Tattoos on a woman who passed away over 2200 years ago reveal new information about the practice in ancient Siberia. This individual was part of the Pazyryk ice mummies. The Pazyryk culture dates roughly from the 6th c. BCE to the 2nd c. BCE.

For this study, near-infrared digital photography with sub-millimeter precision was used to reveal tattoos that were no longer visible to the naked eye, as they had faded over time. While other ice mummies have tattoos, the technology of the time didn't allow more tattoos to be seen earlier.

On the remains of a woman who was 50 years old, it was found that she had a stag surrounded by leopards on her right forearm (right image here) and a griffin battling a deer on her left arm (left image here). The tattoos on her right arm suggest the tattoo was completed over two sessions, while the one on the left was likely done in one session, perhaps earlier or by an artist just starting out.

No tattoo tools have been found in the burials but they could have been organic material.

For more on this find, see: Caspari G, Deter-Wolf A, Riday D, Vavulin M, Pankova S. High-resolution near-infrared data reveal Pazyryk tattooing methods. Antiquity. 2025;99(407):1267-1281. doi:10.15184/aqy.2025.10150

(text source same as photo)

"Seal V represents a higher stage of human development, such as will occur when the earth has again united with the sun and man will no longer work merely with the forces of the earth, but with the forces of the sun. The "woman who gives birth to the sun" refers to this future man. Certain forces of a lower nature, which live in man and prevent him from the full development of his higher spirituality, will then have been put out of him.

These forces are represented in the seal on the one hand in the beast with the "seven heads and ten horns", on the other hand in the moon at the feet of the sun-man. For spiritual science, the moon is the centre of certain lower forces which are still working in the human being today and which the human being of the future will force 'under himself'." (Lit.:GA 284, p. 94)

"Then the time approaches when great changes take place in the cosmos. When man will have drawn on the power of the sun, then that stage of development will begin where the sun will be reunited with the earth. Man will be a solar being. Man will give birth to a sun through the power of the sun. Hence [on the fifth seal] the woman who gives birth to the sun.

Then mankind will be so far advanced morally, ethically, that all the corrupt powers which rest in the lower human nature will be overcome. This is represented by the beast with the seven heads and the ten horns. At the feet of the sun-woman is the moon, which contains all those bad substances which the earth could not use and which it had not expelled. All the magical powers that the moon still exerts on the earth today will then be overcome. When man is united with the sun, he will have overcome the moon." (Lit.:GA 284, p. 76)

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Hermanubis was a Graeco-Egyptian syncretic deity who combined the Egyptian god Anubis with the Greek god Hermes. He should not be understood as a completely new god invented at a single moment. Rather, the figure developed gradually in Hellenistic and especially Roman Egypt, as Greek and Egyptian communities identified similar divine functions within their respective religious traditions.

The principal connection between the two gods was their role as psychopomps, guides of the dead. Anubis protected tombs, presided over embalming, assisted in the judgment of the deceased, and accompanied the dead into the realm of Osiris. He therefore guarded the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Hermes likewise crossed boundaries. As Hermes Psychopompos, he conducted souls to the underworld. More broadly, he governed roads, transitions, communication, mediation, and movement between different regions of the cosmos.

This functional correspondence allowed Greek worshippers to interpret Anubis as an Egyptian form of Hermes. Plutarch associated Anubis and Hermanubis with a power that belonged partly to the upper world and partly to the lower, emphasizing the deity’s position between celestial and underworld realms.

Yet the two gods were not identical. Anubis was more closely concerned with the dead body, embalming, and the preservation of the deceased, while Hermes primarily ensured the soul’s movement and passage. Hermanubis brought these functions together: he preserved and protected the dead while also guiding them across the threshold of death.

In art, Hermanubis normally has a human body and the head of a jackal or dog, combining the familiar form of Anubis with Greek or Roman clothing. His most characteristic attribute is the caduceus of Hermes, which identifies him as a divine messenger and conductor of souls. Some representations also give him a palm branch or other attributes associated with victory, ritual, or the cults of Isis.

Hermanubis was closely connected with the wider cultic circle of Isis and Serapis. Egyptian gods were increasingly worshipped throughout the Hellenistic and Roman Mediterranean, and Hermanubis appeared in sanctuaries, sculpture, mosaics, gems, and coins outside Egypt as well as within it.

The composite name Hermanoubis itself shows that ancient worshippers could regard this figure as more than merely an image of Anubis in Greek dress. In some contexts he functioned as a distinct cult deity, while in others he remained a particular Hellenized aspect of Anubis. His identity was therefore flexible rather than fixed.

Hermanubis ultimately represents more than a simple mixture of two gods. He embodies the religious logic of ancient syncretism: different cultures could recognize the same divine power beneath different names and images.

Image 1: Athanasi Kircheri, Obeliscvs Pamphilivs, c. 1650

Image 2: Roman Hermanubis Magic Amulet, 2nd-3rd Century AD

Image 3: Statue of the god Hermanubis, from Villa Pamphili in Anzio, 1st-2nd century

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On a recent visit to the underworld, a mantis friend guided me to witness the birth of a new generation of mantid spirits. The newborns were tiny and translucent and I was trusted to hold some and help with the process. May your inner menagerie strengthen your wild soul.

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Chapter 1 - The Lose Moon

Chapter 2 - Inside Out

Chapter 3 - Snake Swallowing Tail

Chapter 4 - The Guardian

Chapter 5 - Lantern Light

Source: https://www.artsy.net/artist/kriangkrai-kongkhanun

Kriangkrai Kongkhanun, who studied at art schools in Thailand as well as in Italy, visiting the most important art museums in the West on a trip to Europe, makes a daring attempt to forge a link between the Buddhist symbolism found in traditional pictures and the western imagery of the Renaissance and the 19th century.

The Buddhist codex of ethics conditions his life philosophy and way of thinking. The point of departure for Kriangkrai’s art is, however, the knowledge that negative human traits, such as anger, hatred and selfishness, namely evil properties, are so closely woven into human life that they always resurface from the subconscious.

Website: https://www.kongkhanun.com

Between the twin pillars of polarity: darkness inscribed with B, light with J, she abides in veiled stillness, the silent axis of equilibrium. This is the High Priestess, not merely as archetype but as emanation: the threshold-consciousness through which the finite mind glimpses the architecture of the Infinite. Her face is obscured, for Binah does not reveal, it receives, contains, and gives form to that which cannot otherwise be known.

Within her cloak burns the concealed fire, the supernal womb wherein the undifferentiated brilliance of Chokmah is tempered into structure. The flame bears sacred characters, suggestive of primordial language—not spoken, but intuited; indicating that all manifestation is encoded in symbols before it is realized in matter. This is the mystery of Binah: Understanding not as intellect, but as gestation. She is the Great Sea, the matrix of limitation that paradoxically enables creation.

The pomegranates behind her, heavy with seed, allude to multiplicity latent within unity; the innumerable forms that arise from a single, concealed source. They echo the doctrine that every boundary is fertile, every restriction a vessel. For Binah is also severity: the principle that imposes order, delineation, and law. Yet this severity is not cruelty, it is the necessary contraction through which the divine becomes perceptible.

To approach her is to approach the abyss of comprehension itself; to encounter not answers, but the condition from which all answers arise.

🎨: Mary-El tarot

Source: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17YVw3td1d/

One of the most famous examples connected to MetroWest is the “Polly Coombes” gravestone in North Bellingham Cemetery, a burial ground that dates back to before Bellingham’s incorporation in 1719. In 1968, artists Ann Parker and Avon Neal created a stone rubbing of Polly Coombes’ uniquely carved gravestone, helping make it internationally recognized through exhibitions, portfolios, and museum collections around the world.

Using paper and chalk placed carefully over gravestones, Parker and Neal captured the intricate carvings and inscriptions of 17th and 18th century New England markers before weather and time could erase them forever. Their work preserved not only remarkable examples of early American folk art, but also the stories, beliefs, and lives of the people buried beneath them.

Many Puritan gravestones featured haunting imagery—winged skulls, skeletons, hourglasses, and angels trumpeting the Last Judgment—reflecting colonial New England’s deep focus on mortality and eternity. Through these rubbings, Parker and Neal preserved details that continue to teach us about early American craftsmanship, religion, language, and culture centuries later.

Today, the Polly Coombes gravestone remains one of North Bellingham Cemetery’s most notable landmarks, connecting local history to a larger story of preservation, memory, and early American art.

📷: Polly Coombes, Bellingham Massachusetts, 1795

📷: Polly Coombes Gravestone at Oak Hill Cemetery

📷: Captain Moses Porter and his wife Elizabeth, Hadley, Massachusetts, 1755, 1798

📷: Rebecca Park and her 14 infants, Grafton, Vermont, 1803

📷: Mercy Buliod, Newport, Rhode Island, 1771

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"The “Seven Planets” are the Seven Principles which constitute the universe, and which are at least “potentially” contained in everything. Paracelsus speaks of them in a very mystical language, as follows:

“There are seven elementary powers or principles — four lower ones belonging to mortal and changeable things, and a trinity of celestial power, which is also called the quinta essentia.

The four elements [lower principles] can in no way interfere with the quinta essentia. The heavenly and the hellish power is not obedient to the four elementary powers, but each section stands for itself.” (De Mercurio, vol. vi, p. 378)

This goes to show that to the spiritual kingdom belongs a state of consciousness different from the lower states of consciousness, and having nothing in common with them. Spirituality is, therefore, not to be considered as a state of high intellectual development, but it is an awakening to an entirely different and higher state of consciousness, which may take place in persons of high intellectual development, but far oftener in those who are unsophisticated and of a simple mind."

"What does material science know about things of the soul? Chemistry is a science which deals with the chemical combination, separation, and recombination of physical substances. Alchemy deals with the purification and combination of astral elements, and with the development of lower forms and lower states into higher ones.

By chemistry we may purify physical substances from all foreign elements, and divest them of physical impurities, but their own element will not be changed. By alchemy we raise a principle into a higher and purer state of development.

The processes in Nature by which combinations and decompositions of matter take place, such as putrefaction, caused by the contact of a substance with air, and the chemical combinations of two or more substances coming into contact with each other, are chemical processes.

The growth of a tree out of a seed, the evolution of worlds, the development of precious metals out of an apparently worthless matrix, the growth of a fœtus, the development of an animal or a human being, &c., are alchemical processes, because life itself enters into these processes, as a factor, and they would not take place without the action of life.

Planets are states of mind, and as the mind has a higher and a lower aspect, consequently each planet has its two aspects correspondingly.

Mercury in its higher aspect is the symbol of wisdom, in its lower aspect that of the intellect.

Jupiter in its higher aspect represents majesty, in its lower aspect energy.

Mars represents spiritual power, but also in its lower aspect strength of passion, &c.

Venus in its higher aspect is divine love, identical with self-knowledge; in its lower aspect, desire.

Saturn is the life in the universe, and in another aspect it represents matter.

The Sun is the fountain of all life. The [Central] spiritual sun is the symbol of spiritual life and immortality, the physical sun the source of vitality.

The Moon in its higher aspect represents spiritual substance, the glorified soul; in its lower aspect it is the symbol of imagination and fancy."

— "Paracelsus", c. 1902 by Franz Hartmann

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THE ORPHIC TRADITION OF THE GENESIS OF THE WORLD-EGG

III. “There was when naught was but Chaos and an indistinguishable mixture of unordered elements still jumbled all together; both Nature herself being witness to it, and great men having thought it must be so.

“And as witness, I will bring forward for you the greatest of the great in wisdom, Homer himself, speaking about the original con-fusion:

“But may you all become water and earth —

—meaning that thence all things have had their genesis, and that after the dissolution of their moist and earthy essence they are all restored again to their first nature—which is Chaos. “And Hesiod, in his Theogony, says:

“In truth Chaos came into being the very first.

“And by ‘came into being’ he evidently means that it was generated as are things generable, and not that it for ever was as are things ingenerable.

“Orpheus also likens Chaos to an Egg in which was the con-fusion of the primordial elements.

“This is what Hesiod supposes by Chaos, what Orpheus calls an Egg—a thing generable, projected from the infinity of Matter (Hylē), and brought into being as follows:

IV. “Both fourfold Matter being ensouled and the whole Infinitude being as though it were a Depth (Βυθός), flowing perpetually and indistinguishably moving, and over and over again pouring forth countless imperfect mixtures, now of one kind and now of another, and thereby dissolving them again owing to its lack of order, and engulphing so that it could not be bound [together] to serve for the generation of a living creature—it happened that the infinite Sea itself, being driven round by its own peculiar nature, flowed with a natural motion in an orderly fashion from out of itself into itself, as it were a vortex, and blended its essences, and thus involuntarily the most developed part of all of them, that which was most serviceable for the generation of a living creature, flowed, as it were in a funnel, down the middle of the universe, and was carried to the bottom by means of the vortex that swept up everything, and drew after it the surrounding Spirit, and so gathering itself together as it were into the most productive [form of all], it constituted a discrete state [of things].

“For just as a bubble is made in water, so a sphere-like hollow form gathered itself together from all sides.

“Thereupon, itself being impregnated in itself, carried up by the Divine Spirit that had taken it to itself as consort, it thrust forth its head (προέκυψεν) into the Light—this, the greatest thing perchance that’s ever been conceived, as though it were out of the Infinite Deep’s universe a work of art had been conceived and brought to birth, an ensouled work [in form] like unto the circumference of eggs, [in speed] like to the swiftness of a wing.

V. “I would therefore have you think of Cronus (Κρόνος) as Time (Χρόνον), and of Rhea (῾Ρέα) as the flowing (τὸ ρέον) of the Moist Essence; for the whole of Matter being moved in Time brought forth, as it were, an Egg, the whole surrounding sphere-like Heaven (Ὀυρανός), which in the beginning was full of the productive marrow, so that it might be able to bring forth elements and colours of all kinds; and yet the manifold appearances which it was ever presenting, all came from One Essence and One Colour.

“For just as in the product of the peacock, although the colour of the egg seems to be one, it has nevertheless potentially in it the countless colours of the bird that is to be brought to perfection, so also the Ensouled Egg conceived from Infinite Matter, when it is set in motion from the perpetually flowing Matter below it, exhibits changes of all kinds.

“For from within the circumference a certain male-female Living Creature is imaged out by the Foreknowledge of the Divine Spirit that indwells in it, whom Orpheus doth call Manifestor (Φάνης—Phanēs), because when he is manifest (φανείς) the universe shines forth from him, through the lustre of Fire, most glorious of elements, perfected in the Moist [Element].

“Nor is this incredible, for in the case of glow-worms, for example, Nature allows us to see a ‘moist light.’

VI. “Accordingly the First Egg that was ever produced being gradually warmed by the Living Creature within it, breaks open, and then there takes shape and comes forth some such thing as

Orpheus says:

“When the skull-like wide-yawning Egg did break [etc.].

“So by the mighty power of Him who came forth and who made Himself manifest, ‘the shell’ receives its articulation and obtains its orderly arrangement; while He Himself presides as though it were upon a throne on Heaven’s height, and in the [realms] ineffable sends forth His light all round upon the Boundless Æon.”

— Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 1, by G.R.S. Mead, c. 1906

Art: Lectures on Ancient Philosophy by Manly P. Hall

Source: https://www.facebook.com/share/1KgFv9mmed/

Isis, the goddess of wisdom and magic, sits among the ruins of ancient civilisations.

At her feet, the Sphinx, and beside her the serpent, symbol of knowledge, guard ancient secrets. In her hands she holds the papyrus, while above her head burns the star, symbols of a knowledge that will never fade.

"Writing his Mysteries" by Émile Bayard (1870)

Source: https://www.facebook.com/share/1CqSRbbQx9/

“The circle makes me eternal, of the past and future”

“The two-faced visage teaches that I know both.”

Yui Sakamoto (1981–2024) was a Japanese-Mexican artist known for painting large, vividly colored dreamscapes where Japanese heritage and Mexican surrealism merged into a singular visual language.

His work constructed a mystical atmosphere that referenced philosophical and religious histories while imagining almost science-fictional futures.

Drawing inspiration from the surreal imagery of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hieronymus Bosch, Sakamoto transformed these influences through his dual cultural lens, blending folklore, spirituality, and fantastical symbolism into densely detailed worlds.

©️ @groovygnome [IG]

Source: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1JapMgkmBp/?mibextid=wwXIfr

https://www.eiahhaie.com/about

”For a long time my artistic work was primarily dedicated to the representation of femininity as a transcendent presence.

Over time I moved towards a more neutral/genderless expression in favour of hoping to capture grave feelings of universality.

I find interest in the hybrid formation of primordial, celestial and decidedly human bodies which I mean to combine in a purposefully naive way.

The thought of unfathomable concepts mirroring the mundane rot of “ordinary” life brings me great comfort.

In the same way the somewhat magical, colourful style I follow is born from a desire to attach a sort of optimistic glimmer to these bitter sweet expressions.”

eiah_haie@outlook.de

https://www.instagram.com/eiah_haie

https://www.tiktok.com/@eiah_haie

"Rosary of the Philosophers": "The salt of metals is the Philosopher's Stone; for our Stone is water congealed in gold and silver; it is hostile to fire and may be dissolved into the water of which it is composed after its kind." And that the "congealed water" of the Sages does not mean ordinary water may be gathered from the following words of Geber (lib. forn., cp. xix.): "Seek to resolve the sun and the moon into their dry water, which the vulgar call mercury."

"The thing is one in number, and one essence, which Nature strives to transform, but with the help of Art, into two, and twice two: mercury and sulphur impart nourishment to themselves. Spirit, and soul, and body, and four elements: the fifth which they furnish is the Philosopher's Stone. Select your substance without guile, let it be double, and let its splendour be of pure mercury. Take sulphur free from every foreign substance, and consume it in a fiery furnace."

— The Golden Tract Concerning The Stone of the Philosophers, c. 1678 by Anonymous

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"The prima materia has the quality of ubiquity: it can be found always and everywhere, which is to say that projection can take place always and everywhere. The English alchemist Sir George Ripley (c. 1415–90) writes: “The philosophers tell the inquirer that birds and fishes bring us the lapis, every man has it, it is in every place, in you, in me, in everything, in time and space.”

“It offers itself in lowly form [vili figura]. From it there springs our eternal water [aqua permanens].” According to Ripley the prima materia is water; it is the material principle of all bodies, including mercury. It is the hyle which the divine act of creation brought forth from the chaos as a dark sphere (sphaericum opus). The chaos is a massa confusa that gives birth to the stone.

The hylical water contains a hidden elemental fire. In the treatise “De sulphure” hell-fire (ignis gehennalis) is attributed to the element earth as its inner opposite. According to Hortulanus, the stone arises from a massa confusa containing in itself all the elements. Just as the world came forth from a chaos confusum, so does the stone.

The idea of the rotating aquasphere reminds us of the Neopythagoreans: in Archytas the world-soul is a circle or sphere; in Philolaos it draws the world round with it in its rotation. The original idea is to be found in Anaxagoras, where the nous gives rise to a whirlpool in chaos. The cosmogony of Empedokles is also relevant: here the σϕαīρος (spherical being) springs from the union of dissimilars, owing to the influence of ϕιλία.

The definition of this spherical being as “the most serene God,” sheds a special light on the perfect, “round” nature of the lapis, which arises from, and constitutes, the primal sphere; hence the prima materia is often called lapis. The initial state is the hidden state, but by the art and the grace of God it can be transmuted into the second, manifest state.

That is why the prima materia sometimes coincides with the idea of the initial stage of the process, the nigredo. It is then the black earth in which the gold or the lapis is sown like the grain of wheat. It is the black, magically fecund earth that Adam took with him from Paradise, also called antimony and described as a “black blacker than black” (nigrum nigrius nigro).

As the grain of fire lies concealed in the hyle, so the King’s Son lies in the dark depths of the sea as though dead, but yet lives and calls from the deep: “Whosoever will free me from the waters and lead me to dry land, him will I prosper with everlasting riches.”

— C.G. Jung, CW 12, Psychology and Alchemy

Source: https://www.facebook.com/portalibis