Note 26 — PART II CHAPTER VIII ORIGINS OF THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY THE THRACIAN WORSHIP OF DIONYSOS

So too the wild shaking and whirling-round of the head, which acc. to innumerable literary and pictorial descriptions was a regular feature of the Bacchic dance and cult, must have contributed—and was so intended—to bring about the condition of ecstasy and frenzy (ῥιψαύχενι σὺν κλόνῳ, Pi., fr. 208; κρᾶτα σεῖσαι, E., Ba. 185, etc.).—How such fanatic shaking of the head, if kept up for along time, is by itself sufficient, in persons naturally predisposed to it, to bring on complete religious ἔκστασις, may be learnt from a remarkable account in Moreau du hachisch, p. 290 ff., derived from personal observation in the East.