WEBVTT - From the Vault: Mystery Cults, Part 2 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:08.720 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:11.319 is Robert Lamb. It is winter break, so we are 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:15.560 continuing some Vault episodes this week. This time we're going 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.600 to give you Part two of our Mystery Cults series. 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.200 This is part two of four. It originally published three four, 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:22.319 twenty twenty five. 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:30.920 Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:38.760 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.680 My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick, 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.040 and we're back with Part two in our discussion of 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:48.560 the mystery religions or mystery cults of the ancient Mediterranean. 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:53.320 Mystery cult is a category used by scholars to refer 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:57.520 to worship systems in the ancient Greco Roman world that 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:03.920 we're centered around, powerful in tense experiences of secretive mystic 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.200 rights revealed only to the cults initiates. 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:07.960 Now. 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:10.360 In Part one of this series, we talked mainly about 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:14.280 the historical context of these rights and some about how 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:18.440 they overlapped with and differed from the most common religious 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:22.279 practices of Greek and Roman polytheism. We also talked about 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:24.640 a book that is going to be one of our 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.000 major background sources in these episodes. That is a book 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.600 called Mystery Cults in the Ancient World by Hugh Bowden, 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.480 who is an ancient historian at King's College, London. This 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:39.960 book was published by Thamesen Hudson. The edition both Rob 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.399 and I were reading is the one from twenty twenty three. 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.080 There was an older edition before that, and today we 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.080 wanted to come back and get a little bit deeper 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.760 into the mysteries by going beyond the general and looking 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.320 at a couple of specific examples. 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:56.000 Yeah, and I feel like one of the really interesting 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.160 things about these various mystery cults is that a lot 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:04.040 of the mysteries really do remain, like in part because 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.080 any knowledge that we have of the ancient world is 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.600 you know, is incomplete at least to some degree. But 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:13.799 also these guys were just really good at keeping their 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.359 mysteries intact in some cases, and what went on behind 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:21.480 closed doors like remained behind closed doors, and we just 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.760 have to speculate regarding the details of what say, initiation 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.640 rights consisted of and what they meant, both in terms 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.919 of like personal meaning to the initiate, but also within 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:34.120 like the sort of. 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.440 The larger like worldview of the particular cult. 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:39.480 That's right, and we do know a lot of things, 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:43.600 especially about the more public aspects of the mystery religions, 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.080 because they often had a kind of you know, public 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:50.520 facing elements and then the hidden elements. And it's particularly 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.280 those those secretive, hidden elements that you know they are. 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.120 There are many cases where we still don't really know 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.520 today what they were about. We may have some claims 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.320 from the ancient world, we may have some pieces of evidence, 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.400 but yeah, a lot of mysteries remain. 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:05.639 Though. 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:07.840 One thing I do want to mention, it's something we 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:10.760 got into in the last episode, is a bit of 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:15.480 clarification on the role of mystery in mystery religion, because 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.680 that can be somewhat misleading and could maybe cause people 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.600 to think about the idea of a mystery cult as 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.000 a religion where the main goal is to solve a 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.280 kind of information puzzle. It's like to get the hidden 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.520 answer to a question, and that really doesn't seem to 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:36.120 be what these mystery religions were primarily about. They had 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.960 very elements that we could absolutely call mysterious. There were 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:44.080 secret rights, there were secret sacred objects that were hidden 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:45.960 from view, and all you know, you could only see 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.360 what they were if you were initiated. But the main 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:52.240 goal of these religions was, especially as argued by Bowden 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.720 in this book, we've been talking about not primarily to 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.640 solve an information puzzle and like learn the secret, but 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.560 instead that it was to have a profound experience, to 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.520 take part in these mystic rights, these secret rights that 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:12.160 would cause some kind of experience or encounter directly with 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:13.440 the power of the gods. 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.839 So mystery very much in the sense of the Beatles 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.599 album from sixty seven, The Magical Mystery Tour. 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:23.719 I don't know what sense that would be. 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.680 Well, I don't think it really revolves around a particular 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.400 puzzle or a particular mystery is there, But it's more, 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:34.600 you know, versed in psychedelic weirdness and yeah, yeah, and 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.640 perhaps cryptic meaning. I mean, I am the Walrus, right. 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.000 What are we to make of this song? What are 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:41.960 we to make of the imagery associated with it? 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:44.520 I remember way back when I first heard that, I 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.440 was much younger, and the line about the like yellow 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.560 custard dripping from a dead dog's eye seemed especially unbeatlesy 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:52.840 to me. 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.560 They get pretty weird, they get pretty weird. There's kind 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:01.200 of the Beatles that you think you know and associate 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.479 with sort of the mainstream understanding of the Beatles, but 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:05.840 then you can really dig into some. 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:07.960 Weird stuff in there as well, no doubt. 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.200 But setting aside the mysteries of the Beatles, I would 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:16.120 like to turn our attention now to the mysteries of Mithraism. 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:18.800 We mentioned, you know, in the last episode. We're talking 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.120 very much about the Greco Roman world, and this is 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.800 definitely one from the Roman world. 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.280 Right, this is one coming later on the scene than 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.160 most of the other examples we'll end up talking about. 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.080 Right, right, we're talking the first through the fourth century CE, 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:36.880 so it's taking off alongside another brand new religion, that 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.120 of the way, centered around the teachings of Jesus Christ. 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.760 This would of course come to be known as Christianity 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:47.279 at least by like one hundred CE. But this is 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:49.359 where I should I should throw out that we have 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:54.240 of course mentioned Mithraism in passing or in a few 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:59.000 details on the show in the past. We mentioned mithra 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.520 in our Hall of Hell episode as well as in 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.720 our episodes on Whistling. As I mentioned then, fans of 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:08.400 the Ridley Scott produced sci fi series Raised by Wolves, 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.560 which ran twenty twenty through twenty twenty two. We'll also 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:17.960 remember the name as in the fictional future of this series, 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.680 it is the predominant religion that is practiced by one 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:23.719 of the key factions in that show. So sort of 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.560 like an alternate future where instead of perhaps Christianity taking 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:33.640 off as this influential human religion, what if Mithraism is 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:38.039 the religion that took off and ended up defining a civilization. 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:40.479 Rob, would it be fair to say, based on what 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.480 you've read that it's kind of shocking how little we 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.640 know about Mithraism with certainty given how popular it was 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:49.320 during its heyday in the Roman Empire. 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.760 Yeah, that is something that impressed me as well, because 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.880 we're not talking about something that was just practiced by 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.760 say like a few elites, you know, in the basement 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.479 of a palace here and there, something to that effect, 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:07.360 or a few deranged cultists. To sort of imagine the again, 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.400 the sort of call of Cuthulu dungeons and dragons treatment 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:14.600 of colts. Now, this was widely practiced during this time 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.480 period again, first through fourth century CE, and it was 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:23.800 wildly popular, especially in the Roman army and wherever the 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:27.320 Roman army went. So too traveled the mystery cult of Mithra, 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.840 with its temples popping up just throughout the Roman Empire 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.880 of the time as far north as the British Isles. 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.640 And we have a surviving archaeological evidence all of these 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.040 special temples, which we'll get back to in a bit, 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.840 and we can piece together some of what went on. Now. 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:48.080 One of the interesting things here that we're going to 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.000 dig into here is of course, the idea that we 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:56.880 have a religion, a cult an organization here, and its 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:02.960 ideas are based on pre existing religion ideas, and for 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:07.120 a while, the way historians interpreted it was to go 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.360 back to some of the myths that informed Roman mythraism 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.119 and use that to try and piece together what Roman 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:15.680 mythraism was all about. So I want you to keep 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:17.800 that in mind as I read a quote here from 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.960 an older source. This is from will Durant Caesar and 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.920 Christ from nineteen forty four, in which he writes that 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:28.040 during the period of roughly thirty CE through ninety six CE, 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.040 one sees a great influx of foreign faiths and Rome 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:35.680 and Roman life, and these faiths, he writes, enter into 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:40.280 Rome via returning soldiers, war captives and also merchants. A 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:42.800 lot of people are coming in and out of Rome. 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.480 People brought their traditional gods with them, and he writes 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.760 that quote. The Roman government treated these alien faiths for 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.360 the most part with toleration. Since it would not permit 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:57.320 foreigners to its own worship, it preferred that they should 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:00.480 practice their imported rights rather than have no religion at all. 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.199 In return, it required that each new faith should exercise 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.480 a similar tolerance towards other creeds, and should include in 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.760 its ritual sum obsessence to the emperor's genius and the 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.439 goddess Roma as an expression of loyalty to the state. 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.440 So we touched on this before that. Generally the Romans 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.320 were like, fine, you practice whatever faith you already had 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.480 or have or have brought with you. Just make sure 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:27.880 that it's you know, checking off the right boxes, and 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.960 you know, not messing up anything we have going on at. 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:36.000 The top, not questioning our authority. I don't think that 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:39.920 the Roman rule on this should be seen as generally merciful, 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.840 because the Roman Empire for the large part, was not 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.800 very merciful. It was more like they didn't really care 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.320 about this. Their idea of religion was not an evangelical one, 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.280 and they were not trying to convince other people to 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:53.560 follow it. Instead, it was just like, you need to 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.520 obey us and not cause problems. Otherwise, practice whatever you want. 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.000 Right, Yeah, I think that's a fair way of understanding it. Yeah, 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.480 And we don't need to lean into some idea that 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:08.640 the Roman authorities were just in general super tolerant. But 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.040 in this respect, you know, you can make an argument that, okay, 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.719 they kind of were, but only because they didn't care 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:15.720 what you're doing, as long as you didn't upset the 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:20.439 order of things. And in this section of the book 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:26.280 by Durant, he does mention Mithra. In Mithraism, he writes, 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.880 quote from hostile Parthia came the cult of another sudden god, Mithras. 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.320 Its devotees were enlisted as soldiers in the great cosmic 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.120 war of light against darkness, of good against evil. It 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.880 was a virile faith that won men rather than women, 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.800 and pleased the Roman legions stationed on distant frontiers where 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.120 where they could hardly hear the voices of their native gods. 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.400 So already that's a lot to unpack. We have this again, 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:55.760 this the nineteen forty four text, but the interpretation that 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.120 durant here seems to be making is that of a 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:03.160 foreign mystery taken up almost exclusively by male Roman soldiers 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.200 and worshiped in every far flung corner of the Roman 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:10.480 controlled territory. Perhaps some deity and faith that casts the 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.480 role of the enlisted not as mere protectors of Rome, 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:16.120 but perhaps as warriors and some sort of epic struggle 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.400 against the darkness. All right, So that was nineteen forty 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:24.000 four's interpretation. But where are we at now? So diving 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.760 into Hugh Bowden's mystery cults in the ancient world, which 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.360 we've been looking at here, the author does have a 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.560 lot to say about Mithraism, but as is often the 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.520 case with some of these mystery cults, there's a lot 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.080 we don't know and we'll never know concerning the details 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:42.600 of the faith. And it seems like the trend, he says, 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:47.520 for a while was to try and use information regarding 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:55.800 ancient worship of Mithra in ancient Iran in the interpretations 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.400 of this Indo Iranian faith as a way to try 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:02.000 and figure out what Roman mythri was about. Because, to 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:04.600 be clear, there was worship of a deity known as 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:08.320 Mithra in ancient Iran and accounts date back to at 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:13.560 least fourteen hundred bcee, and then eventually Mithra becomes the 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:16.480 central figure of these Roman mystery cults of Mithraism, the 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.800 details of which again are not all that forthcoming, But 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.360 we do have some literary references, we have archaeological evidence, 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:27.880 some of it fairly recent, and we also have some 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:32.120 artistic imagery that has survived. And from this a fair 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:37.120 number of conclusions can be drawn. But the current predominant interpretation, 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:39.840 according to Bowden, is that the cult of Mithra in 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.880 the Roman Empire was something mostly new. It was for 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:49.080 the most part for Romans and by Romans, despite these 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:54.640 Persian motifs that were applied to it. So in previous decades, again, 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:56.480 it was common for historians to try and piece together 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.079 the details of Mithraism, based in part on aspects of 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.400 the ancient Indo Orraean religion centered around Mithra, but current 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.920 trends tend to dismiss this. So in Bowden's chapter on Mithrasm, 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.000 he doesn't mention anything about soldiers of light against darkness. 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:15.920 I'm to assume that perhaps that's something that previously historians 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:21.079 drug in from the more ancient model of Mithra's worship. 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:23.360 You know, you can very much see the appeal of 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.400 that older interpretive lens, which tries to figure out what 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:31.120 a religion means by searching out the earliest versions of it, 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:36.040 because we tend to think about the primacy of originals, 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.800 like originals in time. You know, we've talked about this 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.920 coming up before on the podcast when we were talking 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.080 about Greek myths. We're trying to find, like, what's the 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.360 earliest written version of this so that we can know 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:52.320 what the real version of the myth is, you know, 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.200 but that's not actually the real version of the myth. 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.760 And finding maybe the earliest version that was written down 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.880 that we still have access to and does not tell 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:04.840 you how people hundreds of years later in a different 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.400 time and place understood the story or what it meant. 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:09.960 It just you know that, I mean, it is worth 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.440 knowing that tells you one thing, but it doesn't necessarily 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:16.440 tell you that thing. And so searching out myth what 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.600 a god or a religious figure meant in one time 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:23.480 and place, even though it came earlier, that doesn't necessarily 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:25.680 tell you what it meant to people in a different time, 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.400 in a different place. And I think this is still 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.720 true today. I think, actually, say, if you just went 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:36.280 to the New Testament and read the Gospels and then 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.920 tried to read from those and predict what form Christianity 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.440 would take as practiced, say in the United States in 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.440 the twenty first century, you'd be so far off you 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.600 have no idea what to predict from that. 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:50.680 Yeah. 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:53.120 Yeah, And I think we can point to examples of 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:56.480 this and other major religions as well, and also elsewhere. 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:00.200 Like I instantly thought to Dracula, perhaps because I had 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.360 Dracula on the mind a lot recently. But it's like, 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:06.800 imagine you were to examine the text known as Dracula 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.960 three thousand. Let's see what year did Dracula three thousand 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:10.400 come out? 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:12.360 Do you think I know off the top of my head. 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:14.720 I don't. Yeah, I expect you to two thousand and four. 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:16.880 Okay, okay, okay, that sounds right. 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.720 So imagine you watch a Dracula three thousand and then 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.160 you were like, I wish to understand what this film 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.160 is trying to say. I am going to read this 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:30.080 book by Brian Stoker, Dracula, and that shall answer all 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.320 my questions. I can take everything is in that book 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.080 and apply it to this movie and me yeah, to 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.560 a certain extent, there might be some useful connections to 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.720 be made there, But Dracula. Dracula movies are all built 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.720 around the central figure of Dracula, but the textual Dracula 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.520 in brim Stoker's original novel might not prove all that useful. 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:52.560 And understanding some depictions of Dracula in other media, including 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.840 Bell Lagosi's Dracula, which we discussed in Weird Howse Cinema recently, 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.480 or say Marvel Comics Dracula, The Dracula and Dracula three 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:05.040 thousand or or whatever Dracula update you're looking at. Sometimes 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:09.200 you know, a Dracula movie may just take Dracula out 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:13.080 of it and they're just ignoring everything else thematically, plot wise, 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.280 time period and so forth, Like the Dracula in Monster 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:21.040 Squad is only loosely related to the original novel. 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.440 That's right. So it may in fact be a very 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:27.600 interesting exercise to see which elements from the older version 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:29.560 are poured it into the newer version and which are 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.600 left behind. So it's not like it is useless to 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.520 compare the versions, but it is not necessary. But understanding 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.640 the earlier version does not necessarily tell you what to 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:42.800 expect in the newer version. Say, if we had pages 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.360 missing from the you know, all we had was like 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:49.000 an incomplete script of Dracula three thousand. We didn't have 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:50.600 the movie, and we were trying to figure out what 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.440 was still in there. Going back to the novel Dracula 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:55.120 would not tell us, right. 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.360 And that would be again, assuming that all all adaptations 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.680 of Dracula and all Dracula media still holds the original 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:05.680 novel in some regard or looks to it in some fashion. 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:08.800 You know, you can look at all the various examples though, 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:12.040 of religions where there is some sort of old text 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:16.719 that remains important and the particular like model of that 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.719 religion may still be unrecognizable across time, even though it's 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.600 based on the book. And in the case of Roman mythraism, 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.080 I'm not it's my understanding that we're not really dealing 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.040 with any kind of like central texts that would have 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:32.800 been the authority. The main authority would have been perhaps 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:38.160 some collection of myths, but also a modern understanding of astrology. 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.520 And so it really sounds like it takes mithra It 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:49.400 takes this Indo Iranian deity and then creates a new 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.679 form out of it, you know, almost kind of like 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:57.639 propping up some astrological ideas with the appeal of this 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.840 foreign deity and again creating something new that is by 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.679 Romans for Romans, likely with its origin according to Bowden, 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.240 in Italy, if not in Rome itself rather than the frontiers. 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:14.560 It was then carried out to the frontiers by Roman soldiers. 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:27.560 M okay, So, based on what the evidence we do 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:32.679 have regarding Roman Mythriism, which again involves some texts, some 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:38.120 archaeological evidence, and also some artistic depictions, the cult would 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:42.680 have met in special cave like and sometimes partially cave 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:48.760 based chambers. These were called mithraeum. They were long windowless 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:53.560 rectangles with chairs or seating down the long walls of 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.919 the chamber and so again no windows, so you just 0:18:56.960 --> 0:18:59.960 had to depend on torches and or candles, and these 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:04.879 would have illuminated a strongly astrological decor so based on 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:11.520 archaeological evidence, the exclusively male devotees of Mithriism would often 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.639 join together, apparently in feasts that included a lot of meat, 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.119 some wine, and I have to note that I'm already 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.679 getting like a very strong Elks Club vibe here. You know, 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:24.600 it sounds just like a men's club where they're all 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.520 getting together to drink and eat meat and maybe observe 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:29.119 some rites. 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:31.520 I mean, if you can experience the power of the 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.240 gods and just drink with your bros at the same time, 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:36.080 that's a good two for one. 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:36.680 Yeah. 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:42.159 Yeah, So the astrological decor here would have included depictions 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:46.680 of the Sun is vitally important because Mithra is, even 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:48.560 in Roman mythriism. 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.000 A solar deity or a solar figure. 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.639 You have the Moon, the planets all coming together in 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.639 what we might think of as an astrological model of 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.840 the universe, and Balden argues that in the absence of 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.280 any key surviving text and only a few myths of 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:09.159 Mithra and his adventures slash live slash mythic existence, modern 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.760 understanding of astrology again like this would have been first 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:16.480 through third century understanding of the stars and then the 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:21.200 astrological model of how these stars and planets are impacting 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.639 our lives. This would have likely served as the unifying 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.680 factor of the religion across its various far flung forms. 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:31.480 You'd see some changes in the way things were depicted, 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:34.960 but in the absence of any kind of like top 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:41.240 down doctrine. This is what you had, and so a mithraem. Again, 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:47.080 the temple where the mithra worshipers held their ceremonies and 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.479 their feasts. It likely the building itself likely served as 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:55.840 a model, perhaps for further indoctrinization into the astrological secrets 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:58.880 of Mithraism, but also as a model of the universe 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.439 and the initiate place in it, which I think that 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:04.600 alone is kind of interesting to think of in terms 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:09.439 of soldiers in the Roman army, you know, perhaps very close, 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.600 if not on the frontiers of this, you know, this 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:17.040 vast region, and perhaps feeling far from home and having 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:20.480 some you know, maybe more specific thoughts and questions about 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.200 where I am in time and space, but perhaps those 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.880 are echoing, you know, greater questions, and maybe that's where 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.760 Mithraism comes into their lives with meaning. Now again we 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.280 have a lot of evidence, archaeological evidence about what may 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:36.639 have gone on at some of the feasts that they had. 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:39.680 There's at least one side in what is now Belgium 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.720 from the third century that suggests ritual destruction of wine 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.800 vessels as well as feasting. I think they said that 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:51.680 perhaps feasting exclusively on male animals, but also some eels 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:53.960 that Abouten points out they might not have been able 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:56.600 to sex the eels. Maybe they meant it me eat 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:59.600 only male eels as well, but at any rate, they 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:03.800 ate a lit meat, they drank and or ritually destroyed 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.400 wine vessels. And then he also says that there's evidence 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.560 at this one side, no other side, of a wine 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:13.240 vessel with a snake motif that when heated, would have 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:18.080 resulted in steam escaping from the serpent's mouth. Oh cool, yeah, 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:20.479 pretty cool. Yeah, but we don't know what that may 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:22.920 or may not mean. Maybe it was just cool. 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.800 Well. I don't want to comment on Mithraism specifically, but 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:30.320 with respect to many of the mystery religions, I think 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:33.920 cool on its own may have been reason enough. Again, 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:38.240 a lot of these cults I think you could think 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:48.240 of as being oriented towards producing profound, exciting, dazzling sensory experiences. 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.560 And so I don't know, a snake breathing out wine 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:54.679 steam that seems like that could be one of those things. 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:57.760 Yeah, yeah, definitely. I should also point out that I 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:01.200 believe the Belgium site indicates the potential potentially a large 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:04.560 feast like something like hundreds of individuals. But for the 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:08.159 most part, the mythraem were understood to be you know, 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:11.760 smaller places where you would have a more intimate gathering, 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:13.960 and if there were and you might have like more 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:16.960 than one mithram in a given area, so that you 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:20.440 could keep the number small, so that that might also 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:24.160 stack up with some of how we're interpreting what these 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:28.120 spaces and these meetings could have meant to these individuals. 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:31.880 You know, it would have perhaps been a smaller, comfortable 0:23:32.359 --> 0:23:36.320 meeting and not necessarily like a grand feast, all right. 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:40.520