fascinating
The Internet and orgiastic rites
Franca Pezzoni, Giacinto Buscaglia - Psychiatrists
The Internet is a complex phenomenon that does not lend itself
to an all-inclusive interpretation. Its main feature is exactly the fact
that it allows the expression of a wide range of human interests. There
is no aspect of life that is not in some way represented in its fertile
and "indeterminate" universe.
So we want to clarify that our reading is absolutely partial and it
has arisen from observing several contact points, several striking analogies
between this modern phenomenon and others that are placed in a very different
and ancient time.
We refer to the orgiastic rites and specially to Dionysian rites and
to all the phenomena connected to the cult of Dionysus in the Classical
and Hellenistic age.
At the risk of appearing schematic, we intend to briefly describe the
two phenomena, ancient and modern, and then examine analogies and differences
in detail.
In our opinion the analogies are so relevant that it's worthwhile bringing
them to your attention.
The Internet
The Internet presents a really blatant and resounding contrast
between a hypertecnological and modern network on the one hand and the
emergence of deep, archaic and not very "rational" emotions on the other.
The Internet arose for military aims. Originally, it was called Arpanet
and connected American military structures.
If this is the origin, the development and the diffusion it has all
over the world are connected for completely different reasons, which are
more related to instinct than to technology and rationality.
One of the most widespread Internet phenomena is represented by the
"chats", virtual communities, where thousands of people meet "on line",
that is to say in real time, and communicate through the net.
Textual and graphic "chats" exist.
In the former, communication takes place through written messages that
can be sent to single interlocutors or to groups of people who meet in
virtual places called "channels". Every user joins the chat through a nickname
that identifies him.
In the graphic chats a "real" virtual setting appears on the screen,
made up of places where the users move and are represented by personalized
graphic symbols, called "avatar", a word deriving from Oriental religions
and that means "embodiment or manifestation of the divinity".
Avatars consist of images, drawings, icons used by the participants
to represent themselves.
In these kinds of chat an illusion of movement, space and physicality
is created.
In such a context, a series of quite peculiar phenomena emerge.
For example, in the Internet not only in the chats but also in the
newsgroups and in the mailing lists -so-called "flame wars" occur; these
are characterized by furious, long-lasting quarrels and denote the onset
of uncontrolled, archaic emotions. Apparently, this type of behavior is
produced by the kind of communication taking place in the Internet and
even involves who appear to be sensible and well-balanced people in real
life. In this respect, it is not unusual to run into inflamed disputes
with reciprocal insults and paranoid ideas between respectable professionals
who let themselves go with obscene language and personal offence.
Besides aggressiveness, often expressed in an unrestrained way, other
deep emotions arise from using Internet and chats, like, for example, emotions
connected with sexuality.
The most obvious and well-known expression is cybersex, sexual intercourse
with on-line users. In any case in Internet sexuality is often explicitly
expressed, frequently without considering social conventions and a sense
of modesty.
Some people believe that there are easily identifiable conditions at
the root of this phenomenon, which will be described by studying the analogies
with ancient rites.
Dionysian rites
However difficult it may be, we will try to give a brief definition
of Dionysus and its rites, pointing out that they were not the only orgiastic
rites of ancient time, but definitely the most well-known.
Maybe the main feature of Dionysus is elusiveness. Scholars considered
him from then on as the god of vegetation, of damp elements, and only later
of wine; of the invasion of the divine into the everyday; of perpetually
recurring life; of joy, of pain, of madness and the absurd.
In fact, these various elements, apparently unconnected, seem to be
linked to a sort of religious and cultural associative chain. Originally,
Dionysus seems to have been the god of shrub vegetation, that is of plants
like the fig tree, vine, almond tree, which give fruits but not through
the laborious work in the fields, which brings joy through the lifeblood.
In this sense Dionysus is connected to a whole series of celebrations during
winter and spring, where not only nature's reawakening was celebrated,
but also the opening of the earth and the return of the spirits of the
dead.
During these celebrations, they carried wooden phalluses in procession,
they celebrated the marriage of the god to the wife of the archon or head
king, they carried masks that copied the spirits of the dead.
In this sense, the joy given by the wine and the fall of limits was
intrinsically accompanied by the worrying fall of boundaries between the
world of the living and the world of the dead, between reality and madness.
There are two faces to unrestraint - euphoric and worrying, cheerful and
insane. The masks of Dionysian celebrations gave forth to theatre, another
great phenomenon, linked to the god, distinguished by illusiveness.
Dionysus represents diversity, the other one who inevitably lives itself,
is the place of the biggest contradictions - identity and diversity, presence
and absence, imaginary and real, absolute and nothing, power and fragility,
life and death, identity and passage. Since he unites the most untenable
contradictions in himself at the same time, he really is the mad god par
excellence.
Rites were celebrated in the mountains, at night, in the torchlight.
They played musical instruments, which induced excitement: drums, flutes.
The faithful, especially women, wore masks, danced round and round, shaking
their heads, dressed in animal skins (both as prey such as the fawn, and
as hunters such as the panther).
At the height of the excitement, they threw themselves on the sacrificial
animals, tore them to pieces and ate them raw.
Analogies
Now let's try to describe the most obvious analogies.
1) Limitation of sensorial experience and specific features
of communication
The description made by an author of the environment in which
the netsurfer is plunged is evocative:
"You sit almost motionless, relaxed, your eyes focused on a glowing
screen - the only source of light in an otherwise dark room. Your fingers
tap lightly as your mind converges on the words and images that float before
you. At times it seems like there is no difference between your thoughts
and those images.
At times it seems the distinction between inner and outer worlds almost
disappears. At times, time itself evaporates. You are a computer user immersed
in cyberspace. All melts into a new reality that transcends the rules of
conventional reality. Like a Zen master in meditation, you have become
one with the virtual universe".
Communication occurs in writing, without seeing the others. The whole
non-verbal communication is missing, substituted by the so-called "fancines",
symbols made up from the characters of the keyboard, which represent smiling,
sad, amazed, mute "fancine":
8-X :-X
In chat there is a lag in communication, given by the time necessary
to type the message and by the number of communications the user is engaged
in. These asynchronies in communication stimulate projected experiences,
fantasies that some people have compared to the situation that is created
in the psychoanalytic setting.
In ancient times the limitations of sensorial experience were obtained
by celebrating the rites at night, by torchlight, in isolated places, and
above all by going away from the normal habitat, from relatives and from
work activities.
They used rudimentary instruments to create the same situation of using
a single source of light to attract attention in totally dark surroundings.
2) Identity Flexibility and Anonymity
Chat users are anonymous and use nicknames or avatars.
Anonymity makes it possible to express parts of ourselves that are
usually hidden or repressed in real life.
The use of female pseudonyms by males is frequent, as is assuming sexual
roles that are different from the real thing.
Anonymity means the user considers the other user not as another person
but, in a certain sense as a part of his own inner word.
In ancient rites anonymity was obtained partly by separation from the
familiar environment, and partly by using two kinds of disguises, masks
or animal skins. One of the main components of the cult was men disguising
themselves in women's clothes, beginning with the god himself.
In "Bacchants", Penteus, who is the most rational opponent of Dionysus,
begins to show the first marks of madness just when he decides to disguise
himself as a woman, apparently to better spy on the scandalous rites.
We were amazed by the use of the term "avatar" that has a clear religious
origin in Internet.
In fact, the faithful of the ancient rite didn't disguise themselves
generically, but took on the identity of mythical characters, like satires,
and somehow took part in divinity, achieving a state of exaltation.
This was not simple anonymity, but rather the assumption of a new identity
in a group situation.
3) Equalization of the Social Status
In Internet every user can express himself independently of what
role he has in reality. What counts is how he/she presents himself and
acts on the net.
Someone defined this aspect of the Internet as "net democracy".
Everyone could take part in Dionysian rites, whether they were a slave
or free, young or old, man or woman. In theatre too, strongly connected
to the rite of Dionysus, access was free and without divisions between
the different social categories. It is useful to emphasize how great the
subverting was given the severity of the social divisions at that time
compared to now.
4) Stretching of Temporal and Spatial Boundaries
The common temporal and spatial coordinates are altered in Internet's
virtual universe. In chats, it is possible to communicate on line with
people who live in different places and time zones. A Japanese person from
Osaka who has just got up can converse with an Italian in Rome who is about
to go to bed.
In the absence of technical instruments, in ancient time the representation
of mythical events from the past on stage in the theatre and in the Dionysian
procession gave the illusion of overcoming temporal boundaries, linking
past and present.
5) Alteration in the state of consciousness
"Under the right conditions, cyberspace becomes a dream world,
not unlike the world which emerges when we sink into sleep.
This doesn't mean that these virtual experiences should be dismissed
as whimsical mental meanderings with no value or purpose. Quite the contrary.
Psychology clearly has established the necessity of nocturnal dreams for
maintaining emotional health and promoting personal growth. The same may
be true of virtual dreaming. Cyberspace is not simply an "information super-highway,"
It can offer the human psyche much more than facts. Virtual space can flex
the boundaries of conscious and unconscious realities. It can tell us something
about the meaning of "real." "
In the rite, alteration in the state of consciousness was achieved
through wine and the use of specific drugs, by rhythmic, deafening music,
by dancing, by running, practiced until exhaustion.
6) Access to Numerous Relationships
With regard to ancient rites, their character as group ceremonies should
be stressed. Religious exaltation was not reached in a status of individual
ecstasy, like in the Christian religion for example. The characteristic
of the Dionysian cult was to reunite people connected by some kind of affinity,
almost as a sect, whereas the other cults were practiced under state control
by the whole population, without special distinctions.
In the "chattic" rites, the modern faithful gather in different channels,
according to common interests and special affinities.
On this subject, it is useful to notice the stunned comment of a user:
"Everywhere I go in cyberspace, I keep running into the same kind of people!"
7) Addiction
The above considerations explain why it is not rare for Internet
use to lead to addiction. Many cases are already quoted in scientific literature.
The case of a young man who stayed connected to the Internet for three
days running without a break is from this period.
Something like this can be described as far as the Dionysian rites
and the theatre that arises from them are concerned.
Lucianus tells the story of an addiction to the theatre. The citizens
of Abdera lose their judgment after a performance of Andromeda by Euripides.
It was summer; after the performance, they were taken by a high fever,
which turned into in hemorrhaging and sweating after seven days. Then they
began to invent tragedies, speak in verses, scream and sing. The whole
town was full of these pale, emaciated playwrights, until winter and the
intense cold stopped everything. Andromeda had taken hold of their minds
and Perseus was in the spirit of everyone.
From what we can deduce from this description, it was literally a form
of being possessed by demon entities like Medusa, which had affected the
audience.
8) Proselytism and epidemics
In Internet, proselytism is testified by its rapid spread. It
is absolutely impossible to make a census of the net, because the amount
of users increases continuously, also because of a sort of "evangelism".
Dionysus was the only god who had a form of proselytism, unlike all
the others.
Both in the mythical age and in the historical one, missionaries who
tried to spread the Dionysian cult are described.
Maybe its main feature was that it was epidemic.
According to scholars from the last century, Dionysus took no part
in Greek rationality and he was the carrier of a type of madness interpreted
in medical terms as collective hysteria.
The scholars believed he was foreign, that he came from barbarian countries,
but Myceneun archives proved that from XII century BC, he was a Greek god.
The epidemics consisted of sudden madness. It especially hit women
and led them to leave the cities.
9) Transgression
In the case of the Dionysian rites, the goal of transgression
was to overcome the Greek religion's main cornerstone, the impassable distinction
between man and god, the bronze sky (as Pindarus says), which separates
mortals from immortals and that it is grave ubris to cross. Instead, the
faithful achieved enthusiasm, that is to say the merging with the god that
they felt inside.
The transgression of the Internet faithful can be identified in the
attack on rationality and the limits imposed by the role and by social
conventions.
In both cases, transgression is shown by the expression of aggressiveness,
by using obscene language and above all by overcoming the limits of rational
thought.
For example magic was in force in Dionysian comedy: animals and objects
spoke and acted by their own will or to serve men, without following rational
laws.
10) Opposition
Obviously opposition is linked with all the above forms of transgression.
In Internet there are crowds of net guardians. They take it upon themselves,
with varying perseverance and modes, to ensure that morality and law are
respected, like inflexible censors.
In Internet there are pages and pages of methods to unmask impostors
and defend yourself from immoral, improper or criminal behavior.
The list of the opponents to the Dionysian cult is impressive and the
punishments received by those who oppose it are even more disturbing.
Things are not much better for those who embrace it but the difficulties
faced are worse for those who do not embrace it.
The punishment for opponents is represented by the impious and cruel
form of what the guilty do not want to do in the pious form prescribed
by the god.
The daughters of King Minia refuse to follow Dionysus, because they
want to continue to work on the loom with excessive zeal and they don't
want to leave their marital lives. They have hallucinations, see their
work instruments covered in ivy. They go crazy and draw lots to choose
which son to devour.
The pirates who kidnap Dionysus for a ransom see him turn into a bear
and into a lion, without lifting a finger, limiting himself to a smile.
Terrified, they throw themselves into the sea and turn into dolphins.
In another case, god's punishment is represented by a suicide epidemic
among Athenian teenagers.
In several cities, Dionysus was represented by a double statue, with
two identical pictures representing the Mad and the Healer of the madness.
The only way to recover from divine foolishness was to live with it and
be reconciled to it, not to get rid of it through exorcism.
One well-known opponent is Pentheus, Dionysus's cousin and opponent.
He wants to retain his manly manners and lucidity. In order to watch the
orgies unseen, that are not as obscene as he believes, Pentheus lets Dionysus
disguise him as a woman, goes to the mountain, but is spotted and torn
to pieces by his mother, who has gone mad and mistakes him for a wild beast.
On this occasion the observer not only alters the phenomenon being
observed, but loses his life too.
Dionysian worship was both painful and orgiastic, as witnessed by songs
of the grape harvest that mourned the splitting of the bunches of grapes
as well as the god's death. Still in 691 AD, farmers cried "Dionysus" as
they pressed the grapes and the Council of Constantinople forbad them to
do so and ordered them to cry "Kyrie eleison" instead. Still in this period
the wine-pressers wore masks that represented Sileni and Satyr. The wine
like shed blood was a fine representation of the joyous and at the same
time cruel character of life itself, more evident in all its most intense
manifestations, when contradictions are clearer and more extreme.
The Dionysian cult was also repressed in Rome. Titus Livius recounts
that the orgiastic rites had spread "like an epidemic" and that the followers
had gathered in secret sects. Thousands of persons were indicted as betrayers
of the country and pedophiles and were executed. The charges seemed to
have been trumped up by the police and the whole episode looks very much
like other witch-hunts.
Here is the speech of the consul Postumus: "Do you think, Quiriti,
that these young men can become good soldiers and defend your wives and
children? They have sworn an obscene oath, have raped children, and have
been raped in turn."
Differences
Before examining the differences between the two phenomena, we
would like to emphasize that they are both interesting and attractive and
we do not express any moral criticism upon them. Let us try to understand
the differences between them, beginning from the most obvious.
On the one hand, the rites were part of a religious, cultural, artistic
world; on the other hand, they had a consistent and organic unity. They
had a beginning and an end, performed a mythological plot, that everyone
knew.
The rite included a growing paroxysm that had a cathartic effect and
ended the rite. The believers were numbed into a post-hypnotic sleep.
The participants knew that during the rite they would lose all sense
of time and space, but within a ritual with well-defined boundaries of
time and space.
The mythological masks worn by the members were limited in number,
codified and shared by the group. The individual could not choose any mask
arbitrarily.
Internet is part of the social context from the technical point of
view, but the phenomena we are examining are inconsistent and casual. They
also lack internal coherence. Anybody can switch on or off at any moment.
There is no plot and everyone can choose a different rite, like in a large
supermarket. The masks (avatars) can belong to every time and context and
we are impressed by their eclecticism.
From this point of view, the other orgiastic phenomena in the modern
world, like discos, soccer matches and rock concerts, are different from
Internet, since they have a defined setting and clear roles like the ancient
rites. In these phenomena, the alteration of the state of awareness is
balanced by stated rules. Similarly, in psychoanalytic sessions the setting
is a necessary accessory for free association.
The phenomena mentioned also remind us of the ancient rites because
they involve a physical expression of feelings; while in Internet there
is a sort of "amputation" of the bodily side of the experience. We observe
that in Internet the users are isolated in their homes and that their group
is merely virtual. In this isolation, the other users are seen as non-human
beings, as internal objects, not as real persons. Being non-human, they
can be sexually and aggressively abused.
The lack of setting, plot and consistency can perhaps explain some
aspects of Internet, such as addiction and delinquent behavior, which are
so hard to control.
For example, people in Internet express pedophilic wishes and fantasies,
feeling protected by anonymity and virtual "unreality", while the same
people would perhaps not act out these drives in reality.
Users can risk losing their identity and become prisoners of their
masks, like Pirandello's Henry the Fourth. This character takes part in
a carnival cavalcade, where everybody wears disparate masks, goes mad,
is no longer able to recover his past identity and spends twenty years
out of reality.
Many articles about Internet describe delinquent behavior and
methods to repress it.
As mentioned above, guardians are appointed to prevent and punish such
behavior, especially by teenagers.
It is worth nothing that many of these activities were performed during
orgiastic rites (phallic exhibitionism, obscene language, harsh derision,
use of masks in order to disguise oneself and commit forbidden acts). However,
they had an assured place and were not only allowed but also prescribed.
All through ancient times, the authorities never persecuted orgiastic rites,
with the exception of the episode reported by Titus Livius. They were allowed
in the Alexandrian period and in the Roman Empire, that is to say under
despotic governments.
Another difference is the role assigned to religion and sacred things.
In Internet, so secular and rational at its beginnings, the sacred dimension
was kept out but has come back in an indirect way.
One of the places of the Palace, a graphic chat line, is called Ades.
The participant-observer wears the mask of Hercules taming Cerberus. Masks
are called avatars, i.e. manifestations of gods. The feeling of being a
god and creating one's own identity is often described.
Initiation ceremonies were common in ancient rites; in the Palace there
is a passage from being a guest to becoming a member and then a secret
ceremony to become a wizard.
We would like to end by quoting an interview with Jim Bumgardner, the
creator of the Palace.
"I first met Jim up at Nrutas, the room at the Palace Mansion that
looks like the surface of a moon orbiting Saturn. I was hovering up among
the stars, while jbum was down on the surface of the moon, apparently whispering
to one of the wizards.
"Jbum, the Palace is great. Nice work!" I said.
"Thanks, AsKi."
"So jbum, what's it like walking around inside your own creation?
"Like being God, only worse. I don't get to visit any nuns."
I LOLed. Well, I thought, this jbum certainly has wit and a sense of
humor. Later I discovered that Bumgardner is renowned for these attributes.
He's the kind of guy who shows up at Harry's Bar wearing the name and avatar
of the Pope; who is partial to his prop of a 1950s female model wearing
a white dress and playing an accordion..."
How can we not think of some disconcerting and unexpected manifestations
of gods during the Dionysian rites?
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