Mircea Eliade "From Primitives to Zen": PLATO ON INITIATION
('Phaedo,' 69 c)
The Neoplatonist Olympiodoros comments on this passage: 'He is adapting an Orphic verse.'
It looks as if those also who established rites of initiation for us were no fools, but that there is a
hidden meaning in their teaching when it says that whoever arrives uninitiated in Hades will lie in
mud, but the purified and initiated when he arrives there will dwell with gods. For there are in truth,
as those who understand the mysteries say, 'Many who bear the wand, but few who become
Bakchoi.' Now these latter are in my own opinion no others than those who have given their lives
to true philosophy.
Translation and introductory note by Frederick C. Grant, in his Hellenistic Religions (New York,
1953), PP. 136-44
Books by Mircea Eliade:
- Mircea Eliade “The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy”
- Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask, Wendy Doniger “Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Bollingen Series (General))”
- Mircea Eliade “The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion”
- Mircea Eliade “Two Strange Tales”
- Mircea Eliade, Mac Linscott Ricketts “Journal IV, 1979-1985 (Journal)”
- Mircea Eliade, Philip Mairet “Images and Symbols”
- Mircea Eliade “Autobiography, Volume 1: 1907-1937, Journey East, Journey West”
- Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask “Yoga : Immortality and Freedom”
- Mircea Eliade, Jr., Fred H. Johnson “Journal II, 1957-1969 (Journal)”
- Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask “The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History”
- Mircea Eliade, Teresa Lavender Fagan “Journal III, 1970-1978 (Journal)”
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