I was reading this just now and wondered if anyone here would support the idea that Dionysians were mystics.
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In order to understand the newer mysticism, as it also reveals itself in van Eeden, we must therefore return to Plotinus’ philosophy. But this in turn cannot be understood except in relation to Hellenistic culture, which died with Plotinus in his old age. We can devote only a view words to this connection.
In ancient Greece, the intuitive element was especially embodied in the dark, mystery cult of Dionysius, with its deeply pessimistic life- and worldview. In full view of the stately temples with their rows of white columns, and upon which the inner golden light of the evening sun still lingered, the Bacchanalians sang their dithyrambic songs, The motions of the faster and faster rhythm led their lithe, muscled limbs in an ever more wild and passionate dance, until in a climax of ecstasy, they were able to look into the depths of the pain of the world, and they screamed out their emotion in savage cries. Nietzsche has shown in his Geburt der Tragödie [The Birth of Tragedy] how foreign this ecstatic phenomenon was in comparison to the cultured Greek with his Apollonian religion of beauty. And yet such a Greek, deep in his soul, still felt a dim echo of this barbaric Dionysian song. That was the pessimistic undercurrent of his character, which spoke so strongly in the sayings of Silenus and which also lay at the basis of the great structure of tragedy. In order to suppress that pessimism, the Greek had to extend the veil of a beautiful dream, and therefore Mount Olympus had to be populated with all the glittering idealized human-gods. For this purpose, the luminous worship of Apollo made it’s appearance. But the pessimism, the Dionysian basic characteristic, remained preserved in the dark background of tragedy, where what is universally human sinks away into suffering.
Edit: It goes on to say...
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Therefore we can never know God by the dialectical path of thought; we can fathom the True only when all difference between thinking and being ceases, and only ecstasy can lead us to this. In ecstasy, having died to the impurity of the sensory world, reason beholds itself in complete unconsciousness. For deep in the soul is seated our intuition on the golden tripod, and by the welling up of the waves of incense from out of the dark Urgrund [Original Ground] of the heart, her eye is enlightened and she sees the Godhead in herself, and in the beholding [aanschouwing] of that vision, she sinks into great blessedness.
Neo-mystiek
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In order to understand the newer mysticism, as it also reveals itself in van Eeden, we must therefore return to Plotinus’ philosophy. But this in turn cannot be understood except in relation to Hellenistic culture, which died with Plotinus in his old age. We can devote only a view words to this connection.
In ancient Greece, the intuitive element was especially embodied in the dark, mystery cult of Dionysius, with its deeply pessimistic life- and worldview. In full view of the stately temples with their rows of white columns, and upon which the inner golden light of the evening sun still lingered, the Bacchanalians sang their dithyrambic songs, The motions of the faster and faster rhythm led their lithe, muscled limbs in an ever more wild and passionate dance, until in a climax of ecstasy, they were able to look into the depths of the pain of the world, and they screamed out their emotion in savage cries. Nietzsche has shown in his Geburt der Tragödie [The Birth of Tragedy] how foreign this ecstatic phenomenon was in comparison to the cultured Greek with his Apollonian religion of beauty. And yet such a Greek, deep in his soul, still felt a dim echo of this barbaric Dionysian song. That was the pessimistic undercurrent of his character, which spoke so strongly in the sayings of Silenus and which also lay at the basis of the great structure of tragedy. In order to suppress that pessimism, the Greek had to extend the veil of a beautiful dream, and therefore Mount Olympus had to be populated with all the glittering idealized human-gods. For this purpose, the luminous worship of Apollo made it’s appearance. But the pessimism, the Dionysian basic characteristic, remained preserved in the dark background of tragedy, where what is universally human sinks away into suffering.
Edit: It goes on to say...
______________
Therefore we can never know God by the dialectical path of thought; we can fathom the True only when all difference between thinking and being ceases, and only ecstasy can lead us to this. In ecstasy, having died to the impurity of the sensory world, reason beholds itself in complete unconsciousness. For deep in the soul is seated our intuition on the golden tripod, and by the welling up of the waves of incense from out of the dark Urgrund [Original Ground] of the heart, her eye is enlightened and she sees the Godhead in herself, and in the beholding [aanschouwing] of that vision, she sinks into great blessedness.
Neo-mystiek
