A Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries

"he who in life has focused on true things will, after death, possess the highest truth; so he who has pursued false things will be tormented by extreme fallacy, so that the one is delighted by true things, while the other is vexed by false semblances." Ficinus, On the Immortality of the Soul, Book 18, p. 411.

But notwithstanding this important truth was obscurely shown by the lesser mysteries, we must not suppose that it was generally known even to the initiated themselves; for as people of almost all descriptions were admitted to these rites, it would have been a ridiculous prostitution to disclose to the multitude a theory so abstracted and sublime. It was sufficient to instruct them in the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, and in the means of returning to the principles from which they originally fell;