The gods represented the Illuminati of the time, people who had access to the “ambrosia” (adrenochrome for lack of a better term) which made them smarter (Athena), faster (Hermes), stronger (Zeus), hornier (Venus), more talented (Apollo), more productive (Hephaestus) and more aggressive (Mars) than ordinary people. The elites have access to drugs that make them into gods, or at least it feels that way to them, and mythology is their way of hiding in plain sight. That’s their trick. They fictionalize what they are actually doing and make it fanciful, then normies can’t see it.
The Masons blew this guys head off in a ritual because they mixed up the real bullets and blanks. Why were they firing a gun at his head? What noble purpose was being served? https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/10/nyregion/a-ritual-gone-fatally-wrong-puts-light-on-masonic-secrecy.html