GATEWAY TO HADES FOUND IN TURKEY A RIVAL TO GATEWAY TO HADES IN GREECE

AS Hadrian and Antinous traveled across Asia Minor in 129 AD it is possible they saw the legendary Gate to the Underworld.

Italian archaeologists say they have found the historical Gate to the Underworld of the ancient Phrygian city of Hierapolis in modern-day Turkey ... birth land of Antinous. 

But as always with these things, the Greeks also claim they have found evidence for the existence of a GATEWAY TO HADES IN GREECE.

In ancient times there were several Gateways to Hades ... in Asia Minor ... in Greece ... and in Rome ... but the one at Hierapolis was perhaps most famous of all.

The Turkish discovery was made by a mission headed by Francesco D'Andria from the University of Salento which is in charge of the excavations in the Greco-Roman city. The ruins of the city are near the modern-day Pamukkale in Turkey.

According to Greco-Roman mythology and tradition, the Gate to the Underworld, also known as Pluto's Gate ... Ploutonion in Greek, Plutonium in Latin ... was the entrance point to hell.

Both Cicero and Greek geographer Strabus referred to the Hierapolis Plutonium in their writings, and both had visited it. It was a well-known place of pilgrimage in Antiquity.

Since the excavations commenced in Hierapolis in 1957 ... by an Italian mission under Paolo Verzone from the Turin Polytechnic ... finding the exact location of Plutonium had been the focus of the archaeological digs.

D'Andria told ANSAmed news agency that he had found it by studying the vast literature from the period and reconstructing the route of a thermal spring to a cave, ascertaining that in that area bird corpses were collected.

According to the tales of the travelers in those times, bulls were sacrificed to Pluto before pilgrimages into the Plutonium. The animals were led by priests to the entrance to a cave from which fetid fumes arose, suffocating them to death.

The announcement of the discovery came only weeks after  archaeo-spelunkers announced that a rival Gateway to Hades in southern Greece apparently was a cave dwelling which once housed an entire underground city.

Ironically, the giant cave could have resembled something vaguely similar to the scene depicted by Jan the Elder Bruegel of Aeneas and the Sybil entering Hades (above). 
 
The complex settlement seen in this cave suggests, along with other sites from about the same time, that early prehistoric Europe may have been more complex than previously thought.

The cave, located in southern Greece and discovered in 1958, is called Alepotrypa, which means "foxhole."

The cave in Greece apparently went through a series of occupations and abandonments before it finally collapsed.

ASTRO FORECAST: MARCH 26th—APRIL 5th, 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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MARCH 26th
to APRIL 5th, 2026

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THURS-FRIDAY, MARCH 26th-27th, 2026

This week, healing energies get a sudden and dramatic boost when Venus aligns in conjunction with CHIRON IN ARIES. This is a good time for health checkups and medical treatment ... also, you can expect a positive and expansive outlook, which can benefit your well-being at this time. You may be more open-minded with regard to experiencing new things, which will allow healing of your mind, body, and spirit. For instance, you could seek higher understanding and meaning in your life through a guide, mentor, or spiritual person or increase your inner knowledge by means of educational processes, religion, or meditative practices during this period. An urge to travel to far-away places (real or imaginary) may also be experienced. You may discover new perspectives on your beliefs, faith, and sense of hope. Restoring peace and harmony in your personal life and relationships is possible now through your interest in healing your own wounds, as well as extending compassion and generosity to others.

SAT-SUNDAY, MARCH 28th-29th, 2026

This weekend, your self-confidence gets a boost when the Sun and Saturn both form an ego-boosting sextile aspect with Pluto. You feel empowered to demand a pay increase or anything else you feel you deserve. You also feel energized to take ambitious projects.

MON-TUESDAY, MARCH 30th-31st, 2026

This week, Venus enters the earthy and sensual realm of Taurus, where the Love Goddess will remain until 23rd April 2026. The flirting of the past few weeks Venus spent in Aries is now over. Taurus Venus loves romantic cuddling with good food, good wine, flowers, candles and soft music. Venus in Taurus brings the need for reliability, steadfastness and loyalty. Having a partner whom you can lean on and rely on when the going gets tough is high on the priority list.

WED-THURSDAY, APRIL 1st-2nd, 2026

Overnight Wednesday-Thursday, we come to the Libra Full Moon ... the lunar cycle we call the ORATOR MOON of diplomacy and balanced thinking. This is the perfect time for fulfilling dreams of finding just the right partner, the person who balances out your needs and desires perfectly. But remember that diplomacy is the key. Each Lunar Phase represents a Divine Spirit or Archetype. The Spirit of the Orator Moon is the embodiment of articulate expression in all forms and in all media, whether spoken, written or visual.

FRIDAY, APRIL 3rd, 2026

This week, Mercury forms a fortuitous trine aspect with lucky Jupiter. Even if you usually never play the lottery, you might want to consider buying a lotto ticket for this week.

SAT-SUNDAY, APRIL 4th-5th, 2026

This weekend, Venus square Pluto creates an explosive situation for interpersonal relationships. It begins at the breakfast table over corn flakes when you say you want to go shopping and your alpha-male boyfriend starts in saying that it's typical of you to go off and spend money and waste time while he has to clean the house. Next thing you know, the two of you have been screaming at each other for hours. Remember that astrology is a tool to master such situations. Venus-square-Pluto is a golden opportunity to rediscover the things you love about your lover. Okay, so he's a bitch-on-wheels. So what? He's your bitch-on-wheels and the two of you love each other. Make a stab at helping him clean the house — and sneak online and buy needless stuff on eBay when he's not looking.

SNEAK PREVIEW OF NEXT WEEK:

Another exciting week lies ahead between April 6th and 12th, 2026, when we come to the Capricorn Third Quarter Moon which, in Antinous Moon Magic, we call the HADRIAN'S WALL MOON of stubborn intransigence and immovable barriers. Each Lunar Phase represents a Divine Spirit or Archetype. The Spirit of the Hadrian's Wall Lunar Phase is the embodiment of hindrances and blockages. It represents the barriers that stand in your way. It is all barriers and obstacles to progress. Meditations and rituals conducted on this night are best suited for focusing on blockages in your life, situations and issues which prevent you from moving forward. These can be manifested by persons or situations around you. But most often, we find during meditations on this night that we have erected prison walls around ourselves, we are blocking ourselves from the freedom we so earnestly desire. This Lunar Phase is saying it is time to break out! ... More details next time ....

WALT WHITMAN SAINT OF ANTINOUS

ON March 26th the Religion of Antinous takes a moment to celebrate the life of one of our most popular Antinoian prophets ... Saint Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, on the West Hills of Long Island, New York. He was lavished with love by his mother, but treated with stern discipline by his carpenter father.

After only a few years of school, Whitman was pulled out to help with the family earnings. He educated himself, reading all that he could, worked in a printing house, and eventually became a schoolteacher who taught with refreshing openness and excitement, allowing his students to call him by his first name. After years of teaching, he went into journalism, and in time was the editor of several publications.

However, Walt Whitman is said to have experienced a life-transforming epiphany. He left New York, and returned to live for a period with his family, then returned from isolation with Leaves of Grass, one of the most powerful collections of poems in American literature and the first to allude heavily to homosexual love.
It is often said that, during his time in isolation, a religious sense of purpose entered his heart, which he revealed in the Calamus poems.

The aromatic, psychotropic calamus plant with its phallic spadix flower pods was his symbol for homosexuality. The calamus has special meaning for us because Kalamos of Greek myth fell in love with the beautiful youth Karpos. 

Like Antinous, Karpos died by drowning. Grief-stricken Kalamos wept among the reeds at the waterside until he was himself transformed into a reed, whose rustling in the wind is his sigh of woe.

When the American civil war broke out, Walt Whitman was 42 years old and served as a hospital nurse, falling in love with all the soldiers, especially those who died in his arms.

Open expressions of love between men were accepted without issue during the war, and it was when the visionary enlightenment of Walt Whitman became clear to him. He saw that the origin of this love, brotherly, or friendly perhaps, if not more, was the salvation of the human race, and certainly able to heal the divide between North and South.

His final years were spent communicating his message to the new torchbearers, such as John Addington Symonds and Edward Carpenter. After his death, and as Gay Liberation took strength, he was called a Prophet, particularly by the George Cecil Ives and the Order of Chaeronea.

We, adherents of the ancient/modern Religion of Antinous, proclaim him to be St. Walt Whitman the Prophet of Homoeros, and we elevate him to his own stratosphere in our devotion.

He died March 26th, 1892 of tuberculosis compounded by pneumonia. Over 1,000 mourners paid their respects. St. Walt told us how he wanted us to remember him, not as a great poet, but as "the tenderest lover":

You bards of ages hence! when you refer to me, mind not so much my poems,
Nor speak of me that I prophesied of The States, and led them the way of their Glories;
But come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior ... I will tell you what to say of me:
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of measureless ocean of love within him ... and freely poured it forth,
Who often walked lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other men,
Who oft as he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of his friend  while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.

THE NARCISSUS MOON OF ANTINOUS THE CANCER FIRST QUARTER MOON

TONIGHT's Cancer First Quarter Moon is the Lunar Phase of reflection and insight which we call the NARCISSUS MOON in Antinous Moon Magic.

Each Lunar Phase represents a Divine Spirit or Archetype. The Spirit of the Narcissus Moon is the Lover of the Self. It is the Spirit which tunes out all distractions and all other people in order to focus on the Divinity within. It is the Spirit of Self-Love and Same-Sex Love.

It is forever gazing into its own reflection and whispering to itself: You are Divine! The reflection and the viewer are one and the same. The Spirit of Narcissus is the Divinity which holds a mirror up to ourselves.

It invites you to look into the depths of yourself — find your Spiritual Twin. You may call this twin your "Soul," "Higher Self," "KA," "Spirit Guide" or "Guardian Angel." The terminology is unimportant. What is important is that you become aware of your Second Self.

In the Religion of Antinous, we call this the NARCISSUS PRINCIPLE, which is one of the founding principles of our religion. It is at the basis of the Spirit of Homosexuality -- Love of the Divine Self.

Most of us go through life unaware of this Other Self. We do what is expected of us. We do what we feel others want us to do. We put the perceived wants and needs of others ahead of our own. We think that it's "selfish" to put our own interests first.

But the Narcissus Moon reminds us that there is another Self ... a Spiritual Self ... without which we are not spiritually whole. For it is only by "looking out for Number 1" that we are physically, mentally and spiritually able to love ourselves. And only then can we truly love others.

The Narcissus Moon invites you to take a deep and profound look at yourself, with all your strengths and all your weaknesses, all your virtues and all your faults, all your courageous achievements and all your failures. Become aware of your Spiritual Twin, so that together, as one spiritual entity, you can fulfill your destiny.

Meditations and rituals on this night are well suited for delving into your inner self, for exploring the spiritual being which dwells within. This is also a good time for determining whether you are perhaps too self-centered and introspective and whether you focus on yourself to the exclusion of others.

LABRADORITE FOR THE NARCISSUS MOON By Our Crystal Meditation Advisor Martin Campbell

AT tonight's Narcissus Moon we should remember that vanity and loving oneself are very different things...

Vanity focuses on the physical appearance you present to the world. It is important to be comfortable with that and ensure you love the image you create and project. Perhaps falling in love with yourself to the exclusion of all others is less positive - as the story of Narcissus illustrates.

Loving oneself is often seen as negative in European cultures. In the UK especially it is seen as quite vulgar to say that you love yourself. It is viewed as selfish and vane. This is so wrong. As Louise Hay says in her seminal book 'You Can Heal Your Life':

"I am talking about having a great respect for ourselves and a gratitude for the miracle of our bodies and our minds."

She goes on to recommend looking at yourself in a mirror, meet your eyes and tell yourself how much you love and respect yourself. Repeat this a few times a day - preferably every day.

LGBTU people have often had to grow up in societies which tell us that we are evil, dirty or repulsive. It can be hard to shake off that negative  view of yourself. So try what Louise calls 'Mirror Work' - it is very effective at boosting your self-esteem and self-worth. You are amazing!

Antinous provides a positive reflection of ourselves. He is the eternal image of a man who loved a man. He is the spiritual guide for all people who love people of their own gender or realise that they love themselves as a different gender.  He will be reflected in that mirror too.

Excellent crystals for inner reflection on yourself are:

Labradorite - This one of my favourite crystals (photo above) - partly for its iridescent beauty but also because of its many healing attributes. These include the ability to help you to have faith in yourself. It also brings positive contemplation and introspection.

Fire Agate - This is a powerful crystal (above left) particularly helps with introspection and finding inner peace with yourself.

Apophyllite - This crystal also encourages introspection but helps the process to reveal the truth of who you really are.

Whilst I would, obviously, recommend that you hold these crystals during meditation during this moon phase I would also recommend doing the 'mirror work' Louise Hay recommends. I would add that doing the 'mirror work' while holding one (or all three) of the crystals above would make it even more effective.

Love and Light,

MARTIN

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

ANTINOUS IN PESSINUS HOME OF GENDER-FLUID PRIESTS OF PHRYGIA

IN March of 129 AD Antinous and Hadrian arrived in the ancient city of Pessinus in Phrygia which was the cult center of the Great Mother of the Gods, Cybele.

It was from here that the Cult of Magna Mater, the Great Mother of the Gods, spread out into the world even unto Rome.

Pessinus was ruled by the transgender high priestess known as the Archigallus who together with her transgender galloi priestesses worshipped a black stone that had fallen from the sky and was the embodiment of the Great Mother herself.

During the War with Hannibal, the Senate consulted the Sibilline Book and received an oracle instructing them to bring the Great Mother of Phrygia to Rome.

They sent an emissary to the city of Pessinus and, amazingly, the Phrygian priests freely handed over the black heavenly Stone that was the most sacred emblem of their goddess.

The Black Stone was brought to Rome, and met at the port of Ostia by a large congregation of the matrons of the city. They carried her in their arms, from one lady to another, into the city.

Along with the stone came the transgender priestesses who castrated themselves as an offering to the goddess and served her for the rest of their lives dressed as women, in keeping with the beautiful boy Attis, who sacrificed his manhood to the goddess. They danced wild ecstatic dances to the beat of drums and cymbals drawing their blood as an offering.

The religion of Magna Mater is one of the oldest faiths of mankind, extending far back into prehistory. Evidence has been found of her veneration in one of the oldest human settlements known as Catal Huyuk in modern Turkey.

The image here shows a mother figure on a chariot drawn by two lions, an image always central to the Great Mother. 

She was known under several names, Idea, Dydima, Sipyla, Agdistis, Rhea, Kubaba, Khaba, Khabala, and Cebele, daughter of Uranus and Gaia, wife of Saturn, mother of all the gods. 

It is believed that her religion was spread throughout the Middle East during the conquests of the Hittite Empire, led by eunuch priests headed by the Archigallus, who was the earthly representative of the divine consort Attis. 

The sacred shrines of the goddess were established where a black stone had fallen from heaven, and there a prophetess, known as a Sybil took up residence, speaking oracles from Apollo. The religions of Dionysus, Apollo, Diana and Persephone are deeply and intimately related, through their connection to Magna Mater.

They are the vestiges of a faith and culture that long preceded Greece, yet whose traces remain even now, in the concept of Holy Mother Church, in the black stone embedded in the Khaba at Mecca, and as the spirit of the Holy Tree known as the Kabalah in Jewish mysticism.

Antinous was very probably brought up as a devotee of her religion, since Bithynion had a mountaintop shrine to Attis, and was very near to the center of her worship at Pessinus.

The proximity of Bithynium-Claudiopolis to Pessinus makes it likely that Antinous was familiar with and participated in the Cult of Magna Mater.

And the discovery of an image of Antinous in the sanctuary of Magna Mater in the port city of Ostia outside of Rome suggests that the cult of Antinous was connected to the transgender cult of the Mother Goddess.

The festival of the death and rebirth of Attis, who was transformed into a Pine tree, was celebrated at the March Equinox in Rome and in Pessinus and it was at this time that Hadrian and Antinous attended the festival in its ancient sacred city. We pray for the blessing of Magna Mater and the reborn transgender goddess Attis.

WE HONOR THE EMPRESS SABINA

THE Empress Sabina Augusta ... Vibia Sabina ... Hadrian's Wife ... died sometime in the year 136, and was deified in the year 138.

The date of her elevation to godliness is not known, but because she was so often compared to the Mother Goddess Ceres-Demeter, we declare her Apotheosis to coincide with the return of spring in Rome, and dedicate our celebration of the Equinox to our mother and Empress, Nova Dea Ceres, Sabina Augusta.

This relief sculpture of her deification, in which she is shown rising up from the cremation flames on the wings of a female Aeon, shows Hadrian enthroned, behind him is a figure that resembles Antoninus Pius.

And reclining on the floor is one who could possibly be Antinous, the resemblance to the youth on the Apotheosis of Antoninus is remarkable.