This practical end of primitive ceremonies, the promotion of fertility by magical rites, comes out still more strongly in the autumn sowing festival of the Thesmophoria. Here the women attempt, by carrying certain magical _sacra_, the direct impulsion of nature. In connection with these _sacra_ of the Thesmophoria the subject of ‘mysteries’ falls to be examined. The gist of all primitive mysteries is found to be the handling or tasting of certain _sacra_ after elaborate purification. The _sacra_ are conceived of as having magical, i.e. divine, properties. Contact with them is contact with a superhuman potency, which is taboo to the unpurified. The gist of a mystery is often the removal of a taboo. From the Olympian religion ‘mysteries’ appear to have been wholly absent. In Chapter V. we pass from ritual to theology, from an examination of rites performed to the examination of the beings to whom these rites were addressed. These beings, it is found, are of the order of sprites, ghosts, and bogeys, rather than of completely articulate gods, their study that of demonology rather than theology. As their ritual has been shown to be mainly that of the Aversion of evil, so they and their shifting attributes are mainly of malevolent character. Man makes his demons in the image of his own savage and irrational passions. Aeschylus attempts, and the normal man fails, to convert his Erinyes into Semnai Theai. In Chapter VI. the advance is noted from demonology to theology, from the sprite and ghost to the human and humane god. The god begins to reflect not only human passions but humane relations. The primitive association of women with agriculture is seen to issue in the figures of the Mother and the Maid, and later of the Mother and the Daughter, later still in the numerous female trinities that arose out of this duality. In Chapter VII. the passage from ghost to god is clearly seen, and the humane relation between descendant and ancestor begets a kindliness which mollifies and humanizes the old religion of Aversion. The culminating point of the natural development of an anthropomorphic theology is here reached, and it is seen that the goddesses and the ‘hero-gods’ of the old order are, in their simple, non-mystic humanity, very near to the Olympians. * * * * * At this point comes the great significant moment for Greece, the intrusion of a new and missionary faith, the religion of an immigrant god, Dionysos. In Chapter VIII. the Thracian origin of Dionysos is established. In his religion two elements are seen to coexist, the worship of an old god of vegetation on which was grafted the worship of a spirit of intoxication. The new impulse that he brought to Greece was the belief in _enthusiasm_, the belief that a man through physical intoxication at first, later through spiritual ecstasy, could pass from the human to the divine.