The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries focus on life, death and rebirth in the present, identical with the living nature, which was regarded as the converging of past and future. In this context the mystae, or initiates, learned the aporrheta, or secret meaning of the rites, and were thenceforth denominated ephori, or epoptæ (seers). Sacred orgies were celebrated on every fifth year; and began on the 15th of the month Boëdromian or September.