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Title: A Mithraic Ritual by G. R. S. Mead ISBN: 1-55818-288-8 Publisher: Holmes Pub Group Pub. Date: November, 2001 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $7.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3 (1 review)

Rating: 3
Summary: Flawed but entertaining and sometimes scholarly account
Comment: The book is in three sections: an introduction, the text of the ritual and Mead's commentary. The first section is excellent for its time (1900s), even if he dismisses the somewhat more established Cumont with one sentence! But this introductory section does contain some worthwhile historical material, and sheds some useful light particularly on the onomatapeic sections of the text.

The second section is the text itself which he has based on Dieterich's German version. It is conveniently sectioned, and euphonically translated.

The third section is the weakest in my opinion, for it offers a gnostic interpretation of the text (which, we must agree with Meyer, is not wholly Mithraic and indeed Mead himself admits has much Egyptian additional material).

Mead here seems awkwardly balanced between being a Mithraist and being a gnostic, arguing that the text itself was for performance by an individual, whereas evidence of course tells us that Mithraism was practiced as a group activity. But then Mead seems to be suggest using the text not as a Mithraic exercise at all but as a general initiation into a higher realm of gnosis.

He uses Mithra on occasion and Mithras on others.