Ancient World Review

A Brief History Of Hell (Updated)

The myth of Hell can be traced all the way back to the first civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, but I'm guessing that the concept of an "underworld of the dead" had its origins in the earliest funerary religions of the Stone Age. The dead were buried under the earth, so the land of the dead was also seen as being somewhere underground.

Hell wasn't called Hell in Mesopotamia and it wasn't a place of punishment for sinners. That's a much more modern idea. Originally, the place we call Hell was just a grim vision of the afterlife waiting for everyone. In other words, back around 3,000 BC or so, everybody went to "Hell" so I guess you could say that Hell was the original Heaven:

"The Sumerian afterlife was a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground, where inhabitants were believed to continue ^'a shadowy version of life on earth^'. This bleak domain was known as Kur, and was believed to be ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal. All souls went to the same afterlife, and a person's actions during life had no effect on how the person would be treated in the world to come." Source: Wikipedia.

Closed-captions helpful. Sort of.

The Old Testament Sheol, also known as Hades, is basically identical to the Mesopotamian Kur. According to Wikipedia, "Sheol is a place of darkness to which all the dead go, both the righteous and the unrighteous, regardless of the moral choices made in life, a place of stillness and darkness cut off from life and from God."

The concept of an underworld where sinners are punished after death seems to have evolved in ancient Egypt and Greece, but several different versions of the myth were floating around the Near East and Mediterranean world back then.

The Greeks, for instance, had a concept of the underworld (Hades) as a "deep, gloomy place" where everyone went after death, but the element of judgment was also present in their mythology. " In the Gorgias, Plato (c. 400 BC) wrote that souls were judged after death and those who received punishment were sent to Tartarus," a pit or cave in Hades that was used as a dungeon. (Wikipedia) "Tartarus is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans."

The next clip is from the great 1997 miniseries, The Odyssey, with Armand Assante (highly recommended). It starts off with the scene where Odysseus travels to Hades to ask the blind prophet Tiresias how to get home. The Hades in this scene is more of an underworld of shades than a place of divine punishment.

Hades was not only a place, but the name of the god of the underworld. Originally, he appears to have been one of many anonymous chthonic deities and it was dangerous to mention his actual name:

"...Hades lacked a proper name; as in the case of other nameless chthonians, his anonymity was a precaution. He was referred to by descriptive circumlocutions as 'chthonian Zeus' ... 'the chthonian god,' 'king of those below,' 'Zeus of the departed' ... 'the other Zeus,' 'the god below,' or simply 'lord.' As the Lord of the Dead, he was dark and sinister, a god to be feared and kept at a distance." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised).

The history of Hell and its demons is too long and complex to describe in detail here, but our modern concept of Hell apparently originated with the Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity. From what I've read, Judaism sees Hell as a state of shame and atonement rather than a physical place. The full-blown description of Hell as a literal pit of fire and brimstone and eternal torment seems to be an invention of the medieval Christian church. 

Interestingly enough, "[t]he Christian doctrine of hell derives from passages in the New Testament. The word hell does not appear in the Greek New Testament; instead one of three words is used: the Greek words Tartarus or Hades, or the Hebrew word Gehinnom (1)." So the Hell of the New Testament has clear roots in the underworld of the dead as described by the ancient Greeks and Mesopotamians.

(1) The word Gehinnom derives from Gehenna, a reference to the "Valley of Hinnom," a garbage dump outside of Jersualem where people burned their garbage. According to Wikipedia, "[b]odies of those deemed to have died in sin without hope of salvation (such as people who committed suicide) were thrown there to be destroyed. Gehenna is used in the New Testament as a metaphor for the final place of punishment for the wicked after the resurrection."

The valley is said to be cursed before some of the early kings of Judah sacrificed children to Moloch there.

These days, a majority of Americans still believe in Hell and a 2007 Harris poll revealed that more Americans believe in a literal Hell and Devil than they do in the theory of evolution. Some Christian denominations reject the concept of Hell altogether, while others still embrace the literal version of Hell famously described by Jonathan Edwards in his notorious 1741 sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

The full text of this sermon is a classic well worth reading.

Back in 2018, Pope Francis created a storm of controversy when he supposedly said that Hell doesn't exist and that condemned souls just disappear, though it's possible that his actual words were misreported. If Francis doesn't believe in Hell, he apparently still believes in demons, however, because the Vatican announced in the same year that it would hold a "training course for priests in exorcism ... amid claims that demands for deliverance from demonic possession have greatly increased across the world."

"Largest Ever" Pictish Hillfort Discovered In Scotland

"A spectacular hillfort overlooking a tiny Aberdeenshire village has been revealed as one of the largest ancient settlements ever discovered in Scotland." Source: Archaeology News Network.

"University of Aberdeen archaeologists have uncovered evidence that up to 4,000 people may have lived in more than 800 huts perched high on the Tap O’ Noth close to the village of Rhynie.

"Radiocarbon dating suggests the fort – a settlement within a rampart which encloses an area of around 17 acres - was constructed in the fifth to sixth centuries AD and that settlement on the hill may date back as far as the third century AD, meaning it is likely to be Pictish in origin."

Note: Excavations have been carried out at Tap O' Noth since 2011. The size of the hillfort has been known for some time, but its true age and the possibility that it was once occupied by the Picts is a very recent discovery.

Note: "Aberdeenshire has a rich prehistoric and historic heritage. It is the locus of a large number of Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites, including Longman Hill, Kempstone Hill, Catto Long Barrow and Cairn Lee. The area was settled in the Bronze Age by the Beaker culture, who arrived from the south around 2000–1800 BC. Stone circles and cairns were constructed predominantly in this era. In the Iron Age, hill forts were built. Around the 1st century AD, the Taexali people, who have left little history, were believed to have resided along the coast. The Picts were the next documented inhabitants of the area, and were no later than 800–900 AD. [Emphasis added] The Romans also were in the area during this period, as they left signs at Kintore. Christianity influenced the inhabitants early on, and there were Celtic monasteries at Old Deer and Monymusk." (Wikipedia)

Video from 2018. Closed-captions useful.

The Roman Cult Of The Vestal Virgins

Video from 2013.

The cult of the Vestals was the heart of the Roman empire, the symbol of its life and future. It's importance to the state can be seen in the continual improvements made to the Atrium Vestae, the House of the Vestals:

"Researchers have carried out scientific analysis of the materials used to build the Atrium Vestae in Rome. They found that successive phases of modification to the building saw improvements, including higher quality raw materials, higher brick firing temperatures, and better ratios between carbonate and silicate building materials." Source: Science Daily (2019).

Video from 2011.

This whole area was sacred. "[The Atrium Vestae was] the house of the Vestal Virgins at the foot of the Palatine, just east of the forum proper. By the end of the republic this term had come to mean their dwelling-house, in which sense it is ordinarily used in extant literature ... but originally it included the whole precinct of Vesta ... This precinct contained the temple of Vesta, the dwelling of the Vestals, the sacred grove, and the Regia or house of the king. This group was called both Regia and atrium Vestae ... and regia Vestae." Source: University of Chicago.

The cult of Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth, home and family, "expressed and guaranteed Rome's permanence," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised). "...The sacral status of the six sacerdotes Vestales, the Vestal Virgins (the sole female priesthood in Rome), was manifested in many ways. Though they were required to maintain strict sexual purity during their minimum of 30 years' service, their dress alluded to matrons' wear, their hairstyle probably to a bride's."

Most Vestals came from senatorial families, reflecting their elite religious function. "Though they had many ceremonial roles, their main ritual tasks were the preparation of the grain mixed with salt for public sacrifices and the tending of Vesta's 'undying fire.' The extinction of the fire provided the prima-facie evidence that a Vestal was impure: impurity spelled danger to Rome."

When Rome was still Rome, the cult of the Vestals was taken seriously. The punishment for impurity was to be buried alive. According to the OCD, "the last known case of living entombment ... occurred under Domitian in AD? 89. The last known chief vestal is Coelia Concordia (AD 380); the cult was finally abandoned in 394."

The cult of the Vestals was abandoned 14 years after Nicene Christianity was established as the state church of the Roman empire. Perhaps more than any other change that took place during that time, the dissolution of the Vestals shows just how radically the new religion had transformed Roman culture. The sacred fire symbolized the permanence of Rome. In many ways, it was Rome. When the fire was extinguished by official decree Rome -- the real Rome -- had basically ceased to exist. It's future was gone. By 394, when the last chief Vestal stepped down from her post, Rome was already in serious trouble. Eighty-two years later, the empire officially collapsed in the West when the last Roman emperor was deposed by the barbarians.

Closing down the cult of the Vestals was literally an act of cultural suicide.

Was The Byzantine Empire Roman?

Documentary from 2014.

"The Byzantine Empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire [see comment]  in the Greek-speaking, eastern part of the Mediterranean. Christian in nature, it was perennially at war with the Muslims, Flourishing during the reign of the Macedonian emperors, its demise was the consequence of attacks by Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, and Ottoman Turks." Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia.

Comment: The Byzantine Empire is usually referred to as the "Roman empire in the East," but I've never thought there was anything particularly Roman about the Byzantines. Romans weren't Greek-speaking Christians; they were pagans who spoke Latin. If you ask me, the real Roman empire had already ceased to exist as a distinct social organism by the time Constantinople was founded by Constantine in 324 - 337.  After Italy and the western provinces of the old empire were overrun by Germanic tribes in the fifth century AD the Byzantines retained Roman institutions, but they were essentially an Oriental kingdom, a hybrid of western and eastern traditions.

According to this view the Roman Empire collapsed as a culture long before it was conquered militarily. When Rome fell in the West, that was the end of it. Parts of its territory still remained, however, most of it in the East, but it's hard to see these surviving territories as Roman.

The picture is very complicated, naturally. There were similarities and differences between the Roman and Byzantine empires. It would be surprising if nothing had carried over from the old world. As a general rule, civilizations aren't suddenly obliterated, leaving no trace behind. Collapse doesn't work that way. Kingdoms and empires rise and fall and evolve into new political systems, usually after a period of chaos and warfare. Zombie civilizations are common in history -- nations that still exist long after their cultures have died or changed out of all recognition. Christian Rome and the Roman Byzantine Empire are both good examples, I think, of zombie empires.

The Byzantine empire was a "continuation" of the Roman Empire in the sense that it was once part of the Roman empire with all of its legal and political institutions, but it was Roman in name only. The main difference, I think, was religious. Paganism had been outlawed and driven underground, replaced by Christianity, an essentially Oriental religion.

Here's a modern analogy. Let's say that the United States becomes a Muslim caliphate, but keeps all of its current institutions in place. There's a White House, a Congress, a Supreme Court, and so on. People still vote, but all the candidates are Muslims. The county courthouse still looks the same, but Christianity is illegal and the courts enforce Shariah Law. Then the western half of the country is invaded and overrun by savage barbarians who settle down and take over the existing legislative machinery. The eastern half of the country still survives as an independent nation, but is it American? The answer is obvious.

Related: Continuity and change in the Byzantine Empire.

Is It Possible To Live An Iron Age Life In The Modern World?

Many groups including experimental archaeologists have tried to replicate the lifestyles of prehistoric and medieval cultures. Some of these groups, like the one in the 1978 BBC documentary, Living In The Past, have spent various lengths of time living under past conditions, but they always ended up returning to the modern world with its undeniable conveniences and labor-saving devices. And who can blame them? After all, these were just temporary experiments. But what if a group of modern "neopagans" actually tried to do this for real? What would happen?

Most people living in the modern West would die like flies if they were suddenly transported back to the Iron Age and couldn't return after a few weeks or months. Just staying alive back then was a full-time job in itself, at least for most of the population, and it must have been precarious, but despite all the hardships life couldn't have been too harsh, at least not all the time, or no one would have survived.

Let's say that a group of modern "pagans" decided to start living like this full-time. They could band together, form an agricultural co-op or something, buy some land and return to an Iron Age way of life, building their own shelters, making their own clothes and tools, growing and hunting their own food. To be truly authentic, their community should be based on solid archaeological evidence, which means, for one thing, that they would have to dispense with their idiotic and ahistorical New Age "religions." 

Real pagans were agrarian and they practiced blood sacrifice. They didn't live in cities and drive out to Stonehenge a couple times a year to get loaded and dance around like Hollywood Apaches to the beat of drum circles while the cops kept an eye out for drunks and dope dealers. I've written several posts on this site mocking the "pagans, Druids and pantheists" who swarm over Stonehenge for every solstice and equinox, but I can understand their alienation from Christianity and the modern world.

Modern pagans have a serious problem. There's very little evidence about how people lived back then and what they believed, so the modern pagan has to make it all up and the result is usually ludicrous. This got me thinking about what an authentic neopagan movement would look like and two basic requirements came to mind.

First of all, as I've already said, real neopagans should toss out everything that isn't backed by solid archaeological evidence. Second, they should drop out of the modern world and go back to living in the Iron Age like the people in this video did. Note: They couldn't recreate a Stone Age hunting and gathering existence for obvious reasons.

They would have to live like this all the time, though. There would be no going back. They would essentially have to live like Iron Age farmers and, given enough time, some of them might actually figure out how to survive as clans, living in many ways like the modern Amish. Even if they did, though, they would still be surrounded by the modern world and there would be no way to escape it entirely. They would have to pay taxes on their land, for instance, so they would need to set up small businesses or something.

And that's the catch. There's no way to escape the overpoliced total state in the modern world. Not completely. These neopagans would be anachronisms, psychologically modern humans living an Iron Age life in the center of a decaying, post-industrial civilization. Keeping their communities going at that point would probably be even harder than learning how to feed themselves and stay warm in the winter.

It could be done, but the first generations would be in for a shock and a lot of them would drop out very quickly. Living without electricity is one thing, raising your own food another, but to be truly authentic, they couldn't use modern medicines or hospitals and the women would have to give birth naturally out there in the woods. There would be sickness, malnutrition, deaths. Their children couldn't go to modern schools. The dead would have to be buried right there on the land -- something that could be done here in the States as recently as the the middle of the 20th Century, but which is probably illegal now. The list of problems goes on and on, but this biggest problem is this:

The modern state would never allow people to live like this. An authentic Iron Age life is impossible in the modern world because we have lost too much freedom.

Note: The rest of this documentary can be found here.

Modern Pagans Aren't Real Pagans

Modern neopaganism isn't a "revival of the old traditions." It never will be as long as it ignores the ancient practice of blood sacrifice which was central to the real thing.

Modern pagans like to say they're "keeping the old ways alive," but the truth is that they're not pagans at all, at least not in any real historical sense of the term. Whatever they call themselves -- "Odinists," "Heathens," "Neo-Druids," Wiccans, etc. -- they're basically just Live Action Role Players who make up their rituals and beliefs as they go along, ignoring the little we do know about actual pagan religions.

The most glaring problem with modern pagans is that they don't conduct ritual sacrifices--except in an extremely watered-down, safe and above all legal form. They replace this central aspect of real pagan religion with various invented rituals and "theologies" that never actually existed in the ancient world, and the result is usually ludicrous.

For example, the Odinist Fellowship (UK) web site openly admits that "It is a well-known fact that the most widespread form of communal worship practised in ancient times by pagans of every nationality was the sacrifice." They then go on to say that "Odinists in modern times do not practise elaborate rituals, such as animal sacrifices, that were common in olden days; it would be neither legal nor necessary to do so."

In other words, the Odinist Fellowship admits that it doesn't follow actual pagan rituals. Instead, its members rely on their own "interpretations" of pagan "theology" and these interpretations inevitably reflect their own thoroughly modern political and social ideologies--environmentalism, feminism, political correctness, vegetarianism, egalitarianism, New Age spiritualism, whatever.

These UK Odinists explain away the fact that they don't conduct "unnecessary" sacrificial rituals by saying "What is necessary is that we understand the theological principles that underlie ancient practice, and apply those principles in forms better suited to contemporary conditions." As it turns out, "the form of sacrifice practised by modern Odinists is the libation of mead, accounts of which have been recorded in the literature."

They're sort of correct here. Mead and other things such as wine, milk and honey were frequently used for libations or offerings, but in the old days libations usually accompanied sacrifices. I'm not sure if libations and sacrifices can be considered the same thing, but never mind that.

There is nothing ancient about this path whatsoever.

The word "pagan" has two different senses. According to Merriam-Webster, a pagan is either "a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome)" or "one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods: an irreligious or hedonistic person." Personally, I'd say that modern pagans fit more into the latter category than anything else, but whatever the case they can't call themselves pagans in the religious sense and claim to be following the "old ways" if they don't conduct ritual sacrifices.

This is an absolutely critical distinction. Sacrifice, especially blood sacrifice, was central to ancient paganism and I think it's accurate to say that authentic pagan religions consisted almost entirely of the correct practice of sacrificial rituals according to prescribed forms. There's no doubt at all that sacrifice was the major element in all pagan religions.

"Sacrifice was the most important form of action in Greek religion," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), and "Roman sacrificial practices were not functionally different from Greek." And it was the same with the so-called barbarian tribes of western Europe. There is a lot of archaeological evidence for Celtic/Druidic sacrifice, including human sacrifices. According to the OCD, "The ancients knew them [the Celts] as fierce fighters and superb horsemen, and noticed the savagery of their religious rites conducted by the priesthood, the Druids..." (Emphasis added.)

Ancient Greek sacrifice. Real pagan sacrifices were a straight-up transaction with the gods, a blood-offering in exchange for protection or other favors . There was no "theology" involved here.

Modern Druids and other neopagans can hardly be described as "savage" and I'm not sure where they get their "pagan theologies" from. In the case of the Druids, the little we know about their religious practices has been written from the perspective of the Romans and early Christian scholars. The Druids had an oral tradition and one thing we know about them, according to the OCD, is that they believed in sacral, i.e. sacred kingship. I doubt if today's neopagans would accept this concept any more than they accept the necessity of making sacrifices.

The one thing missing from every description of pagan religion I've ever come across is what we would now refer to as a "theology." Ancient people had their myths, but they didn't have theologies or dogmas as such, so it's difficult to see how the Odinist Fellowship (or any other neopagan group) can "understand the theological principles that underlie ancient practice."

Pagan religions were inherently ritualistic in nature. Unlike modern Christians, pagans didn't have to accept a particular doctrine or set or moral principles in order to be pagans. The correct execution of ritual was the heart of the matter. In Rome, for instance, it was perfectly possible, even common among the educated classes, to be "religious" without actually believing in the gods. Religion was ritual to the Romans. "Belief" had nothing to do with it. Ref: Cicero and the Religion of his Day, Eli Edard Burriss, 1926.

Images of Roman sacrifice. The pagan gods liked blood and the smell of burning flesh and offal.

The importance of ritual as opposed to dogma can be seen in the practice of Santeria, an example of a real pagan (see below) religion that still exists in the modern world. According to Wikipedia, "Santeria does not use a central creed for its religious practice; though it is understood in terms of its rituals and ceremonies." And one of its rituals involves animal sacrifices offered up to the gods for initiations and healing:

"As the sacrificial hour approaches, several priests (Santeros) are preparing the 40 assorted goats, roosters, hens, guinea hens, pigeons, quail, turtle and duck who grow noisy and nervous in their cages. Their lives will be taken in an exchange mandated by Olofi, Santería's supreme god and source of all energy, to heal the broken body and spirit of Virginia Rosario-Nevarez and to initiate her into the Santería priesthood." Source: Dallas Observer (2009).

Note: According to the Santeria Church of the Orishas, "The sacrifice method commonly used in Santeria involves the severing of the carotid arteries with a knife to cause the animal to pass out before it dies."

Just to qualify what I said earlier, I'm not sure if it's technically correct to call Santeria a "pagan" religion since it incorporates elements of Catholicism, but then again Catholicism itself also incorporates elements of paganism, so the picture gets kind of muddled. Santeria as we know it isn't very old, having originated in the Caribbean under the Spanish Empire, but it has deep roots in the Yaruba religion of West Africa. Yaruba is definitely pre-Christian, but has apparently been influenced by both Christianity and Islam over the centuries. Whatever the case, however, Santeria, at least in its ritualistic and sacrificial aspects, seems to have much more in common with authentic European paganism than any of these modern neopagan movements.

Real paganism as practiced in Santeria.

Modern pagans could easily incorporate sacrificial rituals into their ceremonies. The sources have detailed descriptions of how these rites were carried out, at least by the Greeks and Romans, and Celtic sacrifices were probably very similar. The legality of blood sacrifices is another matter. The US Supreme Court ruled back in 1993 that "city laws directed at animal sacrifice as part of the Santeria religion violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment," but I'm not sure if that ruling still stands. If it does, that hasn't stopped local officials from trying to prevent animal sacrifices for religious purposes. I don't know what the legal situation is in the UK and other European countries.

Blood sacrifices aren't absolutely necessary, of course, but the ancients believed that they had the most power to influence the gods and let's face it -- anything less would be kind of lame. Modern pagans could start sacrificing pigs, goats, cows, chickens, and so on. They might have to do it in secret, but it could be done. Neo-Druids serious about keeping the old ways alive could sacrifice the occasional baby or cheerleader as well, but here's the thing. The thought of killing animals, let alone human beings, would disgust and repel them -- most of them, at any rate. They're too civilized to do things like that.

And that's why they'll never be real pagans.

Modern neopagans have more in common with the Christians in this scene than they do with the pagans. They would run away screaming from a ritual sacrifice like this.

Pagan Ship Burials - Valsgarde

Closed-captions sort of helpful.

"Valsgärde or Vallsgärde is a farm on the Fyris river, about three kilometres north of Gamla Uppsala, the ancient centre of the Swedish kings and of the pagan faith in Sweden. The present farm dates from the 16th century. The farm's notability derives from the presence of a burial site from the Swedish Vendel Age (part of the Iron age (c. 550–793) and the Viking Age); it was used for more than 300 years. The first ship burial is from the 6th century and the last graves are from the 11th century." (Wikipedia)

"The Valsgarde cemetery is known primarily for its fifteen boat-graves. Less well-known are the at least 62 cremation burials and the fifteen inhumations and chamber graves. From the very beginning of the excavations in Valsgarde, focus centered on the boat-graves. This was quite understandable, since most of them were spectacular." -- "Valsgarde - Development and change of a burial ground over 1300 years", John Ljungkvist (PDF).

Some incredible Vendel Age helmets have been discovered at Valsgarde.

"In one of the boat burials from the grave field at Valsgärde a rich nobleman is buried. The grave is from the Vendel period and about 1500 years old. The undisturbed graves show us that the people who lived in the area between 550 and 800 AD were wealthy. Valsgärde was strategically placed by the Fyris river, a major traffic artery for long-distance travel to continental Europe. The men in the graves embarked on their last journey equipped with war gear, household utensils, tools and many animals. Resting in comfort on eiderdown mattresses they departed for eternity." Source: Uppsala University (slow loading site, may be down temporarily).

The Cult Of Cybele: Mother Of The Gods

"A 2,100-year-old marble statue of Cybele, an ancient Phrygian mother goddess, has been unearthed in excavations in northwestern Turkish province of Ordu [Greek Kotyora] located on the Black Sea coast." Source: Archaeology News Network (2016).

Notes: Cybele may have evolved from an even older fertility goddess in the proto-city of Catalhoyuk (7500-5700 BC), also located in ancient Anatolia. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), Cybele was "the great mother-goddess of Anatolia, associated in myth, and later at least in cult, with her youthful lover Attis. Pessinus in Phyrgia was her chief sanctuary, and the cult appears at an early date in Lydia."

According to Theoi Greek Mythology, "Kybele (Cybele) was the ancient Phrygian Mother of the Gods, a primal nature goddess worshiped with orgiastic rites in the mountains of central and western Anatolia. The Greeks identified her with their own mother of the gods--the Titaness Rhea."

The cult of Cybele was apparently introduced fairly early (3rd cent. BC) in Rome. "Thanks to its official status and early naturalization in Rome and in Ostia, the cult spread rapidly through the provinces, especially in Gaul and Africa, and was readily accepted as a municipal cult. Its agrarian character made it more popular with the fixed populations than with the soldiers, and it was especially favored by women." (OCD)

Cybele was also known as the Magna Mater or Great Mother (1). According to The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Ancient Texts, edited by Marvin W. Meyer (p.113), "she was honored as the mother goddess of fertility, but her particular power was evidenced in the wilds of the untamed forests and mountains." After Cybele entered the official Roman pantheon, "she was to function practically as a Roman national goddess" and enjoyed great favor with the emperors starting with Claudius in the first century.

(1) Several other goddesses were also referred to as "Great Mother."

"The most well-known Roman festival in honor of the Anatolian deities [Cybele and her consort Attis] was celebrated in the spring, during March," according to The Ancient Mysteries (p.114). These rites were associated with violent religious frenzy. "March 24 was aptly named The Day of Blood. On this day some of the fanatical celebrants flogged themselves until they bled and sprinkled their blood upon the image and altars in the sanctuary, while others are said to have imitated Attis by castrating themselves." (Ibid) Bulls were also sacrificed in honor of the Great Mother of the Gods.

Several Roman historians and poets described the cult of Cybele in detail. Livy, for instance, described how the cult was first brought to Rome in his History of Rome (Book 29.10-14):

"About this time a sudden wave of superstition swept over Rome. The Sibylline Books had been consulted because it had rained stones that year more than usual [!], and in the Books a prophecy was found that if ever a foreign enemy should invade Italy, he could be defeated and driven out if Cybele, The Idaean Mother of the Gods, were brought from Pessinus to Rome." (Ibid, p. 121).

Christian writers denounced the cult of Cybele and the church banned it altogether when they gained the secular power required to force their intolerant monotheism on the pagan world, but the tradition of the Great Mother still survives in the figure of the Virgin Mary.

Medusa And The Gorgons

"In Greek mythology, a Gorgon ... is a mythical creature portrayed in ancient literature. While descriptions of Gorgons vary and occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair made of living, venomous snakes, as well as a horrifying visage that turned those who beheld her to stone. Traditionally, while two of the Gorgons were immortal, Stheno and Euryale, their sister Medusa was not and she was slain by the demigod and hero Perseus." (Wikipedia)

Related: Ancient World Monsters in the Museums and Monuments of Rome.

From Clash of the Titans, 1981.

Note: The depiction of Medusa's death in Clash of the Titans deviates from the traditional story:

"According to the canonical version of the [Gorgo/Medusa] myth, Perseus was ordered to fetch the head of Medusa, the mortal sister of Sthenno and Euryale; through their horrific appearance these Gorgons turned to stone anyone who looked at them. With the help of Athena, Hermes and nymphs, who had supplied him with winged sandals, Hades' cap of invisibility, and a sickle Perseus managed to behead Medusa in her sleep; from her head sprang Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus [according to Wikipedia, Medusa foaled Pegasus when she died]. Although pursued by Medusa's sisters, Perseus escaped and, eventually, turned his enemy Polydectes [1] to stone by means of Medusa's head." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised)

[1] Polydectes, king of the island of Seriphos, is said to have fallen in love with Perseus' mother, Danae, but the protective Perseus wouldn't let the king anywhere near her. In order to get her meddlesome son out of the way, Polydectes sent Perseus on a suicidal mission to bring him Medusa's head.

When Perseus returned, he discovered that the king had been threatening and abusing his mother in his absence. Polydectes, less than pleased to see Perseus still alive, demanded to know if he had succeeded in his mission and Perseus held up the gorgon's severed head, turning the king and all his advisors into stone.

Note: "Petrifaction, or petrification as defined as turning people to stone, is a common theme in folklore and mythology, as well as in some works of modern literature." (Wikipedia)

One classic example of the use of petrifaction in modern fiction can be found in the great story Out of the Aeons by H.P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald. One of the best of Lovecraft's collaborations, this is a truly dark and frightening story about a museum which obtains a mysterious mummy that turns out to be the petrified remains of a man who confronted the ancient god Ghatanothoa, a gorgon-like entity so horrible that anyone who looks at it is instantly turned to stone while their brain remains alive and conscious for all eternity. Highly recommended.

Bring Back The Medieval Witch Hunts

"Researchers at the University of Dundee have recreated the face of an 18th-century 'witch' who died in jail before she could be burned for her 'crimes'." Source: Archaeology News Network (2017).

"Lilias Adie, from Torryburn, Fife, died in 1704 while held in prison for her 'confessed' crimes of being a witch and having sex with the devil."

Comment: This isn't ancient or medieval history, but I can't resist posting stories involving sex with the devil. If this reconstruction is accurate, Lilias Adie looks like she was a sweet old grandma, which just makes the wicked old trollop's behavior all the more shocking. But never mind that. Reading her tragic story made me think, in my usual roundabout way, that it's about time to bring back the medieval witch hunts.

Witchcraft, at least in a watered-down, New Age, politically-correct and feminized form, is alive and well in the modern world. Witchcraft is now a brand, according to Buzzfeed (2017) in an article about how "entrepreneurs [have blended] a passion for the occult with an understanding of e-commerce to capture a share of the new economic activity surrounding witchcraft." Magic, it seems, is a hot market these days:

"The owner of one such business, Goddess Provisions, said her customer base has grown from 300 subscribers to almost 6,000 in the last year and a half."

The goddess who runs this online store sells everything from crystals to aromatherapy, superfood snacks and spiritual growth tools, and her customers are undoubtedly a pack of rabid Third-Wave feminists who see themselves as being oppressed by the non-existent patriarchy. I have no evidence to back this up, but I imagine that the majority of them are -- among other things -- suffering from extreme forms of Post Trump Stress Disorder.

Video from Feb. 2017.

"'Witches are everywhere these days,' says the introduction to Basic Witches, 'a cheeky how-to book about witchcraft published in August [2017]. At Catland [an occult boutique in Brooklyn], along with candles, pheasant feet and little jars of mouse bones, you can buy the beautifully produced feminist witchcraft magazine Sabat, whose covers feature black-and-white photos of gorgeous girls looking like pensive pop stars. There are a surprising number of magical paraphernalia subscription boxes. 'Why the Witch Is the Pop-Culture Heroine We Need Right Now,' said the 2017 headline of a recent piece on New York Magazine’s Vulture site, part of its Witch Week Halloween series." Source: New York Times (2017).

May the Great Cthulhu save us all from this plague of modern witches and neopagans in general. They're like nursery school kids playing dress-up compared to a necromancer like Joseph Curwen in H.P. Lovecraft's The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, or, perhaps, to an alleged 18th-century witch like Lilias Adie.

It's amazing that in the 313 years since Adie died in a Scottish prison after her confession -- three centuries that saw the rise of modern science and technology -- witchcraft has become a widespread, public, relentlessly left-wing and completely legal subculture with a thriving market for witchy products like mouse bones and pentagram pins. These feminist witches and white-magic practitioners are seriously boring, though. Maybe some of them dabble in curse spells and the like, but you'd be hard pressed to find any modern equivalents of Wizard Whateley in The Dunwich Horror or the evil sorceress Queen Taramis in Conan the Destroyer. As far as I can tell, modern witchcraft is more of a pose and a fashion statement than anything else.

Back in Lilias Adie's time, people took witchcraft seriously. Guilty or not, that's why she was in prison. The modern witchcraft brand, if nothing else, shows how much Christianity has degenerated over the centuries. Many modern Christians still believe that witches are real, but they're not inclined to do anything concrete about it. These days, even the most fundamentalist congregations have succumbed to creeping liberalism. For instance, they would never even think of actually going out and burning one of their local goddesses at the stake. That's too bad, if you ask me. Granted, it's hard to take these modern witches very seriously, but considering how obnoxious they are a revival of the medieval witch hunts would not only be a positive benefit to society, but highly entertaining.

What we need is a New Inquisition. The Catholic Church has become a squalid viper's nest of corruption. pederasty and Cultural Marxism, so the responsibility would fall on the shoulders of fundamentalist congregations around the world. Modern witches aren't hard to locate; most of them have Facebook and Twitter pages and so on. Once the New Inquisition Intelligence Service identifies them, it could dispatch howling mobs with torches to burn down every upscale witchcraft boutique they could find and round up all the Goddesses and Pop-Culture Heroines they could get their hands on. Teenage girls with a pack of Tarot cards, Goth chicks wearing pentagram necklaces, shady characters like this little girl -- no one would be immune from prosecution except for Elvira, of course.. Everybody else would all have to stand trial, preferably by ordeal:

The guilty could then be disposed of humanely, just like they were in the Middle Ages:

"In England and New England Witches were hanged; elsewhere the most common form of execution was burning. Burning, by the way, didn't mean being burned alive. If you recanted (admitted you'd made a mistake and were sorry), you were killed beforehand, and then your body was consigned to the flames. Nobles were beheaded, commoners were hanged -- being burned alive was an extreme and unusual punishment except in Spain and Italy where the Inquisition did regularly burn people alive." Source: Summerlands. (Firefox is giving me an Untrusted Certificate warning about this site, but it's probably OK.)

Witches weren't always executed. Sometimes they were banished, imprisoned or forced to do penance. The executions, when they occurred, were usually public because they were thought to be valuable "teaching tools," which I'm sure they were. The religious courts handed the condemned over to the secular authorities in order to keep the church's hands clean, but in the modern world I suppose the New Inquisition would have to do the dirty work itself. I imagine a lot of people out there would object to this, but look at it this way: The executions would not only rid us of all these LARPING New Age witches, but they would be good for the tourist economy wherever they took place:

"Executions were popular events. The largest had thousands of attendees, who often traveled many miles to see the deaths. Crowds were so large that the Inquisition would sometimes erect bleachers, so that everyone could see and hear." (Summerland)

Bring back the medieval witch hunts. It's just a suggestion.