EXPERTS DECIPHER MAGICAL SPELL BOOK FOUND NEAR ANTINOOPOLIS IN EGYPT

AN ancient Egyptian handbook containing magic spells in use in or near Antinoopolis has been deciphered by Australian scientists.

The Handbook of Ritual Power – as named by the researchers – explains how to cast love spells, exorcise evil spirits and treat 'black jaundice', a fatal infection still present today.

According to Live Science, the text is written in Coptic and the book is made of bound parchmentpapers. It is about 1,300 years old and was first acquired by Macquarie University in 1981 from antiques dealer Michael Fackelmann.

However, where Fackelmann first got the handbook from is unknown.

"The dialect suggests an origin in Upper Egypt, perhaps in the vicinity of Ashmunein/Hermopolis," which is directly across the Nile from Antinoopolis, researchers Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner wrote in their book A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power.

Antinoopolis was always a place of "magic, sorcery and strange religious fervor " according to Royston Lambert in his authoritative book about Antinous, BELOVED AND GOD. 

We know that the priests of Antinous wrote a LOVE SPELL. Lambert notes that even to this day local villagers believe the place to be haunted.

The ancient Egyptian magic spell book starts with a long series of invocations, annotated with drawings and "words of power", they say.

"These are followed by a number of prescriptions or spells to cure possession by spirits and various ailments, or to bring success in love and business."

The book, which is 20 pages long, includes a spell about how to control someone. To do this, people must say a magical formula over two nails, then drive them into his doorstop: "One on the right side (and) one on the left."

At the time the book was written, Egyptians had become Christians and it contains several references to Jesus. However, there are also mentions of the Sethians – a group that held the third son of Adam and Eve (Seth) in high regard.

Church leaders thought Sethians to be heretics and by the time the book was written, they had been all but wiped out.

The authors believe the handbook could be a transitional text created before all the Sethian spells had been purged. They told LiveScience they believe the spells were originally from separate books, but were later combined to create a "single instrument of ritual power".

Discussing who might have used the book, Choat said: "It is my sense that there were ritual practitioners outside the ranks of the clergy and monks, but exactly who they were is shielded from us by the fact that people didn't really want to be labeled as a 'magician'."

ANTINOUS STRODE THROUGH THIS ARCH NOW BLOWN UP BY DAESH BARBARIANS

DAESH Islamic State barbarians have blown up the triumphal arch in Palmyra ... through which Emperor Hadrian and Antinous entered this fabled "Garden City" in 129 AD.

The Arch of Triumph was "pulverised" by the militants who control the city, a Palmyra activist told AFP news agency.

When Antinous saw Palmyra in ancient times, this arch was the formal entryway into the oasis city which was one of the most wondrous marvels of Ancient Syria.

He arrived with Hadrian to be initiated into Mithras Mysteries 1,900 years ago and most certainly entered the city through this arch.

Palmyra was called the "Garden City of the Sands" and scientists say it was TERRA-FARMED to create a lush green oasis of life and civilization in the midst of the desert.

Islamic State fighters have already destroyed two ancient temples at the site, described by Unesco as one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world.

"The Arch of Triumph was pulverized. IS has destroyed it," Mohammad Hassan al-Homsi, an activist from Palmyra, told AFP on Monday. 

Just weeks ago DAESH blew up the BAALSHAMIN Temple in Palmyra. The photo at right shows how impressive even its ruins were prior to its being blown to bits by DAESH.

We know Antinous & Hadrian saw it because Hadrian decreed a vast expansion of the temple.

News of the destruction of the temple comes after relatives and witnesses said Wednesday that Khaled Asaad, an 81-year-old antiquities scholar who devoted his life to understanding Palmyra, was beheaded by DAESH militants, his bloodied body hung on a pole. He had even named his daughter after Zenobia, the queen that ruled from the city 1,700 years ago.

The fate of the nearby Temple of Bel, dedicated to the Semitic god Bel, was not immediately known. ISIL supporters on social media also did not immediately mention the temple's destruction.

ISIL members have also  looted and vandalized a museum in the Iraqi city of Mosul and have massively damaged the ancient cities of Hatra and Ninevah, both UNESCO world heritage sites.

DAESH claims ancient relics promote idolatry and say they are destroying them as part of their purge of paganism. However, they are also believed to sell off looted antiquities, bringing in significant sums of cash.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council has been told that DAESH militants have killed 30 suspected gay men for "sodomy" in recent months.

DAESH released a video showing CHILDREN STONING two gay men to death after they had been thrown off a building in Homs Syria. It is one of a grisly series of such gay execution videos. 

Last month, DAESH released a video showing two other men accused of being gay THROWN OFF A BUILDING and then stoned by a crowd in Palmyra.

Only a few weeks earlier, more than 25 men were EXECUTED BY CHILDREN at the famous theater in Palmyra.

TUT TOMB'S WALLS HIDE SOMETHING BUT NOT NEFERTITI, OFFICIAL SAYS

THE walls of King Tutankhamun's Tomb almost certainly hide something ... but probably not the resting place of Nefertiti, according to a top Egyptian official.

Antiquities minister Mamdouh Eldamaty made his assessment in an exclusive interview with Egypt's AHRAM ONLINE newspaper in discussing last week's examinations carried out by himself and British archeologist Nicholas Reeves in Luxor on Tutankhamun's tomb have revealed that the tomb's northern and western walls both hide chambers.

In July Reeves published a study in which he claimed NEFERTITI may be buried in those hidden chambers. 

After initial skepticism, Eldamaty now says he supports Reeves' theory.

"It is a respectable scientific theory that could prove right or wrong, and when examining the west and north walls of Tutankhamun's burial chamber, I realised that all the evidence that Reeves mentioned regarding the existence of hidden chambers is true," he was quoted as saying.

"I also noticed an area on a wall where the type of stone used was different than that in other walls. It is covered in painted plaster with the purpose of hiding something," Eldamaty said.

"I am 75 per cent certain we will find chambers behind both walls, but not one containing Nefertiti," he added, while conceding it is still possible that her mummy could be in one of the chambers.

"If the theory proves true and we locate Nefertiti’s resting place, we would be facing a discovery that would overshadow the uncovering of the golden king himself," he added. 

"This would be the most important discovery of the 21st Century," he said.

Whatever lies beyond those secret doors, Eldamaty said it will be spectacular.

"If we find the tomb of another royal member or an extension of Tutankhamun’s tomb, the discovery would be on par with the original discovery of the king's tomb in the 20th Century," he said.

The next step involves radar probes to determine what ... if anything ... is behind the apparent secret doors. Reeves plans to make an announcement on November 4th, which is the anniversary of the discovery in 1922 of the Tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter.

'TOTALITER ALITER'

THE TALE OF THE TWO PRIESTS OF ANTINOUS

(From THE MEMOIRS OF AN ANCIENT PRIEST OF ANTINOUS by Ernest Gill)

TWO PRIESTS  of Antinous at the Temple of the Blessed Boy in Rome had devoted their lives to the Good God and were getting on in years.

As young men they had become priests together.

Their love for each other was symbolized and enhanced by their love for Antinous. Together, they had lived out their lives at the great Temple of Rome under the most exalted Priest Nikias.

Nikias of Rome was the author of a famous inscription in Greek which addresses Antinous as NEOS HERMES the "New Hermes" who conveys the deceased through the portals of death into transcendent light. A great Antinoo-Hermeticist, Nikias had taught them much about the triumph of Antinous over death.

And now, as toothless old men, they were approaching the final stage of their earthly priesthood. Both men were frail and ill. They knew death was imminent.

But they were unafraid, for they were confident that they would be re-united in death through the grace and love of the Most Great and Good God whom they had served so faithfully all their lives.

But how exactly would that re-union occur? The ancient texts spoke of the Barque of Millions of Years sailing across the heavens towards the Star of Antinous. But that was the Egyptian imagery, and these priests were both Romans and had only ever served in the Antinous Temple of Rome.

The Rome Temple would of course place their death masks in niches in a special area of the temple dedicated to former priests.

Incense and prayers would be offered to them. Would their shades inhabit those niches?

Would Antinous welcome them in Hades, despite the fact that Antinous the Boy God had come from Bithynia in Asia Minor?

Would their souls be reincarnated as some Eastern mystics believed? Would they hover between heaven and Earth or perhaps be consigned to spending part of the year in the underworld and part of it as lemurs roaming the Earth?

They weren't afraid. But they were exceedingly curious to find out. Confidentially, they believed amongst themselves that they would sail with Antinous aboard the Boat of Millions of Years —  a perpetual journey which would never end. But they weren't sure ....

They had spent years perfecting their meditation skills and, without false modesty, they could claim to be masters at the art of trance vision travel. They both knew that the Egyptian hieroglyphs had told the truth in promising that Antinous speaks through dreams and visions. They also knew how to send psychic messages to each other, and had done so on many occasions.

So they made a deal. He who was the first to die would appear to the other in a dream and reveal what the afterlife was like.

As accomplished as they were, they nonetheless knew that such astral communication must be as succinct and simple as possible.

So they agreed that, if the afterlife was as they had envisioned it, the deceased would appear to his friend and utter the word TALITER meaning "exactly so" as they had expected it to be.

And if it was not as they had imagined, the deceased would say ALITER meaning "different" from what they had expected.

The fateful day came not long afterward, and the surviving priest lit incense and recited prayers before the niche mask of his beloved friend and fellow priest.

That night, almost immediately after his head touched his pillow, his deceased friend appeared to him. He was no longer old and sick and frail. He was as young and handsome as the day they had entered the temple. And he was smiling and clearly very excited and seemed to have forgotten the agreed-upon words.

"Taliter or aliter, which is it?" the sleeping priest asked his departed friend.

The friend smiled bigger than ever and said: TOTALITER ALITER — "totally different" — and still beaming with joy, he turned and vanished into golden light.

GAY REFUGEES IN GERMANY TARGETED BY HOMOPHOBIC ASYLUM-SEEKERS

GAY refugees arriving in Germany have come under verbal and physical attack from homophobic refugees.

"We have received alarming reports that all gay refugees report abuse ranging from verbal insults all the way to actual physical attacks," says Berlin LGBTIQA organizer Stefan Jäckel. 

"Two trans people were so severely beaten up that one of them received a broken arm," he adds.

Organizations in Germany have ISSUED AN APPEAL for Germans to open their homes to gay Syrian refugees who face discrimination from other refugees ... and death threats from radical Islamic militants.

Gay Syrians arriving at refugee camps in Germany say they have been subjected to verbal and even physical attacks from other refugees during the long trek from their war-torn homeland.

While the news cameras focus on families with small children, most of the refugees are in fact young adult males ... and between 5 and 10 per cent are gay or bisexual, according to German LGBT groups reaching out to gay refugees.

In Syria, they faced the threat of death at the hands of DAESH Islamic State barbarians who have executed scores of gay men ... throwing them from tall buildings and stoning them to death if they survive the fall.

But even after they arrive safely in Germany, gays and lesbians are the victims of homophobia, according to German LGBT groups.

German television reported Thursday that DAESH militants have infiltrated some refugee camps.

"They shout Koran verses all night and scream that they will kill anyone who stands in their way," a Syrian refugee told ARD television. "A friend of mine was beheaded in Syria, so I am scared out of my wits."

Even less militant refugees are hostile towards LGBT refugees in their midst.

"Right now we are handling the case of a man who is in a refugee camp in Magdeburg in eastern Germany who says he fears for his life," says Mathias Fangohr, head of the Magdeburg Pride Organization.

"He is terrified that if other camp residents find out he is gay he will end up dead," Fangohr says. 

"He is totally traumatized from the ordeal he has gone through and is desperate for help," he adds.

The situation is compounded by the fact that many of the support groups are homophobic.

"We have trouble finding Arabic interpreters because many of them refuse to interpret for gays, whom they consider to be filth," he adds. "They won't even mention the word for homosexual in Arabic because it is dirty."

A Berlin group has issued an appeal for gays in the German capital to open their homes to LGBT refugees so that they can avoid homophobic taunts and humiliation at refugee camps.

The group has also launched a program for teaching LGBT refugees language skills and job skills to help them get on their feet in Germany.

With a falling birth rate and declining population, Germany has welcomed the refugees not only on humanitarian grounds ... but also as a boost to immigration.

Germany expects to take in half a million refugees primarily from Syria in the coming year.

NEW EVIDENCE THAT ALEXANDER BUILT AMPHIPOLIS TOMB FOR LOVER HEPHAESTION

NEW evidence has been discovered which indicates the mysterious and very large tomb at AMPHIPOLIS in Macedonia may have been built by Alexander the Great for his male friend and lover HEPHAESTION.

Katerina Peristeri, archaeologist in charge of the excavation of the Amphipolis tomb, told a news conference that her team discovered the monogram of Hephaestion in three inscriptions, project contracts, for the construction of the monument.

Peristeri also said that the new findings show that the monument was commissioned by a powerful individual of that era, which could be Alexander himself.

According to ancient historian Plutarch, when Hephaestion died suddenly in Ecbatana, Iran, "Alexander asked architect Deinokrates to erect shrines all over the country," she said.

The monogram is shown here left.

Peristeri believes the complex was built in the final quarter of the 4th Century BC (325-300 BC) and was used until Roman times.

When it was discovered in 2014, the Amphipolis tomb initially was hailed as the biggest archaeological find of the century ... with  Greece's then prime minister proclaiming that this was "most certainly" the LOST TOMB OF ALEXANDER.

Despite a media feeding frenzy, months of painstaking research by Peristeri and her team revealed that it was very unlikely to be Alexander's tomb.

Instead, they held out tantalizing possibility that Hephaestion or the MOTHER OF ALEXANDER or possibly Roxana the WIFE OF ALEXANDER may have been entombed there.

Analysis of the scattered remains now shows that bones found in the tomb belong to:

• One woman over 65 years old.
• Two men around 35-45 years old each, the younger of whom may have suffered fatal knife wounds.
• One infant.
• One adult person (male or female) who had been cremated.

In addition, non-human bones were found, probably those of a horse.

Archaeologists found skeletal material belonging to a man who may have been the original inhabitant in the tomb, very close to the floor. The body belonged to a man who stood at 1.60 meters in height (5 ft. 2 in.), whose bones had been shuffled by looters.

The skeletal remains and bits of wooden debris were interspersed by iron and copper nails along with ivory and glass decorative adornments for the coffin.

The discovery of skeletal remains raises almost as many questions as it answers, since wood was not thought to have been used for royal coffins in the time of Alexander the Great. Royals were cremated in Ancient Greece.

However, it could be the body of a non-royal person ... such as Alexander's lover Hephaestion.

Even amidst the initial media hype about the LOST TOMB OF ALEXANDER Peristeri (shown left) said she rather more suspected it could be the tomb of Hephaestion ... and now here theory is being proved right.

Regardless who the original tomb occupant was, the dig site has revealed amazing artefacts including mosaic flooring of the second chamber ... revealing the Abduction of Proserpine/Persephone by Pluto. 

The symbolism of the MOSAIC, which was discovered in the second chamber along with CARYATIDS, vastly increases the chances that this tomb houses a member of the Macedonian royal family ... or friend.

Alexander sailed from Amphipolis to Asia. 

However, it is almost certain that his tomb is located in Alexandria, since people such as Julius Caesar, Hadrian and Antinous are supposed to have visited his burial site there.

ANTINOUS AND THE ORPHIC MYSTERIES

ON THIS DAY, October 1st, the beginning of the holy month of the Sacred Nights of Antinous, we venerate Orpheus. 

Antinous our God was initiated into the cult of Orpheus so that his teachings became part of the Religion of Antinous, and therefore we receive the salvation that Orpheus accomplished through our god Antinous, the New Dionysus.

It is on this date that the Religion of Antinous remembers the blessed heritage of The Orphic Mysteries, into which Hadrian and Antinous were both initiated.  

The Orphic Mysteries teach that human souls are divine and immortal but doomed to live (for a period) in a "grievous circle" of successive bodily existences through reincarnation. 

This belief that each of us is divine and immortal — Man-Godliness-Becoming-One — is the mystery which Flamen Antinoalis Antonyus Subia calls HOMOTHEOSIS. 

By welcoming this divine force instead of rejecting it, we take the first step away from our instinctive animalistic fearful self on the long road to becoming a Shining One of Heaven.

Hadrian and Antinous must have known by heart the story of Orpheus in the Underworld: Orpheus was the son of Apollo and the muse Calliope, and from his father he received the Lyre and the gift of music. 

So powerful was the music of Orpheus that he could tame the hearts of beasts and birds and his song enchanted even the trees and stones.

He was one of the Argonauts who, together with Jason, retrieved the Golden Fleece. Returning from the journey, he married Euridice, but the marriage was short-lived because while fleeing the Shepherd God Aristaios (ironically also often depicted as a form of Antinous in ancient times), who was attempting to rape her, she was bitten by a snake hidden in the grass and died. 

Orpheus was so overwhelmed with grief that he used his powers of enchantment to travel to the underworld to bring back his wife.

His music soothed the three-headed dog, and gained his entry into the dark hall of Hades and Persephone. There he sang to the rulers of the underworld, and his song touched the cold heart of the Lady of Death. Persephone decreed that he could lead his wife out of hell provided that he did not turn to see her following.

Orpheus, singing as he went, very nearly succeeded, but at the last moment, at the very gate of darkness, he turned and saw his wife vanish back into oblivion.

Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia tells the rest of the story, and why it is important to us:

From that moment Orpheus was a changed man, he became a priest of Dionysus, and gave himself over to intoxication, completely shunning the company of women, and separating himself from the customs of the world. Orpheus is said to have been the first to sanctify homosexuality as an indulgence that frees the soul from  continued reincarnation through the procreation of the flesh. His journey through the underworld gave him a deep detestation of death that he developed into a new philosophy. Orpheus taught that we were all children of the fallen star Dionysus-Zagreus, who had been torn to pieces by the Titans and consumed by them so that his light was mingled throughout their flesh. Zeus struck the Titans down with his lighting and from their ashes arose mankind, fashioned by Prometheus.
So that we will never suffer the fate of passing into the realm of Hades, Orpheus taught that we must restrain our titanic nature and restore the purity of our godliness, we must become Bachkoi, which is that we must become Dionysus again. A pure life, free from murder, including blood sacrifice and the eating of meat is required, and we must undergo initiation into the blessed rites which he inaugurated.
Although part of the religion of Dionysus, the Orphic cult was limited to men. Orpheus wrote volumes of sacred poems that comprised the heart of his new religion. The Orphic cult was a combination of the freedom and indulgence of Dionysus, tempered with the high-minded nobility of Apollo.The Orphics denied the world and set their minds on the inner light of Dionysus so as to liberate the soul from imprisonment within the flesh.

You can see the parallels between the story of Orpheus and Eurydice and the true-life story of Hadrian and Antinous. The emperor mourned and wept and sought to bring his Beloved Boy back to the world of the living. 

Hadrian's route through the Underworld was of a purely spiritual nature. He recognized that Antinous had always been Divine — a fact which is a tenet of The Orphic Mysteries. He decided to establish a religion which would enable the followers of Antinous to become aware of their own Divine Nature and to become one with ANTINOUS THE GAY GOD.

It is indeed ironic that this beautiful religion was born out of Hadrian's inconsolable grief. But the divine regenerative sacred force of this phenomenon is the secret behind the Tarot Trump called Death.

Death occurs in so many forms. We experience Death in some form every day of our lives. Loss of job. Loss of a lover. Loss of a friendship. Loss of money or status. Loss of confidence in ourselves ....

Your grief can be the powerful gnosis which makes you remember that you are the musician. You are the dancer. You are that which has died and entered the Underworld. You are also that which rises re-born bright and shining like the dawn sunrise.

It is the process (because it is a process and not a method) which Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia calls HOMOTHEOSIS ... "Gay-Man-God-Becoming-the-Same-As-Gay-Man-God."