Includes bibliographical references and index.

Abbreviations of classical sources cited -- Introduction -- The Hellenistic age -- The Hellenistic world -- Religion in the Hellenistic world -- Syncretism or system -- Piety, mystery, gnosis -- 1. The golden ass in a labryrinthian world -- The fictive world of Apuleius -- The cosmic world of Apuleius -- The mythic world of Apuleius -- Fortune -- Wandering -- Salvation -- The social world of apuleius -- Home -- Magic -- The world of Lucius -- 2. Hellenistic piety -- Traditional piety -- Hellenistic philosophy and the rational order of things -- Philosophy in the Hellenistic world -- The epicureans -- The stoics -- Philosophy and piety -- Divination and the cosmic order of things -- Artificial divination -- Astrology -- Alchemy -- Natural divination -- The delphic oracle -- Dreaming -- Asclepius and healing -- Specialization and senility.

4. Reformation and innovations -- Reformations -- Dionysus -- The myth of Dionysus -- The mysteries of Dionysus -- The orgies of the Roman Bacchanalia -- Orpheus -- The Orphic myth of Dionysus -- Orphic Mysteries -- Judaism -- Hellenistic Judaism -- Yahweh and the Feminine -- Innovations -- Alexander of Abonoteichus -- Mithraism -- The origin of Mithraism -- The myth of Mithras -- Mithraic initiation -- Mithraic initiation -- Christianity -- They Christ myth -- Appeal and reaction -- 5. Late Hellenistic gnosis -- Cosmic revaluation -- Gnosticism -- Christian and non-christian gnosis -- Gnostic seeking -- Gnostic cult -- Manichaeism -- The hermetic tradition -- The patria.

3. The mysteries and the sovereignty of the feminine -- Mystery deities -- The mysteries -- The Eleusinian mysteries -- The myth of Demeter -- The rights of Demeter -- The mystery initiation -- Eleusis and Athens -- The Mysteries of Isis -- The myth of Isis and Osiris -- The rites of Isis -- The mysteries of Isis -- The universal goddess -- The Syrian goddess -- The great mother of the gods.