How the Legend of Dionysus and The Bacchae Relates Today

The music for this video is from Behemoth’s “Ov The Fire And The Void.”

The Bacchae is a story of drunkness, intoxication and self destruction. In this story, the cult of Apollo reigns over all. It is a cult of order and society. Yet where it once represented ideas of enlightenment and knowledge, it later came to represent a politically corrupt authority, an authority that was drunk off of power and wealth. The ruling authority was a senile group that was far removed from the people and the Earth – and stuck in their own ways.

The God of chaos and hedonism, Dionysus enters the situation to shake things up. There is a vacuum of power into which he surges. As a long haired, non conformist, he arrives at the capital city with an angry mob. This demigod is arrested, interrogated, mocked and thrown into prison.

Yet the authorities could not imprison the violent forces of the primeval. An earthquake leveled the royal palace, destroying the symbol of the Apollonian World Order. Wild women tore cattle to bits with their own hands. Then these women proceeded to dismember the current authorities just like cattle. They played ball with their arms and feet, and then impaled their heads on sticks.

Our current world order is only 200 years old. It’s currently headed towards a path of destruction with its unsustainable policies. In a vacuum that lacks true and noble authority, a void will consume all and release a force of bloody revolution.