Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One who prepares candidates for initiation into a mystery cult.
- noun One who holds or spreads mystical doctrines.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One who instructs in or interprets mysteries; one who initiates.
- noun Specifically, in the early church, the priest who prepared candidates for initiation into the sacred mysteries.
- noun One who keeps church relics and shows them to strangers.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun One who interprets mysteries, especially of a religious kind.
- noun One who keeps and shows church relics.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A person who prepares an
initiate for entry into amystery cult , or who teachesmystical doctrines - noun One who keeps and shows
church relics .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Initiation into mysteries, or instruction preparatory to this; the practices or teachings of a mystagogue.
Archive 2007-07-01 Kirsty 2007
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He did not know he was by his own boast a mesmerist and a mystagogue; a destroyer of reason and will; an enemy of truth and liberty.
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The largest and most valuable, had I been sensible of such things was a book of marvels by "the most miraculous mystagogue of nature": China monumentis, qua sacris quà profanis, nec non variis naturae & artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata, by Athanasius Kircher.
Kitai Young Geoffrion 2007
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Initiation into mysteries, or instruction preparatory to this; the practices or teachings of a mystagogue.
Nerdettes FC Kirsty 2007
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The largest and most valuable, had I been sensible of such things was a book of marvels by "the most miraculous mystagogue of nature": China monumentis, qua sacris quà profanis, nec non variis naturae & artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata, by Athanasius Kircher.
Archive 2007-10-01 Young Geoffrion 2007
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In the lesser Mysteries [24] the candidate took an oath of secrecy, which was administered to him by the mystagogue, and then received a preparatory instruction, [25] which enabled him afterwards to understand the developments of the higher and subsequent division.
The Symbolism of Freemasonry Albert G. Mackey
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Philo looks in every ordinance of the Bible for the spiritual light and conceives the law as an inspiration of spiritual truth and the guide to God, or, as he puts it sometimes, "the mystagogue to divine ecstasy."
Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria Norman Bentwich 1927
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Perhaps they would have but for the definite pronouncement of the mystagogue G.B. Shaw.
Plum Pudding Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned Christopher Morley 1923
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Philo looks in every ordinance of the Bible for the spiritual light and conceives the law as an inspiration of spiritual truth and the guide to God, or, as he puts it sometimes, “the mystagogue to divine ecstasy.”
Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria Bentwich, Norman 1910
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But in her dealings with social formulæ here in England she is, it must frankly be said, a common mystagogue.
whichbe commented on the word mystagogue
Someone who instructs others before initiation into religious mysteries or before participation in the sacraments.
A person whose teachings are said to be founded on mystical revelations.
(Dictionary.Com)
May 18, 2008