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~ Delphi Oracle: Three Mystical Precepts ~
In 500 BCE, the Greek state religion was a pantheon of Olympian gods.
The pantheon was ruled by Zeus, the king of gods, who lived atop Mount Olympus.
The pantheon included greater gods called Olympians and lesser gods called demigods.
There were 14 Olympians in total but only 12 at any given time. Ten were permanent, and four were temporary.
Permanent: Aphrodite, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Apollo, Hephaestus, Hera, Hermes, Poseidon and Zeus.
Temporary: Demeter, Dionysus, Hades and Hestia.
Aphrodite and Demeter existed long before the time of Zeus, a son of Rhea and Cronus.
The others were either siblings of Zeus or offspring of Zeus and or Hera.
The ancient Greeks worshipped the male body as a divine spirit.
The worship of male fertility gods, such as Priapus, may have been a reaction against the female fertility goddess.
In 415 BCE, someone vandalized the statues of Hermes, located throughout the city.
The herms were mutilated, disfigured or dismembered, maybe to protest the oppressive phallocracy.
Homosexuality, ***, ephebophilia, prostitution and nudity were public and legal.
The myth about Zeus, Ganymede and the Eagle reveals the human qualities of the gods.
The ancient sanctuary in Delphi, Greece was the center of knowledge in the world of 400 BCE.
Apollo, the Sun god, and lesser gods were worshipped at the two temples at Delphi.
The charioteer of Apollo's Sun chariot of fire was memorialized.
The Omphalos at the Oracle of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was the Navel of the world.
The Siphnian Treasury at Delphi was a safe depository for wealthy Athenians.
Ancient sacred temple prostitution involved both female and male prostitutes.
Temple prostitution operated on a smaller scale in Greece than in the Near East.
Pythia, the priestess, oversaw Sibyl, the prophetess, who spoke oracles while in a trance.
In reply to Chaerephon's question, the Apolline Oracle said no man was wiser than Socrates.
Socrates was perturbed by her answer and claimed to know only that he knew nothing.
To know only that you know nothing is to be ignorant.
To know nothing, but not know that you know nothing, is two-fold ignorance.
One who presumes to already know is thereby foreclosed to learning and cannot learn.
There were many inscriptions carved in stone at Delphi.
Three inscriptions at Delphi are notable.
Be -- Know Thyself -- Nothing in Excess
Be -- Gautama Buddha (530-450 BCE) often said, "Be a light unto yourself."
Know Thyself -- Zen says to disciples: ask yourself, Who am I?
Nothing in Excess -- In 425 BCE, Lao Tzu wrote the Tao de Ching.
Tao means moderation and dynamic balance.
All three precepts are contained in one precept: Be yourself.
Be yourself means no social conditioning, identification, repression or hypnotization.
Be yourself means natural, spontaneous, genuine, authentic and no hypocrisy.
To be yourself, go within, beyond the mind, to the innermost center of being.