The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

98 HISTORY OF INITIATION.
terror. 16 In this state of horrible apprehension and
11
darkness, he was kept three days and nights.
With passions
thus excited, the aspirant was now made
to perforn
the aphanism, or ceremonies commemorative of
the mystical death of Bacchus. 18 He was covered with
the pastos
or bed; or in other words he was subjected to
confinement in a close cell, that he might reflect seriously,
in solitude and darkness, on the business he was engaged
in and be reduced to a ; proper state of mind for the
reception of sublime and mysterious
truths. 19
This was
20
the symbolical death of the mysteries and the deliver-
;
ance from confinement was the act of regeneration or
new-birth and hence the renovated ;
aspirant was termed
Si