Hair offerings: historical context, purpose and uses

Offerings of hair, locks of hair or ritual hair-cutting is quite a regular occurrence in ancient sources and textbooks discussing various religious customs of the ancient Greek world. It also seems to be a fairly forgotten offering in a modern context, which is why I wanted to delve back in and write this post. I

The Adeia – a modern festival to Demeter

Historically, it’s often during times of hardships and crisis that new cults would be established and religious innovations would appear. This one is no different. It’s through discussion with @iliosflower that the idea of creating a new festival, one that would more accurately respond to modern problematics, came to fruition. This is what we’d like

Spiritual protection in the Greco-Roman world

This was this week’s hot topic, so I’m using the opportunity to make some things clear from a purely hellenic and historical perspective. Needless to say I am tired of seeing modern magical concepts being slapped on ancient beliefs and I am not writing this post unbiased. AmuletsEtymologically, the word amulet probably means “something that

Dionysus, this winter god

Having been a hellenic polytheist for several years has completely changed my way of considering the year. Because the Attic calendar’s New Year typically falls somewhere in July/August, I naturally consider the first Dionysian event of the year to be the Oschophoria, which I celebrated last month. I’ve often seen people be surprised by the

Healing shrines and incubation in Asclepian cult

Someone recently mentionned how cool it’d be to bring back sleeping in temples for healing purposes, which created a “hell yeah, let’s talk about incubation” reaction in me. So yeah, let’s talk about incubation as a practice. However, as always with topics that are linked to health and healthcare, I feel a disclaimer is needed:

An updated list of Priapus epithets

Because the list on theoi.com is sad af. Let’s start with those actually. On the theoi.com page for Priapus are listed 5 epithets: Ανδροσαθων, Androsathon “man-pricked” Ιθυφαλλος, Ithyphallos “Erect-phallus” Τυχων, Tykhon “Fortune” Θριαμβος, Thriambos “Thriamb” Διθυραμβος, Dithyrambos “Dithyramb” And they’re fine, Ithyphallos and Tykhon are two important ones and I’m glad they’re there. However, it’s

Philosophy, Hellenic Polytheism and me

This post is going to be a bit different and more personal. I wasn’t sure I wanted to make it, but clearly this topic keeps being brought up, and makes me scream into the void without much context. My disclaimer is this: today’s post is a word vomit  an opinion piece, not an informative one.