The Greater Mysteries — Revelation at Eleusis

The ta megala mysteria comprised the nine-day autumn teletai at Eleusis: the sacred procession along the Hiera Hodos, the drinking of the kykeon, the entry into the Telesterion, and the witnessing of the hiera — the sacred objects revealed by the Hierophant. Aristotle (fragment 15) distinguished the Eleusinian experience from mathein (learning) — the mystai did not acquire doctrines but underwent pathein (transformative experience). The arrheton, the unspeakable nature of what was shown inside the Telesterion, was enforced on pain of death, making these rites the most rigorously guarded sacred knowledge in the ancient Mediterranean world.