The rites of the Phrygian Sabazius touch the processes of the lower culture at more than one point. In his great oration "on the Crown" (315 B.C.) Demosthenes twits his opponent Æschines in such terms as these: "You assisted your mother in the initiations, you read aloud the books (the ritual prayers), and took part in the rest of the plot. You put on (or, you robed the candidates in) fawn-skins; you sprinkled them with water from the bowl; you purified and rubbed them with clay and bran, then you raised them from their purification, and bade them say, 'I have fled the bad, and found the better.'" On the gold Orphic tablets discovered in South Italy and Crete occur strange phrases: "I, a kid, fell into the milk," "O blessed and happy one, thou hast put off thy mortality and hast become divine," which are interpreted with great probability as references to a ritual of milk-baptism in which the initiate was born again.
That idea was certain expressed in the mysteries of Isis, which were widely spread in the Eastern Mediterranean (p. 40). Here, too, was a solemn kind of death and re-birth; here, too, lustrations of the purest water, the priestly declaration of the pardon of the { 166} gods, the mystic revelation of the Goddess, herself identified with all deities in turn; and here, after the vision, the assurance of a blessed life to come. The candidate for initiation into the rites of Mithra must mount slowly through seven stages. The details of the ritual of the successive grades are unknown; but in accordance with ancient Iranian practice repeated ablutions were imposed till the cleansing waters had washed away all stains of guilt. The Mithraic sacraments so closely resembled Christian usage that they were vehemently denounced by Church writers as a Satanic parody. They were certainly supposed to secure happiness in the world to come. The believer who had passed through the blood-bath of the slaughtered bull was said to be "re-born for ever."
Associated with sacrifice and prayer, and partaking at once of the characters of magic and mystery, is the sacred dance. Rhythmic movement of body and limbs readily becomes the expression of strong feeling; and the feeling in its turn may be reawakened by the solemn renewal of the action. When it imitates the motions of the warrior or the huntsman it comes to possess a magical value, and the women who remain at home will dance all day while their husbands are engaged in battle or the chase. Does it not quicken their courage or enhance their skill? The child in an elementary school now learns { 167} his action-songs, and sows the grain and reaps the harvest. He does not, however, suppose that he is promoting nature's work. But the women whose social progress has advanced to agriculture, instead of imitating the gambols of the wolf or bear, will celebrate the operations of the fields to stimulate their effectiveness, and at a later stage still will go forth into the vineyards with timbrel and song. There are dances for courtship and marriage, dances in initiations and mysteries, dances even for the funeral. There are solemn preparations, as in the snake-dance of the secret order of the Snakes among the Moquis of Arizona, when the members must not only wash the snakes, but themselves as well and everything about them (in the same water), and fast for one day. Then any one who has been bitten will be healed, and when the pipe is lit, the clouds from it will rise and form rain-clouds, and the rain will fall upon the altar and the sacred things. Or the dance will serve for the reunion of the tribe, and becomes a great social as well as a religious institution. The Sun-dance of the Blackfoot Indians (p. 35) is the supreme expression of their religion, and their great annual religious gathering. It must originate in a woman's vow for the recovery of the sick, and the ceremonies are spread over a considerable time. Some come for enjoyment, some to fast and pray. Some must discharge their vows for the healing of sick kinsfolk; others pay the price of deliverance { 168} from peril by the infliction of self-torture in the sun-lodge.