Ελληνικά
 
























 
 Our Symbols and Emblems


 


The Thyrsos (Thyrsus)


We owe the name of our Organization to this Symbol which is also a Sacred object – a Holy Scepter, an Emblem for the National Religions. It is generally known that Thyrsos constitutes the characteristic Scepter of Holy Dionysus and has a particularly Sacramental importance. It serves the same Purpose as the Lightning of Zeus, the Caduceus of Hermes, the Spike of Demeter, the Trident of Neptune, the Pipe and Horn of Pan, the Hammer and Acnes of Hephaestus, etc.

* General characteristics – description:
Thyrsos is a Scepter, manufactured from a straight staff of a fruitful - but not cultivable by humans - tree or in other cases it is a straight branch from a cultivable tree or it comes simply from any kind of tree, with a pine cone placed at its top, which comes from a tame pine. There are many variants concerning its manufacture.

The branch is surrounded by leafage of vine or ivy and red and/or white ribbons. Depending on the time period and the local customs, all variants exist portrayed in murals, vessels, mosaics or other sources.

Apart from the Scepter of God Dionysus himself, it is also a Sacred scepter for all the followers of Bacchus. Selinus, Satyrs, Centaurs, but also for human worshippers, the most characteristic and known of which are the Maenads.
Its length varies and depends on its use. But whether small or big, its importance does not change. In our days it usually is one or two meters for the processions and ceremonies of the Hellenes and the Roman Polytheists, and all those who choose to participate and follow our National Tradition. In the pre-classic period, Thyrsos had a more raw form, where instead of a straight staff, the Orgies processions carried branches from vines adorned with ribbons.

* Nowadays Hellenes and Bacchus
Even though the worship of Bacchus was especially mystagogical, and in many cases looted by the monotheistic doctrine of Christianity while in a lot of points copied rather grossly, today the God has become known not for His Values, but rather due to the deliberately distorted information which is being diffused, concerning the ostensibly hedonistic expression of the Diphues (Two-natured) God.

Because of the vulgarized perception of modern Hellenes who were deliberately brought up this way, Dionysus is more or less depicted simply as “the God of Partying and Wine”, while his Form adorns souvenirs and tourist products of doubtful quality. However, the most peculiar thing is that from the depictions of Dionysus, there is one thing almost always absent - deliberately in our opinion- his Holy Scepter. Since you cannot remove at will the Lightning of Zeus from his depiction, otherwise you cancel out His Holistic Perception; it is a great impropriety to remove the Thyrsos from Bacchus, or any other of the characteristic Symbols-Emblems from the depictions of other Divine Entities. Such a practice shows either foolish ignorance, or deliberation. We have a lot of reasons to believe that the second case is more probable than the first. On the other hand, the fertilization Symbols, such as the Phallus or various erotic scenes, are deliberately highlighted, obviously under the conviction that the uneducated and prone to sexuality mind of modern Hellenes due to their guilt complex and also their oppressed Needs deriving from the way they were brought up, would vulgarize the Raison d'être of these Symbols and that would naturally lead to the realm of shadows and oblivion every fertile information about the Bull-head Great God Dionysus. A case that at least seems to have not been rendered feasible…

Then, there is the opposite case of the complete disappearance and dissimulation of every Erotic element, even the depiction of Genitals in representations and sculptures, for reasons that concern self-loathing and fake prudence and exist inside the most phobic and inhibited people who consider a “perversion and abnormality” every demonstration of the Organs that brought them to Life.

* Zagreus’ scepter for our Organization
From all the versions which we consider Correct depending on the time and case, we bear the holy Scepter of Dionysus and also name our Community by it, being followers of the Adoration of Votryohaita (decked with grapes) Immortal.
Beyond the obvious coupling that Thyrsos depicts as a Symbol, of the Unification of Tame Nature as the level where people act and live during their everyday city-life routine with the Nature that is in Wild elation and Virgin state and which people always seek as their Mother country, beyond the festive ribbons that wave into the air during the Procession or the Dance, which are Symbols of the relationship between the Blood of the Sacrifice and the Solar Beams, Thyrsos was, is, and always will be, an omnipotent Invincible Weapon! It is a great defensive tool but also an attacking one, used under its High Symbolism and also through it.

In Euripides’ play “The Bacchae”, the Maenads in the natural level of action and not in the symbolic one, used Thyrsos as a weapon, nailing at the spike of its top- where the pinecone is placed- the head of Pentheus. But the well-disposed reader should not hurry to jump into the conclusion that we present ourselves holding some kind of “deadly tools” in our hands. On the contrary, Dionysus himself coming from Thrace, and from martial Races such as the Bryges, arrived fully Armed holding his Scepter. And of course He did not come in order to bring destruction but –as is proved by every Historical record- in order to offer Initiation about Natural Energies, Intuition, and Ruling over the winter months in Delphi…

To us Thyrsos apart from its role as a Sacred object of Worship in our Ceremonial rituals (something that, of course, will not be explained in the present article), is also a Weapon used for the energetic as well as the passive Defense of the Adoration of Bacchus and the defense of our general National Heathen Worldview, Values and Ideals.

“Hidden” under leaves of Vine and Ivy and under the Beautiful Pinecone lies the Peak of Power of our Proud and Steadfast Soul, as Unenslaved Hellenes. As People Rising and demanding the re-establishment of the Adoration of our Gods, the Rapprochement between our institutions and ideals that Elevated us in the entire World, are responsible for the continuation of our existence as a Nation until today, and they give us the right to claim them as our Substance. And this Fight cannot be anything else than a War in itself, where we will participate with an Eudaimon Self… A War for the Ideals of our Nation which primarily demand to be comprehended by us before we decide to Defend them.

* A few words about Dionysus
Dionysus is a God that arouses Instincts in their clean form thus recognizing this side as a Natural situation for humans. And every human is responsible for the “yeast” from which he is molded and mainly for the course he selects to follow, so that the results his emerging Instincts bring forward, will function either for him or against him during his development.

In the modern perception, the usually irresponsible person transfers the culpability of all trials of his life to other people, or still worse, to some supernatural cause or even to the Gods. This damaging view of things and the general representations it maintains, do not allow the person to perceive the definite absurdity. Every situation of human Disposition coexists and interacts inside the person. As long as he does not recognize them, and as long as he doesn’t practice or lead them through the appropriate channels, the person will continue down the same foolish, boring and harmful for himself path.

It is at least oxymoron when you want to degrade – in mind- Divine Entities to your level in order to make them serve your wishes and simultaneously render them responsible and blame them for the faults of your pointless choices, your ignorance or your foolishness. However the relation of today’s people with the Devine derives from this perception which has been planted in his mentality while growing up.

Dionysus as Eleleus, with all his Fertile Substances, the ones that the Ancestors distinguished and those the descendants will distinguish and attribute, is the Divine Entity through which - but also simultaneously through the Chrysolyri (bearing golden lyre) Apollo – we restore the Balance of our Soul by ceaselessly practicing without intellectual stiffness and by finally leaving behind us the practices that have failed in the past.

Understanding the Gods is an endless quest. The Infinite Expansion of their Energies and their Power inside the Universal World will always require our own Engrossment and Devotion in the Study in order to Comprehend them in a superior level each time.

Dionysus is a Smiling God, and this Smile can frighten the malicious people or Shine inside the Soul of his Well-disposed followers.

 
 
 
 

© Copyrights Thyrsos - Ethnikoi Hellenes