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Monday, June 22, 2026
7pm ET (NYC time)
Free! RSVP with email at checkout
PLEASE NOTE: Video playback of free events is only available to Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanatomy.org.
Dionysos emerges as one of the most enigmatic and enduring figures of ancient Greek religion, a mystery cult deity whose presence stretches from Minoan civilization around 1700 BCE through the Roman era. Associated with women, snakes, goats, bulls, wine, and women's madness, Dionysos dissolved boundaries—between life and death, human and animal, destruction and renewal. Carl Kerenyi famously described him as “the archetype of indestructible life,” a being whose mythic pattern centers on death, dismemberment, and miraculous resurrection. Kerenyi emphasizes Dionysos as mystery sustained primarily by women.
Following Kerenyi as a guide, this talk will trace the figure of Dionysos back to Minoan religion, where the god’s epiphanies co-evolved with ancient matriarchal goddesses who later shaped the Eleusinian mysteries of Demeter and Persephone. In this view, Dionysos cannot be understood apart from his opposite: these chthonic goddesses of life, death, and rebirth. We will look at Dionysos’ genealogical connections to Ariadne, Persephone/Semele, the Delphic oracle, and the origins of Greek tragedy and comedy.
We will also examine Kerenyi’s understanding of the masculine within Dionysian religion, and how Orphic traditions sublimated his mysteries into a more masculine mode that engendered the doctrine of the immortal soul, which Plato and Christianity would take up.
By feeling our way through the Dionysian atmosphere of mystery with Kerenyi, we may find new ways to summon a Dionysian response to our collective depression and ecological catastrophe today.
Forrest Wolfe has been living successfully with bipolar depression for over twenty-five years. He is Taiwanese-American, has an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Princeton University, and also an M.F.A in Film from the University of Southern California, School of Cinema. After a brief, interrupted career in film, he has been working as a technology and management consultant.
Forrest Wolfe is the pen name for Luke Blanchford. His first book, Questions for Wewrewolves—a creative nonfiction of madness, witch and daimon—will be published by RIZE Press on May 5th, 2026.
Monday, June 22, 2026
7pm ET (NYC time)
Free! RSVP with email at checkout
PLEASE NOTE: Video playback of free events is only available to Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanatomy.org.
Dionysos emerges as one of the most enigmatic and enduring figures of ancient Greek religion, a mystery cult deity whose presence stretches from Minoan civilization around 1700 BCE through the Roman era. Associated with women, snakes, goats, bulls, wine, and women's madness, Dionysos dissolved boundaries—between life and death, human and animal, destruction and renewal. Carl Kerenyi famously described him as “the archetype of indestructible life,” a being whose mythic pattern centers on death, dismemberment, and miraculous resurrection. Kerenyi emphasizes Dionysos as mystery sustained primarily by women.
Following Kerenyi as a guide, this talk will trace the figure of Dionysos back to Minoan religion, where the god’s epiphanies co-evolved with ancient matriarchal goddesses who later shaped the Eleusinian mysteries of Demeter and Persephone. In this view, Dionysos cannot be understood apart from his opposite: these chthonic goddesses of life, death, and rebirth. We will look at Dionysos’ genealogical connections to Ariadne, Persephone/Semele, the Delphic oracle, and the origins of Greek tragedy and comedy.
We will also examine Kerenyi’s understanding of the masculine within Dionysian religion, and how Orphic traditions sublimated his mysteries into a more masculine mode that engendered the doctrine of the immortal soul, which Plato and Christianity would take up.
By feeling our way through the Dionysian atmosphere of mystery with Kerenyi, we may find new ways to summon a Dionysian response to our collective depression and ecological catastrophe today.
Forrest Wolfe has been living successfully with bipolar depression for over twenty-five years. He is Taiwanese-American, has an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Princeton University, and also an M.F.A in Film from the University of Southern California, School of Cinema. After a brief, interrupted career in film, he has been working as a technology and management consultant.
Forrest Wolfe is the pen name for Luke Blanchford. His first book, Questions for Wewrewolves—a creative nonfiction of madness, witch and daimon—will be published by RIZE Press on May 5th, 2026.