There is a lot online and there are probably many scholarly refferences about which I am not familiar. I am trying to assimilate information from many sources.

The 'Mystery Religions' are about the mystic experience. As enlightening as intellectual resarch is...the mystical experience is often described, by those who have and do experience it, as undescribable. It is beyond odinary human experience. It is beyond words. Mystics of many different backgrounds and persuasions all seem to agree on this.

In refference to the excellant article below, much of the pagent and the drama took place in the dark, or by torch light. Herodutus speaks of a crowd of 30,000 gathered for initiation. It must have been something like the crowds who gather to bathe in the Ganges. These rites took place for a period of more than 3000 years. There was nothing to prevent anyone theoreticly from being initiated as an Orphic, Dionysian, or Eleusian, or even, all three.

Other secret groups may have been consided suspect, but the Eleusian Mysteries were state sponsered and aproved. "Many may have been called, not all were chosen" to coin a phase. Not all who underwent the initiaion had the experience. It was a dramatic form of conciousness raising. There was chanting, music and dancing all the way. This is depicted on many vases. Words may not tell, but they are illustrated on the vases, what went on is visualy documented and it can be discerned.

The Greek Temples belonged to their respective gods. Only the priest, preistess who was the caretaker ever went in them. The public did not go into the temples. They brought their sacrifices to an alter that was always outside.

On the way, the pilgrims dance in a field; and then they enter the cave that is the entrace to the underworld. The cave is still there. It is a temple to Hades. It is the only one that I am aware of. Hades was not a popular god, one prostrated oneself in utter trepidation to placate him. When the crowd got to Eleusis the ones to be initiated go inside the temple there. It is a huge congregation of initiates. A sacred drama unfolds begining in utter darknes, and then_ EPIHANY!

"I saw the light, I saw the light, no more darkness, no more night."