And:

Both are great, but I think I like the second slightly more.

So both my individual and group signatures to the Xenia Declaration have been removed after the post I made about Pyrokanthos. He, however, remains. I guess covering for pedophiles and consent violators is considered a Hellenic value by these people. 

Yeeesh. They’ll let anyone sign this thing:

Pyrokanthos says:
November 7, 2019 at 2:33 pm
Pyrokanthos, Hiereys Basileys of Thiasos Olympikos, endorses the Xenia Declaration, which is in full accord with the principals to which we have adhered for the past thirty years.

I mean, I hate Nazis as much as the next red-blooded American but that dude is Pyrokanthos aka Don Studebaker aka Ramfis Firethorn aka Jon DeCles. As in the dude who gropes mediums while they are carrying deities. As in the spouse of Diana Paxson, at whose home children were molested, also known as the adopted brother of Marion Zimmer Bradley.

I feel dirty having my name on that list now.

And I signed the Declaration as an individual.

Sannion says:
November 7, 2019 at 12:11 pm
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

It’s Hellenismos, not Hateismos. I stand in support of xenia.

I have signed the Xenia Declaration on behalf of The Bakcheion.

I mean, technically we’re Starry Bull rather than Hellenic polytheist but I’m sure they won’t mind us standing with them against those fucking xenophobes and haters.

Online activism is so cool. 

Here’s a couple good posts discussing the interstices of politics, culture and polytheism.

First up from Sacred Blasphemies, A Screed On Society and Culture:

I feel like our diversity is our strength. It is not the Left that is causing us to lose culture. If anything, it is our society itself. We often don’t cook our own meals. Food is culture. We sit and listen to radio, watch TV, or read websites, which insulates us from our neighbors. This is a form of separating ourselves from culture. And I’m guilty of it as well.

I share the critiques of modernism that many people on the far right have. I agree with Radical Traditionalists on many issues, just disagree strongly on the emphasis on ethnic homogeneity and on traditional gender roles. (Also, many of them are super racist…which I just have no tolerance for.)

And then from Sarenth comes this Reflection on Polytheism, Tribalism, and Politics:

Generally, Pagan and polytheist communities I am not personally part of take far more than anything they give back. Part of this is due to a lack of coherent theology most Pagan groups have. Why? A coherent theology gives structure to a religion, and in organizing and structuring its religion, gives structure to its adherents. Without clear structures within and for understanding one’s religion, let alone one’s place in it, one’s political and/or personal proclivities become the deciding factor on what behaviors and views are correct for one’s religion and conduct. In other words, the religion and all structures change to fit individuals rather than individuals fitting a religion when theology lacks, or when religious structures are ignored or eschewed. From religious structure comes the basis for how we live in the world, and every single religion that I know of sets up in its basic foundation what right relationship with the Holy Powers, and from that with one another, looks like. When theology and resulting religious structures do not form coherent narratives, structures, or stories, I often see that non-religious elements are incorporated, whether that is from politics, science, or whatever interest the group or person holds.

Gipt fá gipt (gift for a gift in ON) exists as a given with the basic structure of Heathenry. It is in how we conduct ourselves with our Gods, Ancestors, vaettir, and with one another in communities. It is how we understand and set up all our relationships. When someone lacks this basic understanding it becomes painfully clear how one-sided a relationship is, and unless the other party is willing to do some values-adjusting, there can be no useful relationship.

Sarenth also wrote this striking piece Visions of Dionysus you should check out. 

In case you haven’t noticed I’m a bit– “oppositionally defiant” is, I believe, the clinical term. Growing up, most of the things I was really into – heavy metal, horror movies, fantasy novels, neopaganism, homosexuality – were introduced to me by concerned teachers or youth ministers decrying their dangerous and corrupting influence; the greater their moral panic, the more intrigued I became. Now their disfavor wasn’t a guarantee I’d like something, but the allure of the forbidden and suppressed was usually enough for me to at least give it a shot. It’s quite astounding, really, that I didn’t discover my fondness for drugs and alcohol until my late twenties. 

Incidentally, this is also how my political evolution occurred. The first (and only) presidential election I voted in was for Bill Clinton’s second term. I had already begun to sour on the man since he hadn’t delivered on his promises with regard to gay rights and the environment, but I figured he was still better than Bob Dole, whom the Republicans were running for some inexplicable reason. Not that I would have ever voted Republican back then – this was the 90s, man; my favorite band was Rage Against the Machine and I wore a Free Tibet patch on my jacket. A couple years before I’d even delivered speeches to the school board peppered with Marxist slogans, that’s how woke I was. 

I was working at a used book store then, and occasionally controversial titles would come in. My boss would jack the price up and put them on a special shelf behind the glass counter. Anarchist Cookbook. Complete Works of the Marquis de Sade. The Turner Diaries. Stuff by Crowley and LaVey. That Sex book by Madonna. It was an eclectic mix, but all were somehow guilty of wrongthink. So of course I’d check at the start of each shift for any new arrivals, and stash the interesting ones in my cubby until payday. Increasingly that came to mean conservative and Right-wing titles. The more out there their ideas were the more I engaged, trying to refute them with my infallible liberal logic; except the longer this went on, the more I started having this sinking feeling that the Right might be right after all. At least their worldview better aligned with what I saw happening around me all the time and their explanations, hard as they could be to initially accept, better explained this phenomena than the mainstream narrative I was getting fed. (Until they went off the deep end into delusional paranoia and idiotic racism, that is.)  

And then I stopped caring about anything that wasn’t ancient Greece or Rome related. I put all of my energy into researching and writing about and worshiping Dionysos and his fellow Olympians (branching even further out later on,) moved cross country a couple times for the sake of polytheist community, taught classes, organized events, had my fifteen minutes as a minor internet celebrity  and now I’m doing this, whatever this is. 

With such a focus, my interest in Right-wing political theory faded to nothingness. It had always been fairly utopian; I’m one of those Romantic, pessimistic Right-wingers after all. (Where can I find a glacier to gaze upon until dreadful existential shuddering seizes me?) Dig deep enough and all political parties and figures prove disappointing. If they aren’t riddled with hypocrisy and moral failings than they usually lack the fortitude or intelligence to manifest their vision. 

Which is why even when my interest was rekindled by the rise of the “intellectual dark web” and related cliques I remained politically uninvolved. True to form nearly all of them have been revealed to be liars, grifters, degenerates and imbeciles too concerned with tearing each other to shreds to enact any kind of mass conservative reform in the country. Plus, so many of their ideas are just so fucking dull and obvious. Say what you will about the books on the controversy shelf but they were never boring! 

In the fifth Ennead he even compared it to the effects of drugs. But Plotinus’ most compelling metaphor of the Nous was of “a richly varied sphere, a globe of faces radiant with living faces, all the pure souls running together into the same place.” […] The noetic faces are described as radiant, covering the whole of a sphere, and probably looking out from it. The faces need not be pictured as joyful since the Nous is not a particularly benevolent entity. (Theodore Sabo, The Nous: A Globe of Faces)

 

Isn’t being a conservative Dionysian an oxymoron?

No. There was a time when that was actually the norm. 

Historically Dionysos was as likely to support the establishment as he was the radicals on the fringes of society. For instance, as I mentioned in my piece on the Lenaia:

Like the City Dionysia Lenaia was an occasion for the premiere of new theatrical pieces, but unlike that festival which brought in curious spectators from all parts of the Hellenic world the performances at the Lenaia were viewed by Athenian citizens and metics only. (Pragmatically this may have begun as a result of adverse travel conditions caused by frigid winter winds but in time it became a point of pride for them.) There were massive parades through the streets led by the Archon Basileos and the Epimeletai, officials who oversaw the sacred ceremonies of the Eleusinian mysteries as well. There were speeches by political grandees, awards given to outstanding citizens, veterans and their families, and the vital business of the day was discussed in public. Most people, however, looked forward to their own private Lenaia celebrations where the old wine flowed copiously and all sought ways to keep themselves warm on such frigid nights. (Plato’s Symposion is an account of one such private celebration, hosted by Agathon flush from his victory at the games.) In fact, participation in the festival could be seen as part of what made up one’s essential Athenianness as Athenaios demonstrates when he has Mandrogenes the buffoon quip, “But you who never go out of Athens think yourself happy when you hear the precepts of Theophrastos and when you eat thyme, and salads, and nice twisted loaves, solemnizing the Lenaean festival, and the Potfeast at the Anthesteria.” (Deipnosophistai 4.130c)

Nor was this limited just to Athens. All over the Greek and Roman world we find Bacchic cults proliferating among the wealthy, conservative elites, such as at Istros:

Thus, the evidence for the cult of Dionysus at Istros does not stem from early times and it is rather unlikely that it was of Milesian origin. Even so, by the Roman period it had become one of the most, if not the most important cult of the city; the cult of Apollo Ietros may have surpassed it in prestige, but none other outshone it in popularity. This is shown not only by the sheer number of attestations, by the multitude of cult associations, but also by the fact that the priests of Dionysus belonged to the elites of the city or were closely connected to them. […] Cult associations in themselves were nothing new in the Western Pontic cities; witness the very active Dionysiac thiasos of Callatis, which in the 3rd century BC built its own temple and which later would emulate the practices of the polis concerning the honouring of its benefactors; or the less visibly active Poseidonian association of Taureastai at Istros. However, the associations discussed above, and other mostly Dionysiac – were adapting to the new circumstances. Roman influence was active, not so much upon religious life directly, as upon social structures and mentalities, which in their turn influenced religious life. Thus, associations in the Greek East generally and Dionysiac ones in particular had become loyalist, filo-Imperial, trustworthy centers of political fidelity. Thus, given the conservative outlook of such associations, it is not surprising that their members should wish to preserve their social status and prestige in their dealings with outside partners. (Ligia Ruscu, On cult associations at Istros and Tomis)

And Mysia:

To good fortune. Auxanon, banker of the city and secretary of the foremost Bacchic Kynosoureites (i.e. a Dionysiac group named after the “dog’s-tail”, perhaps the Ursa Minor constellation), set up the enclosure (cancelli). (CIG 3679)

And Perinthos:

For good fortune! For the health, victory, and eternal duration of our lord emperor Lucius Septimius Severus Pertinax Arabicus Adiabenicus, of Marcus Aurelius Antonius Caesar, of his entire household, of the sacred Senate, and of the People of Perinthos, which oversees the temple. Marcus son of Horos has dedicated the pillar to the Baccheion of Asians (Asianoi) from his own resources, for the eternal honor and goodwill towards him. This was done when Statilius Barbaros was governor, Pomponius Justinianus was in charge of the sacred things (hieromnemon), Maximus son of Claudius was chief initiate, and Eutychos son of Epiktetos was priest. Prosper. (IPerinthos 56)

Indeed, throughout his mythical travels Dionysos was most often received by members of the various royal houses, rewarding their hospitality or punishing their neglect and disdain. Furthermore, many of the Hellenistic Dynasts not only favored his cult, but modeled their rule on his image and ideology.

Yet in my experience the overwhelming majority of contemporary Dionysians tend to skew Classical Liberal to Libertarian on the one hand or Leftist to Anarcho-Communist on the other. It is rare to find one of us expressing Conservative let alone more Right-wing views such as Monarchism, though we are definitely out there.

Part of this may be due to our general feeling that what belongs outside the temple should remain outside the temple; we are here to discuss Gods, not politics. It may also be that most online forums are run and populated by people who do not share our beliefs and are not interested in hearing alternative opinions. Not wanting to be contentious, or fearing that we’ll be doxxed, deplatformed, besmirched or threatened with violence towards ourselves and our loved ones, well, we just tend to remain tight-lipped in public and only share our politics with folks we know we can trust not to freak out on us.

As someone who has been pretty open about my dangerously deviant ideology I hear from Dionysians like myself more often than you would imagine – including some notable figures in the community with far too much to lose to participate in the online version of the culture wars. Yes, we very likely are in your favorite Reddit, Facebook or Tumblr group without you even realizing it.

And that doesn’t matter as long as one thing is remembered: you don’t speak for Dionysos, and neither do we. 

I was asked how someone who is primarily devoted to the divinities of another pantheon should go about incorporating Dionysos into their worship routine. Rather than go into all of the theological quandaries and the history of intercultural exchange, I’m going to keep things fairly simple and focused on the practicalities of doing so.

The first step is to confirm with both Dionysos and your own Gods and Spirits that this is permissible and will not violate any individual or traditional obligations you may have. If there are boundaries and restrictions in play, determine how best to navigate them in a manner that is respectful and pleasing to both parties. You may want to consult diviners and religious specialists to assist with this process, especially if negotiations are required.

Although Dionysos is widely traveled and has important ties to members of diverse pantheons there are some beings he just doesn’t share space with well, either because of personality clashes or conflicting energies. (True both within the Hellenic pantheon and outside it.) This could necessitate maintaining a shrine for him in a totally different part of your home from theirs, or outside it, or even honoring him without one.

You should also determine what sorts of devotional activities you can engage in for Dionysos, if these will put you in a state of ritual impurity with regard to the others, what you’ll need to do to restore that equilibrium, and how far apart this needs to be spaced. For instance, Dionysian worship can involve alcohol, drugs, sex, dancing, flogging, the consumption of meat, spending time in wild places, exploring the dark, painful, dangerous, and repressed parts of ourselves, and conversing with strange Spirits and the dead. Surprisingly, not all divinities are down with that.

He often brings about catharsis by tearing things apart and then putting them back together again; while radical transformation doesn’t occur every time you invite Dionysos into your life, it is something you should at least consider within the realm of possibility if you do so, and your Gods and Spirits may have opinions on that. Dionysos is big on consent and generally will not overstep your bounds if they are clearly and firmly articulated (especially if other divinities are involved) but anything up to that point could be considered fair game.

That said, he’s incredibly accommodating and flexible, so if you are not permitted to engage in certain activities he can usually find a workaround. For instance, there are plenty of Dionysians I know who for whatever reason (taboo, sobriety, stomach problems, etc) drink infrequently or not at all, and yet they still have incredibly rich and intimate relationships with the God.

Once you have established all of the above (or even while the process is ongoing) begin learning about Dionysos and the sorts of things he likes. I’ve written extensively about this at the Bakcheion, but don’t limit yourself to just that. In addition to scholarly resources there are a lot of really passionate, devoted and creative Dionysians in our overlapping communities who have written books, and blogs and websites, participate in online groups and forums, or are just out there doing their own thing that you can draw on. Each has a unique understanding of who Dionysos is and what has worked for them as far as honoring him goes. Test out different ritual styles and methodologies, noting what gets you the results you desire and what doesn’t. Once you have the basics down, branch out to things like monthly or weekly observances, festivals, city rambles and visits to forests, mountains and other wild places. Experiment with dance, sacred movement, austerities, trance and meditation, dreamwork, entheogens, and similar methods of inducing ecstatic and visionary states. Make art for him. Hell, you can even study mime and theater, which at the very least will make you a better ritualist.

The final consideration should probably wait until you have solidified Dionysos’ presence in your life – though it certainly doesn’t have to if there is some pressing reason – and that’s figuring out how he fits into the ecology of your private religious life. It may be fine to keep him an outsider you just honor on special occasions or as circumstances require. You may also integrate him into your household cultus either by keeping separate shrines and rites for him in the Hellenic manner while honoring your other Gods according to the customs they prefer, or if everyone is copacetic and divination confirms you can extend those forms of worship to include him, or create a new blended style. I don’t know if this would work with every type of polytheism but in my experience Dionysos has been quite receptive to elements of Kemetic, Heathen, Hindu and even folk Catholic forms of worship over the years. However, don’t assume anything and verify before proceeding! Also the appropriateness of this may change with time. (And then change back, and change again. Dionysos is … weird.)

I was reading the latest from Galina when I came across a passage:

I can think of nothing more vile than desecrating a ceremony for the dead, and violating someone’s grief by interjecting one’s own politicized interpretation of religion into it. It made me sick to even contemplate.

That reminded me of something I’d written a while back. 

Dionysos is a radically inclusive God. One of the first and most powerful expressions of this in the literary record comes from Euripides’ Bakchai, in the famous speech of Tieresias the prophet:

Those old traditions from our ancestors,
the ones we’ve had as long as time itself,
no argument will ever overthrow,
in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.
Will someone say I disrespect old age,
if I intend to dance with ivy on my head?
Not so, for the God makes no distinctions—
whether the dancing is for young or old.
He wants to gather honours from us all,
to be praised communally, without division.

Much further back, a thousand years and more, the archaeological record confirms this. In the handful of references to the God in Linear B we already find him associated with women, with tenant-farmers, and with kings. Every class, every category, every permutation of humanity is welcome in his rites.

While it’s true that his worship could give expression to revolutionary tendencies:

Dionysus was left to the powerless of Italy and they embraced him. In 185-184, the slave shepherds of Apulia – the heel of the Italian “boot” – revolted and sources hint they claimed Dionysus as their patron. Between 135 and 101 B.C., two slave revolts in Sicily and one slave revolt in western Anatolia all invoked Dionysus. The god appeared again in the rebellion of Rome’s Italian allies known as the Social War (91-88 B.C.): rebel coins showed Bacchus as a symbol of liberation. (Barry Strauss, The Spartacus War pgs 34-35)

It held equal appeal for the wealthy and powerful:

Antony himself, when he was staying at Athens, a short time after this, prepared a very superb scaffold to spread over the theatre, covered with green wood such as is seen in the caves sacred to Bacchus; and from this scaffold he suspended drums and fawn-skins, and all the other toys which one names in connection with Bacchus, and then sat there with his friends, getting drunk from daybreak, a band of musicians, whom he had sent for from Italy, playing to him all the time, and all the Greeks around being collected to see the sight. And presently, he crossed over to the Acropolis, the whole city of Athens being illuminated with lamps suspended from the roof; and after that lie ordered himself to be proclaimed as Bacchus throughout all the cities in that district. (History of the Civil War Book 3 quoted in Athenaios 4.29)

Indeed, one of the most interesting things about reading epigraphic testimonies of the God’s cults is how frequently we find the different classes mingling in his worship, as you can see for yourself in Philip Harland’s exhaustive, though by no means complete, collection of them.

This was such a strong component of Dionysiac worship that it completely scandalized Philo the Jew:

In the city there are thiasoi with a large membership, whose fellowship is founded on no sound principle but on strong liquor, drunkenness, intoxicated violence, and their offspring, wantonness. (In Flaccum 136)

Which is what ultimately led to the suppression of the Bacchanalia in Rome. Had this just been a cult of slaves, women and foreigners the Senate wouldn’t have freaked out as they did:

Then Hispala gave an account of the origin of these rites. At first they were confined to women; no male was admitted, and they had three stated days in the year on which persons were initiated during the daytime, and matrons were chosen to act as priestesses. Paculla Annia, a Campanian, when she was priestess, made a complete change, as though by divine monition, for she was the first to admit men, and she initiated her own sons, Minius Cerinnius and Herennius Cerinnius. At the same time she made the rite a nocturnal one, and instead of three days in the year celebrated it five times a month. When once the mysteries had assumed this promiscuous character, and men were mingled with women with all the licence of nocturnal orgies, there was no crime, no deed of shame, wanting. More uncleanness was wrought by men with men than with women. […] They formed an immense multitude, almost equal to the population of Rome; amongst them were members of noble families both men and women. (Livy, History of Rome 39.13-16)

Once upperclass folk started getting involved that’s when the hammer fell, with disastrous consequences:

But so great were the numbers that fled from the city, that because the lawsuits and property of many persons were going to ruin, the praetors, Titus Maenius and Marcus Licinius, were obliged, under the direction of the senate, to adjourn their courts for thirty days, until the inquiries should be finished by the consuls. The same deserted state of the law-courts, since the persons, against whom charges were brought, did not appear to answer, nor could be found in Rome, necessitated the consuls to make a circuit of the country towns, and there to make their inquisitions and hold the trials. […] A greater number were executed than thrown into prison; indeed, the multitude of men and women who suffered in both ways, was very considerable. A charge was then given to demolish all the places where the Bacchanalians had held their meetings; first in Rome, and then throughout all Italy. (Livy, History of Rome 34.18)

Which is why I am concerned by efforts to politicize our religious communities. By insisting that paganism and polytheism are not religious but revolutionary, dictating what positions a person must take on contemporary socioeconomic issues and furthermore insisting that they have the backing of the Gods in what they are doing I cannot in good conscience stand with such folk. It is not right when the Christian dominionists push for the blurring of the separation of the sacred and secular, and it’s not right when “we” do it either.

For one, it diminishes our intellectual and moral capacities to believe that a God must tell us right from wrong. I can get upset all on my own about the militarization of the police force or corporations blowing up mountains and dumping toxic sludge into our waterways for profit. And for another, outside of those and a handful of other serious issues a lot of this stuff doesn’t have simple answers. Decent, sincere, caring people can come to diametrically opposed conclusions on these matters and I’m not going to shun someone because they happen to think differently than I do. In point of fact I am not permitted to exclude another Dionysian from fellowship unless their actions violate the xenia of the God, for instance by bashing a trans person or taking advantage of someone who is too inebriated to give proper consent. Tolerance is one of the cardinal virtues of Dionysos and sometimes that means putting up with people I don’t particularly like.

And yet repeatedly these “radical polytheists” have made it abundantly clear that there is no room for people who think like I do in their little clique. Back when we were considering putting on a second Polytheist Leadership Conference a popular and influential name in the community threatened to boycott when they caught wind of my political leanings. (Even though I “outed” myself in a thread defending this person and a sizable contingent of our speakers at the first Conference were left of Marx.) Since then the situation has only gotten worse. Over and over again I’ve seen these people viciously turn on each other over miniscule differences in ideology. Friendship counts for nothing with these people, nor does a prior history in social justice activism. If you don’t toe the line and express all the right talking points all the time, even when those talking points shift without warning, you’re done for.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

I mean, fuck. We’re a small enough group of people as it is without unnecessarily dividing ourselves further. You can say something is great and important enough that you’re dedicating your life to it without demanding everyone else get behind it as well and they’re wrong, wrong, WRONG if they don’t. Let’s come together to honor the Gods and Spirits, and when we do let’s put all of that human stuff aside for the hour or so that we’re worshiping. Because you know, there are more important things than us in this world.

It’s not the conflict, necessarily, that bothers me. 

You see, we’re all human which practically guarantees we’re all going to fuck up now and again and we’re all going to learn different lessons from these fuck-ups and thus form different notions of how the world works, our place in it and our ethical responsibilities. Difference often leads to conflict. I don’t think these clashes of ideas should be shunned – a lot of good stuff can end up coming out of them, and because of that I think we need to make an effort to engage in respectful conflict when we do. Which is why I’m always stressing keep it to the issues, don’t demonize your opponents, don’t bring in personal shit, etc. It’s a hell of a lot easier to maintain a friendship after saying, “I think you were wrong about X” vs [insert random quote from the Wild Hunt comments section]. Even so, we’re not always going to maintain that standard because, again, we’re human.

And we are living through very interesting times, in the Chinese sense. I saw a news story this morning about how there’s a push to privatize some of our national parks and sell them off to developers. If that doesn’t piss you off as a polytheist and animist I don’t think you’ve any right to call yourself one. But that’s the thing – my religious values inform my politics, not the other way around. I care more about Gods and Spirits and the land than I do people; and that’s not a question of which has more value – something that goes without saying – but rather where I wish to place my focus and energy. Rituals, myth, folklore, dance, music, art – that’s what I come here for. Not regurgitated poli-sci 101 and sloganeering.

Furthermore, there’s the elephant in the room. When we talk about the intersection of polytheism and politics what we mostly mean is progressive, liberal leftist politics. And I’m not really down with that.

Don’t worry. I buy organic, I jerk off to Black chicks with dicks porn, I care a lot about what happens to poor people and I support a person’s right to get gay married in the army. Hell, if they want to marry their rifle I’m down with that too.

I just tend to agree with a lot of what Friedrich Nietzsche, Julius Evola, René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon and friends have got to say. Pretty much none of the stuff about race and Jews and gays but if you sift through the rest you can find some pretty good ideas.

They’re not the only ideas that inform my political consciousness – I’ve probably been far more influenced by V for Vendetta, Fight Club, American Beauty and Clockwork Orange – but there’s enough that I don’t feel comfortable commenting on anything even remotely political except to decry the persecution of sexual minorities or the current genocide being carried out by thugs of the American corporate police state. And that stuff’s pretty easy to be against; too easy, perhaps. How many of those pagan and polytheist groups who released statements of support post-[insert topical reference here] have followed them up with any kind of action? Yeah, thought so.

So while I’m acutely aware that the utopia many are trying to create will have no place in it for me, that’s not really why I’m not interested; I wouldn’t fit in even among my own people. Rather, it just ain’t my thing. I’ve got political beliefs, but I’m entirely apolitical. That means that not only am I not involved in any kind of political process I don’t have much interest in reading about it either, on the theoretical or engaged level.

As far as other people are concerned, that should mean fuck all. Do what your heart drives you to. If you’re passionate about a cause, get out on the streets and make a difference. Write about it til you’ve said everything that needs saying. Especially when people’s lives are literally at stake.

However, the more people do that the less interested in them I become. Yeah, I know, that makes me a horrible person. I’m okay with that. Truth be told, it’s probably among the least of my character flaws. I’ve never pretended to be a good person nor have I hid the fact that my involvement with this thing we’ve all decided to call the polytheist movement, ill defined and vaguely aimed as it is, begins and ends with religion.

If you aren’t already you should be reading The Stone Pillar. You will find consistently good stuff for the Gods there. 

Apuleius, Apologia 55-56
I have been initiated into various of the Greek mysteries, and preserve with the utmost care certain emblems and mementos of my initiation with which the priests presented me. There is nothing abnormal or unheard of in this. Those of you here present who have been initiated into the mysteries of Father Liber alone, know what you keep hidden at home, safe from all profane touch and the object of your silent veneration. But I, as I have said, moved by my religious fervour and my desire to know the truth, have learned mysteries of many a kind, rites in great number, and diverse ceremonies […] Could anyone who has any idea of religion still find it strange that a man initiated in so many divine mysteries should keep at home some tokens of recognition of the cults and should wrap them in linen cloth, the purest veil for sacred objects? For wool, the excrescence of an inert body extracted from a sheep, is already a profane garment in the prescriptions of Orpheus and Pythagoras. 

Plutarch, Life of Alexander 2.5-6
All the women of Makedonia were addicted to the Orphic rites and the orgies of Dionysos from very ancient times (being called Klodones and Mimallones), and imitated in many ways the practices of the Edonian women and the Thracian women about Mount Haemus, from whom, as it would seem, the word ‘threskeuein‘ came to be applied to the celebration of extravagant and superstitious ceremonies. Now Olympias, who affected these divine possessions more zealously than other women, and carried out these divine inspirations in wilder fashion, used to provide the revelling companies with great tame serpents, which would often lift their heads from out the ivy and the mystic winnowing baskets, or coil themselves about the wands and garlands of the women, thus terrifying the men.

Tacitus, Annals 11.31.2
Messalina meanwhile, more wildly profligate than ever, was celebrating in mid-autumn a representation of the vintage in her new home. The presses were being trodden; the vats were overflowing; women girt with skins were dancing, as Bacchanals dance in their worship or their frenzy. Messalina with flowing hair shook the thyrsus, and Silius at her side, crowned with ivy and wearing the buskin, moved his head to some lascivious chorus.

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 8.1160a
Some kinds of associations seem to be formed for the purpose of enjoyment, such as thiasoi devoted to religious revels and eranoi devoted to feasting; these exist for the sake of sacrifices and fellowship: they hold their sacrifices and meetings, portioning out honors to the gods and providing themselves with pleasurable refreshment. In ancient times, for instance, sacrifices and meetings were held as a kind of firstfruits following the gathering of the crops, since they had the most leisure at those seasons.

Scholium on Aristophanes’ Acharnians 1002
For at the Choes there was a contest about drinking a chous first, and the winner was crowned with a leafy crown and got a sack of wine. They drink at the sound of a trumpet. An inflated sack was set as a prize in the festival of Choes, on which those drinking for the contest stood, and the one drinking first as victor got the winesack. They drank a quantity like a chous.

Derveni Papyrus col. 6.1-11
… prayers and sacrifices appease the souls, and the enchanting song of the magician is able to remove the daimones when they impede. Impeding daimones are revenging souls. This is why the magicians perform the sacrifice as if they were paying a penalty. On the offerings they pour water and milk, from which they make the libations, too. They sacrifice innumerable and many-knobbed cakes, because the souls, too, are innumerable.

Herodotos, The Histories 2.81
The Egyptians wear linen tunics with fringes hanging about the legs, called ‘calasiris’ and loose white woolen mantles over these. But nothing of wool is brought into the temples, or buried with them; that is forbidden. In this they follow the same rules as the ritual called Orphic and Bacchic, but which is in truth Egyptian and Pythagorean; for neither may those initiated into these rites be buried in woolen wrappings. There is a sacred legend about this.

Athenaios, Deipnosophistai 4.29
Antony himself, when he was staying at Athens, a short time after this, prepared a very superb scaffold to spread over the theatre, covered with green wood such as is seen in the caves sacred to Dionysos; and from this scaffold he suspended drums and fawn-skins, and all the other toys which one names in connection with Dionysos, and then sat there with his friends, getting drunk from daybreak, a band of musicians, whom he had sent for from Italy, playing to him all the time, and all the Greeks around being collected to see the sight.

Lampridius, Vita Alexandri Severi 29
This was his manner of life: as soon as there was opportunity—that is, if he had not spent the night with his wife—he performed his devotions in the early morning hours in his lararium, in which he had statues of the divine princes and also a select number of the best men and the more holy spirits, among whom he had Apollonius of Tyana, and as a writer of his times says, Christ, Abraham, and Orpheus, and others similar, as well as statues of his ancestors.

Athenaios, Deipnosophistai 10.445a-b
Antheas of Lindos, claiming to be a relative of the sage Kleoboulos was, according to Philomnestos in the On the Sminthia on Rhodes, an older and wealthy person and being naturally clever regarding poetry, he lived his whole live extravagantly both wearing a Dionysiac costume and maintaining many Dionysiac associates, and led on the revel continually, day and night. He invented as first the poem consisting of compound phrases, which Asopodoros of Phlios later used in his iambic prose. Antheas also wrote comedies and many other things in this fashion of works, which he used to teach to his fellow phallus-bearers in the procession.

Isokrates, Aiginetikos 5-6
Thrasyllos, the father of the testator, had inherited nothing from his parents; but having become the guest-friend of Polemaenetos, the soothsayer, he became so intimate with him that Polemaenetos at his death left to him his books on divination and gave him a portion of the property which is now in question. Thrasyllos, with these books as his capital, practiced the art of divination. He became an itinerant soothsayer, lived in many cities, and was intimate with several women.

Plato, Republic 2.364a–365b
But the most astounding of all these arguments concerns what they have to say about the gods and virtue. They say that the gods, too, assign misfortune and a bad life to many good people, and the opposite fate to their opposites. Begging priests and prophets frequent the doors of the rich and persuade them that they possess a god-given power founded on sacrifices and incantations. If the rich person or any of his ancestors has committed an injustice, they can fix it with pleasant things and feasts. Moreover, if he wishes to injure some enemy, then, at little expense, he’ll be able to harm just and unjust alike, for by means of spells and enchantments they can persuade the gods to serve them. And they present a hubbub of books by Musaeus and Orpheus, offspring as they say of Selene and the Muses, according to which they arrange their rites, convincing not only individuals but also cities that liberation and purification from injustice is possible, both during life and after death, by means of sacrifices and enjoyable games to the deceased which free us from the evils of the beyond, whereas something horrible awaits those who have not celebrated sacrifices.

Marinus of Samaria, The Life of Proclus 18-19
Proclus made use of the noble purificatory practices which woo us from evil, that is lustrations and all of the other processes of purification whether Orphic or Chaldean, such as dipping himself into the sea without hesitation every month, and sometimes even twice or thrice a month. He practiced this discipline, rude as it was, not only in his prime, but even also when he approached his life’s decline; and so he observed, without ever failing, these austere habits of which he had, so to speak, made himself a law … As to the necessary pleasures of food and drink, he made use of them with sobriety, for to him they were no more than a solace from his fatigues. He especially preached abstinence from animal food, but if a special ceremony compelled him to make use of it, he only tasted it, out of consideration and respect. Every month he sanctified himself according to the rites devoted to the Mother of the Gods by the Romans, and before them by the Phrygians; he observed the holy days observed among the Egyptians even more strictly than did they themselves; and especially he fasted on certain days, quite openly. During the first day of the lunar month he remained without food, without even having eaten the night before; and he likewise celebrated the New Moon in great solemnity, and with much sanctity. He regularly observed the great festivals of all peoples, so to speak, and the religious ceremonies peculiar to each people or country. Nor did he, like so many others, make this the pretext of a distraction, or of a debauch of food, but on the contrary they were occasions of prayer meetings that lasted all night, without sleep, with songs, hymns and similar devotions. Of this we see the proof in the composition of his hymns, which contain homage and praises not only of the gods adored among the Greeks, but where you also see worship of the god Marnas of Gaza, Asklepios Leontukhos of Askalon, Thyandrites who is much worshipped among the Arabs, the Isis who has a temple at Philae, and indeed all other divinities. It was a phrase he much used, and that was very familiar to him, that a philosopher should watch over the salvation of not only a city, nor over the national customs of a few people, but that he should be the hierophant of the whole world in common. Such were the holy and purificatory exercises he practiced, in his austere manner of life.

Suidas s.v. Hêraïskos
Hence his life also reached such a point that his soul always resided in hidden sanctuaries as he practiced not only his native rites in Egypt but also those of other nations, wherever there was something left of these. Heraiskos became a Bakchos, as a dream designated him and he traveled widely, receiving many initiations. Heraiskos actually had a natural talent for distinguishing between religious statues that were animated and those that were not. For as soon as he looked at one his heart was struck by a sensation of the divine and he gave a start in his body and his soul, as though seized by the god. If he was not moved in such a fashion then the statue was soulless and had no share of divine inspiration. In this way he distinguished the secret statue of Aion which the Alexandrians worshiped as being possessed by the god, who was both Osiris and Adonis at the same time according to some mystical union. There was also something in Heraiskos’ nature that rejected defilements of nature. For instance, if he heard any unclean woman speaking, no matter where or how, he immediately got a headache, and this was taken as a sign that she was menstruating.

Suidas s.v. Sarapio
For Isidore said that never in fact could he persuade him to meet another man, especially because when he grew old he no longer came out frequently from his own house; he lived alone in a truly small dwelling, having embraced the solitary life, employing some of the neighbors only for the most necessary things. He said that Sarapio was exceptionally prayerful, and visited the holy places in the dress of an ordinary man, where the rule of the feast led him. For the most part he lived all day in his house, not the life of a man, but to speak simply, the life of a god, continually uttering prayers and miracle-stories to himself or to the divinity, or rather meditating on them in silence. Being a seeker of truth and by nature contemplative, he did not deign to spend time on the more technical aspects of philosophy, but absorbed himself in the more profound and inspired thoughts. For this reason Orpheus was almost the only book he possessed and read, in each of the questions which came to him always asking Isidore, who had achieved the summit of understanding in theology. He recognized Isidore alone as an intimate friend and received him in his house. And Isidore seemed to observe in him the Kronian life of mythology. For that man continued doing and saying nothing else but recollecting himself and raising himself, as far as he could, towards the inward and indivisible life. He despised money so much that he possessed nothing whatever but only two or three books (among these was the poetry of Orpheus); and he despised the pleasures of the body so much that straightway from the beginning he offered to the body only what is necessary and alone brings benefit, but of sexual activity he was pure throughout his life. And he was so little concerned about honor from men that not even his name was known in the city. He would not have been known subsequently, if some one of the gods had not wished to make him an example for mankind of the Kronian life. He used Isidore as an heir, having no heir from his family, nor supposing that anyone else was worthy of his property, I mean the two or three books.

Theophrastos, On The Superstitious Man
It is apparent that superstition would seem to be cowardice with regard to the spiritual realm. The superstitious man is one who will wash his hands and sprinkle himself at the Sacred Fountain, and put a bit of laurel leaf in his mouth, to prepare himself for each day. If a marten should cross his path, he will not continue until someone else has gone by, or he has thrown three stones across the road. And if he should see a snake in his house, he will call up a prayer to Sabazios if it is one of the red ones; if it is one of the sacred variety, he will immediately construct a shrine on the spot. Nor will he go by the smooth stones at a crossroads without anointing them with oil from his flask, and he will not leave without falling on his knees in reverence to them. If a mouse should chew through his bag of grain, he will seek advice on what should be done from the official diviner of omens; but if the answer is, ‘Give it to the shoemaker to have it sewn up,’ he will pay no attention, but rather go away and free himself of the omen through sacrifice. He is also likely to be purifying his house continually, claiming that terrible Hecate has been mysteriously brought into it. And if an owl should hoot while he is outside, he becomes terribly agitated, and will not continue before crying out, ‘O! Mighty Athena!’ Never will he step on a tomb, nor get near a dead body, nor a woman in childbirth: he says he must keep on his guard against being polluted. On the unlucky days of the month– the fourth and seventh– he will order his servants to heat wine. Then he will go out and buy myrtle-wreaths, frankincense, and holy pictures; upon returning home, he spends the entire day arranging the wreaths on statues of the Hermaphrodites. Also, when he has a dream, he will go to the dream interpreters, the fortune-tellers, and the readers of bird-omens, to ask what god or goddess he should pray to. When he is to be initiated into the Orphic mysteries, he visits the priests every month, taking his wife with him; or, if she can’t make it, the nursemaid and children will suffice. It is also apparent that he is one of those people who go to great lengths to sprinkle themselves with sea-water. And if he sees someone eating Hecate’s garlic at the crossroads, he must go home and wash his head; and then he calls upon the priestesses to carry a squill or a puppy around him for purification. If he sees a madman or epileptic, he shudders and spits into his lap.

The Martyrdom of Saint Theodotus 14
It was the custom among them yearly to bathe the images of the gods in the nearby lake, and on that day was the chance for them to be cleansed along with their idols. Each of the idols was set up on a wagon, and they were led through the city and into the countryside where the lake was. The whole populace of the city went out with them to see the sight, for the sound of the pipes and cymbals attracted attention, as did the dancing women with hair let loose like maenads, and there was a great pounding of their feet striking the ground and lots of musical instruments accompanying them.

Diodoros Sikeliotis, Library of History 4.3.2-5
And the Boiotians and other Greeks and the Thracians, in memory of the campaign in India, have established sacrifices every other year to Dionysos, and believe that at that time the god reveals himself to human beings. Consequently in many Greek cities every other year Bacchic bands of women gather, and it is lawful for the maidens to carry the thyrsos and to join in the frenzied revelry, crying out ‘Euai!’ and honouring the god; while the matrons, forming in groups, offer sacrifices to the god and celebrate his mysteries and, in general, extol with hymns the presence of Dionysos, in this manner acting the parts of maenads who, as history records, were of old the companions of the god. He also punished here and there throughout all the inhabited world many men who were thought impious, the most renowned among the number being Pentheus and Lykourgos. And since the discovery of wine and the gift of it and because of the greater vigour which comes to the bodies of those who partake of it, it is the custom, they say, when unmixed wine is served during a meal to greet it with the words, ‘To the Good Deity!’ but when the cup is passed around after the meal diluted with water, to cry out ‘To Zeus Saviour!’ For the drinking of unmixed wine results in a state of madness, but when it is mixed with the rain from Zeus the delight and pleasure continue, but the ill effect of madness and stupor is avoided. 

Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 364e-365e
That Osiris is identical with Dionysos who could more fittingly know than yourself, Klea? For you are at the head of the inspired maidens of Delphi, and have been consecrated by your father and mother in the holy rites of Osiris. If, however, for the benefit of others it is needful to adduce proofs of this identity, let us leave undisturbed what may not be told, but the public ceremonies which the priests perform in the burial of the Apis, when they convey his body on an improvised bier, do not in any way come short of a Bacchic procession; for they fasten skins of fawns about themselves, and carry Bacchic wands and indulge in shoutings and movements exactly as do those who are under the spell of the Dionysiac ecstasies. For the same reason many of the Greeks make statues of Dionysos in the form of a bull; and the women of Elis invoke him, praying that the god may come with the hoof of a bull; and the epithet applied to Dionysos among the Argives is ‘Son of the Bull.’ They call him up out of the water by the sound of trumpets, at the same time casting into the depths a lamb as an offering to the Keeper of the Gate. The trumpets they conceal in Bacchic wands, as Socrates has stated in his treatise On The Holy Ones. Furthermore, the tales regarding the Titans and the rites celebrated by night agree with the accounts of the dismemberment of Osiris and his revivification and regenesis. Similar agreement is found too in the tales about their sepulchres. The Egyptians, as has already been stated, point out tombs of Osiris in many places, and the people of Delphi believe that the remains of Dionysos rest with them close beside the oracle; and the Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the shrine of Apollo whenever the devotees of Dionysos wake the God of the Mystic Basket. To show that the Greeks regard Dionysos as the lord and master not only of wine, but of the nature of every sort of moisture, it is enough that Pindar be our witness, when he says ‘May gladsome Dionysos swell the fruit upon the trees, the hallowed splendour of harvest time.’ For this reason all who reverence Osiris are prohibited from destroying a cultivated tree or blocking up a spring of water.

The Gurôb Papyrus
… in order that he may find
… on account of the rite they paid the penalty of their fathers. Save me, Brimô, Demeter, Rhea and armed Curêtês!
So that we may perform beautiful sacrifices …
Goat and bull, limitless gifts …
And by the law of the river …
… of the goat, and let him eat the rest of the flesh. Let no uninitiated look on!
… dedicating to the …
… prayer …
I call on … Eubouleus, and I call the Maenads who cry Euoi …
You having parched with thirst … the friends of the feast …
… of Demeter and Pallas for us …
King Irekepaigos, save me, Phanes!
… top, rattle, dice-bones, mirror …

LSAM 48
Whenever the priestess performs the holy rites on behalf of the city … it is not permitted for anyone to throw pieces of raw meat [anywhere], before the priestess has thrown them on behalf of the city, nor is it permitted for anyone to assemble a thiasos of maenads before the public thiasos [has been assembled] … to provide [for the women] the implements of initiation in all the orgies …. And whether a woman wishes to perform an initiation for Dionysos Bakchios in the city, in the countryside, or on the islands, she must pay a piece of gold to the priestess at each biennial celebration.

I.Magn. 215a:24-40
(A) For good fortune! When Akrodemos son of Dioteimos was civic president, the Magnesian people consulted the god concerning the sign which occurred: An image of Dionysos was discovered in a plane tree, located opposite the city, which made a loud piercing sound caused by the wind. What does this mean? Why does it continue? For this reason, the oracular messengers Hermonax son of Epikrates and Aristarchos son of Diodoros were sent to the Delphians.

The god answered: Magnesians, who obtained the holy city on the Maeander, defenders of our possessions: You came to hear from my mouth what the appearance of Bacchus in the bush means for you. He appeared as a youth, when the clear-aired city was founded but well-cut temples were not yet built for Dionysos.

Do the following, oh exceedlingly strong people: Dedicate temples which delight in the thyrsos and appoint a perfect and sacred priest. And come onto Thebes’ holy ground, so that you may receive maenads from the race of Ino daughter of Kadmos. They will also give to you good rites and customs and will consecrate Bacchic thiasoi in the city.

According to the oracle, by way of the oracular messengers, the three maenads, Kosko, Baubo, and Thettale, were brought from Thebes: Kosko gathered together the thiasos of the plane tree, Baubo the thiasos before the city, and Thettale the thiasos of Kataibatai. They died and were buried by the Magnesians: Kosko lies buried in the area called Hillock of Kosko, Baubo in the area called Tabarnis, and Thettale near the theater.

(B) This is dedicated to the god Dionysos. Apollonios Mokolles, ancient initiate, had this ancient oracle inscribed upon a slab together with the altar

SEG IV.598
With good fortune. When Perigenes was prytanis, in the month of Anthesterion; the synodos … resolved: Since Hediste, priestess of Dionysos … pursuing honor and benevolence, and having performed continuously the customary services for the god … for ten years … as far as in her power failing the symposion of the thiasos in nothing for many years, and … money for the thiasos … drachmas of silver, to call the sacred day of oinoposia (drinking of wine) eponymously for Hediste as long as she lives; and it should be decided to praise the priestess Hediste, and in addition to the honors formerly bestowed, to honor her with sacrifices, noble, honorable, and worthy of Dionysos and of the thiasos and of Hediste; and also to decree other honors so that the thiasos does not omit anything in return for her favor; … therefore, has been contributed for … and to decree to observe the sacred day named for Hediste every year during the month of Anthesterion, on the thirteenth day, and to decorate as beautifully as possible from the incoming revenues; and that those who have already made their own contribution be, on each occasion, exempt from tribute and free from tax, and that the orgia of every hieron of Dionysos, in the month … when the year is past … because she is in charge of sacrifices for the koinon of the thiasos … the priestess Hediste, the money contributed by Hediste, all of it of all … and to none of the thiasotai … and this money is not to be committed to transfer to any other purpose or to be used for anything else neither in any manner nor for any pretext; and the prostatai (officials) and the treasurers are to be in charge of Hediste and of her heirs … and Apollo-And let him announce:

The thiasos praises and crowns the priestess Hediste, daughter of Kleitos, on account of her excellence and her reverence towards the gods and her benevolence towards the thiasos. And so that the benevolence of Hediste and the gratitude of the thiasos might be clear to all who come after, and that the things decreed also remain permanent and forever firm and be observed by the thiasos of the Dionysiastai, let … in the sanctuary of the Dionysiastai and let another copy be inscribed in the sanctuary of the Eleusinian Gods. And of the Dionysiastai the ones who were appointed to have this inscribed on the stele were [___], [___], Euthigenes, son of Dionysios, Melidoros, son of [___], Gorgias, son of Iatrokles; [___], son of [___]

Herodotos, The Histories 2.49
Melampos was the one who taught the Greeks the name of Dionysos and the way of sacrificing to him and the phallic procession; he did not exactly unveil the subject taking all its details into consideration, for the teachers who came after him made a fuller revelation; but it was from him that the Greeks learned to bear the phallus along in honor of Dionysos, and they got their present practice from his teaching. I say, then, that Melampos acquired the prophetic art, being a discerning man, and that, besides many other things which he learned from Egypt, he also taught the Greeks things concerning Dionysos, altering few of them; for I will not say that what is done in Egypt in connection with the god and what is done among the Greeks originated independently: for they would then be of an Hellenic character and not recently introduced. Nor again will I say that the Egyptians took either this or any other custom from the Greeks. But I believe that Melampos learned the worship of Dionysos chiefly from Kadmos of Tyre and those who came with Kadmos from Phoenicia to the land now called Boiotia.

Plutarch, Greek Questions 38
They relate that the daughters of Minyas, Leukippe and Arsinoe and Alkathoe, becoming insane, conceived a craving for human flesh, and drew lots for their children. The lot fell upon Leukippe to contribute her son Hippasos to be torn to pieces, and their husbands, who put on ill-favoured garments for very grief and sorrow, were called ‘Grimy’ (Psoloeis); but the Minyads themselves were called ‘Oleiae,’ that is to say, ‘Murderesses.’ And even today the people of Orchomenos give this name to the women descended from this family; and every year, at the festival of Agrionia, there takes place a flight and pursuit of them by the priest of Dionysos with sword in hand. Any one of them that he catches he may kill, and in my time the priest Zoïlos killed one of them. But this resulted in no benefit for the people of Orchomenos; but Zoïlos fell sick from some slight sore and, when the wound had festered for a long time, he died. The people of Orchomenos also found themselves involved in some suits for damages and adverse judgements; wherefore they transferred the priesthood from Zoïlos’s family and chose the best man from all the citizens to fill the office.

Plutarch, Roman Questions 112
Did they regard the ivy as an unfruitful plant, useless to man, and feeble, and because of its weakness needing other plants to support it, but by its shade and the sight of its greenness fascinating to most people? And did they therefore think that it should not be uselessly grown in their homes nor be allowed to twine about in a futile way, contributing nothing, since it is injurious to the plants forming its support? Or is it because it cleaves to the ground? Wherefore it is excluded from the ritual of the Olympian gods, nor can any ivy be seen in the temple of Hera at Athens, or in the temple of Aphrodite at Thebes; but it has its place in the Agrionia and the Nyktelia, the rites of which are for the most part performed at night. Or was this also a symbolic prohibition of Bacchic revels and orgies? For women possessed by Bacchic frenzies rush straightway for ivy and tear it to pieces, clutching it in their hands and biting it with their teeth; so that not altogether without plausibility are they who assert that ivy, possessing as it does an exciting and distracting breath of madness, deranges persons and agitates them, and in general brings on a wineless drunkenness and joyousness in those that are precariously disposed towards spiritual exaltation.

Demosthenes, Against Meidias 52
You surely realize that all your choruses and hymns to the god are sanctioned, not only by the regulations of the Dionysia, but also by the oracles, in all of which, whether given at Delphi or at Dodona, you will find a solemn injunction to the State to set up dances after the ancestral custom, to fill the streets with the savour of sacrifice, and to wear garlands.

Please take and read the actual oracles:

You I address, Pandion’s townsmen and sons of Erechtheus,
who appoint your feasts by the ancient rites of your fathers.
See you forget not Bakchos, and joining all in the dances
Down your broad-spaced streets, in thanks for the gifts of the season,
Crown each head with a wreath, while incense reeks on the altars.
For health sacrifice and pray to Zeus Most High, to Herakles, and to Apollo the Protector; for good fortune to Apollon, god of the streets, to Leto, and to Artemis; and along the streets set wine-bowls and dances, and wear garlands after the manner of your fathers in honor of all gods and all goddesses of Olympos, raising right hands and left in supplication, and remember your gifts.

Augustine, De Civitate Dei 7.21
Now as to the rites of Liber, whom they have set over liquid seeds, and therefore not only over the liquors of fruits, among which wine holds, so to speak, the primacy, but also over the seeds of animals:— as to these rites, I am unwilling to undertake to show to what excess of turpitude they had reached, because that would entail a lengthened discourse, though I am not unwilling to do so as a demonstration of the proud stupidity of those who practice them. Varro says that certain rites of Liber were celebrated in Italy which were of such unrestrained wickedness that the shameful parts of the male were worshipped at crossroads in his honour. Nor was this abomination transacted in secret that some regard at least might be paid to modesty, but was openly and wantonly displayed. For during the festival of Liber this obscene member, placed on a little trolley, was first exhibited with great honour at the crossroads in the countryside, and then conveyed into the city itself. But in the town of Lavinium a whole month was devoted to Liber alone, during the days of which all the people gave themselves up to the must dissolute conversation, until that member had been carried through the forum and brought to rest in its own place; on which unseemly member it was necessary that the most honorable matron should place a wreath in the presence of all the people. Thus, forsooth, was the god Liber to be appeased in order for the growth of seeds. Thus was enchantment (fascinatio) to be driven away from fields, even by a matron’s being compelled to do in public what not even a harlot ought to be permitted to do in a theatre, if there were matrons among the spectators.

Diodoros Sikeliotis, Library of History 17.72.1-6
Alexander held games in honour of his victories. He performed costly sacrifices to the gods and entertained his friends bountifully. While they were feasting and the drinking was far advanced, as they began to be drunken a madness took possession of the minds of the intoxicated guests. At this point one of the women present, Thais by name and Attic by origin, said that for Alexander it would be the finest of all his feats in Asia if he joined them in a triumphal procession, set fire to the palaces, and permitted women’s hands in a minute to extinguish the famed accomplishments of the Persians. This was said to men who were still young and giddy with wine, and so, as would be expected, someone shouted out to form the comus and to light torches, and urged all to take vengeance for the destruction of the Greek temples. Others took up the cry and said that this was a deed worthy of Alexander alone. When the king had caught fire at their words, all leaped up from their couches and passed the word along to form a victory procession in honour of Dionysos. Promptly many torches were gathered. Female musicians were present at the banquet, so the king led them all out for the comus to the sound of voices and flutes and pipes, Thais the courtesan leading the whole performance. She was the first, after the king, to hurl her blazing torch into the palace. As the others all did the same, immediately the entire palace area was consumed, so great was the conflagration. It was most remarkable that the impious act of Xerxes, king of the Persians, against the acropolis at Athens should have been repaid in kind after many years by one woman, a citizen of the land which had suffered it, and in sport.

Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 13.2-5
But Themistocles was sacrificing alongside the admiral’s trireme. There three prisoners of war were brought to him, of visage most beautiful to behold, conspicuously adorned with raiment and with gold. They were said to be the sons of Sandaucé, the King’s sister, and Artaÿctos. When Euphrantides the seer caught sight of them, since at one and the same moment a great and glaring flame shot up from the sacrificial victims and a sneeze gave forth its good omen on the right, he clasped Themistocles by the hand and bade him consecrate the youths, and sacrifice them all to Dionysos Ômestes, with prayers of supplication; for on this wise would the Hellenes have a saving victory. Themistocles was terrified, feeling that the word of the seer was monstrous and shocking; but the multitude, who, as is wont to be the case in great struggles and severe crises, looked for safety rather from unreasonable than from reasonable measures, invoked the god with one voice, dragged the prisoners to the altar, and compelled the fulfilment of the sacrifice, as the seer commanded. At any rate, this is what Phanias the Lesbian says, and he was a philosopher, and well acquainted with historical literature.

The Chronicle of Lanercost for the year 1282
About this time, in Easter week, the parish priest of Inverkeithing, named John, revived the profane rites of Priapus, collecting young girls from the villages, and compelling them to dance in circles to the honour of Father Bacchus. When he had these females in a troop, out of sheer wantonness, he led the dance, carrying in front on a pole a representation of the human organs of reproduction, and singing and dancing himself like a mime, he viewed them all and stirred them to lust by filthy language. Those who held respectable matrimony in honour were scandalised by such a shameless performance, although they respected the parson because of the dignity of his rank. If anybody remonstrated kindly with him, the priest became worse than before, violently reviling him.

It is often asserted that the Starry Bull tradition is an emergent strain of Bacchic Orphism. Considering how controversial the subject of Orphism is within the field of ancient Greek studies, one cannot simply claim Orphic inspiration without clearly articulating how that is understood and where one falls on certain issues.

I believe that Orphism was originally a Thracian cult of ecstasy that came to Athens with the slave population along with the rites of Kotys, Bendis and Sabazios. Back in their native country the devotees of the cult would work themselves up into a frenzy through music and dance and at the height of their fervor they would become possessed by the severed head of their master and start singing inspired verse. Their songs were magic charms and prophecies, praises of the great hunter who rules below and arcane revelations of the time before time and all that came after.

The Athenian masters were enraptured by the slave songs but did not fully understand what they were hearing. For instance they believed that all of the songs were songs of one man, Orpheus, and they wrote the songs down to preserve them. Or tried to, but the songs were never the same. Each time a man sang it was through inspiration, describing what he saw through the eyes of the hero. He showed each one different things depending on what he or his community needed most at the time. A song to soothe beasts, a song to heal, a song to make the grapes grow, a song to appease the ancestors. The head showed them myths and the myths showed them what ceremonies needed to be performed.

This confounded the Athenians. They wanted the songs to be neat, ordered, systematic the way they were making the epics of Homer. They tried hard to reconcile the different myths, stitching them together and cutting off the rough edges that stuck out.

And once they had civilized this Thracian faith, found a place for the master singer among the ranks of their civic heroes — it was okay for their wives and sons to take part in these exotic rites. Within a couple generations of gaining such acceptability one started getting disciples of Orpheus knocking at the door peddling their sacred books and rituals of purification.

For a modest fee the Orpheotelest would sit the initiate on a three-legged camp stool, daub their face with white clay or ash and then dance around them carrying spears, torches and mirrors and chanting in a mix of Greek and barbaric nonsense. Eggs and snakes and similar items were brought out and ritually handled and by the end of the proceedings harmful emotions had been purged or generational curses removed so that the person was good with their ancestral dead.

Sometimes these disciples of Orpheus were sincere and proved it through austerity and the great number of taboos they observed — and others were just in it for the drachmas. Unfortunately there were enough of the latter that Orphism gained a reputation for fraud and deceit. Many, like Plato, saw value in the beliefs associated with Orphism while vigorously denouncing those who carried out fraud in his name. Orpheus was too deeply entrenched in Hellenic tradition at that point to pry him loose — especially considering his associations with the mysteries and important cult centers.

The trajectory was a little different for Orphism in Southern Italy. You don’t see the same proliferation of competing cosmographies — in fact there’s remarkably little speculation of that sort compared to what you find in, say, Damascius or the Derveni Papyrus. There is also a much stronger emphasis placed on Dionysos.

The myth of Dionysos’ travails is often treated as the central doctrine of the Orphics but that’s mostly because of our reliance on some late Neoplatonic commentators. Most earlier, authentic Orphic material tends to focus on the successive generations of gods and the attempt by Zeus to consolidate his power rather than Dionysos who is often omitted outright or only briefly alluded to. Except in Magna Graecia where Orphism was all about Dionysos. And a large part of why we have that association between Dionysos and Orphism is because some of the most important commentators we draw on were discussing the beliefs of the Italian Orphics. Pindar, one of our first witnesses to a grieving Persephone and a Dionysos who intercedes with the dead, wrote much of his verse for the Sicilian court. Many later authors placed the seduction of Kore and Dionysos’ katabasis in Italy. Orphic themes dominated the religious art of Magna Graecia and also influenced figures such as Pythagoras and Empedokles.

It’s interesting to contemplate the differences between Athenian and Italian Orphism, especially since we have such a wide body of material to draw on. In fact that’s one of the most striking differences between them — in Athens Orphism is predominantly a literary phenomenon. The Orphic is easily recognized by his stack of books. But in Italy we have an abundance of visual representations to draw on. In fact the majority of art from Magna Graecia betrays an Orphic influence, even if it’s a subtle one. Italy has its Orphic texts too — many of the gold lamellae buried with the initiates or those who wished to reap the benefits that the mysteries conferred even if they had not actually gone through the rites, were found in Italy. But these texts refer to common motifs also found in the art of the region and not abstract cosmogonies. In fact Orphism in Italy is largely focused on the underworld and the soul’s journey through it to reach chthonic Dionysos, the liberator and bridegroom. He may have suffered dismemberment and other vicissitudes but he is fully restored in his power and offers restoration to those who call upon him.

This is a tradition that seeks visions and encounters with the gods and spirits through ecstatic techniques and strives to give expression to these things through artistry. Poetry is not intended to provide a factual narrative — it evokes and alludes. It shrouds what is real in a veil of fantastic imagery so that we can comprehend it even before we have a direct encounter with it. That encounter is what matters and it will never be quite like it is in the stories, even though the rough pattern remains the same. It is only when you have lived the myth and lived it idiosyncratically that you will truly understand what the story was talking about, which parts were real and which parts make believe. And let me tell you — the stuff that’s most true is never what you’re expecting it to be.

So in summation, the Bacchic Orphic tradition of which the Starry Bull tradition is an offshoot is predominantly a cult of ecstasy that seeks to bring about release, purification and revitalization through music, dance, ritual drama, feasting, sacrifice and direct communion with gods and spirits. By means of these cures it helps the individual dissolve social pressures, psychological imbalances, ancestral wounds and physical infirmities which are often tangled up together.

When the lifeforce becomes sublimated and sluggish and burdened by excessive cares it tends to create illness (spiritual and physical) within the individual which can go on to infect whole communities. Through the above mentioned actions the lifeforce is stirred and strengthened, often by inducing a crisis state that results in a frenzied climax enabling it to cleanse and recalibrate itself. This recalibration can produce the formation of a new identity, particularly if it is brought about by rites of initiation. Described another way, we are inducing altered states of consciousness or mild forms of madness to inoculate ourselves against more severe expressions of madness. Beyond healing there are many fruits of this madness including creative inspiration, access to other planes of knowledge, communion with gods and spirits, increased strength and potency and temporary imperviousness to pain and other physical limitations.

 

I’ve argued previously that contemporary polytheists need to critically evaluate the literary sources that inform and shape our traditions, beliefs and practices. As a continuation of that I maintain that primacy should be given to first-hand accounts of those engaged in the worship of the Gods and their contemporaries over the analysis of outsider academics and the folks who love to quote them devoid of context or provide garbled and often inaccurate paraphrases of this work in support of their own weird notions and agendas. Not only do we get a more accurate, unfiltered sense of how these diverse expressions of piety were carried out – often with very concrete details that bring it all to life for us, conjuring a multitude of phantom sights, sounds, and scents in the theater of our minds. They also provide models for how we can scale our own practices up or down, as our circumstances require. Here are a selection of quotes, drawn from all levels of ancient society and covering a span of more than a thousand years. And note that this is just a tiny fraction of the evidence we have available to us. You can find more at my other sites:

• Eklogai
• Eternal Bacchus
• Smoky Words
• Greater Greece

Now, let’s learn how the ancients worshiped their Gods!

Didascalia Apostolorum 13
Pagans, when they daily rise from their sleep, go in morning to worship and minister to their idols; and before all their works and undertakings they go first and worship their idols. Neither at their festivals and their fairs are they wanting, but are constant in assembling – not only those who live close by, but many travel from a great distance to attend such assemblies and dramatic spectacles.

 Arrian, Anabasis 7.25.6
Even though Alexander was seriously ill he refused to neglect his religious duties and offered up the appointed sacrifices. Afterwards he had to be carried from the garden back into the palace, and could not meet with his generals who had been waiting outside the door for him. He hardly recognized the men and could not speak, his illness being so extreme.

Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum 11
The mother of Galerius, a woman exceedingly superstitious, was a votary of the Gods of the mountains. Being of such a character she made sacrifices almost every day, and she feasted her servants on the meat offered to idols.

Homer, Iliad 1.458-469
When they had done praying and sprinkling the barley-meal, they drew back the heads of the victims and killed and flayed them. They cut out the thigh-bones, wrapped them round in two layers of fat, set some pieces of raw meat on the top of them, and then he laid them on the wood fire and poured wine over them, while the young men stood near him with five-pronged spits in their hands. When the thigh-bones were burned and they had tasted the inward meats, they cut the rest up small, put the pieces upon the spits, roasted them till they were done, and drew them off: then, when they had finished their work and the feast was ready, they ate it, and every man had his full share, so that all were satisfied. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, pages filled the mixing-bowl with wine and water and handed it round, after giving every man his drink-offering. Thus all day long the young men worshiped the God with song, hymning him and chaunting the joyous paean, and the God took pleasure in their voices.

Plutarch, Sayings of the Kings and Commanders 179e
As Alexander was sacrificing to the Gods liberally, and often offered frankincense, Leonidas his tutor standing by said, ‘O son, thus generously will you sacrifice, when you have conquered the country that bears frankincense.’ And when he had conquered it, he sent him this letter: ‘I have sent you an hundred talents of frankincense and cassia, that hereafter you may not be niggardly towards the Gods, who have rewarded my piety with rulership over the country in which perfumes grow.’

Servius, Commentary on Vergil’s Aeneid 2.116
In sacrifice likenesses are accepted for realities. Hence, when animals which are difficult to find must be sacrificed they are made of bread or of wax and are accepted as the real victims.

Julian the Egyptian, Greek Anthology 6.68.5-6
Accept, O Hermes, with the reed pens also the ink bottle by which eternity guards for those who will come the voice of those who have gone before.

Plato, Laws 12.955e
The land and the household hearth are the most holy places for men to honor the Gods.

I.Faud 76

Sarapous invites you to dine at his house on the occasion of the offering to Our Lady Isis, tomorrow, namely the 29th, beginning at the 9th hour.

Epiphanius, De Fides 12.1-4
If I described the orgies of Memphis and Heliopolis, where the tambourine and the flute capture hearts, and the dancing girls, and the triennial festivals of Batheia and Menouthis where women abandon their modesty and their customary state, to what verbal pretensions and to what drawn-out style should I resort to express the number that is truly inexpressible? If even I were to make an extraordinary effort I would not reach the end of this enumeration – as it is said, ‘young girls innumerable!’ The sancturaries of Sais, of Pelusis, of Boubastis, and of Antinoe; the mysteries there, those of Pharbetos, those in honor of the ram of Mendes, as well as those in Bousiris, all those in Sebennytos, and in Diopolis; ceremonies performed just as much in the name of Seth, that is, Typhon, as the one for Tithrambos, the indigenized Hekate; other sacrifice to Senephty, others to Thermouthis, others to Isis.

Richard of St.-Victor, Sermones centum 177.1036
What wickedness takes place during this feast; fortune-tellings, divinations, deceptions and feigned madnesses. On this day, having been seized up by the furies of their bacchant-like ravings and having been inflamed by the fires of diabolical instigation, they flock together to the church and profane the house of God with vain and foolish rhythmic poetry in which sin is not wanting but by all means present, and with evil sayings, laughing and cacophony they disrupt the priest and the whole congregation applauds for the people love these things.

Juvenal, Satires 6.522-41
In winter she will go down to the river in the morning, break the ice, and plunge three times into the Tiber, dipping her trembling head even in its whirling waters, and crawling out thence naked and shivering, she will creep with bleeding knees right across the field of Tarquin the Proud. If the white Io shall so order, she will journey to the confines of Egypt, and fetch water got from hot Meroe with which to sprinkle the Temple of Isis which stands hard by the ancient sheepfold. For she believes that the command was given by the voice of the Goddess herself–a pretty kind of mind and spirit for the Gods to have converse with by night! Hence the chief and highest place of honour is awarded to Anubis, who, with his linen-clad and bald crew, mocks at the weeping of the people as he runs along. He it is that obtains pardon for wives who break the law of purity on days that should be kept holy, and exacts huge penalties when the coverlet has been profaned, or when the silver serpent has been seen to nod his head. His tears and carefully-studied mutterings make sure that Osiris will not refuse a pardon for the fault, bribed, no doubt, by a fat goose and a slice of sacrificial cake.

Theophrastos, Characters 21.7
When he has sacrificed an ox he nails up its skull facing his front door and wreathes it with large garlands, so that people coming in will see that he’s sacrificed an ox.

Hippokrates, On the Sacred Disease 6.364
We ourselves both affix boundaries to sanctuaries and the sacred precincts of the Gods in order that no one may cross them unless he is pure and, upon entering, sprinkle ourselves with water not as if defiling ourselves, but as ridding ourselves from pre-existing pollutions we may have. 

The Admonitions of Ipuwer
Remember to … shrine, to fumigate with incense and to offer water in a jar in the early morning. Remember [to bring] fat r-geese, trp-geese, and ducks and to offer God’s offerings to the Gods. Remember to chew natron and to prepare white bread; a man [should do it] on the day of wetting the head. Remember to erect flagstaffs and to carve offering stones, the priest cleansing the chapels and the temple being plastered (white) like milk; to make pleasant the odor of the horizon and to provide bread-offerings. Remember to observe regulations, to fix dates correctly, and to remove him who enters on the priestly office in impurity of body, for that is doing it wrongfully, it is destruction of the heart.

Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Foods 2.50
Priests, diviners and all men who are wise in the ways of religion instruct us to stay clear of tombs, of sacrilegious men, menstruating women, sexual intercourse, any shameful or lamentable sight, anything heard which arouses emotion; for often even unseen impurity disturbs those officiating at the rites, and an improperly performed sacrifice brings more harm than good.

BIWK 57
Because Trophime, daughter of Artemidoros, also known as Kikinnas, had been asked by the God to fulfil a service and refused to come quickly, the God punished her and made her insane. Now, she asked Meter Tarsene and Apollo Tarsios and Mes Artemidorou Axiottenos, who rules over Koresa. And the God ordered me to register myself for sacred service.

IG iv2.1.121-2, Stele A
Ambrosia of Athens, blind in one eye. This woman came as a suppliant to the God. Walking in the sanctuary, she mocked at certain of the cures, claiming it was unbelievable that lame and blind people should have recovered their health merely by experiencing a dream. She incubated in the sanctuary and had a dream: the God appeared right up close to her and told her that he would cure her, but that she would have to pay in sacrifice a silver pig as a memorial of her foolishness. So saying, he made an incision in her sick eye and poured in medicine. The next morning she departed, cured.

P.Corn. Inv. II 26
To Isidora, castanet dancer, from Artemisia of the village of Philadelphia. I wish to engage you with two other castanet dancers to perform at the festival at my house for six days beginning with the 24th of the month Payni according to the old calendar, you to receive as pay 36 drachmai for each day, and for the entire period 4 artabai of barley and 20 pairs of bread loaves; and whatsoever garments or gold ornaments you may bring down, we will guard these safely; and we will furnish you with two donkeys when you come down to us and a like number when you go back to the city. Year 14 of Lucius Septimius Severus Pius Pertinax and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Pius, Augusti, and Publius Septimius Geta Caesar Augustus, Payni 16.

Prolegomena to Theokritos, Bucolicorum Graecorum 2.5
Concerning the Thalusia: At one time there were troubles at Syracuse which it was deemed were caused by Artemis. So the farmers brought gifts and sang a joyful hymn to the Goddess and later on this became a customary event. As the rustics sang they would carry loaves of bread with figures of wild beasts on them, purses full of every type of seed, and a goat-skin with wine; they poured out libations for all those they met, wore a garland and deer antlers, and carried a shepherd’s rabbit-prod in their hands. The winner of the competition receives the bread of the defeated. They also sing other songs of a playful, funny nature, first saying in reverent tones, Receive good fortune, receive good health, which we bring from the Goddess, by which she gave her command.

Euripides, Melanippe Captive Fr. 13
Men’s criticism of women is worthless twanging of a bowstring and evil talk. Women are better than men, as I will show …Women run households and protect within their homes what has been carried across the sea, and without a woman no home is clean or prosperous. Consider their role in religion, for that, in my opinion, comes first. We women play the most important part, because women prophesy the will of Loxias in the oracles of Phoibos. And at the holy site of Dodona near the Sacred Oak, females convey the will of Zeus to inquirers from Greece. As for the sacred rites of the Fates and the Nameless Goddesses, all these would not be holy if performed by men, but prosper in women’s hands. In this way women have a rightful share in the service of the Gods. Why is it then, that women must have a bad reputation? Won’t men’s worthless criticism stop, and men who insist on blaming all women alike, if one woman turns out to be evil? Let me make the following distinctions: there is nothing worse than a bad woman, and nothing better in any way than a good one.

Cato, De Agricultura 143
The mistress of the estate must not perform rites, or cause others to perform them for her, unless at her master’s orders: it must be understood that the master performs rites for all the household. She must be clean, and keep the farmhouse sweet and clean. She must have the hearth ready swept all round each day before she goes to bed. On the Kalends, the Ides, the Nones, and on a feast day, she must place a wreath at the hearth, and on those days she must make offering to the Lar of the Household according to her means.

LSCG Suppl. 115
If a bride comes to the dormitory, she must sacrifice as a penalty to Artemis. She must not share a roof with her husband and must not be polluted; she must purify the temple of Artemis and as a penalty sacrifice a full-grown victim, and then she should go to the dormitory. If she pollutes involuntarily, she must purify the temple. A bride must make a ceremonial visit to the bride-room at the temple of Artemis at the festival of Artemis, whenver she wishes, but the sooner the better. If she does not make her ceremonial visit, she must make the regular sacrifice to Artemis at the festival of Artemis as one who has made no visit, and she must purify the temple and sacrifice a victim as a penalty. A pregnant woman shall make a ceremonial visit before birth to the bride-room in the precinct of Artemis and give the Bear priestess feet and head and skin of the sacrifice. If she does not make a ceremonial visit before giving birth she must make visit afterwards with a full-grown victim. If she makes a ceremonial visit to the temple she must observe ritual purity on the seventh, eighth, and ninth day, and if she does not make a visit, she must perform the rites on these days. If she is polluted, she must purify herself and the temple and sacrifice a full-grown victim as penalty. If a woman miscarries, if the foetus is fully formed, they are polluted as if by a death; if it is not fully formed, the household is polluted as if from childbirth.

MIFAO 104.127-33
Now, what means your not going to the Wise Woman about the two boys who died in your charge? Consult the Wise Woman about the death the two boys suffered: was it their fate or was it their lot? While you consult about them for me, also see about my own life and the life of their mother. And should she happen to mention any God to you, you will be sure to write me afterwards about his name and any work that he wills to be done by one who knows their duty.

Xenophon, Anabasis 3.1.5-7
And Sokrates advised Xenophon to go to Delphi and consult the God in regard to this journey. So Xenophon went and asked Apollo to what one of the Gods he should sacrifice and pray in order best and most successfully to perform the journey which he had in mind and, after meeting with good fortune, to return home in safety; and Apollon in his response told him to what Gods he must sacrifice. When Xenophon came back from Delphi, he reported the oracle to Sokrates; and upon hearing about it Sokrates found fault with him because he did not first put the question whether it were better for him to go or stay, but decided for himself that he was to go and then asked the God as to the best way of going. However, he added, since you did put the question in that way, you must do all that the God directed.

The Diocesan Council of Auxerre

1. It is not permitted to dress up as a calf or a stag on the Kalends of January or to present diabolical gifts; on that day all favors shall be granted as on other days.

3. It is forbidden to make offerings or keep vigils on saints’ festivals in private houses, or to discharge vows among woods or at sacred trees or at springs, but, whoever has a vow, let him keep vigil in the church and fulfill his vow by giving to the servants of the church or the poor. Nor let anyone dare to make feet or images of men out of wood.

4. It is forbidden to turn to soothsayers or to augurs, or to those who pretend to know the future, or to look at what they call ‘the lots of the Saints’ or those they make out of wood or bread. But whatever a man wishes to do, let him do it in the name of God.

5. Forbid especially, in every way, these observances on the vigils which are kept in honor of Saint Martin.

8. It is forbidden to offer mellita, mulsa or any other mixture of wine and honey at the altar of the divine sacrifice. Any potion other than wine mixed with water is forbidden. Great sin and crime belong to the presbyter who dares offer any drink other than wine in the consecration of the blood of Christ.

Y’all motherfuckers need some Tom Waits.

Speaking of persistent, I really need to find a copy of Odai Johnson’s Persistent Pagans: Dancing for Dionysos in the Year of Years.

Check out the abstract:

This chapter considers how the long classical tradition of mime functioned as the last cultural repository of paganism into the new Christian order. The “Year of Years” (a year for every year after the death of Christ, or 394 CE) was a Christian/pagan flashpoint that saw the aggressive and legislative suppression of pagan culture: the destruction of pagan temples and pagan statues and the eradication of cultic worship and practices in the opening decades of the fifth century. Yet in spite of the century’s iconoclasm, one form of pagan tradition remained, the mimes who danced the classical myths well into the ninth century. This chapter considers how the dance resisted the erasure of its classical roots.

Yeah, that definitely sounds relevant to my interests. 

I wish I was pissed off at the moment so I could use this pic we recently found on my wife’s phone:

But you know what? Everything’s going pretty good in my life right now.

I mean, I got some really awesome Gods and Spirits – especially the Toys of Dionysos and the Harlequinade, who have been particularly present of late. There’s so much great music out there. Halloween is only a couple days away. One of my enemies was just booted off of Patheos Pagan for fighting with another of my enemies. A third enemy is clearly experiencing a very public breakdown and descent into delusional paranoia. Pantheacon is shutting down because of contentious identity politics. I’m reconnecting with old friends. I’ve experienced an upsurge in book sales. And in January we’ll be starting the Bakcheion festival-cycle here at the House of Vines, where I have the best readers on the web.

What have I got to be pissed about? Not a damn thing.

One of the confirmatory signs that led to me formally initiating a relationship with Spider was seeing this truck drive by:

Not that exact truck, mind you, but it had that image on it. And I was seriously thinking, “Hmm, I wonder if all of these random spider sightings and dreams over the last couple weeks mean anything,” when it whizzed past, which I interpreted as “Duh, thicko.” 

She is nothing if not patient (and persistent.)

I can’t tell you the number of severed heads she brought my way when it was time to transition to the Holy Fool role before I finally put two and two together. (Or rather, oracular head = Bacchic mask = Harlequinade.)

Really fucking patient. 

You see, that’s a clown spider on the side of that truck.