Eleusinian Mysteries

After doing some searching online about Eleusis, the city Demeter inhabited while searching for her daughter, I came upon an interesting practice Demeter’s presence left on the city of Eleusis. They were called the Eleusinian Mysteries, and beginning around 1700 BC they were a set of initiation rituals that allowed the people to be elevated above the position of man to be considered immortal, not in this world but in the afterlife. There were a couple relatively mild rules surrounding those who were permitted to join the ritual. First, none who had committed murder or blood crimes were able to join, and second, no barbarians (people who couldn’t speak Greek). Other than that the ceremony was only held once a year, and was kept a complete secret to anyone who was not already in the group. The priests and priestesses decided who was to be chosen each year to join the ceremony, and to be chosen was a great honor. The Eleusinian Mysteries later lead to the Great Mysteries which was a ceremony in which the members would gather around a temple at the base of Acropolis of Athens to make sacrifices to Demeter and Persephone in hopes that they would win their favor and be rewarded in heaven. Women who had lost their children via abduction or even death were seen to be favored more than the rest of the members. The Eleusinian Mysteries and the Great Mysteries ended around 395 AD when the Temple of Demeter was destroyed by the Sarmatians and Christianity began to become the new world religion. There is little to nothing known about what actually occurred at the ceremonies most of the traditions died with the members, however there are a few artifacts that survived to present day.

"…It is like Aristotle's viewthat men being initiated have not a lesson to learn,but an experience to undergoand a condition into which they must be brought,while they are becoming fit (for revelation)."(Synesius Dio 1133)
"You ought to approach these matters in another way;the thing is great, it is mystical, not common thing,nor is it given to every man."(Epictetus Discourses III, 21)
"They cause sympathy of the souls with the ritualin a way that is unintelligible to us, and divine,so that some of the initiands are stricken with panicbeing filled with divine awe;others assimilate themselves to the holy symbols,leave their own identity,become at home with the gods,and experience divine possession."(Proclus, In Remp, ll, 108, 17-30.)

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/e/eleusinian_mysteries.html
http://eleusinianmysteries.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries