Introduction.

hidden, so that it was absolutely impossible for an uninitiated person to find the truth for themselves; and even the best-intentioned among the initiates, including the greatest philosophers of Greece, were so strictly bound to secrecy regarding these teachings by the priests—whose ranks they joined through initiation—that none of them dared to teach the core essence of these truths publicly. They tested their students for a long time and in various ways before revealing the truth to them; however, the public, or all those who were not initiated, remained stuck at the shell The author uses the metaphor of the "shell" (Schaale) to represent the superficial, literal myths, while the "kernel" (Kern) represents the hidden philosophical truth..

The form of government, which was either entirely in the hands of the priests, as in Egypt, or at least largely dependent on them, as in Greece, carefully guarded the maintenance of the mysteries. Anyone who made any claim to status or respect was required to be initiated; and those who refused, or who taught more freely than was desired, were despised as blasphemers and sometimes punished with death. Thus, the philosopher Anaxagoras Anaxagoras (c. 500–428 BCE) was a Pre-Socratic philosopher who was eventually prosecuted for impiety because he taught that the sun was a red-hot mass of metal rather than a god. was declared an atheist because he denied,