Donna Of Tartt. The secret history (№ 402694)

We are used to believing that religious ecstasy is found only in primitive cultures, but it is often the most developed nations that are exposed to it. The Greeks, as you know, were not very different from us. They were highly civilized, adhering to a complex and rather strict system of rules and regulations. Nevertheless, they often fell into wild mass frenzy: riot, visions, dancing, massacre. I suppose all this would seem to us to be irreversible, clinical madness. However, the Greeks, at least some of them, could voluntarily plunge into this state and leave it voluntarily. We cannot just dismiss the evidence on this score. They are quite well documented, although the ancient commentators were as puzzled as we are. Some believe that the Dionysian frenzy was the result of fasting and prayer, others that wine was the cause. Undoubtedly, the collective nature of hysteria also played a role. Yet the extreme manifestations of this phenomenon are still inexplicable. The participants in the sacraments, figuratively speaking, were thrown into the unconscious state, which preceded the appearance of the mind, where the personality was replaced by something else - and by “other” I mean something that is not subject to death. Something inhuman.