Mnemosyne’s Pharmakon

In genealogical hymns, heroic epics, and initiatory cults, the goddess Mnemosyne awakens the language of the primordial past–the language of the dead–a reservoir of memory from which heroic deeds are drawn, nourishing the present with her clear waters and opening the dark eyes of the future. She fuses together the disparate facets of successive moments, extending the reach of awareness into the deep past and future life, the prophecy of poets, seers, and sages. The poet graced by her touch pours forth a song, a spell that speaks in images, an oracle of hidden life unfolding in the ever living present. Her waters bring remembrance of the starry abode of gods and heroes, visions of cosmic cycles opening out into the horizon of the future. Mnemosyne’s waters are a pharmakon, conferring identity of divine nature and drawing awareness back to its source in the creative foundation of the cosmos, but also the poison of Lethe, trapping the unsuspecting in a never ending oscillation between one moment and the next, forgetful of their origin and purpose.

She was born to Sky (Ouranos) and Earth (Gaia), an original Titan. She resides in the those dark beginnings, at the very origin of things; and thus, it is she who can take us back to the root of all creation and show us those cosmogenic processes that bring all things into being. She was the lover of Zeus and together they gave birth to the Muses, “all of one mind, their carefree hearts set on song”, those goddesses responsible for every genuinely creative and inspired act. Wild and free, they can either bless or deceive.

…we know how to tell many lies that sound like truth, but we know to sing reality, when we willTheogony (1-30).

They, while inspiring and uplifting may also bring down ruin on the unsuspecting and unaware, “disgraces, merest bellies”. This dual function points to their primordial nature in the ground of being where all distinction fades into unity and nothingness. In fact, alternative traditions recognized an older generation of Muses born in the time of Kronos, thus connecting them to the dark primordial waters of creation from which Mnemosyne’s pharmakon springs. Both truth and lie, healing and sickness, memory and delusion, require that She be handled with care.

Mnemosyne’s pharmakon is thus a visionary draught and required careful handling. This can be seen in her role in the ritual protocols developed to ensure a successful descent into the underworld (katabsis). In Pausanias’s account of the oracle of the hero Trophonius we see Mnemosyne play a prominent role in the visionary experience. The inquirer who descended to the oracle would first spend three days in a building sacred to agathodaemon and Tyche, there eating only sacrificial meat in order to prepare for the descent. They would then be taken to the river Hercyna by two boys who would purify and anoint the inquirer; after which, the inquirer would be lead to two fountains by the priests of the oracle. There they would first drink from the water of Lethe, then after the water of Mnemosyne. Only once this was done would they then be taken to the oracle where they would descend into “…a chasm in the earth, not natural, but artificially constructed after the most accurate masonry” (Descriptions of Greece, 9.39). In this chasm and darkness a vision would then be conferred. The inquirer returned, however, “paralyzed with terror and unconscious both of himself and his surroundings”. To retrieve what had been seen or learned the priest would seat the inquirer upon the throne of Mnemosyne to be guided by her to recount the vision. The inquirer would then be “obliged to dedicate a tablet on which is written all that each has heard or seen”.

What we see in this description of the descent into the cave of Trophonius is a ritual technology that skillfully employs the Goddess of Memory to retrieve the visions and lessons arising in the katabasis. A loss of memory can be devastating–as anyone who has lost memory themselves or known someone who has can attest–and She thus serves the most scared of functions, ensuring a successful encounter with the gods and memory of that other world upon which all else depends.

The ritual technology surrounding Mnemosyne is a clear indication of her primal power. It is no surprise then that Mnemosyne was invoked in Orphic initiatory rites to confer knowledge and power on the initiate in the journey to the other world, to remind them of their divine origin and purpose. We see this clear expressed in the well known Hipponinian gold leaf tablet found in the burial site of a woman in Thessaly dating from the 4th century BC.

You will find on the right in Hades’ halls a spring, and by it stands a ghostly cypress-tree, where the dead souls descending wash away their lives. Do not even draw nigh this spring. Further on you will find chill water flowing from the pool of Memory: over this stand guardians. They will ask you with keen mind what is your quest in the gloom of Hades. They will ask you for what reason you have come. Tell them the whole truth straight out. Say: ‘I am the son of Earth and starry Heaven, but of Heaven is my birth: this you know yourselves. I am parched with thirst and perishing. Give me quickly chill water flowing from the pool of Memory’. Assuredly the kings of the underworld take pity on you, and will themselves give you water from the spring divine; then you, when you have drunk, traverse the holy path which other initiates and bacchants tread in glory. After that you will amongst the heroes.

The soteriological function of Mnemosyne here couldn’t be more pronounced. She confers knowledge of our divine origin and it is this knowledge which leads to a successful journey through the afterlife. This salvation guaranteed in the afterlife is the securing of immortality in the present, for, when cleansed in Her waters, when drunk upon Her pharmakon, we find the key to everlasting life. Not only would the Orphic initiates have praised Mnemosyne after their long initiatory rites in order to recall the evenings events, as Athanassakis and Wolkow claim; rather, it would be a prayer, a petition to stay within the awareness and coherence of Mnemosyne’s primal clarity even after the ecstasies of the ritual had passed. Thus, we can all benefit from hymning Mnemosyne as regular aspect of our practices and be drawn back to the awareness of her primal depth.

I call upon queen Mnemosyne,

Zeus’ consort,

who gave birth to the holy,

the sacred, the clear-voiced Muses.

Evil oblivion that harms the mind

is alien to her

who gives coherence

to the mind and soul of mortals.

She increases men’s power,

their ability to think,

sweet and vigilant,

she reminds us of all

the thoughts we store

forever in our breasts,

never straying and ever rousing

the mind to action.

O blessed goddess,

for the initiates stir the memory

of the scared rite,

ward off oblivion from them.

The Orphic Hymns, by Apostolos N. Athanassakis and Benjamin M. Wolkow