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Updated: May 21, 2025
In each of the initiations of the ancient Mysteries, there was a scenic representation of the death or disappearance of some god or hero, whose adventures constituted the legend of the Mystery. That part of the ceremony of initiation which related to and represented the death or disappearance was called the aphanism.
Here, then, in Masonry, is what was called the aphanism in the ancient Mysteries. The bitter but necessary lesson of death has been imparted. The living soul, with the lifeless body which encased it, has disappeared, and can nowhere be found. All is darkness confusion despair.
After a variety of preparatory ceremonies, intended to call forth all his courage and fortitude, the aphanism or mystical death of Dionysus was figured out in the ceremonies, and the shrieks and lamentations of the initiates, with the confinement or burial of the candidate on the pastos, couch, or coffin, constituted the first part of the ceremony of initiation.
Here we find, among the various ceremonies which assimilated these rites to Freemasonry, the aphanism, which was the disappearance or death; the pastos, the couch, coffin, or grave; the euresis, or the discovery of the body; and the autopsy, or full sight of everything, that is, the complete communication of the secrets.
Like it they were all funereal in their character: they began in sorrow and lamentation, they ended in joy; there was an aphanism, or burial; a pastos, or grave; an euresis, or discovery of what had been lost; and a legend, or mythical relation, all of which were entirely and profoundly symbolical in their character.
Freemasonry, which has in its ceremonial form been framed after the model of these ancient Mysteries, has also its aphanism in the third degree. The holy things in the ancient Mysteries which were known only to the initiates, and were not to be disclosed to the profane, were called the aporrheta.
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