Here is acclaimed Pagan historian Ronald Hutton giving a talk on the mysterious Mr. D. I could only get a third of the way through it because it’s Ronald Hutton but I didn’t hear anything I hated. A couple things I might quibble over, sure, but I see where he’s going with it and it’s not an uninteresting take. I will always be indebted to the man’s research because it was through Triumph of the Moon that I first learned about Ernest Westlake, Harry Byngham and the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry, which represents an important link in the chain of the modern worship of Dionysos. It is especially important within the Starry Bull tradition of Bacchic Orphism (their feast day according to the calendar of the Bakcheion is October 30th) because the whole Order of Woodcraft Chivalry thing was an application of the principles, theories, and theology of scholar and prophet Jane Ellen Harrison. (She’s honored on April 15th.) Her book was a dialogue with the Friedrich Nietzsche / Georges Bataille / Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov strain of Dionysianism (sometimes agreeing with them, sometimes not; she was also having a separate conversation with James G. Frazer, Erwin Rohde, and Ulrich Von Wilamowitz-Moellendor but that’s less interesting) and was as instrumental in popularizing the deity as Walter Otto and Carl Kerényi. One could even argue that she had a wider influence outside academia than those two luminaries (who are honored on September 23rd and April 14th, respectively) since — at least according to an interview he gave — it was through Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion that Jim Morrison (July 3rd) was introduced to Dionysos. In fact he’s even shown reading from it in Oliver Stone’s hagiography/biopic. Though amusingly Val Kilmer is not holding the edition that Jim would have had in the 60s, but instead the later reprint that was in circulation at the time of filming was used. I readily admit that I am a nerd for knowing that, but this is our history, a record of the re-emergence of Dionysianism, and I think that’s worth remembering and preserving. (Even if I haven’t updated Eternal Bacchus in a coon’s age because of all the projects I’m always juggling.)