Gods' Section [January 31st: Adonis]

[Shadowcat]

The Article for Lord Asmodeus is amazing, i was glad to read!

 

[Alexander666]

Thank you, SG, for your professional articles about our beloved Gods. Everyone should read them to deprogram from Abrahamic narratives and connect more deeply with our deities.

 

[Novice Priest Karnonnos]

Janus is known as the mysterious two-headed God of the Roman people, starting with his ancient origin in the reign of the King Numa Pompilius. He was known as a God of beginnings, gates, time, breakthroughs, doorways, transitions, ages, the seasons, liminality, diplomacy and endings.

He was known as the “Two-Faced of War and Peace” whose dictates were closely followed when the Roman state pursued diplomacy or warfare with other states, but his oracle was also consulted when it came to starting any major religious, civic, architectural or legal endeavor in the Roman kingdom.

Temple of Janus, coin of Nero

It was said by Livy and Dionysius that the King Numa introduced the rites of Janus to the Roman people to tame their bellicose nature, to make them deeply respect religion in solemnity and to civilize them with proper rigor; the doors were kept shut as Numa waged no wars. He built a passage or bridge with a double gate, which came to be known as the first temple of Janus. The Gates of Janus were famously held closed during times of peace and conversely open during times of war, a tradition that Romans obediently followed into the sixth century:

When he had thus obtained the kingship, he prepared to give the new City, founded by force of arms, a new foundation in law, statutes, and observances. And perceiving that men could not grow used to these things in the midst of wars, since their natures grew wild and savage through warfare, he thought it needful that his warlike people should be softened by the disuse of arms, and built the temple of Janus at the bottom of the Argiletum, as an index of peace and war, that when open it might signify that the nation was in arms, when closed that all the peoples round about were pacified.

Book 1, History of Rome, Livy

The Temple was described as modest and of being a square burnished with bronze, only five cubits high. Another Temple to Janus with a clearly occult design was built by the consul Gaius Duilius, who also had a statue of Janus installed with one hand showing the number 300 and the other hand 65, with twelve altars.

The existence of Janus always closely correlated with the presence of civilization and law. In fact, Plutarch designated Janus as the one God who lifted humanity as a whole out of bestiality and confusion, despite the Hellenistic view that Janus originated with the Roman people. The Romans themselves considered the dual God to be the first ancient king of Latium, and, in a roundabout way, the ancestor of all peoples within the area.

“Omne principium Iano” — Every beginning belongs to Janus.

Roman phrase

The God was typically involved in blessing procedures of city gates and walls for the most auspicious beginning possible, but he also was consulted in regards to major projects in Rome, including amenities for civilians and great architectural structures. Servius in the Aeneid claimed that it was ‘proper’ to invoke Janus on any start to any effort.

He also represented border-zones, but unlike Set, represented the sort of ambiguity of such a zone rather than its rigid wall. Many of the liminal zones between the Romans, Etruscans, Samnites and other peoples of Italy bear increased evidence of Janus’ presence with their place name markers. The most notable instance is the expanse of the Ianiculum which separated Rome from Etruria proper.

King Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome, instated a complex set of practices linked to Janus when declaring war on other states, observed by the class of diplomat-priests known as the fetials. The procedure involved sending holy envoys to warn foreign powers of Roman distress, declaring a succession of oaths if the issue was not resolved.

Thirty-three days had to pass before an escalation occurred under oath to both Jupiter and Janus, and the matter was returned to Rome for the king and patricians to make a final decision. If war was declared, a spear was thrown into the territory of the enemy.

Rites to Janus were conducted by the rex sacrorum, the kingly priest office inaugurated by King Numa.

Janus also maintained a deeply mystical aspect related to the home and hearth, where he functioned as a deity that kept watch over any kind of boundary zone, which is why passages were called ‘iani’ and doors ‘ianua’. His cult was immensely popular with the Roman people for its apotropaic and protective qualities against thieves, natural disasters, diseases and other dangers. In this he shared a practical function with Vesta, who functioned as a similar deity closing off the home and tomb.

The triad of Jupiter, Juno and Janus were often invoked to keep the initiate safe and prosperous.

SYMBOLISM OF JANUS

Janus is known as a two-faced God, a concept from which the word ‘Bifrons’ comes. The two or ‘twin’ faces of Janus were nonetheless often represented distinctively with subtle differences. Occasionally the differences were dramatic, such as one head as a bearded citizen and the other as a younger man, sometimes as an old man and a relatively younger one, although both faces were always male. In the Roman context, it was also said to represent the transitional differences between Mars and Quirinus.

The duality represented war and peace, life and death, past and future, love and hate, the beginning and the end, youth and senility, day and night, civilization and nature, matter and intellect, and many other oppositional sets of meanings that were interpreted as forming a cohesive whole.

Even the etymology of Janus has a distinctive set of symbols behind it:

The mystery of Janus since the time of Ancient Rome was one of the most important celebrations of Rome. As time elapsed, the knowledge of the Great God started being buried beneath the rubble as the people stopped remembering him, despite of his name being the name of the month IAN-UARY or January, the first month of the year of the Calendar.

The first three letters of Janus’s Name, the IAN, contain two important elements from Ancient Greek. I, which is the letter Η, signifying the word “or” and the “AN” which signifies the word “if”.

Inside this code, we can see the two important questions we have before we embark in every choice in life. The “Or” element this or that choice, and the word “If”. Will we succeed? Will we be able to manage things? Or it will be better to stay where we are? If this is done, then what? What “If”?

In this date, an important symbolism was present: Now, what was before, is no longer. However, the symbol of Janus was to be utilised for this; the passage and the pathway, the door to other and bigger or smaller things. The student had to move forward in life, and there was a door in front of him in the Ritual of the year yet, it was the student that had to choose to pass through the door willingly.

In Zevism we have many doors and many passages that we must take in order to advance. Our personal choice is reliant to this subject. How much ready for change and uplifting we are and our readiness to cross each door, will determine our success in the elevating passages of power, consciousness, wealth, or all other fields of success. This procedure is absolutely necessary, as one cannot see before their choice to open a door what lies behind it.

Free ToZ Donor Article: The Month Of January: The Message of Janus, High Priest Hooded Cobra​

Therefore, Janus rules over rites such as the Dedication of the Soul. We can read about what is behind the door we are about to embark, we can make estimations, and we can certainly ask a Master that has went through or we can visualize what might be the reality after the door. Yet, unless we walk through the door, we can never know what lies beyond the threshold.

HPS Maxine has written very graphically about the Truth of Zevism. There is a door behind you that slams closed when you enter it, a new world that opens up after this, one cannot go back. If we pay attention to this statement, the closing of the door behind us, is symbolic of the ability to choose. While certain choices can be taken back, others cannot; not because we cannot cancel them, but because what one will see can never be unseen.

As the Christian apologist Augustine explained, the Romans viewed the mouth of Janus with its two ‘doors’ as being between the two heads. The mouth cavity in this context was seen as being symbolic of the sky, the universe and symbolically represented the airy powers of magical vibration. The beginning cause was always held to be a prerogative of Janus, through which Jupiter accomplished all things. Other than Jupiter, he had no direct mythological relation to any of the Roman or Hellenic Gods.

The ‘twin Janus’ (Janus Geminus) spoken of by Romans also had four heads in two sets (Janus Quadrifons), symbolic of the four corners of the earth. Janus’ body was equated with the visible and material soul of the world through which all magic manifested.

Some Romans interpreted his name as being formed from ‘ire’ (the verb ‘to go’). Roads, paths and waterways in general were considered to be his domain because every way implies a way to go forward and backwards.

The key was a major symbol of the dual God and represented his capacity to unlock new things, including the use of such powers in the initiate before a major magical working or desired mental shift. The symbolism of the key was deeply interwoven into the holy doors being opened and shut, and it was seen as a symbol of friendly foreigners such as merchants having access to Rome’s cities during times of peace. It also signified the divinely-endowed prerogative of the priest to lock any temple door.

Doors also symbolized Janus in himself, and the Romans remarked among themselves that every door in existence has two sides. The door was also linked to the shrine of the Roman household where one side would be visible to the people outside the sanctuary, and the other side would only have the divine ones in silence staring at the door.

Naturally, the dual heads and doors, much like the gates of Cerberus, the door of Hestia and other transitional symbols, also allegorically represented the rite of dedication in a holy initiate. The door to the old life full of impiety and death was shut forever, with the new life looking towards holiness. They also represent the brain and its two hemispheres; the functions of both sides must be united and nurtured for someone to advance in power.

Janus was also closely associated with the morning and shared in the symbolism of Eosforos, the morning star. Horace called him ‘the Father of the Morning’, and this aspect of Janus represented the morning as signifying the new day where resets could occur, and new obstacles could always be broken.

Just as with the start of the day, Janus through the policies of Numa inaugurated the new-style year beginning in January , a month which continues to bear his name across the world and which marked the death of the ‘old sun’ and beginning of the new, alongside the aftermath of the Saturnalia and the beginning of the traditional time to start the Magnum Opus. The old new year in March was used to drum up the military campaign season, but this date was chosen so ne torpor infectet annum ex auspicio (lest the sloth of auspiciousness infect the whole year), and is linked to the industrious sign of Capricorn:

Iane, veni: novus anne, veni: renovate veni, sol.

Anne, bonis coepte auspiciis, da vere salubri apricas ventorum animas, da roscida Cancro solstitia et gelidum Boream Septembribus horis. mordeat autumnis frigus subtile pruinis et tenuata moris cesset mediocribus aestas. sementem Notus umificet, sit bruma nivalis, dum pater antiqui renovatur Martius anni.

Come, Janus; come, New Year; come, Sun, with strength renewed!

Year, that beginnest with good augury, give us in healthful Spring winds of sunny breath; when the Crab shows at the solstice, give us dews, and allay the hours of September with a cool north wind. Let shrewdly-biting frosts lead in Autumn and let Summer wane and yield her place by slow degrees. Let the south winds moisten the seed corn, and Winter reign with all her snows until March, father of the old-style year, come back anew.

Precatio Consulis Designati Pridie Kalendas Ianuarias Fascibus Sumptis, Ausonius

Janus thus held open the eternal Gates of Capricorn and Cancer through which souls passed. Romans gave offerings to Janus of a symbolic variety at the beginning of the year, typically things of a sweet variety such as figs and cakes, but even money itself. Ovid’s representation of Janus in the Fasti explains that this was to ensure the resolution began in the first part of the year remained as sweet as it was when pledged.

The 365 days of the year were also equated with him heavily in the sources of Antiquity. In this, Janus shared symbolism with Hermes and Abrasax.

Janus was also referred to as the ‘porter of the heavenly court’ and stands as the major gatekeeper of the doors of heaven. However, it is not just heaven that he has the right to lock and unlock, but the effects of the heavenly powers on earth as a whole, which partially explains the metaphor of his body:

Me penes est unum vasti custodia mundi,
et ius vertendi cardinis omne meum est.

Mine alone is the guarding of the vast world,
and the right to turn the hinge is all mine.

Fasti, Ovid

The Major Arcana card of Janus is the Hierophant, known as ‘the Pope’ for much of Tarot’s development. This card in Rider Waite imagery shows a mixture of proper Zevist and enemy imagery in confusion. The Hierophant stands between two men and two pillars, holding his staff up level to the pineal gland. Between him stand two keys, one golden and one silver, conventionally used as a symbol of the church, but actually symbolic of Janus’ powers in representing the conscious and subconscious mind. The red robe is symbolic of the breaking power of Ganesh; the papal tiara itself is shaped like the brain witnessed from a sky view.

This card harkens to tradition and to do things in a tried and tested way rather than pursuing dangerous and unorthodox methods. Often it beseeches the querent to build a proper spiritual routine and to draw on the powers of wisdom in a situation that requires it. It can also signify the incoming presence of a teacher or a guide. Since the Hierophant occupies an office that is changeable, his teachings may someday aid his two disciples.

The Six of Cups is the Minor Arcana card associated with Janus. The card represents the past and shows two children, a boy and a girl, with the boy passing a cup full of lilies to her. In the background is an adult guard with a pike and many old buildings, while one of the cups stands on top of a plinth with a saltire emblem.

For the querent, the emphasis is to be inspired by the past, to allow innocence and joy to inform current choices. Sometimes, it serves as a rebuke not to be childish. In any case, the Six of Cups always represents something that ceased existing, or is yet to exist.

JANUS AND THE ENEMY​

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Matthew 16:19

Aspects of Janus were stolen to create the mythology of ‘St. Peter’ and the founding of the church. The association of the Papacy itself with the dual keys shows the erection of the great synagogue above Rome, as Nietzsche infamously called it. To make this less abstract, the installation of the Pope as the intermediary of God on earth is highly symbolic, and in theory it was the command of the ‘First Priest’ that decided most important decisions in the Age of Ignorance. To defy the Pope and his most odious institution meant calamity.

Certain ‘theologians’ of the enemy wrote tracts devoted to attacking the functions of Janus. Since he is a major custodian of empires, this was not merely some theological dispute, but this was a vitriolic attempt to undermine the Roman state by appealing to the stupidity of the masses.

As the Age of Ignorance began in earnest, the Goetic ‘identity’ of Janus became the demon Bifrons, a name which simply means ‘two-faced’. It is said he assumes an extremely monstrous form before shifting to a human one on the command of the conjuror, another way of letting slip the dual identity of Janus. Unfortunately, certain ‘experts’ are unable to understand the connection here, even though it is one of the blatantly obvious cases. The same goes for the proper understanding that Janus and Ganesh do represent the same God.

Bifrons teaches astrology, geometry, and other arts and sciences, as well as the virtues of precious stones and woods. In the early 20th century, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn’s investigations into this demon claimed that Bifrons could be summoned for the purposes of astral travel and intellectual mastery of a subject, which at least shows some cursory early awareness of Janus’ proper attributes.

Certain portents of Janus were eerily interwoven into Roman history and should serve as a warning about the Gods’ eternal rulership of civilization. The first king of Rome and the last ruler of Western Rome were named Romulus. The first Christian ruler of Eastern Rome who made Christianity the state religion and the last Christian ruler in 1453, who fell in battle to the Turks, were both named Constantine. An empire is much like a year.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

History of Rome, Livy

History of Rome, Dionysus of Halicarnassus

City of God against the Pagans, Augustine

Precatio Consulis Designati Pridie Kalendas Ianuarias Fascibus Sumptis, Ausonius

Fasti, Ovid

 

[Astrid]

Really incredible article SG Karnonnos, I felt chills reading it! Thank you so much for all your hard work with these
Hail Lord Janus Bifrons!

 

[TAHARQA]

Wonderful read, thank you, esteemed SG Karnonnos!
Hail, Lord Janus Bifrons!

 

[SrivatsaKouros]

Certain portents of Janus were eerily interwoven into Roman history and should serve as a warning about the Gods’ eternal rulership of civilization. The first king of Rome and the last ruler of Western Rome were named Romulus. The first Christian ruler of Eastern Rome who made Christianity the state religion and the last Christian ruler in 1453, who fell in battle to the Turks, were both named Constantine. An empire is much like a year.

This last part really struck a chord with me; it shows the tremendous power the Gods wield over our fates. Outstanding article, as always, SG. Thank you very much.

 

[Thundrx12]

Remarkable article SG Karnonnos, thank you!

 

[High Priestess Lydia]

Excellent article, SG Karnonnos. Very enlightening as to what Lord Janus rules.

 

[Novice Priest Karnonnos]

Eos, the Goddess of the dawn, occupies a unique and luminous position in mythology. Her daily emergence heralds the arrival of the sun, symbolizing both renewal and the relentless passage of time. The presence of the dawn Goddess in myth is not merely a poetic device to explain the coming of day, it is a figure imbued with profound occult attributes.

Her genealogy places her among the earliest and most powerful of the Greek deities. In the traditional Theogony of Hesiod, she is described as the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia. Hyperion, the personification of the sun, and Theia, associated with sight and the shining light of the clear blue sky, together produce a trio of luminous children: Helios (the sun), Selene (the moon), and Eos (the dawn). This familial grouping represents the cyclical passage of time, with Eos’s role as the bringer of dawn serving as a bridge between the night and the day.

Eos, Evelyn de Morgan

Such interconnectedness of their domains underlines the Greeks’ understanding of the cosmos as an ordered, rational system. Eos herself is sometimes depicted as the eldest of the siblings, her arrival each morning preceding the chariot-driven ascent of Helios across the sky. The Titanic lineage of Eos also places her among a generation of Gods who, though eventually supplanted by the Olympians, retain a primordial status within the mythic hierarchy.

Eos is unusually animated for a Goddess, and she is represented as being rather mirthful, brazen and capricious. Nonetheless, she also had a pervasive dislike of bringing in the dawn each day.

One of the most famous myths involving Eos is her love affair with Tithonus, a mortal prince of Troy. Enamored with his beauty, the dawn Goddess asks Zeus to grant Tithonus immortality so they can be together forever. However, she neglects to ask for eternal youth, and as a result, Tithonus ages endlessly and frightens her away from their marital bed with his graying visage, eventually becoming so withered that he is transformed into a cicada. This myth poignantly illustrates the bittersweet nature of Eos’s love and the dangers of unchecked desire… and it also serves as a specific warning to make sure the affirmations you use are good ones.

Eos and Tithonus

Her romantic entanglements are numerous. She is said to have abducted several handsome mortals, including Cephalus, Orion, and Cleitus. These stories often follow a similar pattern of Eos being driven by desire. In some versions like those of Pseudo-Apollodorus, her affairs are explained as a punishment from Aphrodite, who curses the dawn Goddess with insatiable desire after Eos is caught in her own affair with Ares, the God of War. Parthenius of Nicaea claimed that Phileas spoke of the son of Eos and Cephalus being the first ruler of the world.

In the great Odyssey, she is shown driving her Chariot across the sky, with her horses ‘Firebright’ and ‘Daybright’ pulling her carriage. In the Iliad, she takes precedence as the mother of the warrior Memnon, who is impaled by the spear of Achilles. Eos begs for Nyx (Night) to come quicker in order to steal his body and conduct his funeral rites. With the help of Thanatos and Hypnos, she transported his body back to Aethiopia. The tears of Eos, which left the light of Helios to dim, drove Zeus to grant him immortality.

She occupied no known places of worship; in Ovid’s Metamorphses she exclaims, in the Latinized form of Aurora, that her shrines and temples are so few and far between as to be almost nonexistent. As far as worship is concerned, her role was highly symbolic.

Eos in her four horse-drawn chariot, terracotta red-figure lekanis vase, late 300s BCE, Canosa, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Eos’ presence in ancient art is well documented compared to the obscurity of her cult. She appears on numerous vase paintings, often depicted in the act of driving her chariot across the sky. In sculpture and relief, she is shown as a beautiful but determined figure clad in saffron, embodying the beauty and transience of dawn.

In the end, it was said that Eos married the Titan named Astraeus and in addition to Memnon, gave birth to the wind Gods (the Anemoi) named Zephyrus, Boreas, Notus and Eurus, and the starry Goddess related to the sign of Virgo, Astraea.

SYMBOLISM OF EOS

Eos is frequently described with rosy fingers and as having golden arms that personify the radiant beauty of dawn itself. Ancient poets such as Sappho describe her golden attributes, while the Homeric Hymns refer to her as ‘rosy-armed’ and ‘rosy-fingered’ (Ἠὼς Ῥοδοδάκτυλος). Since she opens the vault of heaven for the sun to ascend, vivid descriptions like this emphasize her delicate renewal of each and every day. Homer claims that her robe is of safron, being embroidered with endless flowers. She is also often adorned with a halo.

Typically she is represented on Greek vases as wearing a diadem and being as beautiful as could be. Like the Anemoi, she sometimes has large white wings. Likewise, her description in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite called her ‘golden throned’, and the Homeric Hymn to Hermes named her as the ‘early-born’, while Mesomedes of Crete called her χιονοβλέφαρος, "she who has snow-white eyelids".

The 77th Orphic Hymn is dedicated to Eos, deliberately placed symbolically behind the 8th Hymn of the Sun.

Ἠοῦς, θυμίαμα μάνναν
Κλῦθι, θεά, θνητοῖς φαεσίμβροτον ἦμαρ ἄγουσα,
Ἠοῖ λαμπροφαής, ἐρυθαινομένη κατὰ κόσμον,
ἀγγελλιεια θεοῦ μεγάλου Τιτῆνος ἀγαυοῦ,
ἣ νυκτὸς ζοφόεντα κελαινόχρωτα πορείην
ἀντολίαις ταῖς σαῖς πέμπεις ὑπὸ νέρτερα γαίης·
ἔργων ἡγήτειρα, βίου πρόπολε θνητοῖσιν·
ᾗ χαίρει θνητῶν μερόπων γένος· οὐδέ τίς ἐστιν,
ὃς φεύγει τὴν σὴν ὄψιν καθυπέρτερον οὖσαν,
ἡνίκα τὸν γλυκὺν ὕπνον ἀπὸ βλεφάρων ἀποσείσῃς,
πᾶς δὲ βροτὸς γήθει, πᾶν ἑρπετὸν ἄλλα τε φῦλα
τετραπόδων πτηνῶν τε καὶ εἰναλίων πολυεθνῶν·
πᾶσι γὰρ ἐργάσιμον βίοτον θνητοῖσι πορίζεις.
ἀλλά, μάκαιρ’, ἁγνή, μύσταις ἱερὸν φάος αὔξοις.

Hear me, O Goddess! whose emerging ray leads on the broad refulgence of the day;
Blushing Aurora [Eos], whose celestial light beams on the world with red'ning splendours bright:
Angel of Titan, whom with constant round, thy orient beams recall from night profound:
Labour of ev'ry kind to lead is thine, of mortal life the minister divine.
Mankind in thee eternally delight, and none presumes to shun thy beauteous sight.
Soon as thy splendours break the bands of rest, and eyes unclose with pleasing sleep oppress'd;
Men, reptiles, birds, and beasts, with gen'ral voice, and all the nations of the deep, rejoice;
For all the culture of our life is thine. Come, blessed pow'r! and to these rites incline:
Thy holy light increase, and unconfin'd diffuse its radiance on thy mystic's mind.

Orphic Hymn to Eos, translated by Thomas Taylor

As the Hymn alludes to, much of Eos’ symbolism entails the beginnings of intent during workings, and how to properly activate magick as the hazy dawn of understanding begins to emerge in the operator. She also deals with the soul’s cursory journey towards light and how to blossom correctly during those first steps towards proper personhood, which is part of why she is represented mythologically as a Titaness who is lustful and indecisive in her wonder at the world.

As she deals with these first steps, she also represents the throwing away of ignorance that can occur each new day as a cycle. Her determined skyward rides on her Chariot represent the maintenance of the Great Work, showing that evolution requires daily consistency that must occupy the mind of the initiate from dawn to dusk. Part of Eos’ frenzied single-mindedness does represent the necessity of keeping the mind fixated on evolution at any cost, even though the tales involving her also warn not to overlook subtle details in such enthusiasm.

The Gates of Dawn, Herbert James Draper

Eos rules over the animating force that allows humanity to continually function. Her attributes in this regard are also meant to convey the benefits of pursuing certain kinds of meditation during the dawn and morning period, which we know to be times of power that keep the individual well-ordered enough to pursue other things during the day. In enemy religions such as Islam, these facets are keenly understood, while they have been wrested from the minds of modern secular people and Christians.

She is important as a symbolic Goddess of womanhood as a whole. Her nurturing dawn power is symbolic of the power to create the new life of a child, the role of women in maintaining society and the wisdom required to continue to nurture some of the most subtle aspects that keep civilizations running. She represents many of the aspects of wisdom shared among women in particular, from the oldest and wisest to the youngest girls.

In general, she represents the power of Venus in trailing or being ahead of the Sun, which is never far away from it in aspect. This itself is often visible during the morning hours. Her name, which involves a certain code, also relates to the ears (οὖς) in Greek and the mouth (os) in Latin, both involved in the perception of vibration. Her role is often incited in ritual purity, such as the pyre of Hector in the Iliad:

ἦμος δ' ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς,
τῆμος ἄρ' ἀμφὶ πυρὴν κλυτοῦ Ἕκτορος ἔγρετο λαός.

But soon as early Dawn [Eos] appeared, the rosy-fingered, then gathered the folk about the pyre of glorious Hector.

The Iliad

In addition, Eos rules over powerful protective functions. Her role as a Goddess of the First Light is said to drive away all evil and filthy entities, dispelling delusional and dangerous behaviors in the faithful that could attract the presence of fiends. She dispels all forms of chaos as the morning light illuminates the solemn darkness each day. Just as Aphrodite is the great uniter, Eos represents the first pivotal step in the process towards the soul becoming light.

Her card is the Star reversed, which represents Eos’ own mythological hesitance to usher in the dawn each day and echoes the hopelessness of some of her doomed affairs. The naked figure is drawing water upside down, a paradoxical situation. The eight stars move towards the bottom of the card, as if dawn itself is breaking.

This card signifies the necessity of getting out of a rut and to find inspiration, to move forward from everything holding the querent back. It also signifies that something may happen quite unexpectedly and unusually, just as day begins to break in an abrupt fashion.

Her Minor Arcana card is the Three of Pentacles upright, which is perhaps emblematic of her relationship with Helios and Selene, or even the cycle of dawn, noon and dusk. Three figures meet in a cathedral-like building beneath an aisle with its stone pillar; one holds a chisel, the other a scroll of plans, and the other is listening intently. The three pentacles themselves are carved into the stony embellishment of the arch pillar. One of the figures stands atop a table with an increasingly lit background, while the other two are proximate to the darkness – the hierarchy is somewhat inverted as it is the chisel holder who explains everything. Much has been done before to create the beauty of the building, and much will have to happen again in a new plan for expansion.

Since the figures allegorically stand in a house of God, the illustration shows the beginning stages of a plan that must be executed carefully and properly. It indicates the need to learn from those different to oneself and that even if things have started, they must be finished. The card also represents the power of teamwork in getting things done, and to carefully look into details to get it done.

This card is also symbolic of Freemasonry; as the Goddess of the Dawn, Eos was involved in instructing groups to overcome the terror of the Dark Ages. In the image, three classes of the craftsman wearing a golden apron, the wealthy burgher and the monk are shown. The card can also simply signify building something.

EOS AND THE ENEMY

Since the Nazarene lay claim to being the ‘morning star’, part of this symbolism was an attack on the powers of Eos, along with her father, Zeus Phosphoros.

In the grim, fallacious tomes of the enemy, Eos was reformulated as the male demon named Ose, also known as Oso or Voso. Once again, the purpose of this demon was to make the querent ‘cunning’ in the liberal arts of grammar, rhetoric, logic and other disciplines.

Ose is a great president, and commeth foorth like a leopard, and counterfeting to be a man, he maketh one cunning in the liberall sciences, he answereth truelie of divine and secret things, he transformeth a mans shape, and bringeth a man to that madnes, that he thinketh himselfe to be that which he is not; as that he is a king or a pope, or that he weareth a crowne on his head... and that power endures for an hour.

Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, Johann Weyer

Clearly, the power of Eos enduring for ‘an hour’ is a reference to the dawn itself. Other writings specify he cannot be summoned at twilight, a reference to Eos’ control of the matutine hours. The appearance of Ose is said to be like that of an agile and sinister leopard, a visual shorthand in antiquity for the stars.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Metamorphoses, Ovid

Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite

Homeric Hymn to Hermes

The Iliad

The Odyssey

Orphic Hymn to Eos, trans. Thomas Taylor

Hymn to the Sun, Mesomedes

Poetic Fragments, Parthenius of Nicaea

Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, Johann Weyer

 

[Astrid]

Absolutely enlightening!
Much of this symbolism for Queen Eos strikes me when doing Her Ritual, it is so beautiful and inspiring to me especially as a woman Thank you so much SG Karnonnos!

 

[Priest - Alexandros Iowno]

These exceptional spiritual articles are to be seen as religious material and items of study, real study!

 

[monomotapa]

Eos is unusually animated for a Goddess, and she is represented as being rather mirthful, brazen and capricious. Nonetheless, she also had a pervasive dislike of bringing in the dawn each day.

Apologies but does that mean that these qualities are acceptable in nature and one who has these is most likely to be in greater closeness to this goddess

 

[DiscipleofEshmun]

Will repost my reply here as it was lost in the forum update...

Excellent articles SG Karnonnos. Your article on Asmodeus led me to establishing a relationship with Him. I was troubled by some money issues and shuffled my tarot cards, which got me the Eight of Pentacles and Chariot, both upright. Then I was immediately hit with an urge to look up Asmodeus on the forums.

This thread was pinned and stuck out to me, as at the time it had Asmodeus on the title. I was surprised to find these two cards are His and I also really enjoyed learning about Him and His ancient positions in various pantheons such as Shalim and Eshmun. I pray to Him regularly and I hope I always have a good and close relationship with Him.

I actually just read that Jerusalem was stolen from Shalim, including the Hebrew word "Shalom".

Thank you for your work and may the Gods bless you eternally.

 

[Novice Priest Karnonnos]

Mourned by the Greeks and the Middle East for his tragic beauty, Adonis is the great Daemon of death, growth and renewal. To him we can trace the archetypal concept of a beautiful man in modern times, a record of how far his legend spread through the ages.

The main mythology of Adonis plays out as his birth from the Myrrh tree, the remnant of his beautiful mother who was cursed by the Great Goddess. Aphrodite takes the foundling and transfers him to Hades so Persephone could look after him. As he grows older, his beauty, as radiant as his mother’s, attracts the attentions of Aphrodite and Persephone. The two Goddesses quarrel; Zeus intervenes and instates a decree saying Adonis may spend a third of the year above the earth with Aphrodite, a third below it with Persephone and a third with whomever he may please.

In his time on earth, Adonis remonstrates in a hunting ground often cited to be near Byblos, which ultimately leads to his death from a boar – in some variations of the myth the boar is also a jealous Ares angry at being spurned by his lover. The mourning Aphrodite applies nectar to the wounds of the quickly dying Adonis, which mingled with his blood enables Adonis to become the anemone flower as an eternal token of love’s lasting power.

Venus and Adonis, Titian

Ultimately, Adonis’ myth is parallel to the shepherd Dumuzid, whose characterization in Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld and Inanna Prefers the Farmer indicate his long standing association with Inanna and the underworld. Dumuzid, who was transformed into an allalu bird invariably had a similar fate to Adonis and like in Greece, the cult was associated with women and had a romantic tone throughout the Middle East. The cult of Adonis ultimately came from a being who achieved apotheosis.

However, although Adonis is often considered the local formulation of the Semitic deity named Adon, Tammuz or Dumuzid, the presence of his cult in Greece has been noted to exist rather early, making it worthy of questioning whether his cult was a native innovation after all, alongside the two ‘foreign Deities’ of Aphrodite and Dionysus. In contrast to the typical mythology, the rather ancient Hesiod made of him the son of the Homeric hero Phenix and the unknown Alphesiboea. Sappho herself attested to the ritualized mourning of his life in her circle of women decades before the start of the Classical era:

κατθνάσκει, Κυθέρη᾿, ἄβρος Ἄδωνις· τί κεθεῖμεν;καττύπτεσθε, κόραι, καὶ κατερείκεσθε κίθωνας.

Delicate Adonis is dying, Cytherea; what are we to do?

Beat your breasts, girls, and tear your clothes.

Fragment of Sappho [Hephaestius, Book on Metres]

In Greece, the characteristics of the Adonia festival mourning him were markedly odd to contemporaries. It had no fixed date (although some sources like Plutarch claim it was celebrated in midsummer), was not recognized formally by the state and was an exclusive preserve of women regardless of their class, creed or social position. Typically it was a private ceremony, but often involved women pouring onto the streets, all of whom were said to parade in melancholic crowds, wailing, beating at their chests, tearing their tunics, engaging in dramatic displays, and more. The Adonia would progress in a particular fashion; it was defined mainly by the aforementioned event of mass weeping, recalled in a fragment of Pherecrates from the mouth of a participator as “we hold the Adonia and we weep for Adonis” but also accompanied by drumming and dancing. Small icons and images of Adonis would be carefully placed with funerary rites conducted for each of them:

Not a few also were somewhat disconcerted by the character of the days in the midst of which they dispatched their armament. The women were celebrating at that time the festival of Adonis, and in many places throughout the city little images of the god were laid out for burial, and funeral rites were held about them, with wailing cries of women, so that those who cared anything for such matters were distressed, and feared lest that powerful armament, with all the splendour and vigour which were so manifest in it, should speedily wither away and come to naught.

Life of Nicias, Plutarch

The Middle Eastern rites of Adonis had similar but distinct elements. In Byblos at least, the festival would culminate in people joyfully pointing at the sky and claiming the God had been resurrected in a miraculous fashion. In the Phoenician city states, the Adonia festivals were said by contemporaries like Lucian of Samosata to have the status of a sacred and consecrated holiday, particularly in Byblos, the most ancient polis of the area. Other ancient writers noted they always commenced there with the heliacal rising of Sirius.

Vase showing Adonia

Historians ultimately found the most dramatic development of his mysterious cults dated to the Hellenistic era after Alexander’s conquests, where they seemed to take on more magnificent attributes through patronage of states far outside the Greek mainland which hosted his festivals. The Hellenistic queen of Egypt and priestess Arsinoe II, who was one of the few wives of the Pharaoh to gain the title of King of Upper and Lower Lands herself (alongside Hatshepsut and Tausret), inaugurated the sacred cult of Adonis in the relatively new city of Alexandria, where his yearly state-decreed worship reached a proportion that would envelop the entire city in revelry for hundreds of years.

As noted by the poet Theocritus, despite his origins in the Middle East and accompanying cult in mainland Greece, the bustling metropolis of Alexandria in many ways became the adopted home of the Daemon. Theocritus describes exactly how the entire city became involved: there was a magnificent display of Adonis’s images and cult tableaux, alongside an official contest of dirges and lamentations sung by competing women’s choruses sponsored by the royal court. The Temple of Osiris and even the later Serapeum had sectional rites assimilated to Adonis.

Adonis, John Northcote

Adonis’ stature in poetry did not end with Sappho, for Greek and Roman poets and playwrights continued to reference the tragic myth of Adonis and Aphrodite in many contexts, a rather prevalent theme for Classicists to discover over the ages. Ovid stands as the most prominent elaborator of the myth, but it was markedly and dramatically recalled by many poets, such as this poignant example by Bion:

I wail for Adonis; the Loves wail in answer. Fair Adonis lies on the hills, wounded in his thigh with a tusk, wounded in his white thigh with a white tusk, and he grieves Cypris as he breathes his last faint breath. His dark blood drips over his snow-white flesh, and under his brows his eyes grow dim; the rosy hue flees from his lip, and around it dies the kiss, too, which Cypris will never carry off again. Even when he is not alive his kiss pleases Cypris; but Adonis does not know that she kissed him when he was dead.

I wail for Adonis; the Loves wail in answer. Adonis has a cruel, cruel wound in his thigh; but greater is the wound Cytherea has in her heart. Around that boy his ownhounds howl and the mountain nymphs weep; but Aphrodite, her tresses loosed, roams grief-stricken among the thickets with her hair unbraided, barefoot; the brambles tear her as she goes and draw her sacred blood. Wailing loudly, she moves through the long glens, crying out for her Assyrian husband and calling him many times. But round his navel was floating the dark blood, and his chest grew red with blood from his thighs, and Adonis’ breasts, once snow-white, grew dark.

Lament for Adonis, Bion

SYMBOLISM

Statue of an athlete identifed as Adonis, 1st-2nd century BCE, Uffizi Gallery

Adonis is archetypally represented as a beautiful young man. On vases, he is given similar imagery to Apollo and Dionysus, often depicted with a lyre. In later classical statues, he is represented as athletic and the archetype of male beauty at the peak of its youthful virility, arguably as the most beautiful of the male Gods other than Zeus Himself.

Adonis with Aphrodite, vase

The youthful God was most often identified in Antiquity with crops as a symbol. Crops were be cut and scythed in order to bring new seeds, seen widely as a paradoxical situation of nature that evoked the strange nature of Adonis’ death. Lettuce and fennel plants were also some of his symbols; the Suda explains that these were considered superficial and shallow plants, evocative of the Gardens of Adonis with its transitory and evolving types of vegetation, suitable as symbols for the great dying and resurrecting Adonis. His blood-red flower, variably the anemone or wildflower, was associated with vulnerability to the winds and weather. The flower, like the Glory of God, can be witnessed only in brief passing.

The most prominent symbolism remarked upon in Antiquity were the Gardens of Adonis. Women in Greece would create broken pieces of terracotta which had lettuce and fennel seeds sown in them. They would congregate from the rooftops of the city during the Adonia to hold up these tokens as a symbol of his resurrection. The deliberate failure of these plants to grow has been ascribed to a moral lesson concerning the inability of men to influence the fate of other humans, let alone plants.

Philosophically, Neoplatonist philosophers, many of whom were also priests or initiates, often interpreted the mythology of Adonis via their philosophical worldview, particularly as Socrates mentions the growth technique of the Gardens of Adonis in the Phaedrus as a by-word for shallow knowledge. The Adonis legend, with its theme of death and revival, was naturally compared to other mystery traditions like those of Osiris or Dionysus. Plutarch, the Priest of Apollo, noted that the resident Egyptians in Byblos linked Osiris to the local Adonis cult. Adonis was often compared to the lover of Cybele, Attis.

Adonis became associated with ultimate metaphysical Beauty and the ability to renew through divine right, an archetype of ascension and resurrection through the desire to . Porphyry linked Attis and Adonis to the life-cycle of plants: “Attis…is the symbol of the blossoms which appear early in the spring, and fall off before the complete fertilization… but Adonis was the symbol of the cutting of the perfect fruits.” Proclus weaved the inscrutable Adonis into his elaborate Platonic theology. In his Hymn to the Sun, Proclus syncretizes the tragic being with the solar divinity: invoking the sun-God Helios, he says “some praise you as Euios Attis in the depths of matter, whereas others praise you as pretty Adonis.”

The two Tarot cards representing Adonis are unsurprisingly the transformative cards of Death and the upright Tower. Death represents much of his symbolism of an event that will transform the querent from one state to another. The Yorkist flower on the knight of death's banner and blood red tassle on his helm is evocative of Adonis himself. The card represents in an abstract sense the fragility of life.

Just as Adonis was cut down by the boar, so does the Tower come to show the querent being struck to their foundations, as well as the King and Queen falling from the building. This event can mean a more encompassing disaster than death, but hints at the ability to rebuild, the shedding of the philosophical vessel.

LATER INFLUENCE

The story of Adonis, believed to cohere with courtly love, served as an inspiration for many writers during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The Romance of the Rose by Jean de Meun (1275) interprets the story as a moral command for men to heed the women beloved to them. Christine de Pizan’s moralist work Othea also contains references to Adonis.

Reproductions across Europe of the 13th century Ovide moralisé made the story quite famous. Later on, the most popular poem of Shakespeare during his and the master’s lifetime was Venus and Adonis (1593), while the tale is referenced in Edmund Spenser’s the Faerie Queene (1590). The popular poet Giambattista Marino created the most popular work of his time, L’Adone. Some of the most beautiful examples of Neoclassical and restorative sculpture are of Adonis, such as this work by François Duquesnoy:

The story of Tammuz began to attract attention in Renaissance England and France, however, darker examples continued to be tied to Tammuz who was considered a ‘demon’, such as in Book I of Paradise Lost by John Milton.

THEFT IN CHRISTIANITY

The name of Adonai was stolen for its properties in Jewish religion. Ezekiel 8:14 mentions Tammuz by name and considers the worship by women an abomination.

Much like Apollonius and Asclepius, the theft of Adonis attributes to build up the concept of ‘Jesus Christ’ was marked. Bethlehem itself was a site of the God’s worship. Even the cave in which the Nazarene dwelled as a child is said to have been the local chamber of worship for Tammuz and Inanna. According to Lucian, the water was said to run red with blood in the Adonis river during his holiday, which is now rather deliberately named the Abraham river, similar to several events in the Bible.

The theft of Adonis in the Jesus mythology was often noted in comparative mythological literature as far back as the Renaissance but was formulated most strongly in the argument put forth by Sir James George Frazer’s the Golden Bough (1890), which compared Adonis to numerous dying-and-resurrecting Gods of the area, including the so-called Nazarene.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Metamorphoses, Ovid

Hesiod

Fragment of Sappho [Hephaestius, Book on Metres]

Fragment of Pherecrates

Dionysiaca, Nonnus

Life of Alcibiades, Plutarch

On the Syrian Goddesses, Lucian of Samosata

Life of Nicias, Plutarch

Idyll XV, Theocritus

Lament for Adonis, Bion

Byzantine Suda

The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece, John J. Winkler

Phaedrus, Plato

Hymn to Helios, Proclus

Fragment 7, On Cult Images, Porphyry

Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins, Joan E. Taylor

The Golden Bough, Sir James George Frazer

Roman de la rose [second half], Jean Meun

Othea, Christine de Pizan

The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser

Venus and Adonis, William Shakespeare

L'adone, Giambattista Marino

Paradise Lost, John Milton

 

[Arcadia [NG]]

His blood-red flower, variably the anemone or wildflower, was associated with vulnerability to the winds and weather. The flower, like the Glory of God, can be witnessed only in brief passing.

Firstly, magnificent article as always, SG. There are some interesting things I would like to add, regarding the anemone flower. Even in eastern cultures like Japan, the anemone often represents transience; the twilight hour of the day, and the autumn season. It is these liminal times which are representative of a thinned veil between the physical and spiritual worlds. Another interesting bit of behaviour is the fact anemones will close their petals not only at night, but will even do so when conditions are overcast, like right before a rainstorm. As such, there are certain cultural connotations of the anemone is a flower of anticipation, linking it very clearly to the The Tower Tarot.

It's worth saying that, although a rainstorm may be destructive, it's also vitalizing and necessary for nature. Death and decay as functions themselves are also necessary parts of the life-giving cycle. Further, it's worth noting there is an aspect of The Tower which involves the shattering of illusions. Oftentimes, beauty on its own can be mistaken for lasting strength. Adonis, at his death by Aphrodite's side, was young, fit, beautiful and perfect, the last thing you would ever expect to die, though in failing to heed Aphrodite's truthful warning, he met his shocking end.

Even when it comes to the "smaller" aspects of the Gods attributes, like sacred animals and flowers, you will find the divine connections essentially bottomless.

 

[High Priestess Lydia]

I am bumping this magnificent work after moving it to this subforum, as our Novice Priest Karnonnos is now Clergy. Please, if you have not yet read these articles, do so. Always look to our Gods for guidance and inspiration

 

[Dragon fire]

Greetings, everyone. I will post all of the updated Gods and Daemons' section in this thread, including the older Gods' Rituals released prior to my assignment and updated articles with new information [such as the Tarot cards for Khnum, Asclepius, Forcas, etc.]. The title will be updated with each new addition.

MAAT

ANUBIS

AMON RA

FORCAS

ASMODEUS

JANUS

EOS

ADONIS

-----

Maat is the Egyptian Goddess of order, law, harmony, balance, and truth. She was one of the most pivotal deities of the Egyptian pantheon and had far-reaching symbolism, evoked in every corner of the society of the great civilization of the Nile. She was considered a divine representative of the legal system as a whole, yet also the dispositor of the seasons, the movements of the stars, and other aspects etched into nature itself.

At the heart of Egyptian law was Maat, the multifaceted term encompassing justice, truth, order, and balance. Maat was not merely an ethical ideal but a divine principle that ensured the functioning of the universe. Pharaohs were said to “do Maat” and “live by Maat,” and the Goddess of this name appears in temple reliefs, tomb inscriptions, and legal contexts as a living symbol of all it encompassed.


—M. Lichtheim

According to Egyptian cosmology, the Goddess Maat existed from the beginning of time, established by the Creator God (Atum, or most often Re) to ensure the universe functioned harmoniously. She represented the natural order that kept chaos (izfet) at bay. In the Heliopolitan Ennead creation myth, Maat was implicitly present as the principle that structured the world after the primordial chaos of Nun.

View attachment 8020

Maat was closely linked to the Sun God Re, and she was often described as His daughter. She accompanied Re on His solar barque as it journeyed through the sky and underworld, protecting Him from the chaos serpent Apophis. Her function as a guardian of all moral order was highlighted in this role, and Ramesside depictions often show the Solar God holding the feather of His daughter.

The idea was evocative of cosmic order in a more abstract way. In Egyptian eyes, Maat controlled the mechanisms of seasonal change, the movement of the stars, and the conditions of the air. New Kingdom theology cast Maat as the ordering principle that accompanied the Sun, hence her tiny but essential figure on the underworld boats.

Maat was one of the most visible Goddesses in public ceremonies. Her iconography became prominent in the era following Horemheb and reached a peak in renown during the Ramesside Pharaohs, when Egypt was recovering from the impious policies of Akhenaten. Her image remained adaptable throughout the progression of Egyptian civilization.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the scenes in which she is depicted often occur in royal contexts, such as the Temple of Seti I and the court of Thutmose I. New Kingdom iconography using her symbolism to reinforce order is blatant and clearly intentional. Ramesses III’s extension of his Temple at Karnak showcases the Goddess in many front-facing scenes in the First Court. Furthermore, the tombs of Merneptah, Seti I, Twosret, Ramesses III, Ramesses IV, Ramesses VI, Ramesses VII, Ramesses IX, and Shoshenq III feature her iconography.

A subtle aspect of Maat was the relative passivity and reverence of the Goddess in regard to the order she presided over. Maat was represented in the Weighing of the Heart ceremony. She was also often depicted linking the Gods or the Pharaoh with the recipient of a ritual. In the Amduat and Book of Gates painted on royal tomb walls, a small standing or seated Maat rides at the prow or walks before Re’s boat, guaranteeing cosmic order even in the night voyage.

Maat, along with Thoth and Seshat, was appointed as one of the head Deities of scribes (sesh) in Egypt.

In day-to-day matters, Egypt was governed by legalistic customs. Scribes were pivotal. The minor aspects of law, beyond the capital law and the law of the Pharaoh, were not identical to modern legal systems. Disputes on a local level would be adjusted in arbitration based on the circumstances of the individuals involved. Higher courts, with central or capital law codes overseen by the Vizier, could be appealed to if the judgment of these minor arbitrations was not satisfactory to the plaintiff.

The law was meticulously transcribed in Egyptian bureaucracy long before the scribes of China and the early modern societies of Europe began to do so. Thousands of legal documents survive, many from the village of Deir el-Medina, where workmen kept detailed contracts and trial records; the Wilbour Papyrus, which inventories land and tax obligations; the Abbott and Amherst Papyri, detailing tomb robbery investigations; alongside manifold marriage, divorce, and adoption documents from the Late Period and Ptolemaic era.

Scribes also ensured abuses of power did not occur and became important intermediaries between classes who had communication with the central courts of justice. In a sense, the scribe and the written word became the ‘glue’ between the different classes of Egypt.

The equation of the Goddess of justice with the legal system was to such a degree that the highest secular judge of Egypt was the Vizier, named formally as the Priest of Maat.

Judges would also be adorned with the ostrich feather. The judge of the High Court was the Pharaoh himself, who also swore to uphold Maat but delegated the responsibility.

In his Library of History (Book I), Diodorus Siculus offered an elaborate description of Egyptian judicial practices as they existed in the Roman period. He wrote that before a court session began, the chief judge would put on a golden chain from which hung a small figure made of precious stone, called Truth. The trials would commence only once the judge donned this emblem of the Goddess, signifying that justice was only to be administered in the presence of Maat’s power.


— Chapter 75, Book 1, The Library of History, Diodorus Siculus

SYMBOLISM OF MAAT
View attachment 8021

Maat is typically depicted as an idealized young woman wearing a single ostrich feather affixed to a headband. Tomb portrayals show her with the feather in hand when acting as an emissary of justice. Other Goddesses such as Isis or Nephthys could also be depicted holding the feather.

One of the major symbolisms of the feather concerns astral projection and the levity of the Middle Chakra, along with the lightness of the soul after departing the physical body. The Goddess is one of the major rulers of this part of the soul; its powers are barely understood.

The feather is evocative of the lightness and grace of Truth. As it is so light, it can be pushed anywhere and everywhere. It also points towards the pelican feather of Thoth. Knowledge is one of the many arms of Truth. Both Maat and Shu were symbolized by the feather alone, and the name for it in Egyptian was shut.


—Hieroglyphica, Horapollo

Much like in the English language, where a curious convergence of the word for “light” emerged in both weight and the property of light, the two ideas also shared an overlapping symbolism in Egyptian mystery. Maat was seen as a Goddess of the prism of light who representatively dispelled all darkness and ignorance.


Ostrich Egg and its Symbolic Meaning in the Ancient Egyptian Monastery Churches, Dr. Sara El Sayed Kitat

Often, she is portrayed with two wings, in a similar manner to Isis.

Scenes of the Pharaoh offering a small statuette of Maat to other Gods are extremely common, proliferating in sacral imagery up until the end of the Roman period. This type of symbolism was suggestive of the ruler of Egypt demonstrating that he kept Truth and the maintenance of the Laws alive in his realm.

Maat is often equated with Tefnut in aspect, who represents the creative principle in the fashioning of the world. She is depicted in this guise as the brother of Shu, a God closely related to Maat and Anubis. In her regular guise, she is considered to be the mother of Seshat. She is symbolically rendered as the wife of Thoth, although this is not true of the Goddess herself.

MAAT AS A CONCEPT

Maat as a concept was considered the mover of Egyptian civilization, and the reason for civilization to exist in the Egyptian texts was to promote a continually refined and evolving world of Maat that would propel individuals towards the Divine, compared with the brutality of lower nature.

Accordingly, the mechanism of Maat embodied increasing alignment with the Gods for those chosen to do so.

The Weighing of the Heart ceremony was the centerpiece of Maat’s role in Egyptian understanding. In the Ritual, the heart (ib) of the individual being judged was placed on one pan of a scale, with the feather of Maat occupying the other. Osiris was typically depicted as the ultimate arbiter of the process. Typical Gods involved in assessing the process were Maat herself, Anubis, and Thoth, but also Seshat, Meshqenet, and others. If the heart was heavier than the feather, it was thrown to the devouring beast Ammit.

Maat was often represented in a dual role, and the chamber of the Heart Weighing was often called “the Chamber of the Two Goddesses.” The reasons for this become more obvious when examining how Maat was viewed in Hellenic civilization. She was also accompanied by 42 Judges and lesser deities.

View attachment 8022

As is understood, one aspect of Maat as the feather and the law exemplified the lightness of an unadulterated soul versus the dirt, sins, and moral transgressions of an individual. The heaviness of the heart was bound up in testimony of certain truths relating to these areas of life, which the Gods could always hear. The dual pathway here was similar to Greek mores of the afterlife, like Tartarus and the Elysian Fields.

Abominable acts, unfathomable ignorance, self-rotting excesses, and evil-mindedness could make the heart heavy beyond redemption. A pathway of pure destruction without utilizing the principle of creation was the easiest method to end up in the maw of Ammit. In this is reflected Maat’s close association with Isis (Aphrodite), particularly the virtue of Balance.

Egyptian texts and instructional manuals associated with the Goddess repeatedly warn from the earliest point against using fear and excessive violence to control other believers. This is explicitly cited as an abuse of Maat, which will render those put under such a regimen as ignorant, imperiling one’s own soul but also that of others. The spread of fear and ignorance without due cause was another major transgression.

In an occult sense on the Zevist path, with spiritual cleansing, one becomes more and more light. Energy begins to hit the Crown when the Chakras are opened and flow unobstructed. The feeling of being pinned, tied, and weighed down dissipates altogether. Total ease of operating magic becomes attainable. The feeling of lightness is symbolic of being able to traverse everything with ease, and it can be considered the opposite of being bound or cursed.


—The Tarot and Spiritual Transformation, High Priestess Maxine Dietrich

However, one aspect of Maat that is poorly understood is a specific set of meanings relating to self-progression and apotheosis (making oneself a God). These meanings have been marred, as many Egyptologists cross-referenced the Weighing of the Heart with passages referencing similar symbolism in the Bible—distorted there to have a distinctly vulgar and lowbrow meaning. Maat is also equated with the butchered and blinkered understanding of karma from modern Hinduism, Buddhism, and the New Age movements.

View attachment 8023

The heart was not just indicative of its weight in relation to sins, but of the integrity of the organ in expressing proper selfhood and keeping the soul alive enough to desire proper incarnation. In modern culture, such a concept can be conveyed succinctly in stock phrases such as “following one’s heart.”

An individual whose whims are completely controlled by others, whose entire journey through life consists of cowardice in the face of malignancy, and who furthermore imperils the course of law altogether by doing nothing, could also be deemed an individual mired in izfet and apt to be devoured by Ammit—irrespective of how we may view this now.

Instructive texts associated with the Goddess, such as The Eloquent Peasant, demonstrated the correct way to act and not to allow insult or injustice to go unnoticed. Proper redress was seen as an important individual initiative.

A totally passive individual could be compared to a microcosm of a civilization that has gone seriously wrong and has become lawless by not using the arms of nature to protect what is valuable. Each person had a duty to uphold Maat, not only by attempting to refrain from doing injustice, but also by not submitting to it without challenge.

Here is a very important distinction to make between Egyptian religion and the endless martyrology of Christianity and other slave faiths.

Christianity preaches endless passivity and damnation. The botched and the natural losers in life always made for the perfect Christian, and the foremost representatives of our contemporary civilizations also compulsively preach self-appointed victimhood as the highest ideal, while the use of justice to protect the truly innocent is “nailed to the wall,” creating a situation in which genuine grievances can be mixed up with resentment and pettiness—to the point that many people are pulled apart by opposing forces. Chaos has appeared as a result.


—Instruction of Pharaoh Amenemhat I


—Insinger Papyrus, from Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature in the International Context, M. Lichtheim

Yet this did not refer only to this sort of individual, but even to those who lived charmed and pleasant lives full of distractions, such as a llfe lived harming no one else, yet in a sense doing nothing for the Gods, nor for themselves. Even this constituted a sort of erroneous existence if not subjected to philosophical and practical testing of life’s margins.

Most importantly—beyond the deluded and evil individuals of the enemy—this also applies to the ascetics of Hinduism, Taoism, and other religions that teach disengagement with life, pursuing only total adherence to slave-like spirituality with no mover to spur on development. The Gods themselves have smacked down the very few who managed to reach advanced levels while preaching total hatred of life. Egypt emphatically did not take the life-hating approach to spiritual development; the Black Land was a civilization of life.

In this is also a code relating to the Middle Chakra, plus the two signs of Venus and associated mundane Houses, particularly the 7th House. To allow just “anyone” in is to have the heart wrung by dozens of grasping and lustful hands; yet to allow nobody in is to fill the heart with regret and leave it to rot. Both hearts if beset with excess and deprivation could be devoured by Ammit or thrown to the Lake of the Fire.


—Insinger Papyrus, from Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature in the International Context, M. Lichtheim

In all these cases, the heart is rendered light. How could it be, when one is a free-falling and heavy anvil through life?

The truth is that making the heart fly involves hard labor activating aspects of the developing self. There are no easy shortcuts for such a process. Part of this emphasis on self-development to uphold the principle of Truth is why Maat has the ruling planet of Mars, which may seem unusual to those familiar with Astrology. The Gods directed me to passages of Thus Spake Zarathustra on this subject:


—Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche

In here is also the code for Maat’s symbolism of the Three of Cups, a card which she shares with the litigant of the Heart Weighing, Anubis.

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The card depicts three enrobed women lifting three cups to the sky in celebration, surrounded by abundant plants. This card typically conveys conclusions involving friendships, associations, and celebrations that can push an individual to the next level of their development. It tells individuals to be mindful of such festivities and not to allow themselves to be overwhelmed, but also not to turn away from them.

In the Three of Cups' visual symbolism from the Rider-Waite deck is an occult code for the three granthis, or knots of the soul, flowing unobstructed to allow the flowing of energy through the Chakras—an area of Maat’s powers that are touched upon above. This is one of the reasons the card was also known as "Relief" (Soumisement) from Etteilla’s day.

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It is not shocking that Maat’s symbolic Major Arcana card is upright Justice. The scales and the sword are held by an enrobed, crowned woman sitting on a throne between two pillars. The blood-red color of her robes and the curtain between the pillars are representative of the ruling planet of Maat.

Her gaze is total and serene. The upright Justice card shows that all actions have consequences, and if wrongness has been perpetrated, either you or someone else who has done you wrong will be held to account. In a more nondescript way, it is typically concerned with a matter where speaking the truth is a necessity or where the truth is revealed. The Justice card sometimes indicates that the fairest decision will be made.

Justice can also appear in a general fashion to the querent to describe certain activations and challenges of their life mission. The scales and the sword indicate that you could be in a process of assessment or testing to reach the next level. It can also signify being made to choose between two pressing matters that could have consequences regardless of your intent.

Sometimes, Justice can simply appear to remind the querent not to be overly demanding if they have done little to warrant it.

MAAT IN THE ENEMY CONTEXT

It is also known that the interloper Akhenaten distorted the concept of Maat to punish his enemies and to formulate a slave ideology. This is why Horemheb and his successors doled out extreme penalties for distortion of the concept.

Numerous Hebrew conventions existed to rip off the idea of the scales from an early point, such as the Midrash literature like the Kohelet Rabbah. Jewish literature links the judgment of Maat with Rosh haShanah.

The Zohar describes the “Chamber of Merit,” guarded by angels charged with “the scales of justice,” with merits pulling to the right pan, sinners to the left, and presided over by ‘Mozniya’—a badly formulated ripoff. The chief of the Hebrew scales also has two presidents in emulation of Maat. This passage also mentions the presence of Re, Thoth, and Maat on the “evil side,” who “seduce the world” and judge those who “come to be defiled.”

Such mechanisms attempt to prevent the Hebrew religionists from being judged in the same way as the “filth” of the earth—the non-Jewish peoples.

MAAT IN CHRISTIANITY

With the advent of Christianity, explicit references to Maat by name virtually disappear from surviving texts, as direct worship of the Goddess ended. Yet, an intriguing number of Coptic writings adapt or echo themes that were prominent in Maat’s cult, especially concerning the afterlife judgment, which also parallels the emerging concept in rabbinical literature.

One of the most illustrative is the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul (part of the Nag Hammadi library, 4th century CE), where the apostle Paul experiences a visionary ascent and, at one stage, encounters a weighing of souls. In this text, souls of the dead are weighed on scales by a divine figure to determine their righteousness—a clear parallel to the ancient “weighing of the heart” before Maat, placed in a Christian Gnostic framework.

Another example is found in a later Coptic saint’s legend, The Story of Butrus the Ascetic, preserved in an Arabic-Coptic synaxarium (medieval era). In this story, the miserly Butrus has a dream of his personal judgment, resembling the Jewish fear of “the other side”:


—The Story of Butrus the Ascetic, Jacobite Arab Synaxarium

Boethius, a late Roman author and Christian apologist, wrote a work named The Consolation, which drew on certain themes explaining the nature of order and attempted to hybridize Platonic themes with the Catholic Church that he served. This work represented an imaginary dialogue where Philosophy, personified as a woman (known as Lady Wisdom), argues that despite the apparent inequality of the world, there is a higher power and everything else is secondary to that divine Providence.

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Scene from Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, French School (15th Century)

It was typical to represent Lady Wisdom in medieval stylistic conventions as possessing two feathers or wings, taken from the stories of Boethius. Unfortunately, the popularity of this work triggered many of the major attempts by Christianity to co-opt Hellenic virtue and wisdom.

Through enemy demonology in medieval Europe, meanwhile, Maat was recast as the Demon named Morax, alternatively named Foraii or Marax, appearing to the conjurer as a bull who occasionally takes on the face of a man when giving advice to the wise:


—Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, Johann Weyer

Liberal sciences also represent a sort of code relating to Maat’s functions. Firstly, all liberal arts represent a desire for universal understanding predicated on the universal order. In medieval Europe, study of such matters signified the status of a free man who was expected to understand the virtues and codes of the society he lived in—hence the term liberalis, meaning “expected of a free man.”

Seven liberal arts—music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric, grammar, and logic—existed, reflecting the primacy of the number seven as the vehicle of karma and its central tie to Maat herself. These arts, particularly the trivium of scribes, were central to the study of law. While Maat remained demonized in grimoires or referenced blithely as the “Lady Wisdom” in medieval conventions, such arts were accredited ridiculously as belonging to the virgin excrement:


—Mariale in Evangelium, Albert of Cologne

The code of knowing astronomy by itself relates to the seasonal properties of Maat.

MAAT IN ISLAM

In Islam, the primary term for the “scales” used to weigh human deeds on the Day of Resurrection is al-Mizan, which was blatantly ripped off from Egyptian religion and not even veiled, unlike in Judaism or Christianity. This is explicitly mentioned several times in the Ǫur’an:



—Ǫur’an 21:47



—Ǫur’an 55:7–9

Muslim commentators were also strongly aware of Maat among the pagan Goddesses. They wrote:


—al-Khitat, Al-Maqrizi

The 9th-century historian Ibn Abd al-Hakam, in his Conquest of Egypt, recounts a possibly apocryphal tale: when the Caliph Umar was given the Pharaoh’s treasure, among it was found an idol or engraving of a woman with a sword in one hand and scales in the other, which Umar’s advisors interpreted as a representation of Justice.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Instruction of Pharaoh Amenemhat I

The Library of History, Diodorus Siculus

On Isis and Osiris, Plutarch

Hieroglyphica, Horapollo

Mariale in Evangelium, Albert of Cologne

Al‑Khitat, Al-Maqrizi

Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche

Maat: The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt, Mowlana Karenga

Insinger Papyrus, from Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature in the International Context, M. Lichtheim

The story of Butrus, the Ascetic, Jacobite Arab Synaxarium

Ancient Records of Egypt: The Eighteenth Dynasty, James Henry Breasted

Ostrich Egg and its Symbolic Meaning in the Ancient Egyptian Monastery Churches, Dr. Sara El Sayed Kitat

"The ancient Egyptian concept of Maat: Reflections on social justice and natural order", R.J. Ferguson

CREDIT:

Karnonnos [TG] (text)
Power of Justice [TG] (editing style, grammar and syntax)

This is really awesome
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Hail Zeus and the God's of Olympus!!