At the beginning of Plato’s Republic, specifically at 328b-c, the elderly Cephalus is wearing a wreath upon his head because he had just finished offering divine sacrifices in the courtyard. In addition to generic ritual wreaths, ones that use specific materials — laurel, bay, rosemary, olive, oak, and so on — have been used for millennia … Continue reading An Etiquette of Crowns, Floral and Verdant
Tag: ritual
In Which Some Comments Are Made About the Word Theurgy
In my blog post about reading Iamblichus’ On the Mysteries, I said that theurgy is “basically a fancy word for traditional cultus.” The post has gotten a lot of reach, with most referrals from Facebook (where I can’t see anything), but it was also posted to a Reddit board called r/Occult by someone. A Reddit … Continue reading In Which Some Comments Are Made About the Word Theurgy
My Biggest Takeaways from the Chaldean Oracles
At the close of August, after reading Proclus' Parmenides commentary, I spent a few days with the Chaldean Oracles fragments as translated by Ruth Majercik. The ChalOr¹ are quoted a lot by Proclus and other Late Platonists — I read the last third of the Parmenides commentary in the span of about two and a half weeks, and the … Continue reading My Biggest Takeaways from the Chaldean Oracles
