mystery cult
Initiates-only ancient worship
A mystery cult is an ancient religious tradition centered on secret initiation rites and esoteric knowledge revealed only to initiates.
The Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece are the most famous example.
Members were sworn to secrecy about the rituals, which typically promised spiritual transformation or favorable treatment in the afterlife.
The term now applies broadly to any secretive religious or spiritual group with graduated levels of hidden knowledge: The organization operated like a mystery cult, revealing deeper teachings only to long-standing members.
- initiationFormal admission ceremony
- secrecyPractice of hiding information
- vow of silenceSworn commitment to speechlessness
- secret ritesConcealed ceremonial practices
- ritesFormal ceremonial acts
death and rebirth · cave · hierophant · sacred · Orphism · underworld · ceremony · gnosis · veiled truth · Persephone · wine · ritual purification · blood sacrifice · divine madness · circle · secret · inner circle · silence
- ancient religiongods, goddesses, pantheon, deity, polytheism
- Demeter MythDemeter, Persephone, Hades, pomegranate, abduction
- paganismWicca, pagan, heathen, polytheist, polytheism
- Greek ritualslibation, libations, animal sacrifice, blood sacrifice, votive offerings
- MithraismMithras, pater, torchbearers, cave temples, initiation rite
- mystery cultsinitiates, initiation, hierophant, rites, sacred rites
mystery cultpublic worship
Collective religious ceremony
civic religion · state religion · established church · folk religion · universal church
mystery cultrationalism
Reason as knowledge source
empiricism · skepticism · natural philosophy · scientific worldview · scientific inquiry
mystery, cult, mysteries, mysterious, mysteriously, mysteriousness, mystic, mystical, mystically