One of the things that has always fascinated me the most, were the tales of oracles, prophetesses of the ancient world, sorcerers and so on. When I turn my studies to ancient Greece, I cannot help but to go and delve a little bit more into the knowledge of the oracle of Delphi. So let us leave the north of Europe for a time and go south into the ancient world of heroes and strange myths.
Situated south-west of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis, Delphi was a Greek city associated with the god Apollo. According to the legends, the hill was guarded by a giant serpent called Python, who was a follower of the cult of Gaia (the goddess or the personification of Earth). After killing Python, the god Apollo claimed Delphi as his own sanctuary.
Every myth has its own truths; metaphores protecting the culture and tradition of a people. So this mythological account might well be based on actual events. Historically and archaeologicaly speaking, during the Mycenaean period (14 th-11th centuries B.C.) there were small settlements in Delphi dedicated to the Earth-Mother as a deity. However, the worshipping of Apollo was established between the 11th and the 9th centuries B.C. By the 8th century B.C. the city of Delphi was already renowned amongst the peoples of the ancient world as a place of prophetic powers held by the Pythia.
"Pythia" was the name given to any priestess throughout the history of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The priestess, apparently, was a woman over fifty years of age, lived apart from her husband and dressed in a maiden’s clothes. It's described to us that the ritual of the Pythia during the call of her prophecies required her to first enter the inner chamber of the temple, then she would sit on a tripod and inhale the light hydrocarbon gasses that escape from a chasm in which the temple was build. After falling into a trance, she would mutter words impossible to understand (at least to mere mortals). These words were thereafter interpreted by the priests of the sanctuary in a common language and delivered to those who had requested the prophecies of the Pythia. But of course, these prophecies were always open to interpretation and often signified dual and opposing meanings.
Some interpretations of the prophecies were just what people needed to hear to convince themselves to go to war or fight a specific battle; and as you might imagine, sometimes it went terribly wrong. Nevertheless, some prophecies were accurate and things did happen the way the prophecies had been translated and interpreted. Coincidence? Perhaps, but there were major events that were just too great to be mere coincidence. Nowadays our society has deprived us all of the magic and mystery of the world and what lies beyond conciousness. So I will just leave this post here and you decide what to make of prophecies, although I must say, sometimes there are forces at work greater than our desires and certain paths must be taken before we reach our true goals with success.
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