Most of the pagan mysteries are poorly described in literature. The Eleusinian Mysteries are perhaps the most well comprehended of the ancient traditions of the pagans, and this work describes both the greater and lesser mysteries, describing the usage of the ancient gods in literal but not immortal form, and some of the rituals surrounding initiation. The work has been fully illustrated as well, by Raven Feather Illustrations.
83 pages.
This ninth compilation was created partially due to public demand; it is artificially constrained to a few variants of European paganism (Greek, Roman, Norse, and British/Irish) because of the expansive nature of the subject. Much of the work is academic and historical in tone, although "Valhalla" is mostly a poetic epic. These seven works are, in my opinion, a decent springboard into the subject. As with all of my compiled volumes, it contains a lengthy list of works in a bibliography for further reading on the subject matter, and an expansive foreword detailing each work and the premise of the compiled volume.
Included works:
-Valhalla: The Myths of Norseland
-Pagan Ideas of Immortality
-Pagan Mythology: Wisdom of the Ancients
-A Compendium of Heathen Mythology
-The Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland
-Dionysos and Immortality
-The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia
375 pages.
This fine work compiles lore about medical practices, major medical figures, and some of the innovations of both ancient Greece and Rome (sanitation, plumbing systems, etc.) It is quite thorough, and goes beyond perennial names and ideas like trepanning or Galen, into lesser known topics, like the development of the speculum, figures like Andromachus, and much more. It is profuse with notes and references to other works, also.
121 pages.
This little volume is a compilation of (as the title suggests!) ghostly tales from ancient Greece and Rome. Some of them are from historians, others are from plays and fictional material- and it is interesting to note the major similarity of tales in both. In one extremely interesting passage, Nero himself ends up doing manual labor to try and calm terrified workers who swore they heard the dead around them and that the ground was welling up with the blood of the deceased.
60 pages.
This fine book is a great look at the life and teachings of Apollonius- it is partly a critical work, sometimes querying the veracity of Philostratus and other ancient writers and figures, often using secondary works within its analysis- it also contains a full bibliography, although most of the listed texts are in German or French.
112 pages.
This little work is an anthropological title which traces several different hellish hounds from multiple cultures and describes them, partly based on linguistics. Cerberus is one of a number of such canines- there are also Odins' wolves, the dogs of Yama, and inclusions from Zoroastrian and even Mesoamerican lore.
26 pages.
