- Mystery Religions: Ancient mystery cults, such as those of Orpheus, Dionysus, Isis and Osiris, and Mithras, often explored death as a transformative process. Initiates underwent symbolic "deaths" and "rebirths" as part of initiation rites, reflecting the cycle of life, death, and regeneration.
- Necromancy: Necromancy (Greek: νεκρομαντεία, nekromanteía) is a specific form of ritualistic interaction with the dead, often to seek knowledge, guidance, or power. This practice is tied to ancient death cults that believed the dead could provide wisdom or aid the living.
- Syrian and Anatolian Cults: Worship of deities like Cybele and Attis, Persephone, or Osiris often emphasized themes of death and resurrection.
- Symbolic Death: The "death" of the ego is akin to the symbolic death experienced in rites of passage or initiation.
- Rebirth and Renewal: After ego death, individuals often report a sense of being "reborn" with new perspectives, similar to the regenerative themes in death cult rituals.
- Overcoming Fear: Psychedelic ego death often leads to a profound release of fear about mortality, reflecting the aims of mystery cults to prepare initiates for death.
- Transformation Through Death: Whether literal, symbolic, or psychological, the idea of "dying" as a step to enlightenment, peace, or understanding.
- Fearlessness in Facing Mortality: Overcoming the fear of death, a central tenet of many ancient cults and modern psychedelic experiences.
- Altered States of Consciousness: Death cult rituals often involved trance, drugs, or intense emotional states to connect with the divine or the afterlife.
Death Cults
A death cult refers to a religious, mystical, or philosophical group that centers its beliefs and rituals around death, the afterlife, or transformation through death. These cults often explore themes of mortality, rebirth, and transcendence. While not all death cults are inherently negative or destructive, the term can also carry a pejorative meaning, implying a group that glorifies or fixates on death in a harmful way.
Dr Hillman uses Death Cult to refer to mystery and early monist cults in the sense of initiatory death (e.g. ego death) from the oracular / bacchic rites.
Understandably "death cult" and "necromancy" has been taken out of context and pejoratively framed by monists. (As well as fringe groups that truly are interested in real death - that' not our focus).
Ancient Bronze Age Cult and derivatives of course were focused on the ego death (death without death) rather than celebrating actual bodily death.
Ancient Contexts of Death Cults
Psychedelic Concepts: Ego Death and Rebirth
The concept of ego death—a psychological dissolution of the self during intense mystical or psychedelic experiences—parallels ancient death-and-rebirth rituals. This state, often induced by substances like psilocybin, DMT, or LSD, can bring a sense of transcending personal identity, letting go of fear, and connecting with the "universal." It mirrors ancient initiation rites in several ways:
Are Death Cults and Psychedelic Concepts Related?
Yes, there are strong thematic overlaps between death cults and the psychedelic concepts of ego death and rebirth. Both explore:
Thoughts
While necromancy directly involves interacting with the dead, the broader idea of ego death and rebirth connects with the transformative goals of death cults, particularly in mystery religions. Both seek to transcend fear of death and access a higher understanding of existence.
Mystery cults often promised a better afterlife to initiates who underwent symbolic (ego) death and rebirth (during their lifetime!), much like Christian baptism and the promise of resurrection (after they actually die!! big difference).
Christianity (especially early Christian Cult) shares commonalities with ancient religions labeled as "death cults," such as the worship of Osiris, Dionysus, or Mithras. All these traditions emphasize death, sacrifice, and renewal as central themes. Christianity, frames death as a means to eternal life, redemption, and spiritual transformation.
Christianity is, without a doubt, a death cult.