Olga the Varangian

A Varangian reenactment in 2019. Image source: Silar

In the 10th century Olga was married to Igor, Prince of the Rus, who at this time were Pagan. The origin of the Rus is disputed, though the most widely accepted view is that the Rus rulers were originally Scandinavians (mostly from eastern Sweden), also known as Varangians, who came to rule over Slavs in what is now NW Russia, and then over generations interbred and assimilated so as to became fully Slavic. The first Rus ruler, in the 9th century CE, was Prince Rurik, who was succeeded by his kinsman Oleg, who conquered Kiev in 882 CE, as well as much other territory. Oleg attacked Constantinople in 907, forcing the Byzantines to sue for peace in exchange for payment of a large sum. In 911 Oleg negotiated a favourable trade agreement with Constantinople, but died shortly after.

Oleg was succeeded by Igor in 912, who expanded Rus rule over the Pechenegs (a Turkic people) and the Drevlians (a Slavic people), and led expeditions against the Byzantines in the 940s, which failed due to the destruction of his ships by legendary “Greek fire”. Olga gave birth to Igor’s son Sviatoslav around this time. Igor was murdered by the Drevlians in 945, while collecting tribute. At this time Sviatoslav, Igor’s heir, was very young.

Antinous

Antinous as Aristaeus (2nd century)

Antinous was a beautiful young man from what is now NW Turkey who was deified by Emperor Hadrian after he drowned in the River Nile in 130 CE. He was aged around 20 at the time of his death, which some believed was an act of sacred self-sacrifice. Temples of Antinous were erected and his cult was popular, as evidenced by numerous sculptures, gems, and coins depicting him from the Roman period. A city in Egypt was founded in his honour shortly after his death, Antinoöpolis, where the citizens were considered Greek, though they were permitted to marry Egyptian women. Antinoöpolis was important enough to have Bishops assigned to it in the 4th century. The city survived until the 8th century and its ruins were grand enough to still be visible until the early 19th century.

It is unclear what we may regard as Antinous’ domain. As the probable lover of Hadrian he may be regarded as a God of youthful masculine beauty and sexual allure, if not male homosexuality, but homosexuality cannot have been his sole domain, as a 3rd or 4th century spell from Roman Egypt invokes Antinous and asks him to:

Death from a Roman Perspective

Mercury by Caraglio (1526)

Ancient Romans tended towards to a wide array of afterlife possibilities, as to which see Roman Beliefs Regarding the Afterlife. For an exploration of the major Roman deities of death see Dis Pater and Proserpina, Hecate in the Roman Tradition – Trivia of the Crossroads and The Nature of Mercury. Localised deities of death include:

• Benevolent spirits The Di Manes are protecting, or at least friendly, spirits of the dead. Suitable offerings to Di Manes include salted grain/wheat, bread/wheat soaked in wine and violets, incense and wine. Some Di Manes may be ancestral spirits, in which case they may be known as Di Parentes and worshipped as such. Alternately, offerings for their well being in the after-life may be made. “The Roman house itself was the centre of family and private religion. In richer and middle-ranking houses a common feature was a shrine of the household gods – now conventionally known as a lararium … these shrines contained paintings or statuettes of household gods and other deities; they might also include (in a wealthier house) commemoration of the family’s ancestors”: Beard et al at 4.12. Between 13 February and 21 February ancient Romans traditionally honoured their dead, especially the ancestral dead; this was the Parentalia. On the final day ritual offerings were made at family tombs. See Ovid’s Fasti, especially the entry for 21 February, for more. Ancestor veneration can extend to Gods as well, for example, the family of the Julii claimed divine descent from Venus and so worshipped her as a divine ancestor.

Roman Pagan Beliefs

Fresco of Diana (image by Mentnafunangann)

The massive historical and cultural imprint that Rome has on Europe means that Roman history and culture is familiar to most Westerners and so the Roman way to the Gods is a language that is easily understood. Often it is said that Roman polytheism is based on what you do, and not on what you believe, but obviously no-one would practice unless they were at least open-minded as to certain beliefs. In Roman polytheism there are no commandments prescribing the morals by which you must live, there is no holy text in which you must believe, and there is no institution that can claim to represent the Roman Gods. Rather, Roman polytheists work towards a state of Pax Deorum (peace with the Gods), meaning a harmonious relationship with the Gods and the universe at large. Certain perspectives tend to be associated with Roman polytheism, including:

• Appreciating that ancient Romans had a completely different conception of the cosmos (by which I mean the earth, the sun and the stars) which necessarily influenced their spiritual ideas. Many ancient Romans believed that space was composed of aether where Gods lived, and that Earth was fundamentally lower in the hierarchy of the cosmos. This lent itself to ideas about the inferiority of the material realm and a spiritual orientation that was vertical. For more on this see Greco-Roman Cosmos.

Major Roman Deities

Bust of Antinous (image by Nguyen)

A more complete list is available at A Long List of Deities.

Aesculapius

The domain of Aesculapius is that of healing medicine. Suitable offerings likely include replicas of the part of the body healed, incense and wine. For more see Aesculapius – God of Medicine.

Antinous

The domain of Antinous is that of youthful masculine beauty and sexual allure. Suitable offerings include incense and wine, and wearing white may be optimal. For more see Antinous.

Apollo

The domain of Apollo is light, healing (and disease), music (especially stringed instruments), poetry, archery and prophecy. Suitable offerings include laurel, traditional Roman cakes / pastries (especially in nines), incense and wine. For more see Apollo – God of Healing, Music and the Sun and The Hyperboreans and Apollo.

The Other Website is Gone Now

I've managed to get myself locked out of the sister website I set up at romanpagan.wordpress.com. After nearly a week of trying to get back in it looks unlikely that I will be able to restore my access, so I asked the WordPress team to make the site private (this is the most control they would allow me to exercise) in light of the some of the content there being personal in nature. While that site mostly just copied and repackaged content from this blog, some of the content did not appear here. I have copies of most of that material on my computer and will turn them into posts on this blog very soon. 

So if you are wondering what happened to that website this is the story.

The advantage of the WordPress site was it had great drop-down menus to enable quick navigation of content. Please check out the Labels / Index of this Blog on the left-hand side of the screen if you want to navigate through content in a similarly thematic manner.

'The Three Fates' by Rothaug (circa 1910)

Written by M' Sentia Figula (aka Freki), find me at neo polytheist

The Teenage Years of a Gen Z Male

A picture of my young cat

I just really needed to get this off my chest …

First year of high school

Hoping to keep my son (let’s pretend his name is Rasmus) amongst friends in the local area I went against my better instincts and enrolled him in the local government high school when the time came. Had my husband (Rasmus’ father) still been alive I think he would have made a better decision, but he was dead, we were grieving, and I wanted as little upheaval in Rasmus’ life as possible. This is one of my greatest regrets in life. The first year seemed to be fine. Though his grades were average, Rasmus had plenty of friends and the school was close by. I remember on his first day of school a very tall, somewhat overweight, Aboriginal girl looking at him with moonlit eyes. Later Rasmus told me she walked home from school with him every day – even though it was not on her way.

Blood-brothers

In the second year of high school everything started to go wrong. Rasmus’ grades dropped, he started wagging, some of his teachers told me they thought he was very bright but that he didn’t apply himself. He had a new best friend, another boy who, like him, had lost a parent and was part Scandinavian, part Brit – let’s pretend his name was Erik. Erik and Rasmus became like brothers for a few years. I liked Erik very much, and obviously I sympathised with him deeply. He had a low level rage about him that channeled itself in rebelliousness. I always had the feeling he would be the most normal boy in the world if he could just get a hug from his mum, but she was dead, and so the low level rage smouldered. One day he was pulled into the principal’s office and apparently he slammed the door in her face. She wasn’t injured, but she was a very short feminist and so she interpreted this as an act of violence. Erik was an overgrown child, he was well built for his age, he didn’t know his own strength yet (because it was so newly acquired), but the short feminist didn’t care about that. Personally, I never experienced any behaviour problems with Erik, but he knew I was on his side. I’m sure he could sense not only my goodwill but also my affection. He got none of that from the principal. She kicked him out of the school and Erik was never able to go to a normal school again. He spent the next few years in a school for boys with behavioural issues because no other school would take him. Erik’s dad moved to the other side of Sydney around this time and so this tight friendship gradually loosened and Rasmus lost his greatest ally at school.

Hell in Buddhism

Hell Courtesan by Kawanabe (1870s)

In Buddhism the lowest and most miserable form of existence is hell (naraka). Most living beings are susceptible to repeated visits to hell, unless they are ascendant Buddhists who have attained the state of non-regression (avaivartika).

Getting to Hell

In Theravada / Nikaya Buddhism it is taught that beings experience hell as a karmic consequence of wrong conduct, which have their origin in wrong views:

“Just as, when a seed of neem, bitter cucumber, or bitter gourd is planted in moist soil, it transforms any nutrient it obtains from the soil and the water into a fruit with a bitter, harsh and disagreeable taste, even so is it for a person of wrong view. For what reason? Because the view is bad [Bodhi at 214-15].”

Views that are particularly wrong include not believing in karma, not believing in rebirth, and not believing there are good and virtuous people “who have themselves realised by direct knowledge and declare this world and the other world” (Bodhi at 158).

What is Enlightenment?

Drawing on a Bodhi Tree Leaf (18th century)

When I first embraced Buddhism I, like many Westerners, read a bunch of books which were mostly of the Theravada tradition. After years of dipping my toe in that tradition (and finding I really didn’t like mindfulness meditation terribly much) I gradually moved over to Mahayana Buddhism. It was the practices of Mahayana that drew me in (chanting mantras), and then the community which I found myself pulled into. I read Mahayana literature as I transitioned but I did not entirely understand how fundamentally different the Theravada and Mahayana perspective on enlightenment was until relatively recently. Still less so did I understand the differing views amongst the Mahayana schools. I had an idea in my head that Mahayana Buddhists essentially have the same view of nirvana as the Theravada, with the difference being that Mahayana Buddhists seek to delay their own enlightenment so they can bring other beings to enlightenment, ie, to be a Bodhisattva. My understanding was not wrong, but it was shallow and confused.

Bodhisattva literally means “enlightened being”. It is the ninth realm within the context of the ten realms of reality.* It is a state characterised by compassion but I have found that the goal of living compassionately can be a little frustrating. Compassion for compassion’s sake lacks focus, and for an introvert such as myself it does not come easy. I need a loftier goal, or a purpose around which compassion can orient itself. That goal is Buddhahood – the tenth and ultimate state.

Buddhahood is a state in which the true aspect of all phenomena, or the true nature of life, is realised. Reality is perceived, ultimate truth is understood.

Gluten Free Restaurants and Cafes in Sydney

I've been tracking gluten free restaurants in Sydney for years and the list on my phone is now so long I thought I may as well publish it online. 

A Rainbow Lorikeet (by Sardaka)

Sydney, Inner City

Wholegreen Bakery Cafe (Australian)

257 Clarence Street, Sydney 
Mon-Sat: 8am-3pm; Sun: closed (totally GF)

The Rocks Cafe (Australian)

99 George St, The Rocks

Mon-Sat: 7.30am-9pm; Sun: 7.30am-5pm

Loftus Lane Cafe (Australian)

Shop 3, 38-42 Bridge St, Circular Quay

Mon-Fri: 6.30am-3pm; Sat-Sun: 8am-3pm

Eastbank Cafe (Australian)

61-69 Macquarie St, Circular Quay

Mon-Sun: 11am until late

Opera Bar (Australian)

Sydney Opera House, Lower Concourse, Sydney

Sun-Thurs: 11am-12am; Fri-Sat: 11am-12.30am

My Christian Larp

A sculpture outside St James' King Street, Sydney

In 2024 I developed an interest in Christianity (which I wrote about here). I read the Gospels three times. I read the rest of the New Testament once. I listened to a bunch of podcasts. I studied a bunch of websites. I read a couple of books. I bought some icons (of St Mary and St Olga) and tried praying in front of them. By 2025, after visiting a bunch of Orthodox churches and finding each of them focused strongly on specific cultural groups (Russian, Greek, Assyrian, etc), I developed the view that I should look into Anglo-Catholicism, which is a movement within the Anglican communion which emphasises a return to catholic practices and theology sans the Pope. The main draw card was ethno-cultural. It seemed to me that most churches revolve around ethnic identity so Anglicanism looked like a good fit. The experiment didn’t go well and perhaps I really should have known better, not least because when my interest in Anglo-Catholicism started I had a highly unusual dream wherein the Virgin Mary spoke to me and she said just one thing: “the Anglican church is a desert”.

Visiting Anglo-Catholic Churches in Sydney

Sydney has half a dozen or so churches that align with Anglo-Catholicism (at least that is my understanding). I visited most of them and my experiences were as follows:

The Logos According to the Gospels

A page from a medieval Bible: Johnbod

Until not long ago I thought I knew Christianity and had thoughtfully rejected it, then my podcast addiction led me to bump into information that suggested I knew nothing but shadows on a wall when it came to this important and complex religion. Because I regard myself as a truth seeker, and truly open-minded, for some months now I have been trying to unlearn my prior suppositions and learn what this religion actually is. An obvious starting point is the Gospels. I have relied on two translations, one is the New King James Version (NKJV) and the other is the Eastern Orthodox Bible (EOB). They are each translated from slightly different original manuscripts – the NKJV mostly derives from Greek manuscripts that were available in north-western Europe in the early 16th century, whereas the EOB is translated from different Greek manuscripts held in libraries in south-eastern Europe. In this post all of the quotes are from the text of the EOB.

The transitory world of men versus eternal life

A prominent theme in the Gospels is the juxtaposition between the everchanging worldly realm of men, of which death is an aspect, and that of God’s (Matt 16:23), which is associated with eternal life. The earthly realm is transitory (Luke 21:33), full of many distractions that are both pleasurable and unpleasurable (Luke 21:34), and it contains much evil (John 7:7). Whereas the realm of God has “many mansions” (John 14:2) but it “is not of this world” (John 18:36), even though it “is within you”, but it cannot be seen (Luke 17:21). Jesus explains (after exorcising a man) that it “is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12:28), which suggests the kingdom is a state of being that can be experienced in this life. This experience starts as something small (like a mustard seed) but if the seed grows within the fertile soil of a human heart it (allegorically) “becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and find shelter in its branches” (Matt 13:32).

Note that “kingdom of God” is not a literal translation from the original Greek. According to the EOB a more literal translation is “rule of God”, “ruling power of God” or “reign of God” (at xvi). This connotes an experience of God’s power, whereas “kingdom” is more suggestive of a physical place that is elsewhere.

Ancient Roman Christians

Christian beliefs and practices in the 2nd and 3rd centuries

Icon of Mary, Rome (6th century or earlier)
Image source: Asia

Given that I have a good understanding of the religious landscape in ancient Rome it seems fitting to look at Christianity during this era. Many contemporary analyses of this kind focuses heavily on the New Testament, with a particular focus on 1st century Christians. As there is nothing I can add to the discussion on 1st century Christians I am instead starting in the 2nd century, with a focus on this nascent religion as it was before it became a major political force in the 4th century CE.

“Within a short time after Christ’s death [certainly by the 2nd century], Christianity became identified as a cult quite separate and distinct from Judaism. Non-Jewish converts often brought to the new cult ideas and rhetoric from their former religions or philosophies [especially Stoicism and Neo-Platonism] … Christianity … was a cult that attracted large numbers of lower-class people and encouraged them to participate in … emotionalism ... [and] private assembly ... [Shelton at 407-409]”

In the early 2nd century a Roman governor wrote to Trajan (ruled 98-117 CE) about the measures he was taking in relation to adherents of the new religion:

Protestant Christianity Versus Christianity

Destruction of "Idols" by Protestants (1524)

I have found myself in an awkward spiritual spot. Years ago I thoughtfully rejected Christianity – I even wrote a blogpost in 2013 about my reasons why. But lately a trinity of events have occurred such that I feel compelled to reconsider my position.

First, a good friend persuaded me to look at a particular window at St Mary’s Cathedral (Sydney) for the aesthetics. It showed Mary on a crescent moon with a halo of stars. It was beautiful and as I looked at it I had a strange sense of a medieval and mystical version of Christianity, and a thought “what a shame this type of Christianity no longer exists”.

Second, my approach to religion subtly shifted over a period of many months until I arrived at a position where I was starting to think maybe God exists in some great cosmic sense, and that the Gohonzon (the sacred mandala of Nichiren Buddhism, which I have been venerating for a number of years) is a portrait of God, and that (at least some of) the benevolent Gods might be God’s helpers.

Third, I listened to a podcast on Martin Luther and had a thunderstruck moment when I realised that the religion I had so thoughtfully rejected a long time ago was perhaps not Christianity but something rather more specific – Protestant Christianity, which is quite honestly just the predominant Germanic take on Christianity from the early modern period onwards. In my mind Protestantism was Christianity and vice versa, simply because I didn’t know any other type. The Christianity I thought I knew was rather uninteresting and uninspiring so it never occurred to me to explore any variations of it. Nearly 500 years of Protestant ancestry had taught me to look somewhat askance at Roman Catholicism, thus I tended to avoid it. My very limited encounters with Orthodox Christianity suggested it was a religion inextricably tied up with ethnic and cultural identities that had nothing to do with me, so I never thought about it, other than to admire the aesthetic. I did not even know there was a church further to the east than Lebanon until a few months ago, such was my general disinterest in Christianity.

The notions I had thought were synonymous with Christianity but are actually features of Protestantism (mostly inspired by Martin Luther and then John Calvin) include:

Northern European Food Curse – Salicylate Sensitivity

"Kitchen Scene" by van Rijck (17th century)

There is a well-known trope about British people having the runs after a night eating curry. One of the reasons for this, at least for some, is salicylate sensitivity – a heritable food intolerance that many people know nothing about, though it is estimated to affect perhaps around 2.5% of Europeans. An allergy specialist I saw years ago described the phenomenon as “edge of the world syndrome”, she told me that on some days every person in her waiting room with food sensitivities was red-haired, and explained that many people with northern European ancestry are today eating a diet that is utterly alien to that of their ancestors. Basically, northern Europeans adapted to eating a diet that was, for the most part, naturally low in salicylates. In so doing some of them lost the ability to efficiently metabolise the higher amounts of salicylates naturally found in the skin of most fruit, herbs and spices (as well as many vegetables) found further south on the globe – foods that are becoming increasingly common in modern Western diets. Today, many people put up with the symptoms of salicylate sensitivity because the symptoms are either mild enough to ignore or because they don’t understand the root cause of troubling health issues. 

The Hyperboreans and Their Connection with Apollo

Apple Tree in Blossom by Larsson (before 1919)

In the 5th century BCE Herodotus wrote of the Hyperboreans, a word which literally means “over Boreas”. Boreas is the Hellenic God of the north wind, sometimes conceived of as living in Thrace, which is more or less the land we now call Bulgaria. Herodotus described the Hyperboreans thus:

“A man of Proconnesus [a Greek town in modern day NW Turkey], one Aristeas … came to the Issedones [ancient people who lived in central Asia] and, being inspired by Apollo, wrote a poem in which he declared that above the Issedones there lived a tribe of Arimaspians, being men with one eye, and, above these, the griffins [birds sacred to Apollo] that guard the gold, and, above these, the Hyperboreans, whose land reaches to the sea. All of these people, beginning with the Arimaspians and excepting only the Hyperboreans, continually make war upon their neighbours. The Issedones, say Aristeas, were thrust out of their lands by the Arimaspians, the Scythians [ancient people who lived in and around Crimea] by the Issedones, and the Cimmerians [ancient people who lived north of the Caucasus], living by the southern sea, being hard pressed by the Scythians, also left their country …

Demons in Buddhism

Demon Priest by Tawanabe Kyosai (1864)

I have been a little obsessed with demons for a while now, mostly in terms of wanting to understand their fundamental nature. I strongly suspect that many of the deities we call demons are actually deities of rival pantheons, and the process of “demonisation” is designed to strengthen the legitimacy of one religion over another. It may even be that some neglected deities become wrathful and seemingly demonic (while others leave desecrated locations or just lose interest in humans). I tend towards believing in voluminous polytheism, by which I mean there are many types of deities, and some of them really are demonic, as conventionally understood.

I recently watched a horror movie called “Incantation” (original title: “Zhou”) – I didn’t enjoy it but was genuinely spun out by it afterwards and thought about it for weeks. The effectiveness of the film was that it used Buddhist themes and turned them upside down, so that instead of Buddhist practice and iconography being benevolent (which is what I have associated with Buddhism my whole life – I was raised as a Buddhist) it delved into the world of curses and demonology. When I sat before the Mandala on my shrine to do some chanting I was reminded that demons are depicted on it – in particular Mara, Hariti and the Ten Demon Daughters. The reason for this is that the Mandala represents the universe in its entirety. I have also heard it said that the Mandala I pray before (called the Gohonzon) is a mirror – and a mirror does not show you only the things you want to see, but everything in you, including the potentiality to become demonic.

Venus and the Path

"Choosing the Rose" by Portaels (1860s)

Any spiritual tradition that venerates motherhood is operating in accord with the regenerative aspect of nature. When we look at the most prominent Gods of ancient Rome we see what aspects of nature they revered most: Venus and Mars – thus love, fertility and virility (Mars is not only a God of war but also agriculture). To get these very fundamental things right is to light the path to success, though it’s clearly a path on which many descendants of Europa have lost their way. It is not so much that we are not sexually active but that too few of us are in long term relationships.* This not ideal, as a tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses demonstrates:

“The Propoetides – fools who denied Venus divinity – she stripped off their good names and their undergarments, and made them whores. As those women hardened .... their features hardened like their hearts. Soon they shrank to the ... heartless, treacherous hardness of sharp shards of flint.

The Heimdall Caste System in Germanic Polytheism

"Heimdall returns Freyja's necklace" (1846) by Nils Blommer

In the Rigsthula what appears to be a Germanic caste system is described:

• The caste of Nobles (aristocracy, military leaders and shamans) – their skin is pale, their fingers are long, their hair is blonde, their eyes are piercing, they are wise, understand the language of birds, know the runes, and the spells associated with them; the men are skilled at using weapons, horse-riding, hunting, swimming and war – causing them to own large estates and treasure, with which they are generous; couples love each other deeply and their children have names such as Noble, Kinsman, Heir and King.
• The caste of Freemen (landholding farmers, artisans and soldiers) – they are skilled and industrious workers, eg, the men are skilled at wood carving, working the plough, and building wagons, barns and homes, while the women engage in wool-spinning and weaving; their hair is tidy and they wear nicely tailored clothes; they are married (they've “exchanged rings”) and their children are described as red-haired and keen-eyed; their sons have names like Manly, Brave, Swordsman, Soldier, Smith, Farmer and Trim-beard, while their daughters have names such as Sensible, Smart, Swan, Lady, Shy and Vivacious.

Interpreting the Gohonzon (Buddhist Object of Veneration)

The object of veneration in Nichiren Buddhism is the Gohonzon, a sacred mandala which practitioners are encouraged to chant in front of twice a day. Nichiren Buddhism originated in Japan in the 13th century and is now practised worldwide, particularly (when outside of Japan) by members of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI). Members of the SGI receive a Gohonzon when they join the organisation. They then enshrine the Gohonzon in a Butsudan (a small cabinet for housing sacred objects) in their homes.

The images on the Gohonzon consist of beautiful Chinese-Japanese calligraphy representing many things, including important deities. Most of the Gods on the Gohonzon refer to ancient Indian Gods, thus in attempting to understand the nature of these deities I have looked to their Roman equivalents. Given that these deities have a shared Indo-European origin this approach seems suitably viable. Using the interpretatio Romana the major deities represented include Dis Pater (top left), Neptune (top right), Venus / Cupid (centre left), Aurora, Diana, Jupiter, Apollo, (middle centre), Vulcan (centre right), Juno (just below the middle), Ceres (lower left), Mars (left of the lower middle), and Mercury (lower right).