hundred pages’ worth in the latest collection) there are only a handful of allusions to this, most of which can be explained away by more sensible and straightforward interpretations. (For instance “not to stain one’s hands with blood” most likely means “don’t commit homicide”, especially when you consider the frequent Orphic concern for the removal of pollution associated with murder.)

Furthermore, of the three passages which are commonly cited in support of this claim two of them are part of mythological plays and in those plays context is everything. One is a fragment likely contrasting the purity of the chorus with the savage bloodthirstiness of king Minos and his bull and notably comes after the chorus of initiates discuss their own participation in the Dionysian sacrament of sparagmos and omophagia (the tearing apart of a live animal and consumption of its raw and still bloody flesh) so clearly there were times when even these fictive initiates broke their taboo. And in the second play Theseus is trying to smear his son Hippolytos (whom he suspects of committing incest) by accusing him of being an overly sensitive, bookish prig who is merely feigning his Orphic piety. Of course what people seem to forget is that none of what Theseus says is accurate – that’s the whole point since he’s trying to goad Hippolytos into confessing the role he played in his mother’s suicide. Hipploytos, after all, was basically a big dumb jock who got into trouble by spurning the goddess Aphrodite so that he could spend all of his time out in the woods hunting with Artemis. And the final reference is a passage in Plato about how vegetarianism is characteristic of the Orphikos bios except in all probability he’s talking about Pythagoreans since the other things he mentions are more commonly associated with them.

And for the most part that’s it. (I say “most part” because I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple other quotes.) The paucity of information on this is rather telling in light of the fact that there are a bunch of sources written by people who identified themselves as Orphics but didn’t say anything at all about such a prohibition. In fact there are a couple lists of wild and domesticated animals, aquatic creatures and vegetables that were denied them on religious grounds which makes you wonder why they’d bother with such specificity if they were to avoid ensouled foods altogether. If this was such a widespread feature it’s equally curious why Orphics aren’t mentioned more often in the numerous treatises by philosophers against meat-eating. Likewise, why are some of the most notable Orphics – including the soldier who was cremated with the Derveni papyrus, Queen Olympias and her Makedonian court, a Roman senator, a slave and a gladiator all known to have consumed flesh? Plus a ton of sources mention Orphics performing sacrifice – including the slaughter of hekatombs and offerings to the ancestors and underworld powers. Old dead things ain’t gonna accept animal crackers in substitution!

That’s not to say that all Orphics did consume flesh. There was a lot of cross-over between the Orphic and Pythagorean communities in Magna Graecia and we know that a number of the latter wrote books under Orpheus’ name, especially when their political plans fell apart and the neighboring communities began a systematic purge – indeed they may have thought that such duplicity was the only means of preserving their master’s teachings. (Though, ironically, it is sometimes claimed that Pythagoras was the first author of Orphika.) By and large the Pythagoreans were adherents of metempsychosis and vegetarians (except in the case of soldiers, athletes and others who required a more robust diet; Pythagoras is said to have sacrificed an ox after making an important mathematical discovery) so when we do see a rare instance of this ascribed to Orpheus and his followers in all probability it’s coming from a Pythagorean source who’s trying to pass or at least an Orphic who was influenced by the Samian’s teachings.

As such vegetarianism is not a requirement of the thiasos of the Sacred Bull. It’s perfectly fine if you are (and I think everyone should be conscious of where their food comes from and deplore factory farming and slaughter conditions, regardless of your diet) and I’ve seen a number of priests and spirit-workers have this restriction placed on them. As I mentioned a while back I personally abstain when I need to access a state of greater clarity and purity, or when I’m performing an animal sacrifice or doing other death related work. But it’s certainly not a central tenet of our emergent Bacchic Orphic tradition.

Asceticism is another matter, which I’ll be saving for a separate post.

Wikipedia describes what many people consider to be the central myth of the Orphics:

Zeus had intended Zagreus to be his heir, but a jealous Hera persuaded the Titans to kill the child. Like the infant Zeus in Cretan myth, the child Zagreus was entrusted to the Titans who distracted him with toys. While he gazed into a mirror they tried to seize him and he fled, changing into various animal forms in his attempt to escape. Finally he took the form of a bull, and in that form they caught him, tore him to pieces, and devoured him. Zeus, discovering the crime, hurled a thunderbolt at the Titans, turning them to ashes, but Persephone (or in some accounts Athena, Rhea, or Hermes) managed to recover Zagreus’ heart. From the ashes of the Titans, mixed with the divine flesh they had eaten, came humankind; this explains the mix of good and evil in humans, the story goes, for humans possess both a trace of divinity as well as the Titans’ maliciousness.

Lovely story, isn’t it?

Problem is that is not the Orphic myth – technically speaking it’s not even an Orphic myth. What you’re reading is a modern reconstruction that combines two originally separate mythic threads and is based entirely on a single source, a complex alchemical analogy made by the Alexandrian philosopher Olympiodoros in the 6th century CE:

And the mythical argument is as such: four reigns are told of in the Orphic tradition. The first is that of Ouranos, to which Kronos succeeds after cutting off the genitals of his father. After Kronos, Zeus becomes king, having hurled his father down into Tartaros. Then Dionysos succeeds Zeus. Through the scheme of Hera, they say, his retainers, the Titans, tear him to pieces and eat his flesh. Zeus, angered by the deed, blasts them with his thunderbolts, and from the sublimate of the vapors that rise from them comes the matter from which men are created. Therefore we must not kill ourselves, not because, as the text appears to say, we are in the body as a kind of shackle, for that is obvious, and Socrates would not call this a mystery; but we must not kill ourselves because our bodies are Dionysiac; we are, in fact, a part of him, if indeed we come about from the sublimate of the Titans who ate his flesh. (Commentary on the Phaedrus 1.3)

Up until his time there was a myth about the dismemberment of Dionysos-Zagreus (often, though not always, as part of the succession of divine kingship) and there was a myth that mankind had sprung from the blood of the Titans or Giants spilled in their battle with the Gods, but in no way were these two events connected.

Consider the following:

Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father’s members and cast them away to fall behind him. And not vainly did they fall from his hand; for all the bloody drops that gushed forth Gaia received, and as the seasons moved round she bare the strong Erinyes and the great Gigantes with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands and the Nymphai whom they call Meliai all over the boundless earth. And so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew the maiden Aphrodite. (Hesiod, Theogony 147-187)

There they lay, grim broken bodies crushed in huge collapse, and Terra, drenched in her children’s weltering blood, gave life to that warm gore; and to preserve memorial of her sons refashioned it in human form. But that new stock no less despised the gods and relished cruelty, bloodshed and outrage–born beyond doubt of blood. (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.151)

Zeus the father made a third age of mortals, this time of bronze, not at all like the silver one. Fashioned from ash trees, they were dreadful and mighty and bent on the harsh deeds of war and violence; they ate no bread and their hearts were strong as adamant. (Hesiod, Works and Days 143–147)

The Pelasgians who drew the root of their race from the blood of the Sithonian Giants. (Lycophron, Alexandra 1358)

All mankind, we are all from the blood of the Titans. Thus, because they were the enemies of the gods and fought against them, we are not beloved by the gods either, but we are punished by them and we are born into retribution, being in custody in this life for a certain time as long as we each live … This harsh and foul-aired prison, which we call the cosmos, has been prepared by the gods. (Dio Chrysostom, Oration 30, 10-11)

Not a mention of Zagreus or Dionysos anywhere.

Likewise when we read accounts of his dismemberment there’s nothing about mankind’s generation from blood or ash:

The stories told of Dionysos by the people of Patrai, that he was reared in Mesatis in Achaia and incurred there all sorts of perils through the plots of the Titanes. (Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.19.4)

This god was born in Crete, men say, of Zeus and Persephone, and Orpheus has handed down the tradition in the initiatory rites that he was torn in pieces by the Titanes. (Diodoros Sikeliotes, Library of History 5.75.4)

To soften the transports of their tyrant’s rage, the Cretans made the day of the death into a religious festival, and founded a yearly rite with a triennial dedication, performing in order all that the child in his death both did and suffered. They tore a live bull with their teeth, recalling the cruel feast in their annual commemoration, and by uttering dissonant cries through the depths of the forest they imitated the ravings of an unbalanced mind, in order that it might be believed that the awful crime was committed not by guile but in madness. Before them was borne the chest in which the sister secretly stole away the heart, and with the sound of flutes and the clashing of cymbals they imitated the rattles with which the boy was deceived. Thus to do honour to a tyrant an obsequious rabble has made a god out of one who was not able to find burial. (Firmicus Maternus, The Error of Pagan Religion 6.5)

According to Terpander of Lesbos, Dionysos, who is sometimes called Sabazios, was nursed by Nysa; he was the son of Zeus and Persephone and was eventually torn in pieces by the Titans. (Johannes Lydus, On the Months 72)

The mysteries of Dionysos are wholly inhuman; for while still a child, and the Curetes danced around his cradle clashing their weapons, and the Titans having come upon them by stealth, and having beguiled him with childish toys, these very Titans tore him limb from limb when but a child, as the bard of this mystery, the Thracian Orpheus, says:– “Cone, and spinning-top, and limb-moving rattles, and fair golden apples from the clear-toned Hesperides.” And the useless symbols of this mystic rite it will not be useless to exhibit for condemnation. These are dice, ball, hoop, apples, top, looking-glass, tuft of wool. Athene, to resume our account, having abstracted the heart of Dionysos received the name Pallas from its palpitating (pallein). And the Titans who had torn him limb from limb, setting a caldron on a tripod, and throwing into it the members of Dionysos, first boiled them down, and then fixing them on spits, “held them over the fire.” But Zeus having appeared, since he was a god, having speedily perceived the savour of the pieces of flesh that were being cooked,–that savour which your gods agree to have assigned to them as their perquisite, assails the Titans with his thunderbolt, and consigns the members of Dionysos to his son Apollo to be interred. And he–for he did not disobey Zeus–bore the dismembered corpse to Parnassus, and there deposited it. (Clement of Alexandria, Book Two of Exhortation to the Greeks)

Dionysos was deceived by the Titans, and expelled from the throne of Zeus, and torn in pieces by them, and his remains being afterwards put together again, he returned as it were once more to life, and ascended to heaven. (Origen, Contra Celsum 4.17)

A significant number of sources on his dismemberment make it clear that Zagreus was not always envisioned as a child when this terrible event took place:

The one who greatly hunts, as the writer of the Alcmeonis said “Mistress Earth, and Zagreus highest of all the gods.” That is, Dionysos. (Etymologicum Gudianum s.v. Zagreus)

Some writers of myth, however, relate that there was a second Dionysos who was much earlier in time than the one we have just mentioned. For according to them there was born of Zeus and Persephone a Dionysos who is called by some Sabazios and whose birth and sacrifices and honours are celebrated at night and in secret, because of the disgraceful conduct which is a consequence of the gatherings. They state also that he excelled in sagacity and was the first to attempt the yoking of oxen and by their aid to effect the sowing of the seed, this being the reason why they also represent him as wearing a horn. (Diodoros Sikeliotes, Library of History 4.4.1)

After Juno observed that his son, ignoble and born of a concubine, ruled such a great kingdom, she saw to it that he should be killed while hunting, and encouraged the Titanes to drive his father Jove from the kingdom and restore it to Saturn. When they tried to mount to heaven, Jove with the help of Minerva, Apollo, and Diana, cast them headlong into Tartarus. On Atlas, who had been their leader, he put the vault of the sky; even now he is said to hold up the sky on his shoulders. (Hyginus, Fabulae 150)

Furthermore, so that we might seem to go more deeply, the story says that the Giants found Bacchus inebriated. After they tore him to pieces limb by limb, they buried the bits, and a little while later he arose alive and whole. We read that the disciples of Orpheus interpreted this fiction philosophically and that they represent this story in his sacred rites. (The Third Vatican Mythographer 12.5)

In one variant tradition Dionysos actually defeated the Titans in battle and became their king:

The struggle having proved sharp and many having fallen on both sides, Kronos finally was wounded and victory lay with Dionysos, who had distinguished himself in the battle. Thereupon the Titans fled to the regions which had once been possessed by Ammon, and Dionysos gathered up a multitude of captives and returned to Nysa. Here, drawing up his force in arms about the prisoners, he brought a formal accusation against the Titans and gave them every reason to suspect that he was going to execute the captives. But when he got them free from the charges and allowed them to make their choice either to join him in his campaign or to go scot free, they all chose to join him, and because their lives had been spared contrary to their expectation they venerated him like a god. Dionysos, then, taking the captives singly and giving them a libation of wine, required of all of them an oath that they would join in the campaign without treachery and fight manfully until death. (Diodoros Sikeliotes, Library of History 3.71.4-6)

A clue that the generation of man from the residue of the Titans and the dismemberment of Zagreus cannot be linked in this way is made clear by the tradition that Zeus used the preserved heart of his first son to create his second by impregnating Semele with it:

Liber, son of Jove and Proserpina, was dismembered by the Titans, and Jove gave his heart, torn to bits, to Semele in a drink. When she was made pregnant by this, Juno changing herself to look like Semele’s nurse, Beroe, said to her, “Daughter, ask Jove to come to you as he comes to Juno, so you may know what pleasure it is to sleep with a god.” At her suggestion Semele made this request of Jove, and was smitten by a thunderbolt. (Hyginus, Fabulae 167)

When did Semele live? Not at the infancy of man – her father was a Phoencian immigrant who settled in Thebes and became king there. Chronologically Herodotos (Histories 2.145.1) places Agenor the father of Kadmos circa 2000 BCE so people had already been around for quite some time at that point.

But the real reason that it’s important to disentangle this thread of myth is because it obscures the true function of Dionysos within Orphism, as I have discussed here.

I’ve had a couple people ask about the relationship between Dionysos and Haides in Bacchic Orphism. That is a complex topic, something I anticipate I’ll be devoting a fair amount of space to in the future. However, I was talking with a friend this morning and she mentioned one of my favorite Dionysian epithets which prompted the remainder of this post, a brief sketch of my thoughts on this matter.

Dionysos in Egypt (for a deeper discussion of which, click here) was given the epiklesis Petempamenti meaning “He who is in the West,” with the West understood in its traditional sense as the abode of the deceased and the place where the sun-god Prē conducted his nocturnal journey before being reborn each morning. Although this is usually interpreted as a way of emphasizing the similarities between the Greek god in his chthonic form with the indigenous Osiris who was regarded from the time of Herodotos on as the Egyptian Dionysos, I think that what we’re dealing with here is actually something else entirely – a method of differentiating the two. If Herodes, son of Demophon (the author of the text in which we find this epithet) was familiar enough with the Egyptian language to use it (and though a Greek who had distinguished himself at court and in the military he also claims several lofty religious offices including prophetes of Khnoubis and archistolistes of the temples in Elephantine and Abaton Island, among others) he would certainly have been aware of Osiris’ more standard sobriquet Khentimentiu which means “Foremost of the Westerners” in the sense of being the Chief or King of the Dead (and as such Osiris fulfills a role in his pantheon cognate to that of the Greek Haides, Lord of the Underworld) I feel that this would likely have been what he used if such was actually Herodes’ intent.

The Ephesian philosopher Herakleitos felt that Haides and Dionysos were one and the same and there are hints in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter that this may have been a more widespread belief in the ancient world than we might otherwise assume:

She was playing with the deep-bosomed daughters of Okeanos and gathering flowers over a soft meadow, roses and crocuses and beautiful violets, irises also and hyacinths and the narcissus, which Earth made to be a snare for the bloom-like Girl … The Girl was amazed and reached out with both hands to take the lovely toy; but the wide-pathed earth yawned there in the plain of Nysa and the Lord Who Receives Many with his immortal horses sprang out upon her … A long time Demeter sat upon the stool without speaking because of her sorrow, and greeted no one by word or by sign, but rested, never smiling, and tasting neither food nor drink, because she pined with longing for her deep-bosomed daughter, until careful Iambe – who pleased her moods in aftertime also – moved the Holy Lady with many a quip and jest to smile and laugh and cheer her heart. Then Metaneira filled a cup with sweet wine and offered it to Demeter; but she refused it, for she said it was not lawful for her to drink red wine. [Italics added for emphasis]

Such an interpretation, however, poses serious mythological difficulties (Haides is the elder brother of Zeus, universally regarded as the father of Dionysos; Dionysos’ descent and harrowing of the underworld to retrieve the soul of Semele; the Orphic tradition that makes Kore-Persephone his first, divine mother, etc.) not to mention the radical differences in the two gods’ personalities (can you imagine Haides being amused by the drunken, phallic antics of the satyrs?) and their activities (Dionysos’ tendency to travel widely and interact intimately with his followers while Haides is reclusive and remains aloof from his subjects.) And yet Dionysos is unquestionably a chthonic deity and a lord of souls. He offers deliverance to the dead, intervening on their behalf with Persephone and the underworld judges; he gathers his initiates about him in an eternal symposion; the dead walk the earth and revel with the living during the three days of Dionysos’ Anthesteria festival; Dionysian motifs are prominent in the funerary art of the Hellenistic and Roman periods; he himself experienced multiple deaths and rebirths; he is closely associated with caves, darkness, depths, violence and the uncanny in all of its forms; and lastly Dionysos presides over the fertility of the vegetable world whose seeds must be buried and nourished deep within the earth like the dead before sending up their wealth of fruit.

Thus while we may regard Dionysos as chthonic and even a Lord or Prince of the underworld, it is clear that he is not the supreme ruler of those below, the position held by Haides or Osiris. And this I suspect is why he was hailed as Petempamenti not Khentimentiu*. He dwells down below, but it is not his permanent residence. A portion of the dead belong to him – those who have undergone his mysteries or who like Semele and Ariadne he has ransomed – but not all of them, nor is he overly concerned with the mechanics and politics of how the underworld operates on a regular basis. He so clearly resembles the tenebrous sovereign that it is easy to mistake the one for the other – but he also possesses abundant qualities that clearly differentiate them. And what’s more, Dionysos embodies the totality of life, oversees all of its manifold manifestations while death is conventionally understood as the antithesis of life. Of course everything common is wrong, and this limited view is no different. Perceived from one side of the divide death and life seem polar opposites – but shift your perspective and you’ll see that they have the same ultimate source and are constantly flowing into each other until they are impossible to separate. This is nowhere more apparent than in the food chain where all life exists through the consumption of other life that it, in turn, may feed still more forms of life. As the embodiment of life Dionysos necessarily must also be the embodiment of death, with no part of the process alien to him. The West where Dionysos dwells is both the End and the Beginning of Life – or as the Orphics of Olbia expressed it βίος – θανατος – βίος – Διονυσος.

This Dionysos is dark and still and somber, the quiet amid the storm, the masked pillar around which those filled with his frenzy dance and shout in ecstatic celebration. He is not completely immobile – his movements are just slow like the shoots of a plant triumphantly rising up through the soil, like the gradual formation of stalactites in a cave, like the procession of the stars through the heavens. The face of this Dionysos is always concealed in shadows, except for his eyes which are bright with the flames of madness and gaze into the depths of your soul and beyond. His voice echoes across a vast chasm even when he is nearer to you than your next heartbeat. There is an impenetrable denseness to his spirit, a gloom so black and so full of painful memories that even he has difficulty bearing its weight. He is ancient beyond all reckoning and yet remains unwearied by all that he has witnessed and experienced. His heart is fierce with love for the fragile and ephemeral things of this world, rejoicing and suffering along with them. He cannot turn his face away from them – he must witness it all, even if it makes him mad. And though part of him remains forever down in the caverns deep beneath the earth, another part extends upwards into our world, surrounded by an innumerable host. The lusty satyrs, the madwomen, the nymphs who nurse him and the dead who belong to him, an invisible troop of wild spirits that march unseen but clearly heard in his processions, who race through the fields and forests and city streets on certain especially dark nights in pursuit of the victims of the hunt.

Depictions of a solitary Dionysos are rare unless he’s disguised himself so that he can walk unnoticed among men on one of his grand adventures, like when the Pirates found him on the beach. Otherwise Dionysos is surrounded by a frenzied throng. In early Greek art this thiasos could be depicted “realistically” as a group of mainades, masked men and priests reveling around the god or some kind of cultic representation of him such as a pillar draped with vegetation or else more “fantastically” with Dionysos surrounded by other gods and goddesses as well as nymphs, silens, satyrs, centaurs and other creatures of myth. Interestingly, these two versions of the thiasos were originally kept separate. You could find satyrs mingling with mortal mainades as long as Dionysos was out of the picture but when he’s there you get one or the other. This convention is found only in the earliest depictions of the scene – later artists tended to follow the example of the workshops in Sicily and Magna Graecia who were all about blurring boundaries. It’s also here that we find a new element introduced into the thiasos – the dead and initiates in the mysteries who may represent either living or deceased persons. The location of the revelry is also changed. Previously the scenes were set in sacred precincts or on mountains, usually Olympos, Nysa or Kithairon depending on who’s accompanying him. But the Italian artists brought the proceedings down into the otherworld. This may explain why they had no trouble representing mortals alongside the dead and divinities for when you’ve gone underground such distinctions no longer seem as important as they once did.

Around the seventh century before the common era this motif begins to find literary expression through the likes of Herakleitos, Pindar, the Orphic and Homeric poets, Sophokles, Euripides and Aristophanes – sometimes the appearance of this phantom troop was reported as actual fact, as we find in Herodotos, Diodoros, Plutarch and Pausanias. During the Hellenistic period the thiasos becomes wed to the custom of the triumphant procession thanks in no small part to the political theatrics of Alexander the Great who consciously sought to emulate his divine progenitor. The Ptolemies, the Attalids, Caesar and Mark Antony all followed in his footsteps and exploited Dionysian associations and pageantry to full effect.

In the dwindling days of the Roman empire we discover another permutation of this motif – the mortal revelers and the dead are left out of visual and literary representations of the thiasos. It’s just gods and nymphs and mythical creatures once more – often with the addition of erotes or putti, those obnoxious chubby little winged brats that are all over the place in Late Antique, Medieval and Renaissance art. For a few hundred years the theme remains fairly constant then you start seeing mortal mainades again. Then all of a sudden it merges with depictions of the Wild Hunt and you also start finding fairies and goblins and similar beings mixed into the thiasos. Although most of this was taking place in the visual arts – and Dionysos may well be the most popular Classical figure in Christian art after Herakles and the Sibyls – you can trace the same evolving currents in literature, as I’ve done here and over at Eternal Bacchus.

And for me Dionysos Petempamenti or Chthonios is intimately connected with this retinue. Even when I’m directly interacting with him I can sense the others in the background – this strange, mad company of many kinds of spirits. On several occasions they have come through him and taken possession of me and I’ve worked closely with small pockets of them in the past, though for the most part they remain this sort of shadowy collective.

Lastly, I think when a devout Dionysian dies they are given the choice of joining this crazy, intoxicated band of misfit spirits. You can always go elsewhere – Haides is a very large place, and it borders other underworld kingdoms – but I, for one, look forward to painting my face white, putting on an ivy crown and leaping into the midst of those who dance and fuck and hunt and drink forever, the Saints of the True Vine.

[* Honesty compels me to point out that Petempamenti is found as an Osirian epithet as well, but I have learned over the years never to let "facts" get in the way of a good theory.]

While the debate over the Wiccanate privilege session at Pantheacon is still raging I was interested to note the latest post by Wiccan elder Aiden Kelley arguing for the inclusion of atheists even though, judging by the comments, atheists don’t want that and are quite content being their own community.

At first I was a little miffed by these attempts at appropriation and erasure, but now … I just find it sad and desperate, a little too much like this:

So while the neopagans are still puzzling over why we’re just not that into them some interesting things have been going on in the realm of polytheism.

We’ve received a couple more submissions for presentations at the Polytheist Leadership Conference which you can check out here.

One of those presentations is by P. Sufenas, who recently discussed a lovely new sigil that was created for the Ekklesia Antinoou. I wonder if it’s going to find it’s way into any future Red Lotus titles!?

Julian Betkoswki discusses a presentation he’d like to give at the Conference and provides a link to some art he’s selling as part of a fund-raiser to get himself there.

Oracle is trying to move past some bad experiences with his local Pagan Pride Day by looking forward to attending the Polytheist Leadership Conference and he needs help making that happen.

Galina (who’s next ancestor veneration 101 class is starting up soon) has created a really cool meme on devotional polytheism that’s getting some great responses, such as her own and this one from the Cave of Night.

For folks who are in the Fairfax, VA area you might want to check out the classes that Polyphanes is offering at the Sticks and Stones metaphysical shop. If I was in the area I’d definitely take a couple of them!

Pete Helms announced that he’s seeking submissions for a devotional anthology he’s spearheading in honor of Ares and Mars.

The Thracian has participated in the making of a saint.

And lastly Dver is offering her book design services for an incredibly low rate and if you want your book to stand out amidst all the eye-bleedingly bad self-published dreck that’s out there you should strongly consider taking her up on it. The whole reason my Nysa Press titles are so stylish and professional looking is because I had her assistance.

I am really happy with the response that this challenge has received. (Though remember, at the akousmatikoi stage everything is voluntary!)

So far some very beautiful things have been shared for Dionysos and Persephone – I can’t wait to see what you wonderful people come up with for the rest of the pantheon!

Something that I’ll be doing tomorrow to honor Ariadne on her holy day is finish off the last batch of Enorchean stones with the magical thread she gave me. Placed in a bath of wine on Anthesteria and left to soak for a week, they’re now ready for the next phase and I should be mailing them off by Monday at the absolute latest. I made nine and five have already been claimed – so act fast if you want one. After this I’ll be moving on to other Orphic arts.

Hear the words of your people! May they be pleasing to you!

One of the reasons that I’m being so hardcore with the requirements for the thiasos of the Starry Bull is that we don’t play around when it comes to initiation in the Bacchic Orphic mystery tradition.

Before one even sets foot in the telesterion the candidate has to complete a nine-fold preliminary ritual which becomes progressively more challenging with each rite. The first is that of enthronismos.

The candidate will be brought to a cabin in the woods where everything has been set up beforehand. The room is bare except for a wicker basket, a camp stool draped with a sheep’s skin and twenty eight candles that are already burning when they enter.

The candidate is told to strip naked, a garland of flowers is placed upon their brow and they are then blind-folded and led to the stool.

They are sprinkled with chernips (if they fail to shudder the rite is not permitted to continue) and then they are given a jug of wine to drink which has been laced with hallucinogenic substances.

Once they have emptied the jug three sacred songs will be chanted over them. Mid-way through the second one (right about when the hallucinogens should start kicking in) the priest will be joined by a chorus of sublime voices from outside and with the third song the priest will place an egg in their palm and then drape a large snake over the candidate’s bare shoulders.

Once the final song finishes the priest will stand quietly in front of the candidate for an uncomfortably long time.

When the candidate begins fidgeting the priest will release a terrible shriek and begin pounding on a drum. This will be the sign for the assistants to enter, concealed by the riotous din.

Once they have taken their places in a rough semi-circle around the candidate the priest will step forward, whisper a series of enigmatic verses in their ear and then remove the blindfold. When the candidate opens their eyes they’ll find a group of strangers in dirty rags with their faces done up like mimes.

The priest will carry the wicker basket around the candidate three times while the assistants chant ominous Greek at them.

Then the candidate will be instructed to lift the veil concealing the mystic tokens contained in the wicker basket. The candidate will be told to reach inside and choose one with the token determining the nature of the next preliminary rite.

Once the candidate has done so the assistants will begin stomping in place.

The priest will step forward and sprinkle the candidate with white ash.

At which point the assistants will begin dancing aggressively in a circle around the candidate while clashing pieces of bronze metal polished to a reflective sheen so that the candidate can see themself in them.

The priest will say, “A bull you rushed to milk. Quickly, you rushed to milk. A ram you fell into milk.”

And then he will exit the cabin, leaving the door open.

At that point the assistants will begin screaming, “Run!” over and over and over again until the drug-fueled terror drives the candidate into the woods.

If they manage to stagger back to the cabin by morning they will be permitted to proceed to the next level.

MadGastronomer has composed some absolutely gorgeous cult-hymns for the gods and spirits of the thiasos of the Starry Bull which I highly recommend you check out. She also has the interesting suggestion of including Hekate as part of the pantheon. This is the second time that someone has made this proposal and I think it’s a sound one for the reasons she suggests and several others including Hekate’s extended relationships with Hermes and Melinoë. The only reason I hadn’t initially was because I wanted each deity to receive their own day. However, since she fits right in and there is a clear desire to engage with her in this capacity plus the Nymphai and Satyroi are already partnered up - why not? Henceforth Hekate should officially be considered part of this with her day of honor being Wednesday, alongside Hermes. Additionally I’ve felt that Aphrodite should be included too – particularly in light of her prominence in Locri Epizephyrii, a city in Southern Italy which informs our understanding of Persephone far more than Eleusis does. Aphrodite may be honored alongside Ariadne on Tuesdays.

Hear the words of your people! May they be pleasing to you!

Some primary sources on the rite of enthronismos described here.

Apuleius, Apologia 56
Could anyone who has any idea of religion still find it strange that a man initiated in so many divine mysteries should keep at home some tokens of recognition of the cults and should wrap them in linen cloth, the purest veil for sacred objects? For wool, the excrescence of an inert body extracted from a sheep, is already a profane garment in the prescriptions of Orpheus and Pythagoras.

Aristophanes, Nephelai (250-300)
Socrates: Do you want to know the truth of things divine, the way they really are?
Strepsiades: Why, yes, if it’s possible.
Soc: ….and to converse with the spirits in the clouds?
Strep: Without a doubt.
Soc: Then be seated on this sacred couch.
Strep: [sitting down]
I am seated.
Soc: Now take this chaplet.
Strep: Why a chaplet? Alas, Socrates! Would you sacrifice me like Athamas?
Soc: No, these are the rites of initiation.
Strep: And what is it I am to gain?
Soc: You’ll learn to be a clever talker, to rattle off a speech, to strain your words like flour. Just keep still.
[Socrates sprinkles flour all over Strepsiades.]
Strep: By Zeus! That’s no lie! Soon I shall be nothing but wheat-flour, if you powder me in that fashion.
Soc: Old man, be quiet. Listen to the prayer.

Clement of Alexandria, Book Two of Exhortation to the Greeks
And what if I go over the mysteries? I will not divulge them in mockery, as they say Alcibiades did, but I will expose right well by the word of truth the sorcery hidden in them; and those so-called gods of yours, whose are the mystic rites, I shall display, as it were, on the stage of life, to the spectators of truth. The bacchanals hold their orgies in honour of the frenzied Dionysos, celebrating their sacred frenzy by the eating of raw flesh, and go through the distribution of the parts of butchered victims, crowned with snakes, shrieking out the name of that Eva by whom error came into the world. The symbol of the Bacchic orgies. is a consecrated serpent. Moreover, according to the strict interpretation of the Hebrew term, the name Hevia, aspirated, signifies a female serpent.

What if I add the rest? Demeter becomes a mother, Core is reared up to womanhood. And, in course of time, he who begot her,–this same Zeus has intercourse with his own daughter Pherephatta,–after Demeter, the mother,–forgetting his former abominable wickedness. Zeus is both the father and the seducer of Core, and shamefully courts her in the shape of a dragon; his identity, however, was discovered. The token of the Sabazian mysteries to the initiated is “the god over the breast”; this is a serpent drawn over the breast of the votaries. Proof surely this of the unbridled lust of Zeus. To be sure, we are told by a certain mythological poet that “The bull begets a snake, the snake a bull; on hills the herdsman bears his mystic goad,” the herdman’s goad being, I think, a name for the wand which the Bacchants wreathe.

The mysteries of Dionysos are wholly inhuman; for while still a child, and the Curetes danced around his cradle clashing their weapons, and the Titans having come upon them by stealth, and having beguiled him with childish toys, these very Titans tore him limb from limb when but a child, as the bard of this mystery, the Thracian Orpheus, says:–

“Cone, and spinning-top, and limb-moving rattles,
And fair golden apples from the clear-toned Hesperides.”

And the useless symbols of this mystic rite it will not be useless to exhibit for condemnation. These are dice, ball, hoop, apples, top, looking-glass, tuft of wool.

Athene, to resume our account, having abstracted the heart of Dionysos received the name Pallas from its palpitating (pallein). And the Titans who had torn him limb from limb, setting a caldron on a tripod, and throwing into it the members of Dionysos, first boiled them down, and then fixing them on spits, “held them over the fire.” But Zeus having appeared, since he was a god, having speedily perceived the savour of the pieces of flesh that were being cooked,–that savour which your gods agree to have assigned to them as their perquisite, assails the Titans with his thunderbolt, and consigns the members of Dionysos to his son Apollo to be interred. And he–for he did not disobey Zeus–bore the dismembered corpse to Parnassus, and there deposited it.

If you wish to inspect the orgies of the Corybantes, then know that, having killed their third brother, they covered the head of the dead body with a purple cloth, crowned it, and carrying it on the point of a spear, buried it under the roots of Olympus. These mysteries are, in short, murders and funerals. And the priests of these rites, who are called kings of the sacred rites by those whose business it is to name them, give additional strangeness to the tragic occurrence, by forbidding parsley with the roots from being placed on the table, for they think that parsley grew from the Corybantic blood that flowed forth; just as the women, in celebrating the Thesmophoria, abstain from eating the seeds of the pomegranate which have fallen on the ground, from the idea that pomegranates sprang from the drops of the blood of Dionysos. Those Corybantes also they call Cabiric; and the ceremony itself they announce as the Cabiric mystery.

For those two identical fratricides, having abstracted the box in which the phallos of Bacchus was deposited, took it to Etruria–dealers in honourable wares truly. They lived there as exiles, employing themselves in communicating the precious teaching of their superstition, and presenting phallic symbols and the box for the Tyrrhenians to worship. And some will have it, not improbably, that for this reason Dionysos was called Attis, because he was mutilated. And what is surprising at the Tyrrhenians, who were barbarians, being thus initiated into these foul indignities, when among the Athenians, and in the whole of Greece–I blush to say it–the shameful legend about Demeter holds its ground?

What are these mystic chests?–for I must expose their sacred things, and divulge things not fit for speech. Are they not sesame cakes, and pyramidal cakes, and globular and flat cakes, embossed all over, and lumps of salt, and a serpent the symbol of Dionysos Bassareus? And besides these, are they not pomegranates, and branches, and rods, and ivy leaves? and besides, round cakes and poppy seeds? And further, there are the unmentionable symbols of Themis, marjoram, a lamp, a sword, a woman’s comb, which is a euphemism and mystic expression for the muliebria.

Damascius, Commentary on the Phaedo 1.9
The titanic mode of life is the irrational mode, by which rational life is torn asunder: It is better to acknowledge its existence everywhere, since in any case at its source there are gods, the Titans; then also on the plane of rational life, this apparent self-determination, which seems to aim at belonging to itself alone and neither to the superior nor to the inferior, is wrought in us by the Titans; through it we tear asunder the Dionysos in ourselves, breaking up the natural continuity of our being and our partnership, so to speak, with the superior and inferior. While in this condition, we are Titans; but when we recover that lost unity, we become Dionysoi and we attain what can truly be called completeness.

Damascius, Commentary on the Phaedrus 1.171
Because the first Bacchus is Dionysos, possessed by the dance and the shout, by all movements of which he is the cause according to the Laws (II.672a5–d4): but one who has consecrated himself to Dionysos, being similar to the god, takes part in his name as well.

Demosthenes, On the Crown 259-60
On attaining manhood, you abetted your mother in her initiations and the other rituals, and read aloud from the cultic writings. At night, you mixed the libations, purified the initiates, and dressed them in fawnskins. You cleansed them off with clay and cornhusks, and raising them up from the purification, you led the chant, ‘The evil I flee, the better I find.’ And it was your pride that no one ever emitted that holy ululation so powerfully as yourself. I can well believe it! When you hear the stentorian tones of the orator, can you doubt that the ejaculations of the acolyte were simply magnificent? In the daylight, you led the fine thiasos through the streets, wearing their garlands of fennel and white poplar. You rubbed the fat-cheeked snakes and swung them above your head crying ‘Euoi Saboi’ and dancing to the tune of hues attes, attes hues. Old women hailed you ‘Leader’, ‘mysteries instructor’, ‘ivy-bearer’, ‘liknon carrier’, and the like

Dio Chrysostom, Oration 12.33-34
So it is just as if someone were to initiate a man, Greek or barbarian, leading him into some mystic shrine overwhelming in its size and beauty. He would see many mystic spectacles and hear many such voices; light and darkness would appear to him in alternation, and a myriad other things would happen. Still more, just as they are accustomed to do in the ritual called enthronement, the initiators, having enthroned the initiands, dance in circles around them. Is it at all likely that this man would experience nothing in his soul and that he would not suspect that what was taking place was done with a wiser understanding and preparation? … Still more, if, not humans like the initiands, but immortal gods were initiating mortals, and night and day, both in the light and under the stars were, if it is right to speak so, literally dancing around them eternally.

Epiphanius, Panarion
And he says that the world began in the likeness of an egg, and the wind encircling the egg serpent-fashion like a wreath or a belt then began to constrict nature. As it tried to squeeze all the matter with greater force, it divided the world into the two hemispheres.

Gold tablet from Pelinna
Now you have died and now you have been born, thrice blessed one, on this very day. Say to Persephone that Bakchios himself freed you. A bull you rushed to milk. Quickly, you rushed to milk. A ram you fell into milk. You have wine as your fortunate honor. And rites await you beneath the earth, just as the other blessed ones.

Herodotos, The Histories 2.81
The Egyptians wear linen tunics with fringes hanging about the legs, called ‘calasiris’ and loose white woolen mantles over these. But nothing of wool is brought into the temples, or buried with them; that is forbidden. In this they follow the same rules as the ritual called Orphic and Bacchic, but which is in truth Egyptian and Pythagorean; for neither may those initiated into these rites be buried in woolen wrappings. There is a sacred legend about this.

Nonnos, Dionysiaka 6. 155 ff
Zagreus the horned baby, who by himself climbed upon the heavenly throne of Zeus and brandished lightning in his little hand, and newly born, lifted and carried thunderbolts in his tender fingers for Zeus meant him to be king of the universe. But he did not hold the throne of Zeus for long. By the fierce resentment of implacable Hera, the Titanes cunningly smeared their round faces with disguising chalk (titanos), and while he contemplated his changeling countenance reflected in a mirror they destroyed him with an infernal knife. There where his limbs had been cut piecemeal by the Titan steel, the end of his life was the beginning of a new life as Dionysos. He appeared in another shape, and changed into many forms: now young like crafty Kronides shaking the aegis-cape, now as ancient Kronos heavy-kneed, pouring rain. Sometimes he was a curiously formed baby, sometimes like a mad youth with the flower of the first down marking his rounded chin with black. Again, a mimic lion he uttered a horrible roar in furious rage from a wild snarling throat, as he lifted a neck shadowed by a thick mane, marking his body on both sides with the self-striking whip of a tail which flickered about over his hairy back. Next, he left the shape of a lion’s looks and let out a ringing neigh, now like an unbroken horse that lifts his neck on high to shake out the imperious tooth of the bit, and rubbing, whitened his cheek with hoary foam. Sometimes he poured out a whistling hiss from his mouth, a curling horned serpent covered with scales, darting out his tongue from his gaping throat, and leaping upon the grim head of some Titan encircled his neck in snaky spiral coils. Then he left the shape of the restless crawler and became a tiger with gay stripes on his body; or again like a bull emitting a counterfeit roar from his mouth he butted the Titanes with sharp horn. So he fought for his life, until Hera with jealous throat bellowed harshly through the air–that heavy-resentful step-mother! And the gates of Olympos rattled in echo to her jealous throat from high heaven. Then the bold bull collapsed: the murderers each eager for his turn with the knife chopt piecemeal the bull-shaped Dionysos.

Origen, Contra Celsum 4.10
And accordingly he likens us Christians to those who in the Bacchic mysteries introduce phantoms and objects of terror.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.39.5-14
When a man has made up his mind to descend to the oracle of Trophonios, he first lodges in a certain building for an appointed number of days, this being sacred to the Good Daimôn and to Good Fortune. While he lodges there, among other regulations for purity he abstains from hot baths, bathing only in the river Hercyna. Meat he has in plenty from the sacrifices, for he who descends sacrifices to Trophonios himself and to the children of Trophonios, to Apollo also and to Kronos, to Zeus with the epithet King, to Hera Charioteer, and to Demeter whom they name with the epithet Europa and say was the wetnurse of Trophonios. At each sacrifice a diviner is present, who looks into the entrails of the sacrificial victim , and after an inspection prophesies to the person descending whether Trophonios will give him a kind and gracious reception. The entrails of the other victims do not declare the mind of Trophonios so much as a ram, which each inquirer sacrifices over a pit on the night he descends, calling upon Agamedes. Even though the previous sacrifices have appeared propitious, no account is taken of them unless the entrails of this ram indicate the same; but if they agree, then the inquirer descends in good hope. The procedure of the descent is this. First, during the night he is taken to the river Hercyna by two boys of the citizens about thirteen years old, named Hermae, who after taking him there anoint him with oil and wash him. It is these who wash the descender, and do all the other necessary services as his attendant boys. After this he is taken by the priests, not at once to the oracle, but to fountains of water very near to each other. Here he must drink water called the water of Forgetfulness that he may forget all that he has been thinking of hitherto, and afterwards he drinks of another water, the water of Memory which causes him to remember what he sees after his descent. After looking at the image which they say was made by Daedalus (it is not shown by the priests save to such as are going to visit Trophonios), having seen it, worshipped it and prayed, he proceeds to the oracle, dressed in a linen tunic, with ribbons girding it, and wearing the boots of the native locale. The oracle is on the mountain, beyond the grove. Round it is a circular basement of white marble, the circumference of which is about that of the smallest threshing floor, while its height is just short of two cubits. On the basement stand spikes, which, like the cross-bars holding them together, are of bronze, while through them has been made a double door. Within the enclosure is a chasm in the earth, not natural, but artificially constructed after the most accurate masonry. The shape of this structure is like that of a bread-oven. Its breadth across the middle one might conjecture to be about four cubits, and its depth also could not be estimated to extend to more than eight cubits. They have made no way of descent to the bottom, but when a man comes to Trophonios, they bring him a narrow, light ladder. After going down he finds a hole between the floor and the structure. Its breadth appeared to be two spans, and its height one span. The descender lies with his back on the ground, holding barley-cakes kneaded with honey, thrusts his feet into the hole and himself follows, trying hard to get his knees into the hole. After his knees the rest of his body is at once swiftly drawn in, just as the largest and most rapid river will catch a man in its eddy and carry him under. After this those who have entered the shrine learn the future, not in one and the same way in all cases, but by sight sometimes and at other times by hearing. The return upwards is by the same mouth, the feet darting out first. They say that no one who has made the descent has been killed, save only one of the bodyguards of Demetrius. But they declare that he performed none of the usual rites in the sanctuary, and that he descended, not to consult the god but in the hope of stealing gold and silver from the shrine. It is said that the body of this man appeared in a different place, and was not cast out at the sacred mouth. Other tales are told about the man, but I have given the one most worthy of consideration. After his ascent from Trophonios the inquirer is again taken in hand by the priests, who set him upon a chair called the Throne of Memory, which stands not far from the shrine, and they ask of him, when seated there, all he has seen or learned. After gaining this information they then entrust him to his relatives. These lift him, paralyzed with terror and unconscious both of himself and of his surroundings, and carry him to the building where he lodged before with Good Fortune and the Good Daimôn. Afterwards, however, he will recover all his faculties, and the power to laugh will return to him. What I write is not hearsay; I have myself inquired of Trophonios and seen other inquirers.

Plato, Euthydemos 277d
They are doing just the same thing as those in the rite of the Korybantes do, when they perform the enthronement ceremony with the one who is about to be initiated. In that situation too there is some dancing and playing around, as you know if you have been initiated.

Plato, Ion 533e-534b
For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed. And as the Corybantic revellers when they dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains: but when falling under the power of music and metre they are inspired and possessed; like Bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are under the influence of Dionysos but not when they are in their right mind. And the soul of the lyric poet does the same, as they themselves say; for they tell us that they bring songs from honeyed fountains, culling them out of the gardens and dells of the Muses; they, like the bees, winging their way from flower to flower. And this is true. For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles.

Plato, Phaedrus 244de
Next, madness can provide relief from the greatest plagues of trouble that beset certain families because of their guilt for ancient crimes: it turns up among those who need a way out; it gives prophecies and takes refuge in prayers to the gods and in worship, discovering mystic rites and purifications that bring the man it touches through to safety for this and all time to come. So it is that the right sort of madness finds relief from present hardships for a man it has possessed.

Plotinos, Enneads 4.3.12
The souls of humans, having seen their images as in the mirror of Dionysos, became there, having leapt from above.

Plutarch, De Anima fragment preserved in Stobaios Florigelium 120
When the soul comes to the point of death, it suffers something like those who participate in the great initiations (teletai). Therefore the word teleutan closely resembles the word teleisthai just as the act of dying resembles the act of being initiated. At first there are wanderings and toilsome running about in circles and journeys through the dark over uncertain roads and culs de sacs; then, just before the end, there are all kinds of terrors, with shivering, trembling, sweating, and utter amazement. After this, a strange and wonderful light meets the wanderer; he is admitted into clean and verdant meadows, where he discerns gentle voices, and choric dances, and the majesty of holy sounds and sacred visions. Here the now fully initiated is free, and walks at liberty like a crowned and dedicated victim, joining in the revelry.

Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras 33
While his friends were in good health Pythagoras always conversed with them; if they were sick, he nursed them; if they were afflicted in mind, he solaced them, some by incantations and magic charms, others by music. He had prepared songs for the diseases of the body, by singing which he cured the sick. He had also some that caused forgetfulness of sorrow, mitigation of anger, and destruction of lust.

Proklos, Commentary on the Republic of Plato 2.108.17
There are initiations associated with terrors, which have a cathartic effect, because they produce in the faithful a community with the divine, according to the idea that the divine is indescribable.

Proklos, Commentary on the Timaios 2.819
Dionysos sees his own image in the mirror and goes out into the whole divided creation.

Sibylline Oracles 8.47-49
Where the tribe of Rhea or Kronos or Zeus and all the rest, whom you revered, soulless demons, shades of the faded dead, whose tombs ill-fated Crete will have as a boast, celebrating enthronement for the senseless dead.

Michael Sebastian Lùx recently wrote in with the following suggestion, which I’d like to share with all of you.

I was looking at your Orphic page and found something that is near and dear to my heart. In the Derveni Papyrus col. 6.1-11 it is written, “They sacrifice innumerable and many-knobbed cakes, because the souls, too, are innumerable.” This reminded me of an offering I make of Greek origin that I adapted from my very Byzantine grandmother, koulourakia. The adaptation uses quite a bit of spices, but when pinched off in small parts and burned it does have a beautiful aroma (it’s also quite edible). As an added benefit, it’s often woven into a knobbed shape or, from what I hear, among some people it’s woven into a snake shape.

Ingredients:

1 lb. unsalted butter
1-1/2 cups sugar
6 eggs (reserve 2 for brushing cookies)
6 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. cardamom
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. cloves
2 tsp. nutmeg
2 tsp. allspice
2 oz. Ouzo

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Using the mixer beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and ouzo and mix well. While the mixer is running, add eggs one by one and mix until well incorporated.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour with the baking powder and soda. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture little by little. The dough will be soft and malleable but it should not be sticky. You should be able to pinch off a ball of dough and roll it in to a cord or thin tube.

If the dough is too sticky, add a little bit more flour. Allow the dough to rest a bit before rolling into shapes.

To shape the cookies, pinch off a piece of dough about the size of a walnut. Roll out a cord or thin tube of dough about the length of a dinner knife. Fold in half then twist two times. You can also make a coiled circle or an “S” shape.

Beat the remaining two eggs in a bowl and add a splash of water to the egg. Brush the cookies lightly with the egg wash.

Bake cookies on parchment paper or on a lightly greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes or until they are nicely golden brown.

Glaze

1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3 tbsp. fresh lemon rind
1 tsp. mastic
1 tsp. mace
Salt to taste

Simmer on low heat until it reaches a thick, yet pourable consistency. Add more honey or lemon juice as necessary to achieve desired consistency.

This sounds like a wonderful recipe for those who would like to make many-knobbed cakes for the ancestral spirits. I’d love to see folks try it out and compare results!

I was asked to elaborate on the role of Aphrodite within the Bacchic Orphic mystery tradition of the thiasos of the Starry Bull, which is something that absolutely needs to be done though I’m not sure that I have the brain power to do so properly. But I’ll tease out a couple of threads for now and return to this topic at a later date when I feel I can do it justice.

So to begin with, like Dionysos, Aphrodite has a multitude of forms and various mythic origins were ascribed to her, all of which we consider more or less true.

In the Hesiodic account (which was followed in the Orphic Rhapsodies) this goddess came into being when Kronos castrated his father Ouranos, and threw the genitals into the ocean. A number of divine beings spontaneously generated alongside her including the Melian nymphs and the Erinyes, both of whom are honored in our rites. And note that the golden lamellae often instruct the deceased to proclaim “I am a child of Ge and starry Ouranos” – thus making them Aphrodite’s sibling after a fashion.

The phallos is of supreme importance in our mysteries as both an instrument of fertility and a pledge of continuity and it was Melampos, the second prophet of our tradition who brought the phallic dances from Egypt to Greece. So Aphrodite’s birth from the phallos is significant as well as her union with Dionysos, which produced Priapos the guardian of the phallos. This union (paralleling in some respects the Ionian Anthesteria) was especially celebrated in Asia Minor and the Near East and was ritually reenacted by Mark Antony and Kleopatra in Cilicia. It was also the basis for the Antiochean festival of Maiuma which involved bathing in the sea before participating in a massive drunken orgy. Baptism is one of the sacraments of this tradition (that’s going to be a fun post to write!) and Aphrodite is specifically associated with the bath of the nymphs at Lokri.

The two primary deities of Lokri were Aphrodite and Persephone (and Orpheus is said to have been the judge in these goddesses’ dispute over Adonis) though they seem to have contaminated each other quite a bit since this Aphrodite presides over vegetative fertility and is the unwed romantic partner of Hermes Chthonios while this Persephone is a goddess of marriage and the realm of female domesticity as well as being the Queen of the Underworld. (In general Magna Graecians are more concerned with her abduction and rape than her reunion with Demeter in stark contrast with Eleusis.) Interestingly, there was also a temple of Aphrodite and Hermes at Olbia on the Black Sea – one of the Orpheotelestai who engaged in a magical duel with his colleague via curse tablets which were recently discovered by archaeologists may have operated out of this temple. In Makedonia Aphrodite was a funerary goddess in whom her mystai were absorbed upon death – which is why the Ptolemaic dynasty had such a strong interest in her (where she was equated with Nephthys and Hathor) and may be behind the twinned cults of Ariadne and Aphrodite.

Returning to Italian soil, Aphrodite was central to the cosmology of Empedokles who is on the periphery of the Orphic tradition, though falling more on the Pythagorean end of things than the Bacchic. (Though some of his fragments can be interpreted as a variation of the Titanic sparagmos.)

One of the central themes of the Bacchic cults in Southern Italy is that death is a marriage to Dionysos and there is a similar theme running through Tarantism. Which makes the subject matter of Arachne’s tapestry in her contest with Minerva quite interesting.

Melinoë also has a connection to Aphrodite through one of her mothers.

While there’s much more I would like to add, hopefully this brief sketch will suffice for now.

Hear the words of your people! May they be pleasing to you!

Hear the words of your people! May they be pleasing to you!