Reddit mentions of Dionysus: Myth and Cult

In my view, Nietzsche was overly optimistic in citing the will to power as the fundamental drive of living humans. Ironic that one so associated with nihilism would be too optimistic. Reading Nietzsche helped me realize that the vast majority of people don't really care about finding meaning in life, and are perfectly happy substituting complacent contentment for meaning. Contentment, on the surface, feels like existential fulfillment, but it's impossible to stress how harmful that nondistinction can be. Meaning-seeking is proactive and individualistic, of which most people are neither and few are either. Most people who (mis)read Nietzsche see themselves as the higher man, rather than a sheep, for who wishes to see himself as an ovine puppet? Nietzsche is fantastic at exposing hypocrisy, including (indirectly) in his own readers, even if they're not self-honest enough to see it. He was one of the best arguers for relativism of beliefs, showing how our morals (and most other ideas) are influenced so heavily by circumstance and bias that they can scarcely be called objective or untouchably sacred.

Beyond that, Nietzsche's Apollonian-Dionysian distinction is my favorite dichotomy in philosophy, one that has shaped many aspects of my thinking. He didn't coin it, but he popularized it (along with Walter Otto).

Nietzsche goes against so many values my society holds, so he's rejected, caricatured, and miscontextualized left and right. To be clear, I don't think many people should subscribe to his philosophy; it's not for everyone, and it wouldn't be feasible for everyone to be Nietzschean. But (and I say this as a female liberal) I think his particular idealization of masculinity is something to be celebrated, something quite missing in our imbalanced culture today (especially when most people who think they're manly are anything but).

He's a delightful writer, and probably the easiest philosopher for me to read (factoring in how important the flow of prose is), and he's so independent from philosophical canon that laypersons could read him without immense difficulty or much preparation. I think they should. Nietzsche has a lot of things to say that people would benefit from hearing and understanding.

Always happy to help! For more info on Dionysus:

Subreddits:
/r/dionysus

Books to learn more about Dionysus (I used Amazon because it is easy, you may find these cheaper elsewhere):

Dionysus Myth and Cult - Considered by some Dionysians to be the Dionysian Bible.

Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life - Also very helpful scholarly source.

Ecstatic - Written by a Dionysian priest, this is a really good book for beginning to know the god.

Tending the Bull - Written by the same guy, focuses on a more specific aspect of Dionysus, within the Starry Bull tradition (Will explain more in the website section). If you do find yourself interested in the Starry Bull tradition, this author has several other books on amazon, you can find them on his author page.


Websites:

The Dionysion - Kinda old, lots of sites missing, but still has some useful info.

Temple of Dionysus - Another old site, might be of some use though.

The Theoi page for Dionysus - Lots of scholarly info on the god.

The Bakcheion - This is the website of the Starry Bull. It's a bit much at first, but the information is well sourced and presents a side of Dionysus many don't see. Please be sure to practice khernips before exploring their pantheon page, but their Dionysus page has a lot of great things, specifically the Feast of the Senses and Devotional Activities for Dionysus.

Here is my post after my first attempt at Enthousiasmos (Possession by the god)

Here is my post about one of my early rites for Dionysus.

Labrys, a Greek polytheist group, also celebrates Phalleforia, a Dionysian festival, once a year in Athens, and has some pretty good videos of the festival. Here are some:

2017 Phalleforia - 7:33 The official video of the festival

2017 Phalleforia - 4:19 A better edited version

2016 Phalleforia - 28:02 Unofficial video of the festival

2016 Phalleforia - 18:11 Official video of the festival

Finally here is Daemonia Nymphe's Hymn to Bacchus, probably the most well known musical hymn for the god.

Edit: Sorry if this is too much, but I missed one thing. The Bacchae's Sacred Chants from the Greek movie Two Suns in the Sky.

The Greeks called Dionysus Bacchus as well. There's a really good book called Dionysus: Myth and Cult that goes into the particulars of his history as a deity worshiped in Greece and cultic practices that sprung up.

I think my favorite Dionysus story is when the maenads wanted two house wives to come with them to the forest, but since they were devotees of Hera they stayed home. Well, old Dionysus didn't like that very much so he decided to visit them. Things ended poorly for the women. The walls started bleeding honey, they went mad, and tore their eyes out. He's my favorite Greek god. I actually have a statue of him that my cat likes to knock over.