Eleusis

Rating:
Summary: The best-kept secret in the ancient world...
Review: ...was the supreme revelation of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

The Mysteries, if you aren't familiar with them, were an initiatory ritual dedicated to the grain mother, Demeter, and her daughter Persephone, who married the lord of death and agreed to split her time between the upper world and the lower. Thousands of Greeks lined up to receive initiation year after year, and afterward they raved of a beatific vision that completely dispelled their fear of death. But they were sworn to secrecy about the things they saw in the Goddesses' temple, and so there are no records explicitly saying what happened there. Many scholars have studied the Mysteries, and at the end of their essays thrown up their hands, figuratively, and saying there is no way we will ever know what the revelation was.

Kerenyi does a wonderful job, in this scholarly book, of trying to put his finger on the nature of the vision. He starts by ruling out things that it could not have been. Poetic sources vividly describe the abduction of Persephone/Kore, and her return to her mother. There were no secrets there. Thus, the Mysteries must not have centered around either of these events. He then uses archaeological and literary evidence to piece together a surmise about what the Mysteries really were. So many little things, in Kerenyi's hands, add up to become significant. Why won't Demeter drink wine during her mourning period? What is the meaning behind the scene where she puts the boy in the fire to make him immortal? What about tantalizing poetic hints that Demeter, like earlier mother goddesses, might have descended to the underworld herself in search of her daughter?

In the end, Kerenyi's theory works quite well. The Mysteries could very well have been much like what he describes. And yet, even if he's right, there is still something mysterious about the whole production. We might have finally figured out what the priests and priestesses of Eleusis showed to the initiates. But we have to use our imaginations to recreate the feeling it must have given them, the meaning it must have held, in a less cynical age than our own.

Rating:
Summary: Warning!
Review: Be forewarned! Kerenyi, in all his works, offers a piece-meal, unsupported archaeologically, imaginative creation of what he WISHED Greek Religion could have been. Kerenyi seems to have had an image in his mind, and he assembles anything and everything from different time periods, locations, and rituals in order to "prove" his theories. A closer, archaeological reading would show a high percentage of his "facts" contradicting each other - how can you support Hellenistic mystery cults with evidence from non-Greek Minoan Crete? It'd be as if one made a connection between Southern Baptist Christianity and Native American religion, solely because both functioned in similar geographical locations. Just a warning! Kerenyi is really easy to become enchanted with, but not accurate.

Rating:
Summary: Profound analysis of the mysteries of Eleusis.
Review: I recommend this book as a formidable try to unravel one of the most important ancient pagan mysteries, that survived for more than a thousand years in the Ancient world.
For Kerenyi, the core of the mysteries was the message that 'a birth in death was possible', also for human beings. This message was 'shown' through the ancient myth of the search of Demeter for her ravished daughter Persephone. She finds Persephone under the earth, where she gives birth to Dionysos. The hope of life in death was symbolized through Demeter's offering of the grain, that will grow again. We can see this important hapenning on a stele in the Ancient museum of Athens.
The initiated had to fast and were given a drug (the kykeon) just before the procession.
Nearly all Roman emperors were initiated (with a special place for Marcus Aurelius).
One of the initiated was Plato, who speaks about it in his work 'Phaidoon'.
The influence on Christianity by the mysteries cannot be underestimated, for Plato's theory of the soul was adopted by the Church.
A compelling read.

Rating:
Summary: Shame on you, Princeton!
Review: I was quite excited to see this book & read the comments. Princeton University Press doesn't publish much classics, and I had high hopes for this volume. When it arrived, I was upset to learn that it was a Bollingen imprint -- Jungian propaganda, with a lot of imagination, outdated scholarship and contempt for scholarly values. It really is despicable of Princeton to tarnish their reputation with their Bollingen imprint, and I feel like a sucker to have wasted my money on such a preposterously worthless book, and I wish that Amazon.com would put a warning label on the Bollingen imprints, so clearthinking people can be more careful when ordering. (The problem is, of course, that few excellent books are mixed in with the nonsense, so one can't dismiss Bollingen books out of hand, but there is usually a 90% chance that they are garbage.)

Rating:
Summary: Shame on you, Princeton!
Review: I was quite excited to see this book & read the comments. Princeton University Press doesn't publish much classics, and I had high hopes for this volume. When it arrived, I was upset to learn that it was a Bollingen imprint -- Jungian propaganda, with a lot of imagination, outdated scholarship and contempt for scholarly values. It really is despicable of Princeton to tarnish their reputation with their Bollingen imprint, and I feel like a sucker to have wasted my money on such a preposterously worthless book, and I wish that Amazon.com would put a warning label on the Bollingen imprints, so clearthinking people can be more careful when ordering. (The problem is, of course, that few excellent books are mixed in with the nonsense, so one can't dismiss Bollingen books out of hand, but there is usually a 90% chance that they are garbage.)

Rating:
Summary: Well worth the money
Review: Kerényi's scholarship *might* include a touch of fantasy, but on the whole, it is well-researched, and he provided documentation for his claims through extensive footnotes. I used this book as the foundation of my MA thesis, and have never regretted it. I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to study the Eleusinian Mysteries in a serious way, but remember to read this with "a grain of salt," as one should with any book.

Rating:
Summary: Well worth the money
Review: Kerényi's scholarship *might* include a touch of fantasy, but on the whole, it is well-researched, and he provided documentation for his claims through extensive footnotes. I used this book as the foundation of my MA thesis, and have never regretted it. I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to study the Eleusinian Mysteries in a serious way, but remember to read this with "a grain of salt," as one should with any book.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent resource!
Review: This is an excellent book, favored especially by many women who find the mother-daughter archetype something that they want to explore. There are many excellent facts of great interest to those seeking to know the background of Demeter's Mysteries.

The first edition of this book was in 1967. I think it holds up pretty well. The reviewer who calls himself "flygadfly" thereby identifying himself with the ancient philosopher Socrates, states that the information is outdated. To expect current values and philosophies to exist in a book that was published 37 years ago is an illogical expectation.

I really love this book. It has an honored place in my home library.
-Gem