JOHANN JOACHIM WINCKELMANN SAINT OF ANTINOUS

ON June 8th the Religion of Antinous commemorates the flamboyantly gay man who is the father of modern archaeology, our own Saint Johann Joachim Winckelmann.

Born in Stendal, Germany, on December 9, 1717, he is called the father of modern archaeology because of his scientific studies of the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy.

He was a student of classical art and his many writings, including the famous History of Ancient Art, are a testament to his adoration of the male form as manifested in Greek and Roman sculpture. He wrote openly about his homosexual relationships as early as 1763, and eventually found employment with Cardinal Allesandro Albani, whose art collection he catalogued.

Winckelmann is among the first to conduct a serious study of the art of Antinous, and to have written openly about the significance of the relationship between Hadrian and Antinous. 

He is also believed to have been part of the first revival of the Religion of Antinous, and Priapus, led in secret by Cardinal Albani.

Winckelmann was murdered in his hotel room in Trieste by a young man with whom he was having a casual love affair, on the 8th of June 1768.

He was stabbed multiple times including repeated wounds to the groin, evidently out of sexual violence.

For his work as a student of the art of Antinous, and as an early believer the Religion of Antinous, and for the violence of his death, Johann Joachim Winckelmann is revered as an Innocent Martyr of the Religion of Antinous, perhaps the most specifically Antinonine of all those who died as a consequence of their desire for beautiful men.

Notice the painting above by Anton Von Maron. Winckelmann sits in a magnificent costume, gazing on an engraving of Antinous and writing his thoughts, as though the painter has distracted him from his meditation ... but we can be be sure that Winckelmann wanted us to know that Antinous was at the forefront of his thoughts.

WE HONOR SAINT ALAN TURING WHO WAS CASTRATED FOR BEING GAY

ON June 7th we remember Alan Turing as a Saint of Antinous ... the scientist who broke the Nazi's Enigma code machine during World War II but who was convicted of sodomy after the war.

The namesake of the A.M. Turing Award, the "Nobel Prize of computing," Turing was castrated in 1952 as part of his punishment.

Having chosen chemical castration over a prison sentence, Turing killed himself on 7 June 1954.

He is credited with breaking the previously unbreakable Nazi code machine called "enigma" during World War II, which many say helped lead to an Allied victory over Germany's Adolf Hitler.

In 2014 he was officially pardoned posthumously by Queen Elizabeth II.

"A pardon from the queen is a fitting tribute to an exceptional man," British Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said in a statement. "Dr. Turing deserves to be remembered and recognized for his fantastic contribution to the war effort and his legacy to science."

Turing was just one of nearly 50,000 men who were sentenced under the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act that made homosexuality a crime. 

IS THIS A MOSAIC OF ANTINOUS?

IS this a mosaic depiction of Antinous? Archaeologists in Italy theorize that this mosaic north of Naples in the volcanic area known as "Campi Flegrei" could depict Antinous.

The mosaic represents what they indicate to be a bust of Antinous as god or genie of the vegetation.

Below that depiction is the image of Amor/Eros carrying a hare, surrounded by a sash with two heart-shaped ends.

In Classical art symbolism, a hare or rabbit was given by a man to another male as a symbol of amorous intent.  Amor/Eros/Cupic served as bunny courier.

The hypothesis of the Italian experts is that this mosaic also represents Antinous sacrificing himself (the hare) for love (Eros and the hearts) for the longevity and good fortune of Hadrian. If so, it would be the absolutely first image of a heart in the "modern" shape we all know.

FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA SAINT OF ANTINOUS

THE religion of Antinous honors St. Federico García Lorca, who was openly gay and who is one of the greatest poets of the Spanish language.

Born June 5th 1898, he was executed by the Fascists on August 19th 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. García Lorca's central themes are love, pride, passion and violent death, which also marked his own life.

The Spanish Civil was just getting underway in August 1936 and García Lorca was seen by the right-wing forces as an enemy. The author hid from the soldiers but he was eventually found.

An eyewitness has told that he was taken out of a Civil Government building by guards and Falangists belonging to the "Black Squad". García Lorca was shot in Granada without trial. The circumstances of his death are still shrouded in mystery. He was buried in a grave that he had been forced top dig for himself. 

According to some sources, he had to be finished off by a coup de grâce. One of his assassins later boasted, that he shot "two bullets into his arse for being a queer".

It was the end of a brilliant career as a poet and dramatist who was also remembered as a painter, pianist and composer.

In the 1920s he was close friends with Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, among many others who later became influential artists in Spain. Despite the accolades from artists and critics, he suffered from bouts of depression brought on largely by his inner conflict about his homosexuality.

He was tortured by the demands of being a celebrity in a homophobic society and the yearnings of his gay soul.

During his lifetime only a handful of close friends were allowed to read the collection of gay poems which would be published many years later as his Sonnets of Dark Love. Here is one of them, entitled Love Sleeps in the Poet's Heart:

You'll never understand my love for you,
because you dream inside me, fast asleep.
I hide you, persecuted though you weep,
from the penetrating steel voice of truth.
Normalcy stirs both flesh and blinding star,
and pierces even my despairing heart.
Confusing reasoning has eaten out
the wings on which your spirit fiercely soared:
onlookers who gather on the garden lawn
await your body and my bitter grief,
their jumping horses made of light, green manes.
But go on sleeping now, my life, my dear.
Hear my smashed blood rebuke their violins!
See how they still must spy on us, so near!

With the Catalan painter Salvador Dalí and the film director Louis Buñuel he worked in different productions.

Dalí and Lorca had met in 1923. From the beginning, Lorca was fascinated by the young Catalan's personality and looks. Also Dalí had admitted that Lorca impressed him deeply.

When Buñuel and Dalí made their famous surrealist short film Un Chien Andalou (1928), García Lorca was offended: he thought that the film was about him.

Lorca's friendship with Dalí inspired a poem, a defense of modern art and at the same time an expression of homosexual love. Dalí dedicated his painting of Saint Sebastian to his friend, who often compared himself to the tortured homoerotic martyr.

"Let us agree," Lorca wrote to Dalí, "that one of man's most beautiful postures is that of St. Sebastian."

"In my 'Saint Sebastian' I remember you," Salvador Dalí replied, ". . . and sometimes I think he IS you. Let's see whether Saint Sebastian turns out to be you."

García Lorca was capable only of a "tragic, passionate relationship," Dalí once wrote — a friendship pierced by the arrows of Saint Sebastian.

The Religion of Antinous honors this great artist who lived and loved tragically and passionately and who died tragically for being gay.

GEORGE CECIL IVES SAINT OF ANTINOUS

WE honor George Cecil Ives as a Saint of Antinous for his pioneering crusade in Victorian England to create a modern "Theban Band ... Army of Lovers" and usher in the age of gay spiritual activism.

He was born on October 1, 1867 in England. He died June 4, 1950. While in London, in 1892, a gentleman by the name of Lord Alfred Douglas encouraged him to join "The Cause", which was an early British movement to bring an end to homosexual persecution. 

Ives was a friend of Oscar Wilde and attempted to enlist him, but was unsuccessful.

In 1897, believing that "The Cause" could not be openly discussed due to the extreme moral restriction of his age, Ives decided to go underground and founded the Order of Chaeronea, which was a secret society for homosexuals.

The name and spirit of the order was taken from the battle in which the Sacred Band of Thebes, the corps of 300 pairs of gay lovers, was defeated by Alexander and Phillip at the Battle of Chaeronea. The 300 had to be annihilated by Alexander because they refused to surrender.

Taking this "Army of Lovers" as their model for courage in the face of oppression, the Order of Chaeronea organized powerful and wealthy homosexuals who were otherwise unable to meet in public, into a secret political and spiritual force.

Saint George Cecil Ives, the guiding light of this first religious organization devoted to the sacredness of homosexuality, worked closely with other prominent homosexuals of the time such as Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld and Edward Carpenter, both of whom are Blessed Saints of Antinous.

In his voluminous writings, George Cecil Ives refers to Walt Whitman (another Antinoian Saint) as "The Prophet" and used lines from Whitman's poetry in the ritual and ceremony of the Order of Chaeronea.

He is numbered as one of the Uranian poets, and referred to Antinous as a symbol of male beauty and perfection.

For his effort to undermine the oppression of homosexuals, for the holiness and sanctity upon which he upheld our sexuality, and for calling out to our beloved Antinous, we thank Saint George Cecil Ives, and pray to him to aid us in the continuation of his divinely inspired work. He died on this day in 1950.

WE HONOR SOCRATES AS A SAINT OF ANTINOUS

ON June 4th the Religion of Antinous honors Saint Socrates ... the most Divine and gentlest of all Philosophers was born on this day in 469. He was the son of the sculptor Sophroniscus, an artist, whose profession Socrates attempted during his youth.

The artist's love of beauty was to be the foremost drive of his life. The fortune that his father's art left gave the young Socrates the independence to begin a life spent in the adoration and service of wisdom.

He was told that the Oracle of Delphi had pronounced that there was no man wiser than he, but because he felt that he was the greatest fool, he spent his life trying to disprove the Oracle by questioning the most purportedly wise men only to discover that those who professed wisdom were the least possessed of it.

His method of inquiry was the birth of human science because he found that those who understood virtue would naturally follow in its ways, while those who were ignorant of virtue would proceed without its benefit. 

He proclaimed that "the proper study of mankind is man," and his philosophy centered on temperance, piety, duty to parents, brotherly love, fidelity in friendship, and diligence.

He was an admirer of male, youthful beauty, and devoted his life towards the awakening of virtue in the hearts of young men. 

For this, in the year 400 B.C. he was put on trial by the many enemies he had made in the ruling classes of the city of Athens and condemned with these words: "Socrates is guilty of crime; first, for not worshipping the gods whom the city worships, and for introducing new divinities of his own; next for corrupting the youth. The penalty due is death."

He was sentenced to drink poison, which he readily accepted, dying as a virtuous martyr, for homosexuality and for human social consciousness. (Image: "Death of Socrates" by Roger Payne)

Though he never wrote a word, he is remembered through the writings of his student, Plato, whose legacy eclipsed that of Socrates, though it was delivered and upheld as the very words of Plato's master, the Divine Philosopher Socrates, who was said by Cicero to have bright the love of wisdom down from the heavens to mankind.

ALLEN GINSBERG SAINT OF ANTINOUS

ON JUNE 3rd the Religion of Antinous honors Saint Allen Ginsberg who was born on this day. 

St. Allen Ginsberg was an early proponent of freedom for men who loved other men, having already in 1943 discovered within himself "mountains of homosexuality." 

He expressed this desire openly and graphically in his poetry.He also struck a note for gay marriage by listing Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong companion, as his spouse in his Who's Who entry.

Later homosexual writers saw his frank talk about homosexuality as an opening to speak more openly and honestly about something often before only hinted at or spoken of in metaphor.

Also, in writing about sexuality in graphic detail and in his frequent use of language seen as indecent he challenged — and ultimately changed — obscenity laws.

We consecrate Irwin Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926 — April 5, 1997) as a Blessed Saint and Exemplar of Antinous for attacking what he saw as the destructive forces of materialism and conformity in modern society.