Orphism was a spiritualization of the original Dionysian rituals, which were of a much cruder nature. Orphism underlay a good bit of Greek philosophy. Plato cast into philosophical form many Orphic doctrines and in places in Plato's works the recasting is made explicit. Certain brotherhoods, such as the Pythagoreans, probably had an Orphic basis. Also, many aspects of Orphism had remarkable analogies to what later became Christian doctrine

The basic material of Orphism is found in the myth of Orpheus, which later became elaborated in more religious terms. Orpheus' playing of the lyre was said to be so enchanting he could charm wild beasts into serenity and even make trees and rocks move and follow his melodies. In short, his music was utterly irresistible, and it is a striking metaphor of the power of civilizing consciousness. The central story is that Orpheus' wife, Eurydice, was killed by a snake bite while fleeing the erotic advances of Aristaeusshe was a victim, that is, of primitive instinctual energies. Orpheus was overcome with despair at her loss and he descended to the Underworld to retrieve her. Through the powers of his music he charmed the hell-dog Cerberus and even temporarily suspended the tortures of the damned. He convinced Hades to let him take Eurydice back, with the important proviso that he must not look back at Eurydice, who would be following him, until they were both fully in the upper world. He did not quite manage it; he looked too soon and Eurydice was snatched back to the Underworld. Accounts vary as to what followed, but for one reason or another Orpheus was dismembered, apparently by a band of Maenads, and his head was thrown into a river where it continued to sing. It floated down the stream and landed on the Isle of Lesbos, where it became an oracular shrine

RELIGION THAT CRYSTALLIZED AROUND

At the most basic psychological level, this myth pictures the loss of the anima to the unconscious and a noble effort to retrieve her that does not quite succeed. However, the religion that crystallized around the figure of Orpheus did so for a different reason, which was that Orpheus had made the journey of the nekyia, the trip to the Underworld, and had returned with the transcendent knowledge that is to be derived from the depths

INDIVIDUATION ONTO THE AFTERLIFE

Along with this aspect of the Orphic doctrine came a concern with keeping oneself pure as part of the ascetic ideal. Much influenced by Orphic doctrines, Plato could be considered a philosophic Orphic. In the Phaedo Socrates says this about philosophic purification from pleasures and fears:

MIRE THE UNINITIATED FALL

This is pure Orphism translated into philosophic terms. Those he [Socrates] calls the initiated and purified philosophers are, in psychological terms, those who have submitted to the rigors of the individuation process. The mire that the uninitiated fall into represents the mud of the unconscious that has not been worked on psychologically, that is, the prima materia that has not undergone development

The Orphic tablets are not all complete and they have come from different tombs, but one can put together a kind of composite of what the directions consisted of. (The material is to be found in Jane's Harrison's Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion):

Anther section reads a little differently: Out of the pure I come, Pure Queen of Them Below, Eukles and Eubouleus and the other Gods immortal. For I also avow me that I am of your blessed race, But Fate laid me low and the other Gods immortal

And the final phrase: “A kid I have fallen into milk.” In the first section we have essentially a single image, the image of a well of rejuvenating water. It is the same image that is found in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, in which the departed one is instructed on how to proceed: May be opened [to me] the mighty flood by Osiris, and may the abyss of water be opened [to me].I have gone round about among the islands of Sekhet-Aaru [a portion of the Elysian fields]. Indefinite time, without beginning and without end, hat been given to me; I inherit eternity, and everlastingness hath been bestowed upon me ( E. A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead, vol. 2, p. 207. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949 )

The image comes up again in Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman in the gospel of John, in which Jesus says: If only you knew what God gives, and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living waterwhoever drinks the water that I shall give him will never suffer thirst any more. The water that I shall give him will be an inner spring always welling up for eternal life ( John 4 : 10, 14. NEB )

That is precisely the archetypal image that is referred to in the Orphic tablet: the departed is instructed to ask for a drink from the well and thereafter will be able to join the fellowship of the immortals. But the Orphic text is more complicated because it speaks of two wells: stay away from the well on the left and go to the well on the rightas though that original image of the well of living water, an image of the Self, had been split into opposites. The two wells can be identified: the left-hand well as Lethe, the waters of forgetfulness, and the right-hand well as Mnemosyne, the waters that promote memory. These images were quite important in ancient times and show up in various texts referring to psychic entities that can still be determined. The water of Lethe actually has an ambiguous role in ancient imagery, sometimes carrying positive connotations and sometimes negative. While in our Orphic text it is clearly something negative, some thing to be avoided, in other circumstances it is praised

SYMBOLISM UPSIDE DOWN

TWO WATERS ARE LIKE TWO GATEWAYS

These two waters are like the two gateways referred to in the Cave of the Nymphs where Odysseus was returned to Ithaca, The cave, it will be recalled, had two entrances, one for the spirits arriving and the other for the spirits leaving the earth and returning to heaven. Those two entrances correspond to the two waters of Lethe and Mnemosyne; when you enter earthly existence you must forget your archetypal origin, and when you leave your material existence you must drink the water of recollection to return to consciousness of your archetypal origin

TO REMEMBER THE KNOWLEDGE

“Drinking the waters of Mnemosyne” means to remember the knowledge we once knew, and it is beautifully expressed in the words of the Valentinian Gnostics, giving us a glimpse of how Orphism influenced the later Gnosticism, since all of these ancient cults penetrated one another. Gnostic means “knower” and one might ask the question, what is it the Gnostic knows? This was their answer: “What liberates is the knowledge of who we were, what we became; where we were, whereinto we have been thrown; whereto we speed, wherefrom we are redeemed; what birth is, and what rebirth.” What the Gnostic knows according to that formula can be thought of as the essence of what one learns when one drinks the waters of Mnemosyne. The knowledge is the preconscious knowledge of who one was before one came into ego existence, and the same information conveys what one will be after one passes out of ego existence

Next, he is supposed to announce to the powers he encounters: “Out of the pure I come, Pure Queen of them below” (an allusion to Persephone), and declare “I am pure and I come from out of the pure.” The state of being pure held a central place in the ethos of the Orphic communities and was acted out in quite literal forms

OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH

WHEELS AS SIMILAR IN MEANING TO

Pictures of wheels appear in numerous Greek vase paintings of Hades, but there has been little agreement as to what they mean, although some scholars believe they refer to the wheel of Ixion. It is possible, however, to see these wheels as similar in meaning to the Buddhist wheel of life, the one turned by the pig, the cock, and the serpent, the forces of concupiscence. “The sorrowful weary Wheel” would be the wheel of unconscious wholeness: while the wheel does symbolize totality, as long as it manifests itself on an unconscious basis it is a torture wheel like Ixion's. To fly out of that sorrowful weary wheel might correspond to leaving the state of identification with unconscious wholeness and instead, as is indicated by the next phrase, “I have passed with eager feet to the Circle desired,” moving out of one wheel and into relation with another, which could refer to a changed relation to the Self. An unconscious relation to the Self is a sorrowful weary wheel and the circle desired would be a more conscious one. Expressed psychologically, the development of consciousness is a process of first coming out of the crude totality, and then of returning to that circle of totality, consciously

Actually, the Greek word used here, translated as “circle,” is the word that literally means “crown.” Hence, we could also have the translation, “I have passed with eager feet to the crown desired,” which leads to other associations. “Crowning” was a part of certain mystery initiations, sometimes a brief identification with Helios, the sun god. It refers to the proclaiming of wholeness by the composing of the circle, an image expressed in Paul when he says, as he is contemplating his own upcoming death: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved his appearing ( 2 Tim. 4 :7-8, Standard Edition )

We next read: “I have entered into the bosom of Despoina, Queen of the Underworld.” Despoina, meaning “the mistress,” refers here to Persephone, the mistress of the Underworld, and the image refers to a return to the mother for rebirth, a descent into the unconscious. The soul is saying in effect that it has made its descent into the unconscious and therefore is entitled to what comes nextits reward

There is a Gnostic image connected with the theme of suffering as a value known as Jesus patibilis, the suffering Jesus who is thought to pervade the whole universe, the Jesus who hangs from every tree. It represents the suffering aspect of life as a cosmic phenomenon that in the process of self-realization must undergo evolutionary suffering, so to speak. It is the suffering that brings consciousness, and in the Orphic tablet some supreme value is attached to it, since for the first time the initiate is hailed, and for that particular feat

Etymologically, the word suffer comes from the Latin for “to carry under.” The second syllable is the root of the Latin “to carry,” and the first derives from the word for “under.” The idea being expressed is to get under and hold up from below, to carry from under. Suffering, then, is a carrying and therefore understood not just in terms of pain but in terms of doing the job, doing work. The Orphic is told that you have carried your load and therefore you are entitled to enter

I had the feeling that everything was being sloughed away; everything I aimed at or wished for or thought, the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence, fell away or was stripped from mean extremely painful process. Nevertheless, something remained; it was as if I now carried along with me everything I had ever experienced or done, everything that had happened around me. I might also say: it was with me and I was it. I consisted of all that, so to speak. I consisted of my own history, and I felt with great certainty: this is what I am. “I am this bundle of what has been, and what has been accomplished.” This experience gave me a feeling of extreme poverty, but at the same time of great fullness. There was no longer anything I wanted or desired. I existed in an objective form; I was what I had been and lived. At first the sense of annihilation predominated, of having been stripped or pillaged; but suddenly that became of no consequence. Everything seemed to be past; what remained was a fait accompli, without any reference back to what had been. There was no longer any regret that something had dropped away or been taken away. On the contrary: I had everything that I was, and that was everything ( Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 290f. )