The Waters of Mnemosyne, page 1
Praise for The Waters of Mnemosyne
“A remarkable fusion of deep scholarship, engaging insights, and potent practices. This book elegantly navigates the rich waters of ancient Greek spirituality, breathing life into practices that have seemingly long lain dormant, while skillfully maintaining their relevance in our modern world. … A treasure trove for anyone drawn to the ancient Greek religious practices.”
—Mat Auryn, international bestselling author of Psychic Witch
“Reece stands out as a welcomed fresh voice for seekers searching for understanding in our challenging world. Awakening our divine memory, The Waters of Mnemosyne is a thoughtful exploration of ancient religion applied to our modern quest for meaning and connection. Reece guides the reader to develop a stronger relationship between themselves and the divine.”
—Angelo Nasios, author and host of the Hearth of Hellenism podcast
“There are few books that weave revelation and research seamlessly, letting them inform each other to create a truly vibrant spirituality. The Waters of Mnemosyne is such a book. Rather than dry reconstruction, Gwendolyn gives us a Hellenic religion that is dripping with spirit. … Reece is uniquely qualified to lay down what will surely be the definitive text for Hellenic-inspired practice for years to come.”
—Jason Miller, author of Consorting with Spirits
“In her groundbreaking work, Reece doesn’t just re-create ancient rituals; she ingeniously reinterprets fundamental concepts for today’s Pagan practitioner. With unparalleled clarity, she unveils the intricate terminology and symbolic meanings pivotal to Hellenic polytheism, making it accessible through relatable examples and practical exercises in each chapter.”
—Cara Schulz, author and former journalist for The Wild Hunt
“Gwendolyn’s passion, wit, insight, and commitment to connecting more people to this stream of culture and practice is a wonder to behold. I have no doubt that this book will be a classic that will inspire current and future generations. The Waters of Mnemosyne treats its readers with respect as it challenges and encourages them to become their best selves.”
—Ivo Dominguez, Jr., author of Keys to Perception
“Gwendolyn unites a clear historic and philosophical understanding with her own living magickal experience to offer us a valuable text in remembering and renewing our relationship with the gods of Greece. … The teachings on philosophy, healing, community, fate, cleansing, heroes, virtue, the mysteries, and humanity’s relationship with the gods are well worth your time.”
—Christopher Penczak, bestselling author of the Temple of Witchcraft series
“This book is much more than a history text—it is a manual of living practice. … The passion of her dedication to our gods shines through every page. … Even more, she brings to life the ideals my ancient Greek ancestors failed to meet, helping us to imagine new age of Athenian reason and Apollonian harmony for our own times.”
—Sara Mastros, author of Orphic Hymns Grimoire, The Sorcery of Solomon, and other books
“Gwendolyn Reece presents a thorough and compelling tour of ancient Hellenic culture, philosophy, religion, and magickal practice, and she offers tools to adapt these practices into modern-day magickal work. She is deeply knowledgeable and an excellent teacher, and her love for and deep experience with the subject matter shines through in this excellent must-read.”
—Enfys J. Book, author of Queer Qabala and Queer Rites
About the Author
Gwendolyn Reece is a high priestess in the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel, leading Theophania Temple in Washington, DC. She is devoted to the Hellenic deities, especially Apollon and Athena. She serves as President of the Sacred Space conference and is a national teacher for the Theosophical Society in America. Visit her at GwendolynReece.net.
Copyright Information
The Waters of Mnemosyne: Ancient Greek Religion for Modern Pagans Copyright © 2024 by Gwendolyn Reece.
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First e-book edition © 2024
E-book ISBN: 9780738778969
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Interior art on page 93 by Napolean Vier, reproduced under the GNU Free Documentation License https://www.gnu.org/licenses
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Reece, Gwendolyn, author.
Title: The waters of Mnemosyne : ancient Greek religion for modern pagans /
by Gwendolyn Reece.
Description: First edition. | Woodbury, MN : Llewellyn Publications, a
Division of Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., 2024. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2024032023 (print) | LCCN 2024032024 (ebook) | ISBN
9780738778891 (paperback) | ISBN 9780738778969 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Neopaganism. | Greece—Religion.
Classification: LCC BP605.N46 R443 2024 (print) | LCC BP605.N46 (ebook) |
DDC 299/.94—dc23/eng/20240814
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024032023
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024032024
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Manufactured in the United States of America
Contents
List of Exercises, Rites, and Prayers
Introduction
Chapter One: Fundamentals
Chapter Two: Who Are the Theoi?
Chapter Three: Meet the Theoi
Chapter Four: Sacred Space
Chapter Five: Shrines, Sanctuaries, and Other Public Sacred Spaces
Chapter Six: Speaking to the Gods
Chapter Seven: Listening to the Gods—Omens, Oracles, and Visions
Chapter Eight: Household Practice
Chapter Nine: Rites of Passage
Chapter Ten: The Polis and Civic Duty
Chapter Eleven: Healing
Chapter Twelve: The Mysteries
Chapter Thirteen: Heroes, the Heroic Path, and Apotheosis
Chapter Fourteen: Philosophy as a Sacred Practice and Path
Chapter Fifteen: Ancient Greek Magic
Conclusion
Recommended Ancient Texts for Next Steps
Glossary of Greek Words
Works Cited
Exercises, Rites, and Prayers
Rituals and Exercises
Exercise: Three-Minute Paper on Your Landscape
Exercise: Three-Minute Paper on Moira
Exercise: Spiritual Cleansing Bath
Exercise: Three-Minute Paper on Hamartia
Exercise: Three-Minute Paper on Hubris
Exercise: Making a Plan
Exercise: Meet Your Local Nymph
Exercise: Creating the Omphalos Stone
Exercise: Cruelty-Free Piglet Expiatory Sacrifice
Exercise: Setting Up an Altar
Exercise: Creating an Astral Sanctuary
Exercise: Create Your Own Festival Calendar
Exercise: Design Your Daily Practice
Exercise: Omen Training
Exercise: Silent Retreat Dream Incubation
Exercise: Make a Kadiskos
Exercise: Consecrate Boundary Stones for Zeus Herkeios
Exercise: Create the Hearth of Your Oikos
Ritual: Welcoming a Baby into the Oikos
Ritual: Creating a New, Blended Oikos
Ritual: Leaving the Nest
Ritual: Ninth-Day Memorial
Ritual: Oath-Keeping
Exercise: Healing Dream Incubation Pilgrimage
Exercise: Some Initial Steps in Rebirthing the Mysteries
Exercise: Establishing a Relationship with a Hero
Exercise: Write a Chapter in Your Heroic Song
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Exercise:Identifying Priority Virtues for Your Development
Exercise: Planning Your Virtuous Habits
Exercise: Improve Prudence
Exercise: Exploring Anger
Exercise: Negative Imagining
Exercise: Daily Review
Exercise: Make a Plan for Self-Cultivation
Exercise: Binding Spell for Situations of Domestic Violence
Exercise: Justice Spell for an Unknown Perpetrator
Exercise: A Spell of Increase Using an Iynx
Variation: Iynx Spell for the Public Good
Exercise: Protection Amulet
Pathworkings and Prayers
Prayer to Zeus
Pathworking to the Sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona
Prayer to Hera
Pathworking to Hera’s Garden
Prayer to Poseidon
Pathworking to the Sea Altar of Poseidon
Prayer to Demeter and Persephone
Pathworking to the Temple of Athena Polias
Prayer to Hades and Persephone
Pathworking to the Ploutonian Cave at Eleusis
Prayer to Hestia
Pathworking to the Hearth of Hestia
Prayer to Aphrodite
Pathworking to Aphrodite’s Garden
Prayer to Ares
Pathworking to the Training Ground of Ares
Prayer to Hephaistos
Pathworking to the Forge of Hephaistos
Prayer to Athena
Pathworking to the Temple of Athena Polias
Prayer to Artemis
Pathworking to the Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron
Prayer to Apollon
Pathworking to the Sanctuary of Apollon at Delos
Prayer to Hermes
Pathworking to the Market Shrine of Hermes
Prayer to Dionysus
Pathworking to the Revelry of Dionysus
Pathworking to the Sacred Cave of Zeus
Pathworking through the Panathenaia
Prayer for the Dying or Recently Dead
Introduction
The Mnemosyne Affirmation
Re-member who you are.
Re-member what you are.
You are the radiance of the Light Eternal.
You are Beauty beholding the beautiful.
You are the Love that is moved by wonder.
Call your Self back to yourself and re-member.
Strike your own true note and then
Feel all within tune and harmonize.
You are a singer in the Cosmic Song.
Tune yourself and sing.
This healing meditation was a gift from Apollon, the Lord of Light. Mnemosyne, Mother of the Muses, is the goddess of memory, and drinking Her waters restores us to wholeness. Memory has a special place in ancient Greek religion. Each of us, according to Plato, is part of the Source of All, and we can access Truth through a special type of memory. The Mnemosyne affirmation reminds us that our individuated selves are unique expressions of that highest nature and that our work here is holy.
The waters of Mnemosyne protect us from Lethe, the waters of forgetting, which is what makes death so fearful. Many inscriptions convey a formula from the Orphic Mysteries to assist initiates in maintaining continuity of consciousness across the bridges of death and rebirth.1 I believe; I remember. This is my rendering of the formula the newly dead should say during their transition.
I am a child of Earth and starry Heaven
But my race is of Heaven alone.
Give to me the waters of Mnemosyne,
Which are mine to drink by right.
The power of Mnemosyne’s waters can heal us individually and culturally by connecting us to the Divine Realm—bringing more of its Light down. We can recover things we collectively lost and create new alternatives that are in greater alignment with the Divine Ideas.
This book is dedicated to re-membering and rebirthing ancient Greek religion for contemporary practitioners as inspiration for contemporary practitioners within the Modern Pagan movement. The Greek Gods are reaching out, making connections with people today—often felt as curiosity or an internal urging that keeps resurfacing. For some, it may be an old relationship reawakening. For others, it could be a beautiful new contact.
Why Rebirth Ancient Greek Religion within Modern Paganism?
Modern Paganism, as a new religious movement, has the potential to help create alternative culture. When I look around, I see an insane society, full of deep soul-sickness. Our society claims to have conquered superstition through reason, yet we are well into an ecological crisis and can’t seem to muster the collective will to address it. We have record loneliness and disaffection. The world is full of suffering resulting from human-created systems. We pursue technological advances that might destroy all humanity because we fear if we don’t, someone else will beat us to it. Many people lack a sense of purpose. Most tellingly, our society treats living beings as things, reducing our value to our productivity. This suffering is rooted in collective cultural and social decisions. We need to create and embrace different alternatives.
Modern Pagans discovered that the Great Ones we collectively left in the conversion to monotheism remain, waiting to be in relationship with us again. We found that if we stop treating living beings as things and begin to see all life—including the Green World of the plants, the rivers, the mountains, the land itself—as having consciousness and as capable of being in friendly relationships with us, the world becomes enchanted again. Modern Pagans realized we exist on many levels of reality and began taking our full selves seriously. We found that the parts of us that walk in dreams can be trained to walk those lands while waking. In those inner planes, we discovered there are lines of power that were abandoned but still present. All we have to do is plug back into them, and we can bring that power back into the world as an act of healing.
When looking at ancient forms, there will be things we don’t want to re-create, but we can rebirth them in new ways, appropriate for now. Nothing living is static. The tyranny of common sense may tell us our current circumstances are “just the way things are,” but this illusion obscures a myriad of options. I want to do my part in trying to create healthy alternatives for myself, my beloveds, my community, my society, and for this blessed Earth. I believe many of the Great Ones—the Gods, in Greek, “the Theoi”—want the same. They want to be in relationship with us again and help us realign the way things are with the way things should be if we were living in a healthy way. May this book be of service.
Who Am I?
I make no sense to myself without reincarnation. I don’t remember a time in which I didn’t love the Greek Gods and when They weren’t real to me. This connection does not come out of my blood nor from my upbringing. In the deepest and immortal part of my own nature, I feel the intense love for these beings, especially for Apollon (Apollo), Artemis, and Athena. I believe I carry these relationships with me, no matter what form I wear, and that I hold in my soul certain memories from long ago.
My relationships with the Theoi have continued to evolve, change, and grow—as all living things do. My love spurs me to learn as much as I can, including pursuing advanced degrees and striving to live a pious and philosophical life as a priestess of Apollon and Athena. While I have tremendous regard for the Greeks and their endeavors to revive traditional polytheism, my path and practice are more generally embedded in Modern Paganism and address the needs of the Modern Pagan movement. I am not just a Pagan; I am a witch. I practice magic regularly. Magic is not the same thing as spiritual development. It can aid spiritual evolution—and I try to use it for these purposes as well as for living more fully in the world.
I am engaged in rebirthing rather than reconstructing. Little I do is an exact re-creation of ancient rites. My practice is grounded in history, but I use the past to inform, to inspire, and to tap lines of power and connection rather than striving for historical accuracy. While I have a scholarly background, I am not writing as a scholar studying a dead tradition. I am a theologian, writing theology as part of a living Pagan tradition.
My work and service to the Theoi centers on relationships. Building relationships with the nonhuman and spirit world and the invisible and immortal aspects of our own nature is the root of all religions. The functions of religions are relatively stable, but the forms shift to fulfill those functions in changing and varied contexts. The Theoi want us to be full spiritual adults. We are not peers, since we are not the same, but my relationship with the Theoi is characterized by partnership. There are varying levels of intimacy, just as in human relations—my relationship with Apollon being the most intimate. I understand myself to be apprenticed to Him. I am learning from Him, striving to be like Him, and mediating some of His power into this world. There is a kind of guidance and closeness that differs from my relationships with other Theoi.
