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Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries (Greek: μυστήρια), were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates (mystai). The main characteristic of these religious schools was the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the ritual practice ...
In the context of Ancient Greek philosophy, the terms "esoteric" and "exoteric" were sometimes used by scholars not to denote that there was secrecy, but to distinguish two procedures of research and education: the first reserved for teachings that were developed "within the walls" of the philosophical school, among a circle of thinkers ("eso-" indicating what is unseen, as in the classes ...
The published works of their Teacher, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, was mainly aimed at making available to the Western world the ancient Teachings of the East. This new effort had as its aim the promulgation of Christian mysticism based on the life and teachings of the Master Jesus and a mystical interpretation of the Bible, especially the works ...
The ancient biographers of Pythagoras, Iamblichus (c.245-c.325 AD) and his master Porphyry (c.234–c.305 AD) seem to make the distinction of the two as that of 'beginner' and 'advanced'. As the Pythagorean cenobites practiced an esoteric path, like the mystery schools of antiquity, the adherents, akousmatikoi, following initiation became ...
On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians (Ancient Greek: Περὶ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων μυστηρίων), also known as the Theurgia and under its abbreviated Latin title De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum (On the Egyptian Mysteries; or often simply De Mysteriis), is a work of Neoplatonic philosophy primarily concerned with ritual and theurgy and attributed to Iamblichus.
Writers influenced by Theosophy, such as Reuben Swinburne Clymer in his book The Mystery of Osiris (1909) and Manly Palmer Hall in Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians (1937), wrote of an age-old Egyptian mystery tradition. [158] An elaborate example of such beliefs is the 1954 book Stolen Legacy by George G. M. James. [160]
Historians have discovered that an ancient Greek inscription on a marble slab in a museum collection is a rare, previously unknown “graduate school yearbook” type list of names.
The two great schools of biblical interpretation in the early Christian church incorporated Neoplatonism and philosophical beliefs from Plato's teachings into Christianity, and interpreted much of the Bible allegorically. The founders of the Alexandrian school of Christian theology were Clement of Alexandria and Origen.