Maze is originally the Cretan palace of Minos, where the Minotaur was secluded and from where Theseus escaped with the help of Arianna’s thread.

Its essential elements are the complexity of its layout, and the path difficult to find a way through. The labyrinthine arrangement is in a natural state in the corridors accessing some prehistoric caves: in any case it is something common in all cultures, and it is associated with a cave. As an initiation route the Maze is similar to the mandala. According to the historian of religions Mircea Eliade, "A maze is the sometimes magic defence of a center, of a meaning. Penetrating into it may be an initiation ritual, as we can see from the myth of Theseus. This symbolism is the pattern of any existence that through a quantity of trials moves towards its own center, towards itself, the Atman, just to use an Indian term (...) But we must also say that life is not made of only one maze: the trial may be required again.