DIONYSIAN MYSTERIES

Dionysus was a Greek deity of wine,ecstasy, and liberation.Ritualsand stories devoted to him evolved over the centuries and are commonly interpreted as beginning as a celebration of intoxication and eventually becoming a path to rebirth. Ecstaticinitiationandtrance possessionby the deity, especially when accompanied bydrummingand the seeking of oracular knowledge from theunderworld, are sometimes interpreted as shamanic. Aristophanes’ playThe Frogs(c. 400 BCE) seems to record an element of the Mysteries, ajourneyto and from the underworld, but suggests theater rather than carnival or possession.