The Eleusinian Mysteries: To Die is to be Initiated Excerpted from the Andrew Harvey's, The Essential Mystics The initiation seems to have taken place in three stages: the Dromena, the things done; the Legomena, the things said; the Deiknymena, the things shown. There followed a special ceremony known as the Epopteia, the state of "having seen," only for those initiated the previous year. In the Dromena the initiates participated in a sacred pageant that reenacted the story of Demeter and Persephone, living through the feelings of sorrow, rage and rejoicing, probably carrying torches in the darkness to the sound of music and singing. Clement of Alexandria writes that "Demeter and Kore have come to be the subject of a mystic drama, and Eleusis celebrates with torches the abduction of the daughter and the sorrowful wanderings of the mother." Foucart believed that the Mystai also experienced a journey to the underworld through wandering in the dark in the lower part of the Telesterion, and that the initiates suffered the terrors of death as a condition of initiation. . . . There was a cave -- a temple of Hades -- which signified the entrance to the underworld, and probably also an omphalos there. Plutarch writes that "to die is to be initiated," which though a play on words (teleutan=teleisthai) has the force of tradition behind it. Only after this did the light return, and it is more than likely that now the Mystes passed upward to a vision of the joyous meadows of the Elysian Fields, lit by a brilliant light. . . . The Legomena consisted of short ritual invocations, more like comments accompanying the pageant and explaining the significance of the drama. The Deiknymena, the showing of the sacred objects, culminated in the revelation by the hierophant, which was forbidden to be told. The Epopteia also contained the showing of hiera, though we do not know what these sacred objects were. Imagine the great hall of mysteries shrouded in darkness, thronged with people, waiting in stillness. Dim figures of priests move in the darkness, carrying torches. In the center of the darkness some secret drama is being performed. Suddenly a gong sounds like thunder, the underworld breaks open, and out of the depths of the earth Kore appears. A radiant light fills the chamber, the huge fire blazes upwards, and the hierophant chants: "The great goddess has borne a sacred child: Brimo has borne Brimos." Then, in the profound silence, he holds up a single ear of corn. Now is the time for celebrations. There is singing and dancing in the courtyard, a great bull is sacrificed, and all the people break their fast together. Finally, the priest fills two vessels and, lifting one to the west and the other to the east, he pours the contents of the vessels on to the ground. The people, looking up to heaven, cry "Rain!" and, looking down to earth, cry "Conceive!": hye, kye. So end the Mysteries at Eleusis. "Thrice-blessed are those mortals who have seen these rites and thus enter into Hades: for them alone there is life, for the others all is misery." So Sophocles writes, following the idea in the hymn, and Pindar also says, "Blessed is he who has seen this and thus goes beneath the earth; he knows the end of life, he knows the beginning given by Zeus." - Quote from Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess.