Author Description

David Ulansey’s Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries won wide acclaim for its splendid scholarship and what Gnosis magazine called "an absolutely spell-binding detective story of antique lore." Ulansey returns here with another detective story, this time unearthing the once-flourishing religious movements snuffed out by the arrival of Christianity. Based on a series of lectures presented at San Francisco’s prestigious Jung Institute, Mysteria employs a wealth of scholarly and investigative tools in this exploration of the role ancient mystery religions played in the evolution of Western consciousness. The book reveals how these secret cults, which centered on rituals and symbols of transformation at the deepest levels, catalyzed the formation of the individual, personal identity that became the core of the Western psyche. Mysteria also examines the impact of the extraordinary cultural and intellectual transformations of the Hellenistic Age on consciousness and self-awareness. Individual chapters describe a rich spiritual landscape in antiquity that included the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Orphic and Pythagorean Movements, Plato and the Mysteries, the Hellenistic Revolution, Mithraic Mysteries, and Apocalypse and Gnosis.