Discovery:  London Mithraeum/Cult of Mithras

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Cult of MITHRAS: Rituals and more rituals

The mysterious cult of Mithras first appeared in Rome in the 1st century AD.  It spread across the Empire over the next 300 years, predominantly attracting merchants, soldiers and imperial administrators. (Let's call them the minions of the cult, like freemasons and masonics.)  

Meeting in temples which were often constructed below ground, these were private, dark and windowless spaces.  The mythological scene of Mithras killing a bull within a cave, the ‘tauroctony’ is at the heart of the cult, and its full meaning is subject of much speculation. (Remember: Minoans are BULL PEOPLE.  BULLS are the BIG GIVEAWAY!  Mithras/Minoan are the same crazy dangerous people.) The Corporate Elite's favorite god is Mithras...(Mithraists worshipped in secret during the First Century, why not in the Twenty-First?)




You do realize that the Statue of Liberty is actually Mithras Nymphus, right?

The Mystery Roman (Minoan) Temple Discovered Under London 

London was founded almost 2,000 years ago as the Roman town of Londinium, and there are a number of Roman ruins still visible around London today.  It may come as a surprise to many, but it is possible to visit an ancient Roman temple under London today...though it's not nearly as impressive as Roman temples in Italy, France, or Turkey. (I'm sure...)
 
MINOANS (Romans, Egyptians, or whatever they call themselves in whatever era) move and have always moved around.  Old ruins and palaces? It's them.
 
London Mithraeum, also called the Temple of Mithras, is a Roman Mithraeum temple.  Mithraic temples were built by worshipers of Mithras were built in natural caves or a structure imitating a cave.  They were often built within or below an existing building, and most are underground.  The god Mithras was popular with Roman soldiers, and so its temples are often found around the frontiers of the Roman Empire. 
**Alan Watt explained that "THEY" build atop older structures, churches, sacred spaces... over and over...  (They go from global looters pirates to bankers and mob money mafia)
  • Discovery: 1954

One of the major archaeological discoveries at the temple was a head of Mithras himself (which is recognizable by his Phrygian cap). 

Today London is known as one of the key financial centers of the world, and the oldest known financial document from London dates from AD 57 (the Romans only launched their permanent invasion of Britain in AD 47).

(Finances: Ah yes, Minoans (who think of themselves as gods) are always looking after their LOOT and their cash stash country to country.)

THE SITE:

Today the Mithraeum ruins are part of an exhibition space beneath the modern Bloomberg building (Bloomberg's new European headquarters).  Also on display are a number of other Roman archeological finds.

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To access the ruins, go to the Bloomberg building and descent the darkened stairs to the temple deep below the streets.  The reassembled Temple of Mithras has been lit and constructed in a way designed to transport visitors back to Roman London.



An entirely different take on MITHRAS and never-ending rituals and symbolism:

FROM Chris Knowles at the SECRET SUN blog:

"...I can't help thinking about Rockefeller Plaza, and especially that "Prometheus" statue with the Zodiac. There's no link that I can find between Prometheus and the Zodiac in mythology, but we need look no further than this image for evidence that Mithras and the Zodiac were linked quite intimately.

"Modern propaganda has it that Rome was a wanton, open-air whorehouse right until its fall.  There were periods in some of the early Caesars' reigns (such as Nero and Caligula) where public licentiousness was rampant, but the influence of mystery religions like Mithraism instilled a strict, rigid moralism amongst their adherents, males in the case of Mithras.  At least in public.

"Heirarchy, obedience and bravery were the watchwords for the Mithraic/Sol worshippers.  One need look no further than Aurelian, the emperor (nicknamed manu ad ferrum or "Hand on Sword") who ended the "Crisis of the Third Century" to see the link between Sun worship and a stringent morality.  Aurelian raised Sol/Mithras above all other gods in an effort to unite the Empire under a common religion. 

"A canny move since Sun worship was universal in the ancient world- the Egyptians had Horus, the Greeks had Helios/Apollo, and the Germanic tribes had Balder.  You had characters associated with the Sun such as Adonis and Hercules and you had a whole host of other cultures such as the Druids who based their religion on the "movements" of the Sun.  Had Aurelian not been assassinated our history may have been a lot different. 
 
 

 



Speaking of secret societies, Mike Bloomberg is a member of one very powerful group, Kappa Beta Phi. 


They have an interesting initiation ceremony- new members are required to dress as women and put on "variety-show acts."  


And, look: their "mantra" is a riff on the old Las Vegas tagline.


Note: Mithras is also being "Born from the Rock" at Rockefeller Plaza.


As was Mithras' son Diorphus, because Mithras "hated the female race."


The Brooklyn Museum was hosting this exhibit (2017) on how women had to turn into men to achieve rebirth.  I guess because Osiris hated the race of women too. 
 

Mithras Rising: Nova Caesarea

MEET THE NEW PRAETORIANS, SAME AS…


This is merely very old dogs learning new tricks. Or creating them, more accurately- military intelligence has been at the cutting edge of information technology for a very long time. Similarly,  the Praetorians were a formidable information gathering service in their day.
Speculatores and other members of the Praetorians would disguise themselves as ordinary citizens at gladiator contests, theatrical performances and protests to monitor and arrest anyone who criticized the emperor. They also kept tabs on suspected enemies of the state, and in some cases they even secretly executed those judged to be an imminent threat to the emperor or his policies.
The Praetorians were much like our own secret services in that they were also heavily involved in secret societies, in this case the bloody, drug-drenched Mithraic Mysteries. Pay close attention to this bit of history now:
Written sources and the archaeological testimonies give evidence that from Domitian on Rome always remained the most important centre of the Sol Invictus Mithras institution, which had become firmly entrenched at the very heart of the imperial administration, both in the palace and among the Praetorian Guard.

The followers of the cult of Mithras included the customs officers, who collected a tax on every kind of transport dispatched from Italy toward central Europe and vice versa; the imperial functionaries who controlled transport, the post, the administration of finance and mines; and last, the military troops of the garrisons scattered along the border.
Now, don't get sucked into the tendency to glamorize ancient pagans or see them all as righteous dudes and dudettes done dirt by Christians or whomever. The Druids really were bad news, for instance. They really did like to sacrifice people. A lot. The child sacrifices to Molech really did happen. Things were different back then. 
 
The Mithraists were badasses in the conventional understanding of the term, and hardasses to boot.  Which is not to say they weren't freaky as hell, a lot freakier than you might imagine a bunch of Roman alpha males might get. But they were also dark. 
Really, really dark. 

They worshiped in caves and cellars cause they really liked the dark. They didn't baptize their converts with holy water, they baptized them with the blood of a freshly-killed bull, while the initiate stood naked in a specially-designed pit. While this went down, the rest of the cult tripped balls and screamed nonsense syllables and magical spells. While wearing animal masks.  (BULL BLOOD)

And probably nothing else.
 
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MITHRAS CONFUSION:  Snakes, Bulls, Minoan Caves, and More!  

The temples of Mithras were always an underground cave, featuring a relief of Mithras killing the bull.  As ALAN WATT TOLD US: all mythology was created by THE ANCIENTS as a tool to hide THEIR horrific evil, their atrocities and their true history, and then to confuse us using sorcery by giving us religion. (But the ANCIENT'S descendants have their own private libraries. It exists!)

Large polychrome tauroctony relief of Mithras killing a bull, originally from the mithraeum of S. Stefano Rotondo, dating to the end of the 3rd century CE. Now at the Baths of Diocletian Museum, Rome (photo by Carole Raddato, CC BY-SA 2.0). (Notice the snake!)
 
Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a ANCIENT/MINOAN/ROMAN mystery religion centered on the god Mithras.
Of all the mystery cults Mithraism was the greatest competitor of Christianity.  The cause for struggle between these two religions was that they had so many traditions, practices and ideas that were similar and in some cases identical.  (yup, we know) There were many other points of similarity between these two groups.  Seeing a bull and SNAKE is a symbolic reminder - think Minoan Bull Leaping and their SNAKE GODDESS!
 
In antiquity, texts refer to "the mysteries of Mithras", and to its adherents, as "the mysteries of the Persians."6  But there is great dispute about whether there is really any link with Persia, and its origins are quite obscure.7  (Of course)
 
What is Mithras worship? 

The modern study of Mithras begins just before 1900 with Franz Cumont's Textes et Monuments (TMMM). This two volume work collected all the ancient evidence.   Cumont presumed that Mithras was merely the Roman form of the ancient Indo-Persian deity Mitra or Mithra.  

BUT in the mid-50's Cumont's pupil Maarten Vermaseren published a new collection of monuments, the CIMRM, which added the archaeological discoveries of the last 50 years, but also highlighted how poorly the archaeology supported the Cumont theory.  At the 1971 international conference on Mithraic studies, Cumont's theory was abandoned in favour of a (Minoan) Roman origin for the cult.  Vermaseren himself rejected Cumont's theory in 1975.1

The ancient writer Justin Martyr referred to one of the ritual meals of the cult as being a parody of Christianity. In some speculative passages Cumont sometimes tried to interpret some Mithraic ideas in Christian terms.  Consequently various modern myths came into being. (Yup, we know!)  These appear as fact in older scholarly literature, and sometimes in non-specialist academic literature even today. 
 
Known as Mithras in the Roman Empire during the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC, this deity was honored as the patron of LOYALTY TO THE EMPEROR. The cult was all male. (REALLY!) There were seven degrees of initiation.  Different ritual meals were associated with each stage.
 

20

Manfred Clauss, The Roman cult of Mithras, p.22:  "The cult spread from Italy, then. In view of the sheer amount of evidence found there, we can probably point specifically to the area of Rome and Ostia. The cult in Rome retained some peculiarities well after the first century AD, though we have no firmly datable monuments from the early period. Among these idiosyncrasies we can list the term spelaeum, ritual cave, for the mithraeum, which was not replaced by the word templum as quickly as in the provinces..." (Let's connect the dots... minoan to rome to rituals and myths)
 
 
35

H. von Gall, "The Lion-headed and the Human-headed God in the Mithraic Mysteries," in Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin ed. Études mithriaques, 1978, p. 511: "Very characteristic of Roman Mithraic art is the type of a naked lion-headed youth. He is entwined by a snake, and the snake's head usually rests on the lion's head. The lion's mouth of this demon is usually open giving a grim and infernal impression.  He is mostly represented with four wings, and further attributes are two keys (or one key) and a sceptre in each hand: sometimes he is standing on a globe (fig. 1). It must be stressed that this mythological type is entirely restricted to Mithraic art.  Exact parallels are missing in contemporary Egypt and from the composite beings on Gnostic gems, though in both of these cases animal-headed creatures are numerous.  There is a variant of the lion-headed Mithraic demon with an entirely human body, which also has a human head.  This latter type is more scarcely represented though it must be supposed that some headless statues with a small neck and accentuated shoulders may have belonged to the human-headed type (pl. XXX)."		 
36Roger Beck, A reprinted article on the Ponza zodiac in: Beck on Mithraism, Ashgate (2004), p. 194 (original article page no. 110): "The other monuments in which a snake is associated with a zodiac are, significantly, all Mithraic, and for the most part they are monuments of the lion-headed god.  There is no need for us to enter into the vexed question of who exactly this deity is.  It is sufficient for our purposes 'that, from the iconography, the god was concerned with time, seasonal change and cosmic power' (Gordon, 1975: 222), a position that, I believe, few scholars would be inclined to deny.  Nor shall I be attempting to prove that proposition, since my argument would then be circular. The association of the lion-headed god with time is established largely through the iconography of snake and zodiac.  One cannot therefore argue that the snake and zodiac, as found at Ponza, are symbols of time because they are associated elsewhere with the lion-headed god.  Rather, I wish only to demonstrate that, accepting as a premise that the snake with the zodiac is a symbol of time, and in particular of time as defined by the sun's annual journey."
 

67

Justin Martyr, First Apology, ch. 66: "For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, "This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body; "and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood; "and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done.  For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn."

(Wait, Mithras and the Minoans were LONG BEFORE JESUS!?!) 

Web article Is Christ a clone of Mithra?, Oct. 27, 2010:  "Over the centuries, many scholars have pointed out the obvious correspondences between Mithraism and Christianity, based on the remaining evidence, including the writings of early Church fathers who were flummoxed by the similarities. Later writers, however, were not so startled, because they could discern that the Christ character was apparently a rehash of Mithra, among others.

Following is a list of the characteristics of Mithra as found in my book Christ Conspiracy, p. 119:
* Mithra was born of a virgin on December 25th in a cave, and his birth was attended by shepherds bearing gifts.
* He was considered a great traveling teacher and master.
 * He had 12 companions or disciples.
 * Mithra's followers were promised immortality.
 * He performed miracles.
 * As the "great bull of the Sun," Mithra sacrificed himself for world peace.
 * He was buried in a tomb and after three days rose again.
 * His resurrection was celebrated every year.
 * He was called "the Good Shepherd" and identified with both the Lamb and the Lion.
 * He was considered the "Way, the Truth and the Light," and the "Logos," "Redeemer," "Savior" and "Messiah."
 * His sacred day was Sunday, the "Lord's Day," hundreds of years before the appearance of Christ.
 * Mithra had his principal festival on what was later to become Easter.
 * His religion had a eucharist or "Lord's Supper," at which Mithra said, "He who shall not eat of my body nor drink of my blood so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved."
 * "His annual sacrifice is the passover of the Magi, a symbolical atonement of pledge of moral and physical regeneration."" It is unclear whether much of this is original invention, or merely repetition for other, equally ignorant, sources. I have not seen the original volume, which is apparently a reprint of the 1988 publication, but this material is taken from here. 

Beck states that "Quite early in the [fourth] century the MITHRAIS religion was as good as dead throughout the empire."49 

MINOANS MOVE: Mithraic temples are common in the empire; although very unevenly distributed, with considerable numbers found in Rome, Ostia, Numidia, Dalmatia, Britain and along the Rhine/Danube frontier; while being much less common in Greece, Egypt, and Syria.17 More than 420 Mithraic sites have now been identified.18  

From the 17th century onwards, Protestant writers routinely accused the "Romanists" - the Roman Catholic Church - of basing its worship on pagan ritual.3 

SOURCE 

 Plutarch

The Greek biographer Plutarch (46 - 127) says that the pirates of Cilicia, the coastal province in the southeast of Anatolia (Turkey), were the origin of the Mithraic rituals that were being practiced in Rome in his day: "They likewise offered strange sacrifices; those of Olympus I mean; and they celebrated certain secret mysteries, among which those of Mithras continue to this day, being originally instituted by them." (Life of Pompey 24, referring to events c. 68 BC). The 4th century commentary on Vergil by Servius says that Pompey settled some of these (Sea People?) pirates in Calabria.21 But whether any of this relates to the origins of the mysteries is unclear.22

41Lewis M. Hopfe, "Archaeological indications on the origins of Roman Mithraism", in Lewis M. Hopfe (ed). Uncovering ancient stones: essays in memory of H. Neil Richardson, Eisenbrauns (1994), pp. 147-158. p.156: "Beyond these three Mithraea [in Syria and Palestine], there are only a handful of objects from Syria that may be identified with Mithraism. Archaeological evidence of Mithraism in Syria is therefore in marked contrast to the abundance of Mithraea and materials that have been located in the rest of the Roman Empire. Both the frequency and the quality of Mithraic materials is greater in the rest of the empire.  Even on the western frontier in Britain, archaeology has produced rich Mithraic materials, such as those found at Walbrook.  If one accepts Cumont's theory that Mithraism began in Iran, moved west through Babylon to Asia Minor, and then to Rome, one would expect that the religion left its traces in those locations. Instead, archaeology indicates that Roman Mithraism had its epicenter in Rome. Wherever its ultimate place of origin may have been, the fully developed religion known as Mithraism seems to have begun in Rome and been carried to Syria by soldiers and merchants.  None of the Mithraic materials or temples in Roman Syria except the Commagene sculpture bears any date earlier than the late first or early second century. [30. Mithras, identified with a Phrygian cap and the nimbus about his head, is depicted in colossal statuary erected by King Antiochus I of Commagene, 69-34 B.C.. (see Vermaseren, CIMRM vol.1, 53-56). 
 

 

 

 
 
 

 


 

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