ABSTRACT
At the end of this project it will be useful to draw a brief picture of the main points contributed by the book. The most striking characteristic of Greek mysteria is the large number of mysteric cults and the wide range of deities worshipped. Until now, scholarship and popularized books on Greek religion have focused on the major divinities, mostly Demeter/Kore and the Kabeiroi, and have created a somewhat biased view of Greek Mysteries. The chapters in this book make it very clear that such a view does not correspond to reality. Not only are the gods worshipped in several mystery cults unrelated to Demeter, but many cults developed independently of Eleusis and for different reasons. At Thebes, the Kab(e)iric cult seems to have been introduced as early as the eighth or the seventh century as a private cult and taken over by the polis after the fourth century. Other mystery cults can be traced back to Archaic rites de passage, transformed into mysteria during the Roman period. The origins of the Andanian Mysteries can be traced back to the political motivations of the Messenian state of the early fourth century. In general, most mysteria (Thebes, Andania, Phlya, several cults in Arcadia and probably Eleusis itself ) started as private, clan or family cults, before they were turned into secret cults. At Eleusis it is possible that an “advent festival” predated the mystery cult; this festival could have taken on a metaphysical character in the sixth century, when it became a mysterion by the addition of an initiation ritual involving a katabasis, a simulation of descent to Hades and the search for Persephone. A ritual search is also attested at Samothrace, where the initiates wandered in the dark in search of Harmonia. In this case, however, the conclusion of the ritual was not the reunion of Mother and Kore, but the sacred marriage and a sexual union between Harmonia and Cadmus.
