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[panel 3] A young male satyr,
plays the pan pipes. Another youthful androgynous
satyr with pointy ears suckles a young goat.
The
distressed initiate has a glimpse of what awaits her in the
inner sanctuary where the
katabasis
or journey to the underworld
will take
place. This is her last chance to avoid the terror of the
unknown by running
away. She may have also just been told by the old satyr:
"I am going to kill you." |
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 The initiate is being made aware
of her close connection with nature. This move from
human to nature represents a shift away from the
conscious human world to our preconscious animal
state. In many rituals, this regression, assisted by
music, is requisite to achieving a psychological
state necessary for rebirth and regeneration.
We must also remember that before Christianity the
underworld was not the negative space it is
considered today, for this was the unseen world
where all souls rested. |
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Discover your
tribe alive within you
 4 |
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The
Silenus looks at the startled initiate as he holds
up an empty silver bowl. A young satyr gazes into
the bowl, as if mesmerized by seeing the mask
reflected in the bowl. An assistant
holds a demon mask aloft at an angle that it may be
reflected unknowingly into the silver bowl.
It has been suggested that the satyr-medium tells
Silenos what he sees. Silenos then interprets it, as
an oracle, to the girl; and it is by the content of
this oracle that the girl on their
right is terrified. [panel4]
Only that day dawns to which we are
awake. |
The revelation of sacred and
mysterious objects, the act of sexual union, the
joining of hearts and souls in marriage, the
incomprehensibility of death and rebirth cannot be
communicated and understood except by invoking ritual, myth
and a psychic connection with the regenerative powers of
nature.
In the ritual of tribal initiation the older men are the
initiators, and play the part of tribal ancestors. The use
of a bowl to reflect an image different from that which the
initiate expects to see as the moment of revelation is one
of the secrets of the ancient initiation rituals.
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The Sacred Marriage
of Dionysus and Ariadne
5 |
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Dionysos is also, unlike most of the other
gods, the son of a mortal woman, Semele. This means that by
birth he is a native son of two realms, the mortal and the
divine. This theme also shows in Dionysos' marriage to a
mortal woman, Ariadne.
[panel 5] |
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As
Campbell
further explains the mythic journey common to all
cultures: At the center of the journey
is "The Meeting with the Goddess" and "The
Atonement with the Father," both symbolic stages
in working out the Oedipal crisis for the boy
making this journey. The girl also must make peace
with her parents to move forward and reach the stage
of Apotheosis. She will also become a possessor of
the grace of the Gods, "the Ultimate Boon" which can
restore her culture.
This means she should
have the confidence to rely on her own intuition
about what is right, rather than what has been told
is correct.
The initiatory
process will now become more and more intense, as
the successful initiate must plunge herself further
into the mythic world shared by humanity. This
mysterious world has been called many things; "Deep
Mind", "World Soul" and most recently, the
"collective unconscious" by the great founder of
modern depth psychology C.J. Jung. These Greek gods
and myths have been the main tool used by Western
culture and higher learning to understand this world
of symbols and soulful yearning. The layers of
our personal world must be dismembered so that this
Mythic World becomes paramount in the initiate's
consciousness and be experienced as real or even
miraculous. |
Next panel
Moment before the revealing
Prior panel Ritual Meal |
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