Hear the words of your people! May they be pleasing to you!

Courtney wrote the following in response to my post It’s important to prepare yourself:

When I tried to describe this to my husband, he said it sounded less like a religious ritual and more like a stupid frat boy prank. He also said he doesn’t understand how being afraid has anything to do with liberation. Would you care to comment on this?

Great question!

Objectively there is no difference whatsoever between the initiation rite I described and a stupid frat boy prank.

Subjectively, however, they are worlds apart.

Ever go through something with a friend and afterwards as you’re comparing notes it slowly starts to sink in that your accounts don’t quite line up? How can you recall the same sequence of events so differently? It’s because what we bring to an encounter determines what we take away from it. Our brains are wired to find associative patterns in the constant barrage of random phenomena that makes up life and this in turn helps us navigate through our world. A lot of things influence how we form those patterns but one of the strongest is culture, particularly the stories that shape and express a culture. These stories not only inform our values and behavior but are the very substance out of which our choices are made.

A person who is raised from infancy surrounded by a vital living tradition where the stories are passed down from generation to generation and shared by the whole community, stories so well known that a person need only make the slightest allusion for the rest of it to rise up from the well of memory is going to see and interact with his surroundings in a way that someone reared with different stories or no stories at all simply would not.

As an example – what would you say if I invited you to attend a Thyestean feast?

If you know your Classics and aren’t a cannibal you’re probably going to turn me down but if not, boy are you in for a surprise!

Even more relevantly, through their stories people have recorded what it’s like to encounter gods and spirits, giving us a sense of these beings’ personalities and behaviors, how we can recognize and communicate with them, the etiquette of such interactions, etc. so that we can use all of this as a framework during our own encounters and afterwards when we try to make sense of the experience.

As I showed in a later post each step I described was taken from ancient accounts of the enthronismos ceremony and the mythology associated with it. If this information is in the person’s head while those things are happening to them each act will take on special significance causing them to respond to the stress triggers radically differently from someone who went into it with a blank slate. Having personally gone through it will also change their relationship to that material – it will take on a new life within them: they will know that the myths are real because they have lived them after a fashion, which is going to spill out into how they interpret everything that happens to them afterwards.

As for the second part of Courtney’s husband’s question – I don’t think liberation is possible without the involvement of fear.

Everything in our hi tech modern secular capitalist culture seems devised to make us numb, apathetic and disconnected – disconnected not just from the gods and spirits and the world and other people, but from ourselves and especially our physical bodies and our emotions. There are folks clamped so tight that they’ve never danced or screamed in their life. Every authentic impulse within them has been deeply, deeply repressed.

Fear has a way of cutting through all the stifling walls of ego and societal pressure to reveal us at our most vulnerable, primal core. Once the crack appears all that pent-up toxic shit can spill forth leaving room for the good stuff to take its place.

Furthermore, fear is always present when we approach the threshold of liberation. Fear of what other people will say, fear of all the things we risk losing, fear that we’re making a horrible, irredeemable mistake and countless other fears swarm about us in that decisive moment.

You embrace your fear or you pass through it and the choice you make is the person you become.

But you never really know who you are until you’ve been pushed to your limits – and beyond.

Dionysos exists at the extremes – we must be willing to travel far to find him.

There’s now a place for akousmatikoi of the thiasos of the Starry Bull to gather on Facebook for networking, discussions of the divinities, lore and practice of our tradition as well as sharing personal experiences and whatever else people do on social media sites. This is being run and moderated by my appointed deputies Michael Sebastian Lùx and Narkaios Alepou so treat them well or you’ll have to answer to me and everyone knows that I’m a vicious bastard when crossed. Seriously though, if these guys hadn’t stepped up like this it wouldn’t be happening so we all owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ThiasosOfTheStarryBull/

I’m really excited to see what the akousmatikoi will do with this opportunity. Traditions thrive or die because of the people in them – and I have a very good feeling about this tradition’s prospects.

I am blown away by the outpouring of prayers, poetry and heartfelt expressions of devotion you guys have been posting for the gods and spirits of our tradition.

I know for me, personally, adopting this cycle has been really beneficial, encouraging me to keep focused on them throughout the day in a number of small ways. On top of that every time something has come through from one of you it’s put them in my thoughts and let me experience something of them through you – and that’s been really cool. So thanks.

One thing that I want to maintain with the thiasos (at least at this stage) is its flexibility. No one’s obligated to do anything, no one’s going to come checking up on you and you’re free to express your devotion in whatever way you feel called to. That leaves room for inspiration, creativity and flow – all essential components of the way we do ritual.

I’ll make suggestions and you decide if you want to play along.

Each Thursday I’m going to post a devotional challenge that will take effect on Sunday with the start of a new weekly cycle. It’ll be something small you can do each day to meet your requirement or something done in addition to regular ritual practice for them.

This week’s challenge: come up with three devotional activities for each of our divinities and share them with the group, either in the comments here or at the Facebook page. While you could come up with all of them at once I’d actually recommend setting aside some time for each of the gods or spirits on their day and see what occurs to you either by thinking deeply about them and their associations or putting yourself in an open state and just seeing what comes through.

And yes, I will be ruthlessly exploiting your suggestions for future challenges. I’ve got a ton of brilliant ideas – but you know what, so do you guys! So let’s see what we can come up with together.

Something else that I’m really enjoying are the responses to the polytheist meme that Galina came up with.

First up, here’s her own response to question #3:

My life has been hard. Without going into details, I’m leaving it at that. It has been very hard. Throughout, the Gods and ancestors have supported and seen me through, not only with the gift of Their Presence but by actual physical sustenance – the unexpected windfall, the banishing of an illness, the lining up of chance to create a sliver of opportunity, the direct advice that helped me to better my circumstances, the guidance when I sought it out, and the protection. I am still here because of Them.

Here is Melia’s response to question #2:

The only way to increase blessings is to strengthen relations with the divine. This is done through prayer, offerings and the giving of time and attention. This is done by living rightly which doesn’t always match with cultural norms. This is done by never hiding one’s light or denying one’s truth. This is not the same as flaunting your beliefs but it does mean living your beliefs and standing firm when society, family or friends back you into the proverbial corner.

Here is Aine’s response to question #1:

Wealth is not something our religion shuns. the Clarene pushed me to get skills and a degree in a job that would be both stable and provide a good about of money. This is the reason I’m pursuing a paralegal career – it is less stressful than being a lawyer, but it also provides a good amount of compensation that I can then put into both living in one of the sacred cities in the faith and saving up enough money to found a temple. Money is not seen as able to corrupt, simply by existing, religious forces.

Here is Dver’s response to question #3:

I would have been lost many times over if it were not for the life’s work my spirits have set for me. Over and over again, I can come back to that as my center, my reason for being, no matter what else changes (and oh, so very much has changed). It is a gift that I have not given nearly enough thanks for.

Here is Joshua’s response to question #2:

I would say the main thing in my tradition is living rightly according to the values of the gods you honor, and doing their work in the world. We all have different gods, and the gods have different values, so there isn’t one specific aspect of living rightly that is strictly mandatory of all people. I primarily honor Frey – he highly values the health of the land and the wholesomeness of the food we eat, so for me, eating in ways that I think Frey approves of opens me up to his blessings. One of Hela’s values is to never waste things, so when I repair something that I could more easily and cheaply replace, I open myself to her blessings. I know people who honor deities of certain crafts, and they open themselves to blessings by buying and appreciating finely crafted items that were made with skill and purpose.

Here is Witchfire’s response to question #1:

I think the better question would be, what haven’t They brought? I mean, They’ve taught me important life lessons, confidence, faith, compassion, control, inspiration, perseverance, home skills, peace, a need to be true to myself, a desire to be a better person. All done through their own examples, through Their tough lessons, through pushing me, through Their guidance, love, and protection. I’ve been given these things throughout my life, or at least the majority of my life. To count my blessings, so to speak, would take a while!

Sunday is the noumenia of Eleutherion (going by the month-names of my idiosyncratic calendar – which I guess is now the official calendar of the thiasos of the Starry Bull) and I intend to make offerings on behalf of the community and perform divination. So if there’s something you’d like me to divine on or a petition you’d like made on your behalf, drop me a line at sannion@gmail.com before the 7:00pm EST on Sunday and I’ll add you to the list. The night before being Hekate’s deipnon, I’m thinking of trying out Michael’s koulourakia recipe as an offering to the souls of the restless dead who follow in her train.

Eleutherion means the month of breaking free, and I intend to start it off right.

Hear the words of your people! May they be pleasing to you!

Seeing this story on the Wild Hunt about the closure of yet another pagan community center I was reminded of this oratorical exercise I wrote a while back, Against those who fetishize the building of temples.

I often imagine what it must have been like to hear Demosthenes or Cicero addressing the law-court or better yet Diogenes or Hipparchia mounting their podium and letting loose on a crowd at the market. Sometimes I imagine myself doing the same thing today. And so, dear readers, here is my attempt at a proper Classical διατρίβω. For a more sober reflection on the topic, with carefully constructed arguments and ample source material to back it up, I direct you to my previous essay Greco-Egyptian Domestic Worship. Also, many of the Dionysian allusions of this piece can be found in Eternal Bacchus.

“Build the temple! Build the temple!” So goes the periodic cry of the pagans. “We need buildings and land of our own and all the proper infrastructure if we’re ever going to be taken seriously as a religion. Bylaws and tax exemption, priests to counsel us in times of need and large congregations of lay people who attend services regularly or maybe just on certain special occasions like holidays and marriages and funerals. We want them to think we’re just like them, after all, so it’s best not to come off as too religious. Once we’ve got the respectability conferred by government recognition then, maybe, they won’t hate us anymore.”

Maybe. But that won’t make them hate us any less. We aren’t them and we shouldn’t want to be them. Deep down they don’t want to be them either — at least the sensible ones among them don’t. When Christianity allied itself with temporal power it had to forsake everything that made it unique and valuable in the process, except on the margins where it lingered on as a superstitious remnant. Institutional Christianity today is a relic of bleached bones, an empty system of pat morality and stifling regulations that offers only a sanitized and impotent vision of what it is to be human.

And you want to emulate that?

Thanks, but I’ll be having none myself. I know my place and it’s out on the margins with the witches, the faggots, the cross-dressers, the mystics, the drunkards and the artists. Out where you can be yourself and hear the voices of the spirits more clearly, where you can devote yourself completely to your art, whatever that happens to be. Give me fire and feasting and dancing; give me masks and frenzy and the magic of a world where trees and rocks and rivers are alive and join in our celebration. Yes, give me that! It is more than sufficient for my needs.

Now, I have nothing against temples. There’s a Hindu saying that the man who builds a temple for his god eradicates the karma of a thousand lifetimes with that single act. And I believe it.

But all things must happen in their proper time, in the proper order. When you have to struggle to find more than five people to worship with, that is not the time to be thinking about building a house for your god.

The work that needs to be done now is growing a community. When every festival begins with a massive procession down the streets — then it is time to consider such things. Until then keep alive the memory of the gods through your words and through your rites, however humble they may be. Tend to the gods of your home and honor the spirits of the place where you live. Mark the passage of the seasons, celebrate the anniversaries of important events and spend as much time as you can outdoors, exploring the world around you. Know who you are and act accordingly. Support those in your community. Nurture the next generation who will replace you. Treat all suppliants graciously. Let every aspect of your life speak well of what you love. Do this and you will have a true religion, temple or no. Without all of this in place what good is a temple anyway?

Will the god just sit alone in his house, with no one to adore him?

And if you should succeed in building a temple — what then? You’ve got a single temple but there are hundreds of gods. Thousands, even. Much work remains.

For instance, the work of keeping the temple holy and alive, a fitting habitation for the divine. Do you have the men and women who are properly trained to carry out this work? Those who know how to draw the divine pneuma down with their songs into the image carefully crafted by artists’ hands to the specifications laid out by the seers? Those who know how to dress and feed and care for all of the needs of the enlivened image every single day, many times a day? Those who know how to pacify its mighty heart when something goes wrong? Do you have those skilled in cutting the throats of beasts, those who can read the signs manifest in the bloody organs, those who live with the mythology and customs of their people etched in their minds? Do you have even the humble neokoros to sweep the floors and collect the flowers and candles and other votives after the throng of pilgrims have left?

You don’t? Then why on earth are you trying to do this? Do you want the gods to become wroth when their ceremonies are misperformed, their abode defiled through negligence and ignorance? And if you answer, “My gods don’t care about such things, they wouldn’t get mad over such a trivial slight.” Then why are you even bothering to dream of building a temple? Is it for the gods or for you?

And let me tell you something else, the real reason why I do not support the building of new temples in this present age: there are records of scattered Dionysian groups as late as the ninth century.

Not reconstructions like Westlake’s Woodcraft Chivalry or the bacchanals of the Hellfire Club, nor mere appropriations of Dionysiac imagery as when the Byzantine emperor staged a triumph with revelers costumed like satyrs and nymphs attending him as he rode through the great basilica on the back of a donkey to shame the greedy patriarch and his scheming, overbearing mother.

No, these were genuine survivals from antiquity as late as the ninth century!

Nine hundred years after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, six hundred years after Constantine saw the sign to conquer, four hundred years after Justinian and Theodosios proclaimed the closing of the temples and the death of paganism — and there were still Dionysians.

How?

They learned the lessons of history, they left the temples behind to run wild in the woods, howling their drunken prayers to the god under the dark night sky.

Oh, there were still Dionysian temples, don’t get me wrong. When the monks came in from the desert fired by holy zeal to wage war on stone blocks and beautiful statues, killed the priests and carried the tokens of the Bacchic mysteries out into the streets to be mocked and corrupted by uninitiate eyes, all Alexandria was consumed in a maelstrom of madness and violence. Many a martyr was made that day in divine retribution. But the temples had long since ceased to be the primary outlet for Dionysian worship. Even in the days when the wife of Athens’ king married the god in the ox-shed, private cultic associations flourished. Thiasoi, orgeones, phratries, collegia, technitai or simply bakchoi or dionusiake, those who belong to him — they went by many names and worshiped the god with diverse rites, unofficial, unaffiliated, unattached to the state and its structures. This is how they survived. You cannot kill what you cannot find. Instead of gathering in one place, at a single temple, they scattered to the wind, blending in with the scenery but keeping love for Lusios strong in their hearts.

Long before Saint Stephen got stoned the pagan authorities tried to crack down on the excesses of the Bacchic cult. Ptolemy Philopator, for instance, attempted to reform the various groups under his dominion in Egypt. His grand vision was to bring them all together, united under his own spiritual hegemony so that each cell operated from the same hieros logos and conducted their ceremonies in the same fashion that he did. He failed. And so did the Roman senate a little more than a generation later when they sought to root out the superstition of the vine planted in Italian soil by a wandering Greek poet-magician. Philopator used persuasion and the awe of his crown to compel the radical Bacchants into conformity but the Romans, a more practical people, used their swords and crosses and lawsuits to crush them. Though hundreds lost their lives to gain a seat at the bridal feast of Ariadne, the rest grew canny as the serpents they carried in worship and sought solace underground. In the dark they thrived and outlasted their enemies and even the enemies of their enemies.

The Christians were wise to target the temples. The temples were the life of their community and when they fell the people were left with little choice but to fill the void with Christianity. The gods of the state were fed by the state so when the funds stopped flowing in the gods grew hungry and their homes fell into disrepair. Eventually even private individuals who had kept the temples going in the aftermath of the empire’s conversion to atheism were barred from carrying out sacrifices and sponsoring the sacred feasts and pageants. Torture and death awaited all who defied the unjust law. Eventually the Christians strangled their opponents into submission and baptized all who remained.

Except the Dionysians out in the wilderness.

You may cut back the vine over and over again, but it always comes back. Lykourgos learned this the hard way and so did the prelates of the Church.

Hysterically they may shout, Forbidden are the Brumalia, the Bota, and the diabolical festivities on the Kalends of January when shameless men dress as women and the young dance the Stag and the Goat. No longer will you put on the mask of the Satyr as you tread the grapes in the vat. Let the name of Bacchus never more be upon your lips at harvest time! Only Christ shall you praise with a loud and fervent voice! But it did no good. Convene as many councils as you like, pass a thousand laws and send out your gestapo to enforce them — you will succeed in quieting the ardent ones for a short time only. Others, elsewhere, at another time, will rise up to join their voices to the dithyrambic chorus. So it was and so it will always be.

We Dionysians are headless and free.

We know how to become invisible.

We know how not to make ourselves a target, how to keep running and dancing and hunting without ever getting caught.

Find a tree and hang a mask from it. Light candles and incense and pour out the good wine. Offer meat still bloody to the god with your hands. Play the pipe, bang the drum and sing as loudly as you can. Go mad and be lifted out of yourself. This is how we worship, and it leaves little trace for others to find. His temple is any land that has been sanctified by our dancing feet. Which is as it should be. Because that ensures that there will always be Dionysians to worship him.

Reading through Julian Betkowski’s latest post I was dismayed to hear that people are warning him against associating with the likes of Galina and myself and others are considering not attending the Polytheist Leadership Conference because of our involvement, even though they might ordinarily have very much wanted to. Though this dismays me it doesn’t surprise me in the least – in fact the only thing I find surprising is that it’s taken this long to come up.

My advice to such people – stay the fuck home. If you don’t have the maturity and commitment to see your tradition flourish to put aside personal differences you have no business attending and in fact I’d go so far as to say that you’re a large part of the problem. These sorts of childish antics are precisely what killed the Hellenic Revival Gathering, which was as close as that community had come to pulling something like this off since a bunch of us got together at Pantheacon back in 2006. And they got pretty damn close, too, thanks to the efforts of Monte and Thessaly Temenos until all of the rumor-mongering, conniving, back-stabbing and “if so and so attends, I’m going to boycott” got to be too much for them.

Now I’m sure that this is going to get spun as “See! The PLC is nothing more than a clique and liking Galina and Sannion is a prerequisite for admittance,” because that’s what such people always do.

And they’re wrong. I literally could not care less what you think of me. Whether you love me, hate me or are completely indifferent to me – it never once crosses my mind or influences what I do, except insofar as that has a bearing on the effectiveness of my evangelism for Dionysos. I don’t want you to develop bad feelings for him because of something that I’ve done – but that’s it. Your thoughts about me are irrelevant – and I think I make that pretty clear by the nature of the content I post here at the blog. I don’t maintain this blog to cultivate a large following or else I wouldn’t post 14 times a day, much of it arcane material that flies over the heads of even extraordinarily intelligent individuals or dense and frankly obscene poetry or uncompromisingly blunt rants that include things bound to offend just about everyone regardless of their political, religious or ideological stances plus tons of pics and videos to boot. I post what I want to, when I want to and how I want to and you can take my stuff or leave it – even if all my readers go away tomorrow I’ll still be over here saying the same sorts of things because I have a commitment to freedom and honesty that trumps your precious fees fees.

Conversely, I don’t hold a grudge. We can have a nasty verbal spat and if you come back and ask me a sincere question I’ll do my damndest to answer it. And if you’re putting in the hard work to serve your gods and spirits, restore your traditions and build up your community you’ve got my respect regardless of my personal opinion of you.

A couple days ago I was surprised when a person I’d had some pretty heated run-ins with last summer approached me about presenting something on her tradition at the conference. The courage, humility and commitment to her path that such an act demonstrated floored me and I apologized for the uncharitable way I had treated her and proceeded to strategize how we were going to get her there since like with a lot of folks in our respective communities money is a concern. Speaking of which – remember that I’m still running a fund-raiser for Julian, so please consider giving something no matter how small.

That is the kind of leadership that this conference is intended to foster and if you aren’t that sort of person, if you’d rather take pot-shots at people and cavil because nothing ever gets done or worse is getting done by people you don’t like, let me repeat myself, stay the fuck home.

Early on in the planning stages we decided to limit the Polytheist Leadership Conference to just lectures, workshops and roundtable discussions even though we would have preferred to have folks offer rituals as well. The logistics of doing this properly in such an interfaith setting were too daunting, plus we felt that there was a pressing need for people to get together in person to discuss the issues facing our respective communities in order to find workable solutions for them as well as to educate and highlight the strong diversity in our polytheistic traditions.

By daunting logistics we meant more than just figuring out how to do effective ritual in a hotel conference room without fire, incense, music and raucous drunken revelry – we also had in mind issues that often arise from the lingering presence of divinities when rituals for beings whose natures, expectations and cultures of origin are radically different get scheduled back to back.

However I’ve been thinking that this could be a great opportunity for members of the thiasos of the Starry Bull to meet and do some intense ecstatic worship outside the conference so I’m going to begin working on putting something together for us. It’ll be on Saturday night after all of the sessions are done and the rest of the attendees are socializing. We’ll either do it in a wooded area nearby or back at Galina’s and my place and there’ll be fire and drumming and dancing and copious amounts of wine flowing. I’ll also perform consecrations on anyone who would like to begin moving up from the akousmatikos to boukolos stage within the cult. And I’ll make sure that everyone gets back safely to the hotel either immediately afterwards or the following morning depending on how things go.

Don’t worry if you can’t make it, as there will be plenty of chances later – but I figured with this already happening and so many folks planning to be there it was too great an opportunity to pass up.

Jigglebird.

That’s my new swear since fuck apparently offends people’s delicate sensibilities.

It comes from a passage in Aristophanes’ play Amphiareus:

Jiggle from its foundations the rear end of the old man just like a jigglebird and bring to perfection an excellent incantation.

I discovered this delightful turn of phrase tonight whilst reading Christopher Faraone’s Mystery Cults and Incantations: Evidence for Orphic Charms in Euripides’ Cyclops 646–48?

Seeing the Ephesia Grammata connected to Orpheus had me turning to the Papyri Graecae Magicae to see what other tasty tidbits I could turn up. I was hoping for something as juicy as the Sword of Dardanos …

… and found myself crying out “Jigglebird!“

A while back I wrote a piece on the strange absence of Dionysos in the PGM which I now have to significantly revise.

Excellent love charm. Inscribe by scratching on a tin lamella. Write and lay it down, walking over it. And what is written is this: “I adjure you by the glorious name of Bakchios.” Add the usual, whatever you wish. (PGM VII.459-61)

I also found the following, which has some fairly profound implications:

Take oil in your hands and utter the spell: “Zeus sowed a grape seed: it parts the soil; he does not sow it; it does not sprout.” (PGM VII.199-201)

Then there were these passages:

To be able to drink a lot and not get drunk eat a baked pig’s lung. (PGM VII.181)

To be able to copulate a lot grind up fifty tiny pinecones with 2 ozs. of sweet wine and two pepper grains and drink it. (PGM VII.184-5)

Useful information indeed for your next Bacchanalia!

Continuing in that vein, I also learned:

To get an erection when you want grind up a pepper with some honey and coat your thing. (PGM VII.186)

Which is quite a bit better than the next remedy I came across:

… hawk’s dung, salt, reed, bele plant. Pound together. Anoint your phallus with it and lie with the woman. If it is dry, you should pound a little of it with wine, anoint your phallus with it, and then lie with the Woman. Very good. (PDM xiv.1155-62)

I suspect not for her!

I was also reminded of this lovely ritual and invocation for Hekate, which I may be using on the deipnon:

“Come to me, O Beloved Mistress, Three-faced
Selene; kindly hear my Sacred Chants;
Night’s Ornament, young, bringing Light to Mortals,
O Child of Morn who ride upon the Fierce Bulls,
O Queen who drive Your Car on Equal Course
With Helios, who with the Triple Forms
Of Triple Graces dance in Revel with
The Stars. You’re Justice and the Moira’s Threads:
Klotho and Lachesis and Atropos
Three-headed, You’re Persephone, Megaira,
Alekto, Many-Formed, who arm Your Hands
With Dreaded, Murky Lamps, who shake Your Locks
Of fearful Serpents on Your Brow, who sound
The Roar of Bulls out from Your Mouths, whose Womb
Is decked out with the Scales of Creeping Things,
With Poisonous Rows of Serpents down the Back,
Bound down Your Backs with Horrifying Chains
Night-Crier, Bull-faced, loving Solitude,
Bull-headed, You have Eyes of Bulls, the Voice
Of Dogs; You hide Your Forms in Shanks of Lions,
Your Ankle is Wolf-shaped, Fierce Dogs are dear
To You, wherefore they call You Hekate,
Many-named, Mene, cleaving Air just like
Dart-shooter Artemis, Persephone,
Shooter of Deer, night shining, triple-sounding,
Triple-headed, triple-voiced Selene
Triple-pointed, triple-faced, triple-necked,
And Goddess of the Triple Ways, who hold
Untiring Flaming Fire in Triple Baskets,
And You who oft frequent the Triple Way
And rule the Triple Decades, unto me
Whom calling You be gracious and with Kindness
Give Heed, You who protect the Spacious World
At night, before whom Daimons quake in Fear
And Gods Immortal tremble, Goddess who
Exalt Men, You of Many Names, who bear
Fair Offspring, Bull-eyed, Horned, Mother of Gods
And Men, and Nature, Mother of All Things,
For You frequent Olympos, and the broad
And boundless Chasm You traverse. Beginning
And End are You, and You Alone rule All.
For All Things are from You, and in You do
All Things, Eternal One, come to their End.
As Everlasting Band around Your Temples
You wear Great Kronos’ Chains, unbreakable
And unremovable, and You hold in
Your Hands a Golden Scepter. Letters ’round
Your Scepter Kronos wrote Himself and gave
To You to wear that All Things stay steadfast:
Subduer and subdued, Mankind’s Subduer,
And Force-subduer; Chaos, too, You rule.
Hail, Goddess, and attend Your Epithets,
I burn for You this Spice, O Child of Zeus,
Dart-shooter, Heav’nly One, Goddess of Harbors,
Who roam the Mountains, Goddess of Crossroads,
O Nether and Nocturnal, and Infernal,
Goddess of Dark, Quiet and Frightful One,
O You who have Your Meal amid the Graves,
Night, Darkness, Broad Chaos: Necessity
Hard to escape are You; You’re Moira and
Erinys, Torment, Justice and Destroyer,
And You keep Kerberos in Chains, with Scales
Of Serpents are You dark, O You with Hair
Of Serpents, Serpent-girded, who drink Blood,
Who bring Death and Destruction, and who feast
On Hearts, Flesh Eater, who devour Those Dead
Untimely, and You who make Grief resound
And spread Madness, come to my Sacrifices,
And now for me do You fulfill this Matter.”

Offering for the rite: For doing good, offer storax, myrrh, sage, frankincense, a fruit pit. But for doing harm, offer magical material of a dog and a dappled goat (or in a similar way, of a virgin untimely dead.)

Protective charm for the rite: Take a lodestone and on it have carved a three-faced Hekate. And let the middle face be that of a maiden wearing horns, and the left face that of a dog, and the one on the right that of a goat. After the carving is done, clean with natron and water, and dip in the blood of one who has died a violent death. Then make food offering to it and say the same spell at the time of the ritual. (PGM IV.2785-2890)

Reading another Hekatean text, the passage about Meliouchos stood out for me:

Take the cat, and make three lamellae, one for its anus, one for …, and one for its throat; and write the formula concerning the deed on a clean sheet of papyrus, with cinnabbar ink, and then the names of the chariots and charioteers, and the chariot boards and the racehorses. Wind this around the body of the cat and bury it. Light seven lamps upon unbaked bricks, and make an offering, fumigating storax gum to it, and be of good cheer. Take its body [and preserve] it by immuring it either in a tomb or in a burial place … with colors, … bury … looking toward the sunrise, pour out (?) …, saying:

“Angel, … SEMEA, chthonic … lord, grant safety, … O chthonic one, in the horse race, IAKTORE; hold … restrain …, PHOKENSEPSEUAREKTATHOUMISONKTAI, for me, the spirit … the daimon of the place … and may the deed come about for me immediately, immediately; quickly, quickly, because I conjure you, at this place and at this time, by the implacable god … THACHOCHA EIN CHOUCHEOCH, and by the great chthonic god, ARIOR EUOR, and by the names that apply to you; perform the NN deed.” Add the usual.

Then take up the water in which the drowning took place, and sprinkle it on the stadium or in the place where you are performing the rite.

The formula to be spoken, while you are sprinkling the drowning water, is as follows: I call upon you, Mother of all men, you who have brought together the limbs of Meliouchos, even Meliouchos himself, OROBASTRIA NEBOUTOSOUALETH, Entrapper, Mistress of corpses, Hermes, Hekate, Hermekate, LETH AMOUMAMOUTERMYOR; I conjure you, the daimon that has been aroused in this place, and you, the daimon of the cat that has been endowed with spirit; come to me on this very day and from this very moment, and perform for me the NN deed.” Add the usual, whatever you wish. (PGM III.1-59)

Could this be a reference to Dionysos Meilichios?

And finally there was this:

A restraining rite for anything, works even on chariots. It also causes enmity and sickness, cuts down, destroys, and overturns, for whatever you wish. The spell in it, when said, conjures daimons out and makes them enter objects or people. Engrave in a plate made of lead from a cold-water channel what you want to happen, and when you have consecrated it with bitter aromatics such as myrrh, bdellium, styrax, and aloes and thyme, with river mud, late in the evening or in the middle of the night, where there is a stream or the drain of a bath, having tied a cord to the plate throw it into the stream — or into the sea — and let it be carried along. Use the cord so that, when you wish, you can undo the spell. Then should you wish to break the spell, untie the plate. Say the formula seven times and you will see something wonderful. Then go away without turning back or giving an answer to anyone, and when you have washed and immersed yourself, go up to your own room and rest, and use only vegetable food. Write the spell with a headless bronze needle.

The text to be written is: “I conjure you, lord Osiris, by your holy names OUCHIOCH OUSENARATH, Osiris, OUSERRANNOUPHTHI OSORNOUPHE Osiris-Mnevis, OUSERSETEMENTH AMARA MACHI CHOMASO EMMAI SERBONI EMER Isis, ARATOPHI ERACHAX ESEO IOTH ARBIOTHI AMEN CHNOUM MONMONT OUZATHI PER OUNNEPHER EN OOO, I give over to you, lord Osiris, and I deposit with you this matter.”

But if you cause the plate to be buried or sunk in river or land or sea or stream or coffin or in a well, write the Orphic formula, saying, “ASKEI KAI TASKEI” and, taking a black thread, make 365 knots and bind the thread around the outside of the plate, saying the same formula again and, “Keep him who is held” (or “bound”), or whatever you do. And thus the plate is deposited. For Selene, when she goes through the underworld, breaks whatever spell she finds. But when this rite has been performed, the spell remains unbroken so long as you say over the formula daily at this spot where the plate is deposited. Do not hastily share this information with anyone, for you will find its like only with much labor. (PGM VII.429-58)

Jigglebird.

Hear the words of your people! May they be pleasing to you!

Tune in at 10:00pm EST on Wednesday, March 5th when our guest on Wyrd Ways Radio is going to be Rev. Tamara L. Siuda, the Nisut-Bityt of the Kemetic Orthodox faith:

Her involvement with the religion of ancient Egypt began many years before, in 1988, while earning an undergraduate degree from Mundelein College, one of the last remaining all-women’s secondary institutions in the United States. She would enter graduate study a decade later at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, receiving her Master’s degree in Egyptology from the University in August 2000. Her Holiness encourages devotees of Kemetic Orthodoxy to be active in local causes, serve in charitable work and put the principles of their faith into concrete action. She feels it is vital for our faith to be a “good neighbor” wherever it finds itself — and with active members in almost 30 countries, that’s a big neighborhood! Her emphasis on service and faith with action is embodied in her own work as well, from actively supporting the Parliament of World Religions, the United Religions Initiative and other interfaith service projects (such as America Online’s Spirituality Forum, and Mary’s House, a home for abandoned children with AIDS Florida’s Kashi Ashram), to presenting scholarly papers at the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), writing books and offering volunteer assistance at several Chicago museums, to working with spiritual leaders in the religions of Western and Southern Africa including the Ifa tradition of the Yoruba peoples; the traditions of the Akan, Nuba and Dinka; and the sangoma of South Africa). One of Her Holiness’ most recent service projects is the Udjat Foundation, a Kemetic Orthodox charitable institution.

If you’d like to call in with a question the number is 347-308-8222!

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

The caption for this image reads:

Dionysos (sitting left, at the end of the couch) and Ploutos (sitting right, holding a cornucopia) surrounded by satyrs and maenads. A satyr is helping and supporting a drunken Hephaistos with his hammer (right). Eros plays with a goose at the bottom. Attic red-figured krater, ca. 370–360 BC. Said to be from S. Agata dei Goti (Campania).

Diogenes Laertios, Life of Empedokles 4
Satyros tells us that he had been present when Empedokles was practising magic; and that he professes this science, and many others too in his poems when he says:

And all the drugs which can relieve disease,
Or soften the approach of age, shall be
Revealed to your inquiries; I do know them,
And I to you alone will them disclose.
You shall restrain the fierce unbridled winds,
Which, rushing o’er the earth, bow down the corn,
And crush the farmer’s hopes. And when you will,
You shall recall them back to sweep the land:
Then you shall learn to dry the rainy clouds,
And bid warm summer cheer the heart of men.
Again at your behest, the drought shall yield
To wholesome show’rs: when you give the word
Hell shall restore its dead.

Apollonios Rhodios, Argonautika 4.1408–1418
Orpheus recognized the divine portent and for his comrades’ sake sought to comfort the nymphs with prayers. “O goddesses beautiful and kind, be gracious, O queens whether you are counted among the heavenly goddesses or those under the earth, or are called solitary nymphs, come, O nymphs, holy offspring of Okeanos, and appear before our longing eyes and show us either some flow of water from a rock or some sacred stream gushing from the ground, goddesses, with which we may relieve our endlessly burning thirst.”

I’ve enjoyed answering questions about Bacchic Orphism and the thiasos of the Starry Bull, so if there’s anything further you’d like to know drop me a line at sannion@gmail.com.

At the moment I’m working on a ritual of introduction to the gods and spirits of our tradition as this has been requested by a couple of folks, a purification rite, a calendar of festivals, an essay reevaluating the role of the Titans in Orphism, an essay on color symbolism, an essay on the sacrament of baptism, an essay on sensual ascetism, a set of morning and evening prayers for each of the gods on their respective days and three new divination systems – one of which is derived from something in the Papyri Graecae Magicae.

It’ll be nice to have other stuff to work on in between all of that.

I’ve finished the Enorchean stones and will be mailing them out on Monday. There are three left unclaimed, so if you want one shoot me an e-mail. This is the last batch I’m making as I want to move on to other Orphic arts.

One thing that I’m going to be working on is a recipe for Bacchic vibhuti, based on these and a number of quotes found in the sources on enthronismos post:

IPerinthos 57
Greetings! Oracle of the Sibyl: “When Bakchos, after having shouted euai, is beaten then blood, fire and ash will be united.” Set up by Spellios Euethis, archiboukolos; Herakleides son of Alexander being archimystos; Alexandros being speirarchos.

Nonnos, Dionysiaka 6. 155 ff
By the fierce resentment of implacable Hera, the Titanes cunningly smeared their round faces with disguising chalk (titanos), and while he contemplated his changeling countenance reflected in a mirror they destroyed him with an infernal knife.

At the moment it’s likely going to consist of ash from a prayer to Dionysos Lusios, ash from the bones of a sacrificial animal, ash from sacred mount Vesuvius and poplar, myrtle, ivy and white cypress ash – but I want to verify that none of these substances are toxic after the necromantic pouch fiasco before I proceed.

I decided to use this mixture instead of gypsum because ash has so many interesting associations.

I’m going to make my first batch on the eve of La Festa di San Giovanni which was traditionally celebrated with “Saint John’s Fires” throughout much of Europe. Afterwards I’m going to start applying the ash on certain festival days and will also be using it for consecrations. I will not be selling Bacchic vibhuti, though I will instruct boukoloi in how to make it.

Two things I will be making for sale are a Bacchic Orphic anointing oil for cleansing and blessing and a collection of hand-made divination tools that have been specially dedicated and empowered for use with the gods and spirits of our pantheon. Though I’ll include an instruction booklet I will also be offering classes on these divination systems once my basics of Dionysian devotion course is finished.

I received an e-mail from a member of the thiasos of the Starry Bull asking a lot of great questions, beginning with whether it’s permissible to adapt the schedule of holy days (since the week begins on Monday where she lives) or if people are required to adhere to the system I set down.

A lot of countries start their week on Monday, so that wasn’t the only factor when I came up with the associations I did but in the end it isn’t the symbolism that’s most important but rather honoring all of these beings as a collective and having constant engagement with them. So as long as you don’t mind being slightly out of step with the rest of the group it’s fine to come up with your own variations on this. Indeed, everything at the akousmatikos level is voluntary and folks are encouraged to find what works best for them. There are no restrictions or requirements except that you consider yourself someone who is listening to holy stories and wants to worship the gods and spirits that appear in them.

There was no universal Orphic church in antiquity – this is a tradition that was propagated by charismatic itinerant religious specialists and the small groups that sometimes formed around them. So you not only find the usual regional variations of thiasoi and oregeones but the teachings and practices tended to be individually tailored resulting in a confusing jumble when examined in toto. That’s one of the reasons that this tradition is called Bacchic Orphism – it places special emphasis on Dionysos, as he is the principal deity of our pantheon, and it distinguishes us from other forms of Orphism such as the branches that are more strongly influenced by Apollonian and Pythagorean currents. There’s some cross-pollination going on (especially where Empedokles is concerned) but it’s modified by our pronounced chthonic focus and the indigenous Italian and Sicilian traditions we draw upon.

That said, I am not opposed to people taking elements of this tradition and adapting them for their own use, especially if such adaptation is done to bring it more into line with one’s local climate, geography and agricultural cycles. That is an essential component in honoring Dionysos and the nymphai properly in my estimation.

Likewise, this is a non-exclusive tradition – as long as you honor the core pantheon you are free to include any other deities or spirits you want. The reason that these beings are given a privileged position in the tradition are because they are the ones who were most directly involved in my initiatory process and therefore what lineage I possess comes through them making them the foundation of this tradition. But there are plenty of others who fulfill important functions in our rites and mythology – just off the top of my head I’d add Zeus, Kronos, Eros, Priapos, Apollon, Helios, Athene, Artemis, Hera, Rheia, Cybele, Demeter, Baubo, the Korybantes, Kouretes and Dactyloi, Nyx and assorted other Greek, Thracian, Italian, Cretan and Egyptian divinities.

Further, at the akousmatikos stage you are free to employ whatever methods of worship you feel called to. Nor am I the only one qualified to come up with rites and poetry for this tradition – indeed, everyone is most heartily encouraged to create, experiment, adapt and share what works for them. This is a very new and open tradition and everyone involved has a hand in shaping it.

At the akousmatikos stage.

If one wishes to become a boukolos (and there’s no reason why one has to; there is great honor in being a devoted layperson) then they must contact me after six months of working within this tradition and express a desire to receive personal instruction. Once I have a sense of whether they are ready for this through conversation and divination I will begin training and imparting practices to them. Once they have demonstrated their proficiency in these to my satisfaction I will ordain them to act as a boukolos of the thiasos. As I am the lineage-bearer of this tradition, all progression is through me but if one isn’t interested in that or in receiving initiation into our tradition’s mysteries (for which the boukolos stage is preparation) then one doesn’t have to do this.

I have stated previously that meeting with me is a requirement to become a boukolos so that I can get a sense of you in person and inspect your performance of ritual but if there are extenuating circumstances (such as inability to travel because of poverty or disability or your residence in another country) I will consider alternatives. Some things, however, simply cannot be imparted except face to face – in particular our mysteries.

Dionysos
Hermes
Hekate
Persephone
Ariadne
Aphrodite
Melinoë
The Heroines

- Arachne
- Semele
- Erigone
- Diktynna
- Charilla
- Dirke
- Ino
- The Oinotrophoi
- Medea
- Eurydike
- Olympias
- Paculla Annia
- Kleopatra
- All the Bakchai

The Nymphai
The Satyrs
The Heroes

- Orpheus
- Mousaios
- Melampos
- Ikarios
- Akoites
- Prosymnos
- Achilles
- Orestes
- Pentheus
- Empedokles
- Alexander the Great
- Ptolemy Philadelphos
- Ptolemy Philopator
- Ptolemy Auletes
- Julius Caesar
- Marcus Antonius
- John the Baptist
- Saint Paul
- King Herla
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Jim Morrison
- All the Bakchoi

The Dionysian Dead

- The Martyrs
- The Theophoroi
- The Mystai
- The Prophets
- The Artists
- The Hunters
- The Strangers who have been received

The Court of the Underworld
The Ancestral Spirits
The Furies
All of our Orphic and Bacchic predecessors
The Dead in general

And as I’ve mentioned, there are a host of other Gods and Spirits who are more loosely associated with our teletai, but are nevertheless important and worthy of cultus.