I've been slowly making my way through Walter Burkert's Greek Religion for the first time. I just finished the section on mysteries, about which I knew little. I have no idea why, but I left the section feeling a little creeped out. Something about how he described some mindsets of the mystery (as distinct from polis) cults reminded me of today, and not in a good way. One of the paragraphs even made me think of incels. 😳 Definitely need to do some more reading to wash that away.
Anyone have favorite recommendations to learn about Greek (Roman, Egyptian too, but definitely closer to antiquity than medieval and later) mystery cults?
I have Hugh Bowden's Thames & Hudson text and Michael Cosmopoulos' work on the archaeology in my own collection. Should I next try Burkert's dedicated work on the mysteries? Anything else? Journal articles? Scholar specialists?