Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World (Bryn Mawr Classical Review)

[icymist]

In this short but thoroughly researched book, Jan Bremmer focuses on reconstructing the religious rituals of various mystery cults in antiquity. It is not therefore a study of ‘initiation’ as a general phenomenon, but of different initiation ceremonies. The implications of this are an issue to which I will return. The six chapters and two appendices can be read independently of each other (and have mostly been presented in separate talks in a number of locations, as the notes make clear), but they do form a more or less coherent whole.

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2014/2014-12-24.html