Like the goddess Demeter, Diotima from Mantineia, the prophetess who teaches Socrates about eros and the "rites of love" in Plato's Symposium, was a mystagogue who initiated individuals into her mysteries, mediating to human’s esoteric knowledge of the divine. The dialogue, including Diotima's speech, contains religious and mystical language, some of which specifically evokes the female-centered yearly celebrations of Demeter at Eleusis. … Plato borrowed Eleusinian language because it criticized conventional notions of the divine, thereby allowing him to reimagine the possibilities for the philosophical process among humans.
Nancy Evans, Diotima and Demeter as Mystagogues in Plato's Symposium
“The highest stage of initiation—the epopteia, a vision, a special state of seeing—was received.” Plato, Symposium
The third-level initiates at Eleusis were called epopteia, those who see, and in my novel Eleusis, they see visions from eating a mushroom wafer – the precursor to taking communion in the Catholic church. Primary sources say the ritual consisted of things heard, things handled (or tasted) and things seen. Since it took 18 months to become eligible for the third level, it could not be accomplished in one’s first ceremony. It’s likely that epopteia were the only ones admitted to the Greater Mystery. Scholars have assumed that everyone participated in the Pannychris, the all-night revels of feasting and drinking and all-day contests of sport, but it is quite possible that the level three initiates were being prepared for a whole different experience at that time. We know there were dietary restrictions, as is common with psychedelics, but perhaps they didn’t apply to levels one and two. Those levels were partying. During the 8th night, they wore saffron colored bands on a wrist and an ankle to differentiate them from the others, because the unprepared were not even allowed in the theater.
All initiates at Eleusis were called mystes, and we know that at least some consulted with a teacher called a mystagogue. Since three thousand people a year attended, it seems pretty impossible they all had such personal attention. Perhaps only the level three initiates, the epopteia, had this kind of guidance, because those who see were the only ones who needed it. Everyone else was attending a theater party. The level one and two initiates were wrapped up in the outer layers of the story working their way toward the heart of the heart, becoming epopteia -the inmost layer of the Greater Mystery.
In the novel, the system of consulting with a mystagogue is the way officials at Eleusis maintain such a strong control of the mindset that primed participants to have an experience of the divine. Modern research with psychedelics has shown that people are far more likely to have an experience like this if they are primed beforehand to do so. Perhaps the whole experience was precisely controlled, which is one reason why it took eighteen months to qualify for participation in the third level. By all reports, it was a profound experience, one the early church abhorred.
Slowly, the therapeutic use of teacher plants is coming back into acceptance. A growing body of research shows that it can be much more effective than any other approach we know. The ancient role of mystagogue seems similar to the way people today consult with an integration therapist before and after an experience of a mind-altering drug as a way to create a container for a really huge experience. It’s quite possible that this experience is the only truly effective means we have to address the layers and layers of trauma and PTSD caused by thousands of years of patriarchal oppression, and the racial and religious violence etched into our souls. Perhaps one day soon it will be legal for people who suffer to go to a modern-day mystagogue and receive the soul initiation and visions that make one epopteia – those who see.