Mount Athos [a] is "Holy Mountain" on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece on the Aegean Sea. It is an important center of Eastern Orthodox Christian monasticism.
Holy Mountain and most of the Athos peninsula are governed as an autonomous region in Greece by the monastic community of Mt. Athos, which is ecclesiastically under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
The remainder of the peninsula forms part of the Aristotelis municipality. By Greek law and by religious tradition, women are prohibited from entering the area governed by the monastic community [2].
Like Mt. Olympus, gods, angels may rest here.
Mt. Athos has been inhabited since ancient times and is known for its long Christian presence and historical monastic traditions, which date back to at least the 9th century during the Byzantine era.
Because of its long history of religious importance, the well-preserved architecture of its monasteries, and the preservation of the natural environment of the peninsula, the monastic community of Mt. Athos was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1988 [3].
NAMES: In the classical era, Mt. Athos was called Athos and the peninsula Acté (Latin) or Akté (Koine Greek Ἀκτή). In modern Greek, the mountain is Oros Athos (Greek Όρος Άθως) and the peninsula Hersonisos tou Atho (Χερσόνησος του Άθω), while the designation Agio Oros (Άγιο Όρος), translating as "Holy Mountain," is also used [4].
Some languages in the Eastern Orthodox tradition use names that translate as "Holy Mountain," including Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Serbian (Света Гора, Sveta Gora) [5] and Georgian (მთაწმინდა, mtats'minda) [6].
However, not all languages spoken in the Eastern Orthodox world use this name: In the East Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian) it is simply called Афон (Afon, meaning "Athos"), while in Romanian it is called "Mount Athos" (Muntele Athos or Muntele Atos) [7]. More
Brazilian activist Thiago Avila with Greta on a trip (Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)
.
(Biased right-wing Sky News Australia) "Disaster for the goblin": Greta Thunberg's flotilla rocked by sex scandals, detained [and tortured] by Israeli terrorist forces.
Activists have sex on a boat? That's no "scandal"
EXCLUSIVE: Greta Thunberg's freedom flotilla faces sexual misconduct allegations (New York Post) They’re going to need a bigger boat! Greta Thunberg’s freedom flotilla, which set sail from Barcelona Sunday for another anti-Israel voyage to Gaza, has been rocked by scandal after one of its woke leaders was accused of “sexual misconduct” with at least three volunteers. “A senior leader within the flotilla — a member of the steering committee, the highest governing body of the organization — engaged in sexual relations with multiple activists while on the boat heading to Gaza. Not one person. Not two. Three different individuals,” claimed Palestinian group Heart of Falastin in a social media post earlier this week. “To do it on the boat, while heading to a nation undergoing genocide, with volunteers...” More
PR Rule No. 1, falsely accuse them before they accurately accuse you of the same thing so as to muddy the water and make it all a "both sides do it" argument?
Dr. Gabor Mate distinguishes "drugs" that obtund(like alcohol) and substances that elevate consciousness; yet, we call both of these opposite experiences getting "high"
In the city-states that gave birth to Western civilization, drugs were an everyday element of a free society.
Often, they were not just available but vitally necessary for use in medicine, spiritual-religious ceremonies, and war campaigns.
Their proponents and users existed in all classes, from common soldiers to emperors. Citing examples in myths, medicine, and literature, Dr. Hillman, Ph.D., shows how drugs have influenced and inspired the artists, philosophers, and even politicians whose ideas have formed the basis for civilization as we know it.
Many of these ancient texts may seem well-known, but Dr. Hillman shows how timid, prudish translations have left scholars and readers in the dark about the reality of drug use in the Classical world.
Dr. Hillman's argument is not simply "pro-drug." Instead, he appeals to intellectual honesty to acknowledge the use of drugs in ancient societies despite today's conflicting social mores.
In the modern world, where academia and university life are often politically charged, The Chemical Muse offers a unique and long overdue perspective on the contentious topic of drug use and freedom of thought. More
(History But Fast) Originating from ancient cultures and societies, prostitution [trading sex for consideration, usually monetary] has been documented as a defined thing as far back as 2400 B.C. in ancient Mesopotamia, where sacred edicts legitimatized this practice.
Deeply rooted in tradition, culture, and socio-economic dynamics, it grew with civilization, oftentimes blurring lines between religious acceptance and societal norms.
Commerce, slavery, segregation -- various factors intertwined, shaping its complex history. With changing times, the perception and status of prostitution has also metamorphosed, sparking a spectrum of laws, debates, and attitudes around the world.
Let's journey back in time, unraveling the enigmatic roots of sacred prostitution in Sumer as reported in the oldest written work we have, The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Archeologist finds tomb of Gilgamesh in Euphrates
Get Real: Pimps 'n Hoes
On the Block with Pimps and Prostitutes
(Tommy G) Feb. 20, 2024: Patreon Extended Cuts: tommygmcgee. Merch: tommygmcgee.com. Music: Izzy93. My Shorts Channel: @TommyGMcGeeShorts Shot and Edited by @ihatemiguelsierra
Would it be the worst thing to bring back sacred prostitution?
Girls Gone Bible (not Wild)
There is a fascinating little book out there in the world somewhere (and lost in the stacks of the Wisdom Quarterly Library), a pamphlet really, called something like An Experience of Enlightenment. Fascinating title but misleading. First of all, no one gets enlightened.
What happens is that the author recounts the true story of an incident that happened to affluent Westerners, friends dabbling in the occult by having a seance to "communicate with the other side." Sounds ominous, but who wouldn't want to connect to the Other Side, the Twilight Zone, the Shadow World? Sounds scary, but it ended well, not with actual enlightenment but with an experience that was eye opening.
The banana hammock is a popular undergarment
A spirit came through telling them an unbelievable story. They're all Judeo-Christian by tradition so, of course, they don't really care about or believe in religion or spirituality. But then this being, entity, ghost comes through a medium with such a stunning story that it makes them all doubt their secularism. The spirit says that thousands of years ago (~3,000) he used to be a priest in charge of a temple in what is now India, at the sacred confluence of some rivers up north (in the IVC, Gandhara, Scythia region under the Himalayas).
One day a prince is traveling through, and as priest he shows him hospitality. He claps for a temple dancing girl to come out and entertain this guest, this youth, as he is given food and drink. The priest has a crush on this dancing girl, possibly a temple prostitute of some kind or just a veiled sacred Kathak dancer, She immediately falls in love with the youth and he with her. The priest notices and sends her away. But it's too late. They elope. And when the priest, the spirit through the medium, notices, he loses control and kills her. He might have killed the youth, too.
In either case, it's in contradiction to his religion and priestly duties, so when he dies and expects to get into Brahma's heaven for his life of religious devotion to protecting the temple to some god or another, he is unable. Kind Brahma tells him he needs to get their forgiveness. That is, it's not enough that he apologize. That would be easy. It's that they must forgive him. Everyone at the seance table is moved by his testimony and glad he contacted them with this story of past lives, heaven, sin, lust, possessiveness, God, and karma, BUT what's it got to do with them?
Westerners horsing around at an American seance table. That's when he lays down the boom, showing how strange the working-out-of-karma is: Those two people he needs to get the forgiveness from at sitting at the table right now. You're one of them, temple dancing girl being ogled by the priest, and that guy's the former youth.
Would sacred temple prostitution have mitigated this situation? Or is emotional love going to always win out, prompting our craving, longing, and attachment? This poor priest, possessive murderer. This poor frustrated couple, gets reborn to find each other anew, in the holy precincts of a temple to the God, but then this jerk's attachment leads him to a jealous rage that gets people killed and him in 3,000 or more years' worth of trouble, trying to track these two down to get them to understand what happened, accept his apology, and grant their forgiveness so he finally move on and up. Do they grant it?
Readers come a way with a dizzying set of questions about what the Buddha was talking about when he warned about craving, lust, attachment, karma (deeds), thoughts, views, words...and forgiveness (khanti). This is a Western author talking to Westerners. There is no Indian, except what we were before rearising here. Even us, why do we care about spiritual India so much?
Why did Paramahamsa Yogananda claim he found his former students now living in the West, reborn white and prosperous? And they recognized him, were attracted to him, found his Kriya Yoga teaching perfectly in line with the Jesusism and Christianity they were now born into, when even today few people realize the "lost years" of Jesus (Issa) were spent in northern India, at that time culturally Tibet, at Hemis Gompa, where he
studied with Buddhist monks,
met Brahmins,
learned Vedic teachings...
He took all of this back to the West with his Zen-like parables for answers and other oddities, totally unJewish but very much in line with what the Essenes suddenly started to practice in Palestine/Israel out of nowhere, with no predecessor in Jewish texts or customs. The Gnostic texts that talk about the way of the Essenes is very Dharmic and much more Buddhistic, Eastern, and mellow as opposed to anything Abrahamic.
And if we go much further back to the Sumerian roots of Judaism (who took those ancient stories and made them about themselves), to a time before the Jewish priests desecrated "God's House" and turned the temple into a usury-bank for moneychangers, a den of iniquity and hypocrisy, so odious that Saint Issa/Jesus Christ flipped those tables over and chased them out, securing the place for godly things again.
Imagine a temple economy based not on the disgusting ritual slaughter of sacrificial animals and black magic rites of scapegoats and blood atonements to some insane tribal war god demanding the scent of burnt offerings (roasted flesh) wafting up to Him but instead the disgusting ritual prostitution of holy orgasm and sex with respect and not possessiveness and clinging. We could be as bonobos rather than chimps and vicious apes!
This temple economy based on killing animals is exposed in Christspiracy and is just like the ancient Greeks' obsession with dead offerings to their pantheon in Homer's The Odyssey and which even the good Vedas talk about having Brahmin priests do for Brahma or other more sinister spirits, godlings, demigods/titans, ogres, reptilians/Draconians, and interlopers (superiors, devas, asuras, yakkhas, nagas, brahmas)
Who knows how the great Sumerians set up a system of sex at church, sex at temple, sex in the holy precincts of houses of worship, devotion, and morality-learning, but it would be great to bring it back.
Whether prostitution is ultimately good or bad, no one can question how bad it is in current practice -- full of condemnation, shame, drug abuse, exploitation, pimps, madams, abusive boyfriends, lack of agency and advancement. Sex work could be a positive thing. It's going to be a thing anyway.
Look at the bonobos, chimps, gorillas, monkey, macaques, orangutans, and other primates, they use sex the way humans do. And to say we don't is willful ignorance, foolishly dismissing what anyone can see.
History But Fast, March 9, 2024; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly, orig. 3/27/24
In the future, Zionists will claim ALL of this land
(Reason2Resist with Dimitri Lascaris) Dimitri Lascaris travels to Cyprus to investigate reports in the Israeli and Cypriot media that Israelis have been "flooding" into Cyprus and "buying anything in sight." In the course of his investigation, Lascaris visited resorts and other businesses that quietly cater to an affluent European (Ashkenazi) Israeli clientele.
Lascaris also examines the little-discussed fact that the earliest Zionists [European white Jewish supremacists looking for a land to occupy and create a settler colonial project as they learned from Western imperial soldiers had done around the world] viewed Cyprus as a stepping-stone to the colonization [and complete takeover] of Palestine [after killing and expelling its people, a people they deny ever existed, a people called "Palestinians"].
(The Ask Project) Will you consider leaving as Iran is retaliating?
We can live safely in Russia's Far East?
SECRET: Israelis and Zionists have bombed and terrorized Jews in other countries to drive them to relocate to the rogue "state" of Israel to be "safe" by perpetuating their self-described "settler colonial project." It worked to terrify Jews and make them believe they have nowhere else to go, so there is no abandoning the project until all the inhabitants of this land are exterminated and it is turned into a secular place that uses religion only when it's convenient to prop up Jewish supremacist views with both explicit and implicit bias.
As Jews in a murderous state, we reject our OTHER homeland the JAO or Jewish Autonomous Oblast (so don't let it get out that that place exists and has existed for almost a century as an option). The mentality of Jewish supremacy is real.
Spanning 3,000 years, from the birth of Minoan Crete to the death of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Rome, a magisterial new history of the ancient world told, for the very first time, through women.
For centuries, men have been writing histories (his story) of antiquity filled with warlords, emperors, and kings. But when it comes to incorporating women, aside from Cleopatra and Boudica, writers have been more comfortable describing mythical heroines than real ones.
While Penelope and Helen of Troy live on in the imagination, their real-life counterparts have been relegated to the margins.
In The Missing Thread, researcher Daisy Dunn inverts this tradition and puts the women of history at the center of the narrative. These pages present Enheduanna, the earliest named author, Telesilla, who defended her city from attack, and the gay poet Sappho.
Here is Artemisia I of Caria, sole female commander in the Graeco-Persian Wars, and Locusta, Rome’s premier toxicologist. Cleopatra may be the more famous, but Fulvia, Mark Antony’s wife in Rome, fought a war on his behalf.
Many other women remain nameless but integral. Through new examination of the sources combined with vivid storytelling, Daisy Dunn shows us the ancient world through fresh eyes and introduces us to an incredible cast of ancient women, weavers of an entire world.
Around 4,000 years ago, the mysterious Minoans sculpted statues of topless women with snakes slithering on their arms. Over 1,000 years later, Sappho wrote great poems of gay longing and desire.
For classicist Daisy Dunn, these women — whether they were simply sitting at their looms knitting at home or participating in the highest echelons of power — were up to something much more interesting than most histories would lead us to believe. Together, these women helped to make antiquity as we know it.
In this monumental work, Dunn reconceives our understanding of the ancient world by emphasizing women's roles within it. The Missing Thread never relegates women to the sidelines. It is populated with well-known names such as Cleopatra and Agrippina, as well as the likes of Achaemenid consort Atossa and Olympias, a force in Macedon.
Spanning 3,000 years, the story moves from Minoan Crete to Mycenaean Greece, from Lesbos to Asia Minor (Anatolia, Turkiye), from the Persian Empire (Achaemenid Empire) to the royal court of Macedonia, and concludes with Rome and its growing empire.
The women of antiquity are undeniably woven throughout the fabric of history (her story), and in The Missing Thread they finally take center stage. More
Scientists discovered world's oldest structure built by extinct species of humans
(FactFile) Aug. 15, 2024: Imagine a world where distant ancestors, living before Homo sapiens (modern "thinking" humans like us), built wooden structures with amazing skill. Believe it or not, scientists in Africa have just found the oldest known wooden building — dating back nearly half a million years.
And that’s just the beginning! Let’s explore ancient wonders from Greece to Japan that change everything we thought we knew about primitive and savage early humans.
Monolithic miracles
Off the coast of Florida, the USA's dangling lingam, lies the Bermuda Triangle. Under the water of this haunted area full of anomalies are shaped stones of an ancient structure that might explain the source of the irregularities and strange disappearances of flying and watercrafts.
Ancient Aliens: Stargates and Dimension Travel Uncovered (S7, E1) | full episode
(HISTORY) June 29, 2024: Legends from around the world speak of sacred entryways to the land of the gods. See more in Season 7, Episode 1, "Aliens and Stargates."
Watch all new episodes of Ancient Aliens, Fridays at 9/8c, and stay up to date on all of your favorite shows on The HISTORY Channel website at history.com/schedule.#AncientAliens
Mandela Effect: Cpt. Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty" in this timeline
Giants of Malta: Evidence the ancient builders are hiding underground
(The Why Files) Premiered May 30, 2024: Malta is an island rich with history and legends with mysterious megalithic structures that have puzzled archeologists for centuries.
These massive stone temples, some of the oldest in the world, seem almost impossible to have been built by prehistoric farmers.
But there's more lurking beneath the surface.
Legends say the Nephilim were the giant beings who constructed these incredible structures, and their descendants may still dwell underground today. WF?investigates the possibility of these giants, examining bones, elongated skulls, and mysterious hidden subterranean chambers called The Hypogeum.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS:
Gino Gentile
Jennifer Gentile
AJ Gentile
Patreon Members
THANKS, MODS:
jengen13 (Mrs. Why Files)
Victoria Young
The Hybrid
Paul Rohrbaugh
Mischief
Timothy Weal
Messor
SnowCrash
RobinSparkles
BeezySmeezy
Pathos
TrashPanda
SmarmyNarwhal
MaryJaneMcweed
AC
Sanzel
Original Jim
Use code THEWHYFILES50 to get 50% OFF first Factor box plus 20% off next month of orders at https://bit.ly/48fuHYB!.
Hecklefish Moriarty, The Why Files, May 30, 2024; Sheldon S., Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
(Metatron)
Let's examine what the ancient sources actually say, without filters or weird agendas.
Were there Black people in Ancient Rome and Greece? How integrated were they? Were there
Black soldiers? Officers? What do the Romans and Greeks themselves actually say?
All materials on this site are submitted by editors and readers. All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain.
In the event that there is still a problem, issue, or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial, and the material will be removed immediately upon presented proof.
Contact us by submitting a comment marked "private."
Do not follow this journal if you are under vinaya or parental restrictions. Secure protection by Sucuri.
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at creativecommons.org/about/licenses.
.jpg)
