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

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