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Mystery Cults in the Ancient World by Hugh Bowden
£14.99
A landmark study of ancient Greek and Roman cults, from the nocturnal mysteries at Eleusis to the cults of Dionysus and Mithras. Mystery cults are one of the most intriguing areas of Greek and Roman religion. In the nocturnal mysteries at Eleusis, participants dramatically re-enacted the story of Demeter's loss and recovery of her daughter Persephone; in Bacchic cult, bands of women ran wild in the Greek countryside to honour Dionysus; in the mysteries of Mithras, men came to understand the nature of the universe and their place within it through frightening initiation ceremonies and astrological teachings.
These cults were an important part of life in the ancient Mediterranean world, but their actual practices were shrouded in secrecy, and much of what they were about has remained unclear until now. This is the first book to describe and explain all the major mystery cults of the ancient world, cult by cult, reconstructing the rituals and exploring their origins. It makes plentiful use of artistic and archaeological evidence, as well as ancient literature and epigraphy.
Greek painted pottery, Roman frescoes, inscribed gold tablets from Greek and South Italian tombs and the excavated sites of ancient religious sanctuaries all contribute to our understanding of ancient mystery cults. Making use of the most recent work on these cults, the book is also informed by crucial current work on the anthropology and cognitive science of religion. Not only is this clearly written book a significant contribution to the study of these cults, but it is also accessible to a general readership.
More than any other book on ancient religion, it allows the reader to understand what it was like to participate in these life-transforming religious events.
If you like this, you might also like:
The Tarot, Magic, Alchemy, Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism (3rd Edition) by Robert M Place
£36.99
n exploration of the Tarot’s mystical roots, with a guide to The Tarot of Marseilles, The Waite Smith Tarot, The Alchemical Tarot, and The Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery. Now with 59 updates since the second edition and two new illustrations
The Tarot, Magic, Alchemy, Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism Third Edition incorporates the material that was in Alchemy and the Tarot and The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, but updates the facts and, as you can tell by the title, covers a lot more material—about three times as much, with 680 pages and over 302 illustrations.
The First Occult Tarot Deck by Robert M. Place
£39.99
The First Occult Tarot as Envisioned by Louis-Raphaël-Lucrèce de Fayolle, comte de Mellet, in 1781
Before Aleister Crowley, before Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith, before the Golden Dawn, before Papus, Éliphas Lévi, and Etteilla, the first author to describe an occult version of the Tarot was Louis-Raphaël-Lucrèce de Fayolle, comte de Mellet, writing in Antoine Court de Gébelin’s, 1781, eighth volume of his monumental encyclopedia, Monde primitif.
The comte de Mellet associated the Tarot’s trumps with the Classical Ages of Man: the Age of Gold, the Age of Silver, and the Age of Iron. He correlated the Trumps with the letters in the Hebrew alphabet, he described the minor suits in detail, and he provided the earliest discussion of a divination technique for the Tarot.
Mysteriorium Libri Quinque: Dr. John Dee's Five Books of Mysteries by Joseph Peterson (ed)
£66.60 £74.00
A central text of occult literature, now for the first time in a deluxe hardcover edition with new ancillary material by one of the most renowned scholars of occult literature.
Discovered in a hidden compartment of an old chest long after his death, the secret writings of John Dee, one of the leading scientists and occultists of Elizabethan England, records in minute detail his research into the occult. Dee concealed his treatises on the nature of humankind’s contact with angelic realms and languages throughout his life, and they were nearly lost forever. In his brief biography of John Dee, Joseph Peterson calls him a “true Renaissance man”, detailing his work in astronomy, mathematics, navigation, the arts, astrology, and the occult sciences.
All this was preparation for Dee’s main achievement: five books, revealed and transcribed between March 1582 and May 1583, bringing to light mysteries and truths that scholars and adepts have been struggling to understand and use ever since. These books detail his system for communicating with the angels and reveal that the angels were interested in and involved with the exploration and colonization of the New World and in heralding a new age or new world order. While Dee’s influence was certainly felt in his lifetime, his popularity has grown tremendously since. His system was used and adapted by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and subsequently by Aleister Crowley.
First published by Weiser Books in 2003 as John Dee’s Five Books of Mystery: Original Sourcebook of Enochian Magic (Quinti Libri Mysteriorum), his new edition will include:
· Updates to the introduction that reflect twenty years of research by the editor, Joseph Peterson, since the previous edition was last published
· Corrections to text based on a review of high-res scans of the original manuscripts that the British Library only recently made available
· New, high resolution images of Dee’s drawings, symbols, sigils, and diagrams
· New appendices reflecting more recent scholarship.
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