Author: Nicola Bizzi

Since the most remote times, the entire long history of the European, Mediterranean and Near Eastern religious experience has been characterized by the presence and diffusion of mystery cults They were generally characterized by a common order, by a common basic rule, consisting in the fact that the set of beliefs or foundations of the cult, of the founding myths, of the religious practices, and the true nature of the teachings and the revelatory message of the Deities should be reserved, to different degrees, for the Initiates. The initiates were admitted and entered a particular community of new men. Initiates were distinguished from the profane, from those who had not had access to the Mysteries (by choice, by impediment or for other reasons of a legal or social nature), and who as such swore a solemn oath and had the obligation to remain silent, not to reveal or profane the secret, which had to remain ineffable.

It is correct, yes, to speak of Eleusinian Mysteries, but we should – in a broader sense – speak of Eleusinity.The deepest roots of Eleusinity lie in the culture and civilization of the ancient pre-Greek people of the Aegean Sea; they were all ethnically similar populations, characterized by black hair and olive complexion, who, since the most remote times, inhabited the Cyclades islands, Crete, continental Greece and the coasts of Asia Minor. These populations were all part of the Cretan Empire of the Minos, and, above all, had two elements that united them: the cult of the ancient Titan Gods (overthrown, according to Hellenic tradition, in a war called Titanomachy by Zeus and the new Olympian Gods) and the designation of their progenies through the female line (Matriarchy). Another underlying line of their culture was the common identification with the same sacred lineage, heir to a grandiose previous civilization.

Much has been written and theorized about the mystery cults of Mediterranean antiquity. There is a vast number of studies and essays signed by the most authoritative anthropologists and historians of religions in this regard, but we must underline how the guidelines of the majority of these works are influenced by two substantial limitations. The first is constituted, despite the abundance of classical Greek and Latin sources on religious matters, by the fact that ancient authors and chroniclers such as Herodotus, Pausanias, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus and Polybius, while addressing the interpretation of myths and doctrines religious, they never go into detail about the rituals, contents and initiatory knowledge when speaking of mystery cults. And if they sporadically do so, they still maintain an attitude of closure and confidentiality on certain issues which, in the profane eyes of our contemporaries, could even appear “silenced”. Instead, it is an obvious attitude of respect, derived above all from their adherence to the rule and vow of silence. The majority of certain authors, in fact, had personally received a mysterious initiation (and in some cases more than one), and were therefore well aware of the limes, the boundary line beyond which it was not licit to go when writing about the Gods.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, referred to them in his writings, not only in relation to their work of civilizing human customs, but also to the knowledge of the “principle of life” and the hope of a happy survival after death which initiation was able to confer: “There was nothing better than those Mysteries, by which, having emerged from a rough and inhuman life, we were educated and softened to civilization, and therefore they are called initiations, because we have known the principles of life in their true essence; and we have not only learned how to live with joy, but also how to die with a better hope” . The primacy of the Eleusinian Mysteries over all the other mysterious realities of antiquity is also highlighted by Pausanias (110-180 AD, another famous Initiate into the Mysteries of the Two Goddesses): “By as much as the Gods are superior to heroes, by as much the Eleusinian Institution is superior to the others that refer to the veneration of the Divinities”

According to the Eleusian Mystery Tradition, it is not at all true that all the religions, that have been formed and/or differentiated over time, would indiscriminately originate from that “primordial religion” enunciated by the Pythagorean-Platonic vision, as they are presumed adaptations of the Palaios Logos in the form of one Hieros Logos specific to each individual spiritual form. Furthermore, it would be an aberration just to think so. If we correctly identify that original Primordial Titanic religion in the most authentic Titanic religion which arose and established itself in that golden age when the Titan Gods still reigned with justice over this world, with the first traumatic breaking of the golden chain of Tradition occurred with the Titanomachy and with the victory of the Olympic Gods, the vast majority of the religions that arose and developed and succeeded one another among the various civilizations did so under the aegis of the latter, and not certainly under that of the defeated Titan Gods. Therefore, they have clearly distanced themselves from the Palaios Logos and the Primordial Tradition, adapting to doctrinal compromises and pollutions which have allowed the respective priestly castes to survive and exercise their control over the masses of the faithful ones, but have thus inexorably and inextricably linked to the katabasic path. These religions have given their followers only the illusion of possession of the Sophia Aionia, of the Sapientia Aeterna, while in reality they have clearly distanced themselves from it. If some legacy of the Palaios Logos, of the Primordial Titanic Tradition, can be partially recognized in such religions or doctrines, it represents only a pale and weak shadow.