Payam Nabarz, a Persian-born Sufi and practicing Dervish, holds a Ph.D. from Oxford University and is carrying out postdoctoral research there on genetics and cancer.

He is a Druid in the Grove of the Order of the Bards, Ovates, and Druids; a member of the Golden Dawn Occult Society; and a revivalist of the Temple of Mithras. He lives in England.
Nabarz’s book is part historical and part experiential.

Mithras was an ancient Indo-Iranian protector god whose worship can be traced as far back as the second millennium BCE in Persia. The Mithras cult made its way west where it became a mystery religion popular with the Roman Legions until 400 CE during which it was taken to every corner of the Roman Empire. As the last pagan state religion in Europe, it was the most important competitor to early Christianity and heavily influenced Christian doctrine and symbolism, as well as Islam and Freemasonry.

As a striking example of the parallels between Christianity and Mithraism, Mithras was born of a virgin in a cave on December 25. The many parallels frightened the Christian forefathers as it indicated all the Christian mysteries were already known years before the coming of Christ.

To combat this, certain Christian writers stated that the Devil had imitated the Christian mysteries so as to denigrate them before the coming of Christ. All pretense of subtlety by the Christian church had gone by the 5th century CE, during which all pagan temples, including those of Mithras, were destroyed.

Nabarz presents an outline of the many echoes of Mithraism in Christianity. Some of these are quite confronting to Christians who will be forced to realise just how much of Christianity has been borrowed from other sources.

Nabarz also highlights the echoes of Mithraism within the Yezidis, among the Kurds of Northern Iraq. The little known Yezidis are popularly thought of as demon worshippers. As refutation of this, Nabarz points out that in the 1970s the Yezidis joined the Zoroastrian community in Iran.

Nabarz quotes a suspected connection between Mithras and Celtic lore through the Ogham alphabet. Mithras appears to be very similar to the god known as Ogmios.

Nabarz also points out that Mithras and Christ appear to be very closely related to Lugh, the Gaelic god of sun and light, who follows the sacrificial sun god cycle.

After having absorbed Nabarz’s research into the Mithras cult, readers may well wish to experience this god in a practical sense. Alas, this is all but impossible using authentic source texts as the Christian church ensured these were systematically destroyed. Only the controversial Mithras Liturgy remains, having been hidden in a tomb so as to escape the fate of other magickal writings.

There is a revival of Mithraism today in neo-pagan circles which arguably began with Freemasonry and the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). A small number of writers have attempted to reconstruct the Mithraic initiation rites and/or the Mithras Liturgy including D. Jason Cooper, Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, Julius Evola and myself. For Nabarz, it was very much a labour of love as he spent seven years writing his seven initiation meditations.

Any form of religious practice has to be lived. It is obvious that Nabarz has lived Mithraism. He reconstructs it so as to make it accessible to neo-pagans. He has incorporated elements of Wicca and Thelema as part of his modern adaptations.

A unique aspect of his reconstruction is the incorporation of Persian texts, some of which were translated by Nabarz himself. In the occasional absence of appropriate hymns, Nabarz supplies some of his own poetry.

Given the lack of authentic unique initiations in any Mithraic reconstruction, the only valid criteria to be fulfilled is the capacity to deliver inner spiritual experiences and development.
Time will tell how effective Nabarz’s system is, as more and more neo-pagans embrace it.
Nabarz should be commended for supplying all the initiation rites, meditations, and theory for readers who wish to embark upon the Mithraic path.

– Reviewed by Tony Mierzwicki in New Dawn No. 97