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Dionysos, The Liberator.  A Dionysian Mythos Primer By S.A. Frater Chaotes, Grand Pontiff of Pandemonium, with the Dionysian Underground

 Contemporary Dionysians focus on the mythic figure of Dionysos (and related deities). A figure that can be viewed variously as a divine embodiment of the forces of nature, a power within the human psyche, a psychological archetype, a cultural role model or just a fun guy, according to inclination.

Dionysos has his roots in the first and greatest of all the divine archetypes, which I shall refer to generally as the Lord of Nature (following the precedent set by Wiccans). Manifesting variously as the horned Lord of the Animals, the wild God of the Forest, the mysterious Green Man, or the Lord of the Mountain, this ancient archetype symbolizes the raw powers of the natural world, generative and nurturing, but also often destructive (all being part of a single evolutionary process for the Dionysian Mysteries). In particular representing the relationship of these to mankind and their manifestation within us. His consort, the Great Goddess, represented the 'feminine' aspect of this, or alternatively the active power of the deity. The prominence between these two varying with cultures. Though essentially they are the same, and later non-hierarchical versions of the archetype were represented as hermaphrodite to emphasize this fact.

In his earliest, Paleolithic, form he was universally known as 'the Youth' a God of the Hunt. The son of an ancient, less anthropomorphic nature deity (of the type : Ndura, the indistinct and unpredictable 'jungle being' of the Bushmen; the Amerind Great Spirit, or the chaotic Euro-Asian Mother Goddess) he represented the mediating connection between mankind and a chaotic nature, as well as its human manifestation. The primitive view of nature of course was not like ours, the universe was a mysterious and incomprehensible realm of existence. Here the 'natural' and 'supernatural' overlapped, and what we scientifically view as the 'natural world' would be seen as a human creation (to the modern mind, best understood as the result of our conceptual relationship with our environment, or by reading Castaneda).

Specifically the Youth was the deity of the hunters and 'leader of the hunt' (and later of heroic warriors), perceived as an athletic, naked youth armed with a spear (or trident) and often a net. Usually 'born in the marshes', he was raised by 'nymphs' (or sometimes she-wolves). His most common symbols were the cock and the ram (or mountain-goat) and he was accompanied by a host of animal spirits. He was also closely associated with the Moon. His cult was one of male initiation, but it is likely that it was one originally led by priestesses in what was once a matriarchal culture. Vestiges of this figure are found in all cultures, but the only pure survivals of his cult are found in the most remote regions of Africa, South America, Australia and the Orient. His developed myths were particularly well preserved amongst the aboriginal peoples of southern India - from where Kipling derived their fablised (and mild) retelling as the Jungle Book.

The Youth archetype was generally absorbed (variously as a 'younger' aspect or a son) by the next development of the Lord of Nature, the Horned God of the Neolithic cattle herders (who also herded sheep and goats, but why complicate things). This stage was the most influential, as it was here that the archetype attains an essential nature that remained largely unchanged right into classical times. The bull-horned, Lord of the Beasts was both a hunter's god and a protector of the herd (and tribe). Living by both animal herding and hunting, these nomads inherited much from their ancestors but remodelled the mythos in ways more meaningful for their own lives - as people have always done with a living mythology. The deity spread all over the world with these migrating peoples. His most common symbols were the Bull and the Phallus (he also inherited some of the symbolism of his younger ancestor). He would still be remembered as 'Auld Horny' in Scots folklore even into the 20^th century, and it is tempting to examine the varied etymology of the term 'horn', but space prohibits.

Having always been an archetype of life and death, at this stage the archetype became specifically linked with a cult of the dead and the underworld. Death was the unavoidable climax of life. But it was also seen as providing the opportunity of new life, the underworld was also a source of life and regeneration. It was in this aspect that the Serpent first became one of his symbols. Mythic imagery that would later be expanded to early concepts of a 'libidinous subconscious'.
 

The consort of the Horned God was his female equivalent, the Mistress of Beasts, or more commonly, the Lady of the Mountain. Who was often perceived as a huntress (the original of Artemis/Diana), or a queen riding, or holding, a Lion or Panther (Cybele), alternatively she was sometimes symbolised as the beast of prey itself. Animals that would later also be seen as the manifestation of the god. In a more human centred form she evolved into Aphrodite, as Goddess of Passion and Lust.

A specific esoteric cult developed around this mythos. Its main features appear to have been ecstatic, sexual fertility rites (including somekind of primitive Tantric sex), a death cult, and an ancient Geomancy involving arrangements of (phallic) standing stones and megalithic tombs. This tradition gave rise to the European Megalith Culture, that culminated with Stonehenge (said by the Romans to have been sacred to Apollo - who they identified with Cernunos, the Celtic Horned God).

Forms of this archetype, as it evolved locally, are found all over the world. Some examples are: Bel/Baal of the Semites (originating in Sumeria); Sabazios of Thrace; Danh of African Dahomey (the origin of Dan Petro of Haitian Voodoo); Coyote and Tezcatlipoca of Ancient Mexico; Frey of the Nordics; Volos of the Slavs; Osiris of Egypt; Shiva of India; Zan (or Zagreus) of Minoan Crete and of course Dionysos (originally of Libya). It is interesting that many of these peoples (the Sumerians, Anatolians, Indus Valley People, ancient Cretans and the original inhabitants of Egypt and Libya) are believed to have spoken dialects of the Dravidian root language, originally used by the people who first developed the Bull Cult, indicating direct descent rather than cultural exchange. Similar cultural practices are found as far a part as the Celts of the Danube and the peoples of the Indus Valley. In both societies images of horned gods sitting in a yogic position have been found, as well as bodies buried in the same position. It appears a genuine global cult existed at one time. The very word God may be derived from a Dravidian root word Go, meaning Bull.

Intriguingly myths of origin preserved in the Dravidian language of India (its only surviving example) describe their ancestors as coming from a great continent that sunk beneath the ocean. Tempting some to suggest an Atlantean connection with the (post Ice Age) Neolithic people. This is purely speculative, though certainly the close similarity of myths and ritual practice around the Atlantic coastline is still an unexplained mystery.

But back to the plot. As agriculture developed a populations became more settled, the social significance of fecundity was extended from the animal kingdom to the plant world. The Lord of Nature thus extended his reign. This transformation is seen most clearly in the figure of Osiris, who was both a bull god and a crop deity. It was from the 'Osirian stage' of the Nature Lord that Dionysos would emerge, with whom the Goat (linked to early agriculture as well as to the Youth archetype) was sacred. Eventually this development would domesticate the archetype, turning him into a boring fertility god (and finally a homely city god of prosperity). Only in the uncultivated areas bordering farmland (which were very significant for the expanding agriculturists) would the vegetative archetype retain its wilder nature. Most notably as Silvanus, and the Green Man. And it was only deep in the ancient forests, mountains and wilderness that the Horned God himself would remain.

Or almost. Three relatively untamed descendants of the Bull God would have a major impact on world civilisation, Osiris, Shiva and Dionysos. With the latter eventually finding himself in the heart of the city. Of course these gods while still comparatively wild did benefit from their links with civilisation. While the civilising process is often a negative one, that typically alienates people from nature, themselves and each other, it can also supply culture that adds a sophistication to the rawer natural product. It is a double edged phenomenon and cannot really be reduced either way by simplistic Rationalist or Primitivist arguments. But remarkably these three archetypes seem to have evolved under the positive influence of civilisation while almost entirely avoiding the negative (or at least for a long time). One important aspect of this was the concept of Dionysos as God of Pleasure, adding the hedonistic delights of the city to the wilder ecstasies of the Primitive Dionysos. Dionysos had a guise for both town and country. Both of which would become an anathema for a slavish Christianity.

Osiris (and Horus, his son/aspect), though eventually tamed by the later Egyptian Civilisation, was originally quite a wild thing. In his earliest form, referred to the Bull of Confusion and Primeval Serpent. Aser, the original Osiris archetype (under various local names: most famously Apis, Hapi, Min etc ) represented the raw powers of life and death. His most dramatic manifestation being the Nile flood, with its force for both devastation and fertilisation. But this aspect didn't last long in its pure form under the evolution of Egyptian civilisation. While the original archetype was safely preserved on the fringes of the culture, as Ihy, babe of Hathor, Osiris was finally tamed and segregated into a fertility (and healer) god and/or a lord of the dead. In ancient Memphis - where he was known as Nefertem/Sokar (and was also recognised as the root of the abstracted Ptah) - his wilder side was preserved only in his female aspect, the bestial Hathor-Sekhmet. Later in the next capital Heliopolis it was distributed (moralistically) between his more macho 'kinsmen' Horus (originally, like Shu, a Pre-Egyptian Youth archetype, Heru of the Spear) and the 'evil' Set (a desert Osiris, reshaped by an invader's Asiatic Youth archetype, Shutekh). Their relation being known in the Osirian Mysteries as "the secret of the two partners".

The Egyptian Civilization is a paradigm case of the civilizing process, that produced a domestication, fragmentation, alienation and abstraction that destroyed the old Religion and created a fantastical, mystical Polytheism in its place. Despite this though Egypt preserved a vestige of the older tradition (both in its fringe Osirian 'Dionysianism', and in its rationalized mysteries, such as Alchemy), and like hedonic Bastet, the domestic cat goddess, always retained a spark of Sekhmet. Indeed Egyptian prophetic tradition told of the eventual return of Horus and Sekhmet, who would replace the old order of the emasculated Osiris.

The Hebrew exodus from Egypt would take with it much regional culture, including an Osirian-Dionysos tradition, which would have a significant effect on the future of the Judeo Christian tradition.

But to find the purest survival of the Dionysiac within civilization we have to turn to Ancient India and Minoan Crete.

Shiva represents an almost pure survival of the ancient Indus Valley deity, itself an idealised manifestation of the original Neolithic Horned God. An ancient name of Shiva (and Kali his Shakti) was An, which appears as the root name of many Dionysian deities of both genders (Ana, Anshar, Anat, Anpu, Annis, Anansi, Danh, Pan, Bran and Zan to name a few). An was perhaps the Neolithic title of the Horned God.

Similarly Dionysos, as the archetype manifested in Crete, was another near pure survival of this ancient Bull God, this time transmitted via a Libyan Wine cult.

As Alain Danielou, in his best selling book Gods of Love and Ecstasy, points out, these two gods match point for point. Both had a vast range of epithets (nearly 100 in the case of Dionysos) reflecting their antiquity and protean nature. Many of these names are identical, too many to quote here, but include the specific: ''Lord of the Beasts'', Pashupati/Iasios; "Fireborn", Agnibhu/Pyrigenes; "Born in the Reeds/Marsh", Sarajamna/Limnaios; "Son of Nymphs, or Pleiades", Karttikeya/Briseus; "Erect Phallus", Urdhvalinga/Orthos; "Howler", Rudra/Eriboas; and the hermaphroditic form "Man-Woman", Ardhanarishvara/Erikepaios. They also shared wild consorts (in Shivaism the Shakti, or emanating power of the god) who took the form of a Tiger (Durga, Kali) or Panther (Ariadne, Minoan consort of Dionysos, and the nymphs who raised him), the latter closely related to the Lioness consort (Cybele, Sekhmet) of the western Bull God. Shivaic and Dionysian cults both incorporate the symbolism of the Mountain, the Bull, the Serpent, Beast of Prey (Lion/Panther/Tiger) and the Ram and Goat. They also share the same ecstatic rites of intoxication (wine and hash), rhythmic music, wild dancing, masked carnivals/processions and debauched orgies. In particular they share sexual mysteries, well known in Shivaism as Tantra (in its original pre-Buddhist form) and hinted at in the Dionysian Mysteries as Orgiasm (including rites that were passed on to the Nikolaitan and central Egyptian Gnostics). Interestingly the Taoist tradition also seems to share a Shivaic origin revealed by the terms Yin and Yang (Chinese translations of Yoni and Lingam, the Tantric terms for active sexual organs). Danielou suggests that Dionysos was an western importation of Shiva, imaginatively connecting the terms Bacchant (Dionysian reveller) with Bhakti (originally a Shivaic devotee). But, while Greek tales spoke of an ancient Indian Dionysos and the Egyptians claimed Osiris (for them Dionysos) came from India on a bull (both Osiris and Shiva were symbolized by the Lotus strangely), this migration seems unlikely. The terms are the same but the language is not similar enough. Subtle differences also exist between the two gods. What appears to be the case is that both gods are directly derived from the same preserved Neolithic archetype that evolved in a similar fashion. Contact between the two no doubt developed from an early time (the Egyptians traded with the Indus Valley Civilization), and the connection was later reestablished by the Alexandrian Greeks who penetrated India (instantly recognizing Shiva as Dionysos). Cultural exchanges probably occurred throughout these periods - for instance at some stage we see Shiva add wine to hashish as his intoxicant of choice, and vice versa with Dionysos (and Osiris, judging from tests on Egyptian mummies).

Ultimately a combined cult of Dionysos-Shiva would arise in the Alexandrian Kingdom of Bactria (between N Persia and N India), evidence of which has been found in the cities of Bactria and Maracanda (later Samarkand). This lasted till 100BC when it was finally overrun by the neighboring Chinese, who the Bactrians had long traded with (the start of a very eclectic period for the region, and possibly one that influenced the origins of Lamaism). Further east, smaller Indo-Grecian Kingdoms would survive in NW India up to 50BC, and their influence long after.

Dionysos himself seems to have first originated in Ancient Libya. It was here that wine first appears to have been cultivated, and was certainly the place from which the Egyptians and Minoans first imported it from. Dionysos was probably originally part of a wine cult imported with the intoxicant (the spread of his cult appears to travel with wine imports). His Greek name, of late Minoan origin, means the God of Mount Nysa. It is not known what his original name was, but the most likely candidate for Nysa (others alleged sites are in Crete itself, Thrace/Asia Minor and India, though none are very convincing) is in the Libyan region explored by Lhote, site of the Tassili Frescoes. A place once inhabited by some of the earliest nomadic herders.

We can tentatively conclude then that the proto-Dionysos came to Crete from Libya, and indirectly via Egypt (which had close cultural ties with Minoan Crete). He was the Lord of Nature overlaid with the mythos of viticulture. What the pre-Minoan Dionysos may have been like is lost in the fog of time, but a few hints still exist. An unusual Greek myth of the discovery of wine tells of a mysterious Euois, or Euoi (a name once preserved in the cry of grape-treaders throughout the Mediterranean), identified with young Dionysos, who spied a serpent drinking the juice of wild grapes in the forest. Mimicking the process Euois became intoxicated, and would soon invent the wine making process (and the hollowed bull-horn from which the wine was originally drunk). The story has a strange resonance with the tale in Genesis (perhaps itself Egyptian in origin). But it is not entirely fable, as various clever animals are known to leave fruit to ferment on the branch, later becoming intoxicated by it. Something that would have been observed by the hunter/gathers.

Other Greek traditions say that wine was brought by a nomad (archetypally the Abel-like Ikarios, whose myths probably partly fused with those of Euoi), the vine found by his dog, or that viticulture was a gift of Sirius (the Dog Star). This connects with the Minoan name for Sirius, Iakar, the root of Iachos, a vague deity closely associated with Dionysos, later appearing as a herald and torch bearer in his Greek mystery processions, and a babe amongst the Eleusinians (identified with Ihy). The name is not Minoan and seems to be derived from the Egyptian Iachen, a forgotten mythic figure who "tamed the heat of Sothis" (Sirius). Interestingly Sothis was traditionally seen as the vehicle of Osiris and/or Isis. Later it became linked with Horus and Sekhmet in their destructive and flooding aspects. Sirius rises with the Egyptian flood and may have been initially linked with the proto-Osiris (the Greek name of Aser, Osiris, is related to Sirius according to some). The tamed heat story may mean Osiris-Iachen was a tamed version of a wilder original. No doubt any Dionysian Wine God entering Egypt from Libya would become identified with Osiris, who was himself later regarded as the spirit of vineyards. However in India the name of Sirius was Sivaamam, Shiva's dog, indicating the myth might have been originally more universal than Egypt. When Osiris (the Hunter) was associated with Orion, Sirius became one of his hunting dogs. Perhaps this represented his power, or even his 'son' (and mythic ancestor), the youthful, God of the Hunt (to whom Sirius may have been originally significant).

As a fire bringer and torch bearer Iachos also seems to preserve a Promethean archetype, the divine rebel who gave man fire and culture. A very ancient archetype older even than the God of the Hunt, with whom he probably merged.

A clue to the nature of the most ancient form of Dionysianism may also be found in North Africa. The Moroccan Sufistic sect of the Sidi Aissawa (founded by Sheik Abu Abdallah Sidi Muhamed ben Isa as Sofiani al Mukhtari, in Fez) is officially Islamic but preserves an extremely ancient Dionysian tradition. The devotees gather at the tomb of their founder on his day of his birth. They then ascend a hill on which a bonfire is lit. A feast is prepared and a circle dance initiated. Dancing round the fire or feasting on wine and food, the participants become wilder and wilder. Driven by drums and intoxication, frenzied dancing breaks out and some participants begin to become ecstatic and "possessed". The dance takes on an characteristic form (found amongst Bacchants, Shivaic Tantrics and Voodoo cultists) in which the head is thrown back with a jerking motion of the neck, and is here accompanied by the flicking free long hair that is otherwise bound. The Aissawa where their hair long and plaited like Shivaics, and Dionysos (in some of his depictions). Snakes are then brought out, thrown around, handled, and sometimes torn apart by frenzied participants, the same fate is met by a sacrificial goat which is devoured by the revelers (an exact parallel with the Maenad rite). A wild orgy ensues. Finally the crowd leaves the hill and descends on the local town. Charging through the streets, bleating like goats, they destroy everything (including people) that stand in their way. The wildest, 'possessed by predator spirits', are known as Lion or Panther Men. The townsfolk traditionally barricade themselves in, with their animals, to avoid any slaughter. But in the past some strangers and strays have allegedly met with a violent death. The riot finally disperses and life returns to normal. There are an obvious similarities between this sect and the famous "Two-Horned Cult" of the Moors, a very Dionysian sect (allegedly centred on a Gnostic goddess archetype), which - according to Idries Shah - greatly influenced European witchcraft, via 'Saracen' secret societies from Morocco and Spain.

In Crete Dionysos emerged gradually from the fusion of this imported God of the Vine (carrying within him all the mythos of the ancient Lord of Nature) and his local parallel, the Bull God of the Minoans. The latter known as Zan, or Zagreus to the later Mycenaeans, was a horned god of the hunt, war and the underworld, armed with a net and trident, and dwelling in the mountains. Under the title Asterius, "Starry One", he was linked with Orion - and perhaps Sirius - revealing possible associations with Osiris. The Dorian Greeks (displaced Aryan warriors worshiping a variety of tribal gods - fragmented or abstracted from the Neolithic god - and united under Ares, the War God) would associate Zan, and the seafaring Minoans, with one of their Gods, Poseidon, while his Mycenaean manifestation, Zagreus, was associated with a similar, minor God called Zeus. Symbolic territories were later arbitrarily divided between them, and Greek mythology would be shaped by these associations. The underworld aspect was associated with Hades. Naturally, because of this when Dionysos arrived in Greece he was seen to overlap with all three Gods. The Greeks also preserved part of the traditions of Zan in the story of the Minotaur.

Initially Dionysos became a son of Zan/Zagreus, but probably gradually superceded him. One factor in the origin of Dionysos' twin forms, a mature bearded form, corresponding to the Minoan Bull God, and the younger, clean shaven form attracting the archetypes of the Youth. The first-born and second-born Dionysos. In one Greek legend attributed to the Minoans, he is the son of Zeus, who mated, in the form of a serpent, with Proserpine in a deep cavern (later a grotto). The story gives the serpentine Zeus obvious Dionysian features. The name Dionysos was given to him by Linear B speakers from the mainland, but his earlier Linear A name was no doubt similar.

When the fully formed Minoan Dionysos cult was exported from Crete, with wine, this Early Dionysos archetype really takes off and its significance becomes apparent. Local stories talk of a cultural epidemic erupting amongst them, as people became suddenly orgiastic. The reason for this was probably two fold, partly the popular Dionysos cult connected strongly with the old religion still quietly practised by the common folk of these lands, thus bringing them out into the open. It was in Dionysos that many of the old gods would survive. But in particular it was the intoxicating effect of wine that facilitated these orgies, and by reducing inhibitions brought out the more primitive sides of people's natures. Natures that had long been repressed by tame agricultural and urban religions. Dionysos sharing the traits of local survivals of the Neolithic god, and resonating so well with Post-Minoan Greek gods, was never a stranger when he arrived, and being new and charismatic absorbed many of these into his mythos as he integrated locally. Thus Dionysos had many 'local forms'. Accordingly his cult spread like wildfire.

The ruling class in many nations were alarmed by this. Not only was it disruptive and stirring the population, but Dionysos was also a God who (like Shiva) traditionally favoured the common folk, the nomad and the outsider over the traditional, conventional and dominant. Dionysian teaching (preserving ancient custom) taught not only social unity and the affirmation of nature, but also the rejection of hierarchy and exclusion, and a disrespect for law and convention. In particular it favoured the wild, the rebellious and the outlawed (in one old tale Dionysos becomes the patron of Etruscan pirates after being kidnapped by them). Everything that was excluded from the civilised world found sanctuary in Dionysos.

At first rulers unable (or unwilling) to prevent the flow of wine into their country, attempted to suppress the cult associated with it. The result is described in the legends of Lycurgos and Penteus, rulers torn apart in Dionysian frenzy by their own people.

Operating on the principle of "if you can't met them join them" their solution was to associate Dionysos with monarchy and recuperate the cult. In many cultures the King was seen as an incarnation of the tribal god or deity of the land. The Minoans (like the Egyptians with Osiris) had realised Dionysos, the Bull God, was the perfect form for this (especially as the Dionysian tradition promoted belief in various forms if incarnation and reincarnation) and declared him a manifestation of Sovereignty. The Greeks (and other neighbouring peoples) adopted this idea and so the regal Dionysos became a ruler archetype and patron of tradition and tribal interest. This later connection is preserved in the legend of Penteus, here the royal victim's name, meaning "the man of suffering", is an old title of Dionysos, thus the myth also seems to incorporate an ancient tradition of ritual regicide.

This recuperation had some effect but only a limited one (mainly on the aristocracy), and most continued to worship Dionysos the old way. But it did mean that the next ruling class of traders were indoctrinated with their own aristocratic Dionysianism.

The Oligarchs also learnt from the Minoans, but there response was far more sophisticated, attempting to channel Dionysianism in official, 'rebellious' Dionysia in which people could blow off steam. This was partly successful, and was repeated ever after around the world, though tensions always remained and occasionally got out of hand (eventually leading to the development of rival, State sponsored carnivals, such as the Roman Saturnalia). A worse perversion of Dionysianism though was the foundation in Greece of the Pharmakos, a city ritual in which outsiders and misfits were sacrificed to Dionysos as scapegoats. Speculatively, the only positive result of the recuperation of Dionysos may have been the foundation of Athenian Democracy by Oligarchs seeking public appeasement.

A later clash was with the Greek rationalist tradition. Many philosophers were dismayed at the irrationalism and decadence of the Dionysians, treating them with scorn. A few, such as Antisthenes, a disciple of Socrates, secretly converted to Dionysianism but this was very rare. Others, notably Heraclitus, while publicly attacking Dionysianism, reconstituted much of its developed conceptions in their Philosophy. But most opposed their 'foreign' ideas. Notable exceptions to this rule were Pythagoras and the arch rationalist Plato himself, who openly acknowledged Dionysian ideas. The latter in the Phaedrus talks of 'knowledge' achieved through Dionysian ecstasy, and elsewhere he describes (moderately) hedonistic symposiums, a tradition he associates with Dionysos. But their Dionysianism is of the later Orphic kind (see below) rather than authentic Dionysianism. On the whole most civilised Greeks were uncomfortable with this God of abandon and excess (even if many were often secretly fascinated by him).

Due to all of these influences the Dionysos of the mainland subsequently became a very watered down Wine God (as did the wine itself). Particularly in Athens where the cult was State sponsored. Despite a spectacular ritual of Minoan origin in which the Athenian Queen once mated with the sacred Bull (an incarnation of Dionysos), Athenian Dionysianism became very tame. The Bull marriage under Democracy becoming merely symbolic ritual involving the 'Queen' and the city's Archon.

In Athens the Dionysian excesses were described as 'cathartic' (rather than affirmative) and the myths of Dionysos' life were modified into a morality tale where the wayward hero 'sows his wild oats', sees the error of his early life, and becomes 'spiritually wise' when older. Earlier the opposite has been recounted, with a spirited, wild youth eventually going into decline when old. A much more realistic version!

In addition to this the related emergence of Orphism had a similar effect. Though at least the Orphics contributed some interesting metaphysics to the Dionysian Mysteries.

However on the remoter Greek islands, and away from urban life the Dionysians continued with their ancient rites, largely unaffected by this domestication, and in other mainland cities, such as Thebes, even though still relatively domesticated, Dionysos retained more of his spunkier nature than he did in Athens.

One mainland sanctuary for a wilder Dionysos was in rural Arcadia. Here as a goat god he integrated well with his local cousin, the Great Pan (an indigenous Lord of the Animals), the rustic and nomadic Hermes (his equivalent amongst the Achaean shepherds), guardian of Arcadia (before he got a job in the city as a messenger), and their company of Satyr's, Sileni, Silvani and Centaurs (and their chiefs). All of whom became part of the Dionysian family and mythos. Interestingly Pan was not absorbed into Dionysos (or Hermes) and retained his independence as a companion, indicating the strength of his cult in Arcadia. A similar relationship would be formed in Asia Minor with Priapus. It was in this milieu that many of the Greek Dionysian myths would evolve.
 

One interesting development that appears to have begun in Greece is the role women assumed in the cult. While in Minoan Crete the cult had almost certainly been administered by men, in Greece women became the chief instigators within it. Why this happened is uncertain, but it was probably related to the repression and exclusion of women in Athenian society, and the patriarchal nature of the official religions, which scorned the Dionysians. Women were attracted to Dionysos, the patron of the excluded, and most unpatriarchal of all the deities. His ancient androgynous and hermaphrodite aspects (reflecting the unity of the 'male' and 'female' archetypes in his cult) were very prominent in ancient Athens. While the untamed, masculine Dionysos also had his appeals. For the Greeks this was a new development, however it resonated with the most ancient roots of Dionysos, the Hunting Youth, whose cult was a matriarchal one, and archetypal connections were no doubt activated.

This saw the rise not only of the initiating High Priestess but also the Maenad. Dionysian orgies in Greece became characterized by the Maenads, or 'mad women', the most wild and frenzied participants in the Bacchanal. King Pentheus, an early repressor of the Dionysians was torn apart by Maenads, including his own mother, driven mad in her struggle to resist the cult! Madness was the traditional fate of those who rejected the Dionysiac, and death that of those who stood in its way.

While the Athenian influence had a dampening effect on the cult, another influence, from Thrace had precisely the opposite effect. The peoples of Thrace and Phrygia worshiped a local form of the old God, here called Sabazios. Sabazios was one of the most primitive Gods known in the classical age. Represented as a rustic in a Phrygian cap, and symbolized by the Bull and Serpent (and all reptilians), as well as Corn and the Ox Plough, Sabazios was God of Life and Death, Vitality and the Thunderstorm. Despite being an agricultural God, he preserved a very ancient tradition, descended from Asiatic shamanism, his cult retaining regular human sacrifice (and even cannibalism!) till quite late. Like Shiva he was imagined to be surrounded by ferocious animal spirits and vampires (some have even suggested that the Balkan tradition of vampirism and werewolvery derives from displaced Thracians. Certainly the infamous Vlad Dracul, associated by some with vampirism, made great use of pagan dragon and serpent symbolism. The ''dark side of the force" perhaps?)

Sabazios would have an enormous impact on the mythology of Asia Minor and the Balkans. Often associated with Cybele (and her colourless consort Attis), bull sacrifices would be dedicated to both, in which initiates would bathe in the blood of the victim. While initially associated with a primeval Zeus by Greeks, when the cults of Sabazios and Dionysos met they would become permanently entwined. Each God influencing the subsequent development of the other. Dionysos-Sabazios soon became the primary God of the eastern Aegean. Many Greeks keen to disown Dionysos (despite his presence in Achaean times) declared that he was a foreign God brought to Greece from Thrace or Phrygia. A fantasy believed even by F W Otto (once the foremost Dionysos scholar) and J G Frazer in his classic Golden Bough.

On the Greek Isles close to Asia Minor human sacrifices to Dionysos-Sabazios were common place. Victims being hung on a tree and dismembered. Memories of these are preserved in the slaughtered Ikarios and Erigone's suicidal hanging. It is uncertain if the Primitive Dionysos cult, while bloody, involved deliberate human sacrifice. But in the eastern Aegean victims were promised deified status and a rebirth in an earthly paradise. Eventually though sacrifice was ('mercifully') restricted to children, and finally to small animals.

The dual influence of the Athenian Dionysos, from the west, and Dionysos-Sabazios, from the east, stabilized the Dionysian archetype in most places and prevented it from degenerating towards either extreme. Ironically, an example of the dialectical process found in the Dionysian Mysteries themselves. This Classic Dionysos also had a gradual reforming effect on both the extreme forms. In time a 'civilized' Sabazios would even have a temple in Athens. Within the Mysteries (away from Athens and Asia Minor) a more complex Dionysos would emerge with distinct elements of both extremes.

This more complex Dionysos was more restrained, but this didn't mean he was reduced to domestication like his Athenian counterpart. He maintained a restrained wildness that still smouldered. A controlled Dionysos was able to channel his powers better, and the archetype became more sophisticated, acting as a model for a healthier and more productive psyche and new ways of working with nature. This attracted more thoughtful and creative followers to his ranks. In this development he could be referred to as the Hellenic Dionysos. The Muses were once the agents of this Dionysos, and he would always be remembered as their father in one myth.

This evolution also occurred in India with Shiva. Here a new aspect of Shiva emerged his power of control over his own raw power. This became represented as his other Shakti, the loyal Parvati. In time this aspect split away with dissident followers and became independent as Vishnu (becoming male in the process, as was fitting in a patriarchy). Vishnu became the very opposite of Shiva, a controlled, centred power seeking harmony and order, but at the same time still really a part of him as a creative and dynamic force (more detail on this can be found in Danielou).

A similar process appears to have occurred with the Classical Dionysos. Apollo emerges either from Apollyon (Destroyer), originally an obscure epithet of a violent Dionysos, or 'Apple-Man' another Dionysian title related to his connection with orchards and cider. But the classical Apollo (possibly forming around late 8^th cent) as an independent god is the Greek equivalent of Vishnu, taking over Dionysos' role as master of the Muses, patron of artists and summer god of Delphi. With the added qualification of being a defeater of serpents and dragons (the untamed powers of Dionysos). Apollo clearly emerges from Dionysos and is essentially an aspect of him in many ways. The same is more obviously true with a similar earlier development in another area society, the emergence of the Smith God Hephaestus, the deity of metal workers and craftsmen, from an older Neolithic Bull God (his lameness is described as the 'bull-foot". Lameness was also associated with the Drunken Dionysos with the unbalanced gait, a trait also observed in Shaman).

Perhaps this Apollonian development also took place via a goddess linked to Dionysos. If so she has been lost (though interestingly the classical Greek Ariadne was described as a weaver and bride, like Parvati). This archetype may have been absorbed into Athena (who was also connected with Hephaestus), thus explaining her gradual development from a Warrior Goddess to an archetype of Creativity, Craft and Wisdom. It may be relevant to these speculations that while traditionally the unifying power that reunites the fragments of Dionysos is the Great Goddess, in some alternative tales Apollo or Athena represent this power of reunification.

Within the later Dionysian Mysteries the Classic Dionysos and Apollo would become opposing forces, with harmony emerging from their dialectical interaction. Both were seen by higher initiates as being essentially part of one being, the Hellenic Dionysos. The Apollonian phase was in many ways necessary to counter the anti-individual, merging nature of Dionysian consciousness. A parallel interaction in culture would produce western civilisation and the modern individual.

This dualistic concept was even passed on to Robert Fludd (in a distorted form), who says "the archetypal sun (the source of all life) has two forms, Apollo, of the light and creative, and Dionysos, of the darkness and destructive, but both are one god".

Many of the practises of the cult were carried out within the Dionysian Mysteries. Where primitive Dionysians saw things in terms of an endless cycle of life and death without meaning, their rites having a practical purpose for them. The Dionysian Mysteries developed in Crete around the idea of an evolutionary cycle of opposition. Their practises had an esoteric purpose which had to be kept secret.

What these practises were is still unknown to most. But they were broadly of two types a sexual mystery and a death mystery. The first involved ritual sex between participants (embodying Dionysos and Ariadne), plus various 'illicit' sexual activity and 'taboo breaking'. It also no doubt preserved a form of western Tantricism. The latter involved the mysteries of death and rebirth. In Dionysianism life was indestructible, its vessels could be broken up, but it merely returned somewhere else. This could either be interpreted as natural regeneration or more mystically as reincarnation. Previous to this death was seen as a dissolution of life, with only the possible exception of the monarch who became a god. However similar beliefs were held in India by Shivaics, indicating the belief was either a very old one that had been lost, or one that inevitably followed from certain ancient premises and exchanged ideas. An important part of the death mysteries was the ritual death and rebirth of the initiate, familiar from later cults. In the late Roman version of these the candidate was terrorised in underground caverns (in a Roman version of a ghost train ride) before being sealed in a tomb and left for a long incubatory period. Following this the initiate was said to be a changed person. The process is similar to modern sensory deprivation and ancient shamanic techniques.

All the practises were designed to produce altered states of consciousness. An important part of which was the awakening in the initiate of both their divine and bestial natures. Which for the original Dionysians were equivalent. In this state the initiate was believed to become immortal.

The Dionysians also emphasised a kind of stoicism in these practices. A virtue exemplified for them in the figure of Hercules who they adopted from Greek myth.
Other rituals also existed for the acceptance of candidates for the various 'degrees' of the Mysteries, and official positions in them. The first and last stages of an initiation of a candidate is shown on the muraled walls of the preserved "Villa of the Mysteries" in Pompeii.

 
The Mysteries were organized into local groups called the Thiasos, or Family. Each one was overseen by a High Priestess (Matrona or Domina) and the High Initiate (Archemystes or Dominus), with various functionaries assisting them, most importantly the Bearer of the Sacred Phallus (a priestess), the Sileni (masters of ceremony), the Boukouloi (or cattle-herders) and the Heros, who took on the role of Dionysos. Dramatic reenactment being a key part of the Mysteries.

Crowley, who believed Dionysos and Pan to be manifestations of his 'Great Beast' and guiding spirits of the Age of Horus, thought that Ritual Magick was of two basic types (excluding the Devotional practises of the Mystic). One was Ceremonial, the other Dramatic, the Magick of the Rehearsal mentioned by Agrippa. A more 'Enthusiastic' form of the Theurgy of the Osirian Mysteries. He claimed this form of Magick was one of the secrets of the Dionysians - surviving in the Bacchae of Euripides (a Dionysian initiate), Egyptian Neo-Platonism and Indo-Tibetan tradition (once again revealing the Dionysiac trinity of Shiva-Dionysos-Osiris). Unfortunately Crowley seems to have been more familiar with the Orphic Dionysos than this 'bestial' one and so didn't fully exploit the mythos, though he was well aware of the Aissawa Sect.

In public the Dionysian cult was the organiser of great festivals, carnivals and the occasional orgy. While these varied in their extremes at various periods and places in history, they were always relatively wild and licentious. They were usually timed to the ritual Dionysian calendar. In early times this paralleled the viticultural cycle. With wine harvesting, fermenting, tasting and planting festivals. The mythic life of Dionysos followed the fate of the vine and wine. Being cut down and dismembered, buried in the ground, then resurrected. Viticultural rituals were held in the open, or in a 'temple' in the form of a wine cellar (one of which commemorated Dionysos' ability to turn water into wine, later plagiarized by a lesser cult). Dionysian philosophy also used this symbolism. The wine of the first tasting was only partly fermented. It had unpredictable effects, and was described as a Pharmakon, a word with the deliberately ambiguous meaning of medicine or poison. The term was later extended to any drug, poison or enchanting potion (all of which later became part of the Dionysian cultus).

Later the calendar was mostly synchronised with the traditional cycle of the year, with Dionysos born at the Winter Solstice (time of the first exploratory wine tasting) and dominating the winter period (particularly at Delphi where he presided over the Oracle at this time). In early Spring he 'married' and by the Spring Equinox he had died and become Lord of the Underworld, or had departed on his many nomadic adventures around the world.
 

It was at the Equinox that his largest festival, the Great Dionysia, was held. This commenced with the original Carnival, named due to the presence of Dionysos' ship (Car Naval) and other 'ships' (or 'floats') in the wild procession of the god and his company.

Other events over the day long festival included Feasts, Dances, Games and Theatre. The latter being masked re-enactments of the Dionysian mythos, the first tragic plays, or Tragodia (Goat Songs), and the origin of Drama. Most popularly however were the Comedies, entertainment's developed from the Komos, an intoxicated celebration when peasants and slaves - who were officially free at Dionysia - disguised themselves as fools (the origin of clowning), partied and ran into the wealthy, ruling class districts mocking and playing tricks (sometimes violently) on the inhabitants (the Trickster archetype being an important aspect of the old Neolithic god). The Comedy was always centred on the idea of the mockery of the ruling class, city laws, social conventions and 'civilised customs'.
 

On the mainland the more orgiastic Bacchanalias were confined to the mountains at night, where pyres were lit. Here Maenads let loose, raved and tossed snakes around, while revellers, usually disguised as Satyr's and Nymphs (the latter including some males) drank and unwound to the rhythms of drum and pipe, and dancers dressed as Sileni whirled and contorted. As at most of the events many were masked, an ancient Dionysian tradition going back to the horned mask of the Neolithic Bull Cult.

Despite eventually loosing some of its early debauchery and riotous associations (and seeing poisonous snakes replaced with pet ones!) many commentators recorded that the practice of tearing a sacrificial animal apart and eating it raw was retained even in the cults 'tamest' period (apparently being seen as linked to the dismemberment of Dionysos, and the vine and necessary for a good wine yield). Goats were often sacrificed to Dionysos, being seen as both one of his 'incarnations' and favoured animals (naturally 'pruning' the vine after the harvest), but also an enemy in spring (when it might eat the new shoots). This was the original story of the Tragodia.

Other cycles and festivals existed elsewhere, there were no rules in the Dionysian cult and the calendar of the period was not yet exact. One popular alternative was the Cretan Trieteric Cycle, where Dionysos was alternatingly celebrated and mourned each year. Partly the role of mourning in Dionysianism is to heighten the later ecstasy (oscillation between highs and lows are known to induce ecstatic states). However there was always a tragic and serious counter trend in Dionysianism, as manifest in the mourning at the tomb preserved by the Aissawa, and culminating in Greek Tragedy. The emphasis of this aspect varied according to cultural and historical conditions, but it always existed as sobering connection with the less pleasant side of life.

Unlike many religions which sort to supply an escape route from real life, or justify the existing order, the Dionysian cult was always connected to the realities of existence. This even manifest in a socio-political form were the Dionysians deployed a sharp critique of 'civilised' society. As Eleuthoros, the liberator, Dionysos was not only God of the ecstatic liberation of the Great Dionysia, but also human liberation in the widest sence. In this he was identified with the licentious fertility god of ancient Campania, Liber, favoured by many ordinary Etruscans and Romans (and particularly the slaves). His festival, the Liberalia, while much less orgiastic than the Dionysia shared many features with it, and was known as the "Feast of the Free Ones". It would later be partly absorbed into the Dionysian cult of Pompeii (c200BC - 79BC). Liber later absorbed features of Dionysos and became the god of the vine and viticulture. His torch bearing consort Libera, became an archetype of freedom (later manifest in the Statue of Liberty).

The Etruscan foundation of Roman civilisation was fertile soil for Dionysos. Rome inherited much of its decadent reputation from the infamously hedonistic Etruscans. When not attacking Dionysos Greek intellectuals would turn on the Etruscans as prime examples of a shockingly debauched civilisation. Much of this was vastly exaggerated but Etruscan culture (possibly related to the Phrygian, but also showing Minoan influence) was, as later celebrated by D H Lawrence, the most aristocratically libertarian and wildly pagan of all the Mediterranean civilisations.
 
VERTUMNUS,  Roman/Etruscan Tree Deity

Many of their gods appear Dionysian, but records are sparse and it is unknown if Dionysos himself was prominent in their culture (apart from his Greek association with Etruscan pirates). Though Liber was certainly well known to southern Etruscans. In  Northern Etruria Vertumnus (The Changer), a tree god, included the vineyards in his domain.

Etruscan civilisation was in part destroyed by a slave revolt (despite being known for an aristocratic love of freedom, or perhaps because of it, they were renowned for their aggression and cruelty to their slaves and prisoners), however the background to this is unknown.

Most Dionysians did not choose an openly confrontational stance with the establishment. Strictly following the Tao-like Dionysian teaching of ''going with the flow", when its radical manifestations were challenged they either withdrew deeper into the countryside or (like their Shivaic brothers in the east) 'dropped out', seeking to transcend the evils of civilisation (the most extreme of these influencing the first Cynics) or even, as perhaps the first ascetic Orphics (and Shivaic Yogis), rejecting the earthly world itself.

However a unique feature of Dionysianism was to become manifest in the urban cult. Here, especially amongst those organised into Mystery schools, a positive and more confrontational stance began to emerge as well as utopian ambitions. An organised campaign against tyranny and the established order soon began. Alas, in 186BC in Roman Italy (the focus of the militant faction) authorities whipped up an anti-Dionysian campaign, tainting them as depraved perverts and decadents. Soon draconian laws were passed, many were arrested and thousands executed (including the 'ringleaders' who were described as a Campanian aristocrat, a Faliscan and four Roman plebeians). Dionysianism in Rome then began to be recuperated and was treated to a process of emasculation (eventually into the cult of Bacchus), while the traditionalists went underground, further radicalised by their persecution. The campaign went on in secret (strangely mirroring the development of militant Taoist secret societies in China around the same time), and the 'Dionysian Brotherhood' appears to have become the world's first 'international revolutionary network'. A similar group seems to have existed in Sicily, based within the Mystery Cult of Mithras, which organised slave revolts (and the term Ma-Fia has speculatively been translated as 'Son's of the Mother', possibly referring to Atagartis, the mother of Mithras, favoured by the Sicilian cultists), unfortunately this acquired a radical monarchist, authoritarian ethos rather than a populist one. Although links between this group and the Campanian Dionysians is evident in a subsequent attempted slave revolt there in 100BC. The campaign reached its height in 73BC with a great 'spontaneous' slave revolt. Its leader, Sparticus, a Thracian gladiator, whose slave bride was a 'Dionysian prophetess', was declared by her to be the herald of an age of Dionysos, when a snake coiled around his head as he slept. Escaping soon after, the pair became the focal point of the revolt. Along with the gladiatorial comrade of Sparticus, Crixus, an ex Gaulish Chieftain. Intriguingly the first place they occupied was the crater of Vesuvius where they set up a base. Sparticus was also influenced somewhat by the Essenic Judaism of the Jewish slaves in his army, and while occupying Calabria (having failed to lead the Slaves back to their homelands as he originally intended), planned to build a new City (the City of the Sun) which was to be socially free, while economically communistic. Following the defeat of Sparticus in 71BC the network disappears from history, its fate unknown (though five hundred years later British 'kinsmen' of Crixus would be again causing trouble in Italy and Sicily, this time under the cover of the Celtic Church!). Sparticus and his army were either killed in battle or crucified (six thousand of them along the Apian way).

Mention of Dionysos wouldn't be complete without reference to Orphism. In the 7^th Century BC a revolution occurred in the Dionysian Mysteries. Though not an entirely positive one. Changes in culture led to a turning away from nature by many initiates. The effect of this was what could be termed the Dionysian Reversal, though it had probably developed gradually as a 'heresy' within the Mysteries (the Dionysian initiations seem to have encouraged an open interpretation of their mythos and practises, rather than promoted dogma). However from the 7^th Century an identifiable Orphic teaching separate from, and hostile to, mainstream Dionysianism emerged. While centred on Dionysos, and preserving the outer forms of Dionysianism, it preached the 'transcendence of the material world'. A process to be achieved by cathartic Orgiasm and sexual ecstasy. Though this would gradually be moderated and a more austere Apollonian asceticism would inevitably begin to replace it for most.

Orphism on the other hand did provide late Dionysianism with some productive metaphysical ideas and provided a Trojan horse for many Crypto-Dionysians to hide in in the post-Dionysian age.

But other influences would soon follow. The most significant for us being St Paul's invention of Christianity. As is well known Saul succeeded in neutralising the revolutionary faith of the Nazareans and Zealots (primarily Judaic sects) by cleverly fusing it with his own Hellenized ideas (having seen similar Hellenic traits already present), and thus turning it into a unworldly, apolitical religion glorifying suffering. What is less well known is that Saul's ideas were almost entirely derived from Orphism, into which he had been initiated. The name Jesus (not the name of the Nazarean prophet he was modelled on) being Iesuos, a Greek name derived from Iasios, an epithet of Dionysos and a name given to his initiates. Perhaps this was a clue for Gentiles in the know. However this whole area is very complex and beyond the scope of this essay.

More important for Dionysians is a parallel trend to this. Orphism in a purer form would fuse naturally with emerging religious ideas such as Neo-Platonism - producing Hermeticism; with Christianity - producing Gnosticism; and eventually with Islam - producing Sufism. These survivals, and others like them, also became carriers for other pagan traditions that had clustered round the Orphics and Neo-Platonists, including purer forms of the Dionysian.

Most also preserved the essence of the original Nazarean message that spirituality was a part of everyone's existence, not just an elite or members of a Mystery cult.

Dionysianism proper would eventually all but die out in the West, with paganism in general, or more accurately be suppressed with it. Surviving only for a little while longer in a corrupted form in the aristocratic cults of Serapis and the Hellenic Sabazius (against which the Gnostics rebelled), or as Pater Liber and his consort, mutated by the Romans into archetypes of the phoney liberty granted by the State.

However it did achieve a partial survival, as a living tradition, in remote communities; more formally in secret pagan traditions; or in spirit in overt ones like Carnival. But surprisingly its most influential survival was within Gnosticism and Sufism. While these were primarily 'Orphic', radically 'heretical' strains of a more Dionysian nature existed within them for a long time (most strikingly in the Aissawa). Islamic mystical poets, such as Omar Khayyam, also preserved a Dionysian spirit, as did the wine and hashish cults of Persia. While many Ophitic Gnostics sounded like an almost direct continuation of the Dionysians.

In particular a Dionysian social radicalism would be passed on in many of these currents (and onto heretical Christian and Islamic sects influenced by them).

Later something close to Dionysianism would be openly resurrected from these currents by the anarchist nature mystic William Blake. Whose philosophy embodied Dionysiac ideas and whose poetry captured its spirit (particularly the "The Tyger"). Blake's Dionysiac message would inspire a whole new radical movement in Britain.

Meanwhile of course the Eastern equivalents of Dionysianism continued in an evolving form in India and China, as Shivaic Tantrism and Taoism respectively.

But Dionysos as an archetype transcends even religion. From the 19^th century onwards a secular Dionysianism, which might be called the Radical Dionysiac, arose amongst artists and philosophers. This started perhaps with Nietzsche who declared himself a new Dionysian, though the term was already in confused usage amongst the German late Romantics (influenced it appears by Masonic 'Orphism'). Contrasting the archetype and morality of Dionysos with that of Christ, which he believed had ruined western culture and created a world of slaves, Nietzsche called for a radical review of all values. A view he partly acquired from the Left Hegelian poet Heine, who had ridiculed the Romantic "Dionysians" who tried to link Dionysos and Christ, and promoted an authentically pagan and mephistophelean Dionysos.

Nietzsche's existentialist philosophy, in part a modern reworking of late Dionysian ideas, owed a lot to the earlier German Romantic movement (partly inspired by Blake) and the Hegelians, who developed the basic Heraclitean concept of the Dialectic. The Left Hegelians would also inspire a new wave of revolutionary politics, manifest variously as 19th century Nihilism, Continental anarchism and early Marxism.

Nietzsche, as one of the first proponents of the concept of a libidinous subconscious and psychological rationalisations, would also seed the theory of Psychoanalysis - which itself, in the modified Jungian mode, would later emphasise the "Dionysian Psyche".
 

However less rationalised ideas, even closer to original Dionysianism, would be manifest by artists and bohemians influenced both by this 'new philosophy' and a current which extended back to Rabelais and de Sade (and other reactions to Christian oppression). This was particularly true of the Romantics, Symbolists and Decedents of the Fin de Siecle. Taking their cue from Baudelaire, who called for an extension to the limits of nature, an "enlarging of the boundless", they developed a distinctly Dionysian perspective (though often preferring drugs and absinthe to wine). Most obviously so in the writing of Rachilde, such as "The Panther'' and "The Grape Gatherers of Sodom", which like many Decadent writings highlighted the darker side of the Dionysiac. Painting also was influenced by this movement, taking on decadently mythic themes, though some of its proponents later adopted a more abstract Dionysianism, best manifest in the short lived Orphist Movement (a combination of Cubism and Futurism). While sometimes over nihilistic, or tainted by Orphic and Manichean tendencies, this philosophy embodied a genuine spirituality. One powerful manifestation of which was in the work of the English Decadent, Arthur Machen, both an artist and occultist, who was to profoundly influenced by esoterically minded 'fauns', such as Oscar Wilde, and in turn influenced fellow members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, especially their wayward disciple Aleister Crowley.

The next generation of avant garde bohemians would take the ideas of the decadent Symbolists and stripping them of their Platonistic pretensions (under the influence of Dada as much as contemporary philosophy) would create what became known as Surrealism. Influenced by dream imagery, mythology, magick and psychoanalysis (particularly the Jungian archetypes theory), they would redefine the Dionysian for the 20th Century. "This age has lost its passion" declared Artaud, "it needs blood and fire". Despite retaining this fierce drive, they also added a dreamlike, intoxicated hedonism to the negative aesthetic of the earlier generation. Often assisted by modern advancements in narcotics and psychedelics. They would also fire up the old political imperative of their ancestors, often tainted with a lifeless Marxism, but unable to contain the Bacchanalian fire within it. Dionysos Eleuthoros would return with a vengeance. This would reach its peak with the Situationist inspired revolt in France, in May 68. Fired by an attitude that - quoting Norman O Brown - the Situationist Vaneigem would call the emergence of a new "Dionysian Consciousness". Or as their founder Debord would put it "the Revolution would be a Carnival or it will not happen at all!"

It was from the social repercussions of this stream that contemporary counter-culture would develop. A culture that has always been rooted in spontaneity, music, dance, sex, revolution, altered consciousness and a pagan spirit in a variety of forms (whether it be the Dionysian Raves of the 80's, 70's Punk rebellion or the 60's Psychedelia - and the lives, and deaths, of its self confessed "Dionysians" like Jim Morrison).

Today this current is still strong and taking on older Dionysian concerns as we enter 'post-modernity'. The Neo-Dionysia of the Dance Club, the 'Living Grapevine' of Cyberspace and the 'New Spirituality' of the Millennium are all signs of the times.

Contemporary philosophers influenced by this 'post-modern' stream are self consciously Dionysian. From Deleuzian Nomadology, through the Carnivalesque politics of Kristeva, to Derrida's Pharmikon we have a Dionysian milieu ostensibly rooted in Nietzsche but in reality in something far older. As the Post Modern critic Ihab Hassan (author of the classic, "The Dismemberment of Orpheus") puts it "Dionysos and Eros are both agents of change. First, The Bacchae, the destruction of the city, then the Metamorphoses, the mischievous variation of nature."

As Dionysians of today we work with all such contemporary currents, seek to reawaken many of the other traditions mentioned, and aim to reunite the fragments of Dionysos.

Further Reading

Dionysos, Archetype of Indestructible Life, Carl Kerenyi.

Gods of Love and Ecstasy, Dionysos & Shiva, Danielou.

Dionysos, Myth and Cult, W F Otto.

Dionysos at Large/Dionysos Slain, Detienne.

The Dionysiac Mysteries, Nilsson.

Archaic Roman Religion, Dumezil.

The Masks of God, Joseph Campbell.

The Golden Bough, J G Frazer.

William Blake, Visionary Anarchist, P Marshall.

The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche.

The Greeks and the Irrational, Dodds.

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