ANTINOUS IN THEBES

IN Mid-January the Religion of Antinous remembers the arrival of Hadrian and Antinous in the Greek city of Thebes, which is the sacred city of Dionysus ... they were present for the Bacchanalia.

Flamen Antinoalis ANTONIUS SUBIA explains:

"This occasion is sacred as a commemoration of the death of Pentheus, and it is here that Antinous is initiated into the Mysteries of Dionysus.

"Thebes was the first city to which Dionysus brought his blessings in Greece. Only the wise and the foolish were able to comprehend and believe in his power, those who were level-headed rejected him and were driven mad and utterly destroyed.

"So it is with the religion of Anti-Nous, who is contrary to the Mind.

"The initiation into the mysteries of Dionysus, that Antinous received, was in preparation for his departure from the ordered sphere of our cosmos, into the chaos of the dark abyss. We must cast ourselves into the void where Antinous dwells by the side of Dionysus, the stranger-god."