Transcript: 20260414-We don’t know what Bacchus is - History Is Inquiry

Okay, so I think as we were tracing >> [music] >> the cult, this this figure appears. Cuz you were talking about Bacchic um cult. So, I guess we're talking about Bacchus. Isn't it? Um there is that seems to be like this misconceptions of like or misconception all the time. Like you talk about Bac- Bacchus here in Spanish. And yeah, they will obviously they will tell you, "Okay, yeah, this is the god of wine of the Romans." So, obviously

It's not Roman time because we're talking about Bacchic cult that is coming like way before, isn't it? So, what I wanted to ask you is about um who is this uh figures of Bacchus and if we can get into what text says about the actual um influence of this concept. Um

Happens. They like um practically like that they were What is this Bacchic thing? What is this Yeah, interestingly, the Bacchic cult starts with women. Bacchic cult is an ecstatic state that can be entered by a woman >> [clears throat] >> who is following a very specific cult regimen and uses very specific cult tools. So, we know in this case we know that the Bacchants, who are women, originally women, remember we talked about the Scythians, some of these tribes are just completely women, right? This this is not um

This is not the same world that you see in the integrated world that we live in. So, um these Bacchic women are able to enter into an ecstatic state that is the possession of Bacchus. Right? We don't know what Bacchus is.

Let me just say that one more time. We don't know what Bacchus is. We can guess at what it means to be Bacchic. But we don't even know where the word comes from. So, um

To the Greeks this foreign nature of the Bacchic cult was a real problem in a lot of Greek city-states. They didn't want to absorb this worship. This is coming from these women, these Maenads in the East and they are using these thyrsus and snakes to do something that will cause havoc and rain confusion and slaughter on our little cities.

It's not good. So, this is the Bronze Age Bacchic worship that we see that ultimately develops into the very pacified and civilized masculine and feminine worship of Dionysus. Yes, he's the god of wine. As the god of wine, that's what it becomes and we get the stage in Athens through that worship.

But people have to realize the cult at from its origin is really a place. It's a place that a woman can project herself in order to be filled with the god and the god causes her to do things like kill people.

Right? Kill people. Remember where these cults are coming from? People wash up on our shore. Hey, it's their fault. Right? Let's play with them. Let's use some drugs on them. Right? This is the society that creates

Bacchus. The Greeks have a word bakcheuo bakcheuo and it contains that old Mycenaean diakema. And it means to be in the Bacchic maniacal murderous state.

>> [Sighs and snorts] >> How do we know? Do we do you have some Do we have some sources that they will talk about like to give an example when because okay, this comes from Bronze Age. But after this was read from this um this new culture after it's coming from there and it becomes something that a bit different. But what

What what keep what the cult will keep? How would you look at the influence of this Bacchus after? You'd have to say two things. Both of them in Athens. You see the development of the stage and theater. That's one place. The other is the Eleusinian mysteries.

The mysteries that we celebrate only come to us through this Bacchic procession. We In other words, we don't go to any sacred ground unless it's been processed by Bacchus himself. That is the core of the Maenadic mania.

[snorts]

So, where do we see this? We see it in the productions of the stage in Athens. You see it in Athens. These are Euripides is borrowing from earlier records. Euripides is quoting. Euripides is digging. Euripides is so into it that his mother is a root collector. And everybody knows from the Greek Everybody knows that these women are [\\h__\\h] nuts.

Okay? These women are nuts. They come from a tradition where they hunt people that they mate with. Right? This is where the Bacchic Maenadic power that creates the first mystery, that is the first mystery. Right? Maenad, the first Christ, is living in that world of the first mystery of generating the Bacchic furor. She's actually doing it with actual drugs. Mhm. And when he comes to the this new world after uh how can we see how will the the whole culture around it will will look like?

I guess it will be a bit different, not the same as in in in You know what I mean? Like as in that early stage. Now, it becomes Dionysus. It becomes this other kind of um right? But it will be the same because I you said that it would it would be like men involved also, not just women. They embrace this thing and they create what?

They create the absolute mongrelization the ill breeding of two pea plants that shouldn't have been with each other. They take the the offspring, Christianity and they create the Bacchic power within the Christian ill bred

Uh psychic image producer, which is the church. The church ultimately took and they did the same thing with Greek. They did the same thing with Mother Greek. They took the language and they corrupted her. Mhm. They they took away her flexibility. You're no longer You're you're no longer actively, as you live, pulling new vocabulary out of the air. You're no longer advancing in your ability to use the logos to explain your surroundings. You're not able to do that anymore. The church took Bacchus and turned Bacchus into

Exactly what you have now. Which is what? It is not It is anything but the education training and preparation of women to be able to meet their peak. To be able to protect us

As guardians of the virgin voice. They're the ones who are able to protect us. They have to be potentiated. Doing this to women is how you elevate your society. Watch what happens to them. Watch what they do. It's a you know, people they think this stuff is myth. It's not, people. I've read the doctors who were astounded at the use of the drugs in the different cults. Right? Please, people. The most popular physician of all time, Galen. Right? Galen. He knows one of these priestesses that supplies

Him with the drugs that are so phenomenally powerful in his medical practice in Rome. He buys 20,000 [\\h__\\h] pills. Can you talk Can you talk a bit to us a bit that person? Galen? Yeah, Ga- Galen, second century physician of Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of Rome. He's giving Marcus We have documents, his own documents, where he talks about giving Marcus Aurelius the famous theriac. He says it's making him better. It's making him bigger. Oh, his his dependence upon opium is getting a little bit too high. Galen doesn't

Like that. But, we see him giving Marcus Aurelius the theriac. Galen, who is the highest physician in the Roman Empire. There's nobody else who has more authority than he does. He's like a surgeon general, except way more. And he comes out and he says, "Look, um we're getting this medicine from Lemnos, and the priestess there that provides it, she is using this technique that goes back to the origin. It goes back to the first oracles. What are they doing on Lemnos with what they call the Lemnian Earth?

And how they're processing it? They're making medicine for the entire Mediterranean through oracular practice.

That is through Bacchic worship. Galen recognizes the knowledge that is locked in the craft of the oracle, and he goes and exploits it by buying 20,000 of these pills to take back to Rome to put in his prescriptions.

So, um the the impulse toward freedom and liberty is Bacchus. That drive to want to be a part of that natural world that wants you to survive. That is the power of the Bacchic frenzy. It gives you the freedom to pursue what you need to pursue in order to break that barrier, in order to go like they were doing at Eleusis, where everybody in the Mediterranean is coming for their initiation how to be prepped and that and this is the most important time of your life.

Right? It's Imagine if instead of people going on a trek to Mecca, imagine if they went there and came back with a permanent transformation in the neuropeptides in their brain and the way that their brain was working so that their bodies could do X, Y, and Z. So that their perception was opened X, Y, and Z.