CHRISTINE JORGENSEN SAINT OF ANTINOUS

ON May 3rd the Religion of Antinous celebrates the life of Christine Jorgensen, the first widely-known individual to have sex reassignment surgery. She was born May 30th, 1926, and she died on May 3rd, 1989.

Perhaps the most recognizable transsexual in the world even today, Saint Christine Jorgensen underwent male-to-female sex reassignment surgery in 1952. She went from obscurity to an onslaught of media attention, enduring many bad jokes at her expense.

But entertaining and educating, Saint Christine was a class act. Susan Stryker noted that, "Given a very narrow path to walk through life, she found a way to walk it with style."

She was banned in Boston and named Woman of The Year in New York. Interviewed later in life if she had any regrets, she replied without hesitation, "None at all."

LEONARDO DA VINCI SAINT OF ANTINOUS

ON May 2nd, we honor Leonardo da Vinci, who died on this day in 1519, who was one of the greatest painters and most versatile geniuses in history.

He was one of the key figures of the Renaissance, a great cultural movement that had begun in Italy in the 1300s.

Leonardo, as he is almost always called, was trained to be a painter. But his interests and achievements spread into an astonishing variety of fields that are now considered scientific specialties. Leonardo studied anatomy, astronomy, botany, geology, geometry, and optics, and he designed machines and drew plans for hundreds of inventions.

Because Leonardo excelled in such an amazing number of areas of human knowledge, he is often called a universal genius. However, he had little interest in literature, history, or religion.

He formulated a few scientific laws, but he never developed his ideas systematically. Leonardo was most of all an excellent observer. He concerned himself with what the eye could see, rather than with purely abstract concepts.

When he was 24 years old, Leonardo was arrested, along with several young companions, on the charge of sodomy.  

No witnesses appeared against them and eventually the charges were dropped, probably due to pressure brought to bear by Leonardo's wealthy supporters.

Leonardo had no relationships with women, never married, had no children, but raised many young protégés, including one nicknamed "Salai" which means "offspring of Satan."

Salai stole things, broke things, lied, and was generally a, well, devil; if he were a mere student or servant he would have been fired. It's not hard to see how this imp would be attractive to Leonardo. He stayed with Leonardo for over 20 years, and appears many times in Leonardo's works ... including the painting of Bacchus above.

LOUVERNIOS THE GAY DRUID PRIEST IS AN INNOCENT MARTYR SAINT OF ANTINOUS

ONE of the more obscure Innocent Gay Martyr Saints of Antinous is Louvernios of Lindow ... a 2,000-year-old bog mummy in England who was a homosexual Druid who most likely offered himself as a human sacrifice against invading Romans to keep them (successfully) out of Ireland.

Also called the Lovernios the Lindow Bog Man, his mummified body was found in 1984. 

That was when a peat cutter in Lindow Moss, on the Mersey River of western England, found the well-preserved body of a man, believed by some scholars to be the sacrificed body of a Celtic Druid from Ireland who had probably come to England to be ritually prepared and sacrificed on May Day, 60 AD to keep the advancing Roman army away from Ireland.

Indeed, the Roman legions stopped just five miles short of Lindow Moss, and never invaded Ireland. The exact date ... 1 May 60 AD ... was ascertained by contents of his stomach which included "scorched bread" of the sort used in Druidic Beltane or May Day festivities.

And historian CONNELL O'DONOVAN presents compelling evidence to prove that this Druid was also a homosexual. the Lindow Bog Man had suffered a quadruple execution of garroting, bludgeoning, slit throat, and drowning in the bog, naked except for an armband of arctic fox fur on his left arm.

Some Celtic historians interpret the fox arm band as meaning "My name is Fox" or Louvernios, an attested ancient Celtic name meaning fox.

However, others suggest the fox armband of Lindow Man (reconstructed face left) signifies not 'My name is Fox', but 'I am a sacrifice', and in particular, a communal scapegoat.

The fox is regarded in many societies, including the Celtic, as an outlaw animal.

The fox lives on the periphery of human society, neither domesticated nor fully wild.

On one hand it is despised by farmers for its depredations on their livestock...while on the other hand it is grudgingly admired for its wiliness ... hence its role as a Trickster figure, such as Reynard the Fox. 

O'Donnell says: "This peripheral and outlaw existence of the fox in the Celtic imagination fits nicely with the probability of Lindow Man's cultic-based homosexuality."

Scholars tend to agree that Tollund Man’s killing was some kind of ritual sacrifice to the gods ... perhaps a fertility offering. To the people who put him there, a bog was a special place. While most of Northern Europe lay under a thick canopy of forest, bogs did not. Half earth, half water and open to the heavens, they were borderlands to the beyond.

To these people, will-o’-the-wisps ... flickering ghostly lights that recede when approached ... weren't the effects of swamp gas caused by rotting vegetation. They were fairies. The thinking goes that Lindow Man's tomb may have been meant to ensure a kind of soggy immortality for the sacrificial object.

Louvernios is the best-looking and best-known member of an elite club of preserved cadavers that have come to be known as "bog bodies."

These are men and women (also some adolescents and a few children) who were laid down long ago in the raised peat bogs of Northern Europe ... mostly Denmark, Germany, England, Ireland and the Netherlands.

They can keep speaking to us from beyond the grave because of the environment’s singular chemistry. A body placed here decomposes extremely slowly. Soon after burial, the acid starts tanning the body’s skin, hair and nails.

As the sphagnum moss dies, it releases a carbohydrate polymer called sphagnan. It binds nitrogen, halting growth of bacteria and further mummifying the corpse. But sphagnan also extracts calcium, leached out of the body’s bones.

This helps to explain why, after a thousand or so years of this treatment, a corpse ends up looking like a squished rubber doll.

Nobody can say for sure whether the people who buried the body in the bog knew that the sphagnum moss would keep him intact. It appears highly unlikely ... how would they? Still, it is tempting to think so, since it fits so perfectly the ritualistic function of Louvernios, perhaps regarded as an emissary to the afterworld.

THE SCORPIO FULL MOON THE ANTINOUS "ENEMY MOON"

TONIGHT's Scorpio Full Moon is a moon for penetrating the veil of lies and illusion and seeing clearly who are your friends (and who are not) and also seeing yourself for what you are.

For that reason, we call it the ENEMY MOON in Antinous Moon Magic. (Image above courtesy Carlos Barahona Possollo).

This is the spookiest Full Moon of the year. Beltane, Walpurgis Night and May Day are all based on the solar calendar and are celebrated on May Eve.

But the older, lunar calendar celebrates those Rites of Spring during the SCORPIO FULL MOON. 

If you are a bit clairvoyant, or if you have a gift for healing, your powers will be enhanced tremendously during the SCORPIO FULL MOON. 

Just be careful — everyone else's unconscious powers will also be enhanced, so there will be lots of mind-games going on tonight.

For gay men, especially, the Scorpio Full Moon is a time of hotly erotic spiritual discovery. As any gay wizard knows, it is the best night of the year for Sacred Sex.

This is the truth-or-dare Full Moon; a time to honor the transformative power of truth-telling and a very intense Full Moon to put into action (through ritual release) the goals you set at the New Moon in Taurus.

Since this Full Moon falls in a water sign, releasing your intentions near a stream, river, lake, or ocean is particularly powerful.

But before you let go, have one last look at your goals. Whom do they truly serve? What will they bring to the world? 

Since Scorpio demands depth and fearlessness, this last look will have to be brutally honest. If your goals require a change of mind, of heart, and/or of action, this is the night to successfully tackle fears that could impede the ability to fully embrace change. 

Scorpio seeks deep truth by peeling back layers of lies and half-truths—inside us and outside of us.

This is a Full Moon to see things as they truly are, not as you wish them to be.

This is the meaning behind the imagery of Giorgio Tavaglioni's "Nemico" (Enemy) card in the L'Oracolo della Sibilla fortune-telling cards pictured left.
 
Meditations and rituals during the Scorpio Full Moon are best suited for helping you identify who and what your "enemies" are.

This could indeed be a person who is your enemy, someone who is working against you, trying to impede your progress.

But more often it represents the "inner enemy" ... your own worst enemy sometimes being yourself.

It represents habitual thought patterns, low self-esteem, irrational fears and other "enemies" which work against you.

You must face and confront your enemy ... especially if that means confronting your true self.

LIFT THE CURSE THAT BINDS YOU WITH THIS 'ENEMY MOON' RITUAL

NO matter what you do, you just can't get ahead. You have nothing but bad luck in money, in relationships and in general.

Rationally, you assume it's all your own fault. Are you may belong to a faith system which suggests it's all "bad karma" or else the "wages of sin" from a wrathful deity.

Then a dark corner of your mind wonders: "Maybe somebody or something put a curse on me?"

The Scorpio Full Moon ... often called the "Witches' Moon" or the "Beltane Moon" ... is a perfect time for lifting the veil on this shadowy and sinister question. 

In Antinous Moon Magic we call this lunar phase the enemy moon because it shines a harsh light to illuminate those elements which work against you.

Are you under a curse? Take this quick quiz and find out:

1. Are you having a run of bad luck? Regardless what you do or how hard you try, nothing but bad luck happens to you?

2. Have lightbulbs started burning out frequently ... even though you are certain the bulbs are fresh?

3. Have you had chronic computer glitches recently? Not just once or twice, but repeatedly, for no good reason?

4. Have you lost your joy for life? You used to be optimistic, but lately you feel pessimistic and forlorn?

5. Do things just seem to go wrong all the time? Home appliances have started breaking down? Your good and reliable car seems to need repairs inexplicably all of a sudden?

6. Have you suddenly incurred financial setbacks? Bills and debts have appeared out of no where? Urgent expenditures have stressed your credit card to the max?

7. You suddenly have problems with government agencies? Traffic cops seem to be picking on you personally? You get a parking fine for being less than a minute over the time? You are hassled with bureaucratic paperwork and delays for routine applications?

8. Things seem to break a lot around your household lately? You drop cups when doing the dishes? Things fall off of shelves for no apparent reason?

9. Has your health taken a sudden turn for the worse? You have a bad cold which just does not seem to want to go away?

10. Do you seem to attract people who are annoying and who intentionally pick fights with you? No matter how polite you are, other people take everything as an insult and argue with you?

ANTINOUS MOON MAGIC RITUAL

The Scorpio Full Moon ... which we call the Enemy Moon ... focuses its light on those elements around you (or within yourself) which are working against you. These may be human beings, but very often they are aspects of yourself which work against you. And even if they are human beings, they may not be consciously aware that they are sending evil tidings your way.

Tonight is the best night of the year for confronting these "enemies" in whatever form they take.

Find a quiet place to meditate undisturbed. Our crystals meditation advisor MARTIN CAMPBELL recommends Picture Jasper (also called Brown Jasper or Picasso Jasper) because he says: "It brings to the surface feelings of guilt, hatred but also love that were hidden deep within you. These can be from current or past lives."

Inhale deeply and hold your breath for a moment. And as you slowly exhale, visualize the "enemy elements" leaving your body.

Visualize the "enemy" standing before you, regardless whether you know this person or even if it is an aspect of yourself.

Do not be angry or afraid. Instead, open your arms and invite this "enemy" to come towards you and be embraced by you.

Now allow your love flowing into this person who has, until this moment, been your enemy. Forgive your enemy and shower your enemy with boundless love and light from your heart.

Visualize all negative energies being transformed into love and light. You are one with this person who used to be your enemy. These negative forces have been transformed into positive forces working constructively for you.

The curse has been lifted! You are free!

ASTRO FORECAST: APRIL 30th—MAY 10th, 2026

Antinous is a Moon God. He is, of course, many other things and he wears many hats. But one of the ways he was worshiped in Antiquity was as ANTINOUS THE MOON GOD.

His worshipers looked skyward and saw His beautiful face perpetually turned towards the Earth. The Man in the Moon was actually the Blessed Boy in the Moon for the ancient priests and worshipers of Antinous. Swiftest and most youthful of all the Zodiacal deities, Antinous speeds through an entire year's worth of Astrological signs in just 28 days.

ANTINOUS THE MOON GOD represents our deepest personal needs, our basic habits and reactions, and our unconscious gay selves. Where Hadrian the Sun acts, Antinous the Moon REACTS. How do we instinctively react or respond to problems? What do we feel we need for a sense of security? Look to ANTINOUS THE MOON GOD for answers.

ANTINOUS THE MOON GOD is both our inner boy child and our inner lover. His ever changing phases, as he sweeps past all the other Planets in all the Signs, make us at turns responsive, receptive, and reflective. Eternally youthful, ANTINOUS THE MOON GOD represents our childlike spontaneous and instinctual reactions.

ANTINOUS THE MOON GOD beams down on us to make us imaginative, creative, intuitive, sentimental, adaptable, introspective, and protective. On the negative side, and depending on where he is in the Zodiac, he can make us moody, restless, and irrational.

Antinous Astrology Forecast

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APRIL 30th
to MAY 10th, 2026

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THURSDAY, APRIL 30th, 2026

This week, Mercury conjunction with the minor planet CHIRON IN ARIES signifies a powerful, transformative period where mental wounds and insecurities are brought to light to be healed through communication, learning, and self-expression. This aspect, often described as the "Wounded Healer" connecting with the mind, turns personal vulnerabilities into sources of profound wisdom and empathetic communication.

FRIDAY, MAY 1st, 2026

This week, we come to the Scorpio Full Moon ... a moon for penetrating the veil of lies and illusion and seeing clearly who are your friends (and who are not) and also seeing yourself for what you are. For that reason, we call it the ENEMY MOON in Antinous Moon Magic.

SAT-SUNDAY, MAY 2nd-3rd, 2026

This weekend, Mercury leaves feisty Aries and glides into grounded Taurus to focus on financial stability and home comfort. You can expect difficulties because Taurus Mercury immediately squares off against Pluto, which is in Aquarius and is grimly determined to revolutionize communications and social media. Mercury and Pluto will focus wrestle with online banking and crypto-currency controversies on and off until Mercury enters chatty Gemini on 17th May 2026.

MON-TUESDAY, MAY 4th-5th, 2026

This promises to be the most dangerous week of the year when Mars squares off against Jupiter — a configuration which invariably spawns strife, conflict, warfare, earthquakes and even bad weather. This is the textbook recipe for armed conflict, terrorist attacks and economic chaos. On the one hand, there is a powerful yearning for a dramatic new beginning. That is a good thing, in general. But on the other hand, there are ruthless people who take advantage of that yearning to push their own agendas for changing the world to fit their own selfish ends. Quite aside from global politics and economics, you will sense these tensions in your own domestic life and on the job. Remember to keep your head and strive for compromise while others lose their heads or ram their heads through the wall.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6th, 2026

Over the weekend, Mercury left feisty Aries and glided into grounded Taurus to focus on financial stability and home comfort. But this week you can expect difficulties because Taurus Mercury immediately squares off against Pluto, which is in Aquarius and is grimly determined to revolutionize communications and social media. Mercury and Pluto will focus wrestle with online banking and crypto-currency controversies on and off until Mercury enters chatty Gemini on 17th May 2026.

THURS-FRIDAY, MAY 7th-8th, 2026

This week, global political and economic turmoil redoubles when strong-willed Aquarius Pluto turns retrograde — going backwards as seen from the Earth — until October 15, 2026. It will be a time of deep internal reflection and change, encouraging you to explore your subconscious and confront past issues. It is an opportunity to let go of what no longer serves you and create a more fulfilling future. Pluto retrograde is known for its transformative power, and the energy of Aquarius adds a dimension of liberation and radical change. Aquarius energy encourages unique and liberating expressions of power and potential, urging you to embrace your unique identity and individuality. During this retrograde, it's crucial to be extra clear in your communication, especially when disagreements arise, and avoid letting pride cloud your judgment.

SAT-SUNDAY, MAY 9th-10th, 2026

This weekend, the Moon squares off against the Sun for the Aquarius Third Quarter Moon which in Antinous Moon Magic we call the FORUM MOON. This is the best Lunar Phase of the year for oracles or spell work involving interaction with groups or a public setting. Gathering place. Club. Work place. Any place where numerous people gather. It is also the best moon for rituals focusing on parks, gardens and the outdoors in general, such as working rituals for protecting a back garden or outdoor venue.

SNEAK PREVIEW OF NEXT WEEK:

Another exciting week lies ahead between May 11th and 17th, 2026, when we come to the Taurus New Moon, which we call the MARCUS AURELIUS MOON highlighting Taurean qualities (determined, practical, devoted, grounded, dependable) and 2nd House themes (material security, values, self-worth). On a spiritual/higher plane, the New Moon in Taurus seeks inner peace through stability and contentment ... More details next time ....

AT WALPURGIS/BELTANE WE PRAY TO ANTINOUS AS BELENUS

TONIGHT is Walpurgisnacht also known as Beltane … which we designate as Belenus Night for the Cisalpine Celtic god Belenus, to whom Antinous was compared in an inscription.

I recommend that everyone use this night to cleanse themselves of all negative energy that infiltrates all our lives.

Light two white candles, place them on the floor far enough apart so that you can pass between them without lighting yourself on fire.

Sprinkle a line of salt between the two candles.

Say the prayer:

Antinous of the Underworld 

Open your way of mystery before me

Antinous of the lotus flower 

Spread your love within my heart

Antinous of the heavens 

Shine your starlight upon me

Then say:

May the fire of Belenus 

cleanse and protect me

Then walk between the two candles

Stepping over the line of salt

Conclude with:

 

Ave Antinous Belenus

~FLAMEN ANTONIUS SUBIA