It is easy enough, by following poets' descriptions and plastic representations of such scenes, to elaborate still further the picture of this nocturnal festival of fanatic enthusiasm. But, we must ask, what was the _meaning_ of it all? We shall get nearest to the truth if we will exclude as far as possible all theories imported from unrelated provinces of thought and fix our attention solely on what, for the participants, was the result of it all--the result anticipated and consciously proposed by them, and therefore the recognized object, or, at least, one {258} of the recognized objects of these strange proceedings. The participators in these dance-festivals induced intentionally in themselves a sort of mania, an extraordinary exaltation of their being. A strange rapture came over them in which they seemed to themselves and others "frenzied", "possessed".[24\8] This excessive stimulation of the senses, going even as far as hallucination,[25\8] was brought about, in those who were susceptible to their influence, by the delirious whirl of the dance, the music and the darkness, and all the other circumstances of this tumultuous worship.[26\8] This extreme pitch of excitement was the result intended. The violently induced exaltation of the senses had a religious purpose, in that such enlargement and extension of his being was man's only way, as it seemed, of entering into union and relationship with the god and his spiritual attendants. The god is invisibly present among his inspired worshippers. At any rate, he is close at hand, and the tumult of the festival is to bring him completely into their midst.[27\8] There are various legends about the disappearance of the god into another world and his return thence to mankind.[28\8] Every second year his return is celebrated, and it is just this Appearance, this "Epiphany" of the god, that gives the reason and the motive of the festival. The Bull-God, in the most ancient and primitive form of the belief, appeared in person among the dancers,[29\8] or else the imitated roaring of a bull produced by hidden "Mimes of Terror" served to suggest the invisible Presence.[30\8] The worshippers, too, in furious exaltation and divine inspiration, strive after the god; they seek communion with him. They burst the physical barriers of their soul. A magic power takes hold of them; they feel themselves raised high above the level of their everyday existence; they seem to _become_ those spiritual beings who wildly dance in the train of the god.[31\8] Nay, more, they have a share in the life of the god himself; nothing less can be the meaning of the fact that the enraptured servants of the god call themselves by the name of the god. The worshipper who in his exaltation has become one with the god, is himself now called Sabos, Sabazios.[32\8] The superhuman and the infra-human are mingled in his person; like the frenzied god[33\8] he throws himself upon the sacrificial animal to devour it raw.