The Latest News and Views about ANTINOUS the GAY GOD
Compiled and Updated
By
Hernestus, Priest of Antinous
JULY 25th 2010
The Latest News and Views about ANTINOUS the GAY GOD
Compiled and Updated
By
Hernestus, Priest of Antinous
On July 25th the Religion of Antinous joyfully commemorates the First Miracle of Antinous — the Bountiful Inundation of the Nile which ended a drought which had caused food shortages throughout the Empire.
The famine had overshadowed the tour of Egypt by the Imperial entourage in the year 130. The half-starved Egyptians looked to Hadrian, whom they worshipped as pharaoh, to perform a miracle which would end their misery.
But as Hadrian and Antinous traveled up the Nile during the summer and autumn of 130, the Nile once again failed to rise sufficiently to water the fields of Egypt — Rome's "Bread Basket" and chief source of grain and other staple foodstuffs.
It was a humiliating disappointment for the Emperor following the jubilant welcome by peoples during the earlier part of his tour through the Eastern Empire. In Ephesus and other cities he had been welcomed as a living god.
But the Egyptians had given him and his coterie what little they had in the way of food and wine — and he had failed to convince the Inundation Deity Hapi to bless them with bounty. Hapi is one of the most extraordinary deities in the history of religion.
Hapi is special to us especially because Hapi is hermaphroditic. With many other such deities, the gender division is down the middle of the body (like some Hindu deities) or the top half is one gender and the bottom half is the other.
But Hapi is very complex and the genders are mixed throughout his/her body. Male deities invariably have reddish-orange skin in Egyptian Art and female deities have yellowish skin. Hapi has bluish-green skin. Hapi has long hair like a female deity but has a square jaw and a beard. Hapi has broad shoulders yet has pendulous breasts like a nursing mother. Hapi has narrow hips and masculine thighs, but has a pregnant belly. Nobody knows what sort of genitals Hapi has, since they are covered by a strange garment reminiscent of a sumo wrestler's belt.
Hapi is both father and mother to the Egyptians. Hapi provides them with everything necessary for life. As Herodotus wrote, "Egypt is the gift of the Nile". Hapi wears a fabulous headdress of towering water plants and she/he carries enormous offering trays laden with foodstuffs.
The Ancient Egyptians had no problem worshipping a mixed-gender deity. I think it is very important to draw the connection between Hapi and Antinous, especially since the First Miracle that Antinous performed as a god involved Hapi. The Egyptians accepted Antinous into their own belief system immediately and were among the most ardent followers of Antinous.
They had no problem worshipping a gay deity who had united himself with a hermaphroditic deity. It must have seemed very logical and credible to them.
It made sense to them and enriched their belief system, made it more personal since they could identify more easily with a handsome young man than with a hermaphrodite wearing a sumo belt (Hapi forgive me!).
Herodotus also said he once asked a very learned religious man in Egypt what the true source of the Nile was.
The learned man (speaking through an interpreter, since most Greeks never bothered to learn Egyptian) paused and finally told him the true source of the Nile is the thigh of Osiris.
We think of it as a strange answer. We think of the Nile as an "it" and the source as a "geographical location". But the Egyptians thought of the Nile as "us" and its true source as "heka" — the magical semen of the creator.
So a learned Egyptian would have assumed that a learned Greek would understand what was meant: That Hapi is the equivalent of Dionysus, who was "incubated" in the inner thigh of Zeus after his pregnant mortal mother Semele perished when she could not bear the searing sight of her lover Zeus in all his divine panoply.
It's a very poetic way (a very Egyptian way) of saying that the "true source" of the Nile, which is to say Egypt itself, is the magical heka/semen from the loins of the original creator.
We will never know what happened during that journey up the Nile along the drought-parched fields with anxious Egyptian farmers looking to Hadrian for a miracle. All we know is that Antinous "plunged into the Nile" and into the arms of Hapi in late October of the year 130.
And then the following summer, Hapi the Inundation Deity provided a bountiful Nile flood which replenished the food stocks of Egypt — and the Roman Empire.
Our own Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia explains the more esoteric aspects of this special Religious Holy Day:
"The Dog Star Sirius appears, and the sacred Star of Antinous begins to approach its zenith in the night sky of the northern hemisphere. The appearance of the Dog Star once announced the rise of the Inundation of the Nile, though it no longer does due to the precession of the Equinox, which is the slight alteration of the position of the stars.
"After the Death and Deification of Antinous, the Nile responded by rising miraculously after two successive years of severe drought. It was on this day, July 25th, in the year 131 that the ancient Egyptians recognized that Antinous was a god, nine months after his death, following their custom of deifying those who drowned in the Nile, whose sacrifice insured the life-giving flood.
"Sirius is the brightest star in the sky, it is part of the constellation Canis Major, or the big dog, which is the hunting dog of Orion. Mystically, Sirius and the constellation Canis Major is Antinous Master of Hounds and Orion is Hadrian the Hunter.
"The position of Orion, along the banks of the Milky Way, our galaxy in relation to Sirius is a mirror image of Pyramids along the bank of the Nile, which is the same relationship as Antinoopolis to the Nile, with the Via Hadriani, the road which Hadrian built across the desert to the East, linking the Nile with the Red Sea — Rome to India.
"We consecrate the beginning of the Dog Days of Summer to the advent of the Egyptian deification of Antinous and the miracle of the Inundation of the Nile."
The First Miracle of Antinous the Gay God is enshrined in the hieroglyphic inscription on the OBELISK OF ANTINOUS which stands in Rome
The East Face of the Obelisk, which is aligned to the rising sun Ra-Herakhte, speaks of the joy that fills the heart of Antinous since having been summoned to meet his heavenly father Ra-Herakhte and to become a god himself.
Then the inscription tells how Antinous intercedes with Ra-Herakhte to shower blessings upon Hadrian and the Empress Sabina Augusta.
And Antinous immediately calls upon Hapi ...
Hapi, progenitor of the gods,
On behalf of Hadrian and Sabina,
Arrange the inundation in fortuitous time
To make fertile and bountiful, the fields
Of Both Upper and Lower Egypt!
We joyfully celebrate this, the First Miracle of Antinous!
On July 11th each year, the Religion of Antinous takes a moment to ponder the esoteric reflections in the Well of Castalia at Delphi. On July 11th 2010, this Sacred Feast coincides with the alignment of the Sun and Moon in conjunction for five minutes and 20 seconds, making it the longest TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE of the decade. Solar Eclipses are always highly dramatic cosmic events, harbingers of catastrophe. But that is not all by any means, because ALL of the major planets on this date are involved in extraordinarily significant aspects which make this date a turning point in history. This is the Second Station of Ten Stations in a tumultuous six months which we call the ANTINOUS COSMIC STAR PILGRIMAGE.
The Delphic Well of Castalia offers insights into how we seize the opportunities that this Sacred Pilgrimage lays before us. If you have ever flicked through the Tarot cards and have been mystified by the symbolism of The Star — one of the mythically most mysteriously obscure cards in the whole pack — then you will be gratified to know that the symbolism has been a source of ineffible mystery since ancient times (Tarot image left).
The Well of Castalia is a fresh-water spring that flows from Mount Parnassus at Dephi, the sanctuary of Apollo. The Castalian Spring is located about 500 yards/meters from the Apollo Sanctuary itself. Busloads of tourists are whisked through the ruins of Delphi, but few ever stray away from their groups to wander off over to the spring site, which makes it an even more secluded and magical and mysterious place. It really is like stepping into the scene pictured on the Tarot card at left.
Today you can still see a rectangular square basin of about 9x3 meters/yards, hewn out in the hard soil. Next to it is a long reservoir which was fed by a small waterfall of spring water which gushed from two rocks known as the Pheriads. The reservoir collected the water before it was fed to seven jets, which had the shape of lion heads. The water was also used to sprinkle the temple of Apollo.
The spring was created when Pegasus, the winged horse, struck his hoof against a rock at the base of Mount Parnassus and water gushed forth, creating a wellspring of divine inspiration for the gods of Olympus.
The name Castalia is derived from a Nymph named Castalia, a daughter of the river Achelous, who, when pursued by Apollo, threw herself in the spring that took her name. It was the most holy spring at Delphi and was said to be the place where Apollo and the Muses bathed.
It was also believed that the God Apollo had once chased the nymph Daphne into the Tempe Canyon, which is the dramatically steep rift between Olympus and Ossa which forms a natural pass between Macedonia and Greece.
But as in mortal dreams, when he was just about to seize her, she transformed herself into a form which defied his amorous desires — a laurel — which Apollo then transplanted from this canyon to the Castalian Spring at the foot of Mount Parnassus.
The sacred tradition of wearing laurel wreaths comes from the tree at the foot of Mount Parnassus. There may indeed have been an ancient cult for a laurel-like tree at the spring. There appears to have been a statue for Ge, Mother Earth, as well.
In other words, it was an incredibly sacred place where you could tap into the magical inspiration of the divine muses of Olympus. After all, Apollo himself bathed here.
Pilgrims washed in the sacred water before visiting the Pythoness at the Delphic Oracle. According to Euripides, washing one's hair was sufficient for the average visitor, but persons who had transgressed more seriously against the Gods (he mentions habitual murderers as an example) had to strip off and wash themselves completely in the purifying waters.
The ancients believed the name Pegasus came from an even more ancient word meaning "wellspring of magical inspiration" and it was said that Pegasus was drinking from the Castalian Pool when Bellerophontes (or in later versions Perseus) sneaked up on him to harness Pegasus to do battle against fearful monsters.
In the Delphic Mystery Teachings, the initiates were called upon to harness the magical inspiration of Pegasus for their own indomitable quest against the inner-demons of darkness towards spiritual enlightenment.
It was also said that the water of Castalia possessed the gift of prophecy, and any man who drank there would derive prophetic vision. Castalia is also a metaphor for the Well of Knowledge, and was said to be the fountain from which wisdom and learning poured from the heart of Apollo.
We know that Hadrian and Antinous visited this spot and it seems certain that Antinous purified himself in these waters — or at least washed his luxuriant hair.
An exquisite statue of Antinous was discovered at Delphi. The forearms had been broken off, but the ancient priests had lovingly buried the statue standing upright — which was the way it was found in the 19th Century, incredibly intact except for the missing forearms.
Alas, Antinous would drown in the similarly magical waters of the River Nile only a few scant months after visiting Delphi, during what we call the imperial "Three-Year Peregrination" — the wondrous and fateful final three-year Eastern Empire travels of Hadrian and Antinous.
Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia explains why this special day, July 11th, is venerated by us Antinoians:
"We venerate the wisdom-gushing Well of Castalia on this day, half a year distant from the Well of Juturna, and bathe in preparation for the transition of the Peregrination year. We pray to Castalia to sweeten our tongue, as Antinous once bathed there, exposing the pure beauty of his flesh to the cold, fresh-gushing pool that imparts inspiration of the mind. In reverence of the wisdom and poetic elegance of Antinous, we bathe in our own Fountains of Castalia."
The imagery of this purifying plunge into the magically inspiring waters of the Castalian Well has been used throughout history — even adorning the walls of early Christian churches, as seen in the mosaic (at right) found in Libya.
The imagery lives vibrantly in the XVIIth Greater Trump in the Tarot as The Star.
Right now, ANTINOUS THE MOON GOD is aligned with the Sun during an extraordinarily historic "Astrological Grand Square" of major planets. This eclipse is visible across the South Pacific and South America as ANTINOUS THE MOON GOD merges as one with his heavenly father Ra-Herakhte in the emotionally intuitive, watery depths of the Sign of Cancer. This is The Beauteous Boy's way of inviting you to lift your Inner Eye towards the STAR OF ANTINOUS and open your Mind to the Infinite.
Open your Mind and your Heart to the Mystery Teachings of Delphi. Permit yourself to be carried aloft upon the magical wings of Pegasus, whose name means "wellspring of magical inspiration". Become one with Antinous through the wonder of HOMOTHEOSIS and allow yourself to conquer your demons and to soar to glory amongst the stars.
On July 8th and 9th the Religion of Antinous commemorates the Ascension and Consecration of Hadrian. And on July 10th we commemorate his death and Apotheosis.
Hadrian was declared Emperor by the Legions when Trajan died suddenly while campaigning in Parthia on August 8th, 117. Hadrian had been on tenterhooks for years wondering whether Trajan would formally adopt him as his heir. If Trajan died without the issue of succession being settled, it could result in civil war — or at least in the assassination of Hadrian by some other ambitious man.
It is said that the Divine Empress Plotina forged the will of her husband and gave the throne to Hadrian, who had been her protégé and friend for years.
After assuming power, Hadrian first settled the conflict with the Persian King, signing a peace treaty that was to last through the whole of his reign. As Trajan's military representative in the provinces, he had seen how the empire was beginning to over-reach its resources. So he set about consolidating things in the East, lest his Empire become embroiled in the sort of chronic blood-letting that modern superpowers now seek to extricate themselves from in that same region.
It is also said that he wanted to let the political dust settle back in Rome before returning to a city where his critics were waiting. Many thought him unfit. Hadrian was Hispanic — literally so. He was born in the province of Hispania and spoke Latin with a provincial "Hispanic accent" which was the cause of much derision by high-born Patricians when he was sent to Rome as a boy to be educated. He never liked Rome and, throughout his reign, spent as little time there as possible.
Settling other matters in the East, Hadrian waited a full year before returning to Rome, and on July 9th, 118, he entered the Holy City and was formally and ritually installed as Emperor by the Senate. He was then consecrated as Pontifex Maximus, highest priest of the Roman Religion, and head of all foreign cults.
He inherited from the warrior-king Trajan the largest empire that the western world had ever known — Rome at her greatest size and strength — and he wisely chose not to continue to expand the frontiers, but to turn instead to the development of the interior.
He visited every province, traveling more than any other emperor before or after, dedicating his power to art, literature, legal reform and the promotion of peace, prosperity, and the united religious consciousness of Roman citizenship after his beloved Athenian model.
Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia says the following about this Sacred Day in our Liturgical Calendar:
"On this day, Imperator Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus was to assume responsibility as the spiritual leader of the Empire, Father of the Country with a vigor unparalleled by his predecessors, and was to be one of the foremost builders of cities, temples, and public structures world-wide. For his love of Antinous and the extraordinary gesture of deifying our god, we worship and venerate Hadrian as the founder of our faith and as our immortal father, the lover of Antinous."
On July 10th the Religion of Antinous commemorates the Apotheosis of Hadrian. After a prolonged illness, at Baiae, on the Bay of Naples, Hadrian died on July 10, 138. His ashes were placed in the mausoleum on the bank of the Tibur that is now called Castel Sant'Angelo.
After the death of the gentle Antinous, Hadrian became embittered and mistrustful, capricious and cruel. When Hadrian died, the Senate wished to condemn his memory for atrocities committed against them during his final years. But his successor, Antoninus Pius, persuaded them to declare Hadrian a God. A temple was build for him known as the Hadrianeum on the Campus Marius, the remains of which are now part of the Roman Stock Exchange.
Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia explains:
"Hadrian the God is venerated as the manifestation of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Earth, the ruler and guiding force behind the Antonine Dynasty, the most sacred family of emperors, whose reign is the Golden Age of Rome, because of the peace and prosperity that it maintained, which was the result of the wisdom of Hadrian's far-sighted and divine plan stretching out over the world. We worship and adore Hadrian the God, Savior of the Cosmos."
There is an Antinous flower, a red lotus called the Antinoeios. And there is an Antinous tarantula, called Pamphobeteus antinous. There is a Star of Antinous and even an Antinous asteroid.
But only collectors of antique photographic equipment have ever heard of the Antinous remote shutter-release cable for a roller-blind camera.
At the start of the 20th Century the British camera-maker Watson Edwards brought out the "Antinous", a revolutionary new wire-cable which replaced the traditional rubber bulb squeeze release which had been problem-prone. Sometimes when you squeezed the rubber bulb it failed to trigger the shutter. But the "Antinous" always worked. It revolutionized professional photography on the early wooden cameras.
In a classic book on stereoscopic photography for use in "science, industry and education" written prior to 1935, an authority with the Royal College of Science in London laments that most camera shutter release knobs or levers are so badly located that there is a tendency to shake the camera in releasing the shutter. Antinous to the rescue!
"Personally," the expert advises, "the use of the antinous release is preferred for hand work; the release of this can be arranged in any convenient position to suit the operator, and there is no tendency to rock the camera."
The Watson Edwards "Antinous" was displayed in 1905 at the Royal Photographic Society's 50th Annual Exhibition as being practical and handy, since it could roll flat to fit "in the tiniest pocket cameras". Today the "Antinous" shutter release is a prized part of any collection of vintage British photographic equipment.
The June Solstice is one of the most sacred days in the Liturgical Calendar of the Religion of Antinous. It is the day when Ra Herakhte, the heavenly father of Antinous, stands still for a moment. In the Northern Hemisphere it is the Longest Day and from now on the days become shorter and shorter. For our Antinoian brothers in the Southern Hemisphere, this is the Shortest Day and from now on the days become longer and longer.
That is an important aspect to remember about the Religion of Antinous. The Blessed Boy is beyond such constraints as Summer and Winter or even Life and Death. For Antinous, the days are ALWAYS getting longer and the they are ALWAYS getting shorter.
For HE lives in our hearts — wherever we are.
The Solstice occurs before dawn Monday morning (4:28 a.m. California time) or shortly after midday Monday (12:28 p.m. in the UK) or after sunset Monday evening (9:28 p.m. in Sydney where this is the shortest winter day).
It's all the same moment in the dazzling eyes of Antinous, who hovers in our spiritual hearts beyond time and space. But our earthly clocks and calendars show different times and dates and seasons. All moments in time are NOW for Antinous. All points in space are HERE.
The Religion of Antinous celebrates a whole cluster of Sacred Events on this magical day, which we call The Delphinea as a collective term. The Delphinea is the celebration of the beautiful, golden-haired god of light, Apollo, for starters. In antiquity, Antinous was often equated with Apollo.
And then we celebrate the day that Hadrian and Antinous met and fell in love. But on this date we also celebrate the beautiful boy Hyacinthus.
And we celebrate June 21st as the day in the hot summer of the year 130 AD when the Imperial entourage crossed the Sinai desert and entered into Egypt on the final, fateful leg of that final, fateful journey. A year earlier, on this date, they had entered Ephesus in triumph. On June 21st of the year 130 AD, however, they were entering a drought-stricken Egypt (breadbasket of the empire) where the local populace looked to their emperor for a miracle.
That miracle would occur, but at a terrible price. Antinous would plunge into the Nile and drown. The following season, the Nile would inundate the croplands, bringing bounty and abundance once more to Egypt and, as a consequence, to the hungry empire.
The Bountiful Flood of the year 131 is the first of the many miracles attributed to Antinous the Gay God.
And on June 21st of the year 131, Hadrian would commission the OBELISK OF ANTINOUS, the Egyptian hieroglyphic text of which comprises our religion's greatest single document of faith.
But first, back to Apollo and the Solstice! Antinous would be associated with many deities in the generations to come. Among his many names, the Beauteous Boy was adored as Antinous-Apollo.
The glorious image above left shows a modern reproduction of the Apollon Parnopios which has been gilded and fitted with gemstone eyes to show how it might have looked in a temple where a ray of sunlight would have set it ablaze in gleaming light.
The Delphinea is the celebration of the beautiful, golden-haired god of light, Apollo, and of his triumph over the great and monstrous Python which was wrapped around holy mount Parnassus. The Python was the creation of Juno, a creature of jealousy whose coils were meant only to stifle and constrict the grace of that which was to proceed from the Sacred Way of the holy city of Delphi.
Apollo shot the Python and destroyed it, when he was only three days old, which is like the brilliance of the Sun dispelling the covering of night. He set the black stone which had fallen from the sky, called the Omphalos, over the navel of the Earth, and charged a Sibyl, a priestess of the Great Mother to watch over the stone and to convey his wisdom to mankind.
Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia explains the significance for us Antinoians:
"The Oracle of Delphi, called a Pythoness, was overtaken while seated atop a golden tripod, by a fire that is the breath of the God. Apollo is the Flower Prince reborn, he is the Twin brother of Dionysus, the Twin brother of Diana. He is the Son of Zeus, and the inheritor of his Kingdom, just as Aelius Caesar was the chosen son of Hadrian."Apollo is the God of wisdom and art, the speaker of truth, the deliverer of radiance, reason and beauty. Apollo is the God of Socrates and Plato, and he is the God of Pythagoras who claimed to be his son, exhibiting a golden thigh as proof. Apollo is the unconquered light, the full manifested brilliance, power and wisdom of Orpheus.
"Of all the gods, Apollo is the most boy-loving, though the touch of his heart was invariably fatal. He is the genius of the dying boy-gods. We pray to Apollo, the great god of homosexuality, and seek his guidance on this day, the longest day of the year."
Which segues into the "Incipit Amor". In the year 123, Hadrian toured the Danube region and Asia Minor. It was on this occasion that he met and fell in love with Antinous, in the ancient Bithynian capital city of Nicomedia, according to current research. One portrayal of the event has Hadrian in a garden, surrounded by the youth of the city, hearing a poetry recital.
Antonius tells it this way:
"Towards the back of the crowd, Hadrian notices a boy of extraordinary beauty who did not bring a stylus and tablet for taking notes, but sat removed from the others, silently gazing into the fountain, contemplating the words of the reader, as if in a dream. Hadrian was captivated, and is said to have gained the blessing of the boy's parents to have Antinous join the court, where there were already other boys of Hadrian's interest. Antinous would have been twelve years old. He was then sent to Rome to attend the Paedagogium, a finishing school for boys. This day marks the beginning of the love upon which our religion is based."
The relief sculpture at right shows Hadrian addressing a crowd with a boy who bears a striking resemblance to Antinous foremost in the crowd, touching the robe of the Emperor.
And speaking of beautiful boys, on June 22nd we honor the beautiful boy from Sparta known as Hyacinthus. The astonishing beauty of Hyacinthus and his long, flowing blonde hair was first noticed by Zephyrus, the God of the West Wind. The moisture laden Zephyrus fell madly in love with the boy, and attempted many times to seduce Hyacinth. But every time the boy rejected the wind god, whose breeze is the most lovely and most arousing.
Antonius relates what happened next:
"It was then that Apollo noticed Hyacinthus and fell completely in love with him also. Unlike with Zephyrus, when Apollo revealed his love to Hyacinthus, he was not rejected, but his shining love was returned many fold. The two, who were like twins, whose long, blonde curls, rustled together in the jealous wind of Zephyrus, enjoined a passionate love affair ...
"... until one day, the sight of their happiness proved too much for Zephyrus to endure, and while Apollo and Hyacinthus were throwing the discus together, the wind god sent a gust of air, when Apollo threw the golden disk, causing it to fall directly on the perfect head of Hyacinthus who died instantly from the blow.
"It was all an accident, and a tragedy, but Apollo was beside himself with grief, like Hadrian holding the body of his beloved Antinous.
"The Sun God turned the blood that flowed through the soft curls into the flower that we call the Hyacinth. The Death of Hyacinthus is the divine metaphor for the beauty and tragedy of life taken from the young in their full vigor, falling victim to the accidents of youth. It is also a warning to those who would approach the majesty of the great god Apollo, who is rightfully called the Far-Shooter, and the falling of the golden discus is a sign that the powers of the sun at this time of the year, though at their greatest, are slowly fading. The disk strikes Hyacinth on the head and the days grow shorter."
On June 11th, the Religion of Antinous celebrates the Rise of the Star of Antinous. This is the date in our Liturgical Calendar when the Constellation of Antinous begins to rise over the horizon at sunset. It is visible on the eastern horizon along the banks of the Milky Way.
By Sacred Synchronicity, this June 11th 2010 is the inspirational GEMINI NEW MOON which means this is a moonless night when star-gazing is at its best. Astrologically, Jupiter and Uranus are aligned in Aries, making this night the "most fortuitous" wish-upon-a-star night in many decades!
Wherever you live on this blue marble we call Earth, you can see the Constellation of Antinous on starry nights from mid-June through late October when, in synchronicity with the Death of Antinous in late October, the Star of Antinous descends below the western horizon in the glare of the setting sun.
The Constellation of Antinous is no longer recognized by astronomers (just as Pluto has been demoted to the rank of "dwarf planet"). But it is still visible from any point on Earth nestled between Sagittarius and Capricorn and in the talons of Aquila (the Eagle Constellation) representing the Imperial Eagle which carried Antinous to lofty heights.
The most visible identifiers are the three bright stars of Aquila — Altair at the crown of his head, Tarazad, and Alshain. Alshain is derived from Arabic for "Two Friends" which astrologers have cited as a hint as to how to interpret the Sign of Antinous.
The Star of Antinous is however difficult to see. Most people cannot see it at all. You won't find it on any star chart. Like the Star of Bethlehem, it is a mystery and a conundrum about which many theories have been written.
The simple truth of the matter — and the most beautiful facet of all — is the fact that Hadrian discovered the Star of Antinous with his own tear-filled eyes as he looked skyward in grief after the death of his beloved Antinous. Distraught and weeping, the emperor stood under the canopy of the star-studded heavens and looked up the River Nile towards the spot where his Beloved Boy had died. And he saw a new star which he recognized as a celestial sign that the gods had taken Antinous to be one of them.
You have to realize that Hadrian was a keen astronomer/astrologer himself. He knew the heavens like the back of his hand and he was so adept at casting horoscopes that it was said he had determined the exact hour of his death. He built an observatory at his sumptious villa outside Rome. And the tour of Egypt had brought him into contact with the finest Egyptian magician/priests, one of whom taught him how to cast a binding spell which could give him dream-visions and could also cause someone to fall hopelessly in love with him or — depending on how it was cast — even cause that person to die in agony.
Hadrian was that sort of control freak. Despite the fact that he was the mightiest man on Earth who could send a man to death on a whim (and did so, on occasion), he also wanted control over the future. And he wanted to be able to force someone to love him and never, never leave him.
Much has been theorized about that magical spell, which was sold to Hadrian for a princely sum by the Heliopolis magician/priest Pancrates, who even demonstrated its efficacy by destroying a man right in front of the emperor's eyes. This is believed to be the same Pancrates who wrote a poem about Hadrian and Antinous and The Sacred Lion Hunt, during which Antinous very nearly died, but was saved at the last second by Hadrian.
Yes, much has been written about these events and about Hadrian's obsession with magic and astrology and soothsayers. Why would the most powerful man in the world need a death spell? Whose love would he possibly seek to bind to himself for all eternity? We know that similar love spells were a specialty of the later magician/priests at the Great Temple of Antinoopolis founded on the site where the Boy drowned.
Had the ageing emperor attempted to cast a love spell which tragically backfired and resulted in the death of the spell's intended subject? We shall never know ....
Whatever transpired, Antinous died under circumstances which were as mysterious as they were tragic. And Hadrian was consumed with grief which traumatized him to such a degree that the rest of his reign was marked by erratic judgement and unpredictable outbursts of rage.
Up until the year 130 his reign had been marked by peace and prosperity and humanity. Hadrian was well on his way towards fulfilling his dream of transforming the Roman Empire from a collection of provinces held together only by military force into a very modern-style, multi-culti society united by shared cultural and social values of tolerance and fairness. He was aiming for a kind of cultural globalism. And he was very close to succeeding ....
But after the traumatic events in October 130, the last eight years of his reign were marred by an ill-advised war against the Jews and by capricious cruelty which sullied his reputation for all time.
After Antinous died, Hadrian went slightly mad with grief.
Something in Hadrian died when Antinous died. A light went out. Hadrian spent the rest of his life seeking that Light of Antinous. He created the Religion of Antinous after his own romantic vision of the ideal religion. Like many romantic gay men, Hadrian idealized an era and a society — Classical Greece — to such a degree that his fantasy Classical Greece was far grander than the real thing had ever been. You all know what I mean. We've all seen gay men who collect Victoriana and who turn their homes into lavish 19th Century mansions — quite forgetting the fact that the Victorian Age was marked by repression, disease, exploitation, colonial tyranny and so on.
The Portuguese have a word for this: "saudade". It is an untranslatable word for a melancholy feeling of wistful longing for something (or someone) which was too wonderful, too fantastic, too perfect ever to have really existed.
Hadrian spent his life in search of spiritual enlightenment, having himself initiated into the Mysteries of Eleusis and Dionysus and other cults and also conferring with philosophers and magician/priests.
Hadrian was obsessed with astrology/astronomy and magic and a highly idealized vision of recreating Hellenistic cultural values in the world — and with a religion which would enable everyone in the world to bring this vision to life in their own hearts. He wanted to find that Light of Antinous (his idealized religion of love and beauty) and he wanted everyone to find that Light of Antinous.
Saudade — the quest for something so beautiful, so romantic, so splendid that it defies physical reality and can exist only in the perfect realm of the place the Egyptians called Sep Tepy (the "Initial Moment" of Creation) or the Classical Greeks called Olympus — the realm of the immortal gods, beyond time and space.
So Hadrian looked into the nighttime skies and discovered a new star to point the way to that new religion. As a scholar and man of science he was able to see it with his own two eyes. Perhaps it was a super-nova which flared and then went out — who knows? He saw it and his court astronomers confirmed it and the Constellation of Antinous was recorded in the star charts for 19 centuries to come.
But more importantly, Hadrian discovered the Star of Antinous shining in his heart. The Death of Antinous showed him a way to make his saudade vision of the perfect religion a reality on Earth. It was the Light he was seeking. It was the Light of Antinous.
So when you look up into the nighttime skies tonight in search of the Star of Antinous, don't be surprised if you can't find it with your physical eyes. You can't find it in physical space, which is why Arch Priest Antonyus Subia calls it the Dark Star of Antinous. Look inside your heart and you will find it shining there with all the saudade beauty of a dream of perfection.
Lumen Antinoi Adiuva Nos! (Light of Antinous, Sustain Us!)
Fans of noted scholar and mystery writer Ben Pastor's award-winning historical novels will be glad to know that her latest book has just been published in Italy and will soon be available in English. The Stone Virgins (Le Vergini di Pietra) is the third historical mystery adventure in Pastor's Aelius Spartianus series, which started with The Water Thief about the search for the Lost Tomb of Antinous and continued with The Fire Waker.
The third installment takes Aelius Spartianus — a true-life soldier/historian who wrote an official biography of Hadrian — on a sleuthing mission deep into the mountains of ancient Armenia. As always with a Ben Pastor book, Spartianus not only cuts through the Gordian Knot of a baffling murder mystery but also provides the reader with brilliant insights into life in Imperial Rome on the historical cusp between Paganism and Christianity.
Fans of the first book in the series will be delighted to learn that the new book embellishes details of plot and character in The Water Thief. Many of you who love the Blessed Boy have read The Water Thief — and if you haven't, you should do so because it portrays the Religion of Antinous in its full bloom at the turn of the 4th Century AD. Much of the action is set in the Sacred City of Antinoopolis, and even inside the most sacred precincts of the Great Temple itself.
In 2008 the Spanish translation of The Water Thief won the prestigious Premio internacional de la novela historica Ciudad de Zaragoza, Spanish literature's premiere award for historical fiction.
A delightful and witty person with feet in two continents, Ben Pastor was born in Rome, but her career as a college instructor and writer requires that she divide her time between the United States and Italy, where she is researching further sequels to The Water Thief and is also currently involved in an archaeological dig.
Author of the internationally acclaimed Martin Bora war mysteries set in Nazi-occupied Europe, her books have been published in the United States, Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Ben Pastor's Martin Bora series focuses on a thoroughly scrupulous Wehrmacht military criminal investigator surrounded by thoroughly unscrupulous characters. And with her Spartianus books, she shows she is just as much at home with the Legions in Ancient Rome. She is indeed a master at the craft of writing a mystery that is more than a mystery and a historical novel that is more than a historical novel.
In fact, her books defy easy categories. The murder mystery plots, while riveting, are only part of the fun of reading her books. She has an incredible eye for detail and for precise time and place. Each event corresponds to a calendar date. Each setting is an authentic place. When Ben Pastor describes a rain cloud on the horizon, you half-suspect she consulted an ancient almanac to verify the weather on that day in the year 304 in the vicinity of Oxyrhynchos.
Above all, her characters are vividly drawn and fully complex human beings. Her dialogue is superb. The characters are never one-dimensional, never all-good or all evil, never entirely what they appear to be on the surface — just like all of us. Spartianus is a tolerably decent and honorable man who finds himself in perfectly intolerable situations. And as in all her novels, even the minor characters are fleshed out. There are always a couple of intriguing eccentrics.
In The Water Thief there is the outrageous tranny whore Cleopatra Minor, who spins a yarn about how Hadrian discovered Antinous as an 11-year-old toy boy at a male brothel on the Bay of Naples. And in the sequel The Fire Waker, we have the nymphomaniac Helena who uses the wiles of her body in a bid to bring her son Constantine to the throne. The reader knows, of course, that the man-hungry, sluttish Helena will one day be honored as a Christian saint.
And in The Stone Virgins Spartianus encounters a down-and-out male whore/entertainer named Lollius Pica who provides a vital clue to the identity of an elusive, phantom-like satrap in the wild and haunted hills of farthest Armenia.
The Water Thief has the added benefit of being the first novel in half a century to focus on Antinous the Gay God. Read it and, like me, you will have vivid dreams of Antinous. He stood in front of me (as Spartianus observes) "with a golden wreath in his hair, and with a face grey-eyed and lovely and tranquil, which no astonishment or pain seemed ever to have marred".
Set in the year 304 AD, it tells of Aelius Spartianus, the true-life army officer/scholar who was commissioned by Emperor Diocletian to do research on his predecessor the Divine Hadrian, who had died nearly two centuries earlier.
It is while delving into the mystery of the death of Antinous and while trying to learn the whereabouts of the Lost Tomb of Antinous that the officer stumbles onto evidence of a letter penned by Hadrian uncovering a covert conspiracy to bring down the Empire — a conspiracy that is still very much at work in 4th Century Rome. As he comes ever closer to finding the answer to the death of Antinous, the conspirators' efforts to thwart him become ever more violent, resulting in numerous brutal murders and attempts on his life.
The book opens in Antinoopolis, where Aelius Spartianus (who actually existed and actually wrote a biography of Hadrian) begins his search for the Lost Tomb of Antinous.
Ben's Antinoopolis is a lively city of gay bathhouses and bejeweled gay priests (laden with eye make up and attitude) and also a city of bitter feuds between Christian hot heads and angry Jews and jaded Roman provincial administrators.
But it is when Spartianus heads to Rome itself that this book really takes off. The author's obvious love for the Eternal City makes her book a joy to read. Her descriptions of Rome are superb. You get a real feel for the teeming city in mid-summer, with all the odors and noise, colors and steamy heat that that implies.
Best of all, for those of us who love and worship Antinous, are the chapters in which Spartianus ensconces himself in Hadrian's derelict villa outside Rome. It is there, as he stares up into the stars at night, that he makes a startling connection between the layout of the villa and the eight visible constellations in the nighttime sky in late October when Antinous died — indicating that Hadrian's obsession with horoscopes and astrology led him to create an earthly universe where time stood still at the death of Antinous.
Did Hadrian's belief in astrological fate compel him to have Antinous killed? Or did Antinous take his own life in a bid to fulfill his astrological fate? Or was it more mundane? Did he and Hadrian have a lovers' tiff that ended tragically? Was he done in by young male rivals intent on gaining Hadrian's affections for themselves? Or was something even more sinister at work? And why is someone desperate to prevent Spartianus from finding out what happened to Antinous all those years ago?
For those of us who love Antinous, the Aelius Spartianus books are a joy to read. Ben works in many small and obscure details which are well known to his modern-day followers. To give just one example, Spartianus expends a great deal of effort trying to locate and decipher the OBELISK OF ANTINOUS, which today stands in a park in northwest Rome is the focus of much current research.
The Obelisk's key inscription, which is the focus of modern experts seeking his tomb, says that Antinous "rests in this place which is in the Border Fields of Our Lady Rome". Just as today's researchers have puzzled over the meaning of that phrase, Ben's protagonist must also make sense of it — and he arrives at a startling answer that almost costs him his life and jeopardizes future of the Empire.
There are numerous gay characters and they emerge as well-rounded and believable characters, especially the flamboyant Egyptian gays who find themselves unwittingly the target of unscrupulous killers in their very midst.
The tales of Antinous and Hadrian which unfold as the investigation progresses are a true pleasure to read, if only because they are all so contradictory and often far-fetched — precisely as they are to today's researchers. Aelius Spartianus must work his way through this thicket of tall tales and outright lies and defamations in order to determine precisely what sort of persons Hadrian and Antinous were — in order to save the Empire two centuries after their deaths.
One of the more outlandish tall tales is told to him by the Roman hustler Cleopatra Minor who claims to have frequented a notorious whorehouse which specializes in boys for aristocratic customers whose villas line the Bay of Naples. Cleo claims it is "well-known there" that Antinous was a boy prostitute who had just arrived from Bythinia and "had barely become accustomed to his little bed" when Hadrian stopped by the whorehouse and took a fancy to him.
There are lots of other, equally intriguing characters in this book. But the most intriguing character of all, of course, is the one character who cannot take active part in the plot but whose presence is felt at every turn of the plot:
Antinous himself.
Though the 4th Century murders take center stage in the story, this book actually is more concerned with telling the story of Antinous and Hadrian and their abiding love affair which spans the gulf of the centuries.
As you read the novel, you get a growing awareness of Antinous as the living, breathing, three-dimensional human being that he must have been in life. The more Spartianus looks into the life of Antinous, the more he becomes obsessed with the Blessed Boy. He simply has to find that tomb, even if it means his death and the downfall of Rome.
I won't give away the thrilling ending, except to say that, when Spartianus finally "exchanges glances" with Antinous (in a manner of speaking), he is overcome with emotion — and the reader finds it hard to hold back the tears.
This is the finest historical novel about Antinous since Marguerite Yourcenar's Mémoires d'Hadrien. Particularly if you are an adherent of his modern-day religion, you'll come away with new insights and new theories of your own about the mystery of the life and death of Antinous — and his place amongst the stars.
If nothing else, after putting down the book before falling asleep, you'll dream of the Blessed Boy.
And when you learn the identity of the Water Thief, you'll realize that this insidious foe is stealthily at work in your own life today, just as in the life of Antinous and of the Roman Empire. Ben Pastor's Aelius Spartianus novels are perfect summertime reading for anyone interested in Antinous, in Imperial Rome and in crime fiction.
Worshippers of Antinous tend to be animal lovers. Perhaps it is because Antinous and Hadrian both are known to have loved animals. Hadrian even erected a tomb to his favorite horse. Horses, dogs, cats, pet birds — many members of ECCLESIA ANTINOI have beloved animal companions, or have had at various times in our lives.
Dogs are especially popular. Antinous also apparently loved dogs, and a dog affectionately looks up at Antinous while he is harvesting grapes in the relief at left.
Antinous no doubt was familiar with the Haralez, the beneficent canine spirits of the remote mountains of his native Bithynia and Armenia. While the mountain mythology of that region possesses many heroes, monsters and spirits, the Haralez have always been the most beloved. The Haralez assume canine form and guide and protect humans in peril. Few people in modern-day Turkey know of the Harelez, and indeed, these Celtic myths were fading by the time Antinous was born in the 2nd Century AD. But he might have heard oldtimers speak of how, when a valiant man falls in battle, the Haralez comes to his rescue and, by licking his wounds, restores him to life. The popularity of the Haralez never died out completely. Even today, Armenian folk tales mention the "perpetual lickers" who restore life to the dead.
On May 22nd, appropriately, the Religion of Antinous honors all faithful dogs who guard us and protect us and lick our wounds.
May 22nd is the Ancient Roman festival of Canis Erigoneius (Feast Day of the Dog of Erigone) which honors the she-dog Maira and her elderly master Icarius and his daughter Erigone.
This doggy feast day is not to be confused with the other Ancient Roman feast day each year when a dog would be crucified as a warning to all watchdogs not to fall asleep on the job. That was what happened once when the Gauls defeated a Roman Legion and marched undeterred on the city of Rome itself. The city's terrified residents fled in all directions. Total evacuation of a major city is impossible.
A few people stayed behind (mostly the infirm, elderly and pregnant mothers-to-be) and sought refuge with a few soldiers and Vestal Virgins atop the Capitoline Hill, where the city's vast treasure was stored in the Temples of Zeus, Juno and Minerva. Food was running low and the Sacred Geese of Hera looked very tempting but the Vestals warned that the goddess would not condone their slaughter. Spare the geese, and you spare Rome! Slaughter the geese, and Rome is lost!
The Gauls were intent on getting their hands on that treasure, so one night the Gauls crept up the slopes of the hill undetected, the hunger-weakened soldiers and watchdogs having dozed off. Only the plump Sacred Geese of Juno raised the alarm and roused the soldiers, who managed to stave off the Gauls and hold out until reserve Legions could arrive to retake the city and drive out the Gauls.
Needless to say, the dozy guards and watchdogs were punished severely — thrown off the Tarpeian Rock to their deaths. And after that, the Romans annually crucified a dog to make sure no watchdog forgot the lesson. Meanwhile the Sacred Geese were pampered to death, dying of arteriosclerosis and avian gout from over-eating.
But on the feast day of Canis Erigoneius, the Ancient Romans turned sentimental and pampered their dogs in remembrance of the faithful she-dog whose devotion to her master and mistress triumphed over death itself. Like so many holidays (both ancient and modern), it was a day to get falling-down drunk because the story involved Dionysus and the gift of wine to mankind.
It is the stuff that prime-time premium cable TV miniseries are made of: A kindly old man throws a party for his neighbors, who get completely hammered and end up murdering their host in a drunken frenzy. Afterward, they bury his body in a secret location, making off with his fortune and killing each other for their "fair" shares.
Ah! But the old man's faithful dog finds the secret grave under a tree and digs up his body. His daughter sees the grisly corpse and hangs herself in grief from the tree where the grave is located. The dog sits by both bodies, dutifully protecting them from anyone who approaches so that the dog has to be killed in order for authorities to dispose of the corpses.
That is the story in short. It could well be adapted as a forensic police mini-series except for the fact that the god Antinous-Dionysus plays a leading role. The full story is that kindly old man Icarius had been hospitable to the god Antinous-Dionysus and so, in gratitude, the God had given him a cutting of the finest wine grape vine in the universe.
With it, Icarius had been able to produce the mother of all wines, which was so potent that the neighbors who tasted it all came down with such severe alcohol poisoning that they became isanely envious of his fortune and desirous of his voluptuous daughter that they murdered Icarius — to get the Gift of the God.
Antinous-Dionysus was so outraged at what happened that he slapped a virulent curse on everyone in the neighboring countryside. He sent a plague of violent illness and delirious madness over the entire region. If they thought they had been poisoned from the divine wine, they REALLY got sick out of their minds this time.
In addition, all the unwed female offspring of the district spontaneously hanged themselves from the nearest tree. This is the origin of the biblical Grapes of Wrath.
Icarius was immortalized as the constellation Bootes, Erigone was placed into Virgo along with Persephone, and the dog Maira was placed in the Canis Minor.
Arch Priest Antonyus Subia relates the story in detail, concluding with the words, "Antinous, who is the New Dionysus, gives us the power of the dog Maira to find the buried mystery of his wine-giver."
For that is the Mystery Teaching of this myth. Icarius died and was dug up and raised to the heavens. He was "Twice Born" (Dio-Nysus) just as the god Antinous-Dionysus was born twice. As a foetus, Dionysus was taken from his mother's womb at the point of death and was sewn up in the upper groin-thigh of Zeus so that he could grow to full term — and was born a second time by the King of the Gods.
Similarly, Antinous was born of mortal woman but died and was reborn as a god at the proclamation of Hadrian in his capacity as the earthly Zeus.
Ah! But that's not all for us dog-lovers!
This is where Hermanubis comes into the story. In the 2nd Century AD the Religion of Antinous was thriving at the same time that the cult of Hermanubis was spreading to Rome. The Romans thought of Hermanubis as a merging of Hermes the messenger god and Anubis the Egyptian god of the dead.
But as so often, the Greeks hadn't translated the glyphs correctly and the Romans had blindly trusted the Greeks. In fact, the name Hermanubis is from the Egyptian Heru-M-Anpu, which means Horus-as-Anubis.
Rightly or wrongly (perhaps with the intercession of Hermes the Trickster), the Greco-Egyptian magician priests of Hermopolis understood that Hermanubis combined the cunning canine qualities of nocturnal scavenging (like a Mexican coyote) to emerge at dawn triumphant — like Horus the Sun God.
Woshippers of Hermanubis underwent initiations in which they discovered the "Anubic Light" which led them out of the darkness of their earthly existence. For a while, the cult of Hermanubis was very popular in Rome and there were great statues of Hermanubis. But a scandal of some sort resulted in the total suppression of the worship of Hermanubis in the city of Rome. No one knows why.
But his worship continued in the provinces, particularly in Egypt, where Anubis was quickly supplanted by Hermanubis — combining Horus and Anubis — Light Emerging from Death.
If you look closely at the Tondo of the Two Lovers, the portrait shows two men who are clearly worshippers of both Antinous and Hermanubis.
Antinous was worshipped at Antinoopolis on the East bank of the Nile, directly across the river from Hermopolis, where Hermanubis was worshipped on the West bank of the Nile. The two gods were clearly "neighbors" and were closely enough related to each other that they were both considered compatible for helping someone to become "Twice Born" and to triumph over death.
Ironically, Hermanubis is still worshipped around the world, although few of his worshippers are even faintly aware of that fact. The Egyptians never lost their love for the dog-headed god who carried the young Horus over the heavenly Nile each night towards the Dawn of Eternal Life. Over the centuries, Hermanubis lost his doggy ears and became totally humanoid. As Christianity became the religion of the empire, the boy Horus became the boy Jesus. Hermanubis was no longer called Hermanubis, but rather Christophorus — Christ Bearer.
But the symbolism never changed. He is still the faithful spirit-being conveying the Boy God safely through the deadly waters of the Nile.
The question for us worshippers of Antinous is whether that little boy on his shoulders in Horus/Jesus — or is he just possibly Antinous?
That would give a whole new interpretation to the Tondo of the Two Lovers. Perhaps the artist was trying to tell us that, for the citizens of the Sacred City of Antinoopolis, the Blessed Boy Antinous had come to replace the Boy God Horus, and that Hermanubis was involved in lifting Antinous out of the deathly Nile and carrying him towards the Shore of Eternity.
That is certainly something to consider next time you see a plastic St. Christopher statuette on a car dashboard. It isn't Christopher carrying Jesus, but rather Hermanubis carrying Antinous!
If you listen carefully, you can hear Antinous/Hermanubis/Christopher giggling boyishly in the background at our very mortal mistranslations and miscommunications — which seemingly uncannily turn out to be very uncannily correct!
On May 6th, the Religion of Antinous commemorates the book burnings and the ransacking of the world's first gay scientific institution — foreshadowing the Gay Holocaust.
Seventy-seven years ago, on this day in 1933, the Nazis stormed and shut down the Institute for Sexual Science which had been founded by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin in 1919. In collaboration with the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, the institute was founded for the research of human sexology, primarily for the purpose of repealing "Paragraph 175", which was the German Law that made homosexual acts illegal.
The work of the institute was a reflection of the widespread gay liberation that prevaled in Germany after World War I. It was specifically targeted by Adolf Hitler as one of the foremost "degenerate depravities of the Weimar Republic" which the Fuehrer vowed to eradicate.
Next week, on May 14th, the Religion of Antinous celebrates the feast day of Saint Magnus Hirschfeld. The man called the Father of Gay Liberation died on May 14, 1935, in exile in Nice, France, an embittered and broken man.
He died on his 63rd birthday. A life that had started out with such lofty ambitions ended in disillusionment. He was of Jewish ancestry and began his career as a medical doctor but very soon devoted his life to the study of homosexuality.
In 1897 he founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which was an organization whose publication, called The Yearbook of Intermediate Sexual Types, was devoted to the repeal of "Paragraph 175", a law passed by the Reichstag in 1869.
The work of the committee included ongoing lobbying supported by the scientific studies of Dr. Hirschfeld into human sexuality. This study culminated in the formation of the Institute for Sexual Science in 1919.
Dr. Hirschfeld spent the majority of his career writing and lecturing around the world on the nature of homosexuality and other "intermediate" sexual types, including cross dressers. The word "transsexual" was coined by Dr. Hirschfeld to describe the phenomenon that he argued was a natural extension of human sexuality.
His philosophy centered on the contention that there was a third sex, called the Uranian, which was neither male nor female, but a combination of both that was manifested in homosexuality, which was not to be considered an impure deviation, or even as an illness, but as a natural and phenomenal component of human nature.
For his work, the Nazis targeted Dr. Hirschfeld as an example of decadent Bolshevistic/Jewish influence infecting the purity of the German people, luring the Aryan race into impure and destructive perversity. He was ultimately driven into exile and burned in effigy as an emblem of evil. His institute was ransacked May 6th and his books were publicly burned in a bonfire on May 10th, 1933.
In another ironic twist, homosexual members of Ernst Roehm's SA Stormtroopers (shown above) hurled these books to the flames in 1933 — and would themselves face persecution and death when Hitler turned against Roehm only a scant year later during the "Night of Long Knives" in June 1934 when Hitler decided that Roehm had become a liability.
The storming of the Institute for Sexual Science was the first step in the persecution of homosexuals, who were later sentenced to labor in the concentration camps, the extreme cruelty of which usually resulted in death.
The symbol of the Pink Triangle, the homosexual form of the yellow star of the Jews, was born after the fall of the forward-thinking Institute. It is the symbol of our repression, just as the rainbow flag is the symbol of our freedom. The storming of the Institute was the beginning of the dark ages which were to last until the riot at the Stonewall in 1969.
If you live near Kansas City, Missouri, you will want to see the dazzling, newly renovated ancient art galleries at the NELSON-ATKINS MUSEUM OF ART which were unveiled to the public in a gala re-launch party this past weekend.
Hadrian and Antonious share center-stage along with an unidentified Roman youth, as shown in this photo from the Kansas City Star in announcing the grand reopening of the galleries. Other finds from the Sacred City of Antinoopolis include an encaustic wax-paint portrait of an Antinoopolis woman which was used as a mummy face-plate.
But the real highlight is an enlarged first gallery that holds the inner and outer coffin of the Egyptian noblewoman Meretites. With dark blue-green walls and a charcoal colored floor, the redesigned gallery has the feeling of a tomb, in keeping with its display of funerary materials.
Exhibition designer Amanda Zeitler created a modified coffered ceiling for the Meretites galleries, which ramps up 2.5 meters (10 feet) as the viewer enters the galleries containing the rest of the ancient collection. It includes some of the best Old Kingdom art in the country as well as ancient Near Eastern work and Greek and Roman art, according to The Star.
Although these galleries retain the former black and gold marble wainscoting, casework and linoleum floors, many of the objects have been moved and made more accessible. New fiber optic lighting adds drama and illuminates details. It is quite an introduction to the beginnings of Western art. "This is where the museum really starts," curator Robert Cohon told the newspaper.
Members of ECCLESIA ANTINOI all around the world are shifting into a Gay Spiritual High to celebrate two momentous events — the SACRED BOAR HUNT and the SCORPIO FULL MOON. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the Spring Revels are in full swing during May Eve and May 1st in the wake of the SCORPIO FULL MOON on April 28th.
On May 1st we commemorate the arrival of Hadrian and Antinous at the sacred city of Bithynium, the home of Antinous, in the late spring of the year 129. They are depicted on one of the tondos of the Arch of Constantine (shown at left) engaged in a SACRED BOAR HUNT. This hunt takes place in the ancestral forests of Antinous in Phrygia, and its meaning is closely connected to the Sacred Mysteries of Adonis and Freyr.
It represents the full vigor of his strength, courage and skill as a hunter. This festival is a commemoration of the joy of life, in celebration of indulgence and sensual fulfillment. It is the midpoint of the Antinoine Year, in direct opposition to the Death of Antinous in October. The Sacred Boar Hunt represents the pinnacle of the short, sweet and soaring life of Antinous.
For the Wiccans among us, of course, this date has myriad sacred meanings. Yes, there are gay witches among the modern-day worshipers of Antinous. The Religion of Antinous is first and foremost devoted to The Beauteous Boy, of course. For Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia and for others of us, our hearts are filled to bursting by ANTINOUS THE GAY GOD all by himself.
But this group also includes Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, Hellenists, Kemeticists and followers of all sorts of faiths. I know for a fact that many Antinoians have household altars to Isis, Bes, Cernunnos, Dionysus, St. Mary, the Scorpion Goddess Serket, the Thrice-fold Goddess, Hermes, Apollo and many others. Freyr and the other Norse gods are very much honored by several group members.
So May 1st offers a myriad of Sacred Meanings to The Boy's followers, as does nearly every other special date in our Liturgical Calendar.
Thus the SCORPIO FULL MOON possesses great Sacred Meaning for those of us who quest for Gay Spirituality. This Full Moon generally coincides (more or less) with May Day and represents the hottest and most passionate Rites of Spring. The Taurus Sun beams warmth and fecundity while the Scorpio Moon plunges into the murky depths of raw lust at the razor-sharp borderline between life and death.
For one brief evening, devils dance with angels as the portals between the world of mortality and the world of immortality are flung wide-open. The barriers between those two worlds vanish, as do barriers between the genders.
This is the "truth-or-dare" Full Moon when we confront our "devils". It is all about the Sacred Boar Hunt (spiritually killing and eating the "beast" before it kills and eats you) and about the challenge of turning Fear into Fortitude (through the power of Antinous/Mars and the scorpion goddess) and it is about turning Spiritual Doubts into Spiritual Determination (turning to Our Lady of Death to lead us through darkness).
There seems to be no end to the Fears which reach out and try to close their icy talons around our hearts. Volcanoes are erupting, a vast oil spill threatens the Gulf Coast. Astrologers point to the most malefic planetary alignments in decades and gloomily predict a "Black Summer" of doom. People are losing their jobs or losing their homes. Or they are AFRAID of losing them. People are afraid of losing their life's savings. People are afraid of contracting some deadly disease. Currently it's the "new" Swine Flu. We thought it was gone, but it has re-emerged in a mutated form. A few years ago it was West Nile Fever. Or SARS. Or Ebola. Or AIDS. Or .... well, there's always some headline-grabbing contagion — sort of La Maladie du Jour "the Disease of the Day" — which strikes mortal fear into the hearts of hundreds of millions of people around the world.
In fact, of course, Fear is the deadliest of all contagions. It is the contagion which each of us suffers from every day. I would go so far as to say that fear rules the lives of most people in modern Western societies. We fear being a failure. We fear we are not good enough. We fear what other think of us (or what we THINK other people think of us). We fear losing our livelihoods or our lovers or any of a million other things.
Oftentimes we wake up in the morning and start worrying and being fearful even before getting out of bed. We make ourselves sick. Fear actually brings about pain.
So when I read headlines about La Nueva Gripa Porcina — love that name in Spanish, it sounds so much more exotic than New Swine Flu &mdash I try to remember that most of us have a far greater chance of being involved in a car crash or dying of stress-induced heart disease, or of being knifed by street schizos on the way home from the pub.
Fear and Pain and Worry become so habitual that they become almost comfortable to us. We wake up sick with worry and fear so often (basically every day of our lives) that we can scarcely imagine NOT living in Fear and Pain.
Fear and Pain is a fact of being and one that permeates all of our lives to some degree. Since the fear and hurt we feel may be a part of the experiences that have touched us most deeply, we are often loathe to let them go. It is frequently easier to keep our Fear and our Pain at our sides, where they feel comfortable (like an old pair of shoes) and give us an identity — that of victim — from which we can draw bitter strength.
The Ancient Priests of Antinous were very much aware of the Sacred Magic of transforming Fear and Pain into constructive sacred/magical energies. Those of you who are gay witches know what I am talking about. Fear and Doubt can conjure up the very "demons" which make you Fearful and Doubtful.
We all know that prayer or a magical spell (prayer work and spellwork being one and the same to the Ancient Priests) is an intention that we announce to Antinous in order to create a desired outcome. And we all realize that our every thought is a kind of a prayer or a magical spell. Your "random" thoughts during the day are often little mini-prayers.
Naturally, this includes thoughts of Fear and Doubt as well as of Hope. All thoughts are subtle creative energy. Some thoughts are more focused or repeated more often, gathering strength. Some are written down or spoken (as in a mantra or ritual), giving them even greater power.
Every thought we have is part of a process whereby we cocreate our experience and our reality with the Most Great and Good God. When we use our creative energy unconsciously, we create what is commonly known as self-fulfilling prophecy.
In essence, when we worry, we are repeatedly praying and lending our energy to the creation of something we don't want. We become like the Cowardly Lion praying "I DO believe in spooks, I DO, I DO, I DO!" — in a desperate attempt to banish the very spooks he fears. Any of you who are accomplished spellworkers know that this is a sure-fire, guaranteed way of conjuring up the very things you want to avert.
The Ancient Priests of Antinous knew how insidious Fear and Doubt are and how they block spiritual growth. The simplest antidote to worry is affirmations. Instead of visualizing the horror and pain of coming down with the "new" Swine Flu, why not visualize the triumph of defeating it — or as Antonius Subia says — of spearing the Sacred Wild Boar before it has a chance to sink its rabies-soaked fangs into our thigh.
When we hold these positive thought visualizations, repeat them often, speak them and write them and refer to them throughout our day, we are using focused energy to create positive results.
Naturally, the first thing that came to your mind as you read that paragraph was, "Hernest is full of codswallop in asking me to say stuff like this. It's so silly. It'll never work."
And indeed, it won't work — not as long as you succumb to Fear and Doubt. As any Ancient Priest (or modern-day gay witch) will tell you — your Fear and Doubt effectively sabotage your prayers and meditations and positive visualizations right from the start. You can repeat all the mantras you want, but if what Antonius Subia calls your "Monkey Mind" (Conscious Mind) is constantly repeating the mantra "It'll never work, it'll never work", then you can be sure that it'll never work.
The answer is to convince the "Monkey Mind" to try a new trick. Instead of saying "It'll never work," try saying over and over "It IS working. I feel it working. My positive thoughts gather together with the thoughts and prayers of others in this group, and together we create enough positive energy to heal not only our own lives but the world we share. I feel the love and support from these other beautiful men and women and I am grateful for the ability to co-create with them the sort of life we want — instead of the life we fear."
The Ancient Priests of Antinous were noted for being very skilled healers and spellcasters. They knew first-hand that helping others can be a restorative experience that makes your own heart grow stronger. In channeling your own Fear and Pain into compassionate service and watching others successfully turn Fear into Fortitude, Doubt into Determination, you may feel a sense of Sacred Euphoria that leads to increased feelings of self-worth and optimism.
When your Monkey Mind habitually says, "It'll never work", remember that the Ancient Priests of Antinous are standing right behind you, whispering into your ear: "It IS working ...."
Thus they empower you to plunge the Antinous/Mars Arrows of Fortitude deep into the heart of the SACRED BOAR before it can plunge its Fangs of Fear into your flesh.
Mention the name Livia, and the image pops to mind of a treacherous and vindictive woman, as beautiful as she was wicked and cruel — a kind of Ancient Roman Disney witch. Second wife of the Emperor Augustus and the mother of his successor Tiberius, Livia has been vilified by posterity (most notably by Tacitus and Robert Graves) as the quintessence of the scheming Roman matriarch, poisoning her relatives one by one to smooth her son's path to the imperial throne.
Played by Siân Phillips (left) with viperish glee in the classic BBC TV drama series "I, Claudius", she hissed and writhed through the marble halls of the emperor's palace, leaving corpses in her wake as she ruthlessly intrigued to get her one surviving son, Tiberius, to the Imperial throne — finally even poisoning Augustus himself and forging his will.
Now a new book says Livia was not evil, she was merely a powerful and ambitious woman — and as such, she was damned by male historians. Like Egypt's Hatshepsut, Livia MUST have been a wicked and cruel step-mother who would stop at nothing in her own quest for power. Or so it was claimed by male historians from Tacitus to Robert Graves in the 20th Century. In recent years, Hatshepsut has been vindicated, most notably by historian Joyce Tyldesley. Dr. Tyldesley says Hatshepsut's name was erased from historical records by male successors who feared a "female pharaoh" was a dangerous precedent — dangerous to male domination.
Now it is Livia's turn to be vindicated in the new historiographical book "Empress of Rome: The Life of Livia" by Matthew Dennison. In this elegant and rigorously researched biography, Dennison rescues the historical Livia from the crudely drawn sexist caricature of the popular imagination.
He depicts a complex, courageous and richly gifted woman whose only true crime was not murder but the exercise of power, and who, in a male-dominated society, had the temerity and chutzpah to create for herself both a prominent public profile and a significant sphere of political influence.
As with the life of Hatshepsut, the challenge facing any biographer of Livia is the lack of recorded facts. To handle this problem, "Empress of Rome" tells her story in a series of thematic chapters in roughly chronological order. It makes for riveting reading.
All that we can be certain of is that Livia enjoyed a reputation for probity and traditional values. She seems to have taken care not to interfere in politics, although always on hand to give confidential advice to her husband Augustus. And he has gone on record as having valued her advice.
Dennison convincingly demonstrates in his biography of this much put-upon woman that she hardly needed to resort to poisoning anyone in an age when poor hygiene and lack of antibiotics meant that anyone might die at any time. Reports of poisoning in the Roman empire tended to coincide with epidemics, unrecognised or misunderstood by the unreliable medical science of the day. In some cases Livia was many hundreds of miles away from her putative victims and would have had to hire agents to do the dirty deed for her — an extraordinarily foolhardy risk.
A line of hopeful young noblemen, one after another, was struck down mysteriously. The first was Marcellus, Augustus's nephew, who (probably) died of typhoid fever at the age of 20.
The whisper spread that Livia had administered poison. Similar rumours blamed her for the deaths of her younger son Drusus, the emperor's grandsons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, and even Augustus himself (supposedly she smeared figs on his favourite tree with venom).
Her alleged motive was love for her eldest boy Tiberius, in whose interest she meant to eliminate all competitors for the imperial succession. She was a Claudian and wanted to ensure a Claudian dynasty, or so the story goes. The idea of Livia as serial killer was given new life by Robert Graves in his historical novel "I, Claudius", and she reached a mass audience in the television series of the book, memorably interpreted by Siân Phillips.
Where did Graves get his Livia? The key figure is Tacitus, a Roman historian whose "The Annals Of Ancient Rome" is one of the great masterpieces of historical literature.
Tacitus disliked Livia. In fact he loathed her. Writing slightly more than a century after Livia's heyday, he never directly accused the empress of mass murder but slyly insinuated it with a nudge and a wink. Graves simply fleshed out those insinuations in his historical novel — historical fiction which readers accepted as historical fact.
But Dennison points out that at least two historians of the Roman Empire, who were actually writing at the time, made very few criticisms of Livia. Born in about 58 BC, she came from an upper-class Roman family living under a strict moral code, which was even stricter for women.
They wove a lot. They looked after the household and the education of their children. A contemporary wrote that an ideal wife "can relax with her husband and he can confide all his secrets to her since it is like confiding in himself".
That explains the genuinely close relationship between Liva and Augustus. This doesn't change the fact that she was a Claudian and family dynasties were what really mattered. Octavian Caesar (who became Augustus) married into Livia's Claudian family because it gave him more power. She conveniently left her husband to marry Augustus because he was rich and powerful.
The problem for Livia was that Augustus wanted to create, in essence, a hereditary monarchy. That would exclude her sons by Claudius Nero, and she could have none by Octavian (now dubbed Augustus). That meant the end of the line for the Claudians. The rivals who stood in her way went down like ninepins, although not necessarily by Livia's hand. Marcellus, Augustus's nephew and the first to go, could well have died of typhoid, says Dennison.
Augustus's daughter Julia was exiled to a rocky islet off the Italian coast after Livia fed the puritanical Augustus stories of her wanton immorality. No proof, says the author.
Lucius and Gaius Caesar, grandsons of Augustus, dying abroad mysteriously? Tacitus suggests Livia's "secret hand" but no other historians mention the rumour.
Postumus, another grandchild of Augustus, murdered, while unarmed, by an unknown hand on the islet to which his mother Julia had been exiled? The identity of the killer is still open to debate, we are told.
However, there is little question about the death of Augustus himself. It is a near contemporary historian who records Livia smearing poison on some figs and offering them to him with her own hand.
And there is no question that Livia, skilled in "medicinal potions", lived to be nearly 90 years old — more than twice the average life span. And she did indeed ensure that the Claudians remained in power through Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. And, of course, it was her grandson Claudius who proclaimed her an immortal goddess, thus absolving her of all earthly misdeeds — whether factual or only fictional.
April 21st is a very special date in the Liturgical Calendar of the Religion of Antinous. This is the day we joyously celebrate The Eroticon.
The ancient festival of The Eroticon is celebrated when the Sun moves into the Sign of Taurus the Bull. But this year The Eroticon is particularly special because Venus is on the cusp of vivacious Gemini and in a beneficent aspect to fiery Leo Mars. This Venus/Mars embrace sends out erotic sparks which will be energizing all of us.
Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia knows best what to say on this special day, and I defer to him. I will only mention the highlights for the many new followers of ANTINOUS THE GAY GOD, based on the LITURGICAL CALENDAR.
On this day we honor the great God of Love, Eros-Cupid, in his guise as Antinous-Phanes, the "radiant being of light who emerges from the egg of night".
We also honor the Great God Priapus the divine phallus, the column of male virility, the bestower of the fertility of fields, vineyards, orchards and gardens. Priapus is the axis of the cosmos.
On this date we also commemorate the founding of the city of Rome, Natalis Urbis, personified by the Romans as Our Lady Roma. We celebrate the consecration of her sacred border, and of her birth, and eternal life, and remember that we are her children and we remember the hieroglyphs on the OBELISK OF ANTINOUS which hint at the location of the Lost Tomb of Antinous:
Antinous the God is here!
He rests in this place
Which is in the Border Fields of Our Lady Rome.
And also on this date we remember the Sacred Bear Hunt. While in Mysia in Asia Minor, in the year 129, the court engaged in a Bear Hunt near the city which Hadrian had founded (on an earlier trip) called Hadrianotherae, "Hadrian's hunting ground". It is the modern-day city of Balikesir in a lovely area of wooded forests and lakes in northwestern Turkey.
Hadrian loved animals and is known to have built tombs for his dogs and horses (according to Royston Lambert) and he loved to hunt. Unlike the popular stereotype today of the blood-thirsty hunter who shoots anything that moves, Hadrian was a hunter in the ancient shamanic sense of the word. The same way that the native peoples of North America were. The way that aboriginal peoples everywhere still are. He identified with his prey and understood it and became one with it. Hunting was a form of sacred devotion to Hadrian.
The Bear is the sacred animal of Diana-Artemis, and symbolizes the solitary, forest-roaming character of the Virgin Huntress. In the ferocity of the bear lies the secret of Diana's power, against which Hadrian and Antinous pitted themselves, as shown on the tondo (at right) from the Arch of Constantine.
The grand themes of the Eroticon are Love and Sex and Ferocious Anger. The Beast is always lurking inside of us. The mystery teaching surrounding the Bear Hunt involves getting to know your animal instincts — sex and lust and rage — and to become one with them and to turn them into powerful allies for your spiritual development.
Sex and Anger can be powerful allies, since they are filled with energy that we can harness and use to create change in the world. They are two of the most cathartic emotions, and they can also be very effective cleansers of the emotional system.However, when rage becomes a habit, it actually loses its power to transform and becomes an obstacle to growth. Identifying the role anger plays in your life and restoring it to its proper function can bring new energy and expansiveness to your emotional life.
It is when anger has no outlet and morphs into resentment that it carries with it the potential to cause great turmoil. Like a cornered bear, it turns into a killing machine.
Our feelings — rage, sexual lust, fear — can sometimes present a very challenging aspect of our lives. We experience intense emotions without understanding precisely why and consequently find it difficult to identify the solutions that will soothe our distressed minds and hearts. Yet it is only when we are capable of hunting down our feelings and understanding them and communing with them that we can tame them by finding an appropriate resolution.
We retake control of our personal power by becoming courageous enough to articulate, out loud and concisely, the essence of our emotions. Like a hunter, we spear it and take it home with us instead of allowing it to remain a wild thing which spreads fear and havoc.
Our assuming ownership of the "bear within us" in this way empowers us to shift from one emotional state to another — we can let go of pain and fear and rage and upset because we have defined it, examined the effect it had on our lives, and then we spear it and make it our own. By naming our feelings, we claim the right to divest ourselves of them at will.
Hadrian understood the mystical meaning of the Sacred Bear Hunt.
Antonius Subia has expressed this mystical mystery meaning as follows:
Antinous, under Hadrian's guidance, was an accomplished hunter, indeed it is perhaps his natural skill and bravery in the chase that elevated him to the absolute love and adoration of Hadrian. The Emperor was madly in love with hunters, and Antinous was one of the best. Antinous had perhaps been silently stalking and hunting the Emperor's favor for quite some time, and now, in Asia, in the sacred Hunting Grounds of Hadrian, Antinous closed in on the heart of his prey and captured the Emperor completely. In our commemoration of the Sacred Bear Hunt we recognize that Artemis and Antinous are twin deities, and we seek the Dianic-Artemis-Bear within ourselves.
When we become one with the "bear within us" and when we become one with all our animal instincts and powers (the "monkey" inside us, as Antonyus calls it) then we can harness their power to become one with the Great God of Love, Eros-Cupid, foremost of the Gods of the Religion of Antinous. He is the first impulse upon which the world was created, and he is the beauty and perfection of all creation.
Planning a trip to Spain this summer? Be sure to check out the LIBRERÍA-CAFÉ ANTINOUS (Antinous Café Book Store) in Barcelona.
This cozy shop, filled with the aroma of coffee and pastries, has just been listed among the "Ten Must-See Destinations for Book Lovers" by the travel writer of El País newspaper.
Other must-see destinations on the list include the British Museum Reading Room in London, the Library of Congress in Washington DC and the stunning new Library of Alexandria in Egypt.
Travel writer Ángela Gilabert calls the Librería-Café Antinous a delightful rendezvous meeting place for anyone who loves books. It is not unusual to rub elbows with famous authors there, she says. And while the book store specializes in gay titles, it has a well-stocked selection of books in all other literary genres, she adds.
While you're at it, check out the LIBRERÍA ANTINOUS BLOG to keep yourself posted on readings, book launches and other special events at the store.
The TIME OUT travel guide says: "This large, bright bookshop has an appealing café at the back, an ideal spot in which to check out your purchases (DVDs to postcards, poetry to magazines, art to comics). The shop also has a great selection of nude photobooks."
Spain has a special place in the hearts of all those who love ANTINOUS, of course, because the Emperor Hadrian was himself Hispanic, having been born in ancient Italica near modern-day Seville.
If you keep an eagle eye (an Imperial Roman Eagle's eye) on eBay you may have noticed that a small silver pendant medallion with the very worn-down image of Antinous has just sold for more than $200 dollars.
What would otherwise be a worthless little trinket, less than 2 inches in diameter (5 cms), demands top dollar solely because you can just barely make out the image of the Beloved Boy's profile.
Being silver and at least 30 years old, it is worn down to such an extent that the Boy's features are almost unrecognizable.
I asked Arch Priest Antonius Subia to assess the authenticity, and Antonius replied with the quip: "It is definitely Antinous, but it looks like Antinous Skeletor."
Look at the hair on the top of his head and you can see that those are indeed classic "Antinous Curls" -- so distinctive that they have their own designation in Art History.
The reverse side of the medallion shows two men looking dreamily into each others' eyes. Though Classical Greek in style, they resemble two gay men wearing forehead sweatbands on a disco dance floor in the '70s -- which is probably when this item was produced. The medallion is actually a whistle. You can blow into the bottom and produce a high-pitched peep. It can be worn as a pendant.
Such whistles are a now almost-forgotten relic from early gay-lib history. During the '60s and '70s, gay men flocked to big US cities and settled into run-down areas such as the Castro in San Francisco, the West Village in New York, West Hollywood in LA, and the South End in Boston -- old neighborhoods where rents were cheap, crime rates were high and you could find a beautiful old Victorian house or a vacant retail space for next to nothing.
Gays moved into these "neighborhoods-in-transition" and created their own gay ghettos. These were very heady days for out-and-proud gay men. Entire neighborhoods became gay-dominated -- with gay restaurants, gay bars, gay shops and all-gay apartment buildings.
These people were called Gay Urban Pioneers -- GUPPIES -- the gay equivalent of YUPPIES (Young Urban Professionals). The GUPPIES assumed they were carving out gay ghettos which would last for all eternity. Of course, urban neighborhoods are volatile and very dynamic things -- they never remain the same for long. Once the neighborhoods became safe and prosperous, new people moved in -- well-educated Asian immigrants, Hassidic Jewish families -- and the aging "ex-GUPPIES" moved out to bucolic suburbia in pursuit of childhood nostalgia.
Which brings us back to the Antinous Gay God Whistle. In those early days, crime rates were horrific and anti-gay violence was routine. In an age before mobile phones, you needed a portable way to call for help.
The movie "MILK" very accurately shows how whistles were used in the early '70s in one such gay ghetto -- the Castro district of San Francisco. Gay men alone on dark streets at night were easy prey for muggers and queer-bashers. Whistles worn as a pendant around your neck became a '70s gay fashion accessory. You wore a whistle -- preferably something stylishly campy in Sterling silver -- and you felt safe. If cornered, you could blow it to summon help. You felt safe in knowing that potential evil-doers would see your big shiny whistle and look elsewhere for a victim.
These whistles were worn constantly. On the dance floor, they were blown in time to the disco beat -- and many disco recordings feature whistle riffs. No Pride Parade would be complete without the ear-splitting sound of thousands of whistles.
So the lucky buyer of this ANTINOUS GAY GOD WHISTLE will soon be holding a piece of gay history in his hands. The features on the medallion whistle are worn because the whistle was worn constantly by someone who prized it, someone who entrusted his safety and well-being to it.
Who knows? Perhaps the whistle's owner was using his final breath to blow it to summon help as someone bashed in his skull.
More likely, however, the whistle served its purpose and did its job and sometime in the '80s it was finally removed and put away in a drawer with other memorabilia of the disco era such as pastel sweatbands and "Aunt Ethyl" club-drug hip-pocket hankies. Perhaps the owner survived the GUPPY era only to succumb to AIDS and the Sterling silver whistle ended up in a box of personal belongings in someone's attic, finally ending up at a flea market -- and eventually making its way to eBay. A totally worthless, worn-down piece of junk. A totally priceless gem of gay history.
The Religion of Antinous observes Valentine's Day on the 14th and also the Lupercalia on the 15th ? two very ancient holidays which both involve love (if not lust and fertility) and both of which have become totally overwhelmed by legend and lore.
As the Fates would have it, overnight Saturday/Sunday is a very romantic VALENTINE'S DAY NEW MOON in Aquarius.
This is the Aquarius New Moon, which is also CHINESE NEW YEAR ? the Year of the Metal Tiger ? a very auspicious year. Romance will be in the air from now through most of next week as Venus (which has just entered dreamy Pisces) strikes up good aspects to Pluto and other planets. The highlight comes on Wednesday when Venus aligns with lucky Jupiter. This creates an itch for love, romance and sex which will need to be scratched. You may also want to take a scratch at a lucky LOTTO ticket since Venus/Jupiter conjunctions bring good fortune with money as well as love!
No one today knows the origins of Valentine's Day and the Lupercalia. Even Hadrian and Antinous would not have known the precise origins of the Lupercalia, although they might well have visited the cave-like grotto ? the Lupercale ? at the foot of the Palatine Hill. And as the fates would have it, experts currently are carrying out an extensive archaeological dig at a site at the foot of the Palatine which they believe is the ceremonial site of the Lupercale grotto where the caesars honored Romulus and Remus. It is intriguing to think that Hadrian and Antinous took part in the rites in this subterranean chamber.
Popular legend mixes Valentine's Day and the Lupercalia together as one. But we Antinoians keep them separate, because of one important and very little-known fact ? that there is a connection between St. Valentinus and Antinous. Here is how our own Arch Priest Antonyus Subia explains it:
"St. Valentinus is the Day of Love. Valentinus was the Gnostic Father who was a bishop of the Catholic Church. He tried to change orthodoxy by introducing the Gnostic speculation. Valentinus was from Alexandria and was there, studying with his teacher Basilides, when the court of Hadrian and Antinous arrived. He believed that Love was the creator of the universe, and the cause for the fall of Sophia, he believed that Jesus came to reverse the fall of Sophia, that Jesus was the consort of Sophia, the Aeon called Christos. The love between them was the reason that Jesus descended to save the world. Valentinus began his teaching in Rome, and gained so much support that he was even nominated for the Papacy but lost by a narrow margin. Eventually exiled for heresy, the Gnostic Father formed his own rival church that became an influential and widespread Gnostic sect, influencing Gnostic thought down to our own time. Because Valentinus was a witness of the Passion of Antinous, and because he attempted to change the Catholic Church, we sanctify his name and venerate him on this sacred day of Eros, the Day of Love."
Hadrian and Antinous probably also observed the Lupercalia, which was one of the most ancient of all religious rites in Ancient Rome. Gay author Steven Saylor, in his epic historical novel ROMA, offers a ribald version of the very first Lupercalia.
Picture it: The 8th Century BCE, a cluster of mud-hut villages in and around a number of hills which are called the "ruma" ("titties") by local wags. Ruma/Roma is nothing but a bunch of bickering clans in rival villages who hate the fact that they are dependent on each other for their mutual livelihood.
In Saylor's novel, two orphaned twin boys are raised in a grotto on the edge of the settlement by a slutty wench who only agreed to take them in so her swineherd "husband" could have help slopping the hogs. Her boobs are so prodigious that her nasty husband has given them names reminiscent of two of the surrounding hills: Romulus and Remus.
This uncouth swineherd gets a good old chortle out of watching her nurse the two infants simultaneously ? and so Romulus and Remus become the boys' names, much to the chagrin of the decent neighbors who look down their noses at the whole family and derisively call the woman the "She-Wolf of the Ruma district" for her sexual wantonness.
In Saylor's novel, young Romulus and Remus become the terror of the neighborhood as they grew into adolescence, bullying other kids and subjecting neighbors to practical jokes and petty thievery.
Just to shock everybody and to get their rocks off, they team up with a third boy (from upstanding parents who are unaware that he hangs out with these yobbos), and the three of them decide to play a really raunchy trick on the local girls.
They find three old moth-eaten animal hides and proceed to strip off buck naked and put on the hides so that the animal faces cover their own. Then they run howling through the district, chasing girls and whipping their backsides with strips of hide ? while making no effort to conceal their teenage hardons, which swing lewdly to and fro as they run.
The result is that the teenage girls have fun squealing and pretending to be frightened. The decent people of Roma get all huffy and say something must be done about Romulus and Remus, since everybody knows it could only have been them, and now they've enlisted the help of a third boy in their lewd carousing, just underscoring what a bad influence they are.
Meanwhile, rival clans enjoy the whole spectacle of their neighbors getting all outraged, and THEY think Romulus and Remus are pretty cool ? that is until R&R raid a more distant settlement where a self-proclaimed king has hoarded a considerable treasure, and they return to Roma with his iron crown and all of his booty after having slit his throat. Suddenly these trashy young thugs are the richest people in Roma and the whole delicate balance of power amongst the clans is thrown out of kilter ....
Well, that's one fictional version of the first Lupercalia. For centuries, a cave-like grotto at the foot of the Palatine was revered as the sacred site where the "She-Wolf" suckled the orphans Romulus and Remus. Young nobles called Luperci, taking their name from the place of the wolf (lupa), ran naked from the Lupercale grotto around the bounds of the Palatine, and used strips of hide to slap the hands or buttocks of girls and women lining the route.
Here is how Arch Priest Antonyus explains its significance for the Religion of Antinous:
"The Lupercalia is the festival of the wolf mother of Rome, and sacred festival of Antinous Master of Hounds. The Lupercalia remembers the she-wolf who raised Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Venus and Mars, who later founded the city of Rome. The wolf-like nature of the twins and of the Roman character was imparted through the milk of the wolf-mother. The spirit transferred through the loving milk of the ferocious mother is celebrated on this day, and is integral to the concept of Antinous the Hunter. Antinous took his place at Hadrian's feet, and accompanied him bravely and loyally through the forests and lived by the Emperor's side for seven years, which is equivalent to the life of a strong hunting dog. The Canine nature of Antinous is celebrated on this day and is seen as an allegory for the Priesthood of the Religion of Antinous."
In a Lupercalia Epistle to ECCLESIA ANTINOI members worldwide, Antonyus explains that the Lupercalia festival is a purification rite, cleansing the way for Spring, nourishing the winter spirit of the dormant wolves within so as to fuel the ruthless courage of Roman warriors. A Dog and a Goat were sacrificed, and the young noble youths raced around the city naked except for goat, or wolf skins, whipping any girls or women who they encountered.
Arch Priest Antonyus explains, "The Festival is also sacred to Faunus, the Roman Pan...the one who 'drives away the wolf from the flock.'...we usually think of Pan as Goat-horned and cloven hooved, but 'the one who drives away the wolf'...could quite possibly be a sacred Dog. Lupercalia is therefore quite possibly a dog festival...and it is interesting to note that it falls almost exactly opposite the calendar from the rise of the Dog Star."
Arch Priest Antonyus elaborates, "For me, Lupercalia is a time of cleansing and light...the lighted lamp that preceeds the coming dawn of Spring...a preparation for the Flowering....
"So a celebration or ritual to observe the Lupercalia should focus on purification. ..self-purificat ion primarily, but also the purification of the home, and surroundings. A cleansing of negative, stagnet, dusty, mildewy, settled, sedimentary influences that we are ready to clear away...from within and without."
He also outlines rituals for purification and cleansing which members of the worldwide Religion of Antinous will be performing this weekend.
Antonyus says the Lupercalia harkens to the most ancient of rites of Spring, and he says the cleansing must come from within.
"And then look into your soul, observe your interactions. ..make changes for the better...be kinder, more polite, or just simply be friendlier to people...and do something strickly for your own pleasure," he says.
"It is really a matter of deep and meaningful concentration on cleansing your mind and heart of negative internal influences...so as to strengthen your fortifications against external negative influences."
The first full week of January is when the Religion of Antinous commemorates a week of holidays in our Liturgical Calendar which, at first glance, don't seem to have any relation to each other ? the Minor Baccanalia and the Massacre of Christians at Antinoopolis and Victoria Antinoi the final victory of Antinous over Death, and culminating in the Boy God's triumphal journey through the Underworld as Antinous Navagator.
But a closer look reveals that the Religion of Antinous and early Christianity were subject to much exchange of concepts. Antinous was the last pagan god of the Classical age, and his priests were contemporaries of the early Christians, who were squabbling among themselves over how to present the story of their own fallen young Man-God, the slain Jesus of Nazareth.
The story of Antinous the Gay God is the story of the clash between the last of the Greco-Roman pagans and the earliest of the Christians. The two religions borrowed heavily from each other. They lived side-by-side in the cradle of the Nile. Christians lived in the Sacred City of Antinoopolis and initially were subjected to cruel abuse by pagans ? before they finally got the upper hand and cruelly suppressed the pagans.
A stone relief (at right) depicts a Antinous-Dionysus holding a Coptic cross in one hand and a bunch of Baccanalian grapes in the other. Only the hair style reveals that this is supposed to be Antinous and not Jesus.
And, like modern-day Republicans and Democrats, the followers of these competing religions waged ideological campaigns to portray their rivals as lost souls.
The homophobic hysteria of many modern-day Christians can be traced directly back to the grim determination of those earliest Christians to distance themselves from the popular cult of the beautiful Man-God Antinous who, like Jesus, held out the prospect of salvation to his followers.
Those earliest Christians went to great lengths to portray the Gay God as a demon and as Satan incarnate. They very literally "demonized" Antinous and condemned his followers as devil-worshippers.
Thus this is the story of the religion-fired hatred that has led to so much suffering for gay men and lesbians throughout history. To understand Antinous is to understand why many Christians to this very day are staunchly convinced that homosexuals are possessed by a demon or by Satan. What they sense in us is in fact Antinous the Gay God.
So the story of Antinous is the story of all gays. It is the story of you and me. And that means that the story doesn?t start on the banks of a great river on the edge of the desert, it starts instead with the place where you were born, because the legacy of Antinous has in part shaped your life.
Each of you is a Priest of Antinous...of an ancient cult that was destroyed...and has remained dead...and is now reborn...in us...because we love him...and we want to raise his memory from the dead. There has been no cult of Antinous for 1,900 years, not a single priest.
The magnificent Religion of Antinous was dead.
And though there have been a few here and there who over the centuries have claimed to be priests and have been devoted to him for decades, none of these have loved him with enough passion to refound his cult. None came forth and said that the deification of Antinous was true or stood up and proclaimed "I beleve in Antinous."
But now we have. And more than that, we don't just say that we believe in Antinous and that his deification is true. We have adopted the cause which Hadrian proclaimed to the world. We identify ourselves as the successors of the ancient Priesthood of Antinoopolis, the sacred city founded on the banks of the Nile where Antinous drowned. We are not a new religion. We are the same religion that worshipped Antinous in Roman times.
The barbarians succeeded in putting us down. But our priestly predecessors loved Antinous so deeply and had so much faith in him that they carefully buried their treasures in the ground where he would be safe until the fires had burned over.
We are that power. You are that power. The power is ignited in us. Even if you have never heard of Antinous before this moment, he has always lived within your heart.
I once asked Arch Priest Antonius Subia what made him certain I was worthy to be a priest of Antinous. He told me:
"You are a Priest of Antinous. For there is one qualification you have, the most important and sacred of all your personal attributes...that you are a homosexual.
"That is why you are worthy to be a Priest of Antinous. You can't change the fact that you are gay, it wasn't your choice, and you would never consider changing your sexuality even if you could.
"You will always be a homosexual, because Antinous made you gay."
Those are words which are worth repeating aloud to all followers of Antinous the Gay God. He selected us from all others. Every gay boy has felt this touch of specialness. We have felt it all our lives. Our Homosexuality is Sacred. Antinous is the Man-God within us. And we are Antinous the Gay God.
So this week, during the Minor Baccanalia, or Lesser Festival of Dionysus, we raise our glasses to the true-life mortal boy who became a god. The festival is celebrated when the autumn wine has reached fermentation. Traditionally a secret ceremony limited to women, it was opened to men during Roman times.
Arch Priest Antonius Subia explains, "Mythologically this is the occasion when the Titans lure and capture the child Dionysus, charming him with a mirror and toys. The Titans murder him, rend his limbs from his body and eat his flesh. This is the first Wine festival and triumphal procession of the entourage of Dionysus whose arrival signals the Victory of Antinous over the forces of life and death as represented by the Archons."
Later this week we raise our glasses in memory of a group of Christians in Antinoopolis who were executed for their refusal to believe in Antinous. On January 8th during the persecutions of Diocletian in the year 286, St. Anthony, St. Anastasius, St. Vasilissa, St. Celsus, St. Marcionilla, St. Julian, seven children, and 20 soldiers were all put to death for their belief in Jesus.
Because their death took place in our Sacred City Antinoopolis, we honor their memory and courage in the face of ignorance and violence. Our Sacred City has always been a center of religious fervour throughout history. From pagan times, through Christian times, and even down to the modern era, this area of Upper Egypt along the Nile has always been a hotbed of religious feeling.
In recent months, Islamic Fundamentalists abducted Coptic monks from a monastery only a few kilometers away from the site of our Sacred City. The Islamic radicals accused the monks of seeking to spread Christianity by expanding their monastery compound. Riot troops were called in to resolve the hostage-taking.
We pause this week to condemn the very sort of religious intolerance which bedeviled our own Sacred City in ancient times ? and which continues to bedevil it even today.
Arch Priest Antonius Subia explains this seemingly contradictory stance: "The Religion of Antinous condemns the persecutors for the murder of innocents, and begs forgiveness for the cruelty of our ancient citizens and for the negligence of the ancient priests. We dedicate this day, on which these souls were martyred for Christ as an occasion of shame and sorrow, and as a reminder that we must never persecute our human brothers and sisters.
"In our love for Antinous, we pray for the holy and consecrated souls of these martyrs who died in our Holy City because they would not honor our gods. Intolerance in all forms is the final restraint that holds Antinous prisoner in our cosmos. The final three days before the liberation of Antinous the God, is sacred to the Holy Christian Martyrs of Antinoopolis, whose forgiveness we seek for our own liberation."
This liberation is commemorated on January 11th, the Feast Day of the completion of Antinous' mummification, and his defeat of the final archon. Antinous in glory and radiance, stands between our cosmos and the abyss that is known as the Veil. He has returned as Antinous the Savior.
Then on January 12th Antinous the Transfigured becomes Antinous Navigator. Antonius Subia says, "Antinous steps away and The Boat of Millions of Years in One Moment, leaves the shore of the known cosmos, sailing out into the darkness of the abyss on its voyage to the Black Star, the way of the void, where the heaven of Antinous lies concealed beyond the veil of the cloud of unknowing, where he enters the fullness of the Place of Light, and restores the unity of the Aeons. This is the Via Negativa whereupon the soul-triumphant is lost in the open space of nonbeing, awaiting the Dark Bird of Night, the Thunderbird-Phoenix-Eagle that will elevate his heroic spirit to immortality. Only Antinous can guide the Boat of Millions of Years across this expanse of darkness. This journey, which ends as it begins, which arrives as it departs, is the eternal heaven which Antinous has accomplished for all those who are his chosen, who answer his call, and who believe in him."
But what has any of this to do with us as gay men living in the 21st Century? If there is a God of the Gays, then why does he let us suffer?
It is so hard to see any divine plan in our everyday lives. We seem to be so powerless, so very much at the mercy of merciless powers which are oblivious to our wishes or our needs. We look at those glistening eyes of Antinous and wonder ? does he care? Why does he let bad things happen to those who love him?
And yet ... and yet ... there are those moments which make us realize there just might be a Divine Plan after all and that Antinous does care.
He is so mysterious. He is so unapproachable. The Obelisk of Antinous says he works miracles. It says he brings healing dreams to us as we sleep. But so often we wake up the morning and our troubles weigh upon us worse than they did the night before.
And yet ... and yet ... there are those moments when we feel his gentle hand and we know he has moved and acted on our behalf -- perhaps not in any way which we could possibly have anticipated. Not in the way we had necessarily hoped. But in a way which amazes us with its sublimely mysterious logic.
Usually, it is when we have given up hope that Antinous steps in and does his mysterious thing. The more we try to hold on and to control the situation, the more oblivious he seems. And yet ... and yet ... when we just give up and let go, he does his mysterious thing.
For many of us, trying to maintain control in our lives is a bit like trying to maintain control on a roller-coaster. The ride has its own mysterious logic and is going to go its own way, regardless of how tightly you grip the bar.
There is a thrill and a power in simply surrendering to the ride and fully feeling the ups and downs of it, letting the curves take you rather than fighting them.
When you fight the ride, resisting what?s happening at every turn, your whole being becomes tense and anxiety is your close companion. When you go with the ride, accepting what you cannot control, freedom and joy will inevitably arise.
As with so many seemingly simple things in life, it is not always easy to let go, even of the things we know we can?t control. Most of us feel a great discomfort with the givens of this life, one of which is the fact that much of the time we have no control over what happens.
Sometimes this awareness comes only when we have a stark encounter with this fact, and all our attempts to be in control are revealed to be unnecessary burdens.
But we can also cultivate this awareness in ourselves gently, by simply making surrender a daily practice. At the end of our meditation, we might bow, saying, "I surrender this life and place myself in the hands of Antinous." This simple mantra can be repeated as necessary throughout the day, when we find ourselves metaphorically gripping the safety bar.
We can give in to our fear and anxiety, or we can surrender to this Great Mystery with courage. We thus banish all fear and all doubt from our hearts.
When we see people on a roller-coaster, we see that there are those whose faces are tight with fear and then there are those who smile broadly, with their hands in the air, carried through the ride on a wave of freedom and joy. This powerful image reminds us that often the only control we have is choosing how we are going to respond to the ride.
And that is the moment ? when our hearts are free of fear and doubt ? when Antinous can step into our hearts and do his mysterious thing. When we stop struggling and white-knuckling the bar, and when we just give up and just let go ....
Perhaps we shouldn't try so hard to understand the God's mysterious ways. Perhaps we should just accept that his ways are mysterious. There is an Ancient Egyptian inscription (stolen by the Hebrews) which says:
"For the God's thoughts are not the thoughts of us mortals, neither are the God's ways the ways of us mortals."
As we look back over the past year, perhaps the ultimate New Year's message to us from Antinous the Gay God is:
"My ways are mysterious. Get used to it!"
This week marks the Coming Forth by Day of Antinous. His triumph becomes the celestial procession, and together with the saints and blessed spirits of the immortals and divinized men, Antinous steps away from the limit of the cosmos and enters the darkness of the void beyond, becoming his own divine navigator.
It is only by letting go that we open our hearts to the Gay Spiritual Liberation that Antinous the Gay God offers us with all his heart. We stop struggling and we stop despairing at our lack of control. We stop trying to control the course of the roller-coaster and, instead, we just sit back and enjoy the thrills and spills. We stand proudly and contentedly beside the portals of our Spiritual Home within the Sacred City of Antinoopolis.
HOLLYWOOD ? Gay icon Judy Garland was sanctified as a saint of ANTINOUS THE GAY GOD in ceremonies in Hollywood October 30, 2009, which culminated a week of events.
"By sanctifying Judy, we elevate her to the sacred status she deserves as someone who has inspired and enlightened millions of gay people around the world," said Antonyus Subia, arch priest of the Hollywood Temple of Antinous, in announcing Garland's sainthood.
"It was her tragic death on June 22, 1969 which fueled the fires of revolution which ignited into full flame during the Stonewall Riots after her funeral in New York City," Subia explained.
Other gay icons who were sanctified along with Judy Garland in the solemn ceremonies at the Hollywood Temple of Antinous were Danish fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen, the 300-pound drag queen Divine and British computer-sciences pioneer Alan Turing, Subia said.
Andersen, a lifelong bachelor now generally regarded to have been a closeted homosexual, is being singled out for his gay coming-out sub-texts in such semi-autobiographical stories as "The Ugly Duckling".
Divine was the drag stage persona of Harris Glenn Milstead, a gifted gay singer and actor whose over-the-top roles in several John Waters films in the 1970s and '80s paved the way to the big time for other drag artists in the entertainment industry.
Alan Turing, ranked by Time magazine as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th Century, was pivotal in development of computer technology. But at the height of his fame in the early 1950s, he was prosecuted under Britain's anti-homosexuality laws. After botched "hormonal therapy" in lieu of a prison sentence, Turing ended his own life by taking cyanide in 1954. On September 10th, 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an official public apology on behalf of the British government.
In the past, the Religion of Antinous has sanctified Oscar Wilde, Quentin Crisp, Michelangelo, Vaslav Nijinsky and Harvey Milk, among many others.
"We recognize the lives, courage and work of those blessed souls who in significant ways furthered the cause of Homosexuality and who stand as shining examples to gay people everywhere through their lives and, tragically often also their deaths," Subia added. "While not all were gay themselves, we proclaim them Saints and Martyrs as an example to all who believe in the sanctity of Same-Sex Love," he said.
He said that Judy Garland, for example, helped shape Gay Identity in the 20th Century.
Subia expounded on the idea of a "Gay Religion" based on a Classical Roman God by saying, "The Religion of Antinous is a Truly All-Gay Religion, dedicated to homosexual spirituality. Our thousands of followers around the world are devoted to Antinous, who was a real person ... a beautiful youth loved by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in a relationship which was openly homosexual."
During an Imperial tour up the Nile, Antinous mysteriously drowned in the River Nile. Hadrian is said to have "wept like a woman" at the loss. The grief-stricken Emperor declared Antinous a god after his death in the year 130 AD. Miraculously, the following year a drought ended in Egypt. Soon after, other miracles were attributed to Antinous. Lowly born himself, Antinous was seen as a promise of divinity for slaves and plebs. His priests were renowned for religio-magical prowess.
"Hadrian spread the Religion of Antinous around the Roman world," Subia related, "promoting Antinous as the savior of the world, and the bringer of peace."
The Hollywood Temple of Antinous is devoted to the rebuilding of the ancient Religion of Antinous, but rebuilding it in a manner which meets the spiritual needs of gay men in the 21st Century. The religion was revived in 2002 and now has an active membership of nearly 500 persons, in addition to thousands who visit the Temple of Antinous website on a daily basis, according to Subia, an artist with stage production and musical performance background.
"Homosexuality is Sacred, and Antinous is the manifestation of the Divine Gay essense," said the Hollywood gay priest. "Through love of our own kind, we are made aware of self-love, and the origin of celestial love...and with that Sacred Secret in our hearts, we are made divine, through the grace and beauty of Antinous."
The Emperor Hadrian was so grief-stricken at the death of his beloved male lover Antinous that he founded a city in honor of Antinous ? called Antinoopolis ? on the shores of the Nile where Antinous died. The city was founded on October 30th, which is when the sainthood ceremonies for Judy Garland and the other new saints were held.
Antonyus Subia's painting (above right) is inspired by the YouTube video below:
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