Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

xi] Mnemosyne and Anamnesis 511
Plutarch 1 tells us that the moon is daimon-hauntecl, but that
certain of the better sort of daimones do not always stay in the
moon.
They come down hither in order to take charge of oracles, and they are
present at, and take part in, the highest of orgiastic initiatory rites, and they
are chasteners and watchers over wrong doings and they shine as saviours in
battle and at sea.... Of the best of these daimones those of the age of Kronos
said they themselves were. And the same of old were the Idaean Daktyls in Crete
and the Korybantes in Pterygia and the Trophoniads in Lebadeia of Boeotia
and countless others in various places all over the habitable world, of whom
the sacred rites and honours and titles remain.
Plutarch could not put the matter more plainly. The same
daimones preside over oracles and over rites of initiation ; Tro-
phoniads, Idaean Daktyls and those of the age of Kronos are all
substantially the same. The statement is for us a priceless
illumination. But we ask what is really meant by this bringing
together of things apparently so remote and alien, oracles, institu-
tions for looking into the future, and rites of initiation, purely
social institutions ?
Mnemosyne and Anamnesis.
At the outset, it must be remembered that oracles were, down
to late days, places to be consulted for advice as to the present as
much and more than for knowledge of the future , they were
essentially places of counsel for practical purposes. But even
so there remains a certain gulf to be bridged between the social
and the oracular. The bridge is easily crossed if we examine the
analogy of primitive initiation rites.
We saw in the first chapter 2 that the cardinal rite of tribal
initiation was a mimetic Death and Resurrection. By every sort
of pantomime the notion was enforced that the boy had died to
his old life, had put away childish things, had in a word a new
social status and soul. We also saw that tribal initiation was the
prototype of all social rites, that the rites at birth, marriage, the
1 De fac. in orb. lun. xxx. ovk del 5e diarpijiovaiv eTr' avrrj ol 5aifioves dWd xpt]