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Title: Eleusis by Carl Kerenyi, Ralph Manheim ISBN: 0-691-01915-0 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 12 August, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Warning!
Comment: Be forewarned! Kerenyi, in all his works, offers a piece-meal, unsupported archaeologically, imaginative creation of what he WISHED Greek Religion could have been. Kerenyi seems to have had an image in his mind, and he assembles anything and everything from different time periods, locations, and rituals in order to "prove" his theories. A closer, archaeological reading would show a high percentage of his "facts" contradicting each other - how can you support Hellenistic mystery cults with evidence from non-Greek Minoan Crete? It'd be as if one made a connection between Southern Baptist Christianity and Native American religion, solely because both functioned in similar geographical locations. Just a warning! Kerenyi is really easy to become enchanted with, but not accurate.
Rating: 1
Summary: Shame on you, Princeton!
Comment: I was quite excited to see this book & read the comments. Princeton University Press doesn't publish much classics, and I had high hopes for this volume. When it arrived, I was upset to learn that it was a Bollingen imprint -- Jungian propaganda, with a lot of imagination, outdated scholarship and contempt for scholarly values. It really is despicable of Princeton to tarnish their reputation with their Bollingen imprint, and I feel like a sucker to have wasted my money on such a preposterously worthless book, and I wish that Amazon.com would put a warning label on the Bollingen imprints, so clearthinking people can be more careful when ordering. (The problem is, of course, that few excellent books are mixed in with the nonsense, so one can't dismiss Bollingen books out of hand, but there is usually a 90% chance that they are garbage.)
Rating: 5
Summary: Profound analysis of the mysteries of Eleusis.
Comment: I recommend this book as a formidable try to unravel one of the most important ancient pagan mysteries, that survived for more than a thousand years in the Ancient world.
For Kerenyi, the core of the mysteries was the message that 'a birth in death was possible', also for human beings. This message was 'shown' through the ancient myth of the search of Demeter for her ravished daughter Persephone. She finds Persephone under the earth, where she gives birth to Dionysos. The hope of life in death was symbolized through Demeter's offering of the grain, that will grow again. We can see this important hapenning on a stele in the Ancient museum of Athens.
The initiated had to fast and were given a drug (the kykeon) just before the procession.
Nearly all Roman emperors were initiated (with a special place for Marcus Aurelius).
One of the initiated was Plato, who speaks about it in his work 'Phaidoon'.
The influence on Christianity by the mysteries cannot be underestimated, for Plato's theory of the soul was adopted by the Church.
A compelling read.
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Title: Dionysos by Carl Kerenyi, Ralph Manheim ISBN: 0691029156 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 16 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook: Sacred Texts of the Mystery Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean World by Marvin W. Meyer ISBN: 081221692X Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Prometheus by Carl Kerenyi, Ralph Manheim ISBN: 069101907X Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 10 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Gods of the Greeks by Karl Kerenyi, Carl Kerenyi ISBN: 0500270481 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: February, 1980 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Heroes of the Greeks by C. Kerenyi, Karl Kerenyi ISBN: 050027049X Publisher: Thames & Hudson Pub. Date: October, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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