EXPERTS DECIPHER MAGICAL SPELL BOOK FOUND NEAR ANTINOOPOLIS IN EGYPT

AN ancient Egyptian handbook containing magic spells in use in or near Antinoopolis has been deciphered by Australian scientists.

The Handbook of Ritual Power – as named by the researchers – explains how to cast love spells, exorcise evil spirits and treat 'black jaundice', a fatal infection still present today.

According to Live Science, the text is written in Coptic and the book is made of bound parchmentpapers. It is about 1,300 years old and was first acquired by Macquarie University in 1981 from antiques dealer Michael Fackelmann.

However, where Fackelmann first got the handbook from is unknown.

"The dialect suggests an origin in Upper Egypt, perhaps in the vicinity of Ashmunein/Hermopolis," which is directly across the Nile from Antinoopolis, researchers Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner wrote in their book A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power.

Antinoopolis was always a place of "magic, sorcery and strange religious fervor " according to Royston Lambert in his authoritative book about Antinous, BELOVED AND GOD. 

We know that the priests of Antinous wrote a LOVE SPELL. Lambert notes that even to this day local villagers believe the place to be haunted.

The ancient Egyptian magic spell book starts with a long series of invocations, annotated with drawings and "words of power", they say.

"These are followed by a number of prescriptions or spells to cure possession by spirits and various ailments, or to bring success in love and business."

The book, which is 20 pages long, includes a spell about how to control someone. To do this, people must say a magical formula over two nails, then drive them into his doorstop: "One on the right side (and) one on the left."

At the time the book was written, Egyptians had become Christians and it contains several references to Jesus. However, there are also mentions of the Sethians – a group that held the third son of Adam and Eve (Seth) in high regard.

Church leaders thought Sethians to be heretics and by the time the book was written, they had been all but wiped out.

The authors believe the handbook could be a transitional text created before all the Sethian spells had been purged. They told LiveScience they believe the spells were originally from separate books, but were later combined to create a "single instrument of ritual power".

Discussing who might have used the book, Choat said: "It is my sense that there were ritual practitioners outside the ranks of the clergy and monks, but exactly who they were is shielded from us by the fact that people didn't really want to be labeled as a 'magician'."

ARCHAEOLOGISTS RETURN TO ANTINOOPOLIS

WE are thrilled to announce that Italian archaeologists have returned to the Sacred City of Antinous, the glorious city of ANTINOOPOLIS in Egypt to resume archaeological digs.

In 2017 American experts from Chicago discovered a mysterious, "deliberately buried stone structure" as well as an extraordinary temple CORNICE STONE which mentions the name of Antinous along with Hadrian, Empress Sabina, the goddess Hathor and intersex Nile inundation deity Hapi.

But the archaeologists have filed no updates since 2017. When Antonius Subia visited Antinoopolis in 2020, there was no sign of archaeological work having been done for years.

Antonius Subia is the first priest of Antinous to make a VISIT TO ANTINOOPOLIS in 1,600 years.

It was at this bend in the Nile opposite Hermopolis that Antinous died in the Nile under mysterious circumstances in October 130 AD. Grief-stricken Hadrian consecrated the shore of the Nile where Antinous fell, and solemnly founded the Holy City of Antinoopolis in Egypt in the year 130 AD.

Antinous had risen again from the depths of Tartarus, he had conquered death and returned to the place of the living.

By Victory and Proclamation, Antinous was elevated to godliness, and the ancient religion of Our God was set in motion. 

The Priesthood of Antinous was ordained, sacred statues and images proliferated, and Temples rose up in every corner of the world, for the glory of Antinous the God.

We exalt in the deification of Antinous, and marvel at his assumption into heaven. 

We celebrate the founding of Antinoopolis by re-founding the sacred city within our hearts, declaring ourselves the New Stones of Antinoopolis. 

ANTINOOPOLIS MUMMIES HAD A 'SECOND SKIN' OF GOLD LEAF

THE city of Antinoopolis was so wealthy that residents buried their dead in a "second skin" of precious gold leaf, turning each mummy into a veritable golden statue, archaeologists say.

People who lived in the city, also called Antinoé, during the hey day of the religion of Antinous routinely covered every square inch of the skin of their dead loved ones with precious gold leaf. Even lips and eyelids were lovingly sheathed in gold by the embalmers during the mummification process.

As the Religion of Antinous waned and was replaced by Christianity, the gilded-skin practice went out of fashion, but was replaced by shrouds of the most exquisitely embroidered linens and ornate Byzantine jewellery.

The amazing revelation comes from a stunning French documentary film entitled LE MYSTÈRE DES MOMIES COPTES D'ANTINOÉ (Secrets of the Antinoé Coptic Mummies) which aired this week on the French-German cultural TV network ARTE.

Antinoopolis became renowned around the world in 1896 when the French archaeologist Albert Gayet began exploring the vast necropolis burial grounds south of Antinoopolis. An estimated 40,000 mummies were buried in the Antinoé necropolis.

Gayet's crews worked day and night unearthing hundreds of mummies representing all social classes and historical epochs. 

To his utter astonishment, many of the mummies were gilded, many were swathed in priceless woollen wraps and others wore Byzantine jewellery and headdresses.

He returned to Paris, where the most exquisite mummies were put on display at the Louvre, attracting throngs of visitors and spawning a "Coptic Craze" throughout Europe and America. 

Antinoopolis embroidery and linens inspired Matisse, Renoir and the leading Paris fashion designers, who incorporated the rich colors and designs into their work.

But the craze soon waned. The mummies were packed away in storage, most of them to disintegrate or become lost. Gayet died at age 60, impoverished and embittered after having spent 20 years of his life trying to raise funds for further exploration of Antinoopolis.

Gayet's dream of a "Musee d'Antinoé" in Paris died with him.

One hundred years later, at the end of the 20th Century, experts discovered that only 39 of Gayet's mummies had survived the rigors of time. For the past 15 years, the experts have studied these mummies to unlock the secrets of Antinoopolis.

What they have found is proof that Antinoopolis was a very rich city from its founding in 130 AD up until the Islamic onslaught in the 7th Century AD. 

"All of the mummies indicate a very high standard of living," says Louvre Chief Curator Yannick Lintz. "They had had a healthy diet during their lives and had no indication of having had stunted growth or chronic illness. We knew that Antinoé had been an important city, but now we have proof that it was very prosperous indeed for 500 years."

The film provides never-before-seen footage of efforts to restore the famous Basilica of Antinoé by an Italian team of archaeologists headed by Rosario Pintaudi.

As the cameras roll, Pintaudi and his crew raise a column at the Basilica to the upright position where it originally stood at least 1,700 years ago. The column had been in pieces and represents the turbulent religious history of the Sacred City.

The base of the column is a stone with incised reliefs from the time of Ramses II in 1400 BC. The column itself has an inscription honoring Emperor Hadrian from the 2nd Century AD. And graffiti chiseled onto the upper parts of the column dates from the Christian era in the 5th Century AD.

"The history of Antinoopolis is the history of using existing stone buildings to build new structures. Each new religion re-used stone from monuments to earlier religions," says Pintaudi.

"Antinoopolis was a major center of religious thought in Egypt for at least 500 years, and the vying religious sects and groups variously lived, fought and coexisted with each other all of that time," says Pintaudi. "It was and continues to be a very extraordinary city indeed."

ANTINOOPOLIS MUMMY PORTRAITS WERE TRUE TO LIFE, EXPERTS SAY

ANTINOOPOLIS is the site of some of the most spectacular portrait art ever found in Egypt. 

Art experts have always marveled at the exquisite encaustic (melted wax mixed with paint) portraits which were used as face plates on mummy cases at Antinoopolis and the nearby Fayoum Oasis.

At Antinoopolis, wealthy people even sheathed their mummies in gold leaf, turning their dead loved ones into virtual golden statues, according to FRENCH EXPERTS. 

But no one knew how accurate the portraits on those elaborate mummies were.

 Now experts using advanced forensic science have proved that the paintings were true-to-life portraits of the deceased when they had been alive.

“It was pretty exciting,” said Bob Brier, an Egyptologist at Long Island University and lead author of a new study published in the German Egyptological journal ZÄS Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (Journal for Egyptian Language and Studies).  

“We didn’t know what we were going to find,” Brier said.

Brier and colleagues used a CT scanner to produce physical models of the mummies’ skulls. Then a crime artist, who only knew the mummy’s age and gender, used the models to recreate the mummies’ faces. The painstaking process took seven days per mummy.

“We were dying to see what it looked like,” Brier said.

The team then compared the faces to painted portraits entombed with the bandaged bodies.

Two of the four match-ups were strikingly similar.

A mummy from the British Museum was a small woman in her early 20s with delicate features, a narrow face and thick lips. Her face appears to match the features of her portrait. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

“It is believed that they were almost certainly painted during the lifetimes of the individuals and clearly were not idealized images,” Brier said of the portraits.

A second mummy from the British Museum was a large man in his 50s with a broad face, thick brow, flat nose, and heavy jaw. His face was very similar to his portrait, which may have been painted when he was younger. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

But one face didn’t match the portrait at all, leading the researchers to believe the ancient embalmers might have wrapped the mummy with the wrong portrait.

A mummy from the Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen was a young man in his 30s with a wide nose, broad cheekbones, thick lips and rounded jawline.  This face looked quite different from the portrait, hinting that a switch might have occurred. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

“It is possible that during the mummification procedure, when several bodies were being mummified at the same time, a mismatch occurred,” Brier said.

The fourth mummy’s nose looked more refined in the portrait than in the researchers’ prediction, but his “other facial features and proportions were so consistent between the reconstruction and portrait that no mix-up was indicated here,” Brier said.

A mummy from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was a man in his early 30s with a wide nose, square jaw and thick lips. His "touched up" portrait appears to show a younger man with a more narrow nose but similar lips and jaw. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

The study sheds light on the purpose of the portraits, which represented a shift from symbolic art to realistic art after the Romans conquered Egypt in 30 B.C.

“This study convinced us that some of these portraits were dead-on,” Brier said, adding that some portraits were likely styled to be more flattering to the deceased.

Brier would like to extend the study to include more mummies. But  while there are more than 1,000 mummy portraits, less than 100 are still attached to the people they depict, he said.

“The difficulty is finding portraits that are still bound to the mummy,” he said. “Many portraits were taken off the mummies and sold during the 19th century and early part of the 20th century.”

MEXICO'S FIRST SAINT OF ANTINOUS IS VICTIM OF HOMOPHOBIC VIOLENCE

ON November 2nd, Día de los Muertos (All Souls Day), worshippers of Antinous in Mexico City solemnly honour the first martyr saint of Antinous in Mexico: Jorge Fernandez Martínez, a victim of homophobic violence.

Our sister group Epithimia Antinous at the TEMPLO DE ANTÍNOO MÉXÍCO hold a Día de lost Muertos vigil for him during ceremonies at the sanctuary of Santa Muerte in Tultitlán near Mexico City.

This tradition began in 2016 with the first funeral ceremony in the name of Antinous to be held since ancient times.

Jorge Fernandez Martinez was brutally murdered by unknown assailants near his home in the Mexico City suburb of Tultitlán.

Forensic tests showed he had been tortured, raped and asphyxiated. His broken body lay undiscovered for days.

Grieving neighbors who had known and loved him for nearly 20 years held a wake and asked for dignified funeral services conducted under the auspices of Epithimia Antinous with Pride Tultitlán Committee and Estamos Contigo.

The rites were held at the famous Shrine of Santa Muerte (Our Lady of Sacred Death) in Tultítlan led by Enriqueta Vargas.

Our brothers and sisters at Foundation Epithimia of Antinous Mexico says: 

"We were honored to officiate in the funeral ceremony for the repose of the soul of this beloved person in our community, Señor Jorge Fernandez Martinez, an active member member of our because Antinous abhors hate crimes.

"We share these images of the temple, the funeral and texts shared by Adolfo Voorduin Frappe and White White Fernandez , whom graciously thank for attending the rites. We thank Santa Muerte International and the godmother Enriqueta Vargas, for their loving support," the statement says.

In Hollywood California FLAMEN ANTONIUS SUBIA announced that Jorge Fernandez Martinez became a Martyr Saint of Antinous during ceremonies on Foundation Day in October 2016.

THE SCORPIO NEW MOON THE ZELUS MOON OF ANTINOUS

TONIGHT's Scorpio New Moon  is the darkest and most serious new moon of the year. In Antinous Moon Magic, we call it the ZELUS MOON in honor of the Dark Eros who teaches us to let go of things without fear.

This New Moon usually occurs at or near the cycle of ancient dark festivals which are mirrored in modern Halloween, Samhain, Día de los Muertos, All Souls Day, St. Martin's Processions, Trick-R-Treat and all the other variations of this primeval Dark Moon Lunar Festival.

This is the new moon to focus on death and rebirth. Remember the Phoenix rising from the ashes of its own destruction. It is a time to focus on positive ways to release any negative energies and go forward, transforming fear into magical strength and fortitude.

Each Lunar Phase represents a Divine Spirit or Archetype. The Spirit of the Zelus Moon is the Spirit of Fear. Fear expresses itself in so many ways, through jealousy, envy, rivalry and emotional insecurity.

It is the darkness under the bed or in the bedroom closet when one was a child. It is the fear of the unknown. It is the essence of dread and fear-and-trembling along with anxiety, panic and trepidation.

It is especially the fear of losing something or someone, which sours its energies into jealousy, envy, covetousness and irrational malice.

This Lunar Phase unleashes many powerful energies -- Fear. Phobia. Jealousy. Envy. Covetousness. Fear of losing something. Insecurity.

We all know the icy grasp of Zelus as he clutches our heart with FEAR -- the fear of losing something or someone, losing your life, your possessions, losing a lover to someone else.

It isn't even necessarily about the one that you love, but can also be more focused on those who you think are a threat to your love, those whom you hate because of the love you have for the one you fear to lose.

But it also extends to Envy and Covetousness...jealousy over the recognition given to others, jealousy over the things you have, or the things you want that someone else has...it comes from a sense of insecurity on many levels, not only having to do with love.

Tonight's Scorpio New Moon meditations and rituals should focus on where fear blocks and hinders your spiritual progress. Find and identify the things you fear. Look Zelus in the face and ask him to help you harness and master the powerful energies which he offers you.

For Zelus is not your enemy. He is part of you. Zelus constitutes one of the most powerful energies in your spiritual self. Shunning Zelus and trying to block him out of you life only makes Zelus pound and scratch at the portals to your soul all the more frantically.

Open the portals and allow Zelus inside so as to make yourself complete. Watch in amazement as the Dark Eros morphs into the Light Eros, as fear and envy turn into courage and love.

By befriending and harnessing the powerful energies of Zelus, by making him your spiritual ally and companion, you become a warrior with the SACRED BAND OF THEBES, the Army of Lovers who carry fear as their shield and their buckler.

It's not about being fearless. It's about being able to transform your fear into a mighty force which wins the battle of life.

Zelus energy is not about scaring you to death. It is about LIFE. It is about harnessing fear and doubt and turning them into useful energies in your daily life.

FIGHTING FEAR DURING THE ZELUS MOON By Our Crystal Meditation Adviser Martin Campbell

I feel tonight's ZELUS MOON is rather like a journey. So I have made suggestions for each stage.

Fear - Always a difficult one to suggest a crystal for as there are many which help you deal with, or get fear expressed. This time I suggest Azurite. It is a beautiful stone which can help you to alleviate the feelings of fear through meditating with one. It can also help you to focus on the reality of what you are feeling.  

Jealousy - It can eat away at you... Rather than just accepting this we can use meditation with a Peridot crystal. They form in volcanoes so will help you to focus on and observe your jealousy as it rises in your mind. This focus should help you to be clear what the real cause is.

Suspicion - Once you have analysed your jealousy it is likely that suspicions of other people's higher status, better looks, wealth etc. are why you are becoming jealous. Melanite Garnets will help you to speak the truth and allow the truth to emerge. 

Anxiety - You will feel anxious about these truths being uttered - will you be judged harshly? I would suggest you use Iron Pyrite. These metallic crystal formations (often very geometric) are particularly good if you are a man (especially gay men) because it can help reduce those feelings of inadequacies you may have been feeling in comparison with other men. It will help you to boost your own assessment of your self worth.

Resolution - As you relax after this internal battle with your emotions you will want a feeling of resolution. Among many other attributes Amethyst can help you get rid of negative energy and thoughts. It can also help you transition to a new state of being. Which of course can include transition from this life into the next. So it is also perfect for meditating on the transience of life and the narrowing of the veil between life and death at this time of year.

So your journey has hopefully led you to a place where you can experience fun and deep spirituality at Halloween/Samhain.

Love and Light

MARTIN

To get more advice from Martin Campbell and to find out how to contact him CLICK HERE.