THE REVIVAL OF THE MYSTERY SCHOOLS
Although it’s not widely known, the ancient Mystery Schools found all across the world have had a profound and lasting impact on civilization and human psycho-spiritual development. These schools and the wisdom they imparted continue to fascinate us. And although they all operated in deepest secrecy, some details of their wisdom and their rituals have emerged.
Fifteen centuries ago, the Emperor Justinian ordered the closure of the last of the Mysteries in the Roman Empire – in Thrace, Macedonia, Crete, Syria and Egypt.
The popular view is that these schools have been inactive for many centuries, although some of their knowledge and insights percolated into other organisations down the ages. Fraternities such as the alchemists, the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Freemasons and more recently the Theosophical Society became repositories for elements of these esoteric teachings.
Indeed, there are claims that the Mystery Schools never disappeared at all. They just became even more secretive and covert. Back in the 1930s the prominent American theosophist Gottfried de Purucker asserted that there were in fact more Mystery Schools operating in his day than there have been for thousands of years.
Alongside – and in some cases preceding organised religion – these schools existed on all continents and thrived for millennia across the planet. They were located in ancient Egypt and Greece, across the Middle East in such places as Babylon and Chaldea, throughout Vedic India and the Himalayas and in Europe and South America.
They were also found among Celtic druids, Scandinavians, Romans, Scythians, shamans of Russia and the wise men of Hungary and the Carpathian mountains as well as in Samothrace, Abydos and Thebes.
Their job was the same – soul purification and nurturing human culture. Their central role in all locations was to focus on death and the awakening of the soul. Via ritual and other means, they provided detailed route-maps for personal spiritual evolution, transformation and enlightenment. In some cases, these psycho-dramas were highly elaborate and lengthy.
Candidates in these schools were always subjected to stern tests to assess their suitability for initiation.
The pyramids, Stonehenge and ruined Greek temples which hosted these schools are the most prominent and lasting visual testament to their power and influence.
In ancient Greece the Mystery Schools effectively created what we know as theatre where key esoteric ideas were presented in dramatic form – in comedies and tragedies – to inform basic truths to the masses.
Greece was home to – among many others – the Orphic, Delphic and Eleusinian Mystery Schools. Many of Greece’s finest minds participated in their rituals.
Although the schools were often aimed chiefly at the elites and influential members of society, the Greek Mysteries were open to many citizens. In Greece the philosopher Plato, the mathematician Pythagoras and the historian Herodotus all passed through their portals. The Lesser Mysteries in Greece were open to women and children.
They were regarded as universities of the soul. Their purpose was to teach human beings the existence of the soul and its survival after death. They conducted elaborate ceremonies – sometimes lasting for three days – in which candidates for initiation often underwent terrifying ordeals and altered states of consciousness.
Sometimes secrets were passed to initiates telepathically as well as orally. Nothing much was written down.
The Canadian esotericist Manly P. Hall said: ‘Their chief object was to teach the doctrine of one God, the resurrection of man to eternal life, the dignity of the human soul…and magnificence and splendour of the universe’.
Often located in remote places such as caves and forests Hall says they taught the creation of the universe, personalities of the gods, the laws of nature, the secrets of occult medicine, the mysteries of celestial bodies and the rudiments of magic and sorcery. Initiations often took place at solstices and equinoxes and on the 25th December when the birth of sun god was celebrated.
Hall added: ‘With the decline of virtue, which has preceded the destruction of every nation in history, the Mysteries became perverted.’ For example, in the Bacchanalian rites, sorcery replaced divine magic.
Like those elsewhere, the Greek Mysteries – derived from those of the Egyptians – were generally separated into two divisions, the Lesser and the Greater. Secrets were imparted often using allegory and symbolism to transmit the Lesser – the exoteric mysteries. These were aimed at neophytes and involved preparing the candidate for the path they would take via study and also with a close focus on emotional and physical purification.
The Greater Mysteries – the esoteric teachings – were reserved for an elite of more serious and advanced candidates and which dispensed deeper degrees and strata of wisdom. They emphasised the idea of consciously accelerating one’s development so that those involved regarded themselves as evolving and awakening souls – part of the One Life. All this involved the study of many esoteric secrets.
These Greater Mysteries often centred on re-creating the death experience so that the candidate for initiation underwent a prolonged and often extremely profound experience before finally being re-born in some way. Those undergoing initiation underwent techniques to recreate the death experience and this often involved the use of powerful mind-altering substances.
Typically, the candidate would spend three days in an in-between state, sometimes lying in a sarcophagus prior to a spiritual re-birth, having acquired a deeper knowledge of what death actually involved.
The Greater Mysteries were enacted amidst the greatest secrecy and were jealously guarded to the extent that those who accidentally or deliberately strayed into their hallowed precincts of these ceremonies were often killed because of their idle curiosity.
The Greek dramatist Aeschylus was condemned to be stoned to death for profaning the Mysteries by exposing them in his plays.
De Purucker suggested that the threat of death for betraying secrets wasn’t physical death but withdrawal of the higher self – effectively the loss of the soul.
Hall asserted that ‘many initiates broke their holy obligations and thus wrought the destruction of those sacred institutions which for uncounted centuries had been the custodians of the secret doctrine.’
He added that the ‘transmission and perpetuation’ of mysteries was ‘the most difficult of all tasks’ bordering on the impossible.
Therefore, our knowledge of precisely what occurred is limited – although a select band of esotericists such as Rudolf Steiner and de Purucker have gained details of their activities by consulting the Akashic Records, that indelible account of all human activity stored on the astral plane.
The Mystery Schools extend far back into the human project – in fact to its very beginnings.
One of the leading twentieth century experts on these schools, Grace Knoche offers intriguing insights into their origins, beginning with the founding of the Occult Brotherhood of advanced adepts some twelve million years ago.
Her contemporary, the esoteric writer Alice Bailey claims The Brotherhood received its knowledge from the Great White Lodge on Sirius.
As the third root race, the Lemurian, gave way to the fourth, the Atlantean, natural, benign magic degenerated into matter-based psychical magic – black magic if you like – and Atlantis descended into what she calls an ‘orgy of sorcery’. The civilization polarised into opposing forces of light and darkness.
The only antidote to ensuring the safety of the race was for the Brotherhood to co-operate with those Atlanteans who hadn’t forsaken morality. The Brotherhood had already established invisible lines of esoteric instruction during the Lemurian era. As Atlantis degenerated, the idea was that secret spiritual training centres would be established in each nation to act as bodyguard.
So, four to five million years ago the first Mystery Schools appeared and spread across an Atlantean world intent on destroying itself. According to Knoche these schools saved millions and helped them retain a sense of divinity.
All the Mysteries had three key aims: to spiritualise humanity; to act as seeding grounds for future adepts and candidates for the Brotherhood; and to preserve timeless esoteric truths for future generations.
In contrast, schools of evil were formed in Atlantis to pursue the Left Hand Path of black manipulative magic.
The progressive sinking of Atlantis in various phases took millions of years. Other landmasses arose and Atlanteans migrated across the globe. The Fifth Root Race emerged in the Gobi desert a million years ago. This is the mystic heart-centre of the Earth’s spiritual body known today as Shambhala.
One of the co-founders of the modern theosophical movement, Helena Blavatsky tells us in The Secret Doctrine that ‘an impenetrable veil of secrecy was thrown over the occult and religious mysteries’ after submersion of Atlantis 12,000 years ago so they wouldn’t be ‘desecrated’.
She wrote that the Egyptian pyramids were ‘the everlasting record and the indestructible symbol of these Mysteries and Initiations on Earth …’ and The King’s Chamber in Egypt’s Cheops pyramid was used for initiations. She herself spent a night there.
The Brotherhood employed messengers to act as world-teachers to found new religions and philosophies. And the first Fifth Race Mystery Schools appeared.
Early members of that race eventually emigrated from Central Asia to neighbouring lands such as China, India, Afghanistan and Persia. Others gravitated towards Egypt, Greece, Judea, Crete and Rome.
Blavatsky tells us that Egyptian priests and initiates travelled to southern Gaul, to Carnac in Britanny and to the British Isles where they constructed dolmens, menhirs and other colossal structures such as Stonehenge.
The Mystery Schools became the very underpinnings of these new civilizations. Every nation had its own ‘mystery tongue’ which was unintelligible to the non-initiated.
The Druids, the Persian magi, the Scandinavian Odic Mysteries and the Orphic Mysteries of Greece all had their individual character. Significantly, Orpheus, like Plato and Pythagoras, travelled to India for initiation into esoteric secrets from the Brahmanical schools.
Despite their different characteristics all schools had a universality in their doctrine. As Knoche observes: to describe one was to describe them all.
Perhaps it would be useful to examine some of the individual schools and their practices and traditions – if nothing else to detect the common threads running through them.
According to the scientific and occult writer Dr Edi Bilimoria, ancient India offered ‘the most diverse, complex and richest of all The Mystery Schools and occult teachings that have provided the wellspring of the later Mystery-centres of Egypt and the West.’
These Indian schools emerged from two distinct sources – the Vedanta and Samkhya philosophies. Samkhya emerged in the seventh or eighth century BCE and adopted The Vedas as its canons of knowledge. It proposed that universal evolution out of root matter was the source of all manifestation. It postulated an infinite number of immortal souls.
The far older Vedic tradition offered the diluted Mysteries to everyone in allegorical and symbolic form in the shape of the eighteen Puranas. Purana means ‘belonging to olden times’. Their underlying teachings covered the process of creation, the intelligent and semi-intelligent forces of nature, and epic tales about the adventures of deities such as Krishna.
Dr Bilimoria says Krishna ‘symbolises the Christos principle that unfailingly brings man to the state of true individual perfection by teaching the human intelligence … how to acknowledge, aspire to and activate its highest and innermost principle.’
The deeper divine, esoteric and sacred knowledge contained in the four Vedas was reserved for initiated Brahmins for their own individual spiritual development. Veda means divine knowledge. Much of it as both abstruse and highly transcendental.
The Vedanta – one of six schools of Indian philosophy – is a mystic system developed by generations of sages attempting to interpret the meaning of the 115 Upanishads.
Let’s turn to the Druids – the priestly and ruling caste of the Celts who controlled Britain and Gaul at the time of the Roman invasion. According to Hall, they were initiates of a secret school closely resembling the Bacchic and Eleusinian Mysteries of Greece and the Egyptian rites of Isis and Osiris. The secrets of the druidic mysteries were only transmitted orally and never written down.
He says there’s debate about their origins with conflicting claims they were Tyrian, Phoenician, Carthaginian, Greek – and even Buddhist.
The druids’ main studies were geography, physical science, natural theology, astrology and medicine (both herbal and surgical). The oak symbolised the Supreme Deity. Mistletoe was regarded as deeply sacred and cut by an arch-druid with golden sickle.
Unsurprisingly, the druids preserved the deepest secrecy about their mysteries. They practised strict abstinence although a few married. They admitted new members only after a long period of probation. They lived in the equivalent of monasteries. Retirees often lived in caves or shacks.
Their temples were located in dense groves of oak trees and shaped into various forms – circular, serpentine and cruciform. A virgin mother and child were central and sacred to Mysteries. The cross and the serpent were also regarded as sacred. The sun, the moon, Mercury and the stars were all worshipped.
There were two main deities – Hu (the father) and Ceridwen the (mother). These were similar to the Osiris and Isis figures of Egypt and the Bacchus and Ceres of Greece.
The druids believed in three worlds – above (where happiness predominated); below (the world of misery); and the present state. They also believed in the transmigration from one world to another. Central to their teachings was the immortality of the soul and reincarnation.
They also believed in a purgatorial style hell where they would be cleansed of sins and asserted that some must return to Earth many times to learn lessons and overcome their own evil natures.
As was the case elsewhere the mysteries were divided into two sections: a simple version for everyone and a higher one reserved for initiated priests. To be admitted to their order candidates had to be of good family and of high moral character.
The mysteries had three degrees. The lowest or ovate was an honorary degree. Its members dressed in green, the druidic colour of learning. They were expected to know something about medicine, astronomy and poetry. They were chosen for their excellence and knowledge.
The second degree, the bard, wore sky blue, the colour of harmony and truth. They had to memories twenty thousand verses of sacred poetry. They taught those candidates seeking initiation. (Neophytes wore striped robes of green, blue and white, the three sacred colours of their order.
Those who obtained the third degree, that of druid itself, ministered to the religious needs of the people. They wore white robes to represent purity and symbolise the sun.
Few passed all three degrees. Like other mystery schools, candidates for initiation were buried in coffins. But the supreme test was being sent out to sea in an open boat. Many of them died during this ordeal. The few who passed this third degree were said to be ‘born again’.
Arch-Druids had to pass through six successive degrees of the order. There were two in Britain – one on the island of Anglesey and the other on Isle of Man.
The Eleusinian Mysteries of Greece, possibly based on the Orphic Mysteries are amongst the oldest and most celebrated of all Mystery Schools. Located in Elefsina west of Athens they attracted thousands of people and lasted for a thousand years from around 500 BCE until they were finally closed in 392 by the Emperor Theodosius I.
I’ve visited this location myself on a number of occasions and although it’s surrounded on three sides by various industrial estates, shops and offices, as soon as you enter the site, the atmosphere changes completely and if you’re sensitive you can still feel the ancient energies.
This school was based on the myth concerning the kidnapping of Persephone, daughter of the goddess of agriculture Demeter, by Hades, the god of the underworld. In order to persuade Zeus, the king of the gods, to return her daughter, Demeter brought drought and famine to the land, killing thousands of people.
Zeus relented – but there was a catch. Persephone was only permitted to spend part of the year above ground. For four or six months of the year – depending which version you believe – she was obliged to return to the underworld.
During her absences Demeter neglected to nourish the earth. This became the season of winter and her reappearance, the spring. The ‘death’ and ‘rebirth’ of Persephone became allegories for the cycle of life itself.
What we know about the ceremonies themselves is limited because they were never recorded in written form. But we do know that like their counterparts elsewhere they were divided into two distinct groups – the Lesser representing Persephone’s return and the Greater, her departure. The same officials presided over both celebrations
The Lesser Mysteries, a kind of moral drama, took place in February or March. Participants would sacrifice a piglet and purify themselves in the River Illisos. Using dramatic techniques, they illustrated to candidates the need to purify the soul trapped in a physical body.
Those successfully completing the Lesser Mysteries – known as mystai or initiates – were permitted to participate in the Greater which took place in September or October. Participants marched from Athens along the Sacred Way waving branches.
After arriving at Eleusis there was an all-night vigil. They were given a drink made from barley which was reputed to have psychotropic effects. Researchers at the site have discovered fragments of ergot, a fungus which grows on barley and which produces similar psychedelic effects to LSD.
Initiates then entered a great hall called the Telesterion. The hierophants went in first and the mystai were only allowed to enter after reciting an oath.
There were three elements to the rites which followed. First, a dramatic re-enactment of the Demeter/Persephone story. Second, the display of sacred objects. And third, various commentaries. There was also the oath of secrecy which if broken attracted the death penalty.
Following these ceremonies was an all-night feast accompanied by music and merry-making. Five days after they had begun the mysteries ended and participants returned home.
In the Cabirian Mysteries of Samothrace – almost as famous as the Eleusinian – knowledge was disseminated via ‘a magical electrical fluid’ that the priests had learned to capture from the atmosphere and were able to direct. Initiations took place regularly between April and November with a major event in June.
In this two-day ceremony, after libations and sacrifices, candidates would proceed into the initiation building carrying torches. They stood before two statues of naked men – one representing primal, unperfected man, the other the regenerated spiritual man. Afterwards initiates were presented with purple fillets or head-bands. They were also given a Samothracian ring made from magnetic iron coated with gold.
Our knowledge of what went on during initiations is somewhat sketchy, although there may have been dancing as there was at Eleusis. We do know that it was followed by a large banquet. The libation bowls were discarded. Thousands of these have been discovered by archaeologists.
Among the most mysterious of the mysteries – more elusive even than the Eleusinian – were the Hibernian Mysteries of ancient Ireland, which according to Rudolf Steiner were the most advanced and best shielded schools. Steiner, a Christian mystic and founder of the Anthroposophical Society, is one of the very few writers to reveal their secrets. He says they existed at least two thousand years before Christ.
In his lectures Steiner described how accessing them clairvoyantly via the Akashic Records was extremely difficult because they remained ‘guarded’ on the astral level. Steiner described ‘repelling forces’ preventing him from discovering more about them.
The Hibernian Mysteries were located in Newgrange, County Meath, a large mound topping a cruciform subterranean chamber built around 3200 BCE. They were also located in Fingal’s cave, a sea cave on the island of Staffa in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, which acted as a focal point.
Steiner says this school was so advanced it anticipated and based itself on the Mystery of Golgotha, the crucifixion of Christ on Calvary Hill, many centuries later. Steiner asserted that the Mystery of Golgotha was ‘one of the profoundest secrets of the evolution of the world’.
This is extremely esoteric and complex stuff. But put simply, the central idea was that Christ’s deeds on earth gave man the capacity to absorb into his Manas what theosophists designate as Buddhi – the mind principle blended into wisdom-intuition.
Steiner states:
‘What Christ fulfilled upon the earth, was prepared by other great teachers who had preceded him, by Buddha, by the last Zarathustra, by Pythagoras, who all lived about 600 years before Christ, and who were men who had already absorbed a great deal of what lived in the surroundings of man.’
So, the Hibernian Mysteries were essentially about candidates receiving the ‘Christ Impulse’.
Let’s now explore the possible revival of the age-old Mystery Schools. This has been on many esotericists’ agenda for quite some time. As they did in the past, the revivified schools will play a major role in re-shaping humanity, hopefully towards a more elevated consciousness and a more integrated, sustainable world nurtured via love and compassion for all beings.
As Bailey observed: ‘Revelation itself is a science—knowledge of the Mysteries is a fire that needs a sustained and progressive burning if it is to serve the society it enters into’
Whether the Mystery Schools really vanished altogether or were preserved in some form is a matter of conjecture. It seems clear there was some element of continuity.
In recent times a range of writers have proposed that updated and rejuvenated schools are destined to appear. But the chief difference is that these modern versions will focus on planetary rather just than personal change to create a united world and a universal, non-sectarian spirituality.
Bailey described The Mysteries as ‘the true source of revelation’ involving those capacities – psychic powers – which enable the Occult Hierarchy to work consciously with the energies of the planet and solar system. She believed that Freemasons would be closely involved in their revival.
She said: ‘The Mysteries will restore colour and music and will make real – in a sense incomprehensible at present – the nature of religion, the purpose of science and the goal of education.’ She added: ‘These are not what you think today.’
It’s been suggested that the new schools could possibly be sited in locations strongly associated with their historic predecessors and connected to important historic monuments, ancient temples and other places of initiation. Their core aim will be the evolution of the soul. And perhaps rather than being isolated institutions they would form a global network.
Like the Mystery Schools of old the new ones are also likely to involve the equivalents of the Lesser and Greater Mysteries. The former will effectively be preparatory schools for novices teaching that each individual is an eternal, evolving soul on a voyage of discovery. Their aim will be to teach the truth about death and re-birth and produce fully integrated individuals who are whole, independent and service-driven.
The Greater Mysteries will develop this work further and explore deeper levels of being with the ultimate aim of uniting and reconciling the lower self (the personality) with the higher self (the soul or individuality) to stimulate new creativity and purpose.
Perhaps this revival is already underway in clandestine settings and enshrouded in secrecy. Maybe there will be a gradual re-emergence. Or else unknown and unpredictable events – or necessity itself – may somehow stimulate their more rapid reappearance.
This emerging network of Mystery Schools certainly won’t replace conventional religions in the short term although they may influence and even modify them over time. However, it must be said that religions retain a deep-seated grip on human consciousness in many parts of the world.
It must also be noted that religious edicts, dogmas and teachings are often divisive and sectarian. Catholics, Protestants, Methodists, Mormons and Evangelicals all believe that all the other thousands of Christian sects have got it all wrong and only they are right. In the Islamic world, bloody conflicts erupt between its two main branches – Shia and Sunni. These have been raging for fourteen centuries.
One day in the distant future humanity may have evolved to the point of not requiring religions to confirm their spiritual identity. No doubt many more people will be needlessly slaughtered in religious wars and we will all have probably reincarnated many more times before this is a reality.
In Letters on Occult Meditation Bailey asserts that revived schools would be situated in locations ‘where old magnetism lingers’ or where old talismans have been kept.
She stressed that not every nation will have a School – since national groups need to reach a certain rate of vibration to be able to found these schools. Only those nations which originally had Mystery Schools will be permitted national schools in the future.
Bailey claimed Egypt will have a very advanced school and the United States will have a school in the mid-West as well as an occult college in California. There would be one in Italy or Southern France, one in Scotland or Wales and later in Ireland. Sweden will form a preparatory school and other schools connected with Egypt, will be established in Russia, Greece and Syria. Other locations will be in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and China. She claimed there would be no schools in southern Africa or South America.
Bailey said the beginnings of these schools will involve members of existing occult schools such as the esoteric section of Theosophical Society. They will be located near big cities but more isolated locations for advanced grades.
Many people now realise the harsh reality that humanity has reached a critical turning-point in its development – environmentally, politically, economically – but above all, spiritually. The old paradigms are breaking down. The tried-and-tested systems are becoming defunct. Consciousness is shifting. Materialism as an unassailable world view is being hotly challenged.
In many thinking people’s eyes, we’re standing on the edge of a precipice and it’s make-or-break time.
It would seem logical that our world urgently needs a life-saving infusion of spirituality in some form. Perhaps the new Mystery Schools will provide vital vehicles for its dissemination. Are they part of some Grand Plan? Will they be as crucial for humanity’s psycho-spiritual development as they were in the past? Almost certainly, yes.
To explore these ideas further, Tim Wyatt’s body of work continues to offer both intellectual rigour and spiritual depth. His documentary The Myth of Death — rooted in the Theosophical view of consciousness and rebirth — has been officially selected for seven international festivals and has won multiple awards, including Best Documentary at Global Shorts LA and Best Research – Eco at the Hermetic International Film Festival.
His next film, The Eternal Thread: A Brief Esoteric History of the World, will be released in September 2025. Like his earlier work, it reflects his ongoing commitment to making the Ageless Wisdom accessible through informed, visually engaging storytelling.
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