Please note October's discussion is a follow up to September's discussion.
Topic:
September's discussion was on The Ritual Path of Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries
October 26th, 2025, Members only Online Discussion Demeter and Persephone
5.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.
Source Material:
September's source material: Keller, E. (2021). The Eleusinian mysteries. Rosicrucian Digest, 99(1), 21–33. Ancient
Mysteries.
https://cac45ab95b3277b3fdfd-31778daf558bdd39a1732c0a6dfa8bd4.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/07_keller.pdf
October's source material: https://cac45ab95b3277b3fdfd-31778daf558bdd39a1732c0a6dfa8bd4.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/02_spretnak.pdf
Article Summary, Demeter and Persephone
The author reconstructs goddess mythologies and explores the revival of nature-based spirituality, by uncovering pre-patriarchal strata of matrifocal myth and culture
Ancient myths have been altered over time, portraying women—like Pandora—as divine punishments and inherently harmful to men.
Demeter is the Grain-Mother, the giver of crops. Her origins are Cretan.
The rituals were preserved in pure form down to the late days and were left almost uncontaminated by Olympian usage. They emerged later in the most widely influential of all Greek rituals, the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Demeter brought crops and initiation rites to Attica, offering participants hopeful visions of life’s end. The seventh-century Homeric Hymn to Demeter narrates the origins of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
The tale became famous as “The Rape of Persephone,” who was carried off to the underworld and forced to become the bride of Hades. The later Olympian myth of Persephone’s abduction contrasts with earlier traditions, where no reference to rape appears in Demeter’s cult or its antecedents."
Archaeological evidence affirms Diodorus’s claim of Egyptian influence on Greek myth via Crete, linking Hades to Isis and Demeter. Isis, Queen of the Underworld, parallels Demeter, whose antecedents include Gaia. As ‘Demeter Chthonia,’ she governed life and death, not only did she bring all things to life, but when they died, she received them back into her bosom.
Early Greek tradition viewed goddesses in both maiden (Kore) and mature (Demeter) forms, sharing roles as earth’s nurturer and underworld ruler; the maiden later became known as 'daughter.
Another theory posits Persephone—originally an indigenous underworld goddess of Attica—was later merged with Kore through the myth of abduction, forming a syncretic link shaped by northern invaders.
Though the pre-Olympian myth of Demeter and Persephone is fragmentary, surviving evidence helps reconstruct its ancient form—one that predates the father-son paradigm of Judeo-Christian tradition.
The author goes on to beautifully narrate the Myth of Demeter and Persephone. In the story, "On a hillside overlooking Demeter’s grain fields, Persephone speaks of encountering restless spirits during her wanderings—souls lingering near earthly homes, unseen yet sensed by mortals. She questions whether anyone in the underworld receives the newly dead." Persephone learns her mother is the one who has domain of the underworld, but her most important work is feeding the living. Persephone decides, despite her mother’s reluctance to go to the underworld as the dead need them. Demeter said to Persephone: “Very well. You are loving and giving and we cannot give only to Ourselves. I understand why you must go. Still, you are my daughter and for every day that you remain in the underworld, I will mourn your absence.”
In the underworld Persephone came upon thousands of spirits of the dead milled about aimlessly, hugging themselves, shaking their heads, and moaning in despair. For months Persephone received and renewed the dead without ever resting or even growing weary. All the while Her Mother Demeter remained disconsolate.
In her sorrow Demeter withdrew her power from the crops, the trees, the plants and the fields remained barren. She was consumed with loneliness and finally settled on a bare hillside waiting for Persephone. One morning, as a ring of purple crocus quietly pushed its way through the soil and surrounded Demeter, she was too weakened to feel rage at her injunction being broken. She heard them whisper in the warm breeze, “Persephone returns! Persephone returns!”
The earth had come back to life! The mortals saw everywhere the miracles of Demeter’s bliss and rejoiced in the new life of spring. Each winter they join Demeter in waiting through the bleak season of Her Daughter’s absence. Each spring they are renewed by the signs of Persephone’s return.