rom
the uninitiated. He seems for a time to be entirely removed from
earthly life and to be transported into a hidden world.

When he reappears in the light of day a different, quite transformed
person is before us. We see a man who cannot find words sublime enough
to express the momentous experience through which he has passed. Not
merely metaphorically but in a most real sense does he seem to have
gone through the gate of death and to have awakened to a new and
higher life. He is, moreover, quite certain that no one who has not
had a similar experience can understand his words.

This was what happened to those who were initiated into the Mysteries,
into that secret wisdom withheld from the people and which threw light
on the greatest questions. This "secret" religion of the elect existed
side by side with the popular religion. Its origin vanishes, as far as
history is concerned, into the obscurity in which the origin of
nations is lost. We find this secret religion everywhere amongst the
ancients as far as we know anything concerning them; and we hear their
sages speak of the Mysteries with the greatest reverence. What was it
that was concealed in them? And what did they unveil to the initiate?

The enigma becomes still more puzzling when we discover that the
ancients looked upon the Mysteries as something dangerous. The way
leading to the secrets of existence passed through a world of terrors,
and woe to him who tried to gain them unworthily. There was no greater
crime than the "betrayal" of secrets to the uninitiated. The "traitor"
was punished with death and the confiscation of his property. We know
that the poet AEschylus was accused of having reproduced on the stage
something from the Mysteries. He was only able to escape death by
fleeing to the altar of Dionysos and by legally proving that he had
never been initiated.

What the ancients say about these secrets is significant, but at the
same time ambiguous. The initiate is convinced that it would be a sin
to tell what he knows and also that it would be sinful for the
uninitiated to listen. Plutarch speaks of the terror of those about to
be initiated, and compares their state of mind to preparation for
death. A special mode of life had to precede initiation, tending to
give the spirit the mastery over the senses. Fasting, solitude,
mortifications, and certain exercises for the soul were the means
employed. The things to which man clings in ordinary life were