In this volume I have tried to show how Christmas is or has been kept in various lands and ages, and to trace as far as possible the origin of the pagan elements that have mingled with the Church's feast of the Nativity.
Christmas in Germany
For poets, priests, and politicians--and especially ordinary Germans--in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the image of the loving nuclear family gathered around the Christmas tree symbolized the unity of the nation at large. German Christmas was su
Christmas in Germany
For poets, priests, and politicians--and especially ordinary Germans--in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the image of the loving nuclear family gathered around the Christmas tree symbolized the unity of the nation at large. German Christmas was su
The Christmas Tree Is One of the World's Oldest and Most Evergreen Traditions
Long before your living room's seasonal centerpiece, cultures around the world marked the darkest time of year with palms, pines, and other greenery.
The Final Christian Generation? - Mockingbird
What we can learn from the century that saw the sun set on the “final” pagan generation
Weekly Scroll: Eternal September
Plus: A little TPOT and a very good Christmas song
Bacchanalia
The Bacchanalia were unofficial, privately funded popular Roman festivals of Bacchus, based on various ecstatic elements of the Greek Dionysia. They were almost certainly associated with Rome's native cult of Liber, and probably arrived in Rome itself around 200 BC. Like all mystery religions of the ancient world, very little is known of their rites. They seem to have been popular and well-organised throughout the central and southern Italian peninsula.
A Little Christmas Market
Collect coins, buy stalls, decorate, make the perfect Christmas market
Display Animated Christmas Tree In Terminal (2026) - OSTechNix
This brief guide talks about a cool Bash script to display an animated Christmas tree in Terminal in Linux operating systems.
Christmas Star Decoration Project – The Sewing Directory
Sew a simple patchwork Christmas star decoration with this tutorial from Helen Rhiannon at All Sewn Up.
Esotericism in One Piece: Navigating Magic, Symbolism and Spirituality
Introduction Idea Presentation
Another year: 2025
For the last ten years on Christmas Day I've written a retrospective on the past year. This year's is a public post.
Entangled Magic in the Medieval Latin West
This article focusses on the history of learned magic in late medieval Europe, breaking a period of about 500 years into chronological stages to explore how medieval supporters and critics of magic represented the art and responded to each other’s arguments, then reframed their own in a continuous dynamic entanglement. In this period learned magic texts from diverse religious and cosmological traditions (primarily Christian, Jewish, Arabic and Greco-Roman) circulated among people familiar with, and emotionally invested in, a great variety of institutional and informal rituals. Sources reveal a vibrant culture of exchanges of texts between members of religious orders, physicians and lay men, clerics and lay women – a culture of entanglement: discussion, borrowing, critique and adaptation alongside practitioner-client relationships and necessary secrecy and concealment.
Chuchee Mythology - Index
Sacred religious text from the Internet Sacred Text Archive
Reckless Rites
Historical accounts of Jewish violence—particularly against Christians—have long been explosive material. Some historians have distorted these records for anti-Semitic purposes. Others have discounted, dismissed, or simply ignored the evidence, often for apologetic purposes. In Reckless Rites, Elliott Horowitz takes a new and forthright look at both the history of Jewish violence since late antiquity and the ways in which generations of historians have grappled with that history. In the process, he has written the most wide-ranging book on Jewish violence in any language, and the first to fully acknowledge and address the actual anti-Christian practices that became part of the playful, theatrical violence of the Jewish festival of Purim. He has also examined the different ways in which the book of Esther, upon which the festival is based, was used by Jews and Christians over the centuries—whether as an ancient mirror of modern tribulations or as the scriptural basis for anti-Semitic claims regarding the bloodthirstiness of the Jews. Reckless Rites reassesses the historical interpretation of Jewish violence—from the alleged massacre of thousands of Christians in seventh-century Jerusalem to later medieval attacks on Christian symbols such as the crucifix, transgressions that were often committed in full knowledge that their likely consequence would be death. A book that calls for major changes in the way that Jewish history is written and conceptualized, Reckless Rites will be essential reading for scholars and students of history, religion, and Jewish-Christian relations.
Gävle goat
The Gävle Goat is a traditional Christmas display erected annually at Slottstorget in central Gävle, Sweden. The display is a giant version of a traditional Swedish Yule goat figure made of straw. It is erected each year by local community groups at the beginning of Advent over a period of two days.
Transfiguration of Jesus
The Transfiguration of Jesus is an event described in the New Testament where Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant in glory upon a mountain. The Synoptic Gospels recount the occasion, and the Second Epistle of Peter also refers to it. Ancient Christian texts considered non-canonical by Catholic and Eastern Orthodox doctrine, such as the Treatise on the Resurrection from the Nag Hammadi corpus, refer to the scene as well.
