page of wands

I am once again asking practitioners of magic, mysticism, and occultism to defer to Jewish voices and Jewish practitioners about the history and real-life impacts of appropriation of and theft from Judaism and Jewish mysticism instead of deferring to the opinions of non-Jewish occultists. I am also asking you to use discernment when engaging with revisionist history perpetuated by non-Jewish practitioners who profit or benefit from said revisionist history, such as claims that Jewish practitioners willingly "shared" or "gave" our practices with/to other communities, the refusal to acknowledge Jewish authorship, or the speaking over Jewish voices/attempts made by non-Jewish practitioners to speak for Jewish practitioners.

Now, I understand this can be overwhelming and many may not know where or how to begin, so I want to drop a recommendation. Fuck Your "Magic" Antisemitism: A Lesser Key to the Appropriation of Jewish Magic & Mysticism by Ezra Rose is an excellent place to start. This zine, which you can download for free (please leave a donation to support the author if you are able, and please share their work), is a wonderful treasure trove of history and resources. Per the author's description of the zine: FYMA is 'a guide to understanding the history and results of antisemitism in western occult and esoteric movements,  from the origins of "Solomonic" magic in medieval and Renaissance ceremonial grimoires, through the late 19th & early 20th century occult revival's "Qabalistic" ritual,  to ongoing appropriation and demonization in the 21st century.  A labor of love & spite, the zine is both a personal and academic look at a widely ignored topic.'

I have recommended this zine several times and have said that I think it should be required reading in witchcraft and witchcraft adjacent communities, and I stand by that. It's very, very good, and it is absolutely packed with thoroughly researched, cited, useful information.

Thinking about Religion: Greek and Macedonian Belief Systems

In this, I talk about more than just Greek and Macedonian religion. Included at the beginning is a mini-discussion of more inclusive ways to talk about religious systems more broadly, after teaching classes for or related to religious studies for 30+ years now.

the bacchae in translation, pt 3/?

euripides, c. 405 b.c.

michael wodhull, 1809

henry hart milman, 1865

t.a. buckley, 1892

alexander kerr, 1899

gilbert murray, 1906

arthur s. way, 1912

The Origins of the Goddess Ariadne: III. Delos, Cyprus, and Argos

Un'iconografia dionisiaca nell'Iseum et Serapeum del Campo Marzio?

Altar für Isis, Serapis, Liber und Libera

Apollo Citharoedus

Roman copy of a Greek original from the 5th century BC.

Did you know he was trained by Chiron? That he was considered a hunter so skilled his talent was considered divine, that he was his parents' only child and that he was loved?

Did you know the grief that consumed the household when word of Actaeon's fate reached them? That Cadmus cut his hair, that Harmonia wept and was disconsolate and that his parents... well, Autonoe walked the length of the forest, keeping a sharp eye out for her son, but all she saw were the scattered bones of a fawn. Aristaeus too, had heard his son was torn apart and so fruitlessly, foolishly searched for the bones of a man. (There was none to be found)

Did you know that it was Actaeon's ghost, unhappy and unburied, trapped on the earth, who leaned over his sleeping father and told him of his fate? "You will not find me as you knew me, gather me as a stag." And Aristaeus immediately woke his wife and told her the truth, and together they grieved all the night long.

Caption from Magnum Photos:

Throughout the 1980s and '90s, Cristina García Rodero documented Spain’s overlooked rituals and hidden customs. From rural Galicia to Madrid, she created an encyclopedic study of religious festivals that transformed her vision of her home country. “I discovered a world that was for me so rich, so strange, so mysterious, so happy, so absurd, so ridiculous, so great, so creative, so violent,” she says.

While a selection of black-and-white photographs were published in her 1989 book, España Oculta, her lesser-known color images created at the same time reveal another layer of the events to which she bore witness across towns and villages in the country.