witchcraft midterm terms

mithraeum

An underground temple dedicated to the Roman god Mithras, often associated with mystery religions, where rituals and initiations took place. Rituals of bulls being sacrificed occurred here.

tympanon

A circular stone or ornament found in temples, often depicting religious symbols or scenes related to worship, commonly associated with Mithraic worship

OR

an ancient Greek hand drum or tambourine

epopteia

Highest level of initiation:

the final and most important stage of initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries, following the initial myesis. 

Dionysus

• god of wine and viticulture, fertility, sexuality, vitality (‘life force’), ecstasy, madness and the irrational, drama and the theater.

• in civic cults of Dionysus, no inisitation, secrecy, devine revelation to devotees, etc. He is worshiped in “mainstream” fashion.

• in myth, Dionysus is an outsider, the ‘strange’ god who comes from abroad and demands recognition.

• the most complex Greek god: projection of complexity of human psychology: conflict and integration between self and other.

• cult of Dionysus already old, worshipped in main pantheon of gods in Mycenaean period (1200 BC).

• all greek poleis devoted major cults to Dionysus; key figure of polis religion.

• very typical: festivals, sacrifices, procession, votive offerings, etc.

root cutting

collection of medicinal herbs

lobacchoi

• A "mystery" cult: As with other Greek mystery cults, their rituals were likely known only to initiates.

• Associated with Dionysos: They were a Bacchic cult, meaning their worship was dedicated to the Greek god Dionysos.

• Distinction from other rites: Unlike the brutal sparagmos (tearing apart an animal) and omophagia (eating its raw flesh) performed in some Dionysian myths, the Iobakchoi held serene banquets as part of their worship.

Demophon

• son of Celeus and Metanria

• Eleusinian prince

• Demeter attempts to make Demophon an immortal god by placing him in a fire but his mother stops Demeter.

Piraeus

• port city in Athens

• place initiates would travel to during a secret annual religious festival held in the town of Eleusis.

• Day 2: “To the Sea!” Initiates sent out of city south to Piraeus, the port, to purify themselves in seawater.

Great Mother

• also known as Cybele/kybele, Mater, Magna Mater, Rhea

• a divinity of great antiquity in Anatolia: a true “Mother Nature” style goddess.

• native goddess of Anatolian region of Phrygia (cult was based at city of Pessinus).

• imported to Greece at an early point; brought to Rome in 204 BC.

• Phrygia, for Greeks and Romans, was “exotic”; Mothers cult was always seen as exotic, yet she was accepted into mainstream pantheon (collection of gods) in Greek poleis, and in Rome.

• fertility, but more generally the natural world, represents the civilization /taming of “wild”nature.

• often represented with tame lions; crown (polos) with walls and towers, representing the city/polis.

• receives civic, public cult and is recipient of mystery cults.

Brimos

another name for Ploutos (the name means wealth), a diety who confers prosperity, associated with flourishing crops and prosperity in general.

do ut des

• “I give so that you may give”

• In ancient Greco-Roman religion, worshippers would make offerings to the gods with the expectation of receiving blessings or protection in return

Livy

• Roman historian

• used inscriptions as a main source and embellished accounts to make for a gripping, suspenseful narrative, and embellished as well.

magos

• sorcerer

• in Classical Greece the magician/sorcerer (mages or goês) is associated with other religious professionals who practice privates rites, often for $: the wandering “beggar-priest” of Bacchus or Cybele, initiators and purifiers, freelance prophets.

• all sell a menu of “sacred self-help”: spiritual, mental, physical, and eschatological well-being; financial and erotic success.

• for many, such figures were attractive and persuasive; for some critics, they were charlatans/frauds and/or dangerous.

Kore / Persephone

• represents wheat grain that is sown in fall, is invisible in winter, and appears again in spring.

• Bremmer: the myth of Demeter and Kore in Hymn was script for rituals of imitation in the telesterion on first night.

• initiates  “searched” for Kore, as Demeter did; then called back by the hierophant, who sounded the sacred gong that invoked Kore.

• Kore is found, fertility/life (symbolically) returns to earth, and there is “rejoicing and display of torches”.

• the epiphany of Kore is marked by the sudden lighting of many torches, by hierophant, priests, and epoptai (those who had already “seen”).

Great Gods

The great gods of Greek mythology are the Twelve Olympians, a pantheon of major deities who reside on Mount Olympus. The twelve are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus.

Catullus

• roman poet.

• wrote about Attis, a Phrygian deity.

• Catullus’ Attis is an athetlic young man (coded as “Roman”) who devotes himself to Cybele, then regrets his self-castration: reflects Roman ambivalence about the cult of Cybele and its “exotic” ambience.

Attis

• the “consort” (lover) or Cybele.

• model for the gallus, the eunuch priest of Cybele.

• also a focus for the experience of the initiate: idea of transformation of identity and persistence of life after death in the myth of Attis: these are key mystery cult themes.

• Attis is a “dying god” whose experience dramatizes the mystery of life-in-death and death-in-life, the natural cycle of eternal death and rebirth, destruction and creation.

Law of Participation

• central idea in philosophy of Plato.

• He developed the theory, using Greek term methexis, to explain the relationship between the physical world and the world of ideal Forms. 

• addresses how multiple, imperfect, changing objects in the sensible world can share the same quality. For Plato, the answer is that these objects "participate" in a single, eternal, and perfect Form or Idea. 

eschatology 

religious thought and belief concerning the end of life and afterlife.

pharmakon

Greek word for spell/charm

Mithras

• World creator Figure, but the key image of Mithras is as a destroyer, a killer.

• Mithraic Cult: a mystery cult for men in the Roman Empire.

• kills bull, but new life springs forth from the death wound: ears of wheat. Mithras apparently creates the cosmos through this act of destruction. 

• Mithraic initiates symbolically “reenacted” this primal myth in their rites in the cave. The meal/banquet was a major part of their meetings.

Etruria

a greek “priest and fortune-teller” comes to Rome from Etruria, spreading Bacchic rites

emic

insider perspective

Euripides

• greek tragedy author.

• Euripides’ Bacchae: produced in Athens at the City Dionysia festival in 405 BC, at the Theater of Dionysus in Athens. The play was an offering to Dionysus in context of his major civic cult in Classical Athens.

• Euripides presents Dionysian cult as mystery cult: repeated emphasis on teletai (initiations) and mysteries (mystêria).

• Euripides was influenced by popularity of Bacchic mystery cults and projects them into mythical past.

dying god

Attis, Persephone, Dionysus, Osiris, and Adonis

soteriology

religious thought and belief on the salvation of the soul; in ancient pagan context, this meant being “blessed” — secure and prosperous in life.

Metroac

Greek mystery cult for great mother/meter Theon (Rome is magna mater).

teletai

initiations

Pessinus

ancient city where the cult of great mother was based.

Eleusis

ancient city in Greece near Athens, famous for the Eleusinian Mysteries, secret religious rites held in honor of the goddesses Demeter and Kore

pharmakis / pharmakeutria

• witches

• woman who used drugs, potions, and herbs, often in connection with magic.

epiphany

• “visions” of gods.

• their presence could also be signaled by physical signs, such as a miraculous event or an individual dream.

agurtês

• wandering beggar-priest of Bacchus or Cybele

• sold charms and potions for money

Postumius

• negatively compared foreign cult and traditional Roman religion.

James Frazer

• Etic approach

• The Golden Bough: a massive hugely influential study of comparative mythology, religion, and magic.

• first posited magic/relgion dichotomy to explain both better.

• his definitional thesis: magic coerces or manipulated supernatural power, while religion submits to or supplicates them.

Orgia

• sacred revels that employ techniques of ecstasy.

• not necessarily sexual

Derveni Papyrus

• an early Greek philosophical text.

• Derveni Papyrus (4th century BC): a learned commentary on the Orphic Theogony.

Bacchus

• ROMAN ver of dionysus

• same fundamental characteristics and attributes

mantis

• a prophet

• ex: Tiresias, a “legitimate” mantis accused of being a magos and agurtês: religious role of prophet undermined as charlatan through association with mageia.

hierophant

An Eleusinian priest who makes revelations to initiates.

kykeon

• a barley water drink

• consumed by initiates

• possibly hallucinogenic

sparagmos

• an act of rending, tearing apart, or mangling, usually in a Dionysian context.

• Titans, the Devine race who lived before Zeus, lure baby Dionysus and tear him apart (sparagmos) and eat him. Zeus destroys them with thunderbolt and revives Dionysus. 

Olbia

• Now southern Ukraine.

• bone plaques from 5th century BC Olbia with inscriptions:

Peace — war: truth — falsehood: Dionysus

Life—death— life: truth: Dionysus—Orphic[s]

Dionysus: Truth — soul

• Bone plaque: “Life-death-life: truth: Dionysus” gets at it: revelation about the “truth” of how life and death are illusionary, or one and the same.

aulos

• Ancient Greek reed pipe

• associated with dionysus

Triptolemus

hero of Eleusis, central to the Eleusinian Mysteries and worshipped as the inventor of agriculture

etic

• “outsider” perspectives

• magic often contrasted with science and reason (etc view on the whole, thought even in antiquity “science” and magic could be confused).

• magic often contrasted with religion: both etic and emic view.

consul

• (in ancient Rome) one of the two annually elected chief magistrates who jointly ruled the republic.

• 508-44 BC, Roman Republic: leadership of Rome under 2 consuls, elected every year, and the senate.

Lamella / Lamellae

• Thin gold “leaves or tablets” found at gravesites, presumable of wealthy Orphic initiates.

• Inscribed with “instructions, advice, passwords, and directions for the descent into the underworld”, “ritual texts for the afterlife”. 

Demeter

• wheat/cereal goddess

• cult in Eleusis was probably at first an agricultural fertility cult.

• The Myth: kore abducted by hades and brought to underworld. Demeter searches. In anger, Demeter disguises herself as an old women and goes to Eleusis. Mythical events at Eleusis correspond to ritual events in Eleusinian Mysteries. Demeter waits “Parthenon” well, also known as the “Kallichoron” well: important site for the festival and ritual of the Mysteries. Tells King Keleos’ daughters she wants work as a nanny. Girls bring Demeter home to care for baby Demophon. Demeter enters palace, makes quasi-epiphany. Sulks on stool, not eating (represents fasting and silence of initiate). Eneter servant, lambe, who makes Demeter laugh (jests and “sacred laughter” were part of Mysteries). Drinks kykeon, a barley water drink. Mataneria hires her to nurse Demophon. Demeter attempts to make Demophon immortal god: feeds him ambrosia, puts in fire. Metaneria catches her and snatches baby away. He remains mortal, yet Demeter claims he will receive honor as a great hero in Eleusis (hero cult) — which is a kind of immortality. commands Eleusinians to build her temple. Demeter reveals herself as a goddess (full epiphany); women stay up all night prayer to her. Demter remains angry at Zeus, no crops grow. Zeus orders Hades to surrender Kore; the pomegranate, which binds her to Hades. Kore is to spend 1/3 of year below earth (winter), the rest with Demeter and the Olympian gods. Fertility returns to earth.

Titans

devine race who lived before Zeus

orpheotelest

Entrepreneurial: traveling initiators/priests who went around (“door to door”) leading private initiations, presumably teaching from books attributed to Orpheus himself.

lacchus

• a minor Greek deity, most famously associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries, who was likely the personification of the ritual cry "Iacch’ o Iacche!" sung during the procession to Eleusis.

sympathetic magic

• Frazer: magical thinking as a sort of “primitive” science that misunderstands cause and effect: by doing x ritual I can influence the outcome of y event.

• Basis of notion of sympathetic magic: similarity (homeopathy) and contagion: First, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and, second, that things have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact as been served.

• example of “voodoo doll” or magical effigy.

Orpheus

• Orphism: modern scholars term to describe a Greek “religious movement: centered around a mystic doctrine concerning mortality and immortality (and the apparent identity of the two) and attributed to the mythical singer Orpheus.

• Dionysus/Bacchus has significant mythical connections with Orpheus.

• Orphic cult has no real geographical center, no main sanctuary, appointed priests, etc. 

Galli

devotees of Cybele: eunuchs (men who have been castrated), who self-castrated in a fit of devine possession/ecstasy.

Andania

Ancient town in Greece that was home to a prominent mystery cult dedicated to Demeter and Kore.

theogony

• Orphic Theogony: an account of the origin of the universe and the creation of the gods. Alternative to Hesiod’s Theogony.

voces magicae

• strange or foreign words or sounds

• mysterious, often nonsensical words or phrases from ancient magic that were believed to have inherent power. They were used in spells and incantations across various ancient cultures, like Greco-Roman Egypt, to achieve magical effects, such as invoking deities or influencing events.

Aidoneus

• Hades

Bronislaw Malinowski

• Malinowski asserted that individual memory played a role in the perceived success of magic. Thus for every magical operation that “succeeded,” this was remembered by the community more readily and vividly than those that did not. Together the anticipation of success and its outsize memory cannot be overestimated as factors that help to
  reinforce magical behavior.

• Malinowski’s “weirdness coefficient'“: concept he used somewhat humorously to describe how strange or exotic a culture might seem to an outsider.

• Magic: empirical/practically oriented, and used when religion and technology (science) fail.

tauroctony

Killing of the bull; in every mithraeum, image of the tauroctony was the centerpiece.

symbolon

• The Eleusinian initiatory formula, or symbolon, was a passphrase whispered by initiates during the final stages of the Greater Mysteries.

• Firmicus Maternus (Meyer, p. 208) gives us a mithraic symbolon ‘password, formula’ used by
  Mithraists: “initiate of cattle rustling, companion by handclasp of an illustrious father.”

Ninnion tablet

A red clay tablet depicting the Ancient Greek Eleusinian Mysteries initiates rites.

Cautes and Cautopates

• Torch bearers depicted attending the god Mithras.

• Two attendants, Cautes and Cautopates: Cautes holds torch up, Cautopates holds touch down. 

Plato

• Plato on magic and social persuasion: Plato takes magic seriously, even if he is skeptical: a threat to religious and social health of the polis through its extraordinary powers of persuasion. 

• Plato collapses distinction between“weird” religious outsiders, conflating sorcery with mystic initiation and prophecy, as well as seemingly “normative” religious rites (sacrifice, prayer).

• As a philosopher, Plato may have felt competitive with all these types of charismatic “religious” figures, who are also teachers and “wise men”. 

Hippocrates

"founding father" of clinical medicine and surgery

Santa Prisca

• Church in Rome.

• Inscriptions from Santa Prisca mithraeum (2nd century AD).

Prudentius

• Roman Poet

• Prudentius uses classical poetic form to assert a Christian worldview, turning traditional Roman values like courage and honor into symbols of faith and martyrdom.

taurobolium

• ritual reenactment of Attis’ death and salvation, and reflection of initiation as death and rebirth; paradoxical purification and redemption through “pollution” of blood, violence.

• A complex ritual sacrifice involving a bulls blood bath for initiates, particularly in the cult of the Great Mother (Cybele), performed to achieve spiritual purification and rebirth.