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Gods' Section [March 29th: Renenutet]
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Novice Priest Karnonnos
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Alexander666
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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
Temple of Zeus Guardian
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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:
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.
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:
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:
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:
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.
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
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:
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.
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:
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:
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:
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
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
Kouros Aionios
Member
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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.
High Priestess Lydia
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Excellent article, SG Karnonnos. Very enlightening as to what Lord Janus rules.
Novice Priest Karnonnos
Temple of Zeus Guardian
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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 heroic cycles inspired by 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.
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:
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.
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
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 heroic cycles inspired by 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.
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:
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.
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
Thank you so much SG Karnonnos! 
Priest - Alexandros Iowno
Head of Activism
These exceptional spiritual articles are to be seen as religious material and items of study, real study!
monomotapa
New member
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- Aug 1, 2024
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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
Member
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- Messages
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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.
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
Temple of Zeus Guardian
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2019
- Messages
- 1,458
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:
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:
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:
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 Yehuborim 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 Yehuborim-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
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:
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:
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:
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 Yehuborim 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 Yehuborim-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]](/data/avatars/m/2/2320.jpg?1720432497){kind=avatar}
Arcadia [NG]
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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
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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
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This is really awesome
Enjoyed reading it
Hail Zeus and the God's of Olympus!!
Novice Priest Karnonnos
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Tiresias contended with the forces of fate and necessity to become something divine. His story is representative of the strangest and most preternatural episodes in Greek mythology. A Theban by birth and said to assist that city for hundreds of years, he was one of the mystical prophets of Apollo, and people across Hellenic civilization attested to his strange labors that eventually led to the divine ascension of the serpent, becoming a kind of living archetype for the Great Work.
Numerous writers wrote about Tiresias at length. The story is formulated this way: the seer walks among nature, deciding in being incensed to strike mating snakes on Mount Cyllene or Mount Cithaereon with his staff, consequently, out of punishment or some other mysterious vehicle, he is transformed into a woman; after a certain amount of time, he strikes another set of snakes and is turned back into a man.¹ Due to that strange episode, he is always chosen as the one who can resolve a dispute about the sexes between Zeus and Hera. The most fleshed out of these origin stories is located in the Metamorphoses of Ovid.² The divine Jove, in good humor at a banquet with Juno, states that women are able to enjoy a greater pleasure in love, an idea with which she disagreed. To resolve the argument, he stated the sagacious Tiresias among humans must be able to understand “both sides of love”, as Tiresias had struck two snakes mating with his staff and was transformed into a woman for seven years, reverting to his manhood by the eighth when seeing the twin serpents and striking them again. When summoned by the two divinities, Tiresias took the side of Jupiter, making Juno so enraged as to physically blind him. Jove, taking pity on the seer, granted him the powers of mysterious divine sight.² ³
A variant myth is recited by Pherecydes concerning Tiresias and Athena at the spring of Hippocrene ⁴, but rendered more famous in Callimachus epic The Bath of Pallas.⁵ Tiresias, the son of Athena’s attendant Chariclo, is blinded for witnessing the virgin goddess naked when bathing. After Chariclo protests bitterly at her son’s treatment, Pallas compensates her by bestowing the power of divine sight on him. Athena also gives him the power to see eternally after death, a privilege very few have. Another myth attested by Apollodorus⁶ is that he died drinking from the spring called Tilphussa at night, and scholars assume upon this account that upon entering Hades, Persephone gave him the power of sight after death as told in the ancient Odyssey of Homer⁷, showing that the idea of his ability to see beyond mortality is ancient. Later myths give Tiresias even the power to not drink of the water of Lithi (forgetfulness). The poet Sostratus supposedly represented the lifecycle of the seer in an elegiac poem, as attested by the Byzantine antiquarian Eustathius⁸, but this work is lost. This rendition is said to be highly unusual in that the first incarnation of Tiresias is a girl who undergoes six subesequent changes of sex.
In Book XI of Homer's Odyssey, perhaps the most prominent case, Odysseus journeyed to the Underworld to seek the counsel of the blind prophet Tiresias, acting on advice from Circe to learn how to return to Ithaca. The prophet foretells a difficult journey, warns against eating Helios's cattle, and predicts the slaughter of the suitors.
Tiresias was said to intervene in several generations of Theban life, sometimes, again, as many as seven. In the famous play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, the unaware Oedipus, having seized control of Thebes after solving the inscrutable riddle of the sphinx, engages the seer in a demand to know what will alleviate the plague on the city. Oedipus was exposed by his father Laius of Thebes with his feet bound due to a prophecy from the Delphic oracle his son would kill him, but ended up being recovered and raised by a shepherd of Corinth. As an adult consulting the oracle himself, was told he must not go to his home, lest he kill his father and marry his mother. Thinking his home is Corinth, he sets off for Thebes, and at the Divided Way, he murders the vicious Laius after the latter attacks him. These events are hinted to be the cause of the plague. After an increasingly angry exchange due to Tiresias’ heavy refusal to state the cause, he mocks Tiresias as a mere worthless blind man, Tiresias reproaches the king for not having the sight to see in just what a dire situation he has encompassed himself in.
He emphatically claims that he is not here to punish, nonetheless, through his exceptional powers he can see the dictates of Apollo who is quietly designing the downfall of the Theban king.⁹ The irony of their exchange is deeply marked; Oedipus throughout the play is completely ignorant of his parentage, ignorant of the weight of his actions, ignorant of what choice to make, ignorant of the true conditions of his life, and so when confronting the seer, he is forced into a spiral of recognition from which he cannot escape. The psychic knower of fates, however, knows all and is pressed by his relentless and pushy hand, becoming something of a dramatic foil:
Oedipus Rex, Sophocles⁹
Seneca’s play on Oedipus shows a distinct contrast. ¹⁰ He does not know what will befall the king from the outset; it is only through gruesome Etruscan practices of divination that he is able to do so with the assistance of his daughter, Manto. The two characters are tied together symbolically in experiencing divine punishment through the text, such as the use of the word ‘ictus’ to describe Tiresia’s bashing of the snake and Oedipus weaponry in his suicidal ideation.¹¹ Both characters are given symbolic ties to Mount Cithareon. Interestingly, one Greek author mentioned that Tiresias was changed into a woman at a three-forked crossroad;¹² exactly where the unaware Oedipus kills his father Laius tragically and condemns himself.
Another instance where Tiresias appears is in Antigone¹³, also by Sophocles. The latter king Creon of Thebes, the uncle of Oedipus, decides to honor his grand nephew Eteocles, son of Oedipus, while deciding that the other dead son of the tragic king, Polynices, must be humiliated ritualistically in being thrown to the birds and creates an edict that he must not be buried. The curse is due to the brothers having driven their father out, as elaborated in an intermediate play, Oedipus at Colona¹⁴, but Creon shows his questionable pursuit of the law numerous times during that play by invoking "the will of the Gods" where it does not apply. One courtier, Antigone, conducts proper funeral rites for the corpse out of decency; Cleon orders her to be held in a cave where she will indirectly starve to death. Again, Tiresias enters and warns that the body must be buried as the Gods are becoming increasingly enraged, and he warns the king that the whole of Greece will soon despise him if this is not done. In the end, Antigone hangs herself, and the son of Creon, Haemon, stabs himself and then his father. His wife Euridyce also commits suicide, leaving Creon with nothing. It is implied the ultimate hubris is that Creon, initially ignorant of proper procedure like Oedipus, insults and threatens the prophet of the Gods when clearly shown that he is contradicting the divine will for his own purposes, committing Sahiburah.
On a lighter note, Lucian uses Tiresias as a stock character in his Necromantia¹⁵ and Dialogues of the Dead¹⁶, in both cases sought out by the Cynic philosopher Menippus. In the latter he mocks prophetic pretensions by consistently asking aggressive questions about Tiresias’ experience as a woman leaving the latter no choice but to defer answering while in the former, he asks Tiresias, the only seer among the dead, “who has the happiest life?” Tiresias replies the ordinary man does, and to not take things seriously.
SYMBOLISM
As has been stated, the trials of Tiresias are allegorical and laden with ornate symbolism:
Seere, High Priest Hooded Cobra¹⁷
Seneca the Younger’s own play on Oedipus interpreted his actions as a kind of heroism driven by moral ambivalence.¹⁸ Mere stubbornness, what the Stoa called “vicious constancy”¹⁹, is not necessarily analogous with the pursuit of virtue. Oedipus's unremitting desire in pursuing the truth arises from pride and fear. His emotional responses such his rage at Tiresias, his horror at discovery represent failures of cognitive assent. The great seer in Seneca’s renedition uses every tool in his arsenal to uncover the truth, showing his commitment to double checking and wisdom.
The impasse of Oedipus and Tiresias in Sophocles’ variation of the story, though laden with dramatic flourish, has a certain symbolic meaning. The former, whose name means “swollen foot”, is able to answer the riddle of the sphinx and to become a king, yet cannot understand himself. The Seer, on the other hand, has evolved beyond mundane sight; the cornerstones of his evolution are secure regardless of fleeting appearances. His eyes are opened; he can see all things from the position of a unified mind. Being ruled by the appetitive part and not the head, the foundation of the clever swollen-footed king at the height of his virility and power is built upon a lie that dangerously unfurls. This is deeply allegorical of all three Delphic maxims as woven by each author into the story as the first cause, and it is linked to the divine Apollo’s mastery over all prophecy.
As the High Priest said above, the story also shows the absolute necessity of integration of dualities in pursuing the Opus. Oedipus is so beyond the careful tying of the dualities that he infamously committed incest with his own mother by mistake, then, in dramatic opposition, ends up blinding himself out of fury by gouging out his own eyes, or, in Euripides' version,²⁰ with a vengeful servant of Laius doing the act.
His powers represent control over the Third Eye and its truest integration as a divining tool, in other words, how to use this force properly. Imbalance on the lower Chakras and other mental problems can cause endless issues with any kind of psychic faculty; they require grounding and proper harnessing of the lower realms of the soul to function properly. The stories of Tiresias also warn against taking any particular vision as an assured fact, because this may not be true. and the failure of oracles is not uncommon, Tiresias represents the highest stage where all failure is conquered.
Tiresias is represented by the Hermit reversed, which indicates a need to come back to reality and to community, to hold oneself accountable after learning. The reversal of the old seer is allegorical of the changes experienced by the deity. It can also represent isolation due to strange experiences others find unfathomable, an impenetrable wall. Sometimes it pertains to a situation the querent cannot see or will not take action on which makes them miserable. Being antisocial is also a large element of this card.
His representative card in the Minor Arcana is the Nine of Cups. This card has an undertone of indulgence that is well-won, a period of happiness, joy and beauty. It speaks to the necessity of trying to maintain some modesty in good circumstances. The coming together of the Three of Cups is tripled. Sometimes, the bitterer note of the card is a beautiful period that, nonetheless, may not last forever. Philosophically, the card represents the type of coherent integration that Seere shows in mythology, but it also can indicate it is time to pursue your other half, which leads to the scenario of the Tenth card.
ENEMY CONTEXT
In the Yehuboric grimoires and smut, the figure of Tiresias was turned into something else. As Seere, he does not appear in the Pseudomonarchia daemonum along with some others such as Vassago and Dantalion, but does appear in the the alternative Key of Solomon grimoire:
Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis²¹
The association of Tiresias with Pegasus and the spring of Hippocrene is blatantly marked in this text, as are his functions in presiding over everything related to the Third Eye and its proper use. Likewise, the ability of his to go wherever he pleases, as in his shadowy departures in mythology, is also referenced. This is one of the most blatant descriptions of any figure. The seal of Seere is in reality related to the occult Third Eye Chakra.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Melampodia, Pseudo-Hesiod
2. Metamorphoses, Ovid
3. Fabulue, Hyginus
4. Fragment 92, Pherecydes
5. Birth of Pallas, Callimachus
6. Library, Apollodorus
7. The Odyssey, Homer
8. Addednum of Homer’s Odyssey, Eusthathius (p. 1665.44ff)
9. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
10. Oedipus, Seneca the Younger
11. Tiresias between texts and sex, Charilaos N. Michalopoulos, Eugesta: Journal of Gender Studies in Antiquity
12. Metamorphoses, Antoninus Liberalis
13. Antigone, Sophocles
14. Oedipus at Colona, Sophocles
15. Necromantia, Lucian
16. Dialogues of the Dead, Lucian
17. Seere, High Priest Hooded Cobra
18. Making Oedipus Roman/Faire d’Œdipe une tragédie romaine, Gregory A. Staley
19. Senecan Tragedy as Response to Stoic Critique, Robin Leah Weiss
20. Oedipus, Euripides
21. Lesser Key of Solomon
CREDIT:
Novice Priest Karnonnos
Numerous writers wrote about Tiresias at length. The story is formulated this way: the seer walks among nature, deciding in being incensed to strike mating snakes on Mount Cyllene or Mount Cithaereon with his staff, consequently, out of punishment or some other mysterious vehicle, he is transformed into a woman; after a certain amount of time, he strikes another set of snakes and is turned back into a man.¹ Due to that strange episode, he is always chosen as the one who can resolve a dispute about the sexes between Zeus and Hera. The most fleshed out of these origin stories is located in the Metamorphoses of Ovid.² The divine Jove, in good humor at a banquet with Juno, states that women are able to enjoy a greater pleasure in love, an idea with which she disagreed. To resolve the argument, he stated the sagacious Tiresias among humans must be able to understand “both sides of love”, as Tiresias had struck two snakes mating with his staff and was transformed into a woman for seven years, reverting to his manhood by the eighth when seeing the twin serpents and striking them again. When summoned by the two divinities, Tiresias took the side of Jupiter, making Juno so enraged as to physically blind him. Jove, taking pity on the seer, granted him the powers of mysterious divine sight.² ³
A variant myth is recited by Pherecydes concerning Tiresias and Athena at the spring of Hippocrene ⁴, but rendered more famous in Callimachus epic The Bath of Pallas.⁵ Tiresias, the son of Athena’s attendant Chariclo, is blinded for witnessing the virgin goddess naked when bathing. After Chariclo protests bitterly at her son’s treatment, Pallas compensates her by bestowing the power of divine sight on him. Athena also gives him the power to see eternally after death, a privilege very few have. Another myth attested by Apollodorus⁶ is that he died drinking from the spring called Tilphussa at night, and scholars assume upon this account that upon entering Hades, Persephone gave him the power of sight after death as told in the ancient Odyssey of Homer⁷, showing that the idea of his ability to see beyond mortality is ancient. Later myths give Tiresias even the power to not drink of the water of Lithi (forgetfulness). The poet Sostratus supposedly represented the lifecycle of the seer in an elegiac poem, as attested by the Byzantine antiquarian Eustathius⁸, but this work is lost. This rendition is said to be highly unusual in that the first incarnation of Tiresias is a girl who undergoes six subesequent changes of sex.
In Book XI of Homer's Odyssey, perhaps the most prominent case, Odysseus journeyed to the Underworld to seek the counsel of the blind prophet Tiresias, acting on advice from Circe to learn how to return to Ithaca. The prophet foretells a difficult journey, warns against eating Helios's cattle, and predicts the slaughter of the suitors.
Tiresias was said to intervene in several generations of Theban life, sometimes, again, as many as seven. In the famous play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, the unaware Oedipus, having seized control of Thebes after solving the inscrutable riddle of the sphinx, engages the seer in a demand to know what will alleviate the plague on the city. Oedipus was exposed by his father Laius of Thebes with his feet bound due to a prophecy from the Delphic oracle his son would kill him, but ended up being recovered and raised by a shepherd of Corinth. As an adult consulting the oracle himself, was told he must not go to his home, lest he kill his father and marry his mother. Thinking his home is Corinth, he sets off for Thebes, and at the Divided Way, he murders the vicious Laius after the latter attacks him. These events are hinted to be the cause of the plague. After an increasingly angry exchange due to Tiresias’ heavy refusal to state the cause, he mocks Tiresias as a mere worthless blind man, Tiresias reproaches the king for not having the sight to see in just what a dire situation he has encompassed himself in.
He emphatically claims that he is not here to punish, nonetheless, through his exceptional powers he can see the dictates of Apollo who is quietly designing the downfall of the Theban king.⁹ The irony of their exchange is deeply marked; Oedipus throughout the play is completely ignorant of his parentage, ignorant of the weight of his actions, ignorant of what choice to make, ignorant of the true conditions of his life, and so when confronting the seer, he is forced into a spiral of recognition from which he cannot escape. The psychic knower of fates, however, knows all and is pressed by his relentless and pushy hand, becoming something of a dramatic foil:
Oedipus Rex, Sophocles⁹
Seneca’s play on Oedipus shows a distinct contrast. ¹⁰ He does not know what will befall the king from the outset; it is only through gruesome Etruscan practices of divination that he is able to do so with the assistance of his daughter, Manto. The two characters are tied together symbolically in experiencing divine punishment through the text, such as the use of the word ‘ictus’ to describe Tiresia’s bashing of the snake and Oedipus weaponry in his suicidal ideation.¹¹ Both characters are given symbolic ties to Mount Cithareon. Interestingly, one Greek author mentioned that Tiresias was changed into a woman at a three-forked crossroad;¹² exactly where the unaware Oedipus kills his father Laius tragically and condemns himself.
Another instance where Tiresias appears is in Antigone¹³, also by Sophocles. The latter king Creon of Thebes, the uncle of Oedipus, decides to honor his grand nephew Eteocles, son of Oedipus, while deciding that the other dead son of the tragic king, Polynices, must be humiliated ritualistically in being thrown to the birds and creates an edict that he must not be buried. The curse is due to the brothers having driven their father out, as elaborated in an intermediate play, Oedipus at Colona¹⁴, but Creon shows his questionable pursuit of the law numerous times during that play by invoking "the will of the Gods" where it does not apply. One courtier, Antigone, conducts proper funeral rites for the corpse out of decency; Cleon orders her to be held in a cave where she will indirectly starve to death. Again, Tiresias enters and warns that the body must be buried as the Gods are becoming increasingly enraged, and he warns the king that the whole of Greece will soon despise him if this is not done. In the end, Antigone hangs herself, and the son of Creon, Haemon, stabs himself and then his father. His wife Euridyce also commits suicide, leaving Creon with nothing. It is implied the ultimate hubris is that Creon, initially ignorant of proper procedure like Oedipus, insults and threatens the prophet of the Gods when clearly shown that he is contradicting the divine will for his own purposes, committing Sahiburah.
On a lighter note, Lucian uses Tiresias as a stock character in his Necromantia¹⁵ and Dialogues of the Dead¹⁶, in both cases sought out by the Cynic philosopher Menippus. In the latter he mocks prophetic pretensions by consistently asking aggressive questions about Tiresias’ experience as a woman leaving the latter no choice but to defer answering while in the former, he asks Tiresias, the only seer among the dead, “who has the happiest life?” Tiresias replies the ordinary man does, and to not take things seriously.
SYMBOLISM
As has been stated, the trials of Tiresias are allegorical and laden with ornate symbolism:
Seere, High Priest Hooded Cobra¹⁷
Seneca the Younger’s own play on Oedipus interpreted his actions as a kind of heroism driven by moral ambivalence.¹⁸ Mere stubbornness, what the Stoa called “vicious constancy”¹⁹, is not necessarily analogous with the pursuit of virtue. Oedipus's unremitting desire in pursuing the truth arises from pride and fear. His emotional responses such his rage at Tiresias, his horror at discovery represent failures of cognitive assent. The great seer in Seneca’s renedition uses every tool in his arsenal to uncover the truth, showing his commitment to double checking and wisdom.
The impasse of Oedipus and Tiresias in Sophocles’ variation of the story, though laden with dramatic flourish, has a certain symbolic meaning. The former, whose name means “swollen foot”, is able to answer the riddle of the sphinx and to become a king, yet cannot understand himself. The Seer, on the other hand, has evolved beyond mundane sight; the cornerstones of his evolution are secure regardless of fleeting appearances. His eyes are opened; he can see all things from the position of a unified mind. Being ruled by the appetitive part and not the head, the foundation of the clever swollen-footed king at the height of his virility and power is built upon a lie that dangerously unfurls. This is deeply allegorical of all three Delphic maxims as woven by each author into the story as the first cause, and it is linked to the divine Apollo’s mastery over all prophecy.
As the High Priest said above, the story also shows the absolute necessity of integration of dualities in pursuing the Opus. Oedipus is so beyond the careful tying of the dualities that he infamously committed incest with his own mother by mistake, then, in dramatic opposition, ends up blinding himself out of fury by gouging out his own eyes, or, in Euripides' version,²⁰ with a vengeful servant of Laius doing the act.
His powers represent control over the Third Eye and its truest integration as a divining tool, in other words, how to use this force properly. Imbalance on the lower Chakras and other mental problems can cause endless issues with any kind of psychic faculty; they require grounding and proper harnessing of the lower realms of the soul to function properly. The stories of Tiresias also warn against taking any particular vision as an assured fact, because this may not be true. and the failure of oracles is not uncommon, Tiresias represents the highest stage where all failure is conquered.
Tiresias is represented by the Hermit reversed, which indicates a need to come back to reality and to community, to hold oneself accountable after learning. The reversal of the old seer is allegorical of the changes experienced by the deity. It can also represent isolation due to strange experiences others find unfathomable, an impenetrable wall. Sometimes it pertains to a situation the querent cannot see or will not take action on which makes them miserable. Being antisocial is also a large element of this card.
His representative card in the Minor Arcana is the Nine of Cups. This card has an undertone of indulgence that is well-won, a period of happiness, joy and beauty. It speaks to the necessity of trying to maintain some modesty in good circumstances. The coming together of the Three of Cups is tripled. Sometimes, the bitterer note of the card is a beautiful period that, nonetheless, may not last forever. Philosophically, the card represents the type of coherent integration that Seere shows in mythology, but it also can indicate it is time to pursue your other half, which leads to the scenario of the Tenth card.
ENEMY CONTEXT
In the Yehuboric grimoires and smut, the figure of Tiresias was turned into something else. As Seere, he does not appear in the Pseudomonarchia daemonum along with some others such as Vassago and Dantalion, but does appear in the the alternative Key of Solomon grimoire:
Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis²¹
The association of Tiresias with Pegasus and the spring of Hippocrene is blatantly marked in this text, as are his functions in presiding over everything related to the Third Eye and its proper use. Likewise, the ability of his to go wherever he pleases, as in his shadowy departures in mythology, is also referenced. This is one of the most blatant descriptions of any figure. The seal of Seere is in reality related to the occult Third Eye Chakra.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Melampodia, Pseudo-Hesiod
2. Metamorphoses, Ovid
3. Fabulue, Hyginus
4. Fragment 92, Pherecydes
5. Birth of Pallas, Callimachus
6. Library, Apollodorus
7. The Odyssey, Homer
8. Addednum of Homer’s Odyssey, Eusthathius (p. 1665.44ff)
9. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
10. Oedipus, Seneca the Younger
11. Tiresias between texts and sex, Charilaos N. Michalopoulos, Eugesta: Journal of Gender Studies in Antiquity
12. Metamorphoses, Antoninus Liberalis
13. Antigone, Sophocles
14. Oedipus at Colona, Sophocles
15. Necromantia, Lucian
16. Dialogues of the Dead, Lucian
17. Seere, High Priest Hooded Cobra
18. Making Oedipus Roman/Faire d’Œdipe une tragédie romaine, Gregory A. Staley
19. Senecan Tragedy as Response to Stoic Critique, Robin Leah Weiss
20. Oedipus, Euripides
21. Lesser Key of Solomon
CREDIT:
Novice Priest Karnonnos
Imperator
New member
Thank you for the amazing work, Novice Priest Karnonnos.
Learning about the Gods and Their lore has been the greatest of epiphanies, and we must recognize that slanders cast against Them must be revealed and vanquished with the power of knowledge.
Hail Zeus, King of Olympus, and all the Aeonian Gods!
Learning about the Gods and Their lore has been the greatest of epiphanies, and we must recognize that slanders cast against Them must be revealed and vanquished with the power of knowledge.
Hail Zeus, King of Olympus, and all the Aeonian Gods!
WoadWarrior
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Another excellent article as always Novice Priest Karnonnos.
soulisbrighter
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Thank you for sharing. As we partake in his divine ritual for blessings.
Chrysallida
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Thank you for the wonderful articles NP Karnonnos!
I have been writing them down on my notebook, I want to keep all writings about the Gods and Daemons.
I have been writing them down on my notebook, I want to keep all writings about the Gods and Daemons.
High Priestess Lydia
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Thank you N.Priest Karnonnos for this insightful article.
These in particular, Zevists need to take to heart. Remember these:
These in particular, Zevists need to take to heart. Remember these:
Forgive me, if it's not an error, it's a problem of my understanding. Shouldn't it be that Haemon tries to stab his father first and then stabs himself?
It's just a coincidence but just the other day, I was watching a university lecture by a judge, which had been posted on YouTube, in which this episode from Greek tragedy was cited to demonstrate how long man has been questioning the difference between laws and justice. And how tragic it is when the two do not match.
Novice Priest Karnonnos
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Renenutet was integrated in every aspect of Egyptian civil life as the great goddess of sustenance and abundance, civilization, granaries, vineyards, judgement, fate and personal defense of the Pharaoh and the Egyptian realm. ¹ The Egyptian people adored her as a savior of agriculture and viniculture², in inaugurating the great harvest season of the vast empire., and for good reason, as she represented the abundance of the great yield being given resplendently to the needy, so celebrations to her were a common feature of life in Egypt. Just as much, however, she could represent a terrifying punitive aspect of leaving the land without life. Many of her later sets of symbolism are arcane and relate to the nourishment of the soul. The serpent goddess is the syncretistic combination of the Nebty, the two lady goddesses Wadjet and Nekhbet, who represented Lower and Upper Egypt respectively.
Stela with the Representation of Nekhbet-Renenutet – Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
Her role in mythology is distinct. From the ancient Pyramid Texts and as one of Egypt's oldest deities, she is considered to be the guardian of the Pharaoh, at least linguistically in function. The Utterances allude to her as the personification of the Renenutet garment, ³ the eye of Horus, which Egyptologists consider to be a particularly important vestige of royal symbolism in Egypt. By presenting the pharaoh with the divine attire, it is interpreted that she gave majesty with a form of prosperity that commands respect from the divine, not merely the mortal world. The eye also changes the fate of the Pharaoh. Elsewhere in the most ancient texts, her earliest secure textual footing is in the Old Kingdom funerary corpus where she appears as an aspect of the fiery uraeus, showing off her royal protection.
Utterance 256, Pyramid Texts ⁴
Utterance 622, Recitation of Pepi II Neferkare, Tending the Spirit as Osiris, Pyramid Texts ³
Renenutet is also described vaguely as having tools that nourish the ka (vital essence) of the Pharaoh, like her oil of jubilation.⁵ From a young age, the Pharaoh could count on her nourishment and support as a deity who protected him and the royal house. However, her role of judgement in this regard also applied to the Weighing Ceremony, on the basis that she who creates and nourishes can also take. To invoke her was not a joking matter. From the Middle Kingdom onwards, her links to ultimate fate become more apparent. The Coffin Texts⁶ equate her with being the god of fate Nehekbau's mother, and the Rifeh coffin inscriptions among these name her as the 'revered one. ' The New Kingdom Papyrus of Ani ⁷ shows her at the side of Shai and Meshkenet, being part of the divine contingent of the Weighing of the Heart. Variations of the Book of the Dead increasingly link her into that ceremony too.
The multidimensionality of her cult appeared to expand and become more marked during the New Kingdom era. ⁹ Major representations of Renenutet as a motherly goddess proliferate at that point of Egyptian history, which is related to her name meaning and cult title, She Who Rears. Increasingly, she became associated with her son, Nepri, the grain god, who makes up a majority of the scenes of her nursing children. She became associated with the ren or secret name given to the child,¹⁰ while bowls fashioned in the form of cobras were used for juveniles needing milk,¹¹ possibly for protective purposes. The amount of hymns about her specifically proliferate after the New Kingdom, or at least these are the extant examples of a much older corpus. Her hymnal repertoire indicates a particular need for the Egyptians for relief and centers the harvest season as most important.;¹² Elite women often tended to her cult publicly, which is evidenced in the amount of depictions of Great Royal Wives in adjacency to the cobra goddess in Egyptian sacred art. ¹³ Other evolutions of her cult existed in the New Kingdom corpus, such as the papyrus showing her delivering boxes of treasure to the sea and then sends a messenger bird to the Canaanite goddess Astarte.¹⁴ The depictions of the goddess in Theban tombs show her presiding over fieldmen in vineyards picking grapes and delivering them to her.¹⁵ On the early stela of Setau,¹⁶ the viceroy of the Egyptian-ruled Kush offers a libation and incense to Renenutet as a supplicant. Her cult also spread into Nubia.
In the primary, most immediate way visible to all Egyptians, the snake goddess was characteristic of all things relating to the harvest. The snake creeping in the fields represented the fertility of the soil in the minds of the Egyptians, but she was also felt to guard the granaries that grain flowed into, just like her sacred ritual states. The great agricultural festival held between the end of the month Pharmouthi and the start of the month Pashons, now understood to be in the middle of May, was dedicated to Renenutet as her eternal honor as the first day of the harvest season.¹⁷ According to evidence compiled from archeologists, it was also associated with the birthday of Nepri.¹⁸ It is said via textual evidence that widespread deliveries of rations happened on this date,¹⁹ perhaps indicating its immense importance to the Egyptian people. Thebes has tombs showing endless scenes of grain gathering with a harvest and granary offering specifically. More cryptically, in the literary text O. DeM 1265²⁰ from Thebes which has been undated, the month of IV Pharmouthi is described as the ‘one where all the gods are born’ and linked in context to the snake goddess. The festival customarily showed the Pharaoh as the child of the divine triad of each Nome.²¹
The Role of Renenutet in New Kingdom Temples: A Reassessment of Archaeological Evidence for a Cult of this Divinity in Archaeological Compounds, Julie Masqueller-Loorius, Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology⁹
Shrines and locales of hers have been noted to be located near granaries and important rural sources of sustenance. That indicates that Renenutet was considered to be a guardian of Egypt's agriculture at its source.⁹ Her cult in Thebes from surviving evidence clearly was not a small one, as one British Museum component of a naos, the EA597, describes the workman Inhrkhau at Deir al-Medina worshipping Renenutet “in the form of a serpent,” on the lintel of a small shrine structure that also includes other deities and prayers.¹⁹ Other objects demonstrate she was worshipped in a domestic and highly personal way there, through small household cult shrines, votive monuments, and offering formulae asking her for food, well-being, and moral-social flourishing connected to her role as providing eloquence. The evidence points to a goddess of the people who mattered in daily life, especially as a provider and protector. Like with many of the Deir el-Medina inscriptions, Renenutet is worshiped as a goddess of the household and the farm quite reverentially.
DO NOT CELEBRATE YOUR FEAST WITHOUT YOUR NEIGHBOURS, A Study of References to Feasts and Festivals in Non-Literary Documents from Ramesside Period Deir el-Medina, Heidi Jauhiainen ¹⁹
Her cult center was in the town named Dja²³ (Medinet Madi) where a large amount of inscriptions and texts related to her due to the 1936 excavation of the area have been recovered, dating from the Middle Kingdom onwards. Renenutet shared a temple at Dja with Sobek in his Shedet form²⁴ who is sometimes considered her husband or guardian. Construction began under Amenemhat III and was completed under Amenemhat IV of the 12th Dynasty.²⁵ The site is especially important because it is often described as the best-preserved substantial Middle Kingdom temple still standing in Egypt.²⁶ Architecturally, the original temple is a small sandstone temple with a columned entrance portico leading inward to a sanctuary of three chapels. One of the surviving columns bears the name of the patron Pharaoh Amenemhat III, the other that of Amenemhat IV. The temple is quite compact in size, but archeologists noted its importance due to the fact it shows an early axial sanctuary arrangement later familiar from larger Egyptian temples, making it a prototype for newer designs that would become more popular during the later periods of the New Kingdom. ²⁷
Medinet Madi temple
The royal nature is strongly emphasized in its internal design, alongside elements of fate, with the first chapel being dedicated to the cobra goddess. A foundation scene with the Pharaoh and Seshat is shown on the internal reliefs to the south,²⁸ while on the main reliefs the older Pharaoh stands before Renenutet, with his daughter Neferuptah also depicted in the scene as one of her maidens. The second chapel is dedicated to Renenutet and Sobek., while the third is exclusively dedicated to just her in accordance with the first's general character. In the Ptolemaic period, the temple was significantly expanded and given stylistic embellishments like a kiosk of eight columns. She has also been associated in name with Mefket (Tarrana, known to the Greeks as Terenouthis).²⁹
THERMOUTHIS
In Hellenistic Egypt, a distinct style of representing Renenutet emerged through the interpretatio graeca known as Thermouthis. Often this symbolism pertained to her having the already-Egyptian standard of a snake-like body and a human head, similar to the distinct symbolism of Abraxas and Chnoumis, but she could also be represented in the specifically Greek-style of portraying snakes. The cult of Thermouthis spread dramatically during Roman times and received much attention outside of Egyptian borders,³⁰ while this form of her was more directly equated with fate and with magic practice. She was often associated with the male Agathodaimon, as shown in an ornate bracelet from that age.³¹ In her relation to Isis, she was conflated with Agatho Tyche, or good fortune. Thermouthis provided good speech and the power to alter fate through the carefully-chosen word. Her words also reflected the ability to discern and tell the future, all kinds of premonitions and other matters.
At Dja (Narmut as it was called then, or Narmouthis in Greek), her temple as Isis-Thermouthis displayed larger levels of grandeur and attention during the Ptolemaic period where a second temple was built. ²⁵ Architecturally, it appears to have been smaller and plainer than the old Middle Kingdom sanctuary, but it follows a recognizably Egyptian plan. The building has a broad forecourt, then a hall or hypostyle hall, and at the rear three chapels; the central chapel has a niche at the back. ²⁵ The entrance faced north. Unfortunately, the decoration was never fully completed, and what survives includes unfinished relief outlines and a few carved figures near the façade and inner rooms. Its most famous relevance, however, are the inscriptions of Isidorus, a resident priest there.³² ³³
SYMBOLISM
Her name means both "to nurse" and "riches" in the Egyptian language³⁴, which makes many of the Old Kingdom passages above ambiguous. The priest of Isis from the temple of Isis-Thermouthis at Narmouthis gives a different etymology, claiming in the hymns accredited to him that her name actually means "the unique one".³²
Snake imagery was obviously persistent in the iconography of the goddess who was represented in particular as a cobra, because she represents the feminine side of the Kundalini force in its integrated, benevolent and sustaining aspect, while her sacred imagery has much to do with the wisdom of what follows when it hits the third eye proper and how the ascended indvidual is the field of grain for any true civilization. The serpent in Egyptian belief guarded the grain stores from pests and other scourges of human endeavors, central to her identity as a goddess who established civilisation. The vicious side of the cobra with its indicated in its ability to transform the tranquil Hathor into the enraged goddess Sekhmet, and the venom of the animal was also a key part of her symbolism, as she had the ability to ruin sustenance and create starvation too.
She could be represented as human with a serpent head or as a recoiling serpent on a plinth. However, Renenutet could also be represented in a fully humanoid form, much like her adjacent goddesses. In some contexts, Wadjet and Nekhbet are shown as supplicants to her, and like those Two Ladies, she is represented with the solar horn disk of Hathor and Isis. Much like Wadjet, she is often shown adjacent to Sekhmet, and the fact her temple contains a depiction of fate, Seshat, is not surprising. Most of all, she as associated in Late Egyptian contexts with the deity of fate, Shai. The historian Joyce Tyldesley summarizes the pairing very clearly where she says that Shai determined a person’s lifespan, while Renenutet determined material wealth.³⁵ She specifically connects this to the Late Period Papyrus Insinger tradition. They function as a conceptual pair governing the shape of a human life. The serpent goddess Meretseger was sometimes associated with her.¹⁹
As she is a syncretized form of Wadjet and Nekhbet who ruled over the two distinct regions of Kemet, she could be represented wearing the dual crown.
As Thermouthis, she is often represented with the sun disk,³⁶ a type of crown associated with Isis. The torch is her most important distinctive symbol, which archeologists have noted. It represents enlightenment in darkness and the cultivation of fire put to good use, the prerequisite of any civilization, but also relates to the serpent and powers of the third eye being sparked. Ears of corn³⁷ and and stalks could be represented in her imagery also, which in Egyptian contexts tends to be represented as Renenutet overseeing agrarian scenes of people gathering the yields of the field. The torch and corn symbolism also shows her association with Demeter and Persephone as a goddess of sustenance and intercession for the dead.
The Major Arcana card of the snake goddess is the Sun, the card of abundance, plenty and with symbolism usually relating to children and nourishment. The child rejoices under the Sun riding a white horse, showing some level of mastery at an early age over his mind. The abundance of the sunflowers sat atop a wall shows the prerogatives of civilization in creating beauty and bountiful rewards for its adherents. The red flag is somewhat snake-like as it coils around the attached spear. The card shows many elements of happiness for the querent, including fertility and the ability to sustain oneself with great rewards. Bune's traditional appearance of being glamorous also shows here.
On a darker note, her Minor Arcana card is the reversed Five of Wands, showing cooperation and the necessity of moving on from conflict. Cooperation is often needed for the querent, or some kind of strategy the snake would be proud of, of course. This can also relate to the advice of the afflicted after disappearing from something violent, something Renenutet on behalf of the dead is said to supervise as the one who allows the dead to speak from the Hall of Judgement. On the other hand, this can also indicate an escalation of aggression and to be wary and careful.
GOETIC SYMBOLISM
The Old Testament in its Greek translation from Hebrew rendered the Pharaoh's daughter as Thermouthis,³⁸ which is an example of confusingly co-opting a divine force for Yehuboric purposes and confusion on the part of this people during the time period. Josephus claims the maiden named Moses his sacred name, which is an obvious occult allusion to the ren. As she is his wetnurse, she is also his provider, and this is linked to the Pharaoh's daughter traditionally being the supplicant of the goddess. The reason for this is the same as above: Moses is placed under the protection of the divine aegis of the snake, which also becomes his symbol.
In the Goetia, she was called Bune or Bim which is related to one of her titles, Buto, but hints too at the name Nekhbet. The demon has three heads as a dragon (serpent), with the third being like a man, a reference to both Thermouthis and the Two Ladies. Bune is said to speak with a divine voice, bestow eloquence and to inspire truth. He is also said to make many devils assemble at graves and to greatly enrich men under his possession. Another entity, Myeob (Queen of the Fairies, simply Bim reversed), is explicitly described in the earlier Liber Officium Spiritum³⁹ a fairy queen who assists her husband Oberon.
Pseudomonarchia daemonum, Johann Weyer⁴⁰
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Richard H. Wilkinson
2. Renenutet: worship and popular piety at Thebes in the New Kingdom, Paolo Marini Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology
3. Utterance 256, Pyramid Texts
4. Utterance 622, Pyramid Texts
5. Utterance 73, Pyramid Texts
6. Coffin Texts
7. EA10470,3, Papyrus of Ani, British Museum
8. Book of the Dead
9. The Role of Renenutet in New Kingdom Temples: A Reassessment of Archaeological Evidence for a Cult of this Divinity in Archaeological Compounds, Julie Masqueller-Loorius, Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology
10. Remarks on the Four Renenutets in the Temples of Edfu and Dendara, Frédéric Mougenot
11. Playing with Fire: Initial Observations on the Religious Uses of Clay Cobras from Amarna, Kasia Szpapowska
12. Hymn to Renenutet
13. Sobek of Shedet: The Crocodile God in the Fayyum in the Dynastic Period, Marco Zecchi
14. Handbook of Egyptian Mythology, Geraldine Pinch
15. Grape Archaeology and Ancient DNA Sequencing, Maria Rosa Guasch-Jané, the Grape Genome
16. stela, EA1055, the British Museum
17. Древнеегипетский праздник Рененутет (The Ancient Egyptian feast of Renenutet), Alexandra Mironova
18. Calendars and Festivals of Ancient Egypt, Alexandra Mironova
19. DO NOT CELEBRATE YOUR FEAST WITHOUT YOUR NEIGHBOURS, A Study of References to Feasts and Festivals in Non-Literary Documents from Ramesside Period Deir el-Medina, Heidi Jauhiainen
20. Ostracon of Deir-el-Medina 1265
21. CHILD DEITIES/اآللھة على ھيئة الطفل, Dagmar Budd, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology
22. EA597 Naos
23. Die Toponyme vorarabischen Ursprungs im modernen Ägypten, Konstanz Carsen Peust
24. Gottesdiener und Kamelzüchter: Das Alltags- und Sozialleben der Sobek-Priester im kaiserzeitlichen Fayum, Benjamin Sippel
25. Medinet Madi, Madain Project
26. Egypt finds clue to ancient temple's secret, Middle East Times (citing Zahi Hawass)
27. The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt, Richard H. Wilkinson
28. I templi di Medinet Madi nel Fayum, Giammarusti Breschiani
29. Kom Abu Bello, Zahi Hawass, Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, Kathryn A. Bard (eds.)
30. Isis Thermouthis in the Roman World: some Data from the Italian Peninsula, Vito Mazzuca, Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology
31. Bracelet with Agathodaimon, Isis-Tyche, Aphrodite, and Thermouthis, the Met, Rogers Fund
32. Greek and Egyptian Hymns to Isis, attalus.org
33. Graeco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature, Translation, and Culture, 500 BC–AD 300
34. The Goddess Thermuthis, Moses, and Artapanus, Amorai-Stark Shua and David Flusser
35 The Handbook of Egyptian Mythology, Joyce Tyldesley
36. On the Endurance of Indigenous Religious Culture in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt: Evidence of Material Culture, Tiffany Chezum
37. RPC III, 6184, Roman Coinage Online
38. Antiquities of the Hebrews, Josephus
39. Liber Officium Spiritum
40. Pseudomonarchia daemonum, Johann Weyer
Stela with the Representation of Nekhbet-Renenutet – Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
Her role in mythology is distinct. From the ancient Pyramid Texts and as one of Egypt's oldest deities, she is considered to be the guardian of the Pharaoh, at least linguistically in function. The Utterances allude to her as the personification of the Renenutet garment, ³ the eye of Horus, which Egyptologists consider to be a particularly important vestige of royal symbolism in Egypt. By presenting the pharaoh with the divine attire, it is interpreted that she gave majesty with a form of prosperity that commands respect from the divine, not merely the mortal world. The eye also changes the fate of the Pharaoh. Elsewhere in the most ancient texts, her earliest secure textual footing is in the Old Kingdom funerary corpus where she appears as an aspect of the fiery uraeus, showing off her royal protection.
Utterance 256, Pyramid Texts ⁴
Utterance 622, Recitation of Pepi II Neferkare, Tending the Spirit as Osiris, Pyramid Texts ³
Renenutet is also described vaguely as having tools that nourish the ka (vital essence) of the Pharaoh, like her oil of jubilation.⁵ From a young age, the Pharaoh could count on her nourishment and support as a deity who protected him and the royal house. However, her role of judgement in this regard also applied to the Weighing Ceremony, on the basis that she who creates and nourishes can also take. To invoke her was not a joking matter. From the Middle Kingdom onwards, her links to ultimate fate become more apparent. The Coffin Texts⁶ equate her with being the god of fate Nehekbau's mother, and the Rifeh coffin inscriptions among these name her as the 'revered one. ' The New Kingdom Papyrus of Ani ⁷ shows her at the side of Shai and Meshkenet, being part of the divine contingent of the Weighing of the Heart. Variations of the Book of the Dead increasingly link her into that ceremony too.
The multidimensionality of her cult appeared to expand and become more marked during the New Kingdom era. ⁹ Major representations of Renenutet as a motherly goddess proliferate at that point of Egyptian history, which is related to her name meaning and cult title, She Who Rears. Increasingly, she became associated with her son, Nepri, the grain god, who makes up a majority of the scenes of her nursing children. She became associated with the ren or secret name given to the child,¹⁰ while bowls fashioned in the form of cobras were used for juveniles needing milk,¹¹ possibly for protective purposes. The amount of hymns about her specifically proliferate after the New Kingdom, or at least these are the extant examples of a much older corpus. Her hymnal repertoire indicates a particular need for the Egyptians for relief and centers the harvest season as most important.;¹² Elite women often tended to her cult publicly, which is evidenced in the amount of depictions of Great Royal Wives in adjacency to the cobra goddess in Egyptian sacred art. ¹³ Other evolutions of her cult existed in the New Kingdom corpus, such as the papyrus showing her delivering boxes of treasure to the sea and then sends a messenger bird to the Canaanite goddess Astarte.¹⁴ The depictions of the goddess in Theban tombs show her presiding over fieldmen in vineyards picking grapes and delivering them to her.¹⁵ On the early stela of Setau,¹⁶ the viceroy of the Egyptian-ruled Kush offers a libation and incense to Renenutet as a supplicant. Her cult also spread into Nubia.
In the primary, most immediate way visible to all Egyptians, the snake goddess was characteristic of all things relating to the harvest. The snake creeping in the fields represented the fertility of the soil in the minds of the Egyptians, but she was also felt to guard the granaries that grain flowed into, just like her sacred ritual states. The great agricultural festival held between the end of the month Pharmouthi and the start of the month Pashons, now understood to be in the middle of May, was dedicated to Renenutet as her eternal honor as the first day of the harvest season.¹⁷ According to evidence compiled from archeologists, it was also associated with the birthday of Nepri.¹⁸ It is said via textual evidence that widespread deliveries of rations happened on this date,¹⁹ perhaps indicating its immense importance to the Egyptian people. Thebes has tombs showing endless scenes of grain gathering with a harvest and granary offering specifically. More cryptically, in the literary text O. DeM 1265²⁰ from Thebes which has been undated, the month of IV Pharmouthi is described as the ‘one where all the gods are born’ and linked in context to the snake goddess. The festival customarily showed the Pharaoh as the child of the divine triad of each Nome.²¹
The Role of Renenutet in New Kingdom Temples: A Reassessment of Archaeological Evidence for a Cult of this Divinity in Archaeological Compounds, Julie Masqueller-Loorius, Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology⁹
Shrines and locales of hers have been noted to be located near granaries and important rural sources of sustenance. That indicates that Renenutet was considered to be a guardian of Egypt's agriculture at its source.⁹ Her cult in Thebes from surviving evidence clearly was not a small one, as one British Museum component of a naos, the EA597, describes the workman Inhrkhau at Deir al-Medina worshipping Renenutet “in the form of a serpent,” on the lintel of a small shrine structure that also includes other deities and prayers.¹⁹ Other objects demonstrate she was worshipped in a domestic and highly personal way there, through small household cult shrines, votive monuments, and offering formulae asking her for food, well-being, and moral-social flourishing connected to her role as providing eloquence. The evidence points to a goddess of the people who mattered in daily life, especially as a provider and protector. Like with many of the Deir el-Medina inscriptions, Renenutet is worshiped as a goddess of the household and the farm quite reverentially.
DO NOT CELEBRATE YOUR FEAST WITHOUT YOUR NEIGHBOURS, A Study of References to Feasts and Festivals in Non-Literary Documents from Ramesside Period Deir el-Medina, Heidi Jauhiainen ¹⁹
Her cult center was in the town named Dja²³ (Medinet Madi) where a large amount of inscriptions and texts related to her due to the 1936 excavation of the area have been recovered, dating from the Middle Kingdom onwards. Renenutet shared a temple at Dja with Sobek in his Shedet form²⁴ who is sometimes considered her husband or guardian. Construction began under Amenemhat III and was completed under Amenemhat IV of the 12th Dynasty.²⁵ The site is especially important because it is often described as the best-preserved substantial Middle Kingdom temple still standing in Egypt.²⁶ Architecturally, the original temple is a small sandstone temple with a columned entrance portico leading inward to a sanctuary of three chapels. One of the surviving columns bears the name of the patron Pharaoh Amenemhat III, the other that of Amenemhat IV. The temple is quite compact in size, but archeologists noted its importance due to the fact it shows an early axial sanctuary arrangement later familiar from larger Egyptian temples, making it a prototype for newer designs that would become more popular during the later periods of the New Kingdom. ²⁷
Medinet Madi temple
The royal nature is strongly emphasized in its internal design, alongside elements of fate, with the first chapel being dedicated to the cobra goddess. A foundation scene with the Pharaoh and Seshat is shown on the internal reliefs to the south,²⁸ while on the main reliefs the older Pharaoh stands before Renenutet, with his daughter Neferuptah also depicted in the scene as one of her maidens. The second chapel is dedicated to Renenutet and Sobek., while the third is exclusively dedicated to just her in accordance with the first's general character. In the Ptolemaic period, the temple was significantly expanded and given stylistic embellishments like a kiosk of eight columns. She has also been associated in name with Mefket (Tarrana, known to the Greeks as Terenouthis).²⁹
THERMOUTHIS
In Hellenistic Egypt, a distinct style of representing Renenutet emerged through the interpretatio graeca known as Thermouthis. Often this symbolism pertained to her having the already-Egyptian standard of a snake-like body and a human head, similar to the distinct symbolism of Abraxas and Chnoumis, but she could also be represented in the specifically Greek-style of portraying snakes. The cult of Thermouthis spread dramatically during Roman times and received much attention outside of Egyptian borders,³⁰ while this form of her was more directly equated with fate and with magic practice. She was often associated with the male Agathodaimon, as shown in an ornate bracelet from that age.³¹ In her relation to Isis, she was conflated with Agatho Tyche, or good fortune. Thermouthis provided good speech and the power to alter fate through the carefully-chosen word. Her words also reflected the ability to discern and tell the future, all kinds of premonitions and other matters.
At Dja (Narmut as it was called then, or Narmouthis in Greek), her temple as Isis-Thermouthis displayed larger levels of grandeur and attention during the Ptolemaic period where a second temple was built. ²⁵ Architecturally, it appears to have been smaller and plainer than the old Middle Kingdom sanctuary, but it follows a recognizably Egyptian plan. The building has a broad forecourt, then a hall or hypostyle hall, and at the rear three chapels; the central chapel has a niche at the back. ²⁵ The entrance faced north. Unfortunately, the decoration was never fully completed, and what survives includes unfinished relief outlines and a few carved figures near the façade and inner rooms. Its most famous relevance, however, are the inscriptions of Isidorus, a resident priest there.³² ³³
SYMBOLISM
Her name means both "to nurse" and "riches" in the Egyptian language³⁴, which makes many of the Old Kingdom passages above ambiguous. The priest of Isis from the temple of Isis-Thermouthis at Narmouthis gives a different etymology, claiming in the hymns accredited to him that her name actually means "the unique one".³²
Snake imagery was obviously persistent in the iconography of the goddess who was represented in particular as a cobra, because she represents the feminine side of the Kundalini force in its integrated, benevolent and sustaining aspect, while her sacred imagery has much to do with the wisdom of what follows when it hits the third eye proper and how the ascended indvidual is the field of grain for any true civilization. The serpent in Egyptian belief guarded the grain stores from pests and other scourges of human endeavors, central to her identity as a goddess who established civilisation. The vicious side of the cobra with its indicated in its ability to transform the tranquil Hathor into the enraged goddess Sekhmet, and the venom of the animal was also a key part of her symbolism, as she had the ability to ruin sustenance and create starvation too.
She could be represented as human with a serpent head or as a recoiling serpent on a plinth. However, Renenutet could also be represented in a fully humanoid form, much like her adjacent goddesses. In some contexts, Wadjet and Nekhbet are shown as supplicants to her, and like those Two Ladies, she is represented with the solar horn disk of Hathor and Isis. Much like Wadjet, she is often shown adjacent to Sekhmet, and the fact her temple contains a depiction of fate, Seshat, is not surprising. Most of all, she as associated in Late Egyptian contexts with the deity of fate, Shai. The historian Joyce Tyldesley summarizes the pairing very clearly where she says that Shai determined a person’s lifespan, while Renenutet determined material wealth.³⁵ She specifically connects this to the Late Period Papyrus Insinger tradition. They function as a conceptual pair governing the shape of a human life. The serpent goddess Meretseger was sometimes associated with her.¹⁹
As she is a syncretized form of Wadjet and Nekhbet who ruled over the two distinct regions of Kemet, she could be represented wearing the dual crown.
As Thermouthis, she is often represented with the sun disk,³⁶ a type of crown associated with Isis. The torch is her most important distinctive symbol, which archeologists have noted. It represents enlightenment in darkness and the cultivation of fire put to good use, the prerequisite of any civilization, but also relates to the serpent and powers of the third eye being sparked. Ears of corn³⁷ and and stalks could be represented in her imagery also, which in Egyptian contexts tends to be represented as Renenutet overseeing agrarian scenes of people gathering the yields of the field. The torch and corn symbolism also shows her association with Demeter and Persephone as a goddess of sustenance and intercession for the dead.
The Major Arcana card of the snake goddess is the Sun, the card of abundance, plenty and with symbolism usually relating to children and nourishment. The child rejoices under the Sun riding a white horse, showing some level of mastery at an early age over his mind. The abundance of the sunflowers sat atop a wall shows the prerogatives of civilization in creating beauty and bountiful rewards for its adherents. The red flag is somewhat snake-like as it coils around the attached spear. The card shows many elements of happiness for the querent, including fertility and the ability to sustain oneself with great rewards. Bune's traditional appearance of being glamorous also shows here.
On a darker note, her Minor Arcana card is the reversed Five of Wands, showing cooperation and the necessity of moving on from conflict. Cooperation is often needed for the querent, or some kind of strategy the snake would be proud of, of course. This can also relate to the advice of the afflicted after disappearing from something violent, something Renenutet on behalf of the dead is said to supervise as the one who allows the dead to speak from the Hall of Judgement. On the other hand, this can also indicate an escalation of aggression and to be wary and careful.
GOETIC SYMBOLISM
The Old Testament in its Greek translation from Hebrew rendered the Pharaoh's daughter as Thermouthis,³⁸ which is an example of confusingly co-opting a divine force for Yehuboric purposes and confusion on the part of this people during the time period. Josephus claims the maiden named Moses his sacred name, which is an obvious occult allusion to the ren. As she is his wetnurse, she is also his provider, and this is linked to the Pharaoh's daughter traditionally being the supplicant of the goddess. The reason for this is the same as above: Moses is placed under the protection of the divine aegis of the snake, which also becomes his symbol.
In the Goetia, she was called Bune or Bim which is related to one of her titles, Buto, but hints too at the name Nekhbet. The demon has three heads as a dragon (serpent), with the third being like a man, a reference to both Thermouthis and the Two Ladies. Bune is said to speak with a divine voice, bestow eloquence and to inspire truth. He is also said to make many devils assemble at graves and to greatly enrich men under his possession. Another entity, Myeob (Queen of the Fairies, simply Bim reversed), is explicitly described in the earlier Liber Officium Spiritum³⁹ a fairy queen who assists her husband Oberon.
Pseudomonarchia daemonum, Johann Weyer⁴⁰
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Richard H. Wilkinson
2. Renenutet: worship and popular piety at Thebes in the New Kingdom, Paolo Marini Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology
3. Utterance 256, Pyramid Texts
4. Utterance 622, Pyramid Texts
5. Utterance 73, Pyramid Texts
6. Coffin Texts
7. EA10470,3, Papyrus of Ani, British Museum
8. Book of the Dead
9. The Role of Renenutet in New Kingdom Temples: A Reassessment of Archaeological Evidence for a Cult of this Divinity in Archaeological Compounds, Julie Masqueller-Loorius, Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology
10. Remarks on the Four Renenutets in the Temples of Edfu and Dendara, Frédéric Mougenot
11. Playing with Fire: Initial Observations on the Religious Uses of Clay Cobras from Amarna, Kasia Szpapowska
12. Hymn to Renenutet
13. Sobek of Shedet: The Crocodile God in the Fayyum in the Dynastic Period, Marco Zecchi
14. Handbook of Egyptian Mythology, Geraldine Pinch
15. Grape Archaeology and Ancient DNA Sequencing, Maria Rosa Guasch-Jané, the Grape Genome
16. stela, EA1055, the British Museum
17. Древнеегипетский праздник Рененутет (The Ancient Egyptian feast of Renenutet), Alexandra Mironova
18. Calendars and Festivals of Ancient Egypt, Alexandra Mironova
19. DO NOT CELEBRATE YOUR FEAST WITHOUT YOUR NEIGHBOURS, A Study of References to Feasts and Festivals in Non-Literary Documents from Ramesside Period Deir el-Medina, Heidi Jauhiainen
20. Ostracon of Deir-el-Medina 1265
21. CHILD DEITIES/اآللھة على ھيئة الطفل, Dagmar Budd, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology
22. EA597 Naos
23. Die Toponyme vorarabischen Ursprungs im modernen Ägypten, Konstanz Carsen Peust
24. Gottesdiener und Kamelzüchter: Das Alltags- und Sozialleben der Sobek-Priester im kaiserzeitlichen Fayum, Benjamin Sippel
25. Medinet Madi, Madain Project
26. Egypt finds clue to ancient temple's secret, Middle East Times (citing Zahi Hawass)
27. The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt, Richard H. Wilkinson
28. I templi di Medinet Madi nel Fayum, Giammarusti Breschiani
29. Kom Abu Bello, Zahi Hawass, Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, Kathryn A. Bard (eds.)
30. Isis Thermouthis in the Roman World: some Data from the Italian Peninsula, Vito Mazzuca, Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology
31. Bracelet with Agathodaimon, Isis-Tyche, Aphrodite, and Thermouthis, the Met, Rogers Fund
32. Greek and Egyptian Hymns to Isis, attalus.org
33. Graeco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature, Translation, and Culture, 500 BC–AD 300
34. The Goddess Thermuthis, Moses, and Artapanus, Amorai-Stark Shua and David Flusser
35 The Handbook of Egyptian Mythology, Joyce Tyldesley
36. On the Endurance of Indigenous Religious Culture in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt: Evidence of Material Culture, Tiffany Chezum
37. RPC III, 6184, Roman Coinage Online
38. Antiquities of the Hebrews, Josephus
39. Liber Officium Spiritum
40. Pseudomonarchia daemonum, Johann Weyer
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Carnifex Law
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https://ancient-forums.com/threads/...iraculous-ss-partner.67872/page-2#post-324226
I remember saying many years ago the Book of Oberon entities were all real and the usual pack started attacking me as usual. At least now this type of behaviour will cease forever as there is no turning back when the Priesthood enforces this type of rigorous study. There are some things I admit Im having a hard time process since I still believe the Gods are actually white for the most part. But I really enjoy the reinforced rigour in occult study. I invite everyone to study the offices of the Daemons and spirits shown in the book of oberon which appear and are listed around page 200. Finally the TOZ immerses in actual occult and mystic study without the hangups of the usual narrative.
Carnifex Law
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Yeah Im reading the thread that is the link i gave above again and Im actually disgusted with the treatment I was given in those years. Its the same bs members with the all so mighty certainties always quick to engage in trying to discredit and deny knowledge that genuine members are trying to provide enthusiastically because we are followers of the Gods which are mighty avatars of life. Its incredible it was the same bs when I shared enthusiastically that I woke up the kundalini in 2016 which people did not believe because they expect this to be a cosmic event that creates a ripple through space time continuum. Its not its just an incredibly burning energy that makes you suffer and slowly your body adapts by burning and tuning the back centers along the spine. Interesting I came across an image the other day that had a message "you grew into the sentinel that has been dreamed" and I got emotional because the one place that I thought was the most embracing for sharing spiritual knowledge I always got nothing but hostility apart from the priesthood which has always been exemplary and welcoming and are actually flexible in their studies and HP Metathron sent me a message last year on Hall of Osiris encouraging me regarding my experiences with the burning serpent. Bless them and their reforms and may they continue their holy mission with religious fervor.
Carnifex Law
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In the kundalini awakening thread I was literally ganged up by the tribe, If it wasnt for HPS Lydia stepping in my account would for sure be ostracised by the gang. At least learn something from the latest updates and dont be so quick in the future to disprove anything without processing information and making an occult approach with an actual open eye.
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