On the applicability of the concept of religious experience to the study of the hellenistic mysteries

Abstract

The use of categories allow scholars to make distinctions, organize their material, and classify it according to the definitional criteria of the categories used. However, sometimes, these criteria correspond more to present organizational schemata than to ancient people’s own, even when the categories used appear to come directly from the past. From the example of the Greco-Roman mystery religions, it would seem that the claim that some kind of religious experience, isolated from its political context, was the basis for ancient religious practices, ideas and institutions seems to be grounded more in modern (essentialist) bias than in historical evidence.