“We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

Image: Season of the Witch by Casey Booth

“Across a golden Autumn tapestry appear the spirits of our ancient selves demanding recognition and reward for one haunted night. Sated, they retreat from winter’s onslaught and retire to subconscious hibernation for another twelvemonth.”
― Stewart Stafford

Happy Samhain one and all!

Image: Samhain by John Anster Fitzgerald

“When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.”
― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

Image: Gate of the Oracle by Christine Knopp

“Like the preclassical Greeks, the ancient Romans were extremely religious, with a kind of animism in which the whole world was experienced as ensouled. Each mountain and lake had its spirit; each tree, each family, home, and hearth was inhabited by an unseen power. All activities were sacralized, ranging from war and harvest to childbirth, prophecy, and the common acts of daily life.”
― The Golden Thread, Joscelyn Godwin

Image: The Visit of a Sick Child to the Temple of Aesculapius by John William Waterhouse

“We never were separate from nature and never will be, but the dominant culture on earth has long imagined itself to be apart from nature and destined one day to transcend it. We have lived in a mythology of separation.”
― Charles Eisenstein

Image: Adam & Eve by Therese Fasolino

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“The revulsion towards and violent detachment from nature leads to its desecration, to the destruction of the organic conception of the world as a cosmos, as an order of forms reflecting a higher meaning, as the ‘visible manifestation of the invisible’ - a conception (of Indo-European origin) which is an integral part of the Classical view of the world and which also lies at the basis of various forms of knowledge of a different sort compared to profane, modern science.”
― Julius Evola, The Bow and the Club

Image: A Knight at the Crossroads by Viktor Vasnetsov

“While polytheism, through the worship of many gods, affirms the life and mystery of the world in all its complexity, monotheism declares the world to be a mere artifact, the product of God’s making, and thus about as living and mysterious as a thumbtack. The transition from polytheism to monotheism is the 'De-Godding' of the different aspects of the world. Monotheists therefore progressively cede the complexity of creation to the natural scientist. The entire material world becomes understandable by science on its own terms, and eventually the scientist steps in to take God’s place.”
― Collin Cleary, Summoning the Gods

Image: Freya's Tears of Gold by Gustav Klimt

“The same manifestations that created our religious beliefs, created our UFO beliefs. A serious look at the Phenomenon would cause a revision of our way of looking at religion.”
― John Keel, UFO: Operation Trojan Horse

Image: Alien Christ by Rick Jacobi

“By recognizing the Jews' special status as the people of the Old Testament, once chosen by God among all nations, Christians have granted them an extraordinary symbolic power that no other ethnic community can compete with.

For two thousand years, Christianity has taught Gentiles to consent to the delusional claim of the Jews to divine election: are they not the first and only ethnic group whom the God of the universe has addressed personally, the people whom He has loved to the point of exterminating its enemies? It matters not that Christians tell the Jews that they have lost the election because they rejected Christ: the main price is theirs. To accept the biblical notion of "chosen people", whatever the reservations, is to accept the metaphysical superiority of the Jews. If Christ is Israel's Messiah, then truly, "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22).”
― Laurent Guyénot, Our God is Your God Too But He Has Chosen Us

“MAD, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformance from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Image: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Sir John Tenniel, 1911

“A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being, as it were, put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you.”
― Joseph Campbell


Image: Perun by Boris Olshansky

Guide to the Goddess: Demeter, Greek

Equivalents: Ceres (Roman), Isis (Egyptian)

Demeter is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility of the earth. Although mostly known as a grain goddess, she also appears as a goddess of health, birth, marriage, and has connections to the Underworld.

Although rarely mentioned by Homer, her legend is said to be ancient. The legend centres on the story of her daughter Persephone, who is carried off by Hades, the god of the underworld. Demeter goes in search of Persephone and, during her journey, reveals her secret rites to the people of Eleusis who had hospitably received her in what is known as the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Demeter through her revealed mystery rites provides the gateway to the mysteries through the gift of wheat. The grain in the head of wheat held its own reproductive power but also, due to the fungus of ergot, its revelatory power.

Image: Demeter Mourning for Persephone by Evelyn De Morgan

“Gnostics taught that there was an invasion that occurred about 3,600 BC and, about 1,600 years before the Nag Hammadi texts were buried, they wrote that this invasion was like a virus…The beings that were invading were called Archons. These Archons had the ability to duplicate reality, to fool us. They were jealous of us because we have an essence of some kind, a soul, that they don't possess and the Nag Hammadi texts describe the Archons. One looks like a reptile and the other looks like an unformed baby or a fetus… and has grey skin and dark, unmoving eyes. The Archons are duplicating reality so that when we buy into it, when we come to believe that the duplicated, false state reality is the real reality - then they become the victors.”
― Jay Weidner, Extract from Rense Radio interview

Image: Messenger by Erenarik

“As polytheism is in religious belief reflected in the recognition of moral complexity, so henotheism in religious practice is reflected in the recognition of moral diversity. To worship different gods is to align oneself with different ideals, and to embrace different moral standards. The example of the mother and the judge shows one way in which this works out in practice. The mother places parental love above impartial justice, while the judge does the opposite. In the language of Greek Paganism, the mother bows to Hera, the judge to Zeus Dikaios, and both are right to do so.”
― John Michael Greer, A World Full of Gods: An Inquiry Into Polytheism

Image: Detail of Zeus and Hera inspired by Rubens by Jeffrey Raum

“Dr. Jung, believed that archetypes are blueprints of the basic human qualities we all share. The archetypes themselves are undefinable natural patterns or forces that shape life in all ages and places. They cannot be known directly, but archetypal themes and images appear in myth, fairy tales, dreams, and fantasies. We tend to think of ourselves as unique individuals, and to a great extent we are. But just as there are shared patterns that shape our physical existence, such as having two arms and legs, two eyes, ten fingers and toes, so there are underlying patterns that shape our psychic existence.”
― Robert A. Johnson, Balancing Heaven and Earth: A Memoir of Visions, Dreams, and Realisations

Image: Wealhtheow by Yoann-Lossel

“Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.”
― Joseph Campbell

Image: Atlantis by Frank Frazetta

“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

Image: Guild Ships Over The Basin by Sam Weber

“Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.”
― C.S. Lewis

Image: God Speed by Edmund Blair Leighton

“Being real doesn't mean being reckless, it means allowing La Voz Mitologica, The Mythological Voice, to speak. One does that by shutting off the ego for a while and letting that which wishes to speak, speak.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

Image: Patchwork in the Silence by Lucy Campbell

“Oral myths are closer to the genetic conclusions than the often ambiguous scientific evidence of archaeology.”
― Bryan Sykes, Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland

Image: The Riders of the Sidhe by John Duncan

Notes: The people known as “The Sidhe" or the people of the mounds were said to be descended from the Tuatha de Danann (the folk of the goddess Danu) who settled in Ireland millennia ago.

After being defeated by an invading force (or ideology), the two groups agreed to divide Ireland between them; the victors would take the world above, while the Tuath Dé take the world below (the underworld and perhaps the subconscious mind).

The Sidhe can only be perceived in visionary states of mind and at liminal places such as stone circles, sacred groves, wells and ‘fairy hills' or 'fairy glens'. Through the ages they have said to have been in contact with mortals giving protection, healing and even teaching some of their skills such as smith-crafting and the working of metals.