Mystery
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"To establish contact with the mysterious forces which rule the world, to come to terms with them, to obtain their co-operation or complicity, such is the objective of all those who devote themselves to magic and to whom, rightly or wrongly, people attribute supernatural powers and a special gift of receptivity to everything marvellous."--A Pictorial History of Magic and the Supernatural (1961) by Maurice Bessy "Here was indeed a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain."--Edgar Allan Poe in "The Gold-Bug", collected in Tales of Mystery & Imagination |
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A mystery is something secret or unexplainable; unknown; someone or thing with an obscure or puzzling nature.
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Etymology
From Middle English mysterie, from Latin mysterium, from Ancient Greek μυστήριον (musterion, “a mystery, a secret, a secret rite”), from μύστης (mustēs, “initiated one”), from μυέω (mueō, “I initiate”), from μύω (muō, “I shut”).
Mystery, mysteries, or mysterious may refer to:
Religion
Culture
Genres
- Mystery film, a genre in cinema
Literature
- Mysteries (novel) or Mysterier, an 1892 existentialist novel by Knut Hamsun
- Mystery play, a form of medieval European dramatic theatre dealing with religious themes
Film and television
- Mystery!, a long-running PBS program showcasing British detective fiction
See also
