Dionysus
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Dionysus was a Greek dying and rising god, the god of madness, trance, extacy and wine (alcohol), based on the Aryan green man and Egyptian Osiris. He was the counterpart of Apollo, the god of the sun, poetry, music, healing, oracles and spirituality. During winter (inverno, underworld), the oracle of Delphi, at Mount Parnassus, dedicated to Apollo, became the oracle of Dionysus. |
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In rituals he was dismembered like Osiris was cut up in pieces. Like Osiris was worshiped by raising the Djedd pillar, Dionysus was worshiped in parades with big phalluses (Pan was also associated with the phallus). He wore a thyrsis staff, dripping of honey, that represented the kundalini staff of the spine and pineal gland, like the caduceus of Mercury.
In the Dionysian Mysteries, psychedelic drugs were used. He had the epiteth Eleutherios the Liberator (=Luther). He was born from the union of Zeus and Persephone, represented the underworld aspect of Zeus (Osiris Jupiter god of the underworld).
He was celebrated in festivals in Athens and Eleusis, with Dionysian tragedies (tragos: goat) written by playwrights like Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides for mask wearing actors. Sometimes he was depicted as a winged Daimon (the Higher Self) riding a tiger.
Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, was a member of a Dionysus cult.
He was called Bacchus by the Romans, equated with the two faced god Iacchus in the Eleusianian Mysteries, the son or husband of Demeter. Female followers were called Maenads, and practiced human sacrifice, cannibalism.
He was accompanied by a bull, goat, panther, leopard (associated with masks, ego death). His epiteths were wild, androgynous, pig plucker, of the trees, twice born. He was hanged on a pole with a crown of ivy, later replaced by Christ hanging on a wooden cross with a crown of thorns.
His cult influenced the cult of Roman god Liber- Libertas. Venus rules the 7th sphere sensuality, feminine beauty, sexuality.
The kabbalistic hidden 11th sphere Daath is ruled by Sirius and Pluto: a foreigner, a stranger, outsider god of epiphany.
Revelation 911 about Apollyon, king of bottomless pit= Lucifer unity of opposites, the two 1's, the black and white pillar, light and dark, Apollo and Dionysus.
Water sign Scorpio (Death card)=Prince of Cups.
The Catholic Church created protestantism of Martin Luther as controlled opposition (thesis-antithese-synthesis). The Jesuits of Ignatius of Loyola (Apollo, order) founded at church of st Denis pictured with decapitated head, fought the protestants of Martin Luther (Dionysus, liberation).
Dionysus in pop culture
1872 Friedrich Nietzsche writes Birth of Tragedy (lived last part of his life in madness, calling himself Antichrist and Dionysus). Apollo represented harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the principle of individuation - Dionysus disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy and unity (liberation of instinct, trance as only real world, waking up from illusion. In the Greek tragedy, the tragic hero Apollo looks for order in a chaotic world. Nietzsche considered Aeschylus and Sophocles as true tragedies and saw Euripides with more rationality and morality as a downfall, the start of the Christian slave religion. modern theater as looking into the Abyss. higher mind neocortex-primitive reptilian brain, Christ vs Antichrist John the Baptist, Sirius the hidden sun.
His view on Greek culture as interplay between Apollonian and Dionysian forces, influenced Thomas Mann and Stefan George, who was one of the architects of German nazism and worked with the Symbolists in Paris (Stephane Mallarmé, the Parnassan movement in literature).
Aleister Crowley equated Bacchus with Christ, lived as an outsider and heroin addict.
Oswald Spengler in Decline of the West, considered the Roman Empire as Apollonian.
1921 Carl Jung in Psychological types considered Apollo as introvert Dionysus as extravert (contrast reason-faith).
The Montparnasse art scene in Paris was a recreation of Bohemian Dionysian culture of trance and decadence (Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamps, surrealism).
Josephine Baker played the role of Black Venus with leopard.
1938 Superman.
1939 Batman dark counterpart.
1946 Jack (Iacchus) Parsons Babalon Workings, Horus Babalon feminine counterpart, in balance in the Dao, the Way of the sun yin yang 6 and 9.
1961 Michel Foucault Madness and Civilzation.
John Kennedy (Apollo mission) with Martin Luther (liberator) King as dark side. Beatlemania female followers of The Beatles as modern Maenads.
The Left Wing Church: Postmodernism everything is fragmented. outsider struggling for acceptance theme in black liberation movement Black Panther Party.
CIA mind control projects like Laurel Canyon and Greenwich Village with luciferian sodomy to create mirror alters. Jim Morisson (Brian De Palma film Dionysus in 69) Charles Manson.
1969 Woodstock wooden phallus statue of Dionysus Jimi Hendrix as the Fool in ritual of extacy, version of Star Spangled Banner.
1971 A Clockwork Orange Nietzschean Uebermensch beyond good and bad.
1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Jack Nicholson as Dionysus-Christ.
1988 the Joker Killing Joke, Apollo on stage of Dionysus.
Michael Jackson Black or White Black Panther.
Gay Pride parades (the Gay and Transgender Church) as modern Dionysian festivals. Trance music, Goa,..
Batman Michael Keaton (order intellect) the Joker Jack Nicholson (chaos, madness, Jack=the two-faced joker/jester).
Tupac Shakur from Black Panther family.
The Dark Knight
the Joker Heath Ledger has no
rational plan, accepts chaos.
Greece