Some of these rituals were forerunners of what is told in the Christian gospels, where the Christ child is born in the middle of winter - at the time of the Dionysian rites - and dies and is reborn in the spring - the time of Easter is still fixed according to the phases of the moon, just as the astrological star in the east foretold the birth of the Christ child.  Shamans (medicine men or folk healers) are found in all primitive cultures and descend to the underworld or journey to other worlds to retrieve souls or parts of the soul which have been lost and thus bring about healing.  Theatre was born in Greece from such ritual, in which participation was key to the health of the whole community, the collective. 

These myths continue to resonate down the centuries and across continents.  Sir James Frazer's major work, The Golden Bough, brought these ancient myths and rituals to fin-de-siecle attention when it was first published in 1890, an era of great archaeological discovery.  Arguably, it was the resonance of myth and ritual which really gave birth to the tenets of psychoanalysis and contemporary therapy.  Freud's favourite works of literature included Greek Tragedy, such as Oedipus, and also the works of Shakespeare, which are full of esoteric and magical ritual which came back to light in the Renaissance (literally the re-birth).  However, it was Freud's early pupil and friend, Carl Gustav Jung, and his followers such as Marie Louise von Franz and M Esther Harding, who wrote about, and explored, extensively how ancient myths and folk tales mapped the psyche's journey to wholeness.

Bibliography & sources:

Isis Unveiled by H P Blavatsky