ilmarinen finnish folklore
An enigmatic depiction of the golden fleece quest: an Athenian Red-figure cup discovered in 1834 and attributed to the Athenian painter Douris (c. 480 BC) shows in its interior the goddess Athena who watches as a huge serpent disgorges a man, alive. Behind them is a tree with a ram’s skin in its branches. These clues assure us that the hero is Jason. The artist has also taken care to label him (the name is...
Hexen kommando
It’s almost Walpurgisnacht, no better moment to have a closer look at our witches or Hexen. Where did this cruel hatred against women and the ancient pre-christian sanctuaries start? When Pope Innocent VIII (1484–92) professed his belief in witchcraft, he condemned it, and dispatched inquisitors to Germany to try its supposed practitioners and punish them unimpeded. Singling out Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen, the papal bull declared that “some parts of Northern Germany” were...
The number 12 symbolizes masculine solar rationality; 13 is very much connected with the Moon and old Goddess/feminine principle and intuition. The moon is by nature linked with womanhood as the length of the menstrual cycles are synced up with the waxing and waning of the moon, occurring around every 28 days. In the ancient times when people were more aware of nature, many women were synced up with the moon’s cycle, menstruating around the new moon and ovulating around […]...
The School of Gnosticism was divided into two major parts, commonly called the Syrian Cult and the Alexandrian Cult. These schools agreed in essentials, but the latter division was more inclined to be pantheistic, while the former was dualistic.  While the Syrian cult was largely Simonian, the Alexandrian School was the outgrowth of the philosophical deductions of a clever Egyptian Christian, Basilides by name, who claimed to have received his instructions from the Apostle Matthew. Like Simon...
  In almost all myths all over the world the same theme reoccurs. The twelve knights, twelve tribes, twelve heroes etc. In his last and longest dialogue (Laws), Plato teaches: There are twelve feasts to the twelve Gods who give their names to the twelve tribes. Also in early christianity, the image of twelve disciples with the Godman figure at their center echoes the twelve constellations which revolve in the heavens around the pole star. Are...
The name of Hermes, whether or not qualified as Trismegistus, henceforth served as guarantee or signature for a host of esoteric books on magic, astrology, medicine, etc., throughout the Middle Ages, and this despite the fact that, with the exception of the Asclepius, the Corpus Hermeticum was unknown. Picatrix At the same time, an inspired imagery unfolded in both Latin and Arabic literature in a succession of “visionary recitals” (as Henry Corbin calls them), constellated around this key figure. The […]...
gansemagd maier files
The story of the Goose Girl starkly shows the process that sets out when any one chooses to neglect or simply reject reality. And as a result chooses not to move into action. The Goose Girl, once an exquisite little princess who held tremendous promise, slowly but surely lost her dignity, her horse, her clothing, and last but certainly not least her personal identity. Your identity is not only who you were, nor is it...
funeral
The crime that finally turned the gods against Loki was his role in the death of Balder, however this event is also one of the great puzzles of northern mythology. Why were Odin and Frigg, with all their knowledge, not able to prevent the disaster? What did Odin say -before he climbed on bale-fire- into the ear of his son? This is maybe the greatest secret of the North that only two know. Snorri lets...
Hamingja, as used in the sagas, stands for an abstract conception, that of something belonging to an outstanding person which is partly a matter of character and partly of personality, and partly something more than either—that strange quality of ‘luck’ or luck-lessness’ which attaches itself to certain individuals more than others. It is something which can be handed on after death, and it usually remains within one family. It is usually connected with the name, so that if a child […]...
background sword
In every varieties of the Arthurian legend, the traditional reality of Arthur (who supposedly was the Warrior King of the Nordic Cimres as they definitely battled against the Anglo-Saxons between the 5th and sixth century C.E.), is less important in comparison to the aspect according to which we are led to see in his kingdom a sense of the fundamental regal function purely linked to the Hyperborean tradition, to the point that it obtained a...
Intimacy. In our culture, there is an excessive concentration on the notion of relationship. People talk incessantly about relationships. It is a constant theme on television, film, and in the media. Technology and media are not uniting the world. They pretend to provide a world that is internetted, but in reality, all they deliver is a simulated world of shadows. Accordingly, they make our human world more anonymous and lonely. In a world where the...
Eleusis or the sacred Eleusinian mysteries of the Greeks date back to the fifth century BC and were the most popular and influential of the cults, and it has been said that nowhere did the ancient mysteries appear in such human, vital, and colorful form. The cult of Eleusis centered around the myth of Demeter (Ceres), the great mother of agriculture and vegetation, and her daughter Persephone, queen of the Greek underworld, the original name of the goddess of death […]...
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