I was quite awe–struck when I first learned about the great angel Mithra. In fact, if such a human emotion is not too noisy and crude in its vibration to admit to in relation to the angels, I was excited!
Mithra – the unconquerable Sun
Zoroaster (Zarathustra), the Persian mystic who taught the inspired doctrines of his God of Light in the ancient world, was the teacher who first brought to humanity the knowledge of angels. All historical references to angelic beings stem from Zoroaster’s teachings. His knowledge had its base in ancient Mesopotamian texts, texts that arose from the earliest civilisation that history has recorded in detail and which flourished with such a strange brilliancy in what is now Iraq and the borders of Iran. Of all the angels we know and love today, Mithra, ‘the unconquerable Sun’, seems to be the one that in a general sense we have almost entirely forgotten.
Yet I believe that Zoroaster did not merely draw on records of antiquity in order to make the angels known to us. I believe (a belief supported by artefacts and archives examined by Laurence Gardner with scholarly thoroughness) that Zoroaster was the biblical Ham, and that Ham lived for an extraordinarily long time upon the Earth. Ham was the original Zoroaster, and subsequent high priests of the order he initiated were given his titular name as an honorific.
From this perspective, Zoroaster did not study ancient texts, but personally taught what the Mesopotamian scribes recorded. His were the ancient teachings of Enki or Oannes (a name that afterwards metamorphosed into ‘John’), who was Zoroaster’s God of Light. In Persia, Enki or Oannes/John was known as Ahura Mazda.
And it is the Age of John the Lightbearer that is prophesied to be the new age of enlightenment which will sweep the world in the coming days. All the ancient mystery schools knew of this oldest of prophecies.
The true source of divine light
Oannes taught (although the flame of his teachings was later obscured by shadows of omission, interference and manipulated doctrine), that the true source of divine light was within the heart, and that the heart’s indwelling light was the presence of Divine Mother encompassing Divine Father. Both aspects of the Godhead were in perfect equilibrium and unity, but human souls were uplifted into the centre of this unity by kneeling in reverence to the most holy wisdom secreted in the heart.
His teaching cited Divine Mother as the first principle, and Divine Father as the second principle, a teaching which has been entirely reversed in almost all religions existing today, and indeed in almost all rites that humankind has practiced throughout the centuries since those earliest, forgotten times.
Oannes or John’s overlighting angel was Mithra, Angel of the Gates of the Sun who opened up its glory to those who were centred in the light of the heart. Mithra was John’s angelic teacher, instructing this illumined human soul who seemed godlike to earthly humanity because of the level of spiritual evolution he had attained, on the nature of God and how humanity should approach God – God the Mother–Father.
Mithra was the angel that Zoroaster most praised and held in greatest awe. Zoroaster extolled Mithra’s extraordinary power, beauty and radiance, his divine eminence and grandeur. He warned against the foolhardiness of misusing Mithraic influence or appearing before him without a scrupulously pure heart.
Mithra – a Kick–Ass angel
Mithra is definitely what I like to call a Kick–Ass angel, which means that he is an angel we call on to infuse us with an angelic dynamism that will change our lives and our consciousness, rather than requesting his aid for less profound things.
Michael and Shekinah stand at the pinnacle of the angelic hierarchy, and yet could not work with humanity as they do without Mithra. It can be said that Mithra is an aspect of them, but he–she is so intimately linked to them, and there is such an interchange of creative communion between them, that it is as if Mithra is their child. Mithra is the point of connection between heaven and earth, and constitutes a shining Jacob’s ladder that bridges the dimensions. Mithra is therefore associated with the Holy Grail, which in itself is indeed the heavenly connection to earth that humanity enjoyed in full consciousness prior to the horror of its severing.
The rites of Mithra were mysterious and hidden. Nothing has come down to us from anecdotal history or from any kind of textual record regarding the ceremonies of Mithra. Nevertheless, whilst writing Kick Ass AngelsI was given a number of simple rites that can be used to help those who seek to connect with this most glorious angel. Mithra teaches us secrets about the magic mirror, and the golden twin, and about the supreme spiritual force of sun–bathing!
A rite of protection
I would like to include one here, the briefest and simplest of all. It is a simple rite of protection. We call on Michael, Shekinah and Mithra to protect us in any situation where we feel the need. We see the descent of a golden triangle that covers us from above the head to beneath the feet. The triangle is transparent and clear. Its point reaches into the heavens, and, if you look down at your feet after invoking it, you may well see a point descending into the earth, located in the middle of its base.
If you place your two forefingers together above your conjoined thumbs, stretching the thumbs across but not downwards, you will see the shape of the divine triangle that Michael, Shekinah and Mithra create between them for our perfect protection of mind, body and soul. You will notice that it is similar to the symbol of Spades in the card deck (for this deck bears the secrets of the Grail). If you look closely, you will perhaps be able to see that the shape resembles a tree in its full summer foliage.
That is the mystery of Mithra: that together with his ‘parents’ he forms the sign of the Tree of Life, the symbol of the Great Mother – its upper point rooting us into heaven, its lower point rooting us into the Earth.
© 2013 Claire Nahmad.
