The High Priestess of Blood

*Per leggere questo articolo in Italiano clicca qui.*

In 1996 we could admire on the big screen a beautiful and provocative Salma Hayek, dressed as a pre-Columbian divinity, dancing wrapped in the coils of an albino boa on the stage of a strip club on the edge of reality. A club where the worst atrocities were committed, coming from the true pen of Quentin Tarantino and directed by the watchful eye of Robert Rodriguez.

But what if I told you that, in a forgotten village in Mexico, there really were vicissitudes worthy of the best Pulp films by Tarantino & Rodriguez?

We are far from the "spooky season", but - thanks to the celestial influence of Taurus and a Beltane that has just passed, on this night I want to tell you a story where lust, thirst for power and bloody rites mix. Fasten your seatbelt, we're flying overseas.

**Read here our post about Beltane

Precisely, we are in the sleepy town of Yerba Buena - in the 1960s.

A village that lends itself to being the perfect stage for the story we are going to tell you. Lacking basic facilities such as schools, pharmacies or churches, it consisted mainly of farms and vast fields of beans and corn - cultivated by its inhabitants, some fifty mostly illiterate souls. Yerba Buena was the classic rural center that saw all its days pass marked by the same rhythms, since time immemorial. An immutable balance that was revolutionized by the arrival of the Hernández brothers.

It is not clear how the Hernández brothers arrived in this remote corner of Tamaulipas, we only know that they were characters well known to the police: perhaps looking for a place to keep a low profile and escape the watchful eye of the law, Santos and Cayetano, however, could not resist the temptation to deceive the naive local population.

Pretending to be descendants of the Inca and among the last priests of their lost religion (even though we were in Mexico), the Hernándezes promised infinite riches to the inhabitants of Yerba Buena: it was rumored that there were treasures lost among the caves of the Sierra Madre, the mountain range at whose feet the village stood. It was enough just to follow their instructions to make the prophecy come true, bring the Gods back and enjoy infinite riches. Simple, right?

In a short time, the brothers went from simple low-class swindlers to highly venerated gurus with a supposedly ancient lineage: after conducting rituals based on psychoactive substances (mainly cannabis and peyote) and animal sacrifices in honor of the Aztec goddess Coatlicue, they began to ask for compensation in money and offerings in libations.

Clearly, the people of Yerba Buena were not very wealthy so monetary donations were soon not enough to satisfy the Hernándezes' thirst for power. The brothers, therefore, began to demand retribution in full-fledged acts of slavery, with an eye especially on the young girls of the village. Once their perversions were satisfied, they sold the young girls to prostitute traffickers in border towns where no one would find them again.

As naive and uneducated as the inhabitants were, they began to wonder why - despite the libations, money and propitiatory rituals - the Inca gold was not found as promised. The Hernándezes thus had to adjust their shot.

Even before meeting the Hernándezes, Magdalena Solís did not live an easy life: forced into prostitution from an early age in the services of her brother Eleazar, she struggled between the streets and scams in which she pretended to be a medium and fortune teller. Young, beautiful, uninhibited and familiar with the supernatural, she was the perfect person to impersonate the Goddess Coatlicue: she and her brother were hired by the Hernándezes as the reincarnation of the Goddess and her faithful priest.

One evening, the Hernández brothers met the inhabitants in the caves overlooking the village: finally, the long wait was over and the divine had answered their prayers. During one of their rituals, they made Magdalena appear behind a screen of smoke - as the reincarnation of Coatlicue, leaving those present breathless. However, what the Hernández brothers had not factored into their plans was Magdalena's psychosis - aided by the excessive use of cannabis and peyote - which she convinced herself was truly the reincarnation of the Goddess.

Coatlicue, moreover, was not just any goddess: goddess of fertility and death; she was often represented with two snakes in place of the severed head, powerful claws on her hands and feet to tear the bodies of the deceased and wearing only a necklace of human skulls, hands and hearts and a skirt of snakes - leaving her breasts exposed, deflated and flaccid from countless pregnancies. And like Coatlicue, Magdalena also needed blood to be appeased: stealing the stage from the Hernándezes, she began to lead even more depraved rituals, where bystanders were forced to consume peyote, drink the blood of sacrificial animals and engage in wild orgies. If anyone dared to oppose the bloodthirsty regime of the priestess, they were killed as a sacrificial victim by their fellow citizens. Taken by frenzy and mystical delirium, Solís used to extract the still beating hearts of her victims - and then drink their blood mixed with narcotic substances, in ritual chalices.

And it was during one of these bloody rituals that young Sebastian Guerrero stumbled upon the bloody kingdom of Magdalena Solís. Wandering aimlessly through the Sierra Madre, he was attracted by screams coming from a cave: intrigued, he approached and saw the woman extract a beating heart from a human body, drink its blood with the bystanders and launch into a wild orgy. Distraught, Sebastian ran 15km to reach Villagrán and the nearest police station – where he told of “vampires who drank human blood”. Despite the mockery of the police, officer Luis Martínez decided to follow the boy and find out what had happened. Seeing neither Guerrero nor Martínez return, the police also decided to investigate but were not ready for what they saw.

The Solis brothers were found on one of the farms together with Santos Hernández, in an altered state of consciousness. The latter was killed by the police while trying to escape. Cayetano Hernández, however, it turned out that he had already been dead for some time - murdered by an inhabitant of Yerba Buena.

In the surrounding farmhouses and in the caves, they found several mutilated bodies - including those of Guerrero and Martínez. The villagers, seeing the police arrest their goddess, triggered a real armed revolt. The survivors were arrested and presented for trial.

At trial, they never took action against Magdalena and her brother Eleazar - perhaps fearful of Coatlicue's divine judgment or too traumatized by what had happened. The two brothers, despite the abuse inflicted on the villagers, were only sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of Martínez and Guerrero. In all these years, it is not clear what happened to Solis-the blood priestess, but according to some sources she apparently died in prison before her release.

This story, as told by the media, can tickle that sense of unease and the occult that we all crave: death, sex, ritual drugs and bloodthirsty deities. But I would like to go a little deeper with you, without limiting myself to this superficial vision, however tempting it may be; it is very easy to fall into the "satanic cults and drugs" trope, especially in a very Catholic Mexico of the 1960s. But let's take a moment to look at the various elements that have been mentioned in news events.

THE GODDESS COATLICUE

One of the main goddesses of the Aztec pantheon, as mentioned above, was depicted with a fearsome appearance to say the least. Relegating her only to a bloodthirsty divinity would be a huge wrong and gross mistake: like many ancient female divinities, she was an ambivalent goddess. If on the one hand she needed human sacrifices (which she was fond of) as Tzitzimītl, on the other she was a divinity linked to fertility. For ancient peoples (and still today, outside the Abrahamic West), life and death were two sides of the same coin - an aspect that unfortunately today we tend to ignore in our thanatophobic society.

In fact, as mentioned above, Coatlicue was normally depicted with her breasts deflated from breastfeeding: according to Aztec mythology, she was responsible for keeping the temple at the top of the sacred mountain Coatepec (the “Mountain of Serpents”) in order. Seeing a mysterious ball of feathers fall from the sky and land on the floor, she picked it up, placing it in the waistband of her skirt and becoming miraculously pregnant there.

Her daughter Coyolxauhqui (the goddess of the Moon), angered by this discovery, decided to declare war on her mother together with her four hundred brothers, the Centzonhuītznāhua (representing the stars of the firmament). Once the mother was beheaded, Huitzilopochtli (the god of war and the Sun) emerged fully armed from her womb and fought against her brothers and sister in a long and bloody battle.

With the Spanish invasion of Cortés, Coatlicue definitively lost its multidimensionality with the syncretism with the beloved Virgin of Guadalupe, reminiscence of ancient memories and ancestral divine feminine - in a unique place like Mexico, where the sacred and the profane follow one another in life everyday. Over the centuries, the legendary temple of Coatepec was replaced with a cathedral in the imagination of the local population, replacing and, at the same time, assimilating with renewed vigor the echoes of a fallen empire and ancient cults of the land.

THE USE OF PSYCHOTROPIC SUBSTANCES

Here too, we could fall into the classic cliché of bad drugs - but in reality we should talk about HOW these substances can be used, especially when talking about ancient power plants such as peyote and cannabis. Used for thousands of years for ritual purposes, they have only recently been (re)discovered for therapeutic use also in the West: in fact, not only are they very powerful spiritual allies, but they also have numerous healing properties.

Cannabis, fortunately now legalized or decriminalized in many countries, is often used to alleviate the symptoms of terminal illnesses, neuropathic and chronic pain and sometimes to alleviate symptoms of some neurodivergences - both in its form with THC and in its form with CBD (the two main cannabinoids found in the plant). The active ingredient of peyote (mescaline), however, is one of the many substances at the center of the psychedelic renaissance of recent years - together with the more famous psilocybin (magic mushroom), lysergic acid (LSD) and dimethyltryptamine or DMT (ayahuasca).

Studies show that these power plants can be invaluable allies in creating new neural pathways and processing complex traumas in psychotherapy. Although these substances are not suitable for everyone (despite spiritual influencers saying otherwise, in certain individuals they can trigger psychosis and accelerate the onset of pathologies such as schizophrenia), it is undeniable that they have been demonized above all for political purposes (i.e. the War on Drugs). Despite promising results in the 1950s in the field of psychedelic research (with more than 1000 clinical studies published), in the 1970s they were completely banned due to recreational use in youth countercultures; unfortunately closing the door to scientific research and hundreds of years of spiritual use for over 30 years, effectively making nature itself and the history of man illegal. Whether it is for spiritual, therapeutic, recreational use (or all three), the important thing is to take them in a safe context where you feel at ease and with full awareness of any side effects - as it is still of ancient spirits and allies of power.

IN CONCLUSION

Before judging the events of Yerba Buena, both in terms of the naivety of its inhabitants and the bloody Solís, we must pause for a moment on the socio-cultural framework of rural Mexico in the 1960s; a country plagued by a colonial past and has always been a border town between South America and the USA with their corresponding contrabands.

When inalienable rights are missing, such as education and safety and comfort for one's families, we should not be surprised if an entire village found itself willingly accepting to carry out such heinous crimes, with the promise of obtaining immeasurable riches promised by a self-styled Aztec goddess.

Obviously we don't want to justify the atrocities committed by Magdalena; but I still believe we need to talk about how these elements (the psychotropic substances and the mystical delirium that resulted from them) could have been comburents to trigger a mass psychosis in the people of Yerba Buena and in this young woman - following a life at the mercy of of traumatic events from an early age. As often in cases like these, we are talking about people who are desperate and ostracized by society: it is not difficult to imagine how a mind can crack to such an extent; furthermore, as mentioned above, the excessive use of narcotic substances can cause - if done incorrectly - significant psychological damage.

Obviously, here we find ourselves in an extreme case: the vast majority of abuse victims do not become bloodthirsty monsters; but if we think that these events of systemic violence are things of the past we are greatly mistaken. Nowadays, there are monsters far more bloodthirsty and frightening than Magdalena Solís: monsters who do not hide in the most isolated fringes of society, but act dressed in suits and ties, from leather armchairs while justifying the genocide of entire populations by hiding behind the banks of the powerful.

These are the monsters we must guard against, the most dangerous and lethal ones. Monsters who, in the name of ideals and economic interest, create and maintain a society where there is no room for the undesirable, for the different, amidst the total indifference of people and governments.

♃Ludna

The Poisoners of Nagyrev

*Per leggere questo articolo in Italiano clicca qui.*

Although it arrived late compared to previous years, thanks to the endless summers of climate change, we are now in the midst of the spooky season: gloomy days, crepuscular atmosphere, the scent of fallen leaves and petrichor in the air, it is undeniable that November, the month of the dead, is here with its festivities and trail of travelling souls.

**Read our article for Samhain here.
**Read our article for Mundus Patet.

Between ghosts and ghouls and creatures of the night, today we want to tell you a story of fallen souls that reside on this side of the veil and in the human soul, the undisputed kingdom of evil.  A story that talks about witches, death and times gone by.

The story takes place under the skies of Hungary in the early 1900s, a land famous for its rich landscape, the scent of goulash bubbling in sumptuous kitchens, the fertile banks of the Danube and a past full of history and folklore - reminiscences of imperial splendour and ancient shamanic memories. The same heart of Europe that gave birth to the bloodthirsty Countess Erzsébet Báthory, a figure shrouded in history and legend, gave birth to today's protagonist: Zsuzsanna Fazekas.

The story begins in a Hungary on the brink of the collapse of the then Austro-Hungarian empire and far from its glory days: at the front, the First World War would soon claim the souls of more than 500 thousand soldiers while in the villages the women were left to themselves, carrying on, as best they could, their daily lives.

As bleak a prospect as it may have seemed, women soon found their balance in this renewed matriarchal society; at the time, the female condition was not what it is today: often, marriages were arranged by families and young women found themselves having to wed into the harsh reality of a married life without rights, an unwanted dowry of a loveless marriage. Often with numerous dependent children and farming work to carry on, some of them found consolation in the arms of prisoners of war - stationed in a prison camp near the village of Nagyrév, the main stage of our story. While the war raged on the front, a bubble was created in the heart of Hungary of independent, libertine, and sexually free women, who unfortunately found themselves sometimes with unwanted pregnancies.

And here Zsuzsanna, the protagonist of our story, comes into play.

Nagyrév was the mirror of many Central European villages of that era: a secluded and austere reality, set in the middle of the Hungarian countryside marked by rhythms in tune with the inexorable pace of the seasons.

In places like these, suspended in a liminal dimension, villagers relied not so much on the progress of science but rather on centuries-old traditions and popular remedies. In these places, in case of illness, one knocked on the doors of the elderly village healers with their mastery of herbs and knowledge of feminine mysteries.

Zsuzsanna Fazekas was one of these authoritative crones; appeared in Nagyrév in 1911, after the mysterious disappearance of her husband, she established herself as a reference figure thanks to her curriculum as an expert midwife. Like so many of them, she was also a capable abortionist - a technique then illegal and frowned upon as much as it is today but practised out of necessity for as long as anyone can remember. An extremely useful knowledge, in the libertine Nagyrév of those years: it is said that Zsuzsanna had been arrested several times, between 1911 and 1921, for having carried out numerous illegal abortions in the village.

Like many other realities that seem immutable, the Great War also came to an end. The survivors, severely affected by the experiences they lived on the front (today we could say suffering from PTSD) returned to their home village, bringing with them from the front bloody demons whom they were seeking to appease with large quantities of alcohol. As it is easily imaginable, men, often physically and mentally disfigured, struggled to find their place in a post-war society that abandoned them while women, on the other hand, experienced an intoxicating independence during the war years, which they did not want to give up in favour of an often abusive husband who had never been loved and now incapable of providing for the family.

Nowadays a confidant of the women of the village and a wise healer, Zsuzsanna decided to make her knowledge of poison path available to the villagers. Like many other healers, the woman was a dual figure: on the one hand a giver of life, on the other a bringer of death.

Thanks to a mysterious arsenic-based mixture (a faithful and undisputed ally of court intrigues over the centuries), husbands, elderly parents and unwanted children began to drop like flies - literally. The precious poison, in fact, came from none other than the boiling of fly traps. Due to having cholera-like symptoms and being the village rural with often unsanitary water sources, arsenic poisoning seemed like the perfect crime.

It is not very clear how the case became public knowledge: according to some sources, a medical student found alarming levels of arsenic in the river on whose placid banks the village of Nagyrév stood, while according to other sources an anonymous letter was sent to the director of a local newspaper. During the investigation, the police had the bodies exhumed from the village cemetery - which showed traces of arsenic. It is estimated that, over the course of twenty years, around fifty people met the same mysterious fate as Zsuzsanna's husband who died prematurely.

The Fazekas method spread like wildfire in the surrounding areas: some men residing in nearby villages reported attempted cases of poisoning which led to the shocking discovery of this series of crimes, which shook an entire nation and left an indelible mark on Hungarian history. According to some estimates, the victims amounted to up to 300 people in the area alone - but who knows how many other people succumbed to the same fate.

When the police knocked on Zsusanna Fazekas' doors, it was too late - holder of life and death, the midwife would never have allowed herself to be executed like any criminal, she took her own life with her own poison. Starting with Fazekas, the police discovered the other members of the "Angel Makers" group (as they were later known to the rest of the world): 26 women were sentenced to life imprisonment, 8 to capital punishment and the remaining a few years in prison. Was this finally enough to eradicate the evil in Nagyrév? Perhaps.

In the 1950s, historian Aladár Györgyey Ferenc met an old villager during his years of imprisonment under the communist regime; the peasant claimed that Nagyrév's women "had been killing their men since time immemorial."

But why witches?

Although over the centuries midwifery was considered a position of prestige, during the Middle Ages it became associated with Witchcraft and many women were thus accused and executed over the centuries - guilty many times only of simply being midwives with medical knowledge and experience with natural remedies. And with the knowledge of pharmacopoeia, also comes the knowledge of poisons and the Ars Veneficium, as we know, has always been a precious ally of women in the history of the world - from Lucusta to Giulia Tofana, to court rumours on the controversial figures of Lucrezia Borgia and Catherine de Medici (to remain only in Italy).  Zsuzsanna Fazekas was one of the many historical figures who made use of this knowledge.

In Nagyrév, as in many other European countries of the early 20th century, superstitions were deeply rooted in the local culture. The folklore surrounding witchcraft, potions and magic were a powerful influence and the Angel Makers embodied to perfection in the imagination collective the fearsome image of witches.

As much as this story may make you shudder, it is actually a cross-section of female history over the centuries. To fully understand the questionable motivations of Fazekas and her accomplices, we must first remind ourselves of the consequences of social abandonment and gender inequality: while their actions were undeniably criminal, it is vital to examine the systemic issues that drove these women to such extremes.

Nagyrév no longer inspires fear as it did hundred years ago, luckily conditions such as PTSD are now recognised and treatable and nowadays women enjoy freedom that their ancestors could only dream of; the story of the Angel Makers today remains a chilling chapter in Hungarian history, which fascinates both historians and enthusiasts of true crime. Their crimes were born of desperation, abandonment of society and the desire for freedom; by understanding the complex web of circumstances that led to their actions, we gain insight into the darkest corners of human nature and are reminded in a way of how far we have come can push to escape the chains of their existence.

♃Ludna

Pluto in Aquarius- A Dystopian Nigredo.

*Per leggere questo articolo in Italiano clicca qui.*

In recent weeks, more than ever, it seems to be on the edge of a precipice: wars waiting to break out, wars that have been tearing apart peoples and countries for decades, wars made of weapons, made of people, of trees silhouetted against a leaden sky, of animals trying to survive among the rubble of destroyed ecosystems and rivers of vinyl chloride.

There is a heaviness in the air that seems to herald the end of the world as we know it, suspended in a liminal shadow that obscures the light of this spring sun like a toxic cloud.

The Spring Equinox has just passed and with it another astrological year has begun, but that's not the only threshold we've crossed. This year we will see another powerful change, astrologically speaking: Pluto has just entered the house of Aquarius, for the first time since 1798, where it will give us a first taste of the new age to come - then re-entering Capricorn in retrograde way on June 2023 (to return to Aquarius definitively in November 2024).

Pluto takes its name from the Roman god of the Underworld and, therefore, governs everything related to Death (both physical and symbolic) and the consequent rebirth: downgraded to a dwarf planet by Science, in Astrology it is the agent of karma for excellence. Aquarius, as we have already seen, is an extremely creative, futuristic, technological and humanitarian sign (it is no coincidence that it is represented as the Water Bearer pouring the waters of knowledge into the cosmos).

So what to expect from this astrological aspect?

With the current picture in front of us, it is difficult not to imagine a dystopian future: we live in a world where likes and followers are sold on the black market like weapons and counterfeit goods, a symptom of an increasingly accentuated virtual escapism in a virtual reality so alluring and sometimes more real than the tangible. The IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) has just published its latest report, giving an ultimatum to the human race before the consequences of an unceasing, now almost irreversible, climate change become disastrous… Considering the growing tensions between East and West, a war could have devastating consequences not only from an ethical and civil point of view but also from an environmental point of view. Neither economic profit nor military glory nor virtual reality will save us.

Pluto and Aquarius together will bring progress but not without turmoil and destruction: to get to see the rays of a new golden dawn, we must first go through the long, dark night of the soul. What is not needed, must be destroyed in order to be reborn in a new era - at the end of Kali Yuga.

The last time Pluto was found to transit in Aquarius, the United States rebelled against the hegemony of the British Empire and obtained its independence, signing the American constitution in 1789; in Europe the French Revolution broke out which saw the abolition of the absolute monarchy inspiring many other revolutionary movements across the continent and the decline of centuries of monastic regimes; in Haiti instead there was one of the most important revolts in history: in 1791, a group of slaves rebelled against the French colonial government thus abolishing slavery and obtaining independence as the first sovereign state governed entirely by non-white people, creating a rebellion unprecedented that inspired the movement of liberation and revision of the laws concerning slavery in so many European colonies at the time.

Obviously, we cannot predict with certainty what this celestial meeting will bring after two centuries, but we will still see the incessant Aquarian humanitarian work: we will proceed oriented towards the rights of all individuals, hopefully abandoning the current Capricornian capitalist approach.

With the recent entry of Saturn into Pisces, bringing with it the oneiric from the depths onto the physical plane, we can only hope that it can light the fuse for greater spiritual awareness and direct change towards a more equitable society oriented towards the well-being of the humanity in full respect of Nature in all its entirety.

Despite a threatening celestial vault, in this approaching storm, we must remember that power also lies in the choices we make as individuals: let yourself be stripped by Pluto's alchemical nigredo in order to proceed safely towards the East, in view of a new dawn.

♃Ludna

October 9th, Full Moon in Aries: Choose Yourself

 

*Per leggere questo articolo in Italiano clicca qui.*

On October 9th, the Moon reaches its maximum splendor becoming full under the sign of Aries.

It is a moon that inspires us to heal, Aries is in fact the first sign of the zodiac and consequently we could consider this sky as a new beginning, a sort of reset, but we are still talking about a fire sign, a flame that frees us from impurities by burning them. If you have outstanding accounts or stagnant situations, I don’t rule out that they can be released, even if it is likely that this will happen abruptly.

The energies in circulation are very dynamic and in tension, like a pressure cooker about to explode. In conjunction with the Moon we also have Chiron, the wounded warrior, this aspect makes us want to vent everything we have inside.

Make use of these flaming energies through movement and all those actions that release endorphins: exercise, run, sing out loud, everything that allows you to lose control for a while. Hold nothing, throw it all out and then let go.

Venus, the planet that regulates love and relationships, is conjunct the Sun in Libra and is therefore very active these days. We will therefore have an eye for all those who are our close relationships, with the people we love but above all with ourselves.

Self Love, baby! The events of these days will allow us to learn more about what we want for ourselves, it's time to love ourselves and put ourselves first on the list of our priorities.

Try to think about how many times we do not believe enough in ourselves, how many times we do not choose ourselves for fear of losing the acceptance of others; Does this thought make you feel angry? Great, use this energy to correct the shot.

The anger you perceive is the scream of your inner child who is asking you not to cancel yourself for fear of rejection, you need to be aware that if you do not choose for yourself, no one else will.

Happy Full Moon!

♄Unornya

The curch of Santa Luciella and the skull with ears, Naples

 

*Per leggere questo articolo in Italiano clicca qui.*

With the arrival of Mabon and the beginning of the autumn, we can say that we have officially entered the spooky season, what better time to talk about magical and mysterious places?

I recently went on vacation to Naples, a city that I am literally adoring, full of traditions that refer to the ancient glories of paganism.

In this city you can definitely breathe a vibrant and ancient energy and, despite the advent of Christianity has involved it like any other place in Europe, it’s as if paganism has never ceased to exist and be practiced in that place, making sure that the sacred and the profane blend perfectly.

The city of Naples boasts a history and a succession of remarkable and very varied cultures, having been, among other things, one of the most important cities of Magna Graecia and consequently a very important pole for commercial, political, religious and cultural exchanges. As a consequence of all this, we have the fact that the city hides numerous sites of esoteric interest, real wonders that perfectly express the idea of ​​popular traditions.

So I would like to tell you about one of these places: the church of Santa Luciella.

It’s a small church in the heart of the ancient city center of Naples, founded in 1327 and located at the top of the alley that in ancient Roman times they called "vicus Cornelianus" that connects San Biagio dei Librai to San Gregorio Armeno.

Over the years, between 1600 and 1700, it passed under the custody of the guild of pipernieri, ancient artists who sculpted hard stones such as Piperno. The processing of this material put the sculptor's eyes at risk, as stone chips could easily spring on his face, consequently the pipernieri began to venerate Saint Lucy, protectress of sight, making the Church of Santa Luciella their place of worship, making an association with the Archconfraternity of the Immaculate Conception to which the Madonna on the high altar of the Church was entrusted.

**Click here to read our post about Saint Lucy.

Inside the church, in the central nave, we find in fact some rather disturbing mannequins, dressed in the clothes worn by the confreres, with the detail of the pointed hood which represented faith, penance for the sins committed but above all the equality between each member who thus became indistinguishable from the others.

Closed to the public after the 1980 earthquake as it was unusable, over time it was forgotten and became a small warehouse for building materials and, subsequently, even a landfill. In 2013 a group of young Neapolitans, specialized in art history, decided to open a foundation called “Respiriamo Arte", thus succeeding in regaining possession of this piece of history, proceeding with the restoration, making it safe and allowing the access to the public again, saving this cultural heritage from ruin.

Below the structure of the church we find a cemetery, a burial place dedicated to members of the Archconfraternity and their families. The method used to treat the bodies of the confreres before the inhumation was called "draining". The corpses were in fact entrusted to the "schiattamuorto", a typical Neapolitan figure representing the gravedigger, who pierced the body in strategic points (in particular the neck, wrists and legs) to ensure that the liquids and gases contained inside could escape more quickly. The body was then placed on large tanks of holy land and left to drain, in fact, thus accelerating the drying and decomposition process. Once ready, the bodies were buried in these tanks for a certain period of time, after which they were exhumed, carefully cleaned the bones which were then deposited in the ossuary below the cemetery (an area which today is accessed through a trap door but which has not yet been explored).

The only part of the body that was preserved in this cemetery was the skull, in Neapolitan called "capuzzella".

The skulls in question were venerated according to the local tradition of the "cult of Anime Pezzentelle", or souls in purgatory.

THE WORSHIP OF ANIME PEZZENTELLE:

This tradition was born in Naples in 1656 during a plague epidemic that devastated the city and killed two thirds of the population. The dead were so numerous that, for reasons of hygiene and protection from contagion, they were placed in mass graves, outside the places of prayer and thus depriving them of their identity. Neapolitan women, moved by pity for the souls of the dead, began to adopt skulls, the capuzzelle.

 

They went down inside the cemeteries, chose one of the skulls (the part of the body where the soul was thought to reside) and began to take care of them, cleaning and washing them with fresh water that should have given refreshment and relief to the soul of the deceased while they found in the flames of purgatory.

Through these treatments, the soul of the deceased could access heaven more quickly, however, in exchange, the women asked the deceased to intercede for them in order to obtain a grace.

“Pezzentelle”, in fact, derives from the Latin word petere which means “to ask”. When the required miracle was accomplished, the women brought an ex voto and hung it in the burial place as thanks. The ex-votos consisted of metal symbols, especially in silver, which represented the grace obtained: the arrival of a child, the husband's return from the war, the healing of the eyes or the solution of a love problem. Some of these ex-votos are still visible today on the hypogeum walls.

In the early 1900s this cult began to no longer be frowned upon by the Catholic Church, which defined it as a cult bordering on paganism. In fact, according to Catholicism, it is not possible for a believer to intercede with God through the dead (as it’s done with the pagan worship of ancestors) but only through the saints.

Although in 1969 the cult was banned by the Church, Neapolitan women continued the practice, until 1980 when it stopped due to the earthquake.

In addition to the church of Santa Luciella, the main symbolic places of this cult are located in the center of Naples: they are the church of Santa Maria delle anime del Purgatorio in Arco and the Fontanelle Cemetery.

THE SKULL WITH EARS:

Among all the skulls preserved in the underground cemetery of the Church of Santa Luciella we find the famous Skull with Ears.

This skull has the particularity of having two portions of bone that have spread over time, making it appear as if it still had, in fact, the auricles (which in reality it is not possible as the cartilage is one of the parts of the skeleton which degrades faster).

The Skull with ears was the favorite of women who practiced the cult of Anime Pezzentelle, precisely because it was thought that it had the ability to better listen to prayers and requests, acting as a real link between the world of the living and that of the dead. For this reason the skull, dating back to 1600, once exhibited in the crypt has never been touched or moved.

Personally, I find that this macabre tradition typical of the Neapolitan people actually best represents the particular relationship that these people have with the afterlife and with the cult of the dead. A belief that explains to us that we should not fear or show concern towards the dead, but that it is possible to devote ourselves to them gently, preventing them from being forgotten and still keeping them part of the community.

♄Unornya

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September 10th, Full Moon in Pisces: Focus on your dreams

 *Per leggere questo articolo in Italiano clicca qui.*

Tomorrow morning the Moon becomes full under the sign of Pisces. What about this lunation? let's expect some chaos, which is not always a negative aspect.

We will have a Moon quite close to Neptune, a planet also dominated by the sign of Pisces, all while in the same hours Mercury begins its retrograde motion in Libra, it’s all a bit immersed in a cloudy blanket these days, consequently our thoughts and judgment will not be particularly accurate. Fortunately, the Sun in Virgo helps us to adjust the shot a little, preventing us from doing damage.

It is time to focus a little less on the practical side and more on what our dreams and goals are, at the same time giving it a more realistic dimension, avoiding flights of fancy that can lead us to excess.

Visualize what you want to achieve several times, giving free rein to inspiration, which will be greatly favored by the energies of these days, let new ideas come to you.

One of the main characteristics of the sign of Pisces is compassion: remember to dedicate time to this practice which will set in motion a lot of positive energies. Taking care of others, even with just a good word or a compliment, which may seem obvious to you, are actions that will greatly raise your vibrations and those of others.

Precisely because the energies of these days seem to be hidden by a misty veil and everything seems unclear to us, also thanks to Mars which in these days is particularly active and can make us act impulsively, it is time to devote ourselves to the development of one's intuition, that voice within us that always sees everything clearly and that knows exactly how to behave. So learn to feel, to listen with your body, use all the means you have to increase your perception in addition to the classic senses.

Happy full moon!

♄Unornya

27th August, New Moon in Virgo: Plan your Future.

 

*Per leggere questo articolo in Italiano clicca qui.*

On August 27th, we just had a New Moon in Virgo.

As each New Moon, it marks the beginning of a new cycle, wanting to remind us more than ever that we can shape our destiny. Ruled by Mercury, Virgo is the sign of the virgin, an energy that invites us to heal and heal ourselves, grow and recognise the value of our intuition: the choices we make every day, define us as people and of which we are fully responsible, the future is in our hands.

So, we have to ask ourselves: what do we want to focus on? How can we achieve this?

Trivial questions at first glance, but they can propel us towards the future we hope for - benefiting from this propitious moon phase and the extraordinary analytical influence of Virgo.

Virgo also teaches us that we can offer something beautiful to the world; by finding our place as healers we can contribute to a more evolved society. We are more inclined to help our loved ones, but be careful not to lose sight of your boundaries, keep them well anchored to the ground!

Be also careful not to fall into the trap of the most ferocious self-analysis, the aspects already oriented to the meticulous precision of this sign will be further amplified by the quadrature with Mars, just entered Gemini in retrograde motion where it will stay there for seven long months.

In this aspect, Mars teaches us to explore infinite possibilities and talents with dynamism, while also bringing with it indecision and ambiguity that can couple badly with Virgo's attention to detail - running the risk of becoming obsession and an incapacitating sense of self-criticism.

Instead of being carried away by the mercurial currents of these two signs into the unknown and finding ourselves overloaded with information (Mars in Gemini) and stress (Moon and Sun in Virgo), try to remain firmly anchored to the ground and channel the propitious energies of the sky in a way to build the foundations of our future projects.

♃Ludna