"We are the Poets! We are the children of the wood and stream, of mist and mountain, of sun and wind! We are the Greeks! and to us the rites of Eleusis should open the doors of heaven, and we shall enter in and see God face to face. Under the stars will I go forth, my brothers, and drink of that lustral dew: I will return, my brothers, when I have seen God face to face and read within those eternal eyes the secret that shall make you free. Then will I choose you and test you and instruct you in the Mysteries of Eleusis, oh ye brave hearts, and cool eyes, and trembling lips! I will put a live coal upon your lips, and flowers upon your eyes, and a sword in your hearts, and ye also shall see God face to face. Thus shall we give back its youth to the world, for like tongues of triple flame we shall look upon the Great Deep - Hail unto the Lords of the groves of Eleusis!"
~ Aleister Crowley, "Eleusis"
The Rites of Eleusis are a series of seven public invocations or rites, each centered on one of the seven classical planets of antiquity. Written by Aleister Crowley, they were first performed by Crowley, Leila Waddell, and Victor Neuburg in October and November 1910 at Caxton Hall, London.
In "The Rites of Eleusis", Keith Richmond writes:
This attention to occult and traditional symbolism was carried through by Crowley into the design and setting of the stage itself. Even the position of the characters at the opening of each Rite was, in conjunction with the props, representative of some piece of occult symbolism which Crowley felt to be appropriate. Thus the opening scene in The Rite of Saturn presented a cabbalistic diagram, that of Jupiter the "Wheel of Fortune of the Tarot", Mars an astrological plan, and so on. It was the competence of the soloists that really carried the Rites, and accounted largely for whatever modest success they enjoyed. Leila Waddell with her violin, Crowley with his recitations, and (Victor) Neuburg with his dance, each seemed to capture some of that ecstasy of which Crowley spoke, and if any of it was transmitted to the audience it was through their enthusiasm. Victor Neuburg with his wild dance was, by popular consent, the most impressive of the performers. Untrained in any form of dance as such, Neuburg had either developed the performance spontaneously, or more likely evolved it from his observations of tribal "trance dances". The competence of its soloists was not, however, enough to make a success of the Rites. Already weakened by inadequate financial backing and haste of preparation, they were crushed altogether under the weight of hostile criticism. Rather then making a profit for the A.A., as Crowley had intended, the performances probably scarcely covered costs. What is certain is that the Rites of Eleusis Stand as a (largely forgotten) landmark in the histories of both the occult and the theatre. Half a century before the "experimental theatre" of the sixties and the seventies, Crowley and his small band were pioneering a form of theatre with transcendental manipulations and a level of audience involvement until then undreamed of. "Ahead of its time" The Rites of Eleusis accordingly suffered the usual fate of the boldly experimental.
