Loki the trickster
The Caduceus
Caduceus of Ningishzida: the Pre-Hermes Caduceus
“The alchemical process of kindling and elevating it is accomplished in the spinal cord where the SALT, SULPHUR, MERCURY and AZOTH are found. It is raised to incandescence by high and noble thought, by meditation upon spiritual subjects, and by altruism expressed in the daily life. The second half of the creative energy thus drawn upward through the spinal canal is a SPINAL SPIRIT-FIRE, the serpent of wisdom. Gradually it is raised higher and higher and when it reaches the pituitary body and the pineal gland in the brain, it sets them to vibrating, opening up the spiritual worlds and enabling man to commune with the gods. Then this fire radiates in all directions and permeates the whole body and its auric atmosphere, and man has become a LIVING STONE, whose luster surpasses that of the diamond or the ruby. HE IS THEN THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.”
Max Heindel
“The Basics of Kabbalah and the Tree of Life”
“On penetrating into the sanctuary of the Kabalah one is seized with admiration in the presence of a doctrine so logical, so simple and at the same time so absolute. The essential union of ideas and signs; the consecration of the most fundamental realities by primitive characters; the trinity of words, letters and numbers; a philosophy simple as the alphabet, profound and infinite as the Word; theorems more complete and luminous than those of Pythagoras; a theology which may be summed up on the fingers; an infinite which can be held in the hollow of an infant’s hand; ten figures and twenty-two letters, a triangle, a square and a circle: such are the elements of the Kabalah. Such also are the component principles of the written Word, reflection of that spoken Word which created the world! All truly dogmatic religions have issued from the Kabalah and return therein.”
Eliphas Levi
“Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie”
(Part I: The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic, Introduction, Rowe pg. 11-12)
The Kabbalah, hermeticism, makalesi, tarot meanings and the tree of life
Yggdrasil
Running through this universe from bottom to top, holding it all together and linking the three worlds of heaven, earth, and underworld, was a great ash tree called Yggdrasill. Its branches spread over the heavens, and its roots stretched into all three worlds. Springs rose from these roots. One, the Well of Urd, was guarded by the Norns, the three goddesses of fate. A serpent or dragon named Nidhogg gnawed endlessly at the Yggdrasill’s roots, and an eagle perched on its topmost branch. Goats, deer, and other animals ate the tree’s shoots and lived in it, and a squirrel named Ratatosk ran up and down its trunk, carrying messages and insults between the eagle and Nidhogg.
Fate
Hel
Mother Holle – The Germanic Goddess of Death and Renewal, Weaver of Fate and Fortune
Hel, Norse Goddess of the Dead
Norns, Hel, Frau Holle, Fylgia
The old Old Norse word Hel derives from Proto-Germanic *haljō, which means “one who covers up or hides something”, which itself derives from Proto-Indo-European *kel-, meaning “conceal”. The cognate in English is the word Hell which is from the Old English forms hel and helle. Related terms are Old Frisian, helle, German Hölle and Gothic halja. Other words more distantly related include hole, hollow, hall, helmet and cell, all from the aforementioned Indo-European root *kel-.
Hel in Norse mythology, originally the name of the world of the dead; Helheim (Hel-Home), it later came to mean the goddess of death. Hel was one of the three “strange children” of the trickster god Loki and the Giantess Angurboda; the other two were Fenris and Jormungand, and her kingdom was said to lie downward and northward. It was called Niflheim, or the World of Darkness, and appears to have been divided into several sections, one of which was Náströnd, the shore of corpses.
Most of us will remember Mother Holle (or Frau Holle in German) from the Grimm’s fairy tales. She is the old woman who lives in a world at the bottom of a well and whose feather beds when shaken make snow fall on Earth. It is said that anyone who enters her realm will be rewarded exactly with what they deserve, be it good or bad. She is described as having ugly big teeth, a big nose and a flat foot. The latter shows her love for weaving or spinning, another sacred act associated with the Goddess: She is the Life Weaver, the Spinner of Destiny and Fate.
The Scandinavian Goddess Hel is probably the most widely known version of Mother Holle as Goddess, although by the time the Indo-European Norse wrote down their religious beliefs, Hel was no longer the benevolent Regeneratrix of the Neolithic. She had become the dreaded Queen of the Dead.
Sudice
Dea Matrona
Hutena
Norns
The three Moirai
Parcae
Matres
Graeae
In Hurrian mythology, the Hutena are goddesses of fate. They are similar to the Norns of Norse mythology or the Moirai of ancient Greece. They are called the Gul Ses (Gul-Shesh; Gulshesh; Gul-ashshesh) in Hittite mythology.
In Greek mythology, the Moirai (“apportioners”, Latinized as Moerae), often known in English as the Fates, were the white-robed incarnations of destiny (Roman equivalent: Parcae, euphemistically the “sparing ones”, the female personifications of destiny, or Fata; also analogous to the Germanic Norns, female beings who rule the destiny of gods and men). Their number became fixed at three: Clotho (spinner), Lachesis (allotter) and Atropos (unturnable).
They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal from birth to death. They were independent, at the helm of necessity, directed fate, and watched that the fate assigned to every being by eternal laws might take its course without obstruction.
The gods and men had to submit to them, although Zeus’s relationship with them is a matter of debate: some sources say he is the only one who can command them (the Zeus Moiragetes), yet others suggest he was also bound to the Moirai’s dictates.
In the Homeric poems Moira or Aisa is related with the limit and end of life and Zeus appears as the guider of destiny. In the Theogony of Hesiod, the three Moirai are personified, and are acting over the gods. Later they are daughters of Zeus and Themis, who was the embodiment of divine order and law. In Plato’s Republic the Three Fates are daughters of Ananke (necessity), the personification of destiny, necessity and fate, depicted as holding a spindle.
In Greek mythology, Ananke, also spelled Anangke, Anance, or Anagke (from the common noun “force, constraint, necessity”), was the personification of destiny, necessity and fate, depicted as holding a spindle. She marks the beginning of the cosmos, along with Chronos.
She was seen as the most powerful dictator of all fate and circumstance which meant that mortals, as well as the Gods, respected her and paid homage. Considered as the mother of the Fates according to one version, she is the only one to have control over their decisions (except, according to some sources, also Zeus).
According to the ancient Greek traveller Pausanias, there was a temple in ancient Corinth where the goddesses Ananke and Bia (meaning violence or violent haste) were worshipped together in the same shrine. Her Roman counterpart was Necessitas (“necessity”).
“Ananke” is derived from the common Ancient Greek noun anankaiē, meaning “force, constraint or necessity.” The common noun itself is of uncertain etymology. Homer uses the word meaning necessity (“It is necessary to fight”) or force (“by force”).
In Ancient Greek literature the word is also used meaning “fate” or “destiny” (“fate by the daemons or by the gods”), and by extension “compulsion or torture by a superior.” The word is often personified in poetry, as Simonides does: “Even the gods don’t fight against ananke“. In the philosophical sense it means “necessity,” “logical necessity,” or “laws of nature.”
It seems that Moira is related with Tekmor (proof, ordinance) and with Ananke (destiny, necessity), who were primeval goddesses in mythical cosmogonies. The ancient Greek writers might call this power Moira or Ananke, and even the gods could not alter what was ordained.
The concept of a universal principle of natural order has been compared to similar concepts in other cultures like the Vedic Rta (“that which is properly joined; order, rule; truth”, the principle of natural order which regulates and coordinates the operation of the universe and everything within it), the Avestan Asha/Arta (corresponding to Vedic language ṛta), the Avestan language term for a concept of cardinal importance to Zoroastrian theology and doctrine, and the Egyptian Maat, the ancient Egyptian concept of truth, balance, order, law, morality, and justice.
The earliest surviving records indicating that Maat is the norm for nature and society, in this world and the next, were recorded during the Old Kingdom, the earliest substantial surviving examples being found in the Pyramid Texts of Unas (ca. 2375 BCE and 2345 BCE).
Later, as a goddess in other traditions of the Egyptian pantheon, where most goddesses were paired with a male aspect, her masculine counterpart was Thoth and their attributes are the similar. In other accounts, Thoth was paired off with Seshat, goddess of writing and measure, who is a lesser known deity.
After her role in creation and continuously preventing the universe from returning to chaos, her primary role in Egyptian mythology dealt with the weighing of souls (also called the weighing of the heart) that took place in the underworld, Duat. Her feather was the measure that determined whether the souls (considered to reside in the heart) of the departed would reach the paradise of afterlife successfully.
In earliest Greek philosophy, the cosmogony of Anaximander is based on these mythical beliefs. The goddess Dike (justice, divine retribution), the goddess of justice and the spirit of moral order and fair judgement based on immemorial custom, in the sense of socially enforced norms and conventional rules, keeps the order and sets a limit to any actions.
According to Hesiod, she was fathered by Zeus upon his second consort, Themis. She and her mother were both personifications of justice. She is depicted as a young slender woman carrying a physical balance scale and wearing a laurel wreath while her Roman counterpart (Justitia) appears in a similar fashion but blind-folded.She is represented in the constellation Libra which is named for the Latin name of her symbol (Scales).
She is often associated with Astraea, the goddess of innocence and purity. Astraea is also one of her epithets referring to her appearance in the nearby constellation Virgo which is said to represent Astraea. This reflects her symbolic association with Astraea, who too has a similar iconography.
Kismet, the predetermined course of events in the Muslim traditions, seems to have a similar etymology and function as Moira: Arabic qisma.t “lot” <qasama, “to divide, allot” developed to mean Fate or destiny. As a loanword, qesmat ‘fate’ appears in Persian, whence in Urdu language, and eventually in English Kismet.
Enyo was a goddess of war and destruction in Greek mythology, the companion and lover of the war god Ares, the Greek god of war. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent and untamed aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and generalship.
His sons Fear (Phobos) and Terror (Deimos) and his lover, or sister, Discord (Enyo) accompanied him on his war chariot. The counterpart of Ares among the Roman gods is Mars, who as a father of the Roman people was given a more important and dignified place in ancient Roman religion as a guardian deity.
She is also identified as his sister, and daughter of Zeus and Hera, in a role closely resembling that of Eris; with Homer in particular representing the two as the same goddess. She is also accredited as the mother of the war god Enyalius, by Ares. However, the name Enyalius or Enyalios can also be used as a title for Ares himself.
As goddess of war, Enyo is responsible for orchestrating the destruction of cities, often accompanying Ares into battle, and depicted “as supreme in war”. During the fall of Troy, Enyo inflicted terror and bloodshed in the war, along with Eris (“Strife”), and Phobos (“Fear”) and Deimos (“Dread”), the two sons of Ares. She, Eris, and the two sons of Ares are depicted on Achilles’s shield.
The Romans identified Enyo with Bellona, and she also has similarities with the Anatolian goddess Ma, a local goddess at Ma or Comana and a Phrygian alternative name for Cybele. Enyo was also the name of one of the Graeae, three sisters who shared one eye and one tooth among them, along with Deino (“Dread”) and Pemphredo (“Alarm”).
Norns – Moirai – “The Fates” – Parcae – Sudice – Matres – Dea Matrona – Graeae – Laima – Dalia
The Anatolian Fate-Goddesses and their DifferentTraditions
The trickster
Sumerian Double Helix Snake God
“Tricksters preside over moments of passage, rupture and transformation.”
Dr. R. S. Tannen
In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and conventional behavior.
It is suggested by Hansen (2001) that the term “Trickster” was probably first used in this context by Daniel G. Brinton in 1885.
The trickster deity breaks the rules of the gods or nature, sometimes maliciously (for example, Loki, a god or jötunn (or both) in Norse mythology) but usually with ultimately positive effects (though the trickster’s initial intentions may have been either positive or negative).
Often, the bending/breaking of rules takes the form of tricks (e.g. Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos, strife and discord) or thievery. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or both; they are often funny even when considered sacred or performing important cultural tasks.
An example of this is the sacred Iktomi, a spider-trickster spirit, and a culture hero for the Lakota people, whose role is to play tricks and games and by doing so raises awareness and acts as an equalizer.
In several cultures, (as may be seen in Greek, Norse, or Slavic folktales, along with Native American/First Nations lore), the trickster and the culture hero are often combined.
To illustrate: Prometheus, in Greek mythology, stole fire from the gods to give to humans. He is more of a culture hero than a trickster. In many Native American and First Nations mythologies, the coyote (Southwestern United States) or raven (Pacific Northwest and Russian Far East) stole fire from the gods (stars, moon, and/or sun) and are more tricksters than culture heroes. This is primarily because of other stories involving these spirits: Prometheus was a titan, whereas the Coyote spirit and Raven spirit are usually seen as jokesters and pranksters.
Frequently the Trickster figure exhibits gender and form variability, changing gender roles and even occasionally engaging in same-sex practices. Such figures appear in Native American and First Nations mythologies, where they are said to have a two-spirit nature.
Loki, the Norse trickster, also exhibits gender variability, in one case even becoming pregnant. He shares the ability to change genders with Odin, the chief Norse deity who also possesses many characteristics of the Trickster.
In the case of Loki’s pregnancy, he was forced by the Gods to stop a giant from erecting a wall for them before seven days passed; he solved the problem by transforming into a mare and drawing the giant’s magical horse away from its work. He returned some time later with a child he had given birth to—the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, who served as Odin’s steed.
In some cultures, there are dualistic myths, featuring two demiurges creating the world, or two culture heroes arranging the world — in a complementary manner.
Dualistic cosmologies are present in all inhabited continents and show great diversity: they may feature culture heroes, but also demiurges (exemplifying a dualistic creation myth in the latter case), or other beings; the two heroes may compete or collaborate; they may be conceived as neutral or contrasted as good versus evil; be of the same importance or distinguished as powerful versus weak; be brothers (even twins) or not be relatives at all.
Psychopomps
Psychopomps (from the Greek word psuchopompos, literally meaning the “guide of souls”) are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife.
Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply to provide safe passage. Frequently depicted on funerary art, psychopomps have been associated at different times and in different cultures with horses, whip-poor-wills, ravens, dogs, crows, owls, sparrows, cuckoos, and harts. Classical examples of a psychopomp in Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology are Charon, Hermes, Mercury and Anubis.
In Jungian psychology, the psychopomp is a mediator between the unconscious and conscious realms. It is symbolically personified in dreams as a wise man or woman, or sometimes as a helpful animal.
In many cultures, the shaman also fulfills the role of the psychopomp. This may include not only accompanying the soul of the dead, but also vice versa: to help at birth, to introduce the newborn child’s soul to the world. This also accounts for the contemporary title of “midwife to the dying”, or “End of Life Doula” which is another form of psychopomp work.
The spirits of ancestors and other dead loved ones function as psychopomps in Filipino culture. When the moribund call out the names of dead relations, the spirits of those named are said to be visible to the dying person. These spirits are believed to be waiting at the foot of the deathbed, ready to fetch (Tagalog: sundô) the soul of the newly-deceased and escort them into the afterlife.
Examples of Tricksters
Examples of Tricksters in the world mythologies are given by Hansen (2001), who lists Mercurius in Roman mythology, Hermes, an Olympian god in Greek religion and mythology, son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia, Eshu in Yoruba mythology and Wakdjunga in Winnebago mythology as examples of the Trickster archetype. Hansen makes the observation that the Trickster is nearly always a male figure.
Hermes
Hermes is second youngest of the Olympian gods. He is a god of transitions and boundaries. He is quick and cunning, and moves freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, as emissary and messenger of the gods, intercessor between mortals and the divine, and conductor of souls into the afterlife. He is protector and patron of travelers, herdsmen, thieves, orators and wit, literature and poets, athletics and sports, invention and trade.
In some myths he is a trickster, and outwits other gods for his own satisfaction or the sake of humankind. His attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster and the tortoise, purse or pouch, winged sandals, winged cap, and his main symbol is the herald’s staff, the Greek kerykeion or Latin caduceus which consisted of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff.
In the Roman adaptation of the Greek pantheon, Hermes is identified with the Roman god Mercury, who, though inherited from the Etruscans, developed many similar characteristics, such as being the patron of commerce.
Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus may be a representation of the syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. Both Thoth and Hermes were gods of writing and of magic in their respective cultures. Thus, the Greek god of interpretive communication was combined with the Egyptian god of wisdom as a patron of astrology and alchemy. In addition, both gods were psychopomps, guiding souls to the afterlife.
In Hellenistic Egypt, the Greeks recognised the congruence of their god Hermes with Thoth. Subsequently the two gods were worshipped as one in what had been the Temple of Thoth in Khemnu, which the Greeks called Hermopolis.
The Egyptian Priest and Polymath Imhotep had been deified long after his death and therefore assimilated to Thoth in the classical and Hellenistic period. The renowned scribe Amenhotep and a wise man named Teôs were equally deified as gods of wisdom, science and medicine and thus placed alongside Imhotep in shrines dedicated to Thoth-Hermes during the Ptolemaic period.
Hermetic Corpus
Hermes Trismegistus (“thrice-greatest Hermes”; Latin: Mercurius ter Maximus) is the purported author of the Hermetic Corpus, a series of sacred texts that are the basis of Hermeticism.
The Hermetica is a category of papyri containing spells and initiatory induction procedures. The Asclepius and the Corpus Hermeticum are the most important of the Hermetica, writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, which survive.
In the dialogue called the Asclepius (after the Greek god of healing) the art of imprisoning the souls of demons or of angels in statues with the help of herbs, gems and odors, is described, such that the statue could speak and engage in prophecy.
In other papyri, there are recipes for constructing such images and animating them, such as when images are to be fashioned hollow so as to enclose a magic name inscribed on gold leaf.
During the Renaissance it was accepted that Hermes Trismegistus was a contemporary of Moses, however after Casaubon’s dating of the Hermetic writings as no earlier than the second or third century CE, the whole of Renaissance Hermeticism collapsed.
Thoth
Thoth was in art often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat, and his wife was Ma’at. His chief temple was located in the city of Khmun, later called Hermopolis Magna during the Greco-Roman era (in reference to him through the Greeks’ interpretation that he was the same as their god Hermes) and Shmounein in the Coptic rendering.
In that city, he led the Ogdoad pantheon of eight principal deities. In the Ogdoad cosmogony, Thoth gave birth to Ra, Atum, Nefertum, and Khepri by laying an egg while in the form of an ibis, or later as a goose laying a golden egg.
He also had numerous shrines within the cities of Abydos, Hesert, Urit, Per-Ab, Rekhui, Ta-ur, Sep, Hat, Pselket, Talmsis, Antcha-Mutet, Bah, Amen-heri-ab, and Ta-kens.
Thoth played many vital and prominent roles in Egyptian mythology, such as maintaining the universe, and being one of the two deities (the other being Ma’at) who stood on either side of Ra’s boat.
In the later history of ancient Egypt, Thoth became heavily associated with the arbitration of godly disputes, the arts of magic, the system of writing, the development of science, and the judgment of the dead.
Thoth’s roles in Egyptian mythology were many. He served as a mediating power, especially between good and evil, making sure neither had a decisive victory over the other. He also served as scribe of the gods, credited with the invention of writing and alphabets (i.e. hieroglyphs) themselves.
In the underworld, Duat, he appeared as an ape, A’an, the god of equilibrium, who reported when the scales weighing the deceased’s heart against the feather, representing the principle of Ma’at, was exactly even.
The ancient Egyptians regarded Thoth as One, self-begotten, and self-produced. He was the master of both physical and moral (i.e. divine) law, making proper use of Ma’at.
He is said to direct the motions of the heavenly bodies. He is credited with making the calculations for the establishment of the heavens, stars, Earth, and everything in them. Without his words, the Egyptians believed, the gods would not exist. His power was unlimited in the Underworld and rivaled that of Ra and Osiris. Compare this to how his feminine counterpart, Ma’at was the force which maintained the Universe.
The Egyptians credited him as the author of all works of science, religion, philosophy, and magic. The Greeks further declared him the inventor of astronomy, astrology, the science of numbers, mathematics, geometry, land surveying, medicine, botany, theology, civilized government, the alphabet, reading, writing, and oratory. They further claimed he was the true author of every work of every branch of knowledge, human and divine.
It is also considered that Thoth was a record keeper and the scribe of the gods rather than a divine messenger. In the Papyrus of Ani, a papyrus manuscript with cursive hieroglyphs and color illustrations created circa 1250 BCE, in the 19th dynasty of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt, copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead the scribe proclaims:
“I am thy writing palette, O Thoth, and I have brought unto thee thine ink-jar. I am not of those who work iniquity in their secret places; let not evil happen unto me.”
Chapter XXXb (Budge) of the Book of the Dead is by the oldest tradition said to be the work of Thoth himself.
Egyptians compiled an individualized book for certain people upon their death, called the Book of Going Forth by Day, more commonly known as the Book of the Dead, typically containing declarations and spells to help the deceased in their afterlife. The Papyrus of Ani is the manuscript compiled for the Theban scribe Ani.
Anubis
Anubis was the Greek name of a jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion. Like many ancient Egyptian deities, Anubis assumed different roles in various contexts.
Depicted as a protector of graves as early as the First Dynasty (c. 3100 – c. 2890 BC), Anubis was also an embalmer, the art and science of preserving human remains by treating them (in its modern form with chemicals) to forestall decomposition. By the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055 – 1650 BC), Anubis was replaced by Osiris in his role as Lord of the underworld.
One of his prominent roles was as a god who ushered souls into the afterlife. He attended the weighing scale during the “Weighing of the Heart,” in which it was determined whether a soul would be allowed to enter the realm of the dead.
Despite being one of the most ancient and “one of the most frequently depicted and mentioned gods” in the Egyptian pantheon, however, Anubis played almost no role in Egyptian myths.
Hermanubis
In the Ptolemaic period (350–30 BC), when Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom ruled by Greek pharaohs, Anubis, because of their similar responsibilities as conductors of souls, merged with the Greek god Hermes, becoming Hermanubis.
Anpu (or Hermanubis) was viewed as the messenger of the gods, as he travelled in and out of the Underworld and presented himself to the gods and to humans. He was a god who combined Hermes (Greek mythology) with Anubis. He is the son of Set and Nephthys.
He was popular during the period of Roman domination over Egypt. Depicted as having a human body and jackal head, with the sacred caduceus that belonged to the Greek god Hermes, he represented the Egyptian priesthood, engaged in the investigation of truth.
The divine name is known from a handful of epigraphic and literary sources, mostly of the Roman period. Plutarch cites the name as a designation of Anubis in his underworldly aspect, while Porphyry refers to Hermanubis as a “composite” and “half-Greek”.
Although it was not common in traditional Greek religion to combine the names of two gods in this manner, the double determination of Hermanubis has some formal parallels in the earlier period.
The most obvious is the god Hermaphroditus, attested from the fourth century BC onwards, but his name implies the paradoxical union of two different gods (Hermes and Aphrodite) rather than an assimilation in the manner of Hermanubis.
Mercury
Mercury, considered the son of Maia and Jupiter in Roman mythology, is a major Roman god, being one of the Dii Consentes within the ancient Roman pantheon. He is the patron god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence (and thus poetry), messages/communication (including divination), travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves; he is also the guide of souls to the underworld.
From the beginning, Mercury had essentially the same aspects as Hermes, wearing winged shoes (talaria) and a winged hat (petasos), and carrying the caduceus, a herald’s staff with two entwined snakes that was Apollo’s gift to Hermes. He was often accompanied by a cockerel, herald of the new day, a ram or goat, symbolizing fertility, and a tortoise, referring to Mercury’s legendary invention of the lyre from a tortoise shell.
Like Hermes, he was also a god of messages, eloquence and of trade, particularly of the grain trade. Mercury was also considered a god of abundance and commercial success, particularly in Gaul, where he was said to have been particularly revered.
He was also, like Hermes, the Romans’ psychopomp, leading newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Additionally, Ovid wrote that Mercury carried Morpheus’ dreams from the valley of Somnus to sleeping humans.
Archeological evidence from Pompeii suggests that Mercury was among the most popular of Roman gods. The god of commerce was depicted on two early bronze coins of the Roman Republic, the Sextans and the Semuncia.
His name is possibly related to the Latin word merx (“merchandise”; compare merchant, commerce, etc.), mercari (to trade), and merces (wages); another possible connection is the Proto-Indo-European root merĝ- for “boundary, border” (cf. Old English “mearc”, Old Norse “mark” and Latin “margō”) and Greek οὖρος (by analogy of Arctūrus/Ἀρκτοῦρος), as the “keeper of boundaries,” referring to his role as bridge between the upper and lower worlds.
In his earliest forms, he appears to have been related to the Etruscan deity Turms, both of which share characteristics with the Greek god Hermes. In Virgil’s Aeneid, Mercury reminds Aeneas of his mission to found the city of Rome.
In Ovid’s Fasti, Mercury is assigned to escort the nymph Larunda to the underworld. Mercury, however, fell in love with Larunda and made love to her on the way. Larunda thereby became mother to two children, referred to as the Lares, invisible household gods.
Mercury has influenced the name of many things in a variety of scientific fields, such as the planet Mercury, and the element mercury. The word mercurial is commonly used to refer to something or someone erratic, volatile or unstable, derived from Mercury’s swift flights from place to place. He is often depicted holding the caduceus in his left hand.
When they described the gods of Celtic and Germanic tribes, rather than considering them separate deities, the Romans interpreted them as local manifestations or aspects of their own gods, a cultural trait called the interpretatio Romana.
In Celtic areas, Mercury was sometimes portrayed with three heads or faces, and at Tongeren, Belgium, a statuette of Mercury with three phalli was found, with the extra two protruding from his head and replacing his nose; this was probably because the number 3 was considered magical, making such statues good luck and fertility charms. The Romans also made widespread use of small statues of Mercury, probably drawing from the ancient Greek tradition of hermae markers.
Lugus
Mercury in particular was reported as becoming extremely popular among the nations the Roman Empire conquered; Julius Caesar wrote of Mercury being the most popular god in Britain and Gaul, regarded as the inventor of all the arts. This is probably because in the Roman syncretism, Mercury was equated with the Celtic god Lugus, and in this aspect was commonly accompanied by the Celtic goddess Rosmerta.
Although Lugus may originally have been a deity of light or the sun (though this is disputed), similar to the Roman Apollo, his importance as a god of trade made him more comparable to Mercury, and Apollo was instead equated with the Celtic deity Belenus.
Julius Caesar (de bello Gallico, 6.17.1) mentions Mercury as the chief god of Celtic religion. However, most of our sources concerning Celtic Lugus are Insular Celtic, while sources discussing Gaulish Lugus are rare, although his importance is manifest from the numerous toponyms containing the name (Lugdunum etc.).
Lucanus mentions three Celtic gods: Teutates, Esus, and Taranis. Teutates is identified with Mars or Mercury, and he receives as human sacrifices drowned captives and fallen warriors. Esus is also identified with Mercury but also with Mars, and he accepts as human sacrifices prisoners who are hanged on trees and then dismembered. Taranis is identified with Jupiter, as a warlord and a sky god. Human sacrifices to Taranis are made by burning prisoners in wooden casks. The Celtic priests administering the human sacrifices were the Vates. Lugus is not mentioned by Lucanus at all.
The suggestion of Rübekeil (2003:38), in view of his hypothesis of a Celtic origin of the Germanic god discussed above, is that Lugus refers to the trinity Teutates–Esus–Taranis considered as a single god.
An etymological reflex of Celtic Lugus is possibly found in Loki (a Germanic god described as a “hypostasis of Odin” by Folke Ström). A likely context of the diffusion of elements of Celtic ritual into Germanic culture are tribes such as the Chatti, who lived at the Celtic-Germanic boundary in Hesse during the final centuries BC. (The Chatti are traditionally considered a Germanic tribe, but many of their leaders and their settlements had Celtic names.)
Wotan
Romans associated Mercury with the Germanic god Wotan, by interpretatio Romana; 1st-century Roman writer Tacitus identifies him as the chief god of the Germanic peoples. Parallels between Odin and Lugus have often been pointed out: both are intellectual gods commanding magic and poetry, and both have ravens and a spear as their attributes.
Less is known about the role of Wodan as receiver of the dead among the more southern Germanic tribes. The Roman historian Tacitus probably refers to Odin when he talks of Mercury. The reason is that, like Mercury, Odin was regarded as Psychopompos, “the leader of souls”.
Wōđanaz or Wōđinaz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of a god of Germanic paganism, known as Óðinn in Norse mythology, Wōden in Old English, Wuotan, Wotan or Wodan in Old High German and Guodan or Godan in Lombardic. The name may be written with an asterisk in front, to indicate that the form is not directly attested, but reconstructed.
Wōdanaz is associated with poetic or mantic qualities, his name being connected with the concept of *wōðuz, “furor poeticus” (poetic fury), and is thus the god of poets and seers. He is a shapechanger and healer, and thus a god of magicians and leeches. He is associated with the Wild Hunt of dead, and thus a death deity. He is also a god of war and bringer of victory.
Odin was a compulsive seeker of wisdom, consumed by his passion for knowledge, to the extent that he sacrificed one of his eyes to Mímir (Old Norse “The rememberer, the wise one”), a figure in Norse mythology renowned for his knowledge and wisdom who is beheaded during the Æsir-Vanir War, in exchange for a drink from the waters of wisdom in Mímir’s well. Afterward, the god Odin carries around Mímir’s head and it recites secret knowledge and counsel to him.
Wednesday
The name Wednesday continues Middle English Wednesdei. Old English still had wōdnesdæg, which would be continued as *Wodnesday (but Old Frisian has an attested wednesdei). By the early 13th century, the i-mutated form was introduced unetymologically.
The name is a calque of the Latin dies Mercurii “day of Mercury”, reflecting the fact that the Germanic god Woden (Wodanaz or Odin) during the Roman era was interpreted as “Germanic Mercury”.
The Latin name dates to the late 2nd or early 3rd century. It is a calque of Greek ἡμέρα Ἕρμου heméra Hérmou, a term first attested, together with the system of naming the seven weekdays after the seven classical planets, in the Anthologiarum by Vettius Valens (ca. AD 170).
In Japanese, the word Wednesday is sui youbi, meaning ‘water day’ and is associated with suisei: Mercury (the planet), literally meaning “water star”. Similarly, in Korean the word Wednesday is su yo il, also meaning water day.
In most of the languages of India, the word for Wednesday is Budhavãra — vãra meaning day and Budh being the planet Mercury.
Ningishzida
“lord of the sacred/giving tree”
The “libation vase of Gudea” with the dragon Mushussu,
dedicated to Ningishzida (21st century BC short chronology).
The caduceus is interpreted as depicting the god himself.
Ningishzida was a Mesopotamian deity, worshiped in the city of Gishbanda which lay near Ur in the orchards of the Fertile Crescent. It seems that he was originally a tree god (the name Ningishzida means “lord of the sacred/giving tree” in Sumerian, the first known written language), but he became associated with fertility, the underworld, and the healing force of nature.
In Sumerian mythology, he appears in Adapa’s myth as one of the two guardians of Anu’s celestial palace, alongside Dumuzi. He was sometimes depicted as a serpent with a human head.
The Adapa myth mentions Ningizzida and Tammuz (Akkadian: Duʾzu, Dūzu; Sumerian: Dumuzid (DUMU.ZI(D), “faithful or true son”), the name of a Sumerian god of food and vegetation, also worshiped in the later Mesopotamian states of Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia, and refers to the serpent god as male.
Ningishzida is sometimes the son of Ninazu and Ningiridda, even though the myth Ningishzidda’s journey to the netherworld suggests he is the son of Ereshkigal. Following an inscription found at Lagash, he was the son of Anu, the heavens.
His wife is Azimua and also Geshtinanna, while his sister is Amashilama. In some texts Ningishzida is said to be female, which means “Nin” would then refer to Lady, which is mostly how the word is used by the Sumerians. He or she was one of the ancestors of Gilgamesh.
Ningishzida is the earliest known symbol of snakes twining around an axial rod. It predates the Caduceus of Hermes, the Rod of Asclepius and the biblical Nehushtan of Moses by more than a millennium. One Greek myth on origin of the caduceus is part of the story of Tieresias, who found two snakes copulating and killed the female with his staff.
Although Wadjet, “the Green One”, the serpent goddess of Lower Egypt from the Pre-dynastic period demonstrates the earliest known representation of a single serpent entwined around a pole – in this case a papyrus reed (refer to first glyph): Wadjet Hieroglyph.
Tammuz
In Babylonia, the month Tammuz was established in honor of the eponymous god Tammuz, who originated as a Sumerian shepherd-god, Dumuzid or Dumuzi, the consort of Inanna and, in his Akkadian form, the parallel consort of Ishtar. The Levantine Adonis (“lord”), who was drawn into the Greek pantheon, was considered by Joseph Campbell among others to be another counterpart of Tammuz, son and consort.
Beginning with the summer solstice came a time of mourning in the Ancient Near East, as in the Aegean: the Babylonians marked the decline in daylight hours and the onset of killing summer heat and drought with a six-day “funeral” for the god.
Recent discoveries reconfirm him as an annual life-death-rebirth deity: tablets discovered in 1963 show that Dumuzi was in fact consigned to the Underworld himself, in order to secure Inanna’s release, though the recovered final line reveals that he is to revive for six months of each year. In cult practice, the dead Tammuz was widely mourned in the Ancient Near East. Locations associated in antiquity with the site of his death include both Harran and Byblos, among others.
Remnants of the worship of Tammuz continue today in the form of the so-called Christian “Cross” worship & its subsidiary the “hot cross buns” and the ‘cross’ symbol cut into the top of the dough. Images of Tammuz prominently feature the cross image. The original symbol of Tammuz was a cross in the form of a capital Latin “T” (Greek alphabet Tαυ), and the “plus sign” seen on images of the idol of Tammuz.
According to some scholars, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is built over a cave that was originally a shrine to Adonis-Tammuz. The Church Father Jerome, who died in Bethlehem in 420, reports in addition that the holy cave was at one point consecrated by the heathen to the worship of Adonis, and a pleasant sacred grove planted before it, to wipe out the memory of Jesus.
Some modern mythologists, however, reverse the supposition, insisting that the cult of Adonis-Tammuz originated the shrine and that it was the Christians who took it over, substituting the worship of their own God.
Tammuz is the tenth month of the civil year and the fourth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar. It is a boreal summer month of 29 days, which occurs on the Gregorian calendar around June-July.
The name of the month was adopted from the Assyrian-Babylonian calendar, in which the month was named after one of the main Mesopotamian gods, Tammuz. This is referred to in Ezekiel 8:14. Tammuz is also the name for the month of July in the Gregorian calendar in Arabic, Syriac and Turkish (“Temmuz”), and in the modern Assyrian calendar of the ethnic Assyrian Christians.
The festival for the deity Tammuz was held throughout the month of Tammuz in midsummer, and celebrated his death and resurrection. The first day of the month of Tammuz was the day of the new moon of the summer solstice. On the second day of the month, there was lamentation over the death of Tammuz, on the 9th, 16th and 17th days torchlit processions, and on the last three days, an image of Tammuz was buried.
Cancer
CANCER – June 22nd – July 22nd
Cancer (♋) is the fourth astrological sign, which is associated with the constellation Cancer. It spans the 90-120th degree of the zodiac, between 90 and 125.25 degree of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this area on average between June 21 and July 22, and under the sidereal zodiac, the Sun transits this area between approximately July 16 and August 15.
A person under this sign is called a Moon child.The symbol of the crab is based on the Karkinos, a giant crab that harassed Hercules during his fight with the Hydra. The Cancer-Leo cusp lasts from July 21 to July 27.
The story of Cancer the Crab is said to be connected to Hercules. Some storytellers say that during Hercules’s fight with Lernaean Hydra, Hera, sent a crab to snap at Hercules’s toes because Hera had sworn to kill Hercules. Hercules was able to kill the crab by smashing its shell with his foot. As a reward for its efforts serving her, Hera placed the crab in the sky and it became Cancer.
In Chinese star lore, Cancer is in the 23rd of the 28 mansions or xiu. This mansion is called Gui which roughly translates to “ghosts”. The Chinese divided the sky into four quarters, each with its own direction, season, and mythical creature. Cancer exists in the Red (Vermillion) Bird of the south. It is associated with summer.
Mercury
Enki is a god in Sumerian mythology. He was sometimes referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for “40,” occasionally referred to as his “sacred number. The planet Mercury, associated with Babylonian Nabu (the son of Marduk) was in Sumerian times, identified with Enki. An astronomical tablet from Boghazkoi in Anatolia identifies Ningishzida with Nebo-Mercury.
Mercury is the ruling planet of Gemini and Virgo, which means that it tends to be the most obvious and enforced in those signs, and is exalted in the latter; it is the only planet with rulership and exaltation both in the same sign (Virgo). It exalts in Libra and Pisces. It is a bit weakened and alienated in Taurus, and to a lesser extent in Cancer and Scorpio.
In Roman mythology, Mercury is the messenger of the gods, noted for his speed and swiftness. Echoing this, the scorching, airless world Mercury circles the Sun on the fastest orbit of any planet.
Mercury takes only 88 days to orbit the Sun, spending about 7.33 days in each sign of the zodiac. Mercury is so close to the Sun that only a brief period exists after the Sun has set where it can be seen with the naked eye, before following the Sun beyond the horizon.
Astrologically, Mercury represents the principles of communication, mentality, thinking patterns, rationality and reasoning and adaptability and variability. The 1st-century poet Manilius described Mercury as an inconstant, vivacious and curious planet.
Mercury governs schooling and education, the immediate environment of neighbors, siblings and cousins, transport over short distances, messages and forms of communication such as post, email and telephone, newspapers, journalism and writing, information gathering skills and physical dexterity.
In medicine, Mercury is associated with the nervous system, the brain, the respiratory system, the thyroid and the sense organs. It is traditionally held to be essentially cold and dry, according to its placement in the zodiac and in any aspects to other planets. It is linked to the animal spirits.
Today, Mercury is regarded as the ruler of the third and sixth houses; traditionally, it had the joy in the first house. Mercury is the messenger of the gods in mythology. It is the planet of day-to-day expression and relationships. Mercury’s action is to take things apart and put them back together again. It is an opportunistic planet, decidedly unemotional and curious.
Mercury rules over Wednesday. In Romance languages, the word for Wednesday is often similar to Mercury (miercuri in Romanian, mercredi in French, miercoles in Spanish and mercoledì in Italian). Dante Alighieri associated Mercury with the liberal art of dialectic.
In Indian astrology, Mercury is called Budha, a word related to Buddhi (“intelligence”) and represents communication. Budha means “awakening, clever, intelligent, wise, learned man, wise man, or sage.”
In Chinese astrology, Mercury represents Water, the fourth element, therefore symbolizing communication, intelligence and elegance. The Chinese linkage of Mercury with Water is alien to Western astrology, but this combination shares the water themes, much of what is coined “mercurial” in Western thought, such as intellect, reason and communication.
Gemini
May 21 and June 21
Gemini (♊) is the third astrological sign in the Zodiac, originating from the constellation of Gemini. Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this sign between May 21 and June 21. Its name is Latin for “twins,” and it is associated with the twins Castor and Pollux in Greek mythology.
The symbol of the twins is based on the Dioscuri, two mortals, the twin brothers Castor and Pollux or Polydeuces that were granted shared godhood after death in Greek and Roman mythology, together known as the Dioskouri.
Their mother was Leda, but Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, and Pollux the divine son of Zeus, who seduced Leda in the guise of a swan. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.
In Latin the twins are also known as the Gemini or Castores. When Castor was killed, Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini.
The pair was regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as St. Elmo’s fire, and were also associated with horsemanship. They are sometimes called the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids, later seen as a reference to their father and stepfather Tyndareus.
The heavenly twins appear also in the Indo-European tradition as the effulgent Vedic brother-horsemen the Ashvins, the Lithuanian Ašvieniai, and the Germanic Alcis.
Aśvaḥ is the Sanskrit word for a horse, one of the significant animals finding references in the Vedas as well as later Hindu scriptures. The corresponding Avestan term is aspa. The word is cognate to Latin equus, Greek hippos, Germanic *ehwaz and Baltic *ašvā all from PIE *hek’wos.
Virgo
August 23 and September 22
Virgo is the second-largest constellation. It spans the 150-180th degree of the zodiac, between 152.75 and 180 degree of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this area on average between August 23 and September 22, and under the sidereal zodiac, the sun currently transits the constellation of Virgo from September 17 to October 17.
Virgo (♍) is the sixth astrological sign in the Zodiac. Individuals born during these dates, depending on which system of astrology they subscribe to, may be called Virgos or Virgoans.
The symbol of the maiden is based on Astraea (“star-maiden”). She was the last immortal to abandon earth at the end of the Silver Age, when the gods fled to Olympus – hence the sign’s association with earth.
In Greek mythology, Astraea or Astrea, not to be confused with Asteria, the goddess of the stars and the daughter of Coeus and Phoebe, was a daughter of Astraeus and Eos. She was the virgin goddess of Innocence and purity and is always associated with the Greek goddess of justice, Dike (daughter of Zeus and Themis and the personification of just judgement).
Astraea, the celestial virgin, was the last of the immortals to live with humans during the Golden Age, one of the old Greek religion’s five deteriorating Ages of Man. According to Ovid, Astraea abandoned the earth during the Iron Age. Fleeing from the new wickedness of humanity, she ascended to heaven to become the constellation Virgo.
The nearby constellation Libra, reflected her symbolic association with Dike, who in Latin culture as Justitia is said to preside over the constellation. In the Tarot, the 8th card, Justice, with a figure of Justitia, can thus be considered related to the figure of Astraea on historical iconographic grounds.
According to legend, Astraea will one day come back to Earth, bringing with her the return of the utopian Golden Age of which she was the ambassador.
Ceres
For some astrologers Ceres is the ruling planet of Virgo. Although a mother, Ceres is also the archetype of a virgin goddess. Ceres epitomizes independent women who are often unmarried (since, according to myth, Ceres is an unmarried goddess who chose to become a mother without a husband or partner.) While the moon represents our ideal of “motherhood”, Ceres would represent how our real and nature motherhood should be.
In mythology, Ceres is the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Demeter, and is the goddess of agriculture. The goddess (and metaphorically the planet) is also associated with the reproductive issues of an adult woman, as well as pregnancy and other major transitions in a woman’s life, including the nine months of gestation time, family bonds and relationships.
Ceres, as the Goddess who has control over nature’s resources and cycles, may astrologically be considered the planet of the environment. Returning to mythology, an early environmental villain is the figure of Erysichthon, the tearer up of the earth, who cut down trees in a grove sacred to Ceres-Demeter, for which he was punished by the goddess with fearful hunger.
In this sense Ceres became an emerging archetype in the awareness of recent climate change, and is entering our collective consciousness as a need to take care of our natural and irreplaceable resources in the 21st century. Ceres represents a leap towards a future of ecological responsibility and knowledge. As an indicator for environmental or community activism, Ceres would represent for some astrologers the wave of the future.
The status of Ceres is unknown at the moment in astrology. The possibility exists that Ceres is not involved with any sign, but it has been strongly suggested as the ruler of Virgo. As in all cases of newer discoveries, Ceres will likely never be used in horoscopes by traditionalist astrologers.
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