Many thousands of years before the classical age of ancient Greece (480-323BC), the goddess Demeter was worshiped throughout what became Greece as a chthonic Goddess (ie a goddess relating to the ‘underworld’). Demeter was one of the oldest and most important goddesses in Greek mythology. She is the daughter of Kronos and Rhea, and the sister of Zeus, Hera, Hestia, Poseidon, and Hades. She was revered in Argos, the home of the Lesser Mysteries and also in Eleusis, home of the Greater Mysteries. The Argives called her “Pelagis 1” which indicated the Pelasgian origin of the cult where only priestesses took part as Demeter always represented the feminine divine force within Nature. Therefore, as the chthonian goddess (ie goddess of the underworld or material universe) she was worshiped and called Zidoros2 and Arura3, that is, the Female principle that gives its seed to beings, Mother-Earth. She represents the divine force similar to the theosophical concept of ‘Fohat’ which is the element which brings ideas or archetypal thought-forms to realization-formation in the material worlds. The change of vibrations from this mystical force increases or decreases the dissemination of materialization in the universe and here on the Earth.

According to Greek mythology, her father was Kronos and her mother was Rhea, and she stayed in Kronos’s belly with her other siblings until Zeus, her younger brother, forced Kronos to free her. Deciphering the symbolism, Kronos, who represents Time, created the manifest universes and the Earth when Time evolved it through his Being. That is, Time gave birth to the Earth and then she clothed her kingdoms with her own nature, Life, just as every mother clothes the bodies of her children with her own body by giving birth to them.

Within the world of form, which is Demeter’s kingdom, she gave her daughter, Persephone, the power that allows the translation of ideas into action in the material world. This intermediary power between spirit and matter we know by the name of – Soul. Demeter provides the physical form and her daughter, Persephone, the human soul. The two forces work together under the holy name of the goddess Demeter, matter and the cohesive force of matter = Life. Her daughter, Persephone, is the Soul and without Soul, Mother Earth cannot materialize anything. That is why she laments, shouts, cries, aches and sighs when Persephone/Soul is gone from her.

Zeus and Demeter (Endelechia [??????????] thoroughness and matter) were Persephone’s parents. Position and contrast. The Positive and the Negative force. The Kind and Form of Pythagoras. Archeological research has suggested that the purpose of the Mysteries was to lead the spirit of a candidate for initiation to approach and stand dazzled before the ritual which contained the true meaning of the secret ‘Orgies’. At that time, the word “Orgy” did not have the sensuous connotations it has today. Rather it denoted the quality of emotional mysticism which led to the transmutation of lower animal impulses into higher qualities and spheres where they achieved union of the Outer Vehicles of the Spirit (ie. Our Physical, Astral, and lower emotional and mental qualities associated with the Personality aspect of our Being) with the Inner God. ” Gnothi seauton” (Know Thyself).

There are no reliable records of the Eleusinian Mysteries beyond descriptions of ceremonial aspects associated with them to let us know what really happened to enable the enlightenment of candidates for spiritual initiation. When the spectators heard the Herald of the Mysteries shouting, “Ekas, ekas, este vevyli (Away, away, you profane)”, then the pilgrims of Iacchus, Persephone and Demeter watched for three nights the flashes of light from the singers of the Catavasia of the Ceremonial Place where one of the highest revelations took place.

The Lesser Mysteries of Agra were the preparation for the Greater Mysteries. They took place in the area of Ardittos (near the Panathenaic Stadium in the city of Athens) every year in the month of Anthesterion (February – March). Candidates for the Greater Mysteries made applications which were received by the “Great Hierophant” at Eleusis, along with information about each of them provided by the “?póptis ” (ie those with ‘open eyes’ or those who had already attained a high level of spiritual initiation). In the Lesser Mysteries, preliminary teaching took place where candidates learned of the challenges that would follow seven months later if they were accepted to try for the Greater Mysteries. The Lesser Mysteries included basic teachings about human life interwoven with the doctrine of the eternity and the immortality of the soul. They studied the character as well as the psychosynthesis which was the reward of each new initiate. They also learned the methods for internal cleansings for permanent good health of their physical and astral bodies.

An initiate in the “Lesser Mysteries of Agra” could be a “Mýstis” for their whole lives without ever being accepted to take part in the “Greater Mysteries”. They could remain an “?póptis”, a rank before the “Great Mystery” ritual. Those who took part in the Higher Mysteries were called Perfect – Illuminated – Mystical. They were ready for their responsibility to teach esoteric knowledge, the ‘Gnosis’ or ‘Knowing’, to those who were considered worthy of such a great honour. – Sotiria Galanoupoulos, Athens, Greece. 

1. The Pelasgians were Aegean and descended from the Dravidians, a pre-Hellenic race.

2. Zeidoros <( zea/zeia + -doron) that which offers life. Life-giving.

3. Arura=arable, fertile land

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