Both theoreticians and practitioners of the the theurgy referred to as “Energized Enthusiasm” might find it worthwhile to spend some time at the Yale University Art Gallery’s “Sights And Sounds of Ancient Ritual” exhibit.In Liber DCCXI Energized Enthusiasm A Note on Theurgy, the Prophet of the Lovely Star wrote:
“The Greeks say that there are three methods of discharging the Lyden Jar of Genius. These three methods they assign to three Gods.
“These three Gods are Dionysus, Apollo, Aphrodite. In English: wine, woman and song…
“Music has two parts; tone or pitch, and rhythm. The latter quality associates it with the dance, and that part of dancing which is not rhythm is sex. Now that part of sex which is not a form of the dance, animal movement, is intoxication of the soul, which connects it with wine. Further identities will suggest themselves to the student.
“By the use of the three methods in one the whole being of man may thus be stimulated.
“The music will create a general harmony of the brain, leading it in its own paths; the wine affords a general stimulus of the animal nature; and the sex-excitement elevates the moral nature of the man by its close analogy with the highest ecstasy. It remains, however, always for him to make the final transmutation. Unless he have the special secretion which I have postulated, the result will be commonplace.
“So consonant is this system with the nature of man that it is exactly parodied and profaned not only in the sailor’s tavern, but in the society ball. Here, for the lowest natures the result is drunkenness, disease and death; for the middle natures a gradual blunting of the finer feelings; for the higher, an exhilaration amounting at the best to the foundation of a life-long love.”
The Art Gallery’s site states:
“In the ancient world, religious rituals were multisensory experiences, filled with vibrantly colored representations of supernatural beings, resonant musical sounds, billowing clouds of incense, and the taste of food and drink. Sights and Sounds of Ancient Ritual considers the ways in which these rituals appealed to the senses through objects that would have drawn worshippers into closer proximity to divine forces. The exhibition brings together works from the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Babylonian Collection at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History that span three millennia—from approximately 1500 B.C.E. to 1500 C.E.—and represent diverse traditions, including those of ancient Greece and Rome, Western Europe, Egypt, West Africa, the Near East, China, and Mesoamerica. The works on view depict gods and goddesses, illustrate aspects of religious ritual, or had ritual functions themselves, ultimately showing how ancient cultures used visually and sonically evocative objects to create powerful connections with the sacred.”
https://artgallery.yale.edu/exhibitions/exhibition/sights-and-sounds-ancient-ritual.
