Lecture 2 – Speaking with the Dead: Afterlife, Mysteries, and Ritual Technology

From Homer’s nekyia to the Eleusinian Mysteries, this lecture examines how Greeks navigated the porous boundary between the living and the dead. We map Hades’ landscape, decode its symbols, and follow the shift from open necromantic rites to priestly monopoly. You’ll encounter Orphic gold tablets, the Spindle of Necessity, the Acheron nekromanteion, and the enduring tradition of moirologia laments. Iconography, architecture, and ritual become tools for licensed passage—controlling memory, judgment, and return.