The New Mithraeum

I’m excited to finally have my copy of ‘Ritual and Epiphany in the Mysteries of Mithras’ by Peter Mark Adams! The book is now officially available. Feel free to share your thoughts—I’d love to hear what you all think!

Salve Levin. A great place to start is https://www.mithraeum.eu/book/the-roman-cult-of-mithras_1990 by Manfred Clauss. Also, if you can find it, https://www.mithraeum.eu/news/the-mystery-of-mithras-exploring-the-heart-of-a-roman-cult exhibition catalogue is excellent, very up to date and full of articles by top scholars. For symbolism and ritual, Attilio Mastrocinque has a couple of excellent books. And if you read French and are interested in ancient philosophy (as I can tell from your book selection pic), https://www.mithraeum.eu/book/mithras-platonicus_1975 by Robert Turcan is well worth it. Curious to see which one catches your attention!

In the 1900s a model Mithraeum was built in Saalburg in the mistaken belief that there was an original temple of Mithras in an ancient Roman building.

Two extracts from De abstinentia ab esu animalium by Porphyry on sacrifices and the importance of abstinence from animal food among Persian Magi.

New evidence for the cult of Mithras and the religious practices of Legio IV Scythica at the Roman frontier city of Zeugma on the Euphrates.

Join us for a special webinar with professor, writer and host of The New Mithraeum podcast Andreu Abuín, interviewing acclaimed esoteric scholar Peter Mark Adams on his ground breaking latest book, Ritual and Epiphany in the Mysteries of Mithras.

Having previously authored The Game of Saturn, Mystai, Hagia Sophia / Sanctum of Kronos, Two Esoteric Tarots (with Christophe Poncet), and The Power of the Healing Field, Peter Mark Adams is known for providing landmark studies in the field of the Esoteric Tradition. His Mysteries of Mithras combines cutting-edge scholarship with first-hand accounts of initiation and contemporary ethnographies of ritual performance, providing an unparalleled glimpse into Mithraism that redefines our understanding of Western Europe’s most enigmatic mystery cult.

Approaching the material from an emic (insider’s) perspective, the author examines the cult’s hierarchical grade structure, ceremonial roles, and ritual mechanics—revealing how initiates invoked the serpent power and encountered the awe-inspiring epiphany of Saturn-Kronos, the sovereign time-deity.

Through a richly interdisciplinary lens, drawing on Orphic metaphysics, Greco-Roman ritual theory, art history, and comparative ethnographies of initiation, Adams vividly animates Mithraic iconography, frescoes, and reliefs as ritual grammar encoding the lived phenomenology of participation.

Richly illustrated and deeply insightful, this volume revives the Cult of Mithras as Western Europe’s preeminent mystery tradition, offering readers both scholarly rigor and spiritual resonance.

**This event is an online webinar. You will need the following link to register in order to attend:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_WWQUugDhRU6MHO9mjSS-zg?fbclid=IwY2xjawKqkahleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFJYm9UZ1NKYUN0Sm5zRkxNAR7YnFFV2b3kJnTUTp16D-XNqT_ZNqDIrISAorCsdN_o9E8bNOgG7sE-UKtljg_aem_flGgVjZ7_Qm0Te5spNrCbA#/registration

Conversation with Peter Mark Adams on the occasion of the release of Ritual & Epiphany in the Mysteries of Mithras, by Theion Publishing.

The Secret Cult of Saturn in Imperial Rome.

Mithras emerging from the rock with torch and dagger beside a reclining Oceanus or Saturn.

Le culte de Mithra : Une religion iranienne qui se répand à Rome et dans son empire.

Latin writer, Platonic philosopher and rhetorician.

Pseudo-Plutarch, De fluviis. Goodwin, Ed. Plutarch. Plutarch’s Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press of John Wilson and son.

Deux extraits rapportés par Eznik de Goghp, Ve siècle, sur la création du Soleil selon les mythologies des mages.

PhD Thesis by Vittoria Canciani, coordinated by A. Mastrocinque. Verona, 14th April 2022.

Interpreting the Bas-relief of Mithras Tauroctonos from Osterburken in the Light of Porphyry’s Treatise, The Cave of the Nymphs.

Roger Beck revisits the zodiac circle of the Mithraeum on the island of Ponza, a composition unique within the Mithraic corpus. His reading places the monument in relation to cosmology, ritual space, and Mithraic doctrine.

Quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti, 113.11. Ambrosiaster, 5th cent.

Bronze statuette of Mithras in his characteristic bull-slaying pose, though only the god has been preserved.

The site of Ay-Todor in Crimea revealed a Roman camp, a temple with votive offerings, and a Mithraeum.

This relief of Mithras killing the bull includes an unusual owl at the feet of Cautopates and a cock next to Cautes.