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Mircea Eliade - The Mithraic Mysteries
Identifier
011447
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Interesting that the correspondences are not the normal ones, either Eliade got it 'wrong' or Celsus did, or else they are right and the others are wrong.
A description of the experience
Mircea Eliade – Shamanism Archaic techniques of ecstasy
This [the Buryat shaman ceremony] resembles the taurobolioni, the chief rite in the Mithraic mysteries. And the same mysteries made use of a ladder (klimax) with seven rungs, each rung made of a different metal. According to Celsus
- the first rung was lead (corresponding to the heaven of the planet Saturn),
- the second tin (venus),
- the third bronze (Jupiter),
- the fourth iron (Mercury),
- the fifth monetary alloy (Mars),
- the sixth silver (the moon),
- the seventh gold (the sun).
The eighth rung, Celsus says, represents the sphere of the fixed stars. By climbing this ceremonial ladder, the initiate passed through the seven heavens reaching the Empyrean