Emerald. Above all, the glitter of gems has enchanted us and held us hostage. Despite their secret birth underground, they live a rather public life among us, admired, bought, sold, and hoarded. They have become ours in a way a hunk of raw granite never can. Gems have studded ears, adorned fingers, encircled arms, and emblazoned belly buttons. Bits of compressed carbon no larger than a match head have transmogrified themselves into emblems of undying...
Hexen kommando
It’s almost Walpurgisnacht, no better moment to have a closer look at our witches or Hexen. Where did this cruel hatred against women and the ancient pre-christian sanctuaries start? When Pope Innocent VIII (1484–92) professed his belief in witchcraft, he condemned it, and dispatched inquisitors to Germany to try its supposed practitioners and punish them unimpeded. Singling out Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen, the papal bull declared that “some parts of Northern Germany” were...
Skull cup
In Sanskrit, skull cups are known as kapala, and they are generally formed from the oval section of the upper cranium. They served as libation vessels for large numbers of deities, which were mostly wrathful. However, they are also seen with gods such as Padmasambhava (India), who holds the skull cup, which is described as holding an ocean of nectar that floats in the longevity vase. This Elixir was at the heart of many secret...
heresy
Heretic Middle English: from Old French heretique, via ecclesiastical Latin from Greek hairetikos ‘able to choose’ (in ecclesiastical Greek, ‘heretical’), from haireomai ‘choose’. In the Encyclopaedia Britannica one can read:“The word heresy is derived from the Greek hairesis which originally meant an act of choosing, and so came to signify a set of philosophical opinions or the school professing them. As so used the term was neutral, but once appropriated by Christianity it began to...
von Goethe
Socrates sometimes spoke of his daemon, meaning a good spirit who guided him through life. This might seem an alien concept for most of us today. But one can not deny as a matter of historical fact that folks who believed in idealism as a philosophy of life have always tended to trust in spirits, gods and angels. When it comes to the great-weaving cosmic thoughts, the active principles behind the appearances of things, many...
Rolf Diettrich and Gudrun
The attentive reader of the first episodes of Maier files will have noticed that the tale once told by Rolf Dietrich and the history of Otto Maier are filled with powerful themes and images that might provide a clue to the real hidden mystery, among them: the Rose Trail (Troj de Reses), web of woven silk, the knights in the line of Dietrich von Bern, the enchanted windmill, fiancée of the Month of May, the...
U-boat mission to Scotland
The Maier Files Series contain many levels, secrets and mysterious riddles … Let’s dig into a backstory about the Isle of Arran. In past times Arran was called Emain Ablach, which translates literally as “the place of apples”! Arran also means “the sleeping lord”. Some of you will recognize references to the enchanted Isle of Avalon (Isle of Apples) and the Arthurian legends … Interestingly, the ownership of Arran resided with the ducal Hamilton family...
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