The Eleusinian mysteries & rites. - The Masonic Trowel

THEIR MYSTICAL SIGNIFICANCE 105
and carries her away, despite the resistance of
Minerva and Diana, who were forbidden by Jupiter
to attempt her dehverance after her abduction.
This signifies that the lapse of the soul into a material
nature is contrary to the genuine wish and proper
condition. Pluto having hurried Persephone into
the infernal regions, marriage succeeds. That is
to say, the soul having sunk into the profoundities
of a material nature, unites with the dark tenement
of the material body. Night is with great beauty
and propriety introduced, standing by the nuptial
couch and confirming the oblivious league. That
is to say, the soul, by union with a material body,
becomes familiar with darkness and subject to the
empire of night, in consequence of which she dwells
wholly with delusive phantoms and till she breaks
her fetters is deprived of the perception of that
which is real and true.
The nine days of the Festival are said to be signifi-
cant of the descent of the soul. The soul, in falling
from her original, divine abode in the heavens,
passes through eight spheres, viz. the inerratic sphere
and the seven planets, assuming a different body and
employing different energies in each, finally becoming
connected with the sublunary world and a terrene
body on the ninth. Demeter and the foundation
of the art of tillage are said to signify the descent
of intellect into the realms of generation, the
greatest benefit and ornament which a material