« Apollo could only be born in the deepest darkness, in that darkness that precedes dawn [...] He reveals himself only and exclusively in nocturnal situations [...] symbolically [...] infrauterine». For this reason, the other sacred centers attributable to the god of Light are located on "abysses", on "infernal mouths", such as those dedicated to San Michele, aligned on the "Linea Sacra Michelita". Along this line is the island of Patmos, sunk and made to rise to new life, according to the myth, by Apollo and Artemis [...]. The timeless island corresponds to the Sacred Polar Earth, of which the Hyperborean myths and the grail tradition of the Kingdom of Avalon tell (on these aspects, Maculotti entertains the reader at length and with persuasive arguments). On Patmos, St. John the Evangelist wrote the "Book of Revelation". The Christian liturgy maintains that John would have received the revelation of the Apocalypse from the Archangel Michael, a sort of "Christianized double" of Apollo, according to the author. These coincidences suggest a possible continuity between the Apollonian and the apocalyptic mantics. In any case Apollo, according to Maculotti, is the god who cancels the distance between Earth and Heaven, at least in those who allow themselves to be struck: «by his arrow and know (not) to understand the cosmic Harmony inherent in the seven breathed notes from his lyre, giving birth in the abysmal depths […] the prophetic capacity». For us who believe that the principle exists only in the many, who think of physis in sacred terms, the most relevant part of this study must be identified in the demystification of Apollo as a solar god. His duplicity refers, on the contrary, to the arché as coincidentia oppositorum, in which the masculine and feminine merge into one. »

JOHN SESS
«THE BOURGEOISE», «BARBADILLO","LA RUNA STUDY CENTER»
17 January 2023

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« For some books, talking about simple reading is an understatement. Some texts can be more compelling than others, they offer us greater involvement, they can transmit us relevant information, but few are transformed into a true learning experience, into the transmission of knowledge in the fullest sense of the term. They are books that add a purely emotional component to the rational component: the amazement of discovery. This occurs in rare cases, but when it happens it is inevitable to note that the very soul of the author is at the basis of everything, who pours into his work not only notions, but love for what he describes, not simple expositions of conjectures but the taste for research and the amazement of discovery. In these cases, all the dedication and energy that an author pours into his work emerges. Energy that reverberates on the player. Even more rare is to find such a book in an area, that of anthropology and history of religions, which often produces as interesting as hyper-academic treatises capable of cooling down even the most motivated of readers. Well, the rare event took shape with the recent “THE ANGEL OF THE ABYSS. APOLLO, AVALON, THE POLAR MYTH AND THE APOCALYPSE” (Axis Mundi editions, 2022), a long journey through the epiphanies of a multifaceted divinity, Apollo, who turns out to be far from the static categories with which, with scholastic notions, we have always known him. Audacious author is the researcher and writer MARCO MACULOTTI, born in 1988, already widely known for his web page Axis Mundi, a fascinating bubbling cauldron of original studies on the anthropology of the sacred, history of religions, symbology and esotericism, which recently gives also the name of a new editorial reality of which this work is one of the first fruits, together with periodical, intriguing monographs. In “The Angel of the Abyss” Maculotti, who despite his young age demonstrates an uncommon familiarity with decidedly complex themes, easily takes us through times, places and peoples, facing events suspended in mythical time and offering original points of view, right from the beginning of the work. Those of us who, among those who studied philosophy for at least some time in our lives, imagined those ancient sages as austere, bearded dispensers of maxims, will be astounded to discover that some of them were known as iatromancers (seers-healers), sort of ancient and powerful shamans with extraordinary powers… One wonders what impact they would have on students, if described in this respect. It is precisely from these figures, closely linked to Apollo, that the in-depth investigation of the author begins who, starting from the furrow traced by the unreachable Giorgio Colli, who dedicated revealing pages to the God who presides over the oracles, examines the innumerable manifestations of divinities - especially in the European area - which in some way reproduce not only the features, but also take up their details and contexts. Thus a dense network of symbolic, semantic and linguistic interconnections is created in front of the reader, made up of references between traditions that are often very distant from each other, from the East to the far North of Europe, which return a much more articulated portrait of the god Apollo. No longer, or – better – not so much a purely solar divinity, as a power that concentrates opposites within itself, a polar god who carries within himself light and darkness, a transfiguration of that alchemical “coincidentia oppositorum” which reveals two principles united and opposed in every institution. [...] Sun and darkness, life and destruction in eternal alternation according to the natural cycles, to which Apollo is associated several times. A God whose principles permeate Wisdom itself. Giorgio Colli – anything but hidden inspirer of this work – used the term “wisdom” to define the pre-Socratic philosophical corpus, and precisely by introducing his basic “Greek wisdom” he reminds us that “…Apollo is the god of wisdom, explicitly and peacefully. In fact, knowing everything […] pertains only to divination, in the archaic sphere, and this art is granted by Apollo”. This is why the connotation of "iatromancer" attributed to numerous pre-Socratics takes on a meaning that goes far beyond religious superstition, and is closely connected with the very concept of Wisdom through the experience of clairvoyance. Perhaps it is no coincidence that his name re-emerges precisely [...] in the Apocalypse, a book that takes its essence from the clairvoyance of divine origin. Maculotti's work moves from this principle, thanks to which we discover that Apollo, the god who presides over the oracles, manifests himself in the main cultures of the ancient world - Greek, Oriental, Celtic, Germanic, Roman ... - through transfigurations that are not always evident but clearly connoted, to the point of constituting a real Indo-European archetype. Reading "The Angel of the Abyss", grasping that thin thread that connects diaphanous lands, islands cloaked in mystery, divinities that in their power and contrasts manifest the dynamics and principles of life itself, is an experience that closely resembles another fundamental reading, that "Il Mulino di Amleto" by Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend which has definitively changed the way of approaching mythology, leaving the enclosures of individual civilizations and capturing those fragments of wisdom that have crossed the history of all of humanity, keeping their fascinating mystery unchanged. Today, with "The Angel of the Abyss", we can once again relive that vertigo.

DARIO NOASCONE
«CIVICO20NEWS.IT»
3 December 2022

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« The first editions paperback Axis Mundi written and edited by the hyperborean Marco Maculotti takes up the heart of Maculotti's research. The god Apollo and the lineage of the Hyperboreans, the Kali Yuga and the Golden Age, the exile and return of Cronus-Saturn and the King of the World, the cosmic cycles and the Celestial Lands, the Greek initiatory and shamanic paths , Roman, Norse, Celtic, to name but a few. Essential book forged by years of experience and studies! »