Predominantly a carnivorous Jainist inlaid with Christian ethics and morals I sporadically muse upon archaic religions etc. with Wikipedia et al. such as the Mithraic Mysteries. Personally imperfectly polytheist, selectively theist, my progenitorial quiddity is this hopefully scintillating colloquy. Be aware I execrate fugacious and enduring elitist expenditure; from pyramids to temples to bishop’s palaces to...monuments to mammon, self glorification and the emperor's clothes. Popes, Rabbis, Imams etc. do not need a ‘Vatican’,‘Temple’ or ‘Masjid al-Quba’ on ‘the mount’ etc. just any oratory.

Analogically: Judaism, Islam and Christianity, the three great Abrahamic religions, are themselves derivations of Indo-European doxologies ritualised following the successful ‘Out of Africa’ migration; my c.8,000th great grandparents were probably Celts, possibly Corieltauvi as ancestral Kenningtons tended to a settled subculture, implicitly pre-Christian descendants of the successful ‘Out of Africa’ migrants.

The Corieltauvi were a tribe living, prior to the Romans, in what is now Lincolnshire, largely agricultural people who had few strongly defended sites or signs of centralised government appearing to have been a federation of smaller, self-governing tribal groups (I like that). Druids, their ‘priests’ (sorcerers some say), derived much of their beliefs from ancient Indo-European cultic practices such as the Mithraic Mysteries, implicitly pre-Christian (can you see where I’m going with this?).

Mithra is the archaic Persian divinity of covenant and oath, an all-seeing protector of Truth, and the guardian of cattle, the harvest and of The Waters. He is undeceivable, infallible, eternally watchful, and never-resting (his attention to acolytes wellbeing is not mentioned); his stock epithet is "of wide pastures" (no cities-excellent) so as guardian of the waters he ensures that those pastures (and veg.patches) receive enough of it (Mithra-the farmer’s steward).  

Together with Rashnu "Justice" and Sraosha "Obedience", Mithra is one of the three judges at the Chinvat bridge, the "bridge of separation" that all souls must cross, but unlike Sraosha, Mithra is not a psychopomp (pity, they’re associated with whip-poor-wills). The Mithraic Mysteries were originally celebrated in caves not temples. Few, if any, initiates came from leading aristocratic or senatorial families (e.g.nabobs) until the 'pagan’ (!) revival of the mid 4th century but even then there were considerable numbers of freedmen and slaves (nicely egalitarian), initiates kept their hands pure from everything that brings pain and harm (letting agnostics crucify infidels?) and is impure (bless, no bacon butties then). The Thebaid  an epic poem by Statius, pictures Mithras in a cave, wrestling with something that has horns (getting the barbie meat obviously but not pork).

Plutarch says that "the secret mysteries of Mithras" were practiced by the pirates of Cilicia who were active in the 1st century BC (contemporaries of the Corieltauvi). Plutarch also mentions that the pirates were especially active during the Mithridatic wars in which they supported the king (privateers not pirates maybe, good strategy). The association between Mithridates and the pirates is also mentioned by Appian similarly the English ‘pirates’ (renamed privateers when supporting Good Queen Bess with their booty, otherwise hung) strategically associated with royalty .

Mithra suited my recent progenitors so suits me, I’m adding him to my ever expanding divinities, which still prioritises theoretical physics-the Big Bang etc. May your gods be with you.

PS. Plutarch also mentions a group, within the Corieltauvis, of small, Asian looking, people well integrated-I marvel at such travellers and wonder what tales they must have told.