But this time I come as Dionysus the victorious, who will make the earth a day of feast... (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Baubo, Dionysus would thus be two of the many names of protean life. Unlike Baubo, however, Dionysus is naked. Nudity that does not mean the revelation of a truth, but the unveiled affirmation of appearances. Strong nudity that is beautiful enough, manly enough, not to need to veil himself. But, on the other hand, Dionysus is the god of masks; As for women, "knowing how to appear is part of their domain." [...] In Dionysus, the opposition of the veiled and the unveiled, of the masculine and the feminine, of fetishism and castration is erased. Greek God, prior to the system of theological oppositions. (Sarah Kofman)
Dionysus had the power to turn water into wine. According to Plato, this miraculous power was considered common practice in the ritual exercises that caused the bacchantes and maenads to fall into trances. (Alain Daniélou)
Dionysus was overwhelmed in intoxication and used sarcasm towards anyone who opposed him. He never claimed to support the true word. It was as if the word mingled with his procession of Maenads and Satyrs, but without being too noticed. Dionysus was pure intensity, which crossed and unhinged every obstacle, without dwelling on the word, whether true or false. (Roberto Calasso)
The power of Dionysus is proven by the fact that he alone resists. He is the lord of the feast in the palaces and among the masses, he is at home among princes and beggars. Its light enchants the ephemeral that is incinerated by it. (Ernst Jünger)
In any case, it should be noted that the display of the phallus was a religious act, because it was the generating organ of Dionysus, at the same time god and mortal who had conquered death. (Mircea Eliade)
Nietzsche was completely wrong about Dionysus, not to mention the opposition to Apollo which is pure fantasy since the Greeks mixed both in myths and sometimes seemed to identify them. (Simone Weil)
Whenever it has reappeared, the cult of Śiva or Dionysus has been banished by the city, which admits only those cults which give man an immeasurable place, which permit and excuse his plundering, and condemn the forms of ecstasy which permit direct contact with the mysterious world of spirits. (Alain Daniélou)
