Wrapped in
the obscurity of the Mysteries, concealed from the gaze of the new gods
of light, it attempted to assuage its inextinguishable thirst. The
Mysteries were the annual tribute paid as a ransom by Apollo-worshipping
Hellas to chaotic Asia, so that she might be free to pursue her higher
psycho-spiritual aims. The brilliant civilisation of Athens was based on
the dark cult of the Mysteries. On the festivals of the hermaphroditic
Dionysus and Demeter, which are identical with the cults of Adonis and
Mylitta, the impersonal, generative elements were worshipped. Thus,
below the surface of the Greek State, founded on masculine values and
attempting to restrict intercourse for the benefit of a more
systematised progeniture, flourished the orgiastic cult of the ancient
Eastern deities, who had vouchsafed to mortals a glimpse of the great
secret of life in the ardour of procreation and conception. The women
upheld the religion of passion as an end in itself; bacchantes, men in
female attire, emasculated priests, sacrificed to the blindly bountiful
gods.
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