From the secrets of recommended incense and herbal preparations, to the roots of alchemical practices, to magical interactions designed to buffer and even change the weavings of Fate – Kristin Mathis will walk us through some of her most exciting new finds, offering practitioners inspiration for aligning their own workings with the long-lost esoteric indications hidden in the original Greek.
https://astromagia-org.zoom.us/j/86919532846?pwd=4oSXy4hbpfca9ywJQbWYqKvZeCRQIl.1
Meeting ID: 869 1953 2846
Passcode: 384948
Online: 10:00am PDT / 12:00pm CDT / 1:00pm EDT / 5:00pm UTC / 6:00pm BST / 7:00pm CEST
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The Orphic Hymns have been treasured by esoteric practitioners for millennia as poetic inspiration, devotional expressions, and powerful magical speech-acts. While the first two uses thrive in today’s astro-magical community, the original ritual and magical context of the hymns has remained mysteriously hidden—thanks to the ancient practice of keeping sacred rites ‘arrhēton” (unspoken).
The Orphic Mystery secrets were so well-guarded that reconstructing their rituals seemed impossible. However, Kristin has used ancient techniques of esoteric interpretation to uncover encoded layers of meaning in the original Greek text. Her new English translations make the hymns' hidden ritual and magical language accessible to modern practitioners, seamlessly blending rigorous scholarship with practical accessibility.
*This will be a 60-minute presentation followed by 30 minutes for Q&A.*
mysteriamundi.substack.com/ | @kristinmathis.bsky.social
Kristin Mathis is a translator, poet, and scholar whose work focuses on the Orphic Hymns—ritual texts from the Greek Mystery traditions that flourished in Sicily and Southern Italy around 500 BCE. Her translations illuminate the sophisticated wordplay and esoteric knowledge embedded within these poems, which blend pre-Socratic philosophy with Phoenician, Egyptian, Etruscan, and indigenous spiritual practices.
Kristin studied ancient Mediterranean esoteric religions and cultural anthropology at Brown, Princeton, and Columbia Universities, where her teachers included Elaine Pagels, Hans Dieter Betz, John Gager, and David Pingree. In 2022, she founded the Mysteria Mundi translation project, pursuing her passion for the Orphic Hymns while adapting to Long Covid.
Her understanding of the cosmos as a living being was shaped by childhood in 1970s Borneo, where she experienced indigenous animist traditions. Now based in Brooklyn, NY, she is a single mom to one teenage son, two cats named Venus and Comet, and an ever-expanding collection of herbs, plants, and books.
Follow her work at mysteriamundi.substack.com or on Bluesky (@kristinmathis.bsky.social).