rites behind rites: the dark gods | Madame Pickwick Art Blog.

RITES BEHIND RITES: THE DARK GODS
Posted on April 12, 2011 by Dave
What are the rites behind the rites. When we observe Easter or celebrate May Day, we are actually walking in the ghostly footsteps of men who worshiped plants and murdered kings. James Frazer’s The Golden Bough was a primeval source of interwoven of legends, tales, enigmas and superstitions in the culture of the Western world. … The scene is idyllic at first: a sunlit Italian landscape just outside Rome; a small lake nestling in a hollow of the Alban hills, and by its shore the grove that is the heart of the mystery. Once it was sacred to the goddess Diana, and its guardian in ancient times lived and died by a stranger rule…