Ancient Psychedelia: Alien Gods & Mushroom Goddesses
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| Catholic Shamanism St. Hildegard, the abbess of Bingen was a Christian prophetess and visionary who earned the titled “Sibyl of the Rhine.” She founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. She wrote on theology, botany and medicine as well as song and poetry. She was famous for two important liturgical works, Sci Vias (Luminis) Know the Pathways of Light and Liber Divinorum Operum, The Book of the Divine Works. (58) In an illustrated tome titled Sivia Codex, it describes 26 of Hildegard’s most vivid visions, dealing with the macro and microcosm, the extraction of the soul and the beginning of life on earth, the nine choirs of angels, the baptism, the piercing of Christ’s flesh, and most interestingly the pouring out of his blood into a gold chalice. This particular scene is represented again in the 15th century image of Mercurial Christ by Frater Vincentius Koffsky, a monk of the Danzig Order, who depicted himself draining the blood of Christ into a chalice (74c). (59)  (74c) Mercurial Christ Concerning the date of the images in relation to the book printing, from healthyhildegard.com we read: “… the specific origin and nature of the thumbnail illustrations remains unknown. There is some disagreement about whether the images were completed during Hildegard’s lifetime or after her death. The mainstream view generally accepts the completion of the original Rupertsberg manuscript around 1175, before her death in 1179.” (60) It becomes increasingly clear as we see what the church was originally accusing others of doing, (using mushrooms as a heretical act) they were now assuming a monopoly on, including the prophesying and visionary aspects of the shamanic experience. It is very likely Hildegard was involved in the consumption of these substances in the mid-twelfth century. |
St. Anthony (1195-1231 AD) was born Fernando Martins de Bulhões and was known as Anthony of Lisbon. He was a Portuguese Catholic priest and friar of the Franciscan Order who was devoted to the sick and was considered the patron saint of lost things due to a book being stolen from him, containing psalms and notes used in his teachings and he prayed for its return which occurred shortly thereafter. He died in 1231 from a bout of ergotism. (61) Louis X (October 4, 1289 – June 5, 1316), called the Quarreler, the Headstrong, or the Stubborn, was King of France from 1314 until his death (the twelfth from the House of Capet), succeeding his father Philip IV. Louise X was also King of Navarre as Louis I from 1305 until his death in 1316. Louis had been responsible for reforms which saw serfs gaining their freedom through payment, helping to abolish slavery and readmitted French Jews back into the kingdom. In 1305 he married Margaret of Burgandy and fathered Joan II of Navarre. In 1315, Louis X published a decree proclaiming that “France signifies freedom” and that any slave setting foot on the French ground should be freed. Blanche of Navarre (1330 – 5 October 1398) was Queen of France as the wife of King Philip VI. Kings of Navarre wanted to achieve an alliance with Castile (Spain) by having Blanche marry Peter, eldest son and heir of King Alfonso XI. When she married King Philip she married into the House of Valois, another cadet branch of the House of Capet. She was said to be so beautiful during her time, she was named “Princess Wisdom.” She was engaged to John II, who was to become the King of France but married his father, King Philip VI of France, who was recently widowed instead. They were married on January 29, 1350. (62) Blanche gave birth to their daughter Joan (also named Blanche), in May 1351. Joan of Navarre lived a short twenty years, and she was pregnant with a child of the man she was engaged to, John I (son and heir of Peter IV of Aragon) of Aragon, (an autonomous community in Spain), at the time of her death. When she left France to travel to meet him to marry, she met with death. John I (27 December 1350 – 19 May 1396), called by posterity the Hunter or the Lover of Elegance, but the Abandoned in his lifetime, was the King of Aragon from 1388 until his death. This family line never ended up merging with the crown of Castile, however, Eleanor of Castile (after 1363 – 27 February 1416) who was the daughter of King Henry II of Castile and his wife, Juana Manuel of Castile married King Charles III of Navarre and had several children including Blanche I of Navarre. (58) Hidden World, p. 29-20 (59) ibid, p. 34 (60) https://www.healthyhildegard.com/scivias-illustrations/ (61) Apples of Apollo, p. 218 (62) Marguerite Keane, Material Culture and Queenship in 14th-century France: The Testament of Blanche of Navarre (1331-1398), (Brill, 2016), 43-44 |
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