Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries: A Dissertation by Thomas Taylor

Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries: A Dissertation Reviews

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  JJ

  These were the most celebrated of all the sacred orgies, and were called, by way of eminence, The Mysteries. Although exhibiting apparently the features of an Eastern origin, they were evidently copied from the rites of Isis in Egypt, an idea of which, more or less correct, maybe found in The Metamorphoses of Apuleius and The Epicurean by Thomas Moore.
  The worshippers of The Mysteries did not indulge in unrestrained pleasure and frantic enthusiasm, but rather aimed at an ascetic purity of life and manners. The worship of Dionysus was the center of their ideas, and the starting-point of all their speculations upon the world and human nature. They believed that human souls were confined in the body as in a prison, a condition which was denominated genesis or generation; from which Dionysus would liberate them. Their sufferings, the stages by which they passed to a higher form of existence, their katharsis or purification, and their enlightenment constituted the themes of the Orphic writers. All this was represented in the legend which constituted the groundwork of the mystical rites.
  
  “Exiled from the true home of spirit, imprisoned in the body, disordered by passion and beclouded by sense, the SOUL has yet longings after that state of perfect knowledge, and purity, and bliss, in which it was first created. Its affinities are still on high. It yearns for a higher and nobler form of life. It essays to rise, but its EYE is darkened by sense, its wings are besmeared by passion and lust; it is ‘borne downward until it falls upon and attaches itself to that, which is material and sensual,’ and it flounders and grovels still amid that objects of sense.”
  
  The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries is the same knowledge echoed throughout all human civilizations: will humans continue to be dominated by their bodily pleasures and senses or will we realize our god self by taking our consciousness to higher levels by awakening our chakras and third eye…in other words, spiritual enlightenment.
  
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  Edward Butler

  An extraordinary book which has stood the test of time. Also available in a Kessinger reprint edition.
  
  
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  Karl Hallbjörnsson

  Full of unreliable conjecture and cherry-picking. Would not recommend
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  Andrew Mossberg

  A very dated dissertation but still interesting and includes a nice selection of drawings illustrating some of the mythology and events. I read the ebook version which, unfortunately, did not render any of the greek correctly.
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  Sheba Inglewood

  Very interesting
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  Peter J.

  Not bad, but I wish I understood the Greek parts.
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  Maan Kawas

  Very interesting and informative, though a difficult read!