In Greek, three different nouns referred to mystery cults, the specific term μυστήρια and the wider terms ὄργια/orgia and τελετή/teletē. The plural orgia (the singular is attested later and in a different meaning) is etymologically connected with the Indo-European root found in English “work.” In its origins euphemistic, already in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter the core-text on Eleusis from perhaps the second half of the 7th century BCE (Richardson, 1974), orgia is the specia…