Plutarch on the Eleusinian Mysteries

I had been meaning to write up the Neoplatonic explanation of various myths, but time (and energy and inspiration and...) has been scarce and I haven't gotten to it, yet. Today, I discover that Plutarch went ahead and did it for me, in §§XXVII–XXX of "On the Man in the Moon." (Thanks, Plutarch!) Below is a brief summary of it (paging tunesmyth), though I have replaced Plutarch's Platonic terminology with late Neoplatonic terminology to make it more familiar.

[XXVII] The Eleusinian Mysteries teach a vital lesson about the nature of life and death through the use of the myth in which Hades abducts Kore and Demeter wanders in search of her. This is a story about the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth: Demeter is, metaphorically, the soul and the Sun is the world of soul; Kore is the imagination and the Moon is the world of the imagination; and Hades is the body and Earth is the material world. We mortals are possessed of all three: a soul, an imagination, and a body. Just as the Moon spends half its time in light (with the Sun) and half its time in darkness (with the Earth), we divide our existence between light (when dead) and darkness (when alive): when alive, we exist in bodies on the Earth, but when our bodies die (the "first death") we go to live on the Moon until our imaginations die (the "second death"), at which point our souls either take new bodies and revisit the Earth or else return to the Sun.

[XXVIII] Hades is severe and the first death is generally sudden and violent. Kore, however, is gentle and the second death is gradual, though it is much more pleasant for the good than it is for the wicked.

[XXIX] This is because the wicked, having less strength of soul and able to travel less far, remain on the side of the Moon which faces the Earth, called the "House of Persephone," which is buffeted by violent weather. The good, being stronger, pass on to the side of the Moon which faces Heaven, called the "Elysian Fields," which is calm and pleasant.

[XXX] The imagination does not remain forever upon the Moon, but it, too, eventually dies; just as our body's substance returns to the Earth, so too does our imagination's substance return to the Moon. After this, the now-alone soul, if it is restless, takes on a new imagination and a new body and returns to the Earth (hence why Persephone is said to be snatched away by Hades and why Demeter is said to wander); however, if the soul is impassive, it returns to the Sun. This is because bodies are always confined to the Earth, and souls are always confined to the Sun, but the Moon is a liminal place where the two may come together and mingle and separate again; in fact, this is the hidden meaning of the Fates, where solar Atropos generates, lunar Clotho spins (e.g. binds together), and terrestrial Lachesis measures (e.g. determines form).

Plutarch mentions (in XXIX) that the particular area of the Moon set aside for punishing the wicked is Oceanus Procellarum, which he calls "Hekate's Recess." Plutarch doesn't say so, but I infer that three-headed Hekate, like Kerberos, is representative of what the Greeks called fate and what we call karma: thus that is the place of self-inflicted punishment which the wicked bring upon themselves between lives.

The Virtue Paradox

At the purificatory level, "wisdom" consists in the soul's not sharing any opinions with the body, but acting on its own, and this is perfected by the pure exercise of the intellect; "moderation" is the result of taking care not to assent to any of the passions; "courage" is not being afraid to depart from the body, as if one were falling into some void of not-being; and "justice" is the result of reason and intellect dominating the soul with nothing to oppose them. [Porphyry, Sentences XXXII, as translated by John Dillon]

Isn't it funny how we spend so much time and effort and pain in mastering the virtues only, once we are with the angels, to never need them again? It is like how we take years of effort to learn language only, once having mastered it, to never think about it again.