HELLENISM
(What We Believe, What We Stand For)
by Kresphontes on behalf of "Diipetes",
published in "Green Egg" Journal, issue no 109, Summer "1995"
 
 
  God Zeus
 
 
Hellenism (HELLENIKOS ETHNISMOS) is not simply a Religion and
Cosmotheory, it is a certain form of human consciousness and an everyday
ethos. It is a strong adversary of the so-called "Monotheism" and this not only due to its being the most well-documented of the ancient polytheistic
nature-Religions, but also because it is the cultural product of a civilization much higher -on all levels- than the one which created and spread the worship of a Desert "God" throughout the world.
Hellenism perceives Cosmos (KOSMOS, i.e. the Universe) as an ever-existing Being, which not only was not created by some "creator" God out of nothing (EK TOU MEDENOS), but on the contrary allowed the Gods themselves to be created through its procedures. Hellenism understands Cosmos as APEIRON (Infinity) in great, wonderful order and therefore in Hellenic language Cosmos means also jewel (KOSMOS, KOSMEMA). Gods were born inside the Cosmos and live inside it -they are part of it. This is our REAL dispute with the so-called "Monotheism;" not the number of Gods (One or Many, Mono- or Poly-) but where the God or Gods stand in relation to the Cosmos.
For the "Monotheists" the Cosmos was created by an ever -existing Being outside it (so in this macro-historical level it is nothing more than a mortal creation). For the "Monotheists" Cosmos is a creation that has to obey the laws of its "creator". For us Hellenes, the eternal Cosmos emerges always from inside of itself (ANADYETAI AF’ EAUTOU) and is the creator of all Gods, which have to obey its own laws. In the Hellenic Cosmotheory, these laws are :
* ANTIPEPONTHOS: Untranslatable into English, but roughly meaning "all events influence others" thought without "cause and effect",
* NOMOS: The entirey of the universal physical Laws, and
* ANAGKE: Need and Fate, which all Gods respect and obey.
 
Due to the eternal nature of Cosmos itself, the Hellenic perception of CHRONOS (Time) is not linear (as the followers of Yahweh or the modern "rationalists" declare), nor circular (as many judeo-born occult dogmas teach) through the OUROBOROS symbol (the tail-eater snake), but spiral and leading to APEIRON. Through this shape of Time, the annual circles, the lunar circles, the human (and all) life, and the art of Prophecy, are fully interpreted. History is never "repeated", just similar to the point that identical events happen but always under different circumstances. And the death of humans (and of all mortal forms of life) happens as the philosopher Alkmaion declared, simply "because it is impossible for the end of the circle to touch the beginning". In other words, because it is impossible for the old to become infants again.
For the Hellenic Tradition, or at least its part not yet influenced by the "moral" ideas brought over from eastern civilizations by some famous philosophers as Pythagoras and Plato, no such thing as the "karma" of the eastern theocrats exists, and no "judges" exist in the skies or elsewhere. All dead become automatically holy and then they are born again until through ARETE (Virtue) one day their PSYCHE escapes from the spiral of Time, thus becoming primitive God, DAIMON, a word with a positive meaning for Hellenes, in contrast with Judeo-Christain superstition.
HERAKLES (Hercules) is the ultimate symbol of this struggle of each mortal to make his / her way to Olympus, among the Immortal Ones. Hercules is the ultimate symbol for all Hellenes of the past and the present. No, we do not believe in METEMPSYCHOSIS (Re-incarnation) suffering or prospering in this life to pay for or be rewarded for the bad or good actions of previous lives, but instead simply in PALIGENESIA (Rebirth). This perspective distinguishes us from the theocratic dogmas that terrify their
believers with "punishments" e.t.c. We love or hate completely outside the
Judeo-Christian or karmic designs and dualisms. No dualism of "Good and Evil" exists in the Immortal Cosmos, nor such things as the miscellaneous
"moralities" that all the dualistic dogmas spread among humanity. We become virtuous only because we choose to be such.
Our Gods are many and we understand them as completing the make-up of the Universal Sphere of Cosmos to its maximum potential and whole. Thus, from the DODEKAEDRON, a geometric shape (that fills up the sphere to its maximum) we imagine twelve planes, each one presenting a God inside the
Cosmos and we define our Hellenic PANTHEON (PAN TON THEON, All The Gods) as DODEKATHEON (Pantheon of The Twelve Gods).The Twelve Gods of ours live inside the Shpere of Cosmos and form its various behaviors. In the same way, the twelve Zodiacs represent twelve "energies" that reach Earth and live inside the humans and animals, thus forming various behaviors as well.
 
 
Dodekaedron
 
 
 
Our Twelve Gods are also called OLYMPIOI (the Olympians) not because, as many want to believe, they.. dwell on Mt. Olympus, as the mountains with this name numbered not one but eighteen throughout the Hellenic World. This is just a poetic conception, similar to the one that wants Pan to dwell in the forests of Arcadia. The word "Olympus" comes from the verb LAMPO (shining). Our Twelve Gods are the "Shining Ones", and the real
"Olympus" is not a geographical but a spiritual place, where the Gods really exist.
Another fact worth noting is that these Twelve Gods are not the same Twelve Gods for all Hellenes as some leave Dionysos out, some leave Hestia, etc., replacing them with others. It is the number that counts, not the names of the Gods which in any case number in the thousands- and we
must underline here that Hellenism honors and worships not only conscious forces and energies of Nature (as almost all Pagan religions do) but also abstract Ideas, such as Harmony, Eunomia (personified Order), Justice, Freedom, Beauty, Luck, etc. For us, the Ideas are alive and have form and consciousness; they are real deities that simply show themselves through the functions of the human mind.
A basic ("for beginners") form of invocation of the Twelve Olympian Gods, a Pantheon that was worshiped at least since the 16th Century before the Judeo-Christian Era (they are named U-ru-pa-ja-jo in the Linear B inscription of Pylos), and openly until the 9th Century of our times (when the last remains of worship of the ethnic Hellenic Gods were exterminated in Lakonia, under the persecutions by "Saint" Nikon the so-called "Metanoite" i.e. "Repent") is the following:
(The Gods are being invoked in "couples" according to theelements and functions that each "couple" supervises).
*Hestia (the power or denization and of common ethos: all invocations start with her named first: " AF’ HESTIAS"
*  The honored God or Goddess of the hellenic lunar month
*  Hephaistos - Hestia (alternatively: Hermes - Hestia)
* Ares - Aphrodite
* Apollo - Artemis
* Hermes - Athena (alternatively: Hephaistos - Athena)
* Poseidon - Demeter
* Hera - Zeus
 
We must emphasize here that the "male" and "female" terms inside the Hellenic Pantheon have nothing to do with the sexism and dualism dwelling in the minds of narrow-minded followers of alien cultures. Our Gods have no genitals. The existence of six Gods and six Goddesses inside the Hellenic Pantheon only serves to declare the total balance of all elements and characteristics inside the Sphere of Cosmos. Understanding the structure, nature and distribution of the Cosmos in this way, Hellenism
comes in open opposition to all one-sided and partial dogmas on Cosmos, such as "Monotheism", "Bitheism" e.t.c. Because of this, for centuries now, it has been attacked with all the weapons that the arsenal of its enemies contains, from the burnings and crucifixions by the christianized Romans of Contantinoupolis to the disinformation and slander of the modern servants of the Desert "God" Yahweh (in all their disguises). And it may sound odd, but both we and our enemies know that the power of Hellenism is more than that of a Cosmotheory or of a Religion. It's above all a political and social "how to" theory that means to "haunt" the Every Day Life with its high principles: Dignity, Freedom, Beauty, Honesty, Variety, Tolerance, Candor..
We represent an ethos and a cosmotheory, both deeply admirable, for they never allowed the existence of priestly castes, unquestioning obedience, fear or guilt (Hellenism knows nothing about the word "sin"), dogma, missions, or "sacred" books. We are fighting for the Hellenic Dignity in a country totally dominated by an alien culture and cosmotheory, inside a world which is totally dominated by an alien culture and cosmotheory. We speak a language in which most of its deep meanings are impossible to translate into the widely spoken languages of today, a language that almost nobody can understand (nobody outside Greece can read our journal and books). From a strictly "strategic" perspective, we appear almost insane or, at least, "defeated in advance". But we know that we tread the correct path and that the Gods support us. Just by existing we win !
We are the revenge of the Ancient Psyche. We call into question almost every thought and act of this dying world enslaved to the Desert "God" Yahweh, almost every single behavior. And we are in full solidarity with all groups and movements all around the Globe, which work for the restoration of their traditional / indigenous ethos and religions, and also with all the others which fight the multi-faceted war for Freedom, Tolerance, Respect for Nature and Direct Democracy in all levels of Every Day Life.