First Lecture

Much will become clear to us if we first say to ourselves: There were once mysteries that I will call the old mysteries. We do not want to dwell on dates in this introduction, but only characterize the four successive stages of the mysteries. There were ancient mysteries, there were semi-ancient mysteries, there was a semi-modern mystery tradition, and we are now at the starting point of a modern mystery tradition. We thus have four stages before us, four stages in the development of the human conception of apocalypse and the human consecration ritual.