Upcoming Keynote at Astromagia Conference, Sept 13-15!
Get your tix now for my talk on what Mystery Language in the Orphic Hymns can teach us about the cosmos, magic, and the nature of language itself
WHEN: Sept 13-15th
WHERE: ONLINE Astromagia 4 Conference
WHAT: My keynote talk, “Great Things in Riddles”: Deciphering the Mystery Language of the Orphic Hymns
WHO ELSE: I join a fabulous lineup that includes not only my partner-in-Orphism Drew Levanti (we’ll be participating together in a panel on collaborative work AND he’ll be giving his own talk entitled “Sound, Shape, Space”) but also:
Gary P Caton, JD Kelley, JM Hamade, Demetra George, Kadmus, Rory Keys, Danny Larkin, Arturo Martinini, Michael Ofek, Sasha Ravitch, NM Thomen, Chris Warnock, Jenn Zahrt, and many, many others!
TICKETS: Are well-worth the price of admission ($160), which includes access to ALL the talks PLUS the incredibly valuable informal social hours (where you get to talk to presenters and fellow attendees in a more casual way), the video library AND an AM4 Discord server invite so folks can connect before and after the conference!
I’m super excited about the topic of my talk, which weaves together much of my research over the past few years into an overarching theory of Mystery Language that can illuminate how we understand not just the Orphic Hymns but many, many other ancient texts.
Here’s the full description from the AM4 website:
“Great Things in Riddles”: Deciphering the Mystery Language of the Orphic Hymns
The Orphic Hymns, a collection of 87 poetic invocations of deities and divine natural forces dating from the pre-Platonic period, are arguably the most complete liturgical texts surviving to us of all ancient Mediterranean Mystery religions. Since ancient times, these hymns have been noted for their “riddling” use of language, as well as their extraordinarily long lists of epithets for each deity. Philosophers, magicians, and astrologers from Plato to Vettius Valens to Iamblichus and Proclus all believed the hymns contained great esoteric wisdom, but no modern scholar has sought to understand the hymns in light of what we know about ancient theories of language and interpretive practice, particularly as they pertain to the ancient Mysteries.
Perhaps for this reason, English translations of the hymns – from Taylor to Athanassakis – have never yet explored the full depth of the esoteric content embedded in the original Greek text. In this talk, classically trained scholar of ancient Mediterranean religion and magic Kristin Mathis explores the deeper layers of meaning in the poems, revealing surprising esoteric content that sheds light not only on the historical development of astrological magic and Western esotericism, but also on the nature of magical incantation and of language itself.
Kristin Mathis is a scholar of religion and ancient history; translator of Ancient Greek texts on magic, myth, and esoterica; poet and teacher. Kristin is dedicated to revealing the wildly liberatory power of the teachings of the Ancient Mediterranean ancestors to transform and undermine oppressive social structures, showing us how to connect to each other, to our earth, and to the realm of the “more than human”—animals, plants, minerals, and the wide heavens above.
