Recent years have seen an increasing application of models derived from the cognitive sciences to the study of religious experience in Ancient Greece. In particular, this approach has utilized well frameworks from the interdisciplinary field of the Cognitive Science of Religion. This paper introduces this rapidly evolving movement in Classical Studies, touching on the major works, findings and potential new directions that have defined it so far. By way of example, this paper will then conduct a brief analysis of the all-female festival of the Thesmophoria, where the experiential realities and cognitive effects of this ritual event will be examined. In particular, I will employ the model of ‘decentering’ and the ‘divided self’; considering conditions such as hunger, embarrassment, exhaustion, and the use of light and darkness in-line with this framework. What this comparative analysis reveals is a network of experiential conditions which would facilitate the elision of a strong, agentic, sense of self, and thus encourage several important effects. Essentially, through the manipulation of sensory data, emotions, and the body, the Thesmophoria would stimulate the adoption of doctrinally desired mental states in its participants, including moralized content and shared identities. Moreover, as well as allowing for an embodied interaction with the myth of Demeter’s search for Persephone, this analysis strongly suggests how the Thesmophoria would allow for their epiphanic appearance.

Bio of Ben Cassell

Ben Cassell is a PhD candidate with the Department of Classics, King’s College London, where his thesis research intersects the emerging application of cognitive approaches to ancient Greek religion with a consideration of Cultural Memory in these processes. He is the author of several articles and volume chapters, while acting as an editor for the Journal of Cognitive Histography. He is the winner of the Grote Prize in Ancient History 2024.