Sacred Silence and the Sociology of Secrecy in the Eleusinian Mysteries
By Michelle Zerba (Louisiana State University)
The language of “mystery” that grew up around the Eleusinian cult was related to practices of initiation, one of which imposed a vow of silence upon those inducted. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter stipulates this vow (478-79; Richardson and Foley): the legomena, dromena, and deiknumena of the rites were not to be spoken (Burkert, Mylonas, Cosmopoulos). They were arrheta, “unable to be put in words,” and aporrheta, “forbidden to be put in words,” terms that point to both ineffability and prohibition.
Lifting the Veil of Secrecy: What Happened in the Theban Kabirion?
By Hans Beck (University of Münster)
Mystery cults are riddled with mysteries. The cult of the Kabiroi near Thebes is no exception. Pausanias opens his section on the Kabirion (9.25.5) with the observation that he cannot speak about τὰ δρώμενα in the rites performed at the Kabirion.
Arrheton and Aporrheton in Iamblichus' De Mysteriis
By Renaud Gagné (University of Cambridge)
Theurgy constructed a distinctive discourse on the theology and practice of secrecy. One of the most refined products of the mysterisation of religious culture in the Roman East, theurgy creatively reconfigured the registers of philosophy, cult, and poetry to build a powerful vision of ineffability, where the languages of telestic ritual and wisdom are inextricably imbricated. There is a veritable ontology of secrecy at the heart of this intricate refoundation of tradition in search of a concealed world.
The Psychology of Secrecy in the Eleusinian Mysteries
By Aikaterini-Iliana Rassia (Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies)
The notion of secrecy in the ancient mystery cults has been recently discussed through the approach of the cognitive science of religion (Panagiotidou 2018; Larson 2021). The notion of “secrecy” however is not a straightforward term to define. Although it originates in Greece, it has been also attested in other mystery cults in the wider Mediterranean, including the cult of Mithras (Bjørnebye 2012; Friese 2015).