Hi everyone, and welcome to the segment called 【It Means What?】 hi 安澜.

Hi lulu, hi everyone.

欢迎大家回来【词源考古研究所】这个板块. So in this segment, we're going to explore the interesting origin of words and phrases. So 安澜, what is the word for today?

Today's word is Mystery.

Mystery就是神秘. I love mystery, movies, books and I especially love murder mystery.

Oh, I love murder mystery, Miss Marple, Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, all of those mysteries I love.

Yes, do you know Miss Marple is Agatha Christie?

Yes, I know, but I was trying to think of some more.

Yet, you only come up with two, but okay, let's come back to the word mystery. I'm sure mystery has a mysterious origin.

It comes from the Greek word ‘mysterion’ .

Mysterion, r-i-o-n.

Which means a secret religious ritual or a religious secret.

Okay. So originated from like a religious context 是有宗教背景的是吗?

Yeah.

So many of you have probably listened to our episodes on the Greek myths, so the Greeks had lots of different gods. There was one particular god when they worshipped her.

Her?

It was her. When they worshiped her, they actually had secret rituals.

Was this like an evil goddess or something?

No.

It was a fertility goddess responsible for the earth and farming.

叫丰产的女神, 但是大家的崇拜仪式都得是在secret都得是私下在秘密保密进行.

The most famous version of these were called the mysteries, and the celebrations, the rituals, everything was secret and anyone taking part had to swear a vow of secrecy.

Hang on a minute. You said the most famous ones were called mysteries. Do you mean when you say mysteries this referred to the rituals themselves? 当时的一系列这种仪式就叫做Mysteries or Mysterion.

Yeah, or mysteria.

Ok. And then you said people who were involved and as they had to swear a vow of secrecy就是要保密, 要做这种保密宣誓, 就保密承诺. Is this like nowadays signing the confidentiality agreement or something?

In those days, it was even stricter because anyone who broke the vow was executed or killed.

Yeah, I'm sorry. This is like one of those stories that didn't really make a logical sense because if everyone who were ever involved in those mysteria swore a vow of secrecy, then how did we know?

All we know is that these rituals took place, but nobody knows what happened. So these rituals happened in a huge temple, in a town very close to Athens, the modern capital of Greece.

Now we know the building, we know kind of how big it was. We also have an idea of what it looked like, but nobody knows what happened inside.

Oh, like back then it would be us, for example, talking be like look at those people. Where are they going? You would say they're going to mysteria again.

Exactly. So nowadays, archaeologists are still trying to work out what happened in the building.

It’s like what are they doing? God knows.

Pretty much. There we go. God knows. Some actually believe that they were taking drugs or even murdering each other. Nobody really knows it was just gossip. So ever since then, we talk about something being a mystery.

So it's basically almost like just a secret society.

Pretty much. So in ancient Greece they had lots of what we know as cults.

Cults在今天来说就叫邪教, but back then it was probably weren't so negative, no. 就是有点异教的那种they worship specific gods or goddess.

Exactly.

For example, the Chinese word as you said for cult is kind of evil religion, Cults back then weren't necessarily evil. They were just focus on a particular god. But now in English we still say cult and that does have a slightly negative meaning when talking about religion.

Yeah, but when it's talking about cultural, it... when it's used in the cultural context, we can say this movie has a cult following. Cult following 我们在说宗教的时候, 现在说的cult是邪教, 但是如果是文化领域, 我们说电影有一个cult following或者这个作家有个cult following指的是niche market. Specific group of people that really worship this particular writer or this particular movie.

And that is probably closer to the original meaning of cult.

I see, so the original Greek meaning of cult probably didn't really have any negativity attached to it.

No.

Interesting. Interesting. So you said anyone who broke the vow of secrecy was executed, they will be killed.

Yes.

All right. Now, before we wrap up this episode, let me ask you, 安澜, if you travel back to ancient Greece, would you have joined one of these secret worship societies that have threatened to kill you if you break this confidentiality?

No, I can't keep a secret.

It would be like, no, don't drag me into your mysteria, pretty much. It's nicer to... Actually, I think mysteria or mystery, it's nicer when you're sort of like the bystander. Exactly. When you’re probably inside, it's not no longer that mysterious.

I don't think it's probably that's mysterious. It was probably just a few kind of rituals, probably nothing like what some people believe that they were taking drugs and murdering each other.

These type of things, I don't think they're ever that exciting when you really know the truth.

Maybe they were just trying to be cool. There we go. They're just trying to be an exclusive society, pretty much.

All right. So that ends today's It Means What? 词源考古研究所。

Now, if you like the segment, let us know in our comment section or if you want to request any particular word that you want us to talk about, also let us know. Thank you, 安澜, for coming to the show.

we'll see you next time. Bye bye.