Definition of "mystagogue" []

• One who prepares candidates for initiation into a mystery cult. (noun)
• One who holds or spreads mystical doctrines. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "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."
• "Initiation into mysteries, or instruction preparatory to this; the practices or teachings of a mystagogue."
• "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."