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Socius

Maarten Jozef Vermaseren

Dutch historian, born in 1918 and deceased in 1985. He was a specialist in the history of religions, especially the Eastern cults in the Roman Empire. A prolific writer, best known for his Corpus inscriptionum et monumentorum religionis Mithriacae.

maarten.vermaseren
Amsterdam, Netherlands
October 2022
 
Oct 2025
Textus

Mithras in India and Iran

We propose to revisit a passage by the prolific author Marteen Vermaseren that highlights correspondences today forgotten between the Roman Mithras and its Eastern counterparts.
B R
We enjoyed this article. Unfortunately, ALL RELIGIONS today share cultish behaviors and attitudes. People are quick to use the term "cult." Without regarding that all religions act the same hostile prejudiced way toward those that don’t follow them. We respect religions and those that make their religious choices. We briefly share what we have concluded so far regarding Mitra|Mithra. The research continues. We, too, would like to find more concrete foundational evidence on Mitra|Mithra, the phantom deity. Wikipedia is a very flawed, third party information website. Freshman year in college, we were discouraged to cite any sources from it. Wikipedia is at the top of the search page because it’s for lazy people needing a quick answer. Google owns it. That’s also why it’s at the top of the page and the most clicked. We don’t use it. We’d rather scroll down AND search for ORIGINAL content, from the original source. We also ask human search engines for assistance when necessary. They are, Human Researchers with the ability to find what lies vastly beyond the Internet. With AI, original meanings and definitions are edited, destroyed and inaccurately revised. This article sums it up beautifully in paragraph 5 above. "Because of this great gap, the story of Mithras is bound to be incomplete and distorted, and those who wish to read it must wait for and assimilate the fresh discoveries which are made year by year." Aspects of Indian/Hindu Guru-student teachings involved the guru whispering mantras into the ear of the student and giving the student specific sadhanas. Nothing was written. That was between the guru and pupil. It took centuries to pen the Vedas. It’s also difficult to capture Vedic / Ancient Sanskrit utterances, words, phrases and songs into understood concepts. Mitra|Mithra shares that beauty, also. There may not a lot of written documents. Because of that, the foundational truths that support this deity’s existence are few. What remained should have been left alone and not destroyed. Mitra|Mithra’s complete existence has been discarded. Dieties don’t stop existing because we can’t find/figure out the pieces of the puzzle. Where we are, at this moment in time, is uncovering an erased truth. It is said that in the Torah/christian bible/old testament book titled, "Esther," there is no mention of the name God. We have researched this as well. The carefully detailed documented text depicts a Jewish girl abducted to later become the Queen of Persia. Her life before she became queen. She married a Persian king. As a result she saved her race from annihilation. A great story! What’s missing? A lot. The Persian King she married. His practices of worship. The deity /dieties he served. Did he worship Mitra|Mithra? The king married a Jewish girl and there’s NO mention of God. Kings are renowned for worshipping dieties on behalf of their dynasty, before they go to war, the threat of war and on behalf of their people. Esther gave birth to a son with a Persian-Greek name. To completely leave out the Persian deity worshipped during the time of Esther was definitely another way to erase Mitra|Mithra’s existence. Did Esther adopt the practices of her land, Persia? (Someone will read this, write an article to refute Mitra was not worshipped by Esther’s husband, a Persian King. Please don’t waste your time.) Finally, one of Shiva’s avatars is destruction. The destroyer to make room for rebirth. Shiva has a massive following of Hindu and global devotees, and yet sits in Samadhi for centuries. By collective agreement, we believe, the beauty of Shiva like Mitra is that they don’t seek or need worship. Shiva wants us to fulfill our duty as it relates to Dharma while we avoid falling into karmic traps like regret and attachments. More than likely, Mitra is working behind the scenes making sure we uphold our Dharmic contracts. Mitra remains, the guardian of contracts. As you can see, our research continues. It seems to us that Mitra|Mithra was a MAJOR threat to christianity. Early church fathers/christians demonized Hinduism and Buddhism, the world’s oldest religions. Thanks to Max Mueller who coined the term, Hindu Mythology. Somehow, it was determined Mitra|Mithra and the worship had to be destroyed. First, by christians infiltrating their meetings. According to documents, christianity was established in 325AD. Hundreds of years after the crucifixion. That was enough time to scour the earth and completely erase the existence of Mitra|Mithra. Choosing to leave the image of the bull blood is supposed to convey why Mitra|Mithra was erased. They didn’t cover their tracks well. We know many christians. To date, they say things like, "I’m saved because of the BLOOD of Christ." "I plead the BLOOD of Christ against my enemies." They participate in the symbolic blood drinking ritual known as communion and eat crackers to symbolize eating the body of Christ. The Mithra slaying the bull image was a reason to erase him and leave ONLY that piece of artwork. Yet, to date, christians participate in: (A) part human-part god blood worship, (B) part human-part god cannibalism in the form of eating the body AND drinking the blood. (C) Mithra’s date of birth was also December 25th. In other words, they stole the Mitra|Mithra concept of the bull sacrifice. Destroyed the origin this originated from. Destroyed the followers. Then, labeled their PRIVATE practices as cult worship. They plagiarized the concept of sacrificing the bull, repackaged it (with a bow) as truth and that same concept became the core tenet of christianity. Christians are taught that their belief in a part-god, part-human’s blood and body, Saves them. Mitra|Mithra was destroyed to prevent Christians from discovering the truth. Was co-existing with Mitra|Mithra an option? Anything other than annihilation, would serve as a reminder of the identity theft, and origin of the blood worship and murders. Generations later, all is forgotten. Today, what was done back then would be considered a crime. By today’s standards, Mitra|Mithra, and the followers were victims of identity theft and religious hatred. We stand on this truth: Dieties don’t disappear because: 1) Their identity was stolen, 2) Their existence was erased and 3) Their followers were killed. Thank you for leaving this article online. We request that you email this article with the comments. Often times, truth is removed from the Internet by blocking future access to the site. History’s truth will always stand. Namaste. 10/18/25
ANIL M SINGH
A FINE NOTE AND WILL LIKE TO KNOW MORE IN INDIAN CONTEXT ALSO TO SEND MY INDIAN INPUTS
Aug 2025
Liber

Mithras, de geheimzinnige god

De oorspronkelijke Nederlandse uitgave van 1959 introduceerde het werk van Vermaseren, dat als klassiek geldt in de populaire studie van het mithraïsme en dat de belangstelling voor deze cultus blijvend heeft gevormd.
Oct 2022
NewSocius
Dutch historian, born in 1918 and deceased in 1985. He was a specialist in the history of religions, especially the Eastern cults in the Roman Empire. A prolific writer, best known for his Corpus inscriptionum et monumentorum religionis Mithriacae.
Dutch historian, born in 1918 and deceased in 1985. He was a specialist in the history of religions, especially the Eastern cults in the Roman Empire. A prolific writer, best known for his Corpus inscriptionum et monumentorum religionis Mithriacae.
Nov 2017
NewLiber

Mithra, ce dieu mystérieux

Maarten Vermaseren, qui a publié un corpus des inscriptions et des monuments de la religion mithriaque et un certain nombre d'études savantes sur le même sujet est certainement l'un des meilleurs spécialistes de la question.
Nov 2017
NewLiber

Mithriaca III. The Mithraeum at Marino

M.J. VERMASEREN, Mithriaca III. The Mithraeum at Marino (Etudes préliminaires aux Religions orientales dans l'Empire romain, T. 16).— Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1982.— 24 χ 15,5, XIII + 105 p., 1 frontispice en couleurs, plusieurs illustr. dans le t.
 
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