I would not doubt Cicero would have said that regarding Eleusian Mysteries. He was a politician during a time when the Caesar was worshipped as a god, and massive bureaucracies of priests evangelized his divinity as "Pontifex Maximus", highest priest of the Roman state religion. Like the Greeks, the Romans had similar initiation rituals and mysteries to inculcate the population into their mythologies espousing Caesar as god. To me, it sounds like Cicero is simply admiring the implementation of the Eleusian Mysteries, the result of which was a "cultivated", "refined", "happy" population -- all synonymous with an obedient population.
Regarding a citation of the Eleusian Mysteries ushering in the dark age, I don't have anything specific other than the fact that they were correlated in time. Since they were mysteries, the curators of which went to great lengths to guard their secrets, facts are hard to come by. Substitute Eleusis for Egyptian magic rituals, the Roman imperial cult, or other state religions, and I think you'll see similar patterns.
But I think it's useful to ask, why did these mystery religions use occulted knowledge? Why keep knowledge from groups of people, if not to keep them in the dark as a means of controlling them? Are these mysteries not akin to the noble lie which Plato discussed in The Republic?
Myths, combined with psychedelic drugs, which provide emotional catharsis and grandiose visions, are an effective way to /mystify/ people. Mysticism, by way of confusing, offers a means to control an individual by providing an opportunity to substitute or suggest the reality the hierophants want their initiates to believe.
This is the opposite of the scientific discovery, reason, and the challenging of traditional authority that marked The Enlightement.
Regarding a citation of the Eleusian Mysteries ushering in the dark age, I don't have anything specific other than the fact that they were correlated in time. Since they were mysteries, the curators of which went to great lengths to guard their secrets, facts are hard to come by. Substitute Eleusis for Egyptian magic rituals, the Roman imperial cult, or other state religions, and I think you'll see similar patterns.
But I think it's useful to ask, why did these mystery religions use occulted knowledge? Why keep knowledge from groups of people, if not to keep them in the dark as a means of controlling them? Are these mysteries not akin to the noble lie which Plato discussed in The Republic?
Myths, combined with psychedelic drugs, which provide emotional catharsis and grandiose visions, are an effective way to /mystify/ people. Mysticism, by way of confusing, offers a means to control an individual by providing an opportunity to substitute or suggest the reality the hierophants want their initiates to believe.
This is the opposite of the scientific discovery, reason, and the challenging of traditional authority that marked The Enlightement.