Western scholarship in the history of religions has taken the orgiastic rituals of the eastern Mediterranean (Dionysos, Cybele) as the ideal type of religious behavior manifesting as reckless bodily movements contributing to states of emotional excess, sometimes with the assistance of intoxicants. In the context of large-scale festivities, the force of these excesses sets aside the normal psychological restraints such that religious exaltation is obtained en masse through all types of sensual pleasure. This view enabled scholars and others to link such pre-Christian rites with transgressive behavior in western European history, especially witchcraft and heresy. Theories of "pagan survivals" were advanced to explain both the presence of pre-Christian elements in festivals of the church year and the periodic outbreaks of heresy and sorcery. The weaknesses of these theories of subterranean survival of paganism require some attention in order to avoid applying errors of method...