THE DIONYSIAN UNDERGROUND

 

I invoke you, loud-crashing, eua-screaming Dionysos:
First born, second, third born King Bacchus!
You, the savage, unspeakable, clandestine one,
Two-horned, double-formed, ivy-clad, like the bull.
You, like Ares, O Euius!
You innocent devourer of flesh so raw!
Triennial, garbed in grapevine and olive branch,
You, Eubolius, so very enlightened.
Demigod eternal, born of the coupling
Of Zeus and Persephone, too secret to tell!
Listen, blessed one, to my voice, and breathe
On me with a heart blameless and kind,
You and the women who heal, dressed for their work.

ORPHIC EVOCATION OF DIONYSOS, c500BC

 

 

'These mysterious rites were, at first, imparted to a few,
but afterwards communicated to great numbers, both men and women.

To their religious rites were added the pleasures of wine and feasting,
to allure a greater number of proselytes. When intoxication, lascivious discourse, night, and the intercourse of the sexes had extinguished every sentiment of modesty, then debaucheries of every kind
began to be practiced, as every person found at hand that sort
of enjoyment to which he was disposed by the
passion predominant in his nature.

Nor were they confined to one species of vice---the promiscuous
intercourse of free-born men and women, but to all manner of crimes...'

ROMAN ANTI BACCHUS WITCHHUNT 186 BC
( more on persecution here)

 

 

Jesus said, I am the True Vine,
and My Father is the Vinedresser.

Every branch in Me not bearing fruit,
He takes it away; and each one bearing fruit,
He prunes, so that it may bear more fruit.

You are already pruned because of
the Word which I have spoken.
Remain in Me, and I in you.
As the branch is not able to bear fruit of itself,
unless it remain in the vine,
so neither can you unless you remain in Me.

I am the Vine; you are the branches.
He that remains in Me, and I in him,
this grapevine bears much fruit.
For apart from Me you are not able to do anything

The Gospel of John 15, 1 (Jesus channels Dionysos??)

 

 

 

Bottle, whose Mysterious Deep
Do's ten thousand Secrets keep,
With attentive Ear I wait;
Ease my Mind, and speak my Fate.
Soul of Joy! Like Bacchus, we
More than India gain by thee.
Truths unborn thy Juice reveals,
Which Futurity conceals.
Antidote to Frauds and Lies,
Wine, that mounts us to the Skies,
May thy Father Noah's Brood
Like him drown, but in thy Flood.
Speak, so may the Liquid Mine
Of Rubies, or of Diamonds shine.
Bottle, whose Mysterious Deep
Do's ten thousand Secrets keep,
With attentive Ear I wait;
Ease my Mind, and speak my Fate.

GARGANTUA BOOK 5, RABELAIS (1564)

 

 

 

“The god on the cross is a curse on life,
a signpost to seek redemption from life;
Dionysus cut to pieces is a promise of life:
eternally reborn and returning again from destruction”

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE 1880

 

 

'For the corruptible shall put on incorruptibility, the mortal shall
put on immortality; my adepts shall walk crowned in the Gardens
of the World, enjoying the breeze and the sunlight, plucking the
roses and filling their mouths with ripe grapes. They shall dance in
the moonlight before Dionysus, and delight under the stars with Aphrodite; yet they shall also dwell beyond all these things in the unchanged Heaven- Here and Now'

Aleister Crowley Reprinted from "The Sketch" of 24th August 1910

 

 

'The connection between the Beats and Hippies?
They are just all part of one big movement,
a Dionysian movement, named after that Dionysius guy'

Jack Kerouac in 60's TV interview



What is the Dionysian?

The Dionysian is a way of bblife, a culture or an ethos, which stands in opposition to the Apollonian. It is the way of the God Dionysos, whether he is seen as a deity, a great spirit of nature, an archetype, an ancient teacher or a metaphorical principle. A figure in Greek myth,the god of untamed nature, the wild grapevine, wine and drugs, intoxication and liberation. The life force of the cosmos. A human born deity, a living, shape shifting, paradox half god and half beast, an intoxicated man-woman, feasting on wild mushrooms and drinking herbal potions, while bringing a message of liberation from oppression. Who in his most ancient myth is born from an 'obscene union' of Zeus and Persephone (Heaven and Hades), and soon after his birth is torn apart, by the Titanic forces of Nature he later commands, only to be reborn as a greater self from the phallus of Zeus. A lesson in true will and the transmutation of the ego. As an archetypal being a version of Dionysos is found in all cultures under different names, born from the stone age horned god of the hunt, most notably the most ancient and transgressive forms of Shiva, as well as all rebel deities and intervener between heaven and earth, and earth and underworld. The dweller on all thressholds. An ancestor of both Christ and the Devil.

The Dionysian Culture is the manifestation of these principles as first taught by the Dionysian Mysteries four thousand years ago and continued in all anti Apollonian movements and countercultures until the present time. Essentially a reaction against the excessive Apollonian traits of the Solar Cult, with its power obsession. control, rationality, order and moderation, the Dionysian is also the root of all order, the chaos from which order is born. In its highest form it also incorporates a reformed Apollonian order of spontaneity and harmony. But to reach this it must first tear apart rigid forms, break habits and dissolve bondaries.

 

The Dionysian in the widest sense can thus be found in all Libertarian Countaculture (in all its tribes), in Anti-Nomian Paganism and Occulture, in Psychedelia, Surrealism and the Avant Garde, at the root of Quantum Physics, within Clubs of Bohemian Decadence, and the Politix of the (R)Evolutionary Movement. Its Essence is Creative Kaos, Flux and Nomadism. It is a position which totally rejects Dogma, Transcendalism, Dualism and Hierarchy.


The term Dionysian is public and open to interpretation, but is used in our context to signify a 'movement' or 'current', in the same way 'Wicca', 'Thelema' or 'Rosicrucian' is. Though it is much broader than a simple occult movement within the Counter Culture, it can also be an '(anti)art movement', an '(anti)political program', a '(anti)philosophical school'.


The Dionysian Underground, as a network of people working within this culture, is the first association to consciously work with the current in recent history, though it has no 'copyright' on the idea, encouraging other groups and individuals to adopt it in their own way.

 

 

WHO ARE THE DIONYSIAN UNDERGROUND?

The Dionysian Underground was formed in 1997 by it's five founding members, a mix of neo-pagan counterculturalists and occult minded anarchists, first meeting at Conway Hall in London and later in various locations ranging from basement bars, through Morrocan cafes to the Dionysos Restaurant near Centrepoint. It was further developed by several other seminal members who subsequently joined.

Essentially a club or loose network for those working with the Dionysian current, it has evolved over time, as some original members drifted off, or took 'sabbatical', while new ones joined, constantly shape shifting and redefining itself, but always maintaining as true as possible its original founding ethos. It has also collected an extended 'outer circle' of 'fellow travellers' and formed many alliances with other groups.


The Dionysian Underground is an unstructured, non hierarchical association, styled as a Dionysian Mystery School, and often operating as an Antinomian Illuminati, which facilitates the spread of Dionysianism. In practice it is an informal network of like minded adepts working within the Dionysian Current for the furtherance of total liberty and free communalism within the international occult community, the broader bbcounterculture and society at large. It also actively opposes authoritarian, conservative and reactionary elements in these circles.


All members and supporters of the Dionysian Underground freely interprete the culture in their own way, and remain autonomous individuals engaged in their own projects of self realisation. For this reason there is no spokesperson or official statement for the Dionysian Underground, which in its broadest extent works merely as a supportive association for Dionysians and the various articles on its web pages and within its publications represents the informed (and sometimes enlightened) opinions of its individual members.

While the Dionysian Underground is a recently formed group it can be argued that a 'Dionysian Underground', under various names, has existed in every culture since the dawn of time in one form or another. We claim lineage from that long tradition.


Frater Sar Kaotec XXIII

 

The new pages of the D U Website are under construction, in the meantime here are some recommended links:


http://www.carnaval.com/saturnalia/romanfestivals.htm


http://dreamflesh.com/essays/dionysusrisen/



Dionysian Grove : A Dionysian Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DIGlist/

The Dionysian Underground on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14719639710