ABSTRACT
In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (probably sixth century BCE) Persephone is gathering flowers when the earth gapes open, Hades emerges from it, seizes her, and in his chariot takes her down to the underworld. This is more than a mere katabasis: the earth suddenly opens up and she is forced deep downwards into the abyss, the first one in European literature. We know from vase-painting that it was for the Athenians a way of imagining the wedding. In the Homeric Hymn she is sought all over the world by her mother Demeter, who is eventually reunited with her at Eleusis. The myth was an aetiology of mystic initiation at Eleusis. Mystic initiation was a rehearsal of death, in which the initiand passed from anxiety to joy, from ignorance to knowledge, and from isolation to belonging to a group. The descent and return of Persephone from Hades were in some way (secret even then) enacted in the Eleusinian ritual. That is to say, the initiands experienced in some way Persephone’s terrifying descent and her ascent that ended in joy. This is one example of how ancient rituals may enact experiences which for us are confined to individual fantasy and relegated to the unconscious.
