MANUEL ACOSTA SAINT OF ANTINOUS

WE honor Manuel Acosta (May 9, 1921-October 25, 1989) as a blessed Saint of Antinous for being a Texican artist from El Paso who lived and died for his art.

Sadly, he is only known in the English-speaking world for having painted the iconic portrait of César Chávez for a 1969 Time magazine cover.

He was brutally murdered by a 20-year-old boy who was living with him, who had been his model...and more.

Flamen Antonius says of Acosta:

He is a very meaningful Saint of Antinous because he opened whole new world of art for me when I was very young.  I always thought of art as something people did far away in Paris or somewhere.  In my neighborhood they painted the Virgin Mary and low-riders and Aztec warriors...but that wasn't art...right there next to the gang graffiti and a crudely drawn penis squirting sperm on some breasts.  Art was something that people in Europe painted on canvases.  Manuel Acosta changed my perspective...because he lived about a quarter mile away.

Right when he was murdered, they released prints of his work, and my mother bought the full set for me,
it was my first real introduction to art...my walls were covered with Manuel Acosta paintings,
I had no idea that it would mean so much to me later.

Manuel Acosta always used to wear a paper-bag hat. Father Arturo Banuelas, who led the prayers at Manuel’s funeral said, "Today his paper hat is a crown of glory."

He was buried with what he called his Mexican-Italian-Pajama shirt, wearing his trademark paper hat, with a can of Budweiser beer in his hand (his nephew placed it there).

JAKOB 'ZAUBERJACKL' KOLLER SHAPE-SHIFTING SORCERER OF SALZBURG

THE early Christians "demonized" Antinous and all other deities. In essence, we are all demon worshipers in the eyes of fundamentalist Christians.

In a perverse reversal of polarities, fanatical seekers of righteousness often become the very force of darkness and evil that they profess to fight. By identifying too strongly with one pole ("Good", "Righteousness") they call into being its opposite pole. They conjure up a "demon." 

We call these demonized individuals "Anti-Saints" ... people who, through no fault of their own, are demonized by self-righteous fanatics because they are outsiders.

The Religion of Antinous has one special "Anti-Saint" ... JAKOB "ZAUBERJACKL" KOLLER, the shape-shifting gay sorcerer of Salzburg. 

In one of the most horrific witch hunts of the 17th Century, 139 youths and pre-adolescent boys were put to death as werewolves and witches ... at the hands of religious fanatics determined to rid Salzburg of demons.

Orphans were common in the aftermath of the 30 Years War, and their begging and thievery became a nuisance to upstanding people of Salzburg, who "demonized" them as the apprentices of evil sorcerers ....

Zauberjackl (Magic Jake) was a 20-year-old man with red hair in the Salzburg area of Austria in the late 17th Century who "fancied the lads" and who had a reputation for hanging out with adolescents and teaching them the black arts.

Growing up in the chaos after the war, he lived on the streets under a cloud of suspicion after his mother (under torture for stealing) told investigators he was a sorcerer skilled in the black arts. But she claimed he was dead ... the authorities heaved a sigh of relief.

Then a few years later, in 1677, routine questioning of a 12-year-old crippled street urchin named Dionysus Feldner spawned a witch hunt.

Whether out of spite or fear or for whatever reason, little Dionysus claimed that the "Zauberer Jackl" (Sorcerer Jake) was very much alive. (Interrogation scene re-enacted in an Austrian TV documentary film about Zauberjackl.)

Dionysus said he had spent the previous three weeks in the company of Zauberjackl, who he claimed was engaged in very active instruction of scores of boys and young men in the arts of black magic.

Dionysus said Zauberjackl had a black cap which made him invisible. He said Zauberjackl could transform himself into a fox, wolf or any other animal at will. 

He said Zauberjackl could conjure up an infestation of mice, rats and other vermin to wipe out the crops and grain storage warehouses of anybody who crossed him.

News of Dionysus's testimony swept Salzburg like wildfire, creating a frenzy of hysteria in a town that was just beginning to recover from the ravages of the 30 Years War. 

Authorities began rounding up every homeless boy and young man for interrogation -- there were a lot of homeless war orphan refugees.

Any adolescent street waif or roustabout lad was immediately suspected of membership in the Zauberjackl gang.

The illustration shows boys and young men being interrogated for witchcraft in Salzburg. 

In particular, those who were physically or mentally disabled were thought to be in league with "demons" -- whose mark they bore on their bodies, if not on their souls.

Under torture, and given leading questions, sobbing boys gave their interrogators the most hair-raising stories of Zauberjackl' s occult exploits.

In all, over the next 15 years, 139 young people were rounded up and executed. Of that total, 113 were males. All but 21 were under age 21. And 39 of them were under the age of 10. One-third were classified as "infirm of mind or body". Most were garrotted and their bodies burned.

The youngest, in a show of mercy, were given a quick death: Rather than slowly strangling to death, they were beheaded and then their bodies were burned.

Zauberjackl himself was never apprehended. There were in fact no reported sightings of him. Ever. People from his village insisted he had died of natural causes years earlier, but the authorities assumed they were under his magical spell.

The fact that nobody had ever seen him only added to the phantom mystique surrounding Zauberjackl.

Those high-minded officials in Salzburg evoked the gay werewolf/wizard demon named Zauberjackl. And in doing so, he got out of their control and took on a life of his own.

This woodcut shows popular methods of executing witches in Salzburg.

 It's unimportant whether a 20-year-old, red-haired guy named Jakob Koller was ever actually a shape-shifting gay wizard who inculcated bad boys with the secrets of the black arts. 

The sad fact is that great evil was carried out and that scores of young lives were lost. The terrible irony is that this evil was done in the name of righteousness and in pursuit of a demonic force.

A demon did indeed stalk the streets of Salzburg in the last quarter of the 17th Century ... it murdered 139 homeless street boys.

Similarly, various horrific demons are still on the loose today, all of them inadvertently evoked by self-righteous people who are grimly convinced they are carrying out the will of Allah or Jesus.

ASTRO FORECAST: MAY 6th—16th, 2021

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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MAY 6th to 16th, 2021

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THURS-FRIDAY, MAY 6th-7th, 2021

This week, love planet Venus is in a powerful trine aspect with Pluto. Taurus Venus is looking for someone to share a comfortable life with, while Capricorn Pluto is looking for a profound relationship which endures for all eternity. So this Venus trine Pluto configuration can help you find your soul mate. Venus trine Pluto is also very good for financial and business transactions which will provide long-term yields.

SATURDAY, MAY 8th, 2021

On Saturday, indulgent Venus squares off against excessive Jupiter. If you are planning to go to an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast ... then you will pig out because it's easy to fall victim to temptation during this configuration. We need to be wary of overdoing it with rich food, intoxicating drinks and other "vices." It will be difficult switching gears and getting back to work. There's even a possibility we'll forget responsibilities altogether. This isn't a good time to make luxury purchases. A sports car could require costly repair, a gourmet meal may be less than satisfying or an expensive outfit may be made with inferior materials. Wait another day to splurge. Getting good value for money will be very difficult under this configuration.

SUNDAY, MAY 9th, 2021

On Sunday, Venus leaves dependable Taurus and enters flirty Gemini. If you have been thinking about spreading your wings and diversifying your love life, the coming weeks is the time to do it. Gemini Venus is also a good time to diversify money matters. Love and money will be "up in the air" for the next month, so be flexible and in order to take advantage of the airy opportunities.

MON-TUESDAY, MAY 10th-11th, 2021

On Tuesday, 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.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 12th, 2021

This week, dreams really can come true when ambitious Mars forms a positive sextile aspect with impulsive, anything-goes Uranus. This powerful configuration throws open all the doors and windows so that a breath of fresh air comes blowing through your life on all levels ... at work and also in your interpersonal relationships. Uranus throws everything up in the air and opens new possibilities.

Also this week, Mercury forms a brilliant and glowing trine aspect with Saturn which empowers you with perseverance (Saturn) and clear forms of expression (Mercury) to make some serious long-term plans for the future.

In addition, this week is a time of reflection when the Sun forms a dreamy sextile aspect to intuitive Neptune, inviting you to reflect introspectively about how this year is going so far, and to start dreaming about how the rest of the year may turn out. This is the perfect evening for oracle games, scrying, dreamscaping and fortune-telling.

THURS-SUNDAY, MAY 13th-16th, 2021

May is a very eventful month, full of twists and turns, but if we have to pick THE most important cosmic event of the month of May, it is Jupiter’s entry into Pisces. Jupiter only changes signs once a year, and when it does, it pretty much sets the scene, and gives us that "one topic" to focus on. This year is particularly special because both Jupiter and Neptune are in Pisces together, for the first time since the mid-19th Century. The great news about this pairing is that both Neptune and Jupiter feel at home in Pisces, so they feels great here. In Pisces, Jupiter can be as wise, spiritual, and big-picture as he wants. Neptune aspires to turn dreams into reality.

Jupiter is only temporarily in Pisces. Jupiter goes retrograde in June and then moves back into Aquarius in July. However, these two and a half months of Jupiter in Pisces are a great drive run for 2022, when Jupiter moves into Pisces for good.

The last two years or so have not been easy. The conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto and the Star of Antinous in Capricorn has been heavy and confining. Jupiter in Aquarius overall has been a better placement than Jupiter in Capricorn, but since Jupiter shares the sign with Saturn (in domicile in Aquarius) it gets to play by Saturn’s rules. Now that Jupiter moves into Pisces, our sense of faith and optimism will finally be restored.

SNEAK PREVIEW OF NEXT WEEK:

Another exciting week lies ahead between MAY 17th and May 23rd when when we come to the Leo First Quarter Moon. It is the Lunar Phase in Antinous Moon Magic which we call the SCARAB MOON of miracles and wish-fulfillment. Meditations and rituals carried out tonight can result in an unexpected breakthrough. Eureka! Unanticipated solution. Fortuitous surprise. Sudden change for the better. Plucking victory from the jaws of defeat. An oracle reading or meditative trance can produce a sudden answer for transformation of a bad situation into something profitable ... More details next time ....

THE DAY THE NAZIS STORMED THE WORLD'S FIRST GAY INSTITUTE

ON May 6th, the Religion of Antinous commemorates the book burnings and the ransacking of the world's first gay scientific institution — foreshadowing the Gay Holocaust.

On this day in 1933, the Nazis stormed and shut down the Institute for Sexual Science which had been founded by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin in 1919. 

In collaboration with the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, the institute was founded for the research of human sexology, primarily for the purpose of repealing "Paragraph 175", which was the German Law that made homosexual acts illegal.

The work of the institute was a reflection of the widespread gay liberation that prevaled in Germany after World War I. It was specifically targeted by Adolf Hitler as one of the foremost "degenerate depravities of the Weimar Republic" which the Führer vowed to eradicate.

Next week, on May 14th, the Religion of Antinous celebrates the feast day of Saint Magnus Hirschfeld. The man called the Father of Gay Liberation died on May 14, 1935, in exile in Nice, France, an embittered and broken man.

He died on his 63rd birthday. A life that had started out with such lofty ambitions ended in disillusionment. He was of Jewish ancestry and began his career as a medical doctor but very soon devoted his life to the study of homosexuality.

In 1897 he founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which was an organization whose publication, called The Yearbook of Intermediate Sexual Types, was devoted to the repeal of "Paragraph 175", a law passed by the Reichstag in 1869.

The work of the committee included ongoing lobbying supported by the scientific studies of Dr. Hirschfeld into human sexuality. This study culminated in the formation of the Institute for Sexual Science in 1919.


Dr. Hirschfeld spent the majority of his career writing and lecturing around the world on the nature of homosexuality and other "intermediate" sexual types, including cross dressers. 

The word "transsexual" was coined by Dr. Hirschfeld to describe the phenomenon that he argued was a natural extension of human sexuality.

His philosophy centered on the contention that there was a third sex, called the Uranian, which was neither male nor female, but a combination of both that was manifested in homosexuality, which was not to be considered an impure deviation, or even as an illness, but as a natural and phenomenal component of human nature.

For his work, the Nazis targeted Dr. Hirschfeld as an example of decadent Bolshevistic/Jewish influence infecting the purity of the German people, luring the Aryan race into impure and destructive perversity. He was ultimately driven into exile and burned in effigy as an emblem of evil. 

His institute was ransacked May 6th and his books were publicly burned in a bonfire on May 10th, 1933.

The exquisite replica frieze of Antinous was ripped off the wall and smashed to pieces.

In another ironic twist, homosexual members of Ernst Roehm's SA Stormtroopers (shown above) hurled these books to the flames in 1933 — and would themselves face persecution and death when Hitler turned against Roehm only a scant year later during the "Night of Long Knives" in June 1934 when Hitler decided that Roehm had become a liability.

The storming of the Institute for Sexual Science was the first step in the persecution of homosexuals, who were later sentenced to labor in the concentration camps, the extreme cruelty of which usually resulted in death.

The symbol of the Pink Triangle, the homosexual form of the yellow star of the Jews, was born after the fall of the forward-thinking Institute. It is the symbol of our repression, just as the rainbow flag is the symbol of our freedom. The storming of the Institute was the beginning of the dark ages which were to last until the riot at the Stonewall in 1969.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE SAINT OF ANTINOUS

ON May 5th the Religion of Antinous celebrates the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, who died on this day in 1821.

Napoleon is a saint primarily because he was the first European ruler to "decriminalize" homosexual acts. It had once been a crime punishable by burning at the stake...but Napoleon, under the advice of his top legal adviser, who was a homosexual...chose to legalize homosexuality.

He may seem a very unlikely person to be a champion of gay rights...but that's what he is...he didn't care...he saw no reason to persecute men for being homosexual...one of the greatest military commanders the world has ever known...and he accepted gay people...he would laugh at "Don't Ask, Don't Tell....he would laugh as his gay army invaded America and set things right.

Napoleon was trying to restore the Roman Empire...that's what all his imagery and symbolism were about...the fashions of the day were inspired by Rome...the Empire waist dress...women were styling their hair to look like Sabina...men combed their hair forward like Hadrian.

For gay people, one of the most disastrous turning points in world history was the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. We've been led to believe that the British are heroes and Napoleon was a tyrant. But he was the best "tyrant" the world has known since Hadrian.

Napoleon would have set the world forward decades or even centuries. But that didn't happen...instead of tremendous social progress...the opposite occurred.

Another reason why we Consecrate Emperor Napoleon as a Saint of Antinous is because, in 1799-1801, when Napoleon tried and nearly succeeded in conquering the entire Middle East, it was French scientists who were the last to see and the first to record and depict the remains of our Sacred City of Antinoopolis. Those ruins have vanished beneath the sands of Egypt since then.

Had Napoleon not invaded, had he not defeated the Mamluk army at the Battle of the Pyramids, then the expedition to Antinoopolis would not have occurred and the fragments of Antinoopolis would never have been recorded.

ANTINOUS IS A GOD OF HEALING By Our Novice Priest Adriaan van den Berg

ANTINOUS is a God of Healing! In ancient times his believers asked Antinous for health and to heal them and He is credited with miraculous acts of healing. 

Antinous is no stranger to epidemics. Many of his ancient believers endured devastating epidemics and must have asked Antinous for protection and healing during such terrible outbreaks of sicknesses.

As a God he is aware of our fears and suffering during the current outbreak of the Corona virus. 

To be our healing God is perhaps one his primary divine roles, if not the very first and most eminent, to be a close companion especially to us in times of sickness when we are confined and alone or reduced to lying in a bed anxiously hoping our bodies would withstand illnesses, heal and endure, knowing not if we will survive.

He is right there by our bedside, keeping vigil. Even if it comes to the worst, it happens in his arms.

That is because power was conferred unto him by the Creator God (the Obelisk of Antinous states that Antinous was filled with the semen of the Creator) and there are indications the gods Thoth and others inveighed him with special powers.

Because of all of this and because Antinous died to work the power of good from beyond and especially wanted to let his lover Hadrian remain healthy and live longer, Antinous is an especially potent God of healing and good health. 

Our faith's concept of HOMOTHEOSIS can also mean a healing invigorating oneness with Antinous. It is a state of meditation and prayer and of transcendental awareness of Antinous' presence and of uniting with Him, being filled by Him which can make homotheosis a healing experience and a state returning you to health, of increasing your life force, of allowing yourself to be filled with vigour and vitality. 

Seek homotheosis, read more on it at the online TEMPLE OF ANTINOUS, practice it yourself as a spiritual component to your attempts to live a healthy life and to remain so amidst the current pandemic. 

See the posts of our priests on  FACEBOOK  and TWITTER  and INSTAGRAM and receive fabulous daily posts on the faith, and LGBTGQI history and matters.

But there will also be links you can use to blogs and the Temple of Antinous website at www.antinopolis.org where a wealth of information awaits anyone just interested in our faith or any new believers who want to worship Antinous with us and join the Temple of Antinous and where the amazing lists of Saints of Antinous can also be found.

Ave Antinous!
ADRIAAN VAN DEN BERG

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."