Found this labyrinth amulet in the Azure Green catalogue:
They describe it as a “Wicca Protection Amulet” and go on to say:
Worked into an intricate pattern of a maze, this amulet is a powerful aid in keeping evil spirits and curses from reaching the intended target, offering protection to the wearer.
Lovely idea, huh? Except there’s only one tiny problem.
The unicursal labyrinth isn’t, strictly speaking, a maze because there are no dead ends. Wherever you begin invariably leads to the heart of it. It’s designed that way so the monster — Asterios or Ariadne, depending on your perspective — can just sit back and wait for their victims to stumble along. So, if you’re trying to keep bad things away from you you probably want to go with a different configuration as this one’ll bring them directly to you.
Being the sinister and suspicious sort that I am I don’t think this was a gaff on their part. Clearly this amulet is intended to aid the evil spirits and curses in destroying stupid and unwary souls and for that I applaud their efforts.
Hilarious.
’tis!
The stupid, it burns me. I have a similar reaction to labyrinths in hospital gardens, with the intent to find peaceful, spiritual healing on your journey into the center. However, given the fact that walking any outdoor labyrinth, I can very easily find myself elsewhere entirely, it’s convenient to have them around to use. My own labyrinth experiences have ranged from haunting/disturbing to bat-shit terrifying.
Well, there is peace in death … so maybe they know what they’re doing. LOL
Amusingly, for as important as the labyrinth is in my cosmology I’ve never actually walked a proper one. I’ve walked a couple mazes (including that amazing one with the stations of the cross I stumbled upon in Marysville) but no true labyrinth. I’d feel more compelled to — except that my whole life is kind of a stroll through one.
Hmm maybe that’s the point? To keep the spirits continuously traversing the labyrinth? Also, and maybe this is just me being creative, if one has one’s own ‘monster’ in the midst of the labyrinth that should surely keep the evil spirits at bay, no?
Heh. I think you’re giving them more credit than they deserve. On the other hand, I like the way you think my friend!
That is a great idea, but I agree that it’s not likely to have crossed the mind of the person who wrote the copy.
I have one of those. It’s on Ariadne’s altar and I wear it when walking the labyrinth. I certainly don’t use it for the purpose stated there. Just . . . . leaves me at a loss for words.
Despite the description I’d get one too if I didn’t already have the image tattooed on my forearm.
So you’re permanently channeling evil spirits. ;)
That should have been clear by now.
Maniacal laugh. Maniacal laugh … Maniacal laugh.
I’ve always been more drawn to the Chartres-style labyrinth design, even though the classic seven-circuit style is more closely associated with pagan deities. Nonetheless, at Hela’s behest, I had a seven-circuit labyrinth tattooed on my lower back a few years ago, with roots coming out of the bottom and thorns on the top. I jokingly refer to it as “Hela’s tramp stamp.”
And don’t get me started on the ignorance of most New Age/Pagan purveyors when they go to describe things they’re selling.
Niiiiiice. I bet that looks amazing.
In the late 1980s. People like Alex Champion, and Sig Lonegren in particular, regarded labyrinths cut into the ground as paths for people to walk along in procession. This was combined with ideas from dowsing, and inevitably there had to be something to be gained by walking the labyrinth.
Sig Lonegren took the number seven: seven coils, seven planets and came up with a Cabala type walking meditation.
Nothing of this fits in with Theseus leading the dance on Delos that Ariadne had taught him,… Or the Man or child adorned with bull horns..Asterion.
The idea of it as *protective* borrows, I guess, from ‘Spirit traps’ those spider-webs of wool made at Greenham Common, which had borrowed from Tibetan culture. Almost all the New Age ideas I ever heard were poetic and fun, but never acknowledged their sources.
But…don’t walk the labyrinth
Dance it or RUN and enjoy the trick it plays.
Getting to heaven or Irkalla (!) is always harder than it seems.
The core of the labyrinth is confusion.
Caer Sidi and Cear Droia.
For me, if I step out of mythology and away from the seven gates of the Sumerian Underworld, or the Seven Gods (seven demons) the Ilu Sibiti, the labyrinth was once used to ‘tie winds’ to protect fishermen, was once Troy town from Caer Droia (the spinning castle). It was once a place for fun and games cut into the ground for Mayday.
And found in the mind as it shuts down, in a Newgrange array of entopic hallucinations.
Interesting. Though not all labyrinths are seven circuits.
Using labyrinths as walking meditations is an older idea that is used a lot today, outside of new-age thinking. “Walking A Sacred Path” by Lauren Artress discusses that actually, including modern practices, and I know that some labyrinth facilitators are trained using that book.
This was a joy to read.
It is only recently that I have learnt the difference between the terms “maze” and “labyrinth” (in French the word “labyrinthe” stands for both, just as the word “sirène” is used for both greek siren and mermaid). I am well aware that the labyrinth Theseus had to travel through is considered to be unicursal and was depicted as such in antiquity, but I keep wondering: what role could Ariadne’s thread play in a one way route?
Brilliantly astute question. And my take is that while the unicursal form represents the labyrinth the actual one was very different, a constantly shifting, dream-like structure. A little pocket of hell on earth.