We call this neurosis or, addictive behavior, and it gives rise to the term “inflation,” being full of hot air. Anything which like wine can lead to pleasure but also disorientation, unrestrained action, and dire consequences can be seen in this way. As humans we tend to go to extremes, and we obsessively lose sight of the “overall picture.” And in our endeavors, be it work, sports, religion, drugs-good or bad, etc.-we tend to get fixated or drunk on what we’re doing, with compulsive fanaticism. He’s therefore best portrayed as god of wine, which gets perverted when he becomes the Roman's Bacchus, the god of drunkenness, hence the god of excess. Of all the gods, Dionysus is least understood. Due to the diversity of influences from the other gods, he easily gets “taken out of context.” Which explains why he habitually gets torn to pieces-as Jesus is continually crucified-only to have him disappear, and reappear with a new advent (rebirth). The double-nature is also reflected in his sexual ambiguity. He was man's benefactor and he was man's destroyer, man's blessing sometimes his ruin. The reason that Dionysus was so different at one time from another was because of the double nature of wine, his symbol. The worship of Dionysus was centered in divergent ideas of freedom and joy and of savage brutality. They would tear to pieces the wild creatures they met and devour the bloody shreds of flesh. They danced and sang exultant songs, wearing fawn-skins over their robes. Frenzied with wine they rushed through woods and over mountains uttering sharp cries, waving pine-cone-tipped wands (thyrsi). The Maenads, (Bacchantes) were Dionysus' female votaries who accompanied him when he traveled. , Euripides' play about him, T he Bacchae, was first performed about 400 BC. Herodotus describes initiation into the mysteries of Dionysus in the fifth century BC. The Greek Dionysus is mentioned in Linear B tablets from roughly 1,200 BC. Heraclitus says,'Hades and Dionysus, for whom they go mad and rage, are one and the same.'ĭionysus was worshiped in Hellenistic times (after 332 BC) from Italy to Greece and into Egypt and the Middle East. Mardi Gras, Spring Break, and the Playboy lifestyle with its orgiastic rites, owes its soul and phallic spirit to Hades-Dionysus as any follower of Dionysus can hope to be seized by the god in an ecstatic frenzy. He was a God who could be found often in darkness, but sometimes in light as well. He also had the formidable power of creating madness. He had power over life, death, and resurrection. He invented the vine from which wine is made - he rules wine, drama, and revelry. He is followed by his female devotees, the Maenads who are often seen in an ecstatic frenzy. He experienced a terrible death he was driven mad, torn to pieces, in some stories by the Titans, in others by Hera's order. Dionysus 'died' with the coming of the cold. Dionysus is the god of all life-giving fluids. Dionysus was born of fire and nursed by rain, transformed by the hard burning heat that ripens the grapes and the water that keeps the plant alive. His Artemisian nurses are linked to the moon and lunar consciousness of the dark. His childhood was spent in innocence and happiness among the nymphs, satrys, herdsmen, and vine-tenders of Nysa. The title " Dithyrambos," means "twice born." Stories of his birth have Zeus either swallowing his embryo or heart or sewing his embryo into his thigh for gestation.Īs Zeus' son he shares his will to power and creative drive. The vine and ivy were sacred to this god his sacrifices consisted of goats and pigs. The Irrational forces us to suspend logic, washes out the firm footing from beneath us, floods us with emotion, rips away false surety, claims us utterly, shakes us to the core, and sweeps us into heavenly heights and underworld depths inexorably full of the sense of mystery, the Unknown. He is the irrational power that allows us to explore our potential for emotional and behavioral extremes. This vegetation god also presides over or underlies prophecy, tragedy, ecstasy, and the violation of limits. Dionysus, rooted in the earth and ecstasy, is the prototype of shamanic descent and the dying and resurrecting godmen. We see this rapture, or rising up, depicted in the tarot trump Judgement or The Aeon. Contrary to popular opinion Dionysus is not merely the god of revelry, indulgence, erotic compulsion and intoxication, but of ecstatic rapture.
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