Tag: Lewis Spence

Out now! Β«ARTHOSΒ» n.29 / 2020

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Press releases and updates, Esotericism, folklore, Mito, Publications, History of Religions

Finally, with a little delay due to the health situation, the 2020 register of ARTHOS (n.29 of the new series, Arya Edizioni - OICL), magazine of Traditional Studies founded in 1972 and directed by prof. Renato Del Ponte, on which I begin with a contribution extremely dear to me. Obviously, for me it is an absolute honor to have been invited to collaborate in the annual edition of this magazine which is not very historical to define as historical, and it is doubly so by virtue of the theme of the essay that bears my signature, given that it is a subject to which I personally care a lot: THE WORSHIP OF FAIRY IN CELTIC COUNTRIES: AN ESCATOLOGY OF DEATH AND REBIRTH.

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Terror and Ecstasy: Arthur Machen's "Hill of Dreams"

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Esotericism, folklore, Italian Literature, Mito, Characters, Guests Book, History of Religions

Arthur Machen was born on March 3, 1863, one of the greatest writers of Fantastic literature of his time and, together with WB Yeats, one of the most important standard bearers of the so-called Β«Celtic RevivalΒ». After having already reviewed on our pages his work before him, "The Great God Pan", We now turn to his third novel," The Hill of Dreams "(1907), perhaps his greatest masterpiece by virtue of the indissoluble union, here as never before, between the two dichotomous aspects of the Sacred in the Gaelic tradition: the terrifying and the ecstatic one.

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β€œThe Wicker Man”: from folklore to folk-horror

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Cinema and TV, Esotericism, folklore, History of Religions

For the making of "The Wicker Man", Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer delved into British folklore and modeled the Beltane ceremony and its preparations on the ancient propitiatory rites of Calendimaggio and the late winter procession, centered on the ritual sacrifice of the "Fool "," King of Disorder ".

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Towards β€œTimeWave Zero”: Psychedelia and Eschatology in Terence McKenna

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Esotericism, Characters, Psychedelia, Shamanism, History of Religions

In addition to being one of the "prophets" of the psychedelic Counterculture of the second half of the last century, Terence McKenna was able to build, in the course of thirty years of studies and experiments, a real eschatological system for the Third Millennium, in view of final explosion, based on the recovery of shamanic practices, on a new interpretation of the Sacred as "Mysterium Tremendum" and on the vision, beyond the ordinary dichotomy between life and death, of what he called an "Ecology of Souls".

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Bada Valley: the β€œxenomorphic” megaliths in the jungle

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Archeology, Atlas, folklore, Megalithism, Mito, Photo reportage

We visited the island of Sulawesi, in the Indonesian archipelago, and ventured into the rainforest of Lore Lindu in search of the mysterious Patung, megalithic sculptures of only partly anthropomorphic aspect which constitute for archaeologists (but also for natives) a real enigma. Taking into account the various hypotheses regarding the cults of ancestors, those of fertility and supposed human sacrifices, we will try to connect them in aΒ framework as coherent as possible.

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