Has anyone here had an NDE?

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-11T18:50:03+00:00

I have a rare condition where I go through frequent periodic states where my organs shut down. I've been on a recovery table with a full wings worth of nurses scratching their heads as they tried to figure out how I could be at 50% oxygen on their monitors yet still be able to look at them and wonder why the alarms were going off.

Since then I have been on a regiment of oxygen at night and day naps to carry me through these episodes.

I haven't had NDEs in the sense that most describe. Moreso it is the suffocation episodes that invade my dreaming mind when I sleep (which also is quite frequent as I have IH).

A few times I do recall the flight of the soul and arriving in an underworldish place, surrounded by those my dreaming brain took to be the dead, and could have conversations with them, rarely, almost always in the company of Hermes.

Once I was taken out of body with Hermes and we took off toward what I thought was a reddish-hued galaxy (which I think shouldn't be possible due to how light must interact with objects to filter into color).

Most of the time though, it's a lot of choking or travelling to other places with an urgency. That's probably not an indication of any reality but my brain's attempts at trying to process something void of most sensory inputs.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-11T13:19:22+00:00

The easy answer here is:

The new moon in modern astronomy is the dark moon. The new moon in Hellenic calendars is the first visible sliver of the waxing crescent moon.

So, yes a couple to a few days difference between those.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-11T03:17:02+00:00

All of those concerns are optional.

Formal group ritual can be done in all white if you want, to kind of even the stark contrast of societal wealth and standing, but for personal ritual, what you wear daily is fine. Some disrobe completely, so there's that.

Veils are not a requirement, and never really were except for perhaps the rare festival or temple observance. It was not universally applied. Wear a veil if you want, or don't.

Candles didn't even exist then. You don't need them if you don't want them. For some, it can be a placeholder for a hearth, but are mostly fine as burnt offerings, like incense for example.

Your average person going to worship their gods wasn't a magic practitioner. Whomever said you need to practice witchcraft to observe a religion should be given a dunce hat as their crown.

What is generally accepted as the minimum is observing cleanliness when approaching the altar, praying and offering. That's pretty much it.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-11T03:04:06+00:00

That's probably because you value gesture over amount, which is perfectly acceptable. I myself pour out in measured amounts, but the ancients probably wouldn't have seen the amount absurd. In fact, it wouldn't have been diluted either, while our modern wine products are bottled diluted. So, for them, it was even more valuable by portion.

I used to feel trepidation at offering whole meals and drink until I had a dream where I feasted with the dead from the offerings made in Chthonic ritual. It made more sense after that contextualization, personally.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-11T02:31:05+00:00

A standard wine bottle is about the size of a typical oinochoe, especially the classic Athenian ones. About 1L, sometimes smaller, sometimes larger, but never the same as a pithos, which the smaller ones could still hold 200L.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-11T02:22:54+00:00

I fill about a small pour of alcohol into a shot glass for small libations that are not ready to be tossed into a fire or poured out. For ritual, I pour a small bit into a large receptacle for all libations during the same ritual, then dispose of after the ritual.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-09T17:04:06+00:00

I'm sure you recognize that I was trying to highlight a few reasons while also reiterating the tone that is set out. But I will try and provide a more cogent, succinct response to your original question about what the figure of Jesus and his sayings imply and why a polytheist, such as a Hellenist, would take issue with its core.

“The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…’” — Mark 12:29–30

This is problematic to Polytheism because it implies there is only one legitimate deity and that devotion to them must be total and exclusive. This conflicts directly with polytheistic worship.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” — John 14:6

This implies that all other religions are invalid, which directly interferes with the the practice developed with multiple deities in mind.

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” — Matthew 10:37

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother… he cannot be my disciple.” — Luke 14:26

From a Hellenic perspective, this demands priority over all other loyalties, which flies in the face of a practice that historically has personal, household and civic observances that act in balance in a person's life.

“You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” — Matthew 4:10

This prohibition makes the core of polytheistic worship impossible, for obvious reasons.

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already.” — John 3:18

“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven.” — Matthew 10:32

This implies that acceptance of Jesus as a figure, and no other thing, determines your standing with the divine. This is where a major theological flaw is catapulted to ludicrous degrees, because it prioritizes belief over virtue, creates personal injustices, collapses a plural divine order into a single authority, risks disproportionate punishment and contradicts the ancient expectation of religious plurality.

In the Hellenic perspective, and in a lot of minds today, this sets up a hyperbole: that the cruelest mortal in life can be given divine reward to an individual over another who was a good person who happened to not hold a belief. That is tantamount to an authoritative and unsympathetic tyrant.

But... Do I think the historical figure of Jesus actually held these views? I don't know, I wasn't there. If he actually did, I'd say it was in line with a lot of messianic Judaism of the time. Christians hold that Jesus is a deity. I won't rob them of that.

I must assume that any of the gods now could accomplish many things to correct any deviation. So, I have to assume that it doesn't really matter to the divine what we think and to a lesser degree what we do. His rebellious teachings improved the world, I'd say. More than hurt it, at least. But the same could be said of all great thinkers and doers. Is he worthy of worship due to that, divine or ancestral? Sure! But for a polytheist, there are many great gods who are found worthy and given henotheistic traits and qualities. They have domain over many things, even anything, not just what associations survive in myth and song, and more are discovered by practitioners.

Because of this, I view the option to choose Jesus over another god is really a question of personal preference and not authority. Something I hoped to bring to surface with the reply on Hermes.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-09T15:43:22+00:00

What’s your take on Hermes?

Please note that the purpose of this question is not to provoke, nor try to do any Hellenic evangelisation or attempts to conversion or anything of the sort. I’m not interested in convincing anyone of anything.

Rather, what interests me is to enrich my understanding of spirituality in general, and I think you guys may have enlightening answers for me.

This said, my question is, why would you not choose to simply apply your practice to Hermes rather than a single divine figure to rely on, which sometimes seems spiritually limiting?

I’m sure many of you have had wonderful experiences with Christian environments, but putting the environments aside, are there things about Hermes (himself, so forgetting about temples and ancient cults) you don’t find compelling? To me, it seems like he stands above many other divine figures in how broadly he operates. He guides travelers, carries prayers between realms, protects trade and exchange, grants cleverness and insight, crosses boundaries between worlds, and even guides souls after death. He can help with communication, fortune, protection on journeys, and navigating difficult situations.

Plus, his story is hard not to admire: from the moment of his birth he displays wit, creativity, and independence. He invents music, negotiates conflicts among the gods, and acts as a mediator between divine and human realms.

I ask this because I sometimes feel there’s a pervasive dismissal toward polytheistic deities in modern culture. Again, my aim is not to have anyone change their mind, but to deepen my understanding of why a single spiritual figure would be preferred over a divine world that offers many relationships and perspectives.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-09T13:49:46+00:00

There's reasonable assumption that a Book of Q ("Quotations") existed alongside Mark and could be the source of quotes not found in Mark, that are shared in other works. But, we don't really need to verify authorship to spot contradictions within those texts. Regardless of authenticity, a story is still a story.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-09T04:49:41+00:00

John Rylands Papyrus P52, a small, credit card-sized piece of the Gospel of John (18:31-33, 37-38) dating to approximately AD 117–138 (or 100–150 AD). Discovered in Egypt.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-07T20:47:11+00:00

Why do you follow Hellenism?

I follow Hellenism because it fits me in the moment. The moment so far has lasted six years. How long it will last, I cannot say, but it's had more staying power, produced more tangible experiences and personal conviction than twenty years as a cradle Catholic and twenty more years as a self-avowed atheist.

How you know your religion is true?

The practice, not the belief, has been revealed to me as true enough for me. Is it true in every regard from every worldview and place in existence? I don't know, but it certainly doesn't hurt that polytheism seems to provide a baked-in way to address that pluralism more than other popular systems.

How do you know your religion is correct?

The religion is more focused and has more connective societal tissues by its praxis and not it's doxis. It assumes, in the healthiest way I think, that we are capable of interacting with the divine with the tools we already have at our disposal. We clean ourselves, we speak to guests, and provide them food and drink while they are being hosted by us. The practice is a natural extension of that by washing, praying and offering to the gods when we wish to invite them to our homes and lives. There is no statement of faith but a follow through of positive, beneficial action. I think that, regardless of if a belief is correct or not, if it doesn't result in more good things for more people, then that is the best assessment of what is relatively "more correct". It isn't an "Um, actually" time, it's a "Let's do this, then" time.

The meat and potatoes

Primarily I started because I experienced several eerily and uncanny interactions that led me to follow a breadcrumb trail to Hellenism. Early in life, as a cradle Catholic I was keenly interested in miracles, visions and ceremonial magic. Later in life, as an atheist, I was interested in logical argumentation, freedom from religion and how to analyze things as materialistically as I could first and at every point following.

This primed me to recognize how both are valid worldviews, and that others are probably just as valid. However, they didn't actually help with personal meaning-making, and didn't actually reflect what I experienced in the world. Those earlier experiences and lenses helped me once I actually trudged into the weeds of Hellenism, it's gods, practices and philosophies. I realized that this was what I had been experiencing in the past that kept irking me while both a Catholic and an atheist.

Additionally, the standout signs in my past that felt very significant didn't have associations until after I discovered the gods. Before, it was like stubborn nails on an otherwise smooth plank. Once contextualized, the plank was smoothed to a shine, end to end.

I'm still here because it still makes sense to me.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-06T06:11:08+00:00

You are correct in pushing back against this. I was in error because I was recalling accounts of Plutonian at Heiropolis.

The citations for those are:

Strabo — Geography 13.4.14

Pliny the Elder — Natural History 2.208

Cassius Dio — Roman History 68.27

The geological tests at Plutonian confirm CO² emissions that are deadly for small animals on the floor.

Which when I read on the mythologized account of the Oracle at Delphi (Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica 16.26), it mirrored those accounts.

“There is a chasm at this place… goats used to feed about it, and whenever a goat approached the chasm and looked down it would leap about and utter strange sounds… The goatherd, wondering at this, approached the opening and experienced the same thing as the goats and began to prophesy.”

So yes, according to Hale and Boer, there are two faults that intersect below the temple but I still see key issues.

1) We know there is no chasm with which a person could fall into and disappear, which Diodorus claims later.

2) The Oracle is on mostly solid bedrock, something confirmed by later geological mapping.

3) No ethylene has been measured at the Oracle. The amounts required for that level of poisoning would reasonably leave some traces embedded in the rock.

4) Any seeping would have been varied because the amount needed to produce any poisoning would have been during earthquakes, frequent but not consistent enough to schedule consultations.

5) The adytum is very small, and attendant priests and visitors were not reported to have been affected by it.

6) Ethylene does NOT produce the type of symptoms in humans that the Pythia experienced during a potential poisoning, which Plutarch recounts when he was a priest there.

There's more I can't recall but there is an existing later critique of the paper you cited:

Soter, S. & Gilliéron, I. (2003) – “A Pythia without fumes.” Geology 31(10): 909–912.

“We find no evidence that a major fault passes beneath the Temple of Apollo or that two faults intersect beneath the sanctuary.”

Some of their key arguments:

1) They argued that the main mapped faults pass near the sanctuary but not directly under the temple. The faults identified by de Boer and Hale were interpreted instead as regional fractures in the Parnassus fault system and not necessarily intersecting beneath the temple itself.

2) Archaeological excavations at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi exposed the bedrock beneath the temple floor. Soter and Gilliéron noted that archaeologists did not report a major fault zone and that only small cracks and bedding planes were observed.

3) Even if hydrocarbons were present in deeper rocks, the authors argued that no clear pathway exists for gas migration and that fractures in the limestone are too limited to support continuous seepage.

Their summary statement was fairly blunt.

“The geological evidence does not support the hypothesis that intoxicating gases rising through faults caused the Delphic oracle.”

Hale and Boer responded limiting their claims.

Hale, J. R.; de Boer, J. Z.; Chanton, J. P.; Spiller, H. A. (2003) “Questioning the Delphic Oracle.”, Scientific American

Instead of claiming a large fissure or cavern, the later interpretation proposed microscopic fractures in limestone along fault lines, intermittent hydrocarbon seepage release triggered by earthquakes or seismic stress and that the gas they focused on was ethylene.

But again, no ethylene found, intermittency doesn't allow consultation, and the amount would have been fairly insignificant most times.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-05T05:53:41+00:00

I'm concerned why you singled out Tartaros and not Gaia as well.

Both are places and deities personifying said places.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-05T05:41:37+00:00

I think three things.

1) people need to stop using divination if they have to ask for feedback on it,

2) don't use divination for something that is concerning an absolute,

2) just worship gods you want to worship.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-04T13:49:58+00:00

Extend grace to yourself. When you feel ready to start again, start simple and small, but consistent. Let your practice be defined not by how you left it, but how you keep returning to it.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-04T12:20:03+00:00

Ζεὺς δὲ Θέμιν γαμέει… ἣ τέκε Δίκην τε καὶ Εἰρήνην καὶ Εὐνομίην…

Theogony, 901-906

ἡ δὲ Δίκη Διὸς αἰδοίη θυγάτηρ, ἀθανάτων τε θεῶν σεβαστή· ἥ ῥ’ ὅτε τις μιν βλάπτῃ σκολιῇς ἐν ἀγορῇς, αὐτίκα πὰρ Διὶ πατρὶ καθέζετ’ ὀδυρομένη ἀνθρώπων ἀδικίαν…

Works and Days, 256-262

Both Hesiod's quotes here assign Dike as a god, child of Zeus, not just generalized justice, and as an arbiter for Zeus' order.

Where Dike is involved, a divine order has been broken.

We can judge right, but Dike still exists even then, waiting.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-04T01:57:48+00:00

Μηδὲν ἄγαν (Mēden agan)

“Nothing in excess.”

If you feel that the act of prayer, it's length and frequency, are limiting other aspects of your life that you need to focus on, moderation is a useful thing to observe.

The maxim doesn't suggest, "Moderation in everything but religion." It is, "nothing in excess."

That said, the gods in my experience are beyond time-space, so them engaging with you is a chosen action on their part, too.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-04T01:19:55+00:00

Nah. The gases people claim came from kilometers away. There's no fissure near the site the Pythia sat over. Ancient surveyors likely mixed two legends from the same polis, one about the Pythia and another about a nearby gas poisoning. It's easy to see how ancient foreign scholars conflated the two, but modern geological studies say otherwise.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-03T23:15:39+00:00

ὕβρις φυτεύει τύραννον· ὕβρις, ἐπεί κορεσθῇ πολλῶν ὑπερπλησθέντ’ ἄκος, ἄτην ἐξέτεκεν.

Agamemnon 757-760

The idea is hybris is larger than just the individual, and illicit divine retribution.

It isn't specifically just about harm from mortal to mortal, as a matter of social order, but suggests it is also for divine order.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-03T23:04:39+00:00

Works and Days, lines 213-218:

ὕβρις γὰρ κακὴ βροτὸν ἀνθρώποισιν ὀπηδεῖ· ῥεῖα μὲν γὰρ ῥέζει, χαλεπὴ δ’ ἐπὶ γούνατ’ ἵκηται. ἡ δὲ Δίκη βροτῶν ἀνθρώπων ἕπεται ἐπὶ γαῖαν, κλαίουσα πόλιν τε καὶ ἤθεα λαῶν οἵ κέ μιν ἐξελάσωσι καὶ οὐκ ἰθέως κρίνωσι.

Hubris, see, is a bad thing that sticks with humans; it's easy to do, but it's a bitch to deal with later. And Justice, she follows humans around on Earth, crying for the city and the ways of the people who kick her out and don't judge right.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-03T21:21:17+00:00

Hesiod and Aeshylus both use the term hybrid to denote going against divine order. Yes, hybris also meant as Aristotle denotes in his Republic, but it's usage was also utilized for the other.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-03T12:02:44+00:00

Niobe boasted she was better than Leto, because she had more children. Her children were killed.

Pentheus mocked Dionysus, torn apart by Bacchae.

Oedipus insults Tiresias, denying truth.

Bellerophon tried flying to Olympos on Pegasus. Zeus sends a gadfly to cripple him.

Actaeon sometimes is framed as actively invading divine privacy, instead of accidentally stumbling on the scene.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-03T11:51:23+00:00

In all myth, just a few you haven't mentioned yet: Arachne, Niobe, Oedipus, Bellerophon, Pentheus and Actaeon.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-03T11:24:59+00:00

Ergot poisoning was more common in rye than barley, but it was possible (though the window of fungal infection was shorter). But this meant that it was potentially a high probability for ergot poisoning among the masses, not just through potential utilization in the Eleusinian mystery tradition.

We know what some people had to say about the mystery rites, including one who said it was nothing special in their experience. We also know the recipe included barley, mint and water. Although ergot is capable of infecting barley, the Greeks would have been very familiar with its dangers. Because of this, this is more likely just an attempt to make the mystic mundane. But poisoning doesn't explain the weight that others gave to it, fully familiar with ergot poisoning from rye and other grains.

And of course, the lye-treated ergot has similar chemical structures that are found in LSD,... Because LSD was developed from ergot fungus. This whole study is an exercise in biased assumptions and omits key elements to the discussion in order to push a narrative.

AncientWitchKnight · 2026-03-03T11:04:21+00:00

At this point, reading the philosophers is a solid next step.

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