by T. Apiryon
from
Hermetic Website
Also known as
Bacchus, Iacchus, Bassareus, Trietenicus and Liber.
Thracian god of ecstasy, terror, guilt and atonement, death and
resurrection, vegetation, trees, wine, madness, and drama. Crowley
thought Dionysus was "probably an ecstatic from the East," and one
of the principle models for the syncretic legend of Christ.
Herodotus places the birth of Dionysus (i.e., his appearance in
Greece) at c. 1600 BC. See Krishna, Chapter 71 of Liber Aleph,
Part III of The Heart of the Master, Chapter 7 of The Book of Lies,
and The Book of Thoth, II:0. Both Dionysus and his father Zeus are
closely associated with the earlier Phrygian deity named Sabazios.
In the Orphic theogony (which differs substantially from the more
well-known cosmogony of Homer and Hesiod), Dionysus appears
successively in three forms: Phanęs-Dionysus, the bisexual god of
Light, burst from the silver egg of the cosmos (the so-called Orphic
Egg is sometimes depicted as an egg girt with a serpent) at the
beginning of time. Phanęs was also known by the names of Protogonos,
Ericapaeus, Eros and Mętis ( a name previously applied to the
Titaness who presided over the planet Mercury). Alone, Phanęs
created a daughter, Nyx (Night), with whom he begot Gę or Gaia
(Earth) and Ouranos or Uranus (Heaven). These begot the Fates, the
Centimani, the Cyclôpes (who built the world), and the Titans, with
their leader Cronus (Saturn). In the revolt of the Titans against
Uranus, Cronus became ruler of the World, and begat the gods. The
leader of the gods, Zeus, wrested rulership of the world from Cronus
by eucharistically swallowing his great-grandfather Phanes (Metis),
assimilating his power. Zeus then took the form of a serpent and
begot the second Dionysus, Dionysus-Zagreus, the Horned Child, upon
his daughter Persephonę.
Zeus bequeathed rulership of the world and the underworld upon his
son while he was still a child, even setting him upon the great
throne and letting him hold the lightening-bolt scepter. This
aroused the envy of the Titans and of his wife, Hęra. Hęra bribed
the guards whom Zeus had entrusted to protect the child (the
Kourętes), and distracted the child with toys and a looking glass.
While Zagreus was beholding his own face in the looking glass, the
Titans, ceremonially smeared with white gypsum, entered and attacked
him, tearing him to pieces and devouring him. Enraged, Zeus
destroyed the Titans with his thunderbolt, and from their ashes,
commingled with those of Dionysus-Zagreus, arose the human race.
Humans are therefore of a dual nature: the Dionysian divine nature
imprisoned in the Titanic material nature.
Athena, goddess of Wisdom, had witnessed the murder of
Dionysus-Zagreus and had even managed to save his heart from the
rage of the Titans. She brought it, still beating, to her father
Zeus. Zeus consumed the heart, as he had previously consumed the
Serpent-entwined Egg of Light of his great-grandfather Phanęs. He
then came to Semelę, daughter of Cadmus (Semelę was the Thracian
word for "Earth") and begot upon her the third Dionysus, known as
Dionysus-Lyseus or Bakkhos, or simply as Dionysus. [Another version
of the legend has Athena preserving the heart of Zagreus within a
small figure she fashioned from the gypsum of the Titans, into which
she breathed life.] Dionysus was born on the winter solstice in a
cavern in Mount Nusa (one theory of the origin of the name Dionysus
derives the name from words meaning "God of Nusa"). Having been born
twice, once as Zagreus and once as Lyseus, Dionysus is known as
Dithyrambos, the "twice-born."
Hęra, always jealous of her mate’s numerous lovers and their
children, disguised herself as Semelę’s maidservant and convinced
Semelę that she deserved to behold Zeus in his true splendor. The
next time she saw him, Semelę tricked Zeus into swearing to grant
her a wish; which was, of course, that he reveal his true form to
her. He reluctantly complied, and she was instantly burned to ashes
by the intolerable glory of his manifestation.
Zeus placed Dionysus in the care of the Nysaean Nymphs, who nurtured
him through his childhood, and for which they were rewarded by Zeus
by being placed among the stars as the Hyades. [Another version of
the legend states that Zeus hid the child within his own thigh until
the child had attained puberty; an alternative theory of the origin
of the name Dionysus derives the name from Dios-nusos, "the
nurseling of Zeus".]
When fully grown, Dionysus discovered the methods of culturing the
vine and extracting and fermenting its juice; but Hęra, ever
jealous, struck him with madness and caused him to aimlessly wander
the earth. Walking one day on the shore on an island in the Greek
Archipelago, he was abducted by Tyrrhenian pirates, who mistook him
for the son of a rich king and expected a heavy ransom. They carried
him aboard their ship and attempted to bind him with ropes; but the
knots untied themselves and the ropes fell to the deck. The sea
around the ship turned to wine, and a vine began to grow up the
mast. The god assumed the form of a lion or panther, and the
pirates, in terror, leapt overboard and were transformed into
dolphins.
In Phrygia, he was cured of his madness by the Great Mother Goddess,
his grandmother Rhea (also known as Cybelę, Bona Dea and
Magna
Mater), who initiated him into her mysteries. He then set out to
teach viticulture and to establish his cult among the peoples of the
world.
He marched through Syria, Lebanon, Caucasian Iberia (modern
Georgia), India, Egypt and Libya accompanied by a retinue of his
votaries, dancing ecstatically and shouting the mystic word "euoi"
(Latinized as the familiar "evoe"). His votaries included the female
maenads or bacchantes, tattooed, clad in fox-skins and playing
frame-drums or cymbals; the male satyrs, clad in panther-skins and
bearing thyrsi (a thyrsus was a rod tipped with a pine cone, with
streamers of ivy); and Silenus, his fat, aged, drunken companion and
keeper, riding on an ass. Despite his slovenly appearance and his
perpetual drunkenness, Silenus possessed immense knowledge and
wisdom, and was greatly respected by the votaries of Dionysus.
The worship of Dionysus was savage and ecstatic, his votaries
participated in orgia in which live animals (usually a spotted fawn,
a goat, an ox or a bull) were torn apart and devoured raw. It was
believed that the god entered the worshippers and possessed them
through this Eucharist of living flesh, called the Omophagia. Animal
skins and masks were worn, and a bull-roarer (rhombus) was used to
simulate the thundering of Zeus.
As Dionysus and his retinue traveled the world spreading his cult,
those who accepted him were rewarded with ecstasy. Those who opposed
him were stricken with madness, and brought down by the hideous
results of their own deranged atrocities. After establishing his
cult across the known world, he returned to Greece, bringing his
orgiastic Phrygian rites with him. He was not well received.
Pentheus, king of Thebes, had him arrested, tried, scourged and
thrown into prison. For this, Dionysus drove all the women of Thebes
mad, including Agave, Pentheus’s mother. They became maenads, and
went out into the hills to conduct their Dionysian orgies. Pentheus
imprudently followed them. Agave and her companions detected the
spy, and in wild rage they fell upon him and tore him to pieces.
Thus was Hellas converted to the religion of Dionysus; and Dionysus
moved on.
On the island of Naxos, Dionysus discovered a girl weeping on the
rocks. It was Ariadnę, the daughter of the Cretan king Minos, who
had just been abandoned by Thęsęus. Dionysus fell in love with her;
they wedded, and had many children.
Dionysus crowned his exploits by descending into the Underworld to
recover his mother, Semelę. He took her to Olympus where she was
ever after worshipped as Thyonę.
Many scholars believe that the Greek dramatic tradition ultimately
originated in the ecstatic rites of Dionysus. The dramatic tradition
is known to have originated in the Hellenic Mystery Schools, and the
first of these schools was that of the Orphic Mysteries, which
incorporated civilized, allegorical versions of the Dionysian rites
into their system.
The ram, the dolphin, the serpent, the tiger, the lion, the lynx,
the panther, the ox, the goat and the ass are sacred to Dionysus;
and his symbols were the phallus, the bull and the thyrsus.
According to Forlong, the Greek letters I.H.S. were carved over his
shrine.
References:
-
Crowley, Aleister;
The Book of Lies [1913], Samuel Weiser, NY 1978
-
Crowley, Aleister; The Book of Thoth [1944], Samuel Weiser, NY
1969/74
-
Crowley, Aleister; The Heart of the Master [Ordo Templi Orientis,
1938], New Falcon Publications, Scottsdale, Arizona 1992
-
Crowley, Aleister; The Gospel According to Saint Bernard Shaw
[1916], Stellar Visions, San Francisco 1986
-
Crowley, Aleister; Liber Aleph vel CXI,
The Book of Wisdom or Folly
[Thelema Publishing, 1962], Samuel Weiser, York Beach, Maine 1991
-
Forlong, J.G.R.; Faiths of Man, a Cyclopaedia of Religions [Bernard
Quaritch, 1906], University Books, NY 1964
-
Frazer, James G.; The Golden Bough; the Roots of Religion and
Folklore [1890], Avenel Books, NY 1981
-
Gaster, Theodor H.; The New Golden Bough, a New Abridgement of the
Classic Work by Sir James George Frazer; Mentor Books, NY 1959
-
Graves, Robert; The Greek Myths, Volume I, George Braziller, NY 1959
-
Guirand, F.; "Greek Mythology" in The New Larousse Encyclopedia of
Mythology. Hamlyn, NY 1959/1968
-
Harrison, Jane Ellen; Themis; a Study of the Social Origins of Greek
Religion [1912/1927], University Books, NY 1962
-
Herodotus; The Histories [c. 430 b.c.e.], transl. by Aubrey de
S‚lincourt [1954]; revised, with an introduction and notes by A.R.
Burn; Penguin, London 1972
-
Mead, G.R.S.; The Orphic Pantheon, The Alexandrian Press, Edmonds,
Washington 1984
-
Ovid; Metamorphoses, translated by Rolfe Humphries, Indiana
University Press, Bloomington 1955/1973
-
Puhvel, Jaan; Comparative Mythology, Johns Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore 1987
-
Robinson, Herbert Spencer and Knox Wilson; The Encyclopedia of Myths
and Legends of All Nations, Kaye & Ward, London 1962
-
Wili, Walter; "The Orphic Mysteries and the Greek Spirit" [1944] in
The Mysteries, Papers from the Eranos
-
Yearbooks, Bollingen Series
XXX.2, edited by Joseph Campbell, Princeton/Bollingen, Princeton NJ
1955/1978
-
Zimmerman, J.E.; Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Harper & Row, NY
1964
8/23/99
Originally published in Red Flame No. 2 -- Mystery of Mystery: A
Primer of Thelemic Ecclesiastical Gnosticism by Tau Apiryon and
Helena; Berkeley, CA 1995 e.v.
|