its joys,
and the spirit which is attached to the world, Nausicaa, awakes within
him. But he finds the way home, to the divine. At first nothing good
awaits him at home. His wife, Penelope, is surrounded by numerous
suitors. Each one she promises to marry, when she has finished weaving
a certain piece of work. She avoids keeping her promise by undoing
every night what she has woven by day. Odysseus is obliged to vanquish
the suitors before he can be reunited to his wife in peace. The
goddess Athene changes him into a beggar so that he may not be
recognised at his entrance; and thus he overcomes the suitors.
Odysseus is seeking his own deeper consciousness, the divine powers of
the soul. He wishes to be united with them. Before the Mystic can find
them, he must overcome everything which sues for the favour of that
consciousness. The band of suitors spring from the world of lower
reality, from perishable nature. The logic directed against them is a
spinning which is always undone again after it has been spun. Wisdom
(the goddess Athene) is the sure guide to the deepest powers of the
soul. It changes man into a beggar, _i.e._, it divests him of
everything of a transitory nature.

* * * * *

The Eleusinian festivals, which were celebrated in Greece in honour of
Demeter and Dionysos, were steeped in the wisdom of the Mysteries. A
sacred road led from Athens to Eleusis. It was bordered with
mysterious signs, intended to bring the soul into an exalted mood. In
Eleusis were mysterious temples, served by families of priests. The
dignity and the wisdom which was bound up with it were inherited in
these families from generation to generation. (Instructive information
about the organisation of these sanctuaries will be found in Karl
Boetticher's _Ergaenzungen zu den letzten Untersuchungen auf der
Akropolis in Athen_, Philologus, Supplement, vol. iii, part 3.) The
wisdom, which qualified for the priesthood, was the wisdom of the
Greek Mysteries. The festivals, which were celebrated twice a year,
represented the great world-drama of the destiny of the divine in the
world, and of that of the human soul. The lesser Mysteries took place
in February, the greater in September. Initiations were connected with
the festivals. The symbolical presentation of the cosmic and human
drama formed the final act of the initiations of the Mystics, which
took place here.

The Eleusinian temples had been erected in ho