Tuesday, March 19, 2024

WE HONOR ANTINOUS/MARS



WHEN the Sun enters the Sign of Aries at the March Equinox, we honor Antinous in his special guise as Antinous/Mars.

Mars, God of War, son of Jupiter and Juno, father of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome, was the divine spirit of the Roman Army whose legions subjugated the world.

His power ran like molten steel in the blood of Romans who he made them invincible.

The ram was sacred to him, and thus the sign of Aries was devoted to him, as it was in the early spring, after the fields were sown and before the harvest that the men went to war.

Originally Mars was an agricultural deity, whose duty was to protect the fields from marauders. But he soon became an aggressive conqueror, whose sacred spears were ritually shaken by the Flamen Martialis when the legions were preparing for war.

He had twin sons who accompanied him and went before the armies in battle, their names were Phobos and Deimos, fear and panic.

He was the illicit lover of Venus, and it is said that they were the co-creators of Rome who through war brought love and peace to the whole world. It was in this spirit that Hadrian worshipped the pair.

Mars is the great spirit of masculinity, the violent, courageous power of the male sex, the penetrator and subjugator.

His emblem, an iron spear, is a symbol for the phallus, and so it is that Mars is the great potent Phallus of Man, the impregnator.

In this sense he is venerated as the warrior within all men, and as our most extreme, animalistic, carnal, aggressive nature.

He is the conqueror of winter, the dominator of spring, the protector of life, and the bringer of death.

He is war and fury, selflessly courageous, for the protection of the weak and for the defeat of the strong.


Mars never surrenders, and this is why Venus is so mad with lust for him, and why we adore him as our protector.

Monday, March 18, 2024

CHARLOTTE VON MAHLSDORF
SAINT OF ANTINOUS


SAINT Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who was born on this day in 1928, was a Berlin trans/gay who survived the Nazis and East German communists and about whose life a Pulitzer Prize winning play, "I Am My Own Woman", has been staged at theatres around the world.

The title is misleading since the original German is "Ich bin meine eigene Frau" and the word "Frau" can mean either "Woman" or "Wife"

The phrase was Charlotte's answer to her mother's question: "Don't you think it's time you got a wife?"


Charlotte was her own man and her own woman and her own husband/wife. In a long life amidst dictatorship, war and oppression of human-rights, Charlotte learned to create her own identity. We honor Charlotte as a Saint of the Religion of Antinous.

St. Charlotte, who liked to wear frumpy house dresses with a clunky handbag and a strand of pearls and matronly shoes, somehow managed to survive the Gestapo, the East German Stasi secret police and assaults by neo-Nazis. In doing so, Charlotte made serious ethical compromises along the way in order to stay alive. 

Charlotte amassed a huge collection of Victorian antiques which some said came from the homes of Jewish Holocaust victims and (later) from homes of people fleeing East Germany.


But Charlotte DID stay alive in dangerous times during which others perished. Charlotte's life forces you to ask yourself what YOU would have done in similar circumstances.

After German unification, Charlotte became something of a reluctant gay icon in Germany in the 1990s. Charlotte never had any pretensions of being intellectual or a political activist. 

Charlotte never quite fit in with post-Stonewall activists, who were a bit puzzled by her dowdy grand-motherliness and her passion for 19th Century Renaissance Revival style antiques. Like Quentin Crisp (also a Saint of Antinous), Charlotte belonged to another era.

But unlike Quentin Crisp, Charlotte wasn't especially witty or campy (despite her appearance) and was not an artist of the arch one-liner the way Quentin was. In appearances on talk shows, she would sit there, smiling politely, with not a great deal to say unless it was about collecting and restoring 19th Century antiques. But what she did say was eloquent in its simplicity: 

People should be kind to each other and let each other get on with their lives the way they want to.

Above all, she didn't much like being a celebrity. Too many people  expected things of her. She became a target for neo-Nazis, mostly drunken, youthful vandals in the 1990s. Not surprisingly perhaps, considering all she had lived through, she became somewhat paranoid towards the end of her life. In the end, she fled to Sweden where she spent her final years in virtual isolation before dying in 2002.

We honor St. Charlotte von Mahlsdorf for being someone who was not afraid to be openly trans/gay in the face of totalitarian dictatorships and police states. Someone who survived the Nazis and the Stasi secret police ... wearing a dress, a strand of pearls and a handbag.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

THIS IS THE DAY THE WISEST MAN DIED
AND ROME BEGAN TO FALL



MARCH 17th is the anniversary of the death of Marcus Aurelius and we in the Religion of Antinous set aside this day each year to remember the last of the great philosopher-emperors, and a man who knew both Hadrian and Antinous.

What follows, is adapted from writings over the years by Flamen Antinoalis Antonius.

As a young boy Marcus Aurelius had caught the eye of the Emperor Hadrian. He was appointed by the Emperor to priesthood in the year 129 (just a year before the death of Antinous), and Hadrian also supervised his education, which was entrusted to the best professors of literature, rhetoric and philosophy of the time.

Marcus Aurelius discovered Stoicism by the time he was 11 and from his early twenties he deserted his other studies for philosophy. The Emperor Antoninus Pius, who succeeded Hadrian, adopted Marcus Aurelius as his son in 138.

Antoninus Pius treated Aurelius as a confidant and helper throughout his reign; Marcus Aurelius also married his daughter, Faustina, in 139. He was admitted to the Senate, and then twice the consulship. In 147 he shared tribunician power with Antoninus. During this time he began composition of his Meditations, which he wrote in Greek in army camps.

At the age of 40, in 161 Marcus Aurelius ascended the throne and shared his imperial power with his adopted brother Lucius Aurelius Verus. Useless and lazy, Verus was regarded as a kind of junior emperor; he died in 169. After Verus's death he ruled alone.

Most of his reign was spent fighting and negotiating with the Germanic barbarians who were steadily crowding around the borders of the Empire. Marcus was able to hold them back with a succession of victories and peace treaties. In 177 he made his son, Commodus, joint-Emperor, though Commodus had no interest in the responsibility, caring more for the gladiatorial sports, but Marcus, the philosopher- king, took no notice of his son's blood-lust, which was to later cost the Empire dearly.

For much of his reign, Marcus Aurelius had suffered from severe illness, but his calm devotion to stoic virtue gave him the strength to continue without rest and without his poor health interfering with his duties. While with the legions on the German frontier, Marcus Aurelius suddenly died on March 17th in the year 180AD.

His ashes were conveyed to Rome and placed in Hadrian's Mausoleum. Commodus assumed power and began the chain of tragic events that are said to have brought the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

For his wisdom, and strength, and because he was the last instrument of Hadrian's plan that brought so much glory, and prosperity to Rome, we venerate the deified Marcus Aurelius as a god of the Religion of Antinous.

An important feature of the philosophy was that everything will recur: the whole universe becomes fire and then repeats itself.

Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web. (from The Meditations)

Saturday, March 16, 2024

THE FEAST OF HORUS
AND THE SEVEN SCORPIONS



MARCH 16th is the feast of Horus and the Seven Scorpions. Horus is the son of Isis and Osiris. 

When Seth murdered Osiris, grief-stricken Isis searched for his corpse. Isis entrusted baby Horus to Selket/Serqet the scorpion goddess. 

The Egyptians knew that scorpions are very good mothers. A mother scorpion carries her babies on her back ... and she attacks anyone who dares to approach too close! 

For added protection, Selket became seven scorpions, thus providing seven-fold protection to Horus. 

Selket is the guardian of Horus and ... by extension ... she is the guardian of Antinous. When you REALLY need protection: call upon Selket!

16 de março é a festa de Horus e os Sete Escorpiões. Horus é filho de Isis e Osíris. Quando Seth assassinou Osíris, a Isis, que sofreu um sofrimento, procurou seu cadáver. Isis confiou o bebê Horus a Selket / Serqet a deusa do escorpião. Os egípcios sabiam que os escorpiões são mães muito boas. Uma mãe escorpião carrega seus bebês em suas costas ... e ela ataca qualquer um que se atreva a aproximar-se muito perto! Para maior proteção, Selket se tornou sete escorpiões, proporcionando assim sete vezes proteção a Horus. Se você realmente precisa de proteção: chamar Selket!

El 16 de marzo es la fiesta de Horus y los Siete Escorpiones. Horus es el hijo de Isis y Osiris. Cuando Seth asesinó a Osiris, Isis buscó su cadáver. Isis le confió a Horus a Selket / Serqet la diosa del escorpión. Los egipcios sabían que los escorpiones son muy buenas madres. Una madre escorpión lleva a sus bebés sobre su espalda ... y ella ataca a cualquiera que se atreva a acercarse demasiado cerca! Para mayor protección, Selket se convirtió en siete escorpiones, proporcionando así siete veces protección a Horus. Si realmente necesita protección: ¡llame a Selket!

Friday, March 15, 2024

ANTINOUS AS THE SLEEPER ENDYMION
SIRED THE 52 MAGICAL LUNAR PHASES


ON World Sleep Day ... the Friday before the March Equinox ... we honour Antinous the Moon God as Endymion. 

There are several versions of the story of Endymion and the Moon. 

In all of them, he and the Moon become united in love for each other. 

He sleeps eternally bathed in moonbeams, guarded by animal spirits associated with lunar deities: Selene, Diana, Artemis. 

Pliny the Elder mentions Endymion as the first human to observe the movements of the Moon, which (according to Pliny) accounts for Endymion's love.

In other versions, he is the son of Jupiter/Zeus and the personification of the Moon's Magic on Earth. He sired 52 children with Diana/Selene ... the 52 Lunar Phases of ANTINOUS MOON MAGIC.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

WE CELEBRATE THE JOY OF BEING ALIVE
AT THE FEAST OF ANTINOUS OSIRIS UNNEFER


THE 14th of March is the Ancient Egyptian festival of Osiris Unnefer .. life reborn after the dead of winter.

Antinous has always been identified as Osiris, and on this date we commemorate his victory over death by celebrating the joy of life.

The ancient festival is the celebration of the death and resurrection of Osiris. 

The ancient story tells how the evil god Set and his seventy-two accomplices had murdered Osiris by drowning him in the river, and then they dismembered him, scattering his limbs up and down the valley. 

His sacrifice causes the annual floods that bring life to the rainless valley. 

Osiris arises from the dead, but needs the constant supplication of his devoted followers to strengthen his return. 

It is said that, in ancient times, young boys, chosen for their exceptional beauty were thrown into the Nile to drown, just as Osiris had drowned, as a sacrifice to the God of the Nile for the benefit of the living. 

Those who drowned in the Nile were considered to have become gods, especially if the water responded the following year with a deep inundation.

During his tour up the Nile with Emperor Hadrian in 130 AD, Antinous underwent a transformation the likes of which we can only wonder, because from this point onward, the history of Antinous takes on mythical proportions.

Antinous fell into the Nile. There is no way to know if he was pushed, if he committed suicide, if he gave himself as a human sacrifice, or if he slipped and drowned by accident.

No explanation was given, perhaps even then it was a mystery.

Hadrian "wept like a woman," we are told, in front of the entire court. This shameless display of emotion became a scandal that for so many centuries discredited the achievements of Hadrian.

It made plain that their relationship had transcended what was usual and what tradition held to be manly and appropriate for an Emperor of the warrior Rome nation.

The High Priests of Osiris came privately to Hadrian that Night and revealed what they believed had taken place. Antinous had joined the river inundation god Hapi, and had become the river inundation god. 

They showed Hadrian that the local people had already taken up the lamentation and exaltation of Antinous, proclaiming that he had become a God, after their custom. Hadrian took these sentiments to heart. 

The following day he consulted with his advisers and with the Roman pontiffs of the court, and revealed his astonishing plan.

On October 30th of the year 130 AD, Hadrian founded the Holy City of Antinoopolis on the bank of the river where Antinous had drowned, tracing out the major streets with his own rod in the sand.

He then proceeded to do the unthinkable, as Pontifex Maximus, High Priest of the Roman Religion, he declared that Antinous was a God, that he had conquered death, and risen up to dwell among the never-ending stars ... as Osiris. 

Proclamations were sent out to ever corner of the world, inaugurating the religion of the New God Antinous-Osiris.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

WHEN YOU'RE IN BERLIN VISIT ANTINOUS
IN THIS SPLENDOROUS MUSEUM



IN Berlin, Antinous lives in Greek-revival, neo-Classical splendor in the Altes Museum designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who was born 13 March 1781.

When in Berlin, be sure to drop by for a visit. Antinous will receive you in grandeur ... along with Emperor Hadrian, Empress Sabina, Emperors Augustus Caesar and Caracalla ... and many others.