Studies on Thracian Religion. III. Secret Societies

Abstract

Secret societies are important components of Thracian religion. In general, closed male organizations are conventionally distinguished as religious and political. They reveal the duality in the understanding of Thracian Orphism. While political alliances are characterized by a high intellectual level, where mysticism and philosophy merge, and enthusiasm serves as the primary means of achieving complete unity with the god and nature, religious societies expose the possibility of a complete profanation of these ideas, reducing them through asceticism to elementary magical actions. Attention is also given to exclusively female organizations, which are deeply imbued with the religion of Dionysus, as well as to those societies directly linked to the idea of eternal rebirth, which connects them to the religion of the Mother Goddess. Essentially, secret societies examine the fundamental problem of human destiny on different spiritual levels, culminating in the idea of immortality, which has been conservatively preserved in the depths of time.