(02-26-2023, 10:58 AM)robkelk Wrote: Well, if nobody else is going to mention it...

Isekai by Moonlight, chapter 2

(03-01-2023, 06:22 PM)Norgarth Wrote: Priorities by Dogbertcarrol has updated (added Chapter 9 at least, I don't remember chapter 8 either)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12942214/9/Priorities
after learning that there will be a zombie apocalypse kicking off in a bit less in 24 hrs (due to somebody on the far side of the Atlantic screwing up), the Scoobies decide to wait out the zombie hordes on a well stocked barge off the coast.

Quote:…in contrast to the mandated inclusiveness of universal religions and imperial cults, mystery cults form a midpoint on the religious spectrum; not as exclusive as the closed and semi-closed practices of many ethnic religions, but not as far-reaching as the others. Instead, the faith of a mystery cult is reserved for initiates, who are members that have been formally brought into the cult’s secrets and knowledge.

The basic structure of a mystery cult is that of at least one level of formal initiation, where the new members are taught the signs, sigils and doctrine of their cult by the existing initiates, and are able to participate in the cult’s observances and practices as appropriate to that cult. In most cases, there were multiple levels of initiation, with deeper and deeper secrets and rites available to the highly initiated; this is where the term ‘mystery’ comes from in regards to these organizations, as the cult’s practices were shrouded in multiple levels of secrecy—first from outsiders by all of the initiates, and then from outer initiates by the inner members.

Once the general rule for most European religions, especially those of the Greco-Roman cultural sphere, in modern times most mystery cults have been rendered extinct through breaking the chain of transmission. Essentially, targeting the existing initiates, or keeping new members from joining are effective ways to destroy a mystery cult, as was done by the early Christians against the Greco-Roman pagan cults, which were wiped out in a period of just a few centuries. So while in modern times we still have much of the accumulated mythos of the Greek gods, as preserved through folk transmission in the Greek peoples and historical writings, the practices of worship, as performed by the cults that served the individual gods, are effectively lost with their practitioners.

The cult of Mithras during the Roman Empire, for example, was known to have seven levels of initiation, and featured communal ritual meals in underground temples, but the particulars of what was done in those temples, how, when, and to what ends, are all lost. Hundreds of the underground temples have been found, but unless the stones can be brought to speak about what they witnessed, the mysteries of the rites of Mithras are now forever a mystery.

—Divine Light Through The Gem Of Man: Studying The Many Facets Of The Holy, Waterford University Press, 1692