In Rites and Symbols of Initiation, Mircea Eliade begins his investigation into initiatory practices with a survey of the world’s archaic cultures and a common shamanic religious foundation, specifically the importance of ritualistic death and rebirth. Eliade argues that all initiation rites involve in some way the death/rebirth symbolism. This essay will attempt to understand the significance of initiatory death and rebirth and then examine the initiatory rites of various ancient cults with respect to death and rebirth.
According to Eliade, the myth of archaic societies primarily concerns the origins of things and human events. History is a sacred narrative involving the actions and manifestations of the invisible realm of the supernatural, of which this world, its inhabitants and institutions are a reflection. Whereas modernity places the human within the traction of a specifically human narrative culminating in the present and undoubtedly continuing into the human future, the archaic myth posits the supreme importance of first action which itself is a transhuman occurrence and worthy because of its originary creative power. Initiation is the event that transmits this sacred knowledge to eligible members of the society, and attempts to at best recreate through human imitation tried-and-true transhuman creative gestures.
Symbolic repetition of the primordial creative event serves then as a kind of maintaining of the world order. But implicit in Eliade’s argument of primordial creative repetition is the concept of cyclical time and the archaic understanding of origin. The archaic cultures’ relationship to time lacked a sense of modern historic memory and operated under the assumption of a fixed first cause worthy of repetition. On the other hand, the very act of repetition also seems to continually inaugurate origin in the present and allows for continued unfixed activity. Origin then, is not something present but something that must be made present by way of human intervention. Thus the archaic act of restoration to origin is highly sacred and peculiar to each culture and perhaps definitive to the notion of culture itself. The act must also admit the necessity of abandonment of the current state of affairs in order for the culture to continue successfully or even to promote growth. Such abandonment requires destruction and a return to origin, or a death and a rebirth. Death then is not a permanent ending or an uncertainty, but rather a temporary and required cyclical function of maintenance. Only out of a willing and perilous return to chaos that promises latent creativity can an effective origin be reborn.
Eliade defines three categories of initiation rite in the archaic cultures: collective rites including puberty initiations; secret rites involving exclusive membership; vocational rites including shamanic induction. With collective initiation rites, the assumption is that the individual is not entirely human until completion of the initiation, at which time the revelation of what the collective considers its entire sacred narrative is presented to the initiate. Many of these rites include the taking of the child away from the mother, often under cover of darkness and into a sacred space that may be enclosed and deemed holy. During the rite, the child is told he may in fact face death at the hands of terrible supernatural forces, and the leaders of the initiation may actually present elaborate scenes and depictions of death. The risk of death seems quite literal and may involve being swallowed, eaten, or dismembered by the angry deity. The initiate may lose a part of the body such as a tooth, undergo ritualistic body modification, or be told that through magical extraction something inside the body must be taken out. Other activities may include a kind of deprivation of sleep, food, or normal daily activity, which promotes a sense of death to the collective. In all instances, death is the motif and the dying represents a dying to childhood and awakening to adulthood. As the symbolic death is carried out at the hands of the supernatural entities, the mythic stories are again played out and the opportunity for rebirth as a new human is presented to the children as both an individual rite of passage and a collective regeneration of the cosmos.
In the secret and shamanic rites, the idea of entering into the embryonic state in order to connect to the divine is played out the rites of initiation. This return may include a knowing and willful descent into the dangerous realm of the dead. In shamanic rites in particular, the motif of physical dismemberment repeats throughout various cultures and indeed resurfaces in the myths at the center of the various mystery cults. Of note is the shamanic ordeal of the Siberian Avam-Samoyed, and the apparent cutting up of the body and the beheading of the initiate, the cooking of the bones, and the dispersal of the remains into a river, in which we find specific parallels to the mythic story of Orpheus’ death and rebirth (these activities are experienced in a non-ordinary state of consciousness). These kinds of suffering allow for a journey of the initiate to the sacred realms and a communing with the divinities. Upon return, the shaman brings the powers of collective and individual healing and the promise of transforming the material body into a spiritualized mode of being unlike the everyday ways of existing. Eliade suggests that the cultural prevalence of shamanic death and rebirth motif in the archaic world greatly influenced many of the ancient cultures and their mystery traditions.
The motif of death and rebirth can be found in the mythic origination stories concerning the mystery cults. With the Eleusinian mysteries we have the story of Demeter descending to Hades to find Persephone. With Orpheus we find his descent to the underworld seeking Eurydice. Attis, the lover of the great mother goddess Cybele, castrates himself and dies to be born again as a pine tree, while, according to Plutarch, the foundational Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris involves the killing of Osiris (brother and husband to Isis), his dismemberment and scattering into the Nile, and his subsequent rebirth owing to Isis. One can also investigate the known evidence concerning cults themselves, such as the caverns employed by the Mithraic mysteries, as well as investigate the state of culture in general as it relates to the archaic purpose of initiation, which is the revelation of the sacred narrative of the human and culture in relation to the divine. In these initiation cults, we can find the focus of relieving the individual of the collective fear of death by voluntary exploration. This essay will briefly discuss these concerns.
The cult of Demeter conducted the secret initiations for about 2000 years at Eleusis, hence the term Eleusinian mysteries. While the cult originated locally and allegedly at the behest of the goddess herself (indicative of an early inception), it spread in prominence across Hellenic antiquity and was eventually subsumed by the Roman Empire. As the cult enjoyed a kind of institutional status amongst the Athenians, parts of the initiation were performed publicly as the lesser initiations while the greater mysteries remain tightly guarded to the point where the state actually punished those who even threatened to reveal its secrets. The cult employed a priestly structure to conduct the rites, with various specific roles including heirophant or high priest as well as the sponsor for the initiate who was always initiated individually. The rites included various stages of initiation, which involved purification, revelation, and transmission of the sacred mystery resulting in a newly emerged world view most often associated with an astounding light. Initiates drank from a sacred vessel, followed by a secret rite within the enclosed sanctuary. While the specifics of the rites are unknown, Aristotle described the event as not imparting any kind of intellectual knowing in the initiate but rather an overall emotional and psychic experience resulting in a revelatory wonder. One description from an ancient essay “On the Soul,” by Themistios states the experience is like death, resulting in a wandering in the dark and an encounter with terror until “one is struck with a marvelous light,” and profoundly differentiated in divine communion and happiness from the uninitiated. Demeter’s journey to the underworld is a central component of the cult’s sacred narrative, and as such the cult may well have understood the final revelatory initiation as a kind of journey into Hades required to obtain divine communion.
While the Eleusinian mysteries imparted a sense of divine communion upon the living initiate, the cult of Orpheus spread the doctrine of reincarnation, which was uncharacteristic for Hellenic culture. One can see the relation to death as a kind of temporary state to be passed through similar to the archaic initiatory rites and even in the Pharoic belief of reincarnation as introduced by Osiris, though with Orphism the promise of the soul’s continuation extends to all initiates and not just the Pharaoh. Evidence of the influence of Orphic initiation is found in Plato’s Phaedrus. Plato could reasonably have been an initiate into the Orphic mysteries, and indeed his writing speaks repeatedly of initiation and mysteries. One passage mentions the results of initiation into mysteries, speaking of blissful spectacles of revelation and of pure light that reveals the soul’s encased condition within the body. According the Orphic origination myth, the human is born from the smoke of the destruction of the Titans. The Titans, having previously dismembered and eaten Zeus’ son Dionysius, are blasted by Zeus’ thunderbolt. The components of the smoke include then the Titanic and the hidden trace of Dionysius. From this myth, the Orphics and especially Plato could have related the understanding of the human as composed of both material body and soul, and, as with other initiatory cults, the element of shamanic dismemberment and rebirth is again a key component of the sacred narrative.
The Isis cult as found in the Hellenic period understood Isis as the culmination of the various mother goddesses of antiquity in one persona. In the Egyptian cult of Osiris, the lover of Isis and like the other deities in the mystery cults, is a god whom endures dismemberment and the descent into the underworld to be reborn and who offers similar redemption to the initiates. In Hellenic worship, the initiation was extended to all individuals and not solely to the Pharaoh, and by the time of the writing of the Golden Ass, had assumed a popularity and cultural institution similar to the Eleusinian mysteries of ancient Greece. Apuleius’ account of the initiation rites (the only known account of its kind) speaks of a personal vision of the Goddess revealed to the protagonist that precedes the initiation, again relating the individual nature of the mysteries. The public portion of the rite is described in detail, and as for the secret ceremony, Apuleius does not speak directly for fear of revealing the great secrets, but does emphatically state that the process included approaching the boundaries of death and a ravishing, followed by a divine light and a vision of the gods. Lucius speaks of being reborn, and indeed the point of initiation in the context of the novel occurs at the instance of Lucius being transformed from beast to human. Lucius is also promised a vision of the divine light of the goddess after his own death, which again points to a conception of rebirth as both a living human into a new kind of initiated condition and as a promise of a continuation of the soul after death.
Within the cult of Cybele and Attis, the ritualistic slaying of a bull over an enclosed pit was practiced. The high priest descended into the pit to receive the blood of the bull and covered in gore ascends to the surface to be greeted and worshiped by the crowd. The priestly class of the cult included among others the galli; a sect of voluntarily castrated male devotees. In both instances can be seen similarities to the archaic concerns of brutally enacting death as well as mutilation in the service of differentiation from non-devotees. In the sacred myth of Attis, his death is central to the narrative. While he is not necessarily reborn as human, his death induces a Demeter-like searching and roaming on the part of Cybele for her lover. Regardless, the ceremonial mourning of Attis represents the kind of ritual found in the archaic initiation rites in its intent to recreate the necessary return to the chaos in order to bring about the originary creative activity. The latter initiatory rites of Attis include accounts of entrance into a cave or enclosed space, the journey to Hades and the return of the initiate after the voluntary death.
The Mithraic mysteries gained prominence in Roman antiquity, and also included initiation ceremonies held within sacred dark spaces. Much of what is known of the cult is found solely in the remaining temples, which indicate a space that valued secrecy and darkness. Various accounts of the initiation describe the experience as a rebirth and ascent to the divine realm, and like other rites such as the Eleusinian mysteries employed degrees or stages of initiation. Inscriptions in Mithraic ruins, specifically at Santa Prisca in Rome, contain eighteen lines of hymns, including the verse “him who is piously reborn and created by sweet things.”
In each of the mystery cults examined, the individual seems to endure a kind of cosmological re-alignment. This re-alignment is personified by the various deities and manifested in a vision of the heavens. The result of this cosmological re-alignment is a new understanding of the condition of the human. The uninitiated are viewed by the initiated as scared, unsure, and lost owing to a profound fear of death. In each instance, the mystery cults reveal a light that is only revealed after crossing the threshold of death in a way that is ritualistic but thoroughly believable and quite possibly genuinely perilous. In the case of the archaic cults, the re-alignment results in a communion with originary supernatural powers as a means of both understanding the human’s relation to the cosmos as well as the sacred justification for the re-enactment of originary creative forces for the sake of cultural maintenance. In the latter mystery cults, the same methods and result—cosmological re-orientation—of the archaic initiation rites are found, yet the re-alignment seemingly assures not only continued maintenance of the culture but now extends specifically to the individual’s own relation to the cosmos outside of the collective. The introduction of the disembodied soul or psyche is now the medium by which the human identifies with the cosmos, as each of the mystery cults speak of the flight of the soul to heavens. Cosmology then appears intimately bound up with the psyche, and the revelation of one spurs profound insight into the other. When Plato writes of the universe being bound by psyche, we can then understand that the limits of both cosmos and psyche are bound precisely at a threshold, and the threshold in each of these mystery cults that ultimately needs to be crossed in order to achieve revelation is death, with the promise of not annihilation but rebirth as the divinely communing human.
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