AHURA MAZDA

ORIGIN Persian [Iran]. God of light.

KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP circa 1500 BC to end of Roman Empire period, circa AD 400.

SYNONYMS none.

CENTER(S) OF CULT throughout ancient Near East during Persian and Roman Empire periods.

Enten

Fertility god. Mesopotamian (Sumerian). Created by ENLIL as a guardian deity of farmers alongside the minor god EMESˇ, Enten was given specific responsibility for the fertility of ewes, goats, cows, donkeys, birds and other animals. He is identified with the abundance of the earth and with the winter period.

Demons

by Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis

 
Demons are spirits that act malevolently against human beings. The Bible makes repeated mention of evil spirits (Lev. 16: 10; I Sam. 16:14-16; Isa. 34:14), including satyrs and night demons, but does not provide a great deal of detail. More elaborate stories about demons appear during the Greco-Roman period.

Arthur

by Brian Edward Rise

 
Arthur – King of Britain and focus of the legend started by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Following medieval practice, he portrays Arthur in contemporary terms but he places Arthur’s reign shortly after Britain’s separation from the Roman Empire during its final period in western Europe around 410 CE. Geoffrey frames Arthur as a British messianic figure so common in Late Roman antiquity- a “World-Restorer,” or Restitutor Orbis – the king who, binding the wounds of internal strife, would defeat the barbarians and destroy all enemies reestablishing peace and ushering in a golden age. While Europe and a collapsing empire never found its savior, a recently Roman Britain does in Geoffrey’s delightful fiction. What’s important is that his conception of an age of peace based on a salvation from disintegration endures on down through Malory and the romancers though they never touch on the real problems of the period.

Oxford

Bob Trubshaw

The earliest history of Oxford reveals that the long peninsular of land at the confluence of the rivers Cherwell and Thames was used as a barrow cemetery in bronze age times – a linear barrow cemetery being situated on what is now the University Parks cricket ground, with other barrows throughout the town. However, unlike nearby Abingdon and Dorchester, Oxford was not developed in the Roman period [2]. No reason has been put forward although it is assumed that the ford was known and used at that time. Perhaps the Thames and the Cherwell formed the boundaries of three Celtic tribes (the Dubunni, the Atrebates and the Catuvellauni) leaving the peninsula as ‘liminal space’ or ‘no man’s land’. Typically, the Celts placed shrines at the boundaries of their territory, on such areas of no man’s land, the ‘placeless places’. Although no evidence has been discovered of a Celtic shrine at Oxford, the idea tantalises me as it would fit the geography and might also account for the lack of Roman settlement. For lack of any better alternative, perhaps this shrine was situated at what is now the holy well of St Frideswide at Binsey (164:485081) – see [3] for a description.

Adon

by Ben White

 
A Phoenician dying and rising god associated with crops and the seasonal agricultural cycle. Popular during the Hellenistic period, the cult of Adon rose to prominence circa 200 BCE and persisted into Christian times, circa 400 CE. Major cult centers were located at Berytus, Aphaca 1, and Byblos 2.

Hippeia

by Dr Alena Trckova-Flamee, Ph.D.

 
The name Hippeia has its roots in the Mycenaean period. It appeared between the names of divine figures in a form “OTNIA IQEJA” in the Linear Script B in a Tablet from Pylos. The word Potnia denoted a majestic, powerful and sublime lady, while Iqeja connected with the Greek word “íppeía”, which means a ride, a horsemanship, a cavalry, specified the sphere of the deity’s influence. Between the Mycenaean terracotta figures we can find some goddess riding sidesaddle on her horse, unfortunately we have no prove that this figure represented Iqeja.

Dove Goddess

by Dr Alena Trckova-Flamee, Ph.D.

 

Without doubt birds, and especially doves, played an important role in Minoan belief. According to a current interpretation, doves could be understood as embodiment (epiphany) of a divinity, a representation of a goddess in a bird form nearby her sacred place – a shrine or on a tree. This idea can be supported with literature: according to Homer the goddess was able to take on the shape of a bird. From the Early Minoan period the libation vases and amulets or models in a bird form existed in Crete and they were used for a ritual reason. We can observe a shape of bird even among the signs on the famous Phaistos Disc. The clay models of birds and their images on the ritual vessels are also amongst the regular furnishings of the shrines like those at Knossos, Gournia or at Karphi. The type of these birds has been a subject of long discussions between scholars, but usually they are considered as representing doves.

DE ARTE MAGICA

by Baphomet (Aleister Crowley)

 

I

Of Ararat

The supreme secret of the O.T.O. is written in detail in the Book called Agape and is also written plainly in Liber CCCXXXIII, Cap. XXXVI. But now also do We think it fitting to add Our own comment to this book Agape which We wrote in Our own words for the proper setting-forth of this Secret taught Us at Our Initiation to the IX by the O.H.O. And this Book has received His official approbation in every word thereof.
But in this comment do We not set forth the Secret itself (rather on the contrary guarding it by certain subtilties even from the conjecture of the unworthy) but only Our own ideas as to its right use, with other matters germane, thinking that those into whose hands it may come may thereby understand more fully the utter importance of this Secret as having been the Pivot of Our working for so long a period, and further that it may aid such persons to attain perfectly the mastery of this Holy and Imperial Art.

Iceman : Shaman?

Alby Stone

 
The discovery of a corpse on a glacier in the Oetztal Alps, on the Austrian border with Italy, became big news all over the world in 1991. This was no ordinary cadaver: it was nothing more nor less than the remarkably well-preserved body of a man who had lived in the late Neolithic period, some five thousand-odd years ago.