Dionysos class! The prof has a new puppy, and we are all cooing over him enormously.

--also an elderly adoptive dog, and a new grandchild, so honestly that's a pretty great way to start the class.

(Our weekly checkin is using 'melancholy' a lot.)

Today's presenter on mystery cults asked the prof to cover her eyes while the rest of us indicated if we'd actually done the reading or not, which was both wise and kind of him.

Anyway! We're starting on the mystery cult(s) of Dionysos vs. the public/state cult(s) for him.

We'll also be wandering through the Cult of Isis, because of /course/.

Gosh the Romans were big into Isis.

We're starting by, broadly, explaining what a mystery cult /is/. Loosely and with caveats: it's not a mystery cult unless the 'only the in-group gets to know this stuff' aspect is /significant/ to the in-group.

So other people being /unaware/ of what happens in a ritual/group doesn't make it a mystery cult unless it's significant to the cult itself that outsiders not be allowed to know (much less experience) the details of interior practice.

(Mind, that's one aspect of focus where I think about the 'knowledge' aspect, whereas another definition might legitimately, or better, focus on the 'initiate' divide between in/out.)

Presenter: "I could've made you read [a text about the Eleusinian mysteries], but I didn't, because I'm a benevolent god and it's boring."
Prof: "You may be the first person who ever called Eleusis boring."
Presenter: "But have you seen the cult of Isis? That's some cool shit!"

(What about subdivisions? Mystic cults! Sophic cults! Mystery cults! "It felt like an issue of modern scholars trying to define things that didn't necessarily need to be defined.")

"Was that 'sophic cult' or 'Sapphic cult'?"
"Sophic."
"That makes more sense. Though seems like less fun."

Presenter: "You'll notice that a lot of these cults [that I'm talking about] are in Egypt because of papyri, which survive better there, and also because I care most about Egypt."