On the Way to Eleusis: Regaining the Roots of the Western Tradition

Nicola Bizzi, an attentive historian and a tireless researcher in the field of ancient religious traditions of the Mediterranean area, has put his signature to numerous interesting publications, but he is, above all, known for being the author of From Eleusis to Florence: the Transmission of Secret Knowledge, a work that is nothing short of monumental and unique in its kind, whose first volume, released in Italy in November 2017, and translated into English only a few months ago, has quickly become a true, real best seller, meeting a diffusion that is going beyond all expectations. even well beyond the Italian borders.

But Nicola Bizzi is not just a historian and a writer. He is also – and above all – an Initiate in multiple esoteric disciplines, an esteemed Freemason and – this is an even more considerable aspect – he belongs, both by a personal initiatory journey of more than thirty years and by family tradition, to the Order of the Eleusinians Mother, one of the oldest, most respected and impenetrable initiatory initiatives in the entire West.

Starting from the 1990s, the Mother Eleusinians, for a whole series of reasons that I will explain, decided to undertake a gradual policy of opening up to the profane world, starting from Italy. In essence, they have publicly revealed themselves, making themselves available for open discussion with other initiatory realities and making available to historians and scholars part of their enormous cultural and documentary heritage available. And, at the same time, they began cycles of public conferences and the publication of various books through a network of their own cultural associations. An operation, the latter, which also includes the publication of Nicola Bizzi’s essays, which was authorized and legitimized by the Order of the Eleusinian Mothers.

Such a decision – which apparently in the Eleusinian and mystery spheres in general has not found unanimous consensus and agreement – must not lead to easy misunderstandings: the Mother Eleusinians will never spread their initiatory secrets in the profane world, they will never reveal to those who are not capable of receiving its own rites and rituals. Anyone who believes or hopes otherwise is surely deluding himself or acting in bad faith. As Nicola Bizzi explains well, the esoteric and initiatory knowledge is by its nature secret, but secrecy is not only aimed at preserving something from the profane.

Secrecy is also aimed at preserving the profane themselves (those who have not been initiated and who therefore do not possess the correct keys to access certain teachings and certain truths) from two fundamental dangers: madness and death. In fact, anyone who approaches the Sacred Mysteries without being ready, runs both dangers. Precisely for this reason, as the great Initiate Virgil tells us in the Aeneid, the priests of the sacred grove where the door that gave access to the Underworld was located shouted to the profane as Proserpina approached: “Procul este, profani!” (“Step away, you profane people!”).

Just as no one who is not a true Initiate can survive the approach of a Divinity, no one among the non-Initiates could maintain their mental clarity and not risk slipping into the abyss of madness by becoming aware of certain truths that would upset their own forma mentis and one’s profane vision of things and the world.

The policy of partial opening of the Eleusinian Mother towards the profane world, according to those directly involved, intends to be aimed above all at clarifying the many misinformation and inaccuracies written regarding the Eleusinian Mysteries by religious historians such as Kerényi, Burkert, Macchioro and Clinton, but, mostly, to counter the delusional theses which have been advanced on the Mysteries by figures such as Robert Gordon- Wasson, Albert Hoffman and Carl Ruck, and to respond to the proliferation, in the wake of Aleister Crowley, of numerous so-called “Eleusinian” organizations (especially here in the United States) who, in reality, do practice aberrant New Age doctrines without rhyme or reason and have nothing to do with authentic Eleusinity.

Obviously, these are the “official” reasons for this partial opening. In my opinion, the “unofficial” ones are very different and I believe that they are based on the consideration that the time may now be ripe for a certain awakening of awareness.

If, on the one hand – following this “openness” – in recent years there has been a cautious but growing interest in the Mother Eleusinians on the part of some academic institutions (mainly American, Greek and British) and on the part of some university professors, historians and philologists who have evidently seen in it an extraordinary potential research opportunity, it is at least curious to note how in certain environments of the so-called “pagan traditionalism”, especially in Italy, the openness of the Eleusinian Mothers to the profane world and their very decision to reveal themself, to come out into the open, aroused a wave of dismay and, above all, a certain fear mixed with disbelief. And I’ll try to explain the reason why.

A wave of dismay certainly not because – and this would absolutely have been more understandable or justifiable – they wanted to accuse the Eleusinians of having revealed who-knows-what initiatory secrets to the profane world (which in any case – and I know for sure – has never been done), but rather because the same Eleusinian doctrinal message, as it was exposed in a clear and linear manner by Nicola Bizzi in his essays, did not fail to profoundly undermine the preconceived and now consolidated schemes that many “pagan traditionalists” have adopted and made their own over time. Preconceived schemes largely due to the reading of the works of Julius Evola, Johann Jakob Bachofen, Alfred Rosenberg, Giustiniano Lebano, Giuliano Kremmerz, and to the idealization of an alleged “Italic Tradition” of solar and Indo-European origin (and – since here we go, why not? – even “hyperborean”!).

Accustomed to reading exclusively the interpretations – often inaccurate and misleading – that both modern historians of religions and the aforementioned authors of the Eleusinian mystical experience and the related Mystery Tradition have spread for decades, many “pagan traditionalists”, while acting – of course – in all good faith, do struggle to understand one of the very foundations of the Western Mystery Tradition: the dualism and conflict between Titan Gods and Olympic Gods and, another not negligible thing, the contrast between Matriarchy and Patriarchy. And, another crucial point, the absolutely pre-Greek and non- Indo-European origin of the mystery cults and related doctrines.

Just as I was preparing, at the kind request of Nicola Bizzi, to write this text as a preface to his new essay The Way of Eleusis, he informed me, first via e-mail and then in some telephone conversations, of an interesting exchange of messages which had on an important independent Italian site, Ereticamente (www.ereticamente.net), which hosts numerous interventions and studies on History, Mythology and Western Tradition, following the publication of one of his articles entitled A single primordial Tradition? An article taken from a chapter of his essay, in which the Author exposes the Eleusinian point of view regarding the claims, by many historians and esotericists, to identify a presumed single primordial Tradition connected with an equally presumed transcendent unity of all religions.

A reader of the site writes, in a rather polemical tone:

“I am not a Christian and I am not interested in defending an Abrahamic point of view, but from the point of view of the pre-Abrahamic pluralist Tradition (mistakenly called “paganism”) your views are absolutely considered foreign, as you place at the center of the question a a sort of Manichaean dualism between the Titans and the Olympic Gods, a dualism unknown in the Greco-Roman, Mediterranean and obviously also Indo- European plural pantheon. In this dualism you claim the pre-eminence of a presumed titanic, matriarchal and matrilineal initiatory Tradition, placing it as the only and true Tradition. On this point, we already note a certain exclusivism found in Abrahamic monotheisms, exclusivity which does not disconcert me as I believe it to be “useful” and inherent to certain traditional manifestations, but which can be disconcerting if associated with a kind of anti-exclusivist metaphysics such as it was the pre-Abrahamic one, to which you are referring. In short, I see a strong contradiction here: this clear contrast between solar and chthonic cults, which Evola also discussed, placing it at the basis of its morphology of ancient societies, is simply overturned in favor of the female element. But, while Evola placed the antecedentity of a primordial unity at the basis of reasoning and therefore a reduction of opposites in its marked dualism, you place at the basis of reasoning the irreducibility of this dualism to any form of superior synthesis recognizing only in your Titanism ( can I call it that?) the true Tradition. A bit as if a Hindu only recognized the tradition deriving from the Asuras, accusing the Devas of being “patriarchal” impostors. But this comparison can be made for all traditions, including Indo-European and Mediterranean ones, which see the clash between Gods and Titans as a fundamental moment in their metaphysics…”.

Nicola Bizzi’s rather polite response, articulated and explanatory, is visible on the site in question and I will not stay here to summarize it, since the content of this book itself, in its entirety, already answers these and many other potential doubts and questions.

As Nicola Bizzi very well explains in another of the chapters of his book, the deepest roots of Eleusinity lie in the culture and civilization of the ancient pre-Greek peoples of the Aegean Sea. They were all ethnically similar populations, characterized by black hair and olive complexion, who, since ancient times, inhabited the Cyclades islands, Crete, mainland Greece and the coasts of Asia Minor. Populations that were all part of the Cretan Empire of Minos, and who, above all, had two elements that united them: the cult of the ancient Titan Gods (dethroned, according to Hellenic Tradition, with a war called Titanomachy by Zeus and the new Olympic Gods) and the designation of one’s offspring through the female line (Matriarchy). Another underlying theme of their culture was the common identification in the same sacred lineage, heir to a grandiose previous civilization. All populations who, in what has gone down in history as the Trojan War, took sides in defense of the last bastion of their own tradition, civilization and religiosity, desperately fighting against the Achaeans and other invading peoples, bearers of a cultural model opposed to antagonistic to the Aegean one.

In fact, another thing which is never sufficiently clarified in the historical context is the fact that the conflict narrated by Homer in the Iliad, rather than a commercial war, was a war of religion and the mortal clash between two opposing models of society and civilization and irreconcilable with each other. On the one hand, a vast confederation of populations of Aegean lineage, direct heirs of the Cretan Minoan Empire and characterized, as we have said, by a social model based on matriarchy and the cult of the ancient Titan Gods; on the other, a heterogeneous alliance of populations not of Mediterranean origin, who settled in mainland Greece during various successive waves of migration, united not only by bellicosity, but also by a patriarchal social model and the cult of the new usurping Olympic Gods.

If there is no understanding of this dualism and this irreconcilability of cultural and religious models that characterized the dramatic transition between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age during the 12th century BC, Nicola Bizzi rightly writes, the essence of Eleusinity and its Mysteries cannot be really understood.

After the fall of Troy, Eleusis became the last bastion of this Sacral Lineage. The choice of this small town overlooking the Gulf of Salamis, where, according to Mystery Tradition, the Goddess Demeter arrived incarnated in human form in 1216 BC to institutionalize the Mysteries, was not accidental at all. In a Greece, now largely dominated by those invaders who had banded together to fight against Troy, Eleusis represented, ethnically and culturally, a sort of enclave of Aegean culture. As archaeological excavations have attested, here the cult of the Two Goddesses, the Mother and the Daughter, was already attested since at least the 15th century BC. And certain secret documents and sacred objects, which were preserved in the city of Priam, had been transported to Eleusis in conjunction with the fall of Tarua of the Teucrians, ensuring that they did not fall into the hands of enemies and thus allowing the perpetuation, according to a thread that would never be interrupted, the “Single and True Doctrine”.

In summary, I wonder, where is it written that there must necessarily have existed a single, widespread and idyllic “pre-Abrahamic pluralist tradition” (said to be, more or less erroneously, “paganism”) to which the reader is referring? Is he perhaps referring to the respect and the tolerance that existed, both legally (thanks to the observance of the Mos Maiorum) and culturally in Republican Rome and in the first centuries of the Empire towards different doctrines and religious confessions? If so, I can only partially agree with him, even considering that the Roman one, although characterized by a certain religious pluralism, was a profoundly patriarchal society, generated by a lineage of Indo-European origin and (despite the preponderant Etruscan influence in the early of its political, social and religious institutions) strongly contaminated by the cult of divinities decidedly similar to the Olympic Gods; a contamination that can be seen, moreover, in the Capitoline Tiade itself. And the Roman civilization, remaining in the Mediterranean context, was certainly not the first to arise, develop and decline. It was in fact preceded by multiple civilizations whose history has always been characterized by religious wars whose underlying element has always been attributable to the dualism of the Titans – Olympic Gods, or in any case “Old Gods” – “New Gods”.

Furthermore, it is not at all true – as the reader claims – that this dualism was unknown “in the plural Greco-Roman, Mediterranean and obviously also Indo-European pantheon“. First of all, because there has never been a single “Greek-Roman plural pantheon” nor even a “Mediterranean” one. It is one thing to talk about the traditional Roman-Latin religio, which consisted, rather than in a religious doctrine as we can understand it today, in a real legal contract between the State and the Divinities, aimed at achieving and maintaining the Pax Deorum. It is one thing to talk about the many mystery cults present and well spread and rooted in Rome and in every province of the Empire. Cults that interested and involved a large part of the population and which based their initiatory teachings and rituals precisely on this dualism. A dualism that was well known to Homer, Hesiod, Socrates, Plato and many other great initiates, philosophers and men of letters of antiquity.

If we fall into the “Indo-European” discussion, then, we must necessarily consider that not only has there never existed a generic pantheon that could boast of this definition, but also that it was a common characteristic of all religious traditions of Indo-European origin a certain demonization of the ancient defeated Gods (the Titans), as a function of the glorification of the new victorious Gods. A demonization whose reflection we also fully find in Greek culture, in the context of a certain pro-Olympic literature.

The Indo-European origin has therefore never been an “anti-exclusivist” metaphysics, but exclusivist to the nth degree, as it not only excluded and marginalized the defeated Titanic Deities, even going so far as to make unrealistic distortions of the most ancient mythological events ( attributing, for example to Zeus the presumed paternity of a whole series of Divinities who never actually had anything to do with him or with the other Olympians), but excluded and marginalised, demonizing it, even the titanic element which is inherent in every human being (the same immortal soul, according to the Eleusian Mystery Tradition), passing it off as something negative, brutal, I dare say, almost demonic!

It is therefore incorrect to state that “all traditions, including Indo-European and Mediterranean ones, see the clash between Gods and Titans as a fundamental moment in their metaphysics…“. If anything, it would be more correct to state that the religious traditions of Indo-European origin (therefore not of Mediterranean origin) base their metaphysics not on the clash between the Olympic Gods and the Titan Gods, but rather on the glorification of the victory of the former and on the demonization of the latter, the defeated.

As Nicola Bizzi underlined in his essay, what can be considered the most authentic Primordial Tradition of the Eleusinian Mystery Tradition, the one linked to the ancient Titanic cult, has managed to survive and perpetuate itself certainly not thanks to the multiple religions that have arisen and developed after it, but despite them. Indeed, in the history of the last millennia, it has always been the object of systematic persecutions by them and their priestly castes, since nothing can scare the new usurping Gods and the priestly castes of the religions subservient to them more than an awareness, on the part of humanity, of its true titanic nature and its potential, of a reunion of humanity with its true Primordial Tradition.

If we agree with Gemisto Pletho and the Pythagoreans about the real existence of an uninterrupted golden chain of the transmission of Tradition (a chain of which the Eleusinians were and continue to be the main actors), we can rightly identify with it, yes, the transmission of a Primordial Tradition, but certainly not the same Sophia Aionia, the same Sapientia Aeterna enunciated by the Byzantine Philosopher-Initiate and before him by the entire line of Pythagorean-Platonic continuity.

Even if the true forced Christianization of Imperial Roman society saw its peak under the reign of Theodosius, finding full legal “legitimation” with the infamous and criminal Edict of Thessalonica, this dramatic katabasic and obscurantist involution of European civilization definitely had deeper roots. If Constantine and his successors had metaphorically opened the door of the monster’s cage and Theodosius had decisively thrown it open, allowing it to come out and unleash its dogmatic and persecutory fury (thus performing what Fabio Calabrese has rightly defined as the most infamous of History), this monster had already been lurking for some time in the folds of history, even in what our reader would define as “pre-Abrahamic” traditions. I am referring – to use the words of Nicola Bizzi – to a tentacled and creeping monster with many names and faces, emblem of every counter-initiatory principle, which since the defeat of the ancient Titan Gods by the usurping Olympic Gods, punctually raised its head with its own emissaries on duty (Zeus, Dionysus, Amenophis IV, better known as Akhenaten, Moses, Jesus Christ, up to the prophet of Islam Muhammad), working incessantly in the direction of a sub-mission of humanity and a darkening of consciences, with an objective not only aimed at mere domination or political power, but also and above all at wanting to prevent humanity from regaining possession of that fire once returned to it by Prometheus, from eating the forbidden fruit of ‘Tree of Knowledge, thus becoming fully aware of oneself and of that titanic part that is naturally inherent in every man and every woman and which is just waiting to be awakened.

Finally, regarding the references to Julius Evola and the clear contrast between solar and chthonic cults that he placed at the basis of his morphology of ancient societies, it is obvious that in the Eleusinian vision it is reversed in favor of the female element. But it was certainly not the Eleusinians who overthrew anything. If anything, it is Evola’s vision that is based on conceptions and axioms that are decidedly overturned compared to those of the ancient Mediterranean tradition. In this regard, I would recommend, not only our reader, but also all those interested in an in-depth study on certain themes, to read Piero Fenili’s excellent essay The Errors of Julius Evola, published in 1991 in two issues of the new series of a magazine of initiatory studies Ignis, directed at the time by Roberto Sestito.

Subsequently, the reader continues his intervention, posing a series of other legitimate questions:

“A final point on which I have serious doubts: I legitimately think it is your self-certification regarding an alleged authentic Eleusinian lineage of which you would be the last Italic representatives. This would mean a kind of Copernican revolution in European spirituality but, since I wasn’t born just yesterday, I strictly distrust anyone who professes to be initiated into a regular initiatory organization that has survived for more than two millennia and is even operational today. In short, allow me to have at least one strong doubt on this point. Not that it is not possible that authentic mysterious veins might have reached us in very limited environments (…), but, given the countless counterfeits and pseudo initiatory chains of which 99.99% of organizations boast for pure proselytism, you would be a more than exceptional case and would involve possession of texts and knowledge not accessible to scholars, both academic and esoteric. In short, I wonder, if your qualifications are also hypothetically real, why no one has ever noticed such a gigantic initiatory possibility. In short, some irrefutable evidence is needed to affirm certain lineages… Finally, I conclude, apologizing for the length, clarifying that I have no prejudices whatsoever, but I also consider your assurance in dealing with episodes so far back in time to be very suspicious, so much so that it reminds me of certain theosophical digressions dictated by “higher unknowns” …

Kind regards, without any controversy.”

Definitely a strange environment, that of the so-called Italian “pagan traditionalism” (at least if seen through the eyes of an unrepentant American like me!). An environment in which readings of the works of Evola and Kremmerz are often preferred rather than the living and immortal sources of Hesiod, Plato, Plutarch, Virgil or Proclus. An environment in which great authors and interpreters of the most authentic “pagan” spirituality such as Thomas Taylor, John Toland, Robert Graves or Friedrich Creuzer (not to mention Marsilio Ficino and Giorgio Gemisto Pletone) are often ignored and in which an irrational prejudice dominates unchallenged anti-Masonic which even led to the marginalization and placing on the index of the works of a giant of initiatory and traditional thought like Arturo Reghini! An environment in which we can easily find everything and the opposite of everything, and whose glue, instead of being a true and authentic research and understanding of the origins of Tradition, is often reduced to being exclusively a sterile opposition to Christianity… but in the name of what ? In the name of an idealized and romantic, I dare say almost “pastoral” “paganism”, in which all the Gods, without any distinction, go arm in arm and run happily through the Elysian Fields!

Forgive me for this outburst, but you will understand how justified it is after reading certain things!

Apart from the fact that our reader demonstrates that he has not read works such as From Eleusis to Florence or other essays by Nicola Bizzi or otherwise authorized by the Eleusinian institutions (otherwise he would have already had the answers to all his questions), the question of survival and of the clandestine perpetuation, in an organic and organized form, of some strands of the pre-Christian Mystery Tradition, and of the Eleusinian one in particular, from antiquity until today through an uninterrupted thread, is absolutely not – as has been erroneously stated by some hypothesized – a “self-certification” of the Eleusinian Mother. These are documentable historical events which have also affected other “pagan” Traditions, primarily Pythagoreanism (Jean Marie Ragon, who was both a Freemason and an Eleusinian Initiate, famously documented, for example, the entire history of the perpetuation of the Pythagorean Order, from the 5th century AD until the second half of the 19th century), the Orphic Eleusinity (which was also secretly handed down within some monastic orders, including the Camaldolese) and other realities such as Isidism and Hermeticism. These are historical events that in Freemasonry, at certain levels, we know very well, even if – understandably – they are not talked about, if not only in passing and in a low voice, in the Blue Lodges. But, at the same time, it is an issue which, in a historical and academic context such as the Western one, pervaded and inevitably deeply marked by two millennia of prevailing Judeo-Christian culture, has always represented a sort of “taboo”.

Many great historians and researchers, among whom we can include Edgar Wind, Eugenio Garin, Frances Yates, Károly Kerényi, Mircea Eliade, Walter Burkert, have often found themselves faced with the truth, glimpsing its significance. But, realizing that they could find themselves dealing with an overall picture that was not only extremely complex but also potentially explosive and dangerous – an overall picture that probably went beyond not their understanding, but rather the very limits of their cultural formation and their mindset – they preferred not to face it head-on, choosing more comfortably to go around it. But – History teaches us – a mountain cannot be climbed by simply hitting its slopes with an ice ax and ignoring its summit, just as Sultan Mehmet II did not conquer the mighty walls of Constantinople by practicing with a manual drill small holes on their base!

Expecially Frances Yates and Eugenio Garin managed to see this symbolic peak, but, for a whole series of reasons known only to them (but which we can legitimately guess), they deliberately chose not to climb it completely, preferring to rest on its buttresses. Yates, a talented scholar but with some interpretative limitations, rested on a buttress called Hermeticism. And she settled into it so well that she ended up seeing Hermes Trismegistus and his doctrine almost everywhere, interpreting in a hermetic key writings, events and historical facts that in reality had nothing to do with Hermeticism, or branding as “Hermetists” great figures and Initiates of the past who actually followed and practiced very different doctrines, from the Pythagorean to the Eleusinian one.

In my opinion, Eugenio Garin – and this can be clearly realized from his books – well understood the height and dimensions of the peak he proposed to climb, but he also understood its intrinsic danger. Translated into less metaphorical terms, he was able to fully understand the reality of the survival in an organic and organized form of the pre-Christian Mystery Tradition through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He also understood how fully bringing such a reality back to light could jeopardize his university career and his reputation as an academic. A free choice, his (even if questionable) choice, to partially remedy which he still wanted to insert in his numerous essays on Humanism and the Renaissance some fleeting but clear signals that attest to how much he really understood the issue.

Many other historians who have addressed (it would be more correct to say that they believe they have addressed) the theme of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the related mystery-initiatory tradition, have limited themselves – always wanting to speak in metaphors – to fleetingly observe the narrow panorama that they saw from their narrow window, without even seeing the imposing and unclimbed peak that rose on their horizon.

Nicola Bizzi, in a specially dedicated chapter of this essay, explains very well what are the limitations that certain contemporary historians find themselves having to face when dealing with issues relating to the sphere of the sacred of the ancients.

I can say with a certain knowledge of the facts that in the freemasonry context the coming out of the Mother Eleusinity arouse neither an excessive outcry nor a wonder. If anything, it generated a certain surprise, because many did not expect it and still today wonder what the real reasons for such a decision could have been. Many Brothers, in fact, “know” that, in the past, there have been, both in Europe and here in the United States, confrontations (but also heated clashes) between the leaders of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite and the Rite of Memphis and Misraim and exponents of the Eleusinian institutions. Just as the cases of Free Masons who asked to be initiated into the Sacred Mysteries were not rare. But, as Nicola Bizzi specified in his introductory essay to the recent republication of a text by Arturo Reghini, if in the history of recent centuries there have been quite a few Freemasons who have approached Eleusinity or who have asked to be initiated into it ( and we could mention some famous names that would certainly surprise readers, laymen and otherwise), it has always been very rare for an Eleusinian to approach Freemasonry or to ask to be initiated into it. And this is because a certain consideration exists in the Eleusinian context which can be summarized more or less as follows: why go and drink from the putrid and muddy waters of the mouth when we have always quenched our thirst with the clear, pure and limpid waters of the source?

The coming out into the open of the Mother Eleusinians, to answer our reader, really represented a Copernican revolution (a little curiosity that perhaps he doesn’t know: Mikołaj Kopernik was an Eleusinian Initiate!), the effects of which have already been perceptible for some time, but which are certainly destined to amplify in the years to come.

As I wrote earlier, there are already several university teachers and researchers, both in Europe and in America, who have been able to seize the extraordinary opportunity of collaboration with the Eleusinian institutions. And among them we can also include the undersigned, who has been working in the university sector for twenty-five years now.

I personally contacted them after reading the English edition of the first volume of From Eleusis to Florence. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that they responded to me after less than two days, replying without hesitation to all my pressing questions that initially, could have given the impression of a real interrogation. Naturally, I qualified, both professionally and initiatory, and we began a close exchange of emails, which was followed – to my even greater surprise – by an invitation to Florence, where I went with my wife and our daughter at the end of the month of May this year.

I have been interested in and have been involved in ancient mystery cults for a lifetime (I mainly owe my entry into Freemasonry, which took place way back in the 1980s, to this interest). I only knew briefly about the initiatory reality of the Eleusinian Mothers. I had learned on several occasions and from various sources about the perpetuation of their Tradition, but I admit that I was completely unaware of the exact historical dynamics. I believed, in my imagination, that they were literally unapproachable, unattainable, like mythical characters, a sort of “superior unknowns” that no one can see or meet, and you can imagine my surprise when I found myself in front of very normal people. (apart from their extraordinary erudition and preparation in the historical, esoteric and initiatory fields). Fathers and mothers of families, with absolutely “normal” jobs and activities, perfectly inserted into their social context. In my perhaps naive fantasizing, this was not how I imagined the direct and legitimate heirs and perpetuators of a Tradition which included among its ranks Plato, Pausanias, Cicero, Porphyry, Plotinus, Proclus, numerous Roman Emperors and extraordinary figures such as the great philosopher and scientist Hypatia of Alexandria. But then I stopped telling tales and remembered that, after all, we were in the 21st century.

I had already been to Florence, but only once, when I was studying at university. I remember that I was dazzled and fascinated by its beauty and its treasures, but I would never have imagined that most of the men who made it great and that many of its most important buildings, monuments and artistic masterpieces were the expression of that Mysterious Tradition in to which I then dedicated years of study!

This year I spent five truly unforgettable days with my family in the Renaissance Capital, during which Nicola Bizzi and his other Eleusinian brothers, with incredible affability, kindness and availability, acted as guides, accompanying us to visit the city and its its most mysterious and esoteric places. And, of course, they continued to answer many of my many questions, clarify many of my doubts and curiosities. Until one evening, after an excellent dinner in a villa on the hills of the city, in a place called Fiesole, they decided to show me what they defined as only “a part” of their archives. In a large room used as a library, with large dark wooden bookcases on the walls filled to the ceiling with books, both ancient and modern, they opened some large folders full of manuscripts. Written in both Latin and Italian, they dated back to between the 15th and 18th centuries. I was able to examine letters, documents of various kinds, ancient minutes of ritual sessions, initiations, celebrations of ceremonies and sacred festivals with splendid seals in lacquer wax, bearing very particular signs and symbols, many of which were completely unknown to me. . And I was able to verify, touch first-hand, also thanks to their patient explanations, the evidence of a real initiatory filiation, across at least the last three-four centuries, of some of their families.

I would have spent entire days (if not weeks or months!) in that room if I had had the chance. But at a certain point, giving a fleeting glance at the clock, I realized that it was already half past two in the morning. Out of respect for my family (my wife and daughter were literally exhausted after a whole day spent walking around the streets of Florence) and so as not to abuse the hospitality of these extraordinary people too much, I decided to call a taxi which he would take us to our hotel.

That night, I must admit, I could not go to sleep such was my emotion. I wandered around like a troubled soul until eight in the morning, nervously shuttling between the bed and the balcony of the room, with ten thousand thoughts in my head and, above all, many new questions that I would have liked to ask the Eleusinians. But in the end I calmed down, feeling gratified by what I had had the opportunity to listen and see, happy to have managed to gain the trust of these people. I realized, in my head, that although I would have to leave for the United States that same afternoon, my relationship of discussion and collaboration with the Mother Eleusinians was just beginning and that I would certainly have the opportunity to continue it.

I felt very excited because at that dinner I also had the opportunity to meet in person what is, in sacral succession, the 73rd Pritan of the Hierophants of the Eleusinian Mother, an elderly man with affable and kind ways, profound culture and extremely lively and penetrating gaze. He had not been introduced to me as such, but only by his name, and only during our conversation he did reveal to me, to my great amazement, who he actually was.

I think back now, while I write these lines, to the doubts and questions (certainly legitimate) that that reader of the Ereticamente site asked himself. His distrust may be understandable, because actually, in the world, and especially in the United States, there are numerous initiatory organizations of dubious nature which not only do not carry forward doctrines based on solid foundations, but which often abuse credulity (and bank accounts) of its followers. But, if I myself could have had some doubts or perplexities regarding the reality of the initiatory lineage of the Eleusinian Mothers, I must admit that they completely vanished that evening of May 30th, when that archive was shown to me.

The reader in question wrote verbatim: “given the countless counterfeits and pseudo initiatory chains of which 99.99% of organizations boast for pure proselytism, you would be a more than exceptional case and would involve the possession of texts and knowledge not accessible to scholars, both academic and esoteric ones”.

Well, I was able to ascertain that not only the Eleusinians do not do any proselytism (they are very strict when it comes to initiations: to be admitted to their reality two years of preparation are needed and they only accept, on average, no more than two or three new Initiates every year ), and above all the “texts” to which the reader alludes are indeed there! And I was able to ascertain that not only that they exist, but that they have also been made largely accessible to scholars, both academic and esoteric ones!

Among other things, I had confirmation of the fact that the Eleusinians are in possession of some manuscripts from the 17th and 18th centuries which consist of transcriptions of some classical works that have officially been lost. However, Nicola Bizzi explained to me that it could also be counterproductive to publish them. When you have in your hand a manuscript transcription of a text written for example in the 18th century, can this constitute evidence? For many critics and academic philologists, it would not be and would not find credit, but only discredit. Although, if you think about it, almost all of it is ancient pre-Christian Greek and Roman literature has come to us through Arabic, Byzantine or Latin transcriptions dating back to the Middle Ages and subsequent centuries. By publishing certain material today, one would run – according to the Eleusinians – the risk of ending up like that English scholar who in the 19th century published the Sibylline Books, a medieval manuscript copy of which he claimed to have inherited from his family: no one believed him and even today he is accused (by the few who remember this story) of having made it all up!

As Nicola Bizzi wrote in one of his articles, the Mystery Schools of the Mother Eleusinians, surviving the Christian persecutions of the late Roman Empire and necessarily going underground to continue to exist and perpetuate themselves, have handed down and preserved over the centuries a vast heritage of ancient texts and documents which have remained completely unknown to the profane world until today. Texts and documents that were originally kept in the libraries and archives of the Mother Sanctuary of Eleusis and its priestly schools, as well as other important Temples and Sanctuaries of Eleusis in Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Italy and other regions of the Mediterranean, and who were saved from destruction and made safe by diligent Priests and Initiates, often at the risk of their own lives.

When the Christians took political power in Rome, coming to firmly acquire the reins of the Empire in their hands, it is sadly known that from being persecuted they transformed into persecutors and undertook a series of growing discriminatory actions towards all other doctrines, traditions and religions which until that moment had been fully protected by the authorities and institutions of the State and had peacefully coexisted for centuries under the banner of tolerance, mutual respect and the Mos Maiorum, which represented one of the cornerstones of the Empire itself and of Roman universality. Starting from the 4th century AD, and especially after the promulgation, in 380 AD, by Theodosius and Gratian of the infamous edict of Thessalonica which imposed Christianity as the only religion, effectively prohibiting all others from continuing to exist, a large part of the then known world was thus preparing to fall into an absolutely unprecedented grip of single, exclusive and darkening thought, and to slide under a heavy cloak of intolerance and persecution. From Theodosius onwards, everything that was attributable to traditional religiosity and spirituality, from works of art to sacred architecture, from philosophy to literature, up to the simple expressions of ancient popular religiosity, was derogatorily branded as “pagan” and fact prohibited, destroyed, subjected to censorship and damnatio memoriae.

The sad story of the destruction of the Serapeum of Alexandria and its famous Library and the assassination of Hypatia, an extraordinary figure of Eleusinian Initiate and eminent philosopher and scientist, who was barbarically raped and massacred by Christian monks under the orders of the Alexandrian Patriarch Cyril – today venerated by Church as Saint! – is only the best-known case of a long and endless trail of blood and repression that lasted for centuries.

Everywhere – continues Nicola Bizzi – from the 4th to well into the 7th century, both in the East and in the West, Temples were sacked, set on fire and demolished, Priests martyred and libraries relentlessly set on fire. Culture, History teaches us, has always been the first victim of hatred and intolerance. The loss of the cultural and religious heritage of the Greco- Roman classicism was truly immense and incalculable at that time, and it has been estimated that only a small part of ancient literature survived and was preserved, including that of a scientific and religious nature.

Faced with the slow and inexorable collapse of a model of civilization that had guaranteed for centuries the plurality of thought and full freedom of worship and expression, and the systematic destruction of Temples, Sanctuaries and Libraries, most of the ancient religions and traditions mysterious ones, primarily the Eleusinian one (both in its Mother expression and in those derived from it, i.e. the Orphic, the Samothracian and the Pythagorean), but also the Isiac, the Mithraic and other minor ones, did not take long to understand that the path of clandestinity it would have been the only way to save what could be saved.

Of course, not all the mystery religions of antiquity managed to save their institutions and their textual and wisdom heritage in the same way, or in any case not all of them had the means, time, possibilities and resources necessary to be able to do so, entering the clandestinity in a dramatic historical moment in which it had become extremely dangerous to profess – even in private and within the home – one’s own faith and religiosity. Some traditions, in fact, could not withstand the impact of persecution and the violence of the Christian repressive campaign and, seeing the majority of their leaders and their priestly class arrested, imprisoned or exterminated, ended up dispersing or dissolving. Others certainly fared better at the beginning, but they still failed to perpetuate and transmit their heritage of values and knowledge for a period of time longer than that of a few generations, or in any case for no more than a few centuries, ending up running out or to be absorbed by some of the many Christian heretical currents, in particular those of the Gnostic movement. However, the case of the Mother Eleusinians, on the one hand, and the Pythagorean Eleusinians, on the other, was different, whose survival in clandestinity is attested and documented by multiple sources. These were, in fact, the strongest and most thoroughly organized initiatory institutions of antiquity, they were certainly not without resources and important political protections and, above all, they were the most determined to preserve and safeguard their enormous wisdom and doctrinal heritage.

As Nicola Bizzi continues to explain in a chapter of his essay The Way of Eleusis, the Eleusinian ecclesial institutions and the related mystery schools, after the closure, in 380 AD, of the Mother Sanctuary of Eleusis by the last Pritan of the Hierophants officially in office, Nestorius the Great, effectively moved into the Platonic Academy of Athens, founded at the same time as the closure of the Sanctuary by the Neoplatonic philosopher Plutarch of Athens, who was Nestorius’ nephew and from whom he had inherited both the knowledge and the sacral title. The Athenian academic institution represented a safe haven for the Eleusinians and their mystery schools until the time of Justinian, and when, by decree of the latter, the Academy was suppressed, safe protections and alternative locations were already ready.

A similar path was also undertaken by the Pythagorean Order, even if it had long since distanced itself from the Mother Eleusinity for political and doctrinal reasons, no longer recognizing the superior authority of Eleusis for some centuries.

However, let us now return to focusing on the Mother Eleusinians. With the entry into clandestinity of the Eleusinian ecclesiastical institutions, at the end of the 4th century AD, an entry into clandestinity which was most likely agreed or negotiated with the Christian authorities in exchange for a formal closure of the Sanctuary of Eleusis, it was possible to safeguard and make security not only the Hierà (the sacred objects of Eleusinity, among which there were real objects of “power”) and the huge treasures kept in the cells of the Temples. Also the archives and libraries of what had been for sixteen centuries the main religious and initiatory center of the entire Mediterranean area, of what was not by chance considered “the témenos of humanity”. In fact, when not many years later, in 396 AD, Alaric’s Visigoths, at the instigation of some Christian bishops, sacked and destroyed the Sanctuary of Eleusis, they were unable to get their hands on the Hiera or the treasure, nor on the precious secret documents that they intended to steal on behalf of their instigators. Everything had already been taken away and placed safe, and the barbarian hordes limited themselves to destroying the sacred statues and setting fire to the now empty buildings. Similarly, it also happened for the other main Temples and Sanctuaries of Eleusinity, whose archives and libraries were largely secured by the Priests before Christian hatred inexorably fell on these sacred buildings.

Limiting ourselves to the Sanctuary of Eleusis, which had been continuously in activity since 1216 BC. to 380 AD, therefore a truly remarkable period of time, and which had prestigious initiatory and priestly schools under its control, the mass of documents and papyri preserved in its libraries must have been decidedly impressive, certainly not inferior to those of the famous Library of Alexandria. Unfortunately, we do not have a precise estimate, but we know that there were kept, in addition to a large number of sacred and mystery texts, numerous masterpieces of ancient literature, as well as a notable repertoire of historical works, chronicles, scientific and mathematical treatises, philosophical works and geographical maps, as well as of course the meticulous archives relating to centuries and centuries of initiatory and religious activity. Unfortunately, we do not even have a precise estimate of how much of this textual material was saved in the Platonic School of Athens and how much was transferred to other places considered safer. We only know how much of this heritage has been preserved today, thanks to the diligence and dedication of numerous generations of scribes and archivists of the Eleusian Mother School, which arrived and took root in Italy in the 15th century and is still present and operating in Florence and in other cities.

But the Mother Eleusinians know very well that the numerous books and documents in their possession represent only a small part of the original collection. It is in fact attested by numerous chronicles and documents from the Renaissance period and subsequent centuries that during the dark ages of the Middle Ages, for purely security reasons, many texts were also entrusted to small groups of European families (mostly “extended” families , on the model of the phratries), descended by bloodline from the eight priestly Tribes of Eleusis. And among these were several of what over time became known as some of the most prestigious noble houses in Europe. Families destined to have a decisive role in the complex historical events of that time.

But certain groups of families and noble houses who, directly or indirectly, could boast descent from the eight Primary Tribes of Eleusis and who from 380 AD. onwards they had the task of transmitting, defending and preserving at all costs (alongside and in parallel with the legitimate Eleusinian ecclesial institutions that went underground) the Eleusian Mystery Tradition in the delicate and difficult phase of this clandestinity, apart from certain, limited and even risky ones “identity” statements, however partly concealed by symbolism and in any case never completely obvious, occurred in the Renaissance era (think of the Medicis in Florence, the Estes in Ferrara, the Guise-Lorraines in France, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta in Rimini, the Da Varanos in Camerino, Giorgio Gemisto Pletone, Piero Della Francesca, Leon Battista Alberti, etc.), have never publicly revealed themselves in this guise, and it was moreover unthinkable that they would do so. In fact, they have always had to watch their backs and protect and defend themselves on multiple fronts, both against the Catholic Church and against other opposing initiatory realities.

It has been often and insistently spoken, in certain essays more wrongly than rightly defined as “conspiracy”, of certain “bloodlines” which, since incredibly remote times, would divide the destinies of the world, often controlling and managing political events. of states from behind the scenes or through third parties. These bloodlines are anything but in harmony with each other, as they embody different interests and different objectives, and whose conflict has always given rise to hidden and underground wars whose reflection has often been embodied by open conflicts between armies and nations, or which in any case represented the origin and the hidden triggering causes of them. Well, there is certainly some truth in all this, but these are issues that are rarely perceived or understood by the masses, or in any case by those who are not detached from certain and narrow initiatory contexts. Those who believe they know, or those who only have a partial and often distorted picture of this reality, often improperly speak of phantom “Illuminati”, or of secret “brotherhoods of the all-seeing eye”, without realizing that such “brotherhoods” ( let’s call them that) have always had, in the last millennia, a tenacious and equally determined opponent in Eleusinity and its Mystery Tradition. But, if there is the tendency to talk little about Eleusinity, or in any case to talk about it in a distorted and distorted way in historical and historical-religious essays, in the vast archipelago of literature and essays that have flourished in recent decades regarding the various bloodlines and powers occultists who are believed to have been fighting each other since time immemorial to compete for control and the destinies of the planet, it is rare to find mention of the Eleusinians. Those who look for information about it in “profane” non- fiction often find themselves faced with a wall of impenetrable secrecy. Yet, apparently, it was precisely the Eleusinians, through some groups of families and related bloodlines, who had a decisive influence, through the secret work of their Unknown Superiors (the leaders of the Ecclesial Institution of the Mother Eleusinians) , often infiltrated even within the Church, on the main facts and events of History, from the advent of Humanism to the Renaissance, and, through the work of their “Pythagorean” derivation, to influence in an often direct manner the birth of numerous secret and initiatory societies of the 18th century, from the Bavarian Illuminatis of Adam Waishaupt to the Illuminatis of Berlin and Avignon of Dom Pernety, up to the “Egyptian” Freemasonry of Raimondo Di Sangro and Cagliostro. And, according to some interpretations which for the moment the Eleusinians do not intend to confirm or deny, these bloodlines, directly or indirectly attributable to the eight Primary Tribes of Eleusis, would certainly not have been completely unrelated to epochal events such as the “discovery” of America, the French Revolution and the American Revolution.

As it has already been mentioned, the numerous books and documents in the possession of the Eleusian Mother School today preserved in Florence represent only a small part of the original collection that we know to have existed until 380 AD. preserved in the libraries and archives of the Sanctuary of Eleusis. The entry into clandestinity of the Eleusinian ecclesial institutions and the related mystery schools, the security measures adopted several times during the Middle Ages to safeguard the immense wisdom heritage of the Eleusinity and other factors, such as primarily the dispersion between the various European districts of the ancient Primary Tribes of priestly rank of Eleusis and their disguise and confusion, in some cases in total anonymity or, in others, in the context of important dynasties and aristocratic families, they meant that a vast patrimony of texts was increasingly divided up, ending up in various private libraries, therefore accessible exclusively by the respective holding families, but not by others. A 19th century manuscript, preserved in the archives of the Eleusinian Mother School of Florence, reads in this regard in one of its passages: “every family, club or school has always been rigorously jealous of its own cultural heritage, always ready to take the missing to one’s knowledge without giving anything in exchange.” To this we must add the fact that, over time, events such as wars, revolutions, looting, thefts (often on commission), fires, floods and earthquakes have led to the inevitable compromise if not the destruction of large parts of the said heritage. Finally, we know for certain that some significant parts of it have ended up in the hands of rival or adverse initiatory organizations and of the Catholic Church itself, in particular of the Society of Jesus (Athanasius Kircher docet!).

Since it is not possible to present a complete picture of the contents of certain archives, Nicola Bizzi in his essay limited himself to speaking exclusively of the material kept by the Eleusina Madre School of Florence, largely coming from the libraries of the Eleusina Madre family of Prytanic priestly rank of the Mariani of Costa Sancti Severi, descended by bloodline from the Eleusina Primary Tribe of the Keryx.

The Eleusinian texts preserved in Florence are mostly of a religious, theological-mythological, ceremonial and ritual nature. There are sacred texts from Eleusinity, some of which are preserved in their entirety, others in scattered fragments reported in medieval codices; there are collections of sacred hymns, prayers and religious songs; there are ritual and ceremonial calendars, concerning religious holidays and ceremonies, including those of an initiatory nature, establishing the content and carrying out of the ceremonies themselves. Among the texts of a theological- mythological nature, there are cosmogonic and theogonic treatises concerning the origin of the Gods and the Universe, texts relating to the creation of humanity, texts on the nature and characteristics of the Gods, and collections of prophecies and prophecies, with truly impressive contents. Then there are numerous treatises of a scientific nature (astronomical, mathematical and geographical), philosophical texts, historical chronicles relating to the Eleusinian ecclesial institutions and their priestly hierarchies and, finally, texts that we could define as purely historical and literary in nature, acquired in ancient times from the archives of the Sanctuary of Eleusis and preserved in the clandestinity phase due to the importance that was attributed to their contents.

The vast majority of these texts are, for obvious and understandable reasons, covered by the rigor of the initiatory secret and, consequently, have never been and probably never will be accessible to profane environments, or in any case foreign to the mystery schools themselves, despite the fact that the Eleusinians Mother have admitted and confirmed its existence on several occasions. But, within the framework of that gradual opening of the Eleusine Mother institutions to the profane world that we have mentioned – an opening thanks to which the publication of numerous articles and some essays was made possible – the decision was made to gradually make available to the public, but above all researchers and scholars, a part of this vast textual heritage. This decision, made at the top of the Institution, does not concern, nor will it probably ever concern, the texts of a strictly initiatory nature of the Eleusinity, which for various and obvious reasons are destined to remain secret, but rather a limited number of works of a historical, geographical, scientific and literary, not directly connected with the Eleusian Mystery Tradition and its Doctrine, but nevertheless acquired over the centuries by the Mystery Schools and diligently preserved and conserved by them.

I can say, in a certain sense, that I was “responsible” for the publication of The Way of Eleusis. The ancient forms of initiation have always been, in addition to a personal interest of mine which led me to approach Freemasonry in 1984, also the founding theme of numerous of my researches. I even held some university seminars on this topic in the United States in 2006 and 2007, finding great interest in this regard from my students in the Cultural Anthropology course.

I had noticed that Nicola Bizzi had dedicated an entire chapter of the first volume of his essay From Eleusis to Florence to the question of the Eleusinian Initiation and, during one of our meetings in Florence I took the liberty of asking him: “Why don’t you create a specific text on this topic, expanding what you have already written with new data and new information? Why don’t you try to write an easy-to-understand book, not necessarily aimed at a limited academic audience, but rather at all those potentially interested in the topic, a book that explains – obviously within the limits of what is allowed to be said without breaking any secrecy rules initiatory – what the Eleusinian Initiation really was and is, what its meanings are, and above all it clarifies once and for all, integrating the classical sources in this regard with the confidential information in possession of your School, on the real structuring in degrees of the Eleusinity elevation path?”

He thought about it for a moment and then told me: “Yes, it’s possible, I gladly accept this challenge. On one condition, however: you will write the preface.”

Well, in less than a month Nicola Bizzi was able to write a true masterpiece: a precious, learned, profound and authoritative essay, but also extraordinarily clear and fluent. An essay in my opinion indispensable for all those who intend to approach one of the most fascinating, mysterious and enigmatic themes of ancient religiosity. For all those who intend to fully understand the message and meanings of what Plotinus believed to be the clearest path of elevation towards the knowledge of the Divine and towards the liberation of the Soul.

Francis William Hamilton
Detroit, US, July 25th 2019.