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The Mysteries of Egypt were the glory of that ancient land, and the noblest sons of Greece, such as Plato, went to Sais and to Thebes to be initiated by Egyptian Teachers of Wisdom.
The Mithraic Mysteries of the Persians, the Orphic and Bacchic Mysteries and the later Eleusinian semi-Mysteries of the Greeks, the Mysteries of Samothrace, Scythia, Chaldea, are familiar in name, at least, as household words.
Even in the extremely diluted form of the Eleusinian Mysteries, their value is most highly praised by the most eminent men of Greece, as Pindar, Sophocles, Isocrates, Plutarch, and Plato.
The skin of the panther was also sacred in certain of the Egyptian initiatory ceremonials.
The monogram IHS, now interpreted to mean Iesus Hominum Salvator, is another direct link between the Christian and the Bacchic rites.
IHS is derived from the Greek ΥΗΣ, which, as its numerical value signifies, is emblematic of the sun and constituted the sacred and concealed name of Bacchus.
