Dionysus

Bacchus Uncovered is on YouTube at the moment. I love Bettany Hughes' work. They found archaeological stuff about Dionysus in London. He's androgynous and transgender. "Dionysus is brilliantly difficult to pigeonhole," and, "the party god supreme." His largest party was Dionysia. They would play the drinking game Kottabos. If you miss the vessel, you have to take a drink. The 4 day festival would end at the Theater of Dionysus. Euripides' The Bacchae was a play that survives into our times, that would have been performed at the theater (see below). The expert Hughes talks to suggests that the theme of the play is that you need to accept the coexistence of the opposites.

I'm not sure how often I've experienced ecstacy. Hughes goes to the island of Skyros to celebrate a goat festival. It is celebrated at the start of the spring February 14-21. One feature of the celebration is people who dress up like the ancient ones. The masks are made out of premature sheep who died. Then you personify the god Dionysus. Hughes suggests that the ritual may go back more than 25 centuries. The worship of Dionysus predates the classical ancient Greek times by a thousand years. 3k ago are the first references to Dionysus in cuneiform. 

Hughes goes to 20 miles south of Tbilisi Georgia to a site called Gadachrili Gora, to understand communal drinking where they think grapes were first cultivated 8K years ago. (Read the scientific paper)

Early drawing about the wine have a stance that can be described as worshipful. Early humans perhaps thought that wine brought them closer to the spiritual world. 

She discusses symposia, where philosophical ideas were exchanged, and drinking occured. A prayer was said to Dionysus in the ritual. 

Hughes reads Livy's account of women's Bacchus debauchery. Some of the women followers of Spartacus were said to be infused with fervor of Bacchus. The Romans outlawed the worship of Bacchus, unless you have the specific permission of the senate. This cult empowered women and challenged the patriarchy. They were concerned with the numbers and the organization. They turned Bacchus into agents of control. The Romans used wine as a conquering tool to pacify conquered lands.

With the advent of Christianity and the clash with paganism. Did Christianity co-op the drinking of the wine as a blood of Christ. There are many similarities between the two deities. Bacchus was reborn after being killed by the Titans. Bacchus was incorporated into the iconography of Christ. The baby Bacchus was cradled by Hermes in one famous fresco. There is a halo around his head. Others kneeled around to pay their respect to the baby Bacchus. The father is Zeus, so they worship the father and the son. I couldn't find a picture, and I didn't take a screenshot. Jesus says, "I'm the true vine." which is clearly a reference to Bacchus. Thus the cult of Bacchus is squashed by the controlling ways of Christianity. Which makes me wonder, wouldn't it be amazing if we could have free play with our spirituality. That might even be what America was founded on. 

In the 18th century there was a revival in the age of Enlightenment, when people would go on a grand tour. (Scholarly paper). A fellow named Hamilton built a temple to Bacchus in England in Surry. It was a bit neutered, being enthusiastic wasn't a virtue in England at the time. 

Bacchus was a traveler. The East India company building dug up a Bacchus on a lion, which symbolized Bacchus conquering India. The English ended up conquering India. William Jones, a celebrated scholar from the times, suggests there is a parallel between Dionysus and Rama. Rama was born in the wild on the side of a mountain like Bacchus. Both are traveler gods who conquered India. There are other parallels. Byron and Shelly read his writings. Nietzsche took up this idea. In The Birth of Tragedy, he celebrates the Dionysian, intoxication and the irrational. 

This was adopted in the counterculture of the 60s/70s. This lead to Dionysus in '69, which has a copy of the play that you can watch today. There was a apollonian push back for order. You can almost see these two forces battling it out today in Portland and Kenosha, Minneapolis and New York.

Drug policies today are firmly in the control of Apolonia, ordered and rational. There are dangers in denying the shadow. There is also danger in letting go completely. Hughes wants to be in touch with the wild animal side, but with enough control so you don't hurt others, or yourself. 

What an amazing documentary! I've always wanted to know more about Dionysus. 

Reading Wikipedia I learned more: Dionysus is one Greek God I could worship. His resume is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking and wine, of fertility, orchards and fruit, vegetation, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity and theatre in ancient Greek religion and myth. Bacchus is the Roman name. When you get into a frenzy celebrating him you become a bakkheia or Maenad. Hughes brushed past Dionysus the Erect. As Eleutherios ("the liberator"), his wine, music and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. He represents a chthonic or underworld aspect. Chthonic might be related to Jung's shadow. Cthulhu is the name of the monsters in H.P. Lovecraft. 

Dionysus is the god of epiphany. I almost feel like there is a dialectic about him, he contains many opposites, maybe the spirit of solving a koan. 

I don't really think drugs are the spiritual route, but once in a blue moon doesn't hurt, in moderation.

Worshiping in a pantheistic way is about local gods who provide favors. The Greek gods were up to shenanigans, and it was the humans who dealt with the fate of their hijinks. It explained the quirky way things never end up the way you want them to. I'm not sure if there's a better explanation that circumstances, but often they are dark. In the darkness we find wonder.

The negative destructive side is perhaps something you see in toddlers and preschoolers. While I watched the documentary and composed this post, I was interrupted a lot by my child.

Links

The Triumph of Bacchus