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As the liberator of souls - his wine, music and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. During the Bakkonalian mysteries, self-control is jettisoned as participants revel in the wonders of the natural world. Particularly for those on the fringes of society, such ritualised revelry offers a means of temporarily escaping the rigid prescriptions of everyday life. Bakkos is the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society and he thus symbolizes the chaotic, dangerous and unexpected; everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods.