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GNOSTIC ALTERED STATES
Figure 6.4 Fresco of initiation drama depicting the mysteries of Dionysus, first century CE,
in the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii . Photo courtesy of April D. DeConick.
( Chadwick 1980, 349, note 4). We have ample examples of recitations,
lyrics, and dialogue in Gnostic literature, suggesting that these virtual
dramas were regularly and consistently performed by the communities.
These dramas were not productions meant to entertain an audience,
like a night out at the theater. Rather, these were simulations, virtual
realities that fully involved the initiates, bodily and emotionally. Psychologically,
the performances reinforced for the initiates what they already
had learned about reality from their metaphysical instruction, a catechism
that they had studied intensely before undergoing the rites. For them, the