Showing posts with label Greek Gods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Greek Gods. Show all posts

Aphrodite's Stronghold Against Christianity

As the 4th Century CE rolled on, the rising Christian State, led by the power of Rome, was stopping at nothing to persecute the Polytheists out of existence. The old religion(s) under the Christian Emperor Theodosius I, had been outlawed, and in 393 CE, he finally banned even the Olympic Games of Greece. Of course, the persecution didn't begin with Theodosius and it wouldn't end with him either. But it would have appeared that the "massive state pressure" concerning the Christian State that Walter Burkert talks about in his book Greek Religion, was finally taking hold in its mission to force everyone into the new religion.

However, according to recent archaeological finds, it appears as if the worship of the Greek Gods, namely Aphrodite, set up a stronghold in Thessaloniki through the 4th Century, a region in the far north of the Greek mainland. By 306 CE, Christianity had already found its way into Thessaloniki, but there were apparently Greeks who refused it until the end. During the excavation of the metro, workers came across thousands of artifacts from the time period, most notably statues of Aphrodite, giving testament to the enduring worship of Her during this highly hostile, anti-Pagan time. Devotion to Her was as strong as the love and sexual desire itself over which She rules and gives to humanity. She was, without a doubt, one of the most hated Goddesses among the Christians, because She represented sexuality and freedom of the body. Christianity knew it could not gain control over the masses without shackling the basic human makeup. Aphrodite was a dire threat to the very core of their objective. 

These finds are not only significant because of their history, but because it seems to show that, despite what the modern Church says, not everyone willingly accepted Christianity. Some people, probably most of the population, resisted it. There would have been absolutely no other reason for Christians to make laws forcing people to give it up. So today, we should also draw an inspired spirit as we look at the remains of undying devotion to the Gods, and carry it on into tomorrow and the days and years to come as we move to restore the traditional identities of humanity. No matter how hard, hopeless or hostile things get, let us never give up our beliefs, our love, our devotion.

To read more details about this recent story, check out the website of my friend and fellow Hellenist, Baring The Aegis.

In the Goodness of the Gods,
Chris Aldridge.

Paul's Propaganda At The Shrine Of The "Unknown God"

Although the Greeks worshiped a plethora of Gods, there was also a shrine in Athens that wasn't specifically dedicated to anyone. It even appears in the bible in Acts 17:23, although Paul was immensely ignorant as to its meaning, thinking that the Greeks were "ignorant to what they worshiped," or perhaps Paul wasn't ignorant of what he was saying, but saw a prop for introducing the idea of the Christian god - maybe a bit of both. Paul's antics around the Greek world are very well known. He also visited Ephesus in 54 CE, where he was eventually ran out of town for organizing the large burning of ancient Greek and Jewish texts and trying to overthrow the present religious order, but he also ended up in Athens at one point, talking to the Athenians about one of their particular shrines. What we know for certain is that Paul's sermon was basically a trick to get the Athenians to think that they had already been worshiping Jesus or Yahweh without realizing it, for Paul was one of the best propagandists the new religion had in its arsenal. I am referring to the Shrine of the Unknown God.

The Shrine of the Unknown God was not, actually, dedicated to a God that was "as of yet unknown." It was actually established as a safety net, if you will, to make sure that no local Deity was neglected or forgotten, or who, at present, remained unnamed. The Greeks were not ignorant of the fact that many Gods were around, they just didn't know if they had named them all yet. So if a God didn't have a temple or a following, the Shrine was erected as a default sanctuary. You might even think of it like a temple or shrine to all the Gods, in the sense that it is not dedicated to specifically one, but all of them. It wasn't about ignorance of Divinity, but actually the knowledge and realization that Divinity is everywhere, and whether that Divinity has been named by us or not, it is still of importance and value. Even Paul's father god, aka the Jewish god, had an "unpronounceable name." In that sense, his god was also ultimately unknown. Generally, think about how many times you've heard a Christian say, "Don't question god," or "I don't know, that's just how god works." That's called an unknown, or an unknowing. When it comes to those things and those responses, Christians have constructed a Shrine of the Unknown probably more so than the ancient Athenians actually did.

With that being said, I still don't know if it was something practiced by every Greek City or town, and I haven't even heard of a modern Hellene having such a shrine today in their homes or temples. I personally wouldn't be opposed to having one myself, although I never have felt the need, and therefore if I did so, it would largely be to respect Tradition. However, I do, after all, live in a vast place which brings me to my final point about the Shrine of the Unknown, and that is humility. For an ancient Greek or a modern Greek worshiper to think that they know everything, especially about the Gods, would be hubris. Both ancient Greek and Christian religion advises against arrogance. What can be more humble than for someone to erect a Shrine that basically says, "I admit I don't know everything?"

In the Goodness of the Gods,
Chris Aldridge. 

Artemis Is Not A Vegetarian, An Abortionist, or A Man-Hater

Some people in the modern Pagan community (though not the norm), are ripe with their own versions of the ancient Gods, which in itself isn't a bad thing. But when they basically create their own Gods and give them ancient names and images, that's when I find myself compelled to say something. One of the most common of these has to do with Artemis. She's one of the most commonly-adopted Deities by Neo-Pagans and Wiccans. While these people are a minority in the community, there are still Pagans who want to start a culture, gender or race war within Paganism. Therefore, being a historical Hellenist and someone who has worshiped and studied Artemis since 2009, I want to set the record straight about the Goddess. These are not opinions, these are facts of religious and cultural Greek history.

Claim #1 - Artemis Is Against Hunting
The argument that Artemis is against hunting or meat eating should, in and of itself, be an obvious ridiculousness from the start. She's the Goddess of the Hunt. The first sentence of the Homeric Hymn to Artemis calls Her the "slayer of stags," and talks about her chasing and striking down the wild beasts. To say that Artemis rebukes hunting or opposes the consumption of game that was killed in ancient times specifically for eating, is a blatant historical falsehood.

Claim #2 - Artemis Supports Abortion
Whatever your views on abortion are, that's not the concern here. Not everyone has the same beliefs on the issue. Some are pro-life, some are pro-choice, and some are moderate; I understand that. But to say that Artemis revels in abortion, is simply not supported by anything other than someone's own personal theory. Artemis is the Goddess of childbirth and the protector of infants and children. She carries no historical epithet that refers to Her as an abortive Goddess whatsoever. She fiercely protected the weak and vulnerable. When Atalanta's father threw Her away at birth, it was Artemis who came and saved Her life. Another manifestation of Artemis is the legendary Artemis of Ephesus, which is a multi-breasted form to symbolize Her as "the Great Mother." The ancient Greek religion, in many cases, took a stance against abortion itself in some of its main cultural declarations. For example, the famous physician's Hippocratic Oath, which swears before "all the Gods and Goddesses" to not give an abortion. People in ancient Greek myth who harmed children were also dealt with very severely by the Gods. A good example would be Lycaon, who dismembered a young boy and tried to offer the remains to Zeus, who was so repulsed and offended that He wiped out the entire Bronze Age of Greece.

The historical fact of the matter is simply that Artemis never possessed a title, epithet or function even remotely similar to abortion. Quite the opposite, actually. 

Claim #3 - Artemis Is A Matriarch Who Hates Men
This idea mainly comes from a misunderstanding about Her refusal to take a husband and the death of Actaeon. While She did not marry, She always remained in recognition of the Supremacy of Zeus, the King of all the Gods. In fact, She sought His permission to remain chaste. She did not take it upon Herself to make the decision without Him. She also never decided that She was going to run everything. Zeus was always Her dear Father and the Ultimate Authority. All of the Gods, male and female, called Zeus the King. It wasn't as if the male Gods weren't expected to revere Zeus. The King was the King because He was King. It's that simple. While women worshipers today can find a great deal of independence in Her Divinity, She does not think of Herself as the ultimate ruler, or that She has a natural right to be at the top of the rule because of her gender, as a Matriarch would. The fallacy that people have here is the idea that one must be a gender-supremacist in order to be free, strong and independent. Nothing could be more untrue. One can be those things without crushing the opposite sex. Artemis is strong, powerful, wise, free and independent, but She doesn't try to usurp Zeus as we would think a Matriarch would, nor does She feel that He is a threat to Her own greatness or Her own rule over Her domains. There is no competition or war. To call Artemis a Matriarch, is to basically call Her a sexist, and the Gods are far above such human pettiness. 

As far as the man-hating label She routinely gets tagged with, this comes from the myth that the hunter Actaeon secretly spied on Artemis naked in the forest, and after She spotted him, turned the hunter into a stag and his hounds attacked and killed him. This probably had a far broader ancient meaning. Artemis didn't like sex, and therefore, did not want to be sexualized, and sexualization in those days was largely portrayed between male and female. But Artemis had and still has many male worshipers who show Her proper respects and don't end up on Her bad side. In fact, I built a sanctuary to Her in my yard and She was one of the main Gods I prayed to for help in saving my son's life when he was born prematurely. I am doing fine and so is my boy. I don't think we need to get so caught up in gender that we make everything about gender or sexism. Why can't we be great together?

Conclusion
There's nothing wrong with having UPG in your own private religious life, but to make it a universal declaration of the religion or the Deity, is quite another matter. In closing on this issue, I think back to something Susan B. Anthony once said. "I distrust those who know so well what God wants, because it's always the same as their own desires."

In the Goodness of the Gods,
Chris.

In The Presence of the Gods: The Night That Changed Our Lives Forever

This is an experience I do not normally talk about, because I don't want to come off as a bragger. I always say that you can tell the difference between people who have had legitimate spiritual experience and those who haven't, because those who have will not brag, or try to use it to score religious, social or financial points. Those of us who have had real experiences in these realms, don't go around blowing our own trumpets. The only time I tell this story is when it is necessary to describe why my wife and I became worshipers of the Greek Gods. It's not something someone will usually find me discussing or trying to spread around on a consistent basis, because I don't feel the need to be personally validated or convinced of my experience, nor do I care if others believe me or not. In fact, the only reason I am telling it now on my blog and website here is because I feel I should make a reasonable post about it for my readers. They read my life story in my autobiography, but it doesn't describe this massive change, so I am going to tell one of the greatest stories of my personal life.

Many people in our time talk about experiences with their own deities, especially in the mainstream religious society, giving countless stories about how the Christian, Jewish or Muslims god came to their rescue in their time of greatest need, or showed them a way to enlightenment. We can hardly read mainstream religious material, or watch shows, videos or movies without hearing some story regarding these religions. And yes, some may be false or exaggerated, but they still exist nevertheless. And because there are so many of these stories, they overshadow the minority religions who can and do have stories of personal experience with the old Gods just as fascinating and spectacular if not more so. It is my own story of that genre that I now wish to share. Over the centuries, there have been countless attempts to remove the old religions and the old Gods from our world and the memory of mankind. Even as you read this, there are people continuing that effort.  From the closing of temples to the destruction of statuary and the literal murder and persecution of those who refuse to accept the new religion, there was and continues to be a religious genocide. But they have all ultimately failed, and two such places where they have failed is the United States and Greece, which is where my story comes from, as I talk about how the Greek Gods came to rescue the life of my wife and I one hot summer night in 2009.

The Greek Gods are not merely myths as many consider them to be. They were real before and during ancient times, and they remain real in our own time, immortal and deathless, and the rulers of heaven, Earth, and the worlds and realms beyond those. Nothing escapes their authority or their blessings, for it is theirs, and always has been and will be. If you don't agree with my beliefs, that's fine of course. I do not express my beliefs or tell my stories with the intention of trying to change that of someone else, nor to tell them that they are wrong. But it is certainly what I hold as the sincere truth of my own heart, mind, body and soul.

The event took place shortly after my wife and I, my fiancee at the time, moved into our first apartment together in North Carolina in the summer of 2009. At that time, she was a Wiccan of ten years and leaned more toward a Norse Pagan persuasion, but she also knew of the Greek Gods and considered herself to have a relationship with Athene. I considered myself to be a "Christian Wiccan," or more accurately, a "Christian Witch." Even though I knew of the Greek Gods as the only alternative religion I had heard of through my years in school, I retained the Christian belief system I had been exposed to all my life and combined it with the emerging practices of magick and witchcraft that I so dearly loved. I didn't see any reason why I couldn't practice magic and be a Christian, for to my understanding, the bible and the Christian religion was full of magical practices, just in the name of its own god instead of any other. Now there were Christians back then who told me I wasn't a real Christian, I am sure that many Christians would still say that, and that's fine, but the fact remains that I was extremely loyal to Jesus and the Christian belief system. And there are many Christian denominations out there all telling one another that they are not real Christians either, so I didn't think too much of it when people told me I wasn't one, for I was sure I could find someone to tell them the same thing.

Because we had just moved in together and completely left our old lives, we had little money. I was unemployed and my wife only had a part time retail job. So we had to go to thrift stores to get the things we needed for our apartment, which there's no shame in at all. Many times, thrift stores can have very nice things. Although this particular thrift, which shall remain nameless, was unlike any I had ever entered. When you walked in, you could sense that there was just something very, very negative, even perhaps evil, about the place. It just was not a pleasant feeling at all, but rather a feeling of extreme uneasiness. It's not unreasonable to think that such places could possess negative influences, energies or beings because you never know where the items therein originated. They could have been involved in violence and other bad things, or could be the property of a deceased who is very angry that their stuff is being sold. There are several problems that could come with random belongings of others that have been taken or discarded. Nevertheless, we really didn't give it much thought at the time. We just wanted to get a table and chairs for our kitchen, and after a short time, we found a set and went on our way back home.

On into that evening was when things turned weird and terrifying for us. A presence began to manifest in our home which can only be described as a serious and aggressive haunting. Some kind of spirit or negative influence had entered our home, probably having followed or latched onto us from the item we came into contact with and then attacked when we took it to our home. Whatever this thing really was, it made itself known by slamming doors and filling us with fear, saying that it was not going to leave until death was brought on us. Not only could we feel and hear its hostility, we could hear its voice and it talked to us as plain as any person would. 

Me being highly Christian, I began an exorcism, calling on Jesus and also Saint Michael, the biggest enemy of Satan, to kick the spirit out. However, not a single prayer of mine worked. In fact, the situation became more and more desperate with each passing minute because the creature grew more and more powerful, or so it seemed. One thing is certain, it laughed at me in everything I did and every prayer I prayed. 

My wife told me that she could tell that the spirit feared the old Gods, and how she knew that I did not know. Perhaps she was closer to the Greek Gods than I was at the time. But at this point, I was willing to try something different because nothing I was doing was working. So I decided to turn my prayers to the Greek Gods, particularly to Athene and Apollon. Athene is the great warrior Goddess and defender and Apollon is the God of Light who averts evil and purifies ill. So I prayed to them, my wife joining me, simply asking for them to please help us. After what seemed like a few seconds of praying to these Greek Gods, my wife described an image of a lady with a spear and a male of light appearing and confronting the spirit. To quote her exactly, "Athene grabbed him by his tail," and stabbed him, then Apollon's light filled the area and cleansed away all the impurities. Then, almost as fast as it had begun, the time of terror came to an end.

Needless to say, my wife and I cuddled closely in the bed for the rest of the night, sometimes fearing the spirit might return, but it never did. It was gone, and so was our former religions. The next day, without even verbally confirming it to ourselves, we became ancient Greek. It was a given after our experience, especially with me, because the god I had spent years serving and defending never showed up, while the Gods I had given nothing to, gladly extended their hands in help in our time of desperate need.

Now, of course, I cannot tell you what this thing actually was beyond all doubt. Was it an actual spirit? Was it just bad energy? Or was it simply the manifestation of negative and stressful emotion and pain? After all, we were under a lot of stress at the time, which can also make a person vulnerable to outside aggression in many forms. Or could it have been a combination of the three? The truth of the matter is that I don't know, but what I do know is that the Greek Gods annihilated it, and we would go on in life to receive ever greater blessings from the Gods, such as when our premature son was expected to die but didn't, and all the great things they have brought to our lives and bad things they have kept from us.

I knew that each time I would tell this story, there would be Christians who would not only tell me I wasn't a real Christian, but that what really happened was not that the Greek Gods came and rescued us, but that it was actually Satan tricking us, that he was the one who removed the demon of his to trick us. The theory of this ultimate conman is reverted to sometimes more than the name of his counterparts. But what I found to be interesting about this claim was the fact that Jesus said the exact opposite in the bible, because Jesus plainly stated that Satan cannot cast out Satan, because it would divide his kingdom (Mark 3:22-27). By the words of their very own religious and spiritual icon, no, it wasn't a trick by this alleged Satan, because Satan would not drive out his own presence. The simplest answer is probably the right one, that the Greek Gods are real, they are authorities of goodness, and they came to restore goodness and order once more as they have done for so many years in Greek religious belief.

In the Goodness of the Dodekatheon,
Chris.