re merlin mithras and magick what an exciting thread finally mitra is sanskrit for friend as such he started out as an avatar of lord visnu mentioned first in the vedas later he seems to have risen to chief prominence worshipped by the persians associated with the sun but not the sun he is the lord of contract honor and obedience therefore naturally worshipped by soldiers he was ordered by the sun to slay the bull of heaven and he reluct antly agreed because of his obligation the blood of that bull spilled and grew all earth life then mitra and the sun sat down to eat worship of lord mitra ended in persia with the ascension of the zoroastrians hundreds of years later he was rediscovered and thrown into the official roman pantheon tm for some semi tricky reason i forget why but all references of him ended abruptly when he was stricken from same so apparently his worship was some sort of vehicle for advancement in the bureaucracy like membership in the communist party was in the soviet bloc the sociology of religion in ancient times is fascinating oh his b day was dec ahem i am not sure if the mystery cult really lasted after his was booted from the roman imperial god roster or what it contained mostly soldiers with levels of initiation they worshipped underground in caverns in pews the bull horns in those temples were for scaring away or impaling evil spirits i m not sure that they had mithraic significance or not i don t know that the ritual meal was of a cannibalistic nature as is the christian masses but eating deities goes way back to old kingdom egypt someone mentioned bullfighting did mithraists sacrifice bulls i forget more likely for a religious source might be the shower of bull s blood enjoyed by the worshippers of cybele on the day of blood cybele worship extended all throughout even up to france bigtime charles hope a si cunyvm a si cunyvm cuny edu government by reporters media ocracy
