Dionysos, Enthousiasmos, and the Danger of the Possessing God

"God can be good and terrible — not in succession — but at the same time.

This is why we seek a mediator between us and him. We approach through the priest and enclose him through the sacraments — for our own safety. To trap the divine within confines that render it safe. But as Philip K. Dick's Fat sees in VALIS, God can escape those confines and begin transubstantiating the world itself. God becomes free.

The gentle choir singing Amen, amen is not calming the congregation. It is pacifying the god. When you understand this, you have reached the innermost core of religion.

The danger is greater still: the god can thrust himself outward until he becomes the congregation. You worship a god and he pays you back by taking you over. The Greeks called this enthousiasmos — literally to be possessed by the god.

Of all the Greek gods, Dionysos was the one most likely to do this. And Dionysos was insane. Stated the other way around: if your god takes you over, whatever name he goes by, he is likely a form of the mad god Dionysos — god of intoxication, which may mean, quite literally, to take in toxins. Poison.

If you sense the danger and try to run, he has you anyway. Panic itself comes from the demigod Pan, a sub-form of Dionysos. The urge to flee is already possession. What happened at Jonestown was the mass running of panic, inspired by the mad god, leading into death — the logical outcome of that thrust."

— Philip K. Dick, VALIS