Before proceeding to an examination of those Mysteries which are the most closely connected with the masonic institution, it will be as well to take a brief view of their general organization. The secret worship, or Mysteries, of the ancients were always divided into the lesser and the greater; the former being intended only to awaken curiosity, to test the capacity and disposition of the candidate, and by symbolical purifications to prepare him for his introduction into the greater Mysteries. The candidate was at first called an aspirant, or seeker of the truth, and the initial ceremony which he underwent was a lustration or purification by water. In this condition he may be compared to the Entered Apprentice of the masonic rites, and it is here worth adverting to the fact (which will be hereafter more fully developed) that all the ceremonies in the first degree of masonry are symbolic of an internal purification. In the lesser Mysteries[24] the candidate took an oath of secrecy, which was administered to him by the mystagogue, and then received a preparatory instruction,[25] which enabled him afterwards to understand the developments of the higher and subsequent division. He was now called a _Mystes_, or initiate, and may be compared to the Fellow Craft of Freemasonry. In the greater Mysteries the whole knowledge of the divine truths, which was the object of initiation, was communicated. 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. The candidate was here called an _epopt_, or eye-witness, because nothing was now hidden from him; and hence he may be compared to the Master Mason, of whom Hutchinson says that "he has discovered the knowledge of God and his salvation, and been redeemed from the death of sin and the sepulchre of pollution and unrighteousness." VI. The Dionysiac Artificers. After this general view of the religious Mysteries of the ancient world, let us now proceed to a closer examination of those which are more intimately connected with the history of Freemasonry, and whose influence is, to this day, most evidently felt in its organization.