Not that many people know that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a research paper on Mithraism. Those studying to become ministers of a religion frequently get assigned, or freely choose, to study some other religion and in MLK’s case, the religion of Mithra was one of them. Mithra has or had a lot in common with Christianity, as MLK relays.
Who was Mithra though, and how does Mithraism figure in Mythology Today? If we’ve heard of this obscure religion at all, perhaps that’s because we still teach some Roman history in public schools. Learning how Uncle Sam got where he is today, requires some delving into folklore and storytelling.
But where is Uncle Sam today? Subcultures differ when it comes to folklore, we all know. The story that Uncle Sam died and went to heaven, or experienced satori, is perhaps more of a West Coast phenomenon, influenced by Oriental (now there’s a dated term) traditions.
The story has to do with the United States outgrowing narrow ideas of nationalism and embracing a kind of universalism found among actual universalists, meaning the folk who inspired Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the American Transcendentalist movement more generally: the Unitarians.
