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Dionysian Mysteries
Ritual of ancient Greece and Rome / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which sometimes used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques (like dance and music) to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. It also provided some liberation for men and women marginalized by Greek society, among which were slaves, outlaws, and non-citizens. In their final phase the Mysteries shifted their emphasis from a chthonic, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical one, with Dionysus changing his nature accordingly. By its nature as a mystery religion reserved for the initiated, many aspects of the Dionysian cult remain unknown and were lost with the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism; modern knowledge is derived from descriptions, imagery and cross-cultural studies.
![Painting of Dionysus with garland, food and wine](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Baco%2C_por_Caravaggio.jpg/640px-Baco%2C_por_Caravaggio.jpg)