The Gospel of Hellas - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

V
T H E L I P S O F T H E G O D S
1. THE ORACLES OF APOLLO
I descended
To the confines of Death,
I entered Persephone’s threshold,
I drove through all the elements
And I came back.
I saw the sun at midnight
Glittering in dazzling light.
The nether gods
And the higher gods
I freely approached
and I worshipped them
In heartfelt nearness!
– apuleius (Metamorphoses)
The multitude of gods and goddesses, satyrs and nymphs, muses and maenads
vanished with the world of Atlantis, but the memory of their existence and the
presence of their shadows were preserved in the oracles and mysteries. Through
them the world of Hellas became transparent to our gaze, so that we may look
beyond it, as it were, to the sunken Atlantis which the landscape of Greece
with all the islands and peninsulas, gulfs and straits markedly resembled.
The oracles differed from the mysteries in that they revealed the gods of the
cosmos through the sense-world, in the rustling of the trees and the vapor of
the earth, whereas the mysteries had to do with the rites, cults and probations
through which the soul could perceive the gods working within her realm. The
seers, who received the message of the gods through the oracles, had to lower
their consciousness in order that they might become mediums for them. The
initiates of the mysteries had to strengthen the faculties of their souls. This
distinction leads us to the significant duality of the gods Apollo and Dionysus.
The Apollonian way of clairvoyance and clairaudience reflected the wisdom of