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VILMOS VOIGT
In comparative religion, the word “mystery” denotes rites that reveal a certain
kind of knowledge, and initiate the participants into a hidden, secret world.’
Its manifestation is usually a rite de passage,’ in which the participant moves
out of condition A to condition B (both in a social and a religious meaning).
These rites are usually repeated (in most cases during recurring feasts),
whereby more and more is revealed from the same hidden teaching. Mysteries
are universally known religious phenomena, which have existed all around
the world from the Stone Age on, and which can take on the most varied
forms, from sacred to utterly profane.
“Rite,” “cult,” “sacrifice” are very complicated and interconnected terms,
and it is not always easy to decide whether they refer to “mysteries” in the
proper sense of the term or not. Fortunately, there is an Old Norse noun seidr
meaning Sitte, Brauch, Sittlichkeit in Modern German, which later was also
used for the “new religion” (inn nyi seidr) and was borrowed by the Lapps as
seita, “rites and places of offering.” However, this Old Norse word does not
have a connotation with reference to mysteries.* Its original form was sidu,
which denoted, if uncertainly and vaguely, “magic.”
TACITUS AS A SOURCE
We do have information concerning Old German mysteries, thanks to our
perennial guide Tacitus. Chapter 2 of his Germania (offering manifold
exact data relating to the end of 1* century AD within the framework of
an interpretatio Romana)‘ is a gem of early European phenomenology of
religion. Here Tacitus reports that the Germans used traditional songs in
their celebrations, which were the only sources for their collective memory,
songs about the god Tuisto, and his son, Mannus. Mannus had three sons,
whose names stood for the following tribes: proximi Oceano Ingaevones,
medii Herminones, ceteri Istaevones vocentur. In the 19 century and the first
half of the 20" century, the three names were first interpreted as denotations
of distinct early Germanic tribes. Later they were understood as designating
Germanic dialects, and only from the second half of the 20" century were they
seen as “Kultgemeinschaften” (much like Roman Catholics versus Protestants
To my great surprise, there are very few entries about “mystery” in the current handbooks
or dictionaries of comparative religion. In what follows, I refer only to summarizing papers,
without discussing here the general theories of Otto Héfler and Jan de Vries.
This is a term by Arnold van Gennep, usually misunderstood. First edition: Arnold van
Gennep, Les Rites de passage, Paris, Emile Nourry, 1909.
Dag Strémbick, Sejd. Textstudier i nordisk religionshistoria, Stockholm — Képenhamn,
Hugo Gebers Forlag — Levin & Munksgaard, 1935.
There are several editions of the Germania of Tacitus so I am referring to the text by its
chapters.
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