Samothrace An island in the north Aegean celebrated for a school of the Mysteries, more profound than the Mysteries of Eleusis, "perhaps the oldest [Mysteries] ever established in our present race" (TG 287). The island is of volcanic formation and connected with traditions of a deluge. Its Mysteries were related to the worship of the kabiri, the holy fires of the most occult powers of nature, which legend says formed on the seven localities of the island the kabir born of the Holy Lemnos sacred to Vulcan. It was colonized by Phoenicians and before them by the mysterious Pelasgians who came from the East, which indicates its connection with the ancient Mysteries of India. Here was enacted every seven years the Mysteries -- what the Shemitic peoples of
Asia Minor called the Sod. The sacred fire preserved at Samothrace was communicated to the candidates of initiation, who thus began a new life -- the real meaning of baptism by fire and the spirit.
The Mysteries of Samothrace and of Eleusis were the two most famous in ancient Greek civilization, and it would be difficult to find which was held in greater reverence. Those at Samothrace were more scientific and philosophic, while those celebrated at Eleusis were more of a mystical and religious character.
