the souls of the good to Paradise, Orpheus/ was believed to welcome only good souls but not bad souls, that is he welcomed only those who had learnt the secret of immortality through initiation in the mysteries, but not the unitiated who had not gained this privilege. The Thracian Orphic mysteries The religious doctrine of the Thracians, that is "Thracian Orphism," was accessible only to the royalty and nobility. Therefore, the mystery cult of "Thracian Orphism," which was most often practised in the Thracian mountains, was one of the main secrets of the royal family. This mysterial knowledge was believed to be transmitted through the consumption of the sacred drink, wine, which in Thracian culture had a similar role to the role of the soma among Indo-Aryan peoples, the haoma among Iranian peoples, and the mead among Germanic and Slavic peoples. Metal phialae were used during these rites. Since the ancient Thracians were a highly patriarchal society, the Orphic mystery cult was held in a place where only men from the warrior-aristocracy would gather, and women not only were not allowed to participate in the rites, but the very sanctuary of Orpheus was forbidden to women. The participants of the rites had to leave their weapons at the entrance before entering the hall where the Orphic mysteries were conducted, and there they were instructed into the tenets of the teachings of Orpheus. Since the mysteries were carried out in secret, little is known about the precise rituals involved during these religious ceremonies, although it is known that their essential doctrine was that of immortality and followed the myth of Orpheus, which itself was an example of the passage of man into the afterlife through the threshold of death. According to the Orphic tradition, the king, representing the priest-king Orpheus, through his gradual self-improvement reflecting the ten-fold cosmic cycle of the Orphic myth, would enter a second union with , and thus become a demigod. The initiates of the Orphic cult, however, were almost complete opposites of the Orphic king, and it was by disciplining their bodies through abstinence and striving for spiritual self-knowledge that they sought to achieve immortality, which the Thracians believed could be attained only by a select few initiates who would rise in body and spirit to join Orpheus and remain with him eternally. The initiates of the Orphic cult believed they could pass through the phases