Por la belleza del gesto.

‘We are living in what the Greeks called the kairos, the right moment, for a ‘metamorphosis of the gods’, of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious man within us who is changing’ ― C.G. Jung

The Religion Of Mithras And Its Mysteries

Some months ago The Guardian published an article about the reopening of a reconstructed mithraeum (Temple of Mithras) in London. I had known about the cult of Mithras for some time; the Roman emperor Julian, whom I have written about, was a devoted follower of the religion. Yet it remains almost totally unknown to the public, even to students of classical literature and ancient history. It will be useful to review its origins, doctrines, and the reasons for its extinction.

It was an eastern (“oriental”) faith of Persian origin. The god Mithras originally belonged to that complex pantheon of deities that can be found in the remote pasts of Persia and India. India, that eternal wellspring of religious faiths, was the ultimate source of Mithraism; the name “Mithra” appears in both the Vedas and the Avesta. Mithra (or “Mitra-Varuna”) was held to be a god of light, a protector of truth and a deliverer from error. The worship of Mithra gradually percolated into Persia, where it became incorporated into Zoroastrianism and was assigned a position in that religion’s cosmology. Mithra occupied an intermediary place between the most elevated god Oromazes and the ruler of the realm of darkness Ahriman. From the beginning, the god was attended by a complicated series of rituals and ceremonial initiations, a feature that Mithraism would retain as it moved westward into the Greco-Roman world.

The Greeks had a long tradition of contact with Persia and its customs, and it was only natural that aspects of that culture would begin to be felt in Europe. The primary means of dissemination of the cult of Mithra was through the military; Greek or Roman soldiers serving in the East came into contact with this strange “mystery” religion, were attracted by its rituals and masculine hierarchies, and brought it back home with them. As historian Franz Cumont writes, in his The Mysteries of Mithra, “The contact of all the theologies of the Orient and all the philosophies of Greece produced the most startling combinations, and the competition between the different creeds became exceedingly brisk.”

Over time, the pure Mithraism of India and Persia became blended and changed by Grecian and Roman elements; it added a strong Neoplatonic flavor, as well as Syriac and Assyrian colorings. It was also heavily influenced by Stoicism, as Cumont explains:

Mysteries might possess for minds formed in the schools of Greece; philosophy also strove to reconcile their doctrines with its teachings, or rather the Asiatic priests pretended to discover in their sacred traditions the theories of the philosophic sects. None of these sects so readily lent itself to alliance with the popular devotion as that of the Stoa, and its influence on the formation of Mithraism was profound. An ancient myth sung by the Magi is quoted by Dion Chrysostomos on account of its allegorical resemblance to the Stoic cosmology; and many other Persian ideas were similarly modified by the pantheistic conceptions of the disciples of Zeno.

Since Mithraism tended to be a masculine religion, its practice took on the flavor of a secret society, with windowless temples dug into the earth, along with secret rituals that could only be revealed to initiates. Mithraism was combination of a Persian core mixed with Semitic rituals and adorned with Hellenic philosophical trappings in the form of Neoplatonism. This should not surprise us; all religions are in some ways composites of the environment from which they have evolved. With Roman expansion into Asia, the faith spread; the poet Statius mentions it in his Thebiad (I.717): Persei sub rupibus antri Indignata sequi torquentem cornua Mithram. It was a religion of soldiers, for its doctrines appealed to the masculine beliefs in sacrifice, redemption, and the acquisition of knowledge. Soldiers, like sailors, tend to be pious and superstitious, since so much of their lives depend on geography, the elements, and the randomness of fate.

What were the doctrines of this faith, the so-called “mysteries”? Because of its secret nature, we still to this day do not have a precise liturgy of Mithraism. It worshipped the four elements earth, air, fire, and water, and produced hymns in honor of the creative power of these elements. But the most potent of Mithraism’s rituals was that surrounding the bull, a fertility symbol dating back to the dawn of history itself. Ancient man venerated the bull as a source of food, fertility, and the power of nature itself. The importance of the bull to the worship of Mithra is explained by scholar Franz Cumont:

In the eyes of [ancient man], the capture of a wild bull was an achievement so highly fraught with honor as to be apparently no derogation even for a god. The redoubtable bull was grazing in a pasture on the mountain-side; the hero, resorting to a bold stratagem, seized it by the horns and succeeded in mounting it. The infuriated quadruped, breaking into a gallop, struggled in vain to free itself from its rider; the latter, although unseated by the bull’s mad rush, never for a moment relaxed his hold; he suffered himself to be dragged along, suspended from the horns of the animal, which, finally exhausted by its efforts, was forced to surrender.

Its conqueror then seizing it by its hind hoofs, dragged it backwards over a road strewn with obstacles into the cave which served as his home. This painful journey (transitus) of Mithra became the symbol of human sufferings. But the bull, it would appear, succeeded in making its escape from its prison, and roamed again at large over the mountain pastures. The Sun then sent the raven, his messenger, to carry to his ally the command to slay the fugitive. Mithra received this cruel mission much against his will, but submitting to the decree of Heaven he pursued the truant beast with his agile dog, succeeded in overtaking it just at the moment when it was taking refuge in the cave which it had quitted, and seizing it by the nostrils with one hand, with the other he plunged deep into its flank his hunting knife.

Then came an extraordinary prodigy to pass. From the body of the moribund victim sprang all the useful herbs and plants that cover the earth with their verdure. From the spinal cord of the animal sprang the wheat that gives us our bread, and from its blood the vine that produces the sacred drink of the Mysteries….

The seed of the bull, gathered and purified by the Moon, produced all the different species of useful animals, and its soul, under the protection of the dog, the faithful companion of Mithra, ascended into the celestial spheres above, where, receiving the honors of divinity, it became under the name of Silvanus the guardian of herds. Thus, through the sacrifice which he had so resignedly undertaken, the tauroctonous hero became the creator of all the beneficent beings on earth; and, from the death which he had caused, was born a new life, more rich and more fecund than the old.

This is the origin of the bull-sacrifice motif in Mithraism. Life is presented as a battle, and the continuation of life is dependent on sacrifice and struggle. The religion counseled resistance to carnal delights and sexual indulgence; this asceticism was probably a relic of its early Stoic influences. Mithraism also elevated dynamic action over passive contemplation, and courage over mercy. Good and evil were in constant tension with each other, its adherents believed, and only by constantly emphasizing good would a man be able to overcome the forces of darkness. This ethical code accounted for much of Mithraism’s success.

The new religion was remarkable in that it was able to adapt itself to a wide variety of environments and locales. There was a real possibility that it might have become the dominant religion of the Empire and of Europe. Temples to Mithras (mithraea) have been found all over the former Roman domains. Why, then, did the religion die out? Simply put, it could not compete with the spread of Christianity, which doomed many other Oriental cults of late antiquity (the cults of Adonis, Serapis, and Isis to name the most prominent).

Mithraism did not proselytize; and by forbidding women any role in the faith, it deprived itself of an incalculable source of potential power. Perhaps, too, Mithraism was too burdened with the weight of weird Indian and Persian gods that would have been bizarre to Roman, Greek, or Germanic sensibilities. It also must be said that Christianity persecuted all rival religions with a ferocity that was unmatched: mobs sacked temples to Mithras, slew Mithraic priests, and suppressed its liturgy on pain of physical retribution.

Yet the influence of Mithraism is undeniable. Consider, for example this illustration of Sol invictus, the invincible Sun God of the Mithraic cosmology, which is found in Franz Cumont’s 1903 study of Mithraism. It looks uncannily like the American Statue of Liberty in New York City, and must have had some substratal influence in its design:

In history, nothing is ever really forgotten. A religion may die; but its art, ethic, and soul endure, in whatever incarnation human genius and sensibility see fit to generate.

“The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves.” ― Lao Tzu

Marriage of Heaven and Earth Norman Lindsay Reimagined by Talon Abraxas

THE ONLY WAY IS LOVE

Love is not just an emotion, but a creative force. Every act of kindness, forgiveness, and compassion causes ripples in the collective consciousness, influencing far more than we can see. As old age dissolves, humanity discovers that it was never separated from the Light it sought. The journey has always been a return to what was waiting within.

The Universe isn’t testing you. He is answering to you. Every thought, intention, choice, action, and belief sends a signal outward, and the cosmos reflects that energy in unexpected ways. What you experience is neither a reward nor a punishment, but a response; a mirror of what you cultivate inside and bring to around you.

Monica Bellucci by Gian Paolo Barbieri

"The whole world is magic. Creation, existence, change. All of it. My witchcraft is just paying attention, valuing, and being in tune with it all. It’s my own way of being in love with the world." - Circe

Circe Art by Louis Chalon 1888 Recreation by Talon Abraxas

In Homer’s Odyssey, Circe lives alone on an island. She is skilled, intelligent, self-sufficient. Men arrive at her door expecting hospitality and dominance. Instead, she gives them wine laced with magic and turns them into pigs.

For centuries, that transformation has been read as punishment. The dangerous woman. The emasculator. The seductress who strips men of power.

But look closer.

Circe does not hunt men. They come to her. They enter her space, consume what she offers, assume control. And suddenly they are revealed as what they already are—greedy, impulsive, ruled by appetite. The spell doesn’t create the pig. It exposes it.

What terrifies patriarchal storytelling is not that Circe is evil. It’s that she is autonomous. She lives without a husband. She commands knowledge traditionally coded as forbidden—herbalism, potions, transformation. She controls who stays human and who does not. She negotiates with Odysseus as an equal once he proves he cannot be easily subdued.

For women, Circe becomes a mirror.

She represents the fear society projects onto women who refuse submission. A woman with boundaries is called cold. A woman with power is called dangerous. A woman who refuses to soothe male ego is branded monstrous. “She turned him into a pig” becomes shorthand for “She took away his dominance.”

But there is another reading.

Circe is not destroying men. She is demanding accountability. She is the embodiment of consequence. Enter her world carelessly, and you will be transformed by it.

"Mercury is the anima mundi, the soul of the world, and entered matter as an emanation of God, and since then it is concealed in it." - C.G. Jung

Tree of Life - Anima Mundi Talon Abraxas

The Anima Mundi: Does The World Have A Soul?

In the 21st century, the dominant view of the world and universe is that it is a lifeless material object, devoid of intelligence or consciousness. This view of the world and universe conceives of it as a sort of giant clock or machine that is made up of separate parts, which move about and collide with one another.

This mechanistic and reductionist view of the world began during the Enlightenment in the 17th century and gained steam in the 19th century. Though still dominant, it is a recent one in terms of world history. In the pre-modern and ancient world, another view predominated. It held that the world was an intelligent and living organism, of which human beings and living things were an integral and essential part.

It was known as the Anima Mundi or World Soul.

Origins and History Plato in Raphael’s School of Athens

This idea was held by many of the early Greek philosophers and one of its earliest attested appearances is in Plato’s dialogue, Timaeus. There, Plato describes the creation and beginning of the world and describes it as having a soul and intelligence.

“And so the most likely account must say that this world came to be in very truth, through god’s providence, a living being with soul and intelligence.” Plato, Timaeus, p. 43

This idea of the World Soul continued to be powerful in the succeeding centuries and was held by Stoic philosophers throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods, including figures such as Marcus Aurelius. For the Stoics, the ‘World Soul’ “is the physical and rational principle of order and generation in the world (Cicero, De natura deorum 2.7.19), sustained as it is by a force (vis ) that they call animum mundi and identify with God.” The Neoplatonic Anima Mundi concept emanating from The Absolute (Source: Wikipedia)

In Late Antiquity, Neoplatonist philosophers like Plotinus, synthesising the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, conceived of the World Soul as one of the three principles of his metaphysics which constituted a bridge between the material realm and the Nous (Divine Mind). This metaphysics was later picked up by the early Greek Church Fathers who usually equated the Holy Spirit with the ‘World Soul’.

The idea waxed and waned in popularity in the Middle Ages before a revival in the Renaissance with key thinkers such as Marsilio Facino, Paracelsus and Robert Fludd (see picture at the top). Later during the Enlightenment, the World Soul gained some recognition amongst groups such as the Cambridge Neoplatonist’s.

In the Romanticism of the late 18th and early 19th century, the ‘spirit of nature’ – Geist Der Natur (in German) was a recurrent and prominent theme in the art and literature of the time, as seen in F.W.J Schelling and G.W.F Hegel. Quantum Physics and a New Paradigm

In more recent times, new discoveries in physics in the 20th century have challenged the dominant notions of the materialist paradigm. The discoveries in quantum mechanics and quantum theory appear to point to the idea of the world as an interrelated whole that is not mere ‘solid matter’. This is well described by the renowned physicist David Bohm:

“…the world cannot be analysed correctly into distinct parts; instead, it must be regarded as an indivisible unit in which separate parts appear as valid approximations only in the classical [i.e. Newtonian] limit….Thus, at the quantum level of accuracy, an object does not have any “intrinsic” properties (for instance, wave or particle) belonging to itself alone; instead, it shares all its properties mutually and indivisibly with the systems with which it interacts.” David Bohm, Quantum Theory. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1958. pp. 161-162.

In other words, the world is a whole in which everything is related and a part of everything else. It’s like a giant web in which each strand is integral to the whole of the web. Nothing is separate and unrelated.

Panpsychism and the Nature of Consciousness

The re-emergence in recent years of Panpsychism (from the Greek Pan/All and Psyche Mind/Soul) in contemporary scientific and philosophical debate also points to the idea of a ‘World Soul’. The basic idea is that there is a mind or consciousness that is fundamental to the world and/or Nature.

This idea is present in the oldest living cultures around the world and is commonly referred to as animism. Animism considers the world to be a vital and alive place, animated by a spirit or mind that is present in everything from trees and rocks, to animals and humans. Robert Fludd, Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris […]

This notion of a World Soul and the implication that consciousness extends beyond the human brain into the world outside ourselves, changes our relationship to that world. Rather than seeing ourselves and other creatures as separate and unconnected parts in a giant machine clock, cut off and without purpose – we see ourselves as integral strands in an interconnected and living web.

A World Soul.

Cattleya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds

Martin Johnson Heade

Lion. Gustave Surand (1860-1937)