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. 

Of course with that previous post we should keep in mind that Joker is not a political movie but a psychological one, showing the dangers of group action and the power of group narratives.

Oh, and totally random aside but spiders are perfectly at home in your ear. (I wonder if that includes the theridion grallator.)

One of the most Dionysian artists out there today has to be the Belgian musician Tamino, son of famed Egyptian actor Muharram Fouad.

The first video I saw by him was Persephone. Although he’s clearly meant to be portraying Haides I got strong Dionysos Petempamenti vibes from the performance, especially when he sang of being the light shining from the darkness. What makes the video especially interesting is that it depicts a unique variant tradition from Lebadeia in which Kore is abducted on the banks of a river in contrast to most versions where that happens in a flowery meadow. This suggests a more than casual familiarity with Greek myth (or direct inspiration.)

The next video I saw from him was Tummy, which again screamed Petempamenti to me (or possibly Antinous) especially the crowd scene, him sitting before the mirror removing his makeup and him alone in his bed.

However the cincher was Cigar, where we see Tamino not only as a crazy derelict but  as an usher in an otherworldly theater, and every single one of the Toys puts in a cameo.

His other videos also contain Dionysian allusions and symbolism – plus there’s his striking looks, his feral sensuality and that voice (so full of longing and exquisite suffering) which is a blend of Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainright with the soul of the Orient.

Absolutely amazing.

Back around 2014 I predicted that a wave of clown-themed mayhem would sweep through the nation. There was a rash of ominous sightings coinciding with the 2016 election, one of the better seasons of American Horror Story, and then not much until February of 2019 when conspiracy theories began circulating that our world had been invaded by spectral clowns bent on reshaping it in their own warped image.

And now, as Jean-Luc Mounier notes in From Beirut to Hong Kong, the face of the Joker is appearing in demonstrations:

From Chile to Lebanon, via Hong Kong and Iraq, a number of people have taken to wearing the recognisable exaggerated smile of the Joker currently portrayed in the cinema by Joaquin Phoenix in the international hit film by Todd Philipps. The face of the Joker, Batman’s ultimate nemesis, has now been seen in masks, face paint and graffiti tags in global demonstrations protesting against governments. […] In the weeks since this film came out in the cinema, this Joker symbol of protest has already been visible on the streets, particularly in Lebanon, where a group of graffiti artists called Ashekm has painted a mural of the grimacing clown holding a Molotov cocktail. Other inscriptions elsewhere also allude to Todd Philipps’ film, such as in the Chilean city of Los Angeles, where someone has written at the foot of a statue “We are all clowns”.

. 

Mervyn Peake’s grandson (who goes by the name of Jack Peñate to honor his dii familiares) has released a new song about how monotheism and modernity came close to murdering the soul of Europe:

I heard the Gods
I heard the Gods were angry
For forgetting
For forgetting where I’m from
Tried to find my way back
Tried to find my way back
But the trail of crumbs have gone
But the trail of crumbs have gone

Good stuff.

And may all people find their way home. 

Theophrastos, as quoted in Porphyry’s On Abstinence from Animal Foods 2.24
There are, moreover, three reasons altogether for sacrificing to the Gods: to honor them, to give thanks, or from need of some thing. We ought to offer the Gods the first-fruits of all we receive, for it is their generosity that makes our living possible. Further we honor the Gods because we want evil to be averted from us and those we love or for an increase of good things, or out of gratitude because they have benefited us in the past or simply to honor their condition of goodness.

Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Food 2.16
He thought fit to ask him after what manner he reverenced the Gods. Clearchus answered him that he diligently sacrificed to them at proper times in every month at the new moon, crowning and adorning the statues of Hermes and Hekate, and the other sacred images which were left to us by our ancestors, and that he also honored the Gods with frankincense, and sacred wafers and cakes. He likewise said, that he performed public sacrifices annually, omitting no festive day; and that in these festivals he worshiped the Gods, not by slaying oxen, nor by cutting victims into fragments, but that he sacrificed whatever he might casually meet with, sedulously offering the first-fruits to the Gods of all the vegetable productions of the seasons, and of all the fruits with which he was supplied. He added, that some of these he placed before the statues of the Gods, but that he burnt others on their altars.

Sallustius, On the Gods and the World 16
I think it well to add some remarks about sacrifices. In the first place, since we have received everything from the Gods, and it is right to pay the giver some tithe of his gifts, we pay such a tithe of possessions in votive offering, of bodies in gifts of (hair and) adornment, and of life in sacrifices. Then secondly, prayers without sacrifices are only words, with sacrifices they are live words; the word gives meaning to the life, while the life animates the word. Thirdly, the happiness of every object is its own perfection; and perfection for each is communion with its own cause. For this reason we pray for communion with the Gods. Since, therefore, the first life is the life of the Gods, but human life is also life of a kind, and human life wishes for communion with divine life, a mean term is needed. For things very far apart cannot have communion without a mean term, and the mean term must be like the things joined; therefore the mean term between life and life must be life. That is why men sacrifice animals; only the rich do so now, but in old days everybody did, and that not indiscriminately, but giving the suitable offerings to each God together with a great deal of other worship.

Epicurus, as quoted in Philodemos, On Piety 31
Let us sacrifice to the Gods devoutly and fittingly on the proper days, and let us appropriately perform all the acts of worship as the laws stipulate, in no way disturbing ourselves with opinions on matters concerning the most excellent and august beings. Moreover let us sacrifice justly for we draw closest to Zeus when we most act like Zeus.

Areios Didymos, Epitome of Stoic Ethics 3.604-3.662
The Stoics say that only the wise man can be a priest, while no worthless person can be one. For the priest needs to be experienced in the laws concerning sacrifices, prayers, purifications, foundations, and the like. In addition to this he needs ritual, piety, and experience in the service of the Gods, and to be close to the divine nature. Not one of these things belongs to the worthless; hence, also all the stupid are impious. For impiety as a vice is ignorance of the service of the Gods, while piety is knowledge of that divine service. Likewise they say that the worthless are not holy. For holiness is described as justice with respect to the Gods. The worthless transgress many of the just customs pertaining to the Gods, on account of which they are unholy, impure, unclean, defiled and barred from festive rites. For carrying out festive rites is, they say, the mark of a civilized man, since a festival is a time when one ought to be concerned with the divine for the sake of honor and appropriate celebration. So the person who carries out festive rites needs to have humbly entered with piety into this post.

Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Foods 2.37.4-5
There is a multitude of divinities which some call indiscriminately Gods and others more appropriately daimones. People have given some of them names, and they receive from everyone honors equal to the celestial bodies, as well as their own distinct forms of worship. Others have no name at all in most places, but acquire a name and cult inconspicuously from a few people in villages or some cities. There is a widespread conviction about this multitude of daimones, that they can do harm if they are angered by being neglected and fail to receive their accustomed worship, and on the other hand that they can do good to those who make them well-disposed by prayer and supplication and sacrifices and the shedding of blood and all that goes with it.

Lucian, On Sacrifices 2
So nothing, it seems, that the Gods do is done without compensation. They sell men their blessings, and one can buy from them health, it may be, for a calf, wealth for four oxen, a royal throne for a hundred, a safe return from Troy to Pylos for nine bulls, and a fair voyage from Aulis to Troy for a king’s daughter! Hecuba, you know, purchased temporary immunity for Troy from Athena for twelve oxen and a frock. One may imagine, too, that they have many things on sale for the price of a cock or a wreath or nothing more than incense.

Philodemos, On Piety 25-28
Therefore I think it is especially necessary to despise those who transgress or mock the traditional rites. Furthermore it will appear that Epicurus loyally observed all the forms of worship and enjoined upon his friends to observe them, and not just be in accordance with the laws. For as he says to pray is right and natural for man, not because the Gods would be hostile if we did not pray, but the act of doing so helps us gain a better understanding of those who surpass us in their power and excellence, enabling us to fulfill our potential. He also said that every wise man holds pure and holy thoughts about the divine, namely that the nature of divinity is great and august. And it is particularly at festivals that we attain our greatest understanding of things for during a festival all that a man can think about, and all that is upon his lips, are holy matters. He didn’t just advise others to participate in the worship of the Gods – indeed, he was very active in religious matters, sharing in all festivals and sacrifices, and especially the Khoes festival and the mysteries celebrated in his city and elsewhere.

Marcianus, Institutes 3.2-3
Things which are sacred, religious, and holy are not the property of anyone. Sacred things are those which are publicly and not privately consecrated; and hence if anyone should make anything sacred for himself privately, it is not sacred but profane; where, however, a temple has once been made sacred the place still remains so, even after the edifice has been demolished.

Lucian, On Sacrifices 10-13
That is the way the Gods live, and as a result, the practices of men in the matter of divine worship are harmonious and consistent with all that. First they fenced off groves, dedicated mountains, consecrated birds and assigned plants to each God. Then they divided them up, and now worship them by nations and claim them as fellow-countrymen ; the Delphians claim Apollo, and so do the Delians, the Athenians Athena (in fact, she proves her kinship by her name), the Argives Hera, the Mygdonians Rhea, the Paphians Aphrodite. As for the Cretans, they not only say that Zeus was born and brought up among them, but even point out his tomb. We were mis­taken all this while, then, in thinking that thunder and rain and everything else comes from Zeus ; if we had but known it, he has been dead and buried in Crete this long time! Then too they erect temples, in order that the Gods may not be houseless and hearthless, of course; and they fashion images in their likeness, sending for a Praxiteles or a Polycleitus or a Phidias, who have caught sight of them somewhere and represent Zeus as a bearded man, Apollo as a perennial boy, Hermes with his first moustache, Poseidon with sea-blue hair and Athena with green eyes ! In spite of all, those who enter the temple think that what they behold is not now ivory from India nor gold mined in Thrace, but the very son of Cronus and Rhea, transported to earth by Phidias and bidden to be overlord of de­serted Pisa, thinking himself lucky if he gets a sacrifice once in four long years as an incident to the Olympic games. When they have established altars and formulae and lustral rites, they present their sacrifices, the farmer an ox from the plough, the shepherd a lamb, the goatherd a goat, someone else incense or a cake ; the poor man, however, propitiates the God by just kissing his own hand. But those who offer victims (to come back to them) deck the animal with gar­lands, after finding out far in advance whether it is perfect or not, in order that they may not kill some­thing that is of no use to them; then they bring it to the altar and slaughter it under the God’s eyes, while it bellows plaintively—making, we must suppose, auspicious sounds, and fluting low music to accom­pany the sacrifice! Who would not suppose that the Gods like to see all this ? And although the notice says that no one is to be allowed within the holy-water who has not clean hands, the priest himself stands there all bloody, just like the Cyclops of old, cutting up the victim, removing the entrails, plucking out the heart, pouring the blood about the altar, and doing everything possible in the way of piety. To crown it all, he lights a fire and puts upon it the goat, skin and all, and the sheep, wool and all; and the smoke, divine and holy, mounts upward and gradually dissipates into Heaven itself.

Hail Astrágaloi!

I wanted to confirm a detail about the Lion Hunt when I came across this piece at the Daily Mail from April of this year:

Simon Cowell’s most recent real estate investment is said to have come with the soul of a gay Roman. According to former-owner Christian Levett, the London property (which Simon purchased for £15 million to live in with partner Lauren Silverman and their five-year-old son Eric last October) is haunted by Antinous – the lover of Hadrian, the ruler of the Roman Empire from 117 to 138. Levett claims that he himself brought Antinous’ spirit into the home when he purchased a statue of him in 2014, inadvertently unleashing the Bithynian Greek’s spirit onto the property. ‘It was delivered in a crate,’ the hedge-fund billionaire said. ‘When I was locking up, I heard the sound of heavy objects being knocked over from the drawing room where Antinous was still lying in his box. The same happened the next two nights. But there was nobody there.’ A further source has also claimed that Simon, 59, believes this is more than just an urban legend. ‘Simon believes in spirits so he’s been freaked out by this story. I don’t think he was aware when he moved in. He might have to call a ghost-buster,’ they said.

While that does not really answer my question (thankfully I found the information here) it sure is a neat story.

Earlier in the month Petros (a good friend and regular commenter here) contacted me asking if I would be interested in a bust of Dionysos and Ariadne. His son is starting up a 3D-printing business and wanted to test some things out. So of course I said yeah, and the week of my birthday his precious gift arrived.

This turned out to be quite fortuitous, as I am currently in the process of remodeling my temple space. I got the inspiration to set up nine shrines rather than a single central one, each reflecting a different festival and the aspect of the God which presides over it. As the idol consists of Ariadne and Dionysos entwined this is a perfect representation for the Pannychia. 

And here are some remarks Petros sent along with it:

I’m glad that the gift is timely! I offered some pine and cedar incense (I have no storax) and let the smoke flow around it and said the Day 6 prayers to Dionysos and Ariadne since that was the day of its completion. Seemed like the right thing to do.

[…]

It actually was pretty cool to watch its creation. Over 32 hours this intricate lattice work was made like scaffolding. When it was over, my son peeled it off like a hardboiled eggshell and Voila! This was within. It’s around 8 inches tall.

Once I have the nine shrines constructed and their idols properly installed I will share pics of my own.

Thank you Petros and son of Petros.

Emily Frances Pagrabs, Peter the Great and His Changing Identity
The tsar was known throughout Europe for his ability to drink. A contemporary said, “He didn’t miss a single day without getting drunk.” This came as no surprise to contemporaries, as alcohol had long been “the joy of the Russes.” Peter’s father, Alexei, and his boyars used to take pleasure in out-drinking the foreign diplomats. While this drunkenness seems to be a national trait, Peter seems to have been one of the best. Said historian Robert Massie, “When he was young, though, these wild bacchanalia did not leave Peter exhausted and debauched, but actually seemed to refresh him for the next day’s work. He could drink all night with his comrades and then, while they snored in drunken slumber, rise at dawn and leave them to begin work as a carpenter or shipbuilder. Few could match his pace.”

Peter amassed a collection of friends and created, at the age of eighteen, the Drunken Synod. Mocking the hierarchy and order of the church, the friends were organized into a college of cardinals, bishops, priests, and deacons. Peter took care in devising a system of rituals and ceremonies; for example, the first commandment was, “Bacchus be worshipped with strong and honorable drinking and receive his just dues.” Even as the tsar matured and became an emperor, he continued to participate in such games and behaviors, which were worse on holidays and at weddings. The foreigners who visited the tsar found the behavior “vulgar and scandalous,” unsuited to a man who proclaimed to be the emperor of Russia.

You can read the rest here.

Hail Sphaíra!

Here’s a surprisingly good interview on the Villa dei Misteri and the cult of Dionysos in Southern Italy by Gordon of Rune Soup and author and researcher Peter Mark Adams, who just released Mystai: Dancing out the Mysteries of Dionysos through Scarlet Imprint. There are a number of things I’d quibble with, but a lot fewer than normal. Might have to pick this book up after all. 

A couple hours back 42 years ago I came screaming and blood-drenched into this world, and Gods willing that’s how I’ll depart it too.

This has been a fun – and important! – trip down memory lane, but now it’s time to celebrate. Empty a glass or three for Dionysos this day, if you would. 

The boule and demos have resolved that the ephebes and the priest of the paides are to sing hymns every day at the opening of the temple of Dionysos, the leading God of our city. And at the closing of the temple of the God the priest of Tiberius Caesar is to make libations, burn incense, and light lamps; expenses are to be paid from the sacred revenues of Dionysos. And the archons of the city are to always sacrifice at the beginning of each month and on the seventh day pray for the success of the city. But if any person offends any of these requirements, that person is asebes. And this decree is to be engraved in the sanctuary of Dionysos and it is to have the status of law. (SEG XV.718)

I’ve had a number of ecstatic and mystical experiences while drunk (anywhere from lightly buzzed to stumbling around puking on myself) or on weed, ‘shrooms and other variously legal substances.

I’ve had a number of ecstatic and mystical experiences brought about by physical exhaustion, fasting, pain and other ordeals as well as meditation, visualization and sex.

I’ve even had a number of ecstatic and mystical experiences where I was completely stone sober and not really doing anything.

And you know what? The differences between them are minimal.

They exist and in their way can be quite profound. For instance, I feel a gradual opening up while on pot and the visions tend to be rather heady – ethereal and intellectual and associative. I find that it strongly heightens my intuition and ability to make astounding logical leaps and it helps my writing to be more free-flowing. Mushrooms (especially amanita muscaria) give the experience a more pronounced physical focus, and not just because you tend to start off by riding waves of nausea. I become very conscious of my body and its processes (at the level of blood, muscle and bone) and this tends to take me deep down, through the corridors of flesh into the psychological and from there to other worlds, both in and outside myself. At the same time it tends to draw stuff up to the surface, especially illness, pollution and unresolved psychological shit which I am then able to purify and release. Salvia is something else entirely – it helps one to see the light and life that flow through all things and opens doors to strange topsy-turvy wonderlands.

But none of the experiences brought about by these plant and fungal allies are any more or less real than what I’ve experienced without them. That’s not to say that everything you experience on drugs is real – believing that will land you in the loony bin or prey to malevolent spirits or worse. Discernment is one of the first faculties you must cultivate if you’re going to be doing any kind of spiritual work – not just being able to tell the difference between real and fake, but to be able to understand the symbolic language of the drug and how to tell what is its influence, what is the influence of your mind, what is the influence of the God or spirit you’re interacting with and all of the other tangled threads. And you don’t just have to do that while on drugs – in fact some of the craziest shit I’ve been through was triggered by chanting and controlled breathing back in my Chan Buddhist days.

I’m not surprised that a lot of folks have got hang-ups about using entheogens – for the last twenty-six centuries Western culture has been waging a war against ecstasy. And note that I put the start of that before the birth of Christ – they’ve just waged it more effectively and ruthlessly than any of their predecessors. In fact one of the things that Christians, and especially the Protestant branch, have done is make people deeply suspicious of spiritual experience that comes mediated through anything external – including the body since they’ve also convinced us to view ourselves as ghosts trapped in fleshy machines. So someone who can think their way to henosis is more advanced than someone who loses themselves in dance and music which is still better than the poor benighted primitive who has to drink a potion to see his God. That kind of thing may be tolerated when brown people do it but whites ought to know better.

The Bacchic Orphic, on the other hand, is an animist who understands that all things possess life, intelligence and power – different from one’s own, to be sure, but no less meaningful. If not, how could the stones and trees and beasts have been charmed by the masterful lyre of the Thracian? How could the thunder have birthed their God, the mountain nursed him, the wild things attend him, the grape contain him? Reject this principle and you close yourself off to the world – it’s just you alone with the God of your imagination. For the Bacchic Orphic the world is one of expansive relationships, ever changing and increasingly complex since the splitting of the egg. Why do you think he drives the mad-women from their homes? To see what’s out there and discover who they are in connection with it.

That’s why when I smoke a bowl I’m not just inhaling the fumes of a weed – that weed has a spirit which I draw into myself so that she will help open my eyes and loosen my mind, a spirit I have long history with. Just as there’s a spirit in the drum and a spirit in these words I’m typing. The experience is going to be different depending on the spirits involved and how certain elements are configured – but even that’s no guarantee since repeating everything from rite to rite may still end in differing results because of something unrelated going on with you or the God you’re worshiping.

In fact, everyone’s experience of the Gods is unique. You can have half a dozen participants and get twenty different accounts of what happened during a rite. Not only may the same God engage with people differently he may want different things of them. That’s why when the animal sacrifice issue came up I spoke only to its central place within the Starry Bull tradition; Dionysos has not asked that of others, therefore their devotions are not lacking for its absence.

So while moderate indulgence may be the most sensible and sustainable way to approach Dionysos, I’m not prepared to take excess (even to the point of self-destructive addiction) off the table. Let’s be perfectly clear – not all the ways that lead to closeness and understanding of Dionysos are pleasant ways. Pentheus and Lykourgos have seen things in Dionysos that the pious will never glimpse and insanity contains more than just manic pixie dream girls. Sometimes it’s filth and fear and not leaving your bed for a week. If your goal isn’t just to make friends with Dionysos but to experience him in his entirety you’re going to go to the extremes and you’re going to get broken. Probably a lot.

Now, you can become too broken. You can stop experiencing anything but the broken parts of Dionysos – or worse, stop experiencing him at all. It can be really difficult to find your way back from that – and plenty never do. The failure rate for Dionysians is extraordinary – some of our best are also our worst, and I would caution against imitating them. But I would caution even more strenuously against assuming that Dionysos wasn’t with them in that moment, no matter how wretched, destructive and out of control they were. He’s an odd God after all.

Also, while I happen to like that passage from Euboulos a couple things need to be kept in mind. To begin with he has Dionysos claim that only the first three kraters belong to him. A krater is a mixing-bowl, not a cup. A decently sized one, such as the Euphronios krater, could hold around 45 liters of wine. I have a superhumanly high tolerance for alcohol and yet even I would find 36 gallons of wine a little hard to swallow, especially if I was using the recommended mixing rates – 3 parts water to 1 wine if you want a convivial symposion; 1:1 for orgies and waterless if you’re a barbaric Thracian. If you exceed the limit imposed by Dionysos intoxication’s the least of your worries – you’re going to be pissing for a week straight!

Secondly, Euboulos isn’t writing as a priest or mantis or from a similar position of authority – that tag was lifted by Athenaios from the play Semele which, judging by its remaining fragments, was a pretty obscene farce. Scholars are divided on whether it represented his fiery premature birth or his descent into the otherworld – I’m inclined to think the latter since at one point Dionysos acts as symposiarch, laying down all the rules to a chorus of rowdy, drunken initiates or satyrs, which means that it could have been a burlesque on the Orphic belief of the eternal banquet of the pious which Plato also mocks. Plus another fragment contains a phallic joke at the expense of Hermes and while he could have been escorting baby Dionysos off to Nysa I think it likelier that he was acting in his psychopomp role. Another notch in favor of this theory is that earlier Aristophanes had presented Dionysos on stage trying to get to the underworld in The Frogs, so clearly this was a scenario that the comic poets exploited. Most people who read The Frogs have a difficult time reconciling Aristophanes’ portrayal with the Dionysos they have encountered. He’s a boorish, lying, cheating coward – at one point he even pisses his chiton.

Now, I’m not suggesting that a jokester is incapable of providing accurate insight into the nature of this God or at least how he was viewed by certain segments of ancient Athenian society – heaven forfend! – but we need to consider our sources before relying too heavily on them. Diodoros didn’t write the same things or for the same reasons that Homer and Orpheus did, something I’ve discussed more fully here. Not every portrayal of the God is meant to carry equal weight.

The gold tablet from Pelinna reads:

Now you have died and now you have been born, thrice blessed one, on this very day. Say to Persephone that Bakchios himself freed you. A bull you rushed to milk. Quickly, you rushed to milk. A ram you fell into milk. You have wine as your fortunate honor. And rites await you beneath the earth, just as the other blessed ones.

The gold tablet from Thurii reads:

Rejoice at the experience! This you have never before experienced. You have become divine instead of mortal. You have fallen as a kid into milk. Hail, hail, as you travel on the right, through the Holy Meadow and Groves of Persephone.

Edward Butler offers a brilliant interpretation of this recurring motif:

The Orphic slogan, “A kid, I fell into milk”: I believe this to be equivalent in a certain respect to part of Crowley’s Oath of the Abyss; namely, the part about “interpreting every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul.” To say “A kid, I fell into milk” is to say that I was thrown into a world not of my making, but found it was made of meaning. […] It is not just a question, then, of interpreting one’s own life, but that one becomes a “phenomenon” to be interpreted by others. This is what a hero is, I think, a mortal having become such a site of meaning.

Because I’m strange that way, his post reminded me of something Lana Del Rey once said:

I was a singer, not a very popular one, who once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet- but upon an unfortunate series of events saw those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky that I wished on over and over again- sparkling and broken. But I really didn’t mind because I knew that it takes getting everything you ever wanted and then losing it to know what true freedom is. When the people I used to know found out what I had been doing, how I had been living- they asked me why. But there’s no use in talking to people who have a home, they have no idea what its like to seek safety in other people, for home to be wherever you lay your head. I was always an unusual girl, my mother told me that I had a chameleon soul. No moral compass pointing me due north, no fixed personality. Just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide as wavering as the ocean. And if I said that I didn’t plan for it to turn out this way I’d be lying- because I was born to be the other woman. I belonged to no one- who belonged to everyone, who had nothing- who wanted everything with a fire for every experience and an obsession for freedom that terrified me to the point that I couldn’t even talk about- and pushed me to a nomadic point of madness that both dazzled and dizzied me. Every night I used to pray that I’d find my people- and finally I did- on the open road. We have nothing to lose, nothing to gain, nothing we desired anymore- except to make our lives into a work of art.