Note 5 — XV. THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES

(5) Professor Diederichs has said that “in much ancient ritual it was thought that mystic communion with the deity could be obtained through the semblance of sex-intercourse—as in the Attis-Cybele worship, and the Isis-ritual.” (Farnell.) Reitzenstein says (op. cit., p. 20.) that the Initiates, like some of the Christian Nuns at a later time, believed in union with God through receiving the seed.