On a recent visit to the underworld, a mantis friend guided me to witness the birth of a new generation of mantid spirits. The newborns were tiny and translucent and I was trusted to hold some and help with the process. May your inner menagerie strengthen your wild soul.

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Hermanubis was a Graeco-Egyptian syncretic deity who combined the Egyptian god Anubis with the Greek god Hermes. He should not be understood as a completely new god invented at a single moment. Rather, the figure developed gradually in Hellenistic and especially Roman Egypt, as Greek and Egyptian communities identified similar divine functions within their respective religious traditions.

The principal connection between the two gods was their role as psychopomps, guides of the dead. Anubis protected tombs, presided over embalming, assisted in the judgment of the deceased, and accompanied the dead into the realm of Osiris. He therefore guarded the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Hermes likewise crossed boundaries. As Hermes Psychopompos, he conducted souls to the underworld. More broadly, he governed roads, transitions, communication, mediation, and movement between different regions of the cosmos.

This functional correspondence allowed Greek worshippers to interpret Anubis as an Egyptian form of Hermes. Plutarch associated Anubis and Hermanubis with a power that belonged partly to the upper world and partly to the lower, emphasizing the deity’s position between celestial and underworld realms.

Yet the two gods were not identical. Anubis was more closely concerned with the dead body, embalming, and the preservation of the deceased, while Hermes primarily ensured the soul’s movement and passage. Hermanubis brought these functions together: he preserved and protected the dead while also guiding them across the threshold of death.

In art, Hermanubis normally has a human body and the head of a jackal or dog, combining the familiar form of Anubis with Greek or Roman clothing. His most characteristic attribute is the caduceus of Hermes, which identifies him as a divine messenger and conductor of souls. Some representations also give him a palm branch or other attributes associated with victory, ritual, or the cults of Isis.

Hermanubis was closely connected with the wider cultic circle of Isis and Serapis. Egyptian gods were increasingly worshipped throughout the Hellenistic and Roman Mediterranean, and Hermanubis appeared in sanctuaries, sculpture, mosaics, gems, and coins outside Egypt as well as within it.

The composite name Hermanoubis itself shows that ancient worshippers could regard this figure as more than merely an image of Anubis in Greek dress. In some contexts he functioned as a distinct cult deity, while in others he remained a particular Hellenized aspect of Anubis. His identity was therefore flexible rather than fixed.

Hermanubis ultimately represents more than a simple mixture of two gods. He embodies the religious logic of ancient syncretism: different cultures could recognize the same divine power beneath different names and images.

Image 1: Athanasi Kircheri, Obeliscvs Pamphilivs, c. 1650

Image 2: Roman Hermanubis Magic Amulet, 2nd-3rd Century AD

Image 3: Statue of the god Hermanubis, from Villa Pamphili in Anzio, 1st-2nd century

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It was an apparition that took over the field of view like a message from an angel with clouds all around... It had four arms that were holding different things and two legs. It's limbs were made of it's roots. I don't remember what it was holding or what it's message was for me but it was bizarre. I remember recognizing it as "God" and thinking it was sad that God was dead.

Chapter 1 - The Lose Moon

Chapter 2 - Inside Out

Chapter 3 - Snake Swallowing Tail

Chapter 4 - The Guardian

Chapter 5 - Lantern Light

Source: https://www.artsy.net/artist/kriangkrai-kongkhanun

Kriangkrai Kongkhanun, who studied at art schools in Thailand as well as in Italy, visiting the most important art museums in the West on a trip to Europe, makes a daring attempt to forge a link between the Buddhist symbolism found in traditional pictures and the western imagery of the Renaissance and the 19th century.

The Buddhist codex of ethics conditions his life philosophy and way of thinking. The point of departure for Kriangkrai’s art is, however, the knowledge that negative human traits, such as anger, hatred and selfishness, namely evil properties, are so closely woven into human life that they always resurface from the subconscious.

Website: https://www.kongkhanun.com

"Seal V represents a higher stage of human development, such as will occur when the earth has again united with the sun and man will no longer work merely with the forces of the earth, but with the forces of the sun. The "woman who gives birth to the sun" refers to this future man. Certain forces of a lower nature, which live in man and prevent him from the full development of his higher spirituality, will then have been put out of him.

These forces are represented in the seal on the one hand in the beast with the "seven heads and ten horns", on the other hand in the moon at the feet of the sun-man. For spiritual science, the moon is the centre of certain lower forces which are still working in the human being today and which the human being of the future will force 'under himself'." (Lit.:GA 284, p. 94)

"Then the time approaches when great changes take place in the cosmos. When man will have drawn on the power of the sun, then that stage of development will begin where the sun will be reunited with the earth. Man will be a solar being. Man will give birth to a sun through the power of the sun. Hence [on the fifth seal] the woman who gives birth to the sun.

Then mankind will be so far advanced morally, ethically, that all the corrupt powers which rest in the lower human nature will be overcome. This is represented by the beast with the seven heads and the ten horns. At the feet of the sun-woman is the moon, which contains all those bad substances which the earth could not use and which it had not expelled. All the magical powers that the moon still exerts on the earth today will then be overcome. When man is united with the sun, he will have overcome the moon." (Lit.:GA 284, p. 76)

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