This is a 200 Follower Celebration thread about a subject you all voted on: THE CULT OF MITHRAS!

There’s a lot of general info on this subject, so instead of rehashing Wikipedia, I wanted to communicate my own interpretations and things I found in my research that intrigued me.

Its important to remember that Mithraism partakes in the First Century’s fad of Neoplatonic ideas, which surged out of the Hellenistic world

I attribute this to an importation of Buddhist ideas from the East through Alexander the Great’s conquests (another thread one day!)

In the first section of the myth, Mithras emerges from a stone or from his cave, depending on the version. This could be related to Plato’s Cave or a chthonic symbol of emerging into the world of light

Its also important to remember that the majority of adherents were involved in the Roman military, making the beliefs also concerned with the fraternal comradery of civic virtue and duty.

I imagine Mithraism as an ancient version of Masonry – and it seems that in practice the two are very similar (ranks / degrees of membership / initiation, obsession with symbolism, fraternal, mysterious meetings)

However, unlike Masonry, it is lastly vital to remember that this was not pantomime or purely ‘symbolic’ – but heroic, real, and worthy of remembrance and celebration in its archetypal relation to truth

Secondly, once out of the rock, Mithras notices a great, powerful bull and combats it. He eventually captures the bull with his bare hands and moves to execute it

[Hercules pictured, not Mithras]

Lastly, after slaying the bull, Mithras dines with Sol in victory, as various animals rejoice over or consume the bull’s carcass

The way we know this story is through frescoes, statues, and inscriptions related to it, all found around the Mediterranean world in ‘Mithraeums’ – local temples where adherents would gather

From Britain to Africa, Mithraeum ruins can be found in their hundred now. In their active prime, there would have been thousands.

All have the same general lay-out and features: underground or windowless (simulating a cave) with a single corridor that has an attached anteroom

Painted in these rooms were astrological signs: the animals eating on the bull’s carcass are Zodiac signs, Mithras representing Perseus, (constellation ‘above’ Taurus) symbolizing the great cosmic order and its heroic conquest