Lupercalia

The name Lupercalia derives from the Latin word "lupus," meaning "wolf." This is linked to the Luperci, the priests who officiated the festival, and possibly to a myth involving Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf. The festival was celebrated on the Ides of February.

]\Iagniticant popular festivals celebrated in ancient Kome on February loth, in honour of the God Pan, during which the Luperci, the most ancient and respectable among the sacerdotal functionaries, .sacrificed two goats and a dog. and two of the most illustrious youths were compelled to run about the city naked (except the loins) wiiipping all those whom tiiey met. Pope Gelasius abolished the Lupercalia in 496, but substituted for them on the same day the procession of lighted candles. 180 THEOSOI'HIC.M. Luxor lOcc). A compouiul word from lii.r (li};liti and tiiir (tire), thus luraiiiu}:: the "Light of (divine) Fire". Luxor, Jirodu rhood of. A ctTtaiii HrotlnilKMid of mystics. Its name liad far bettir never hctii divulj^ed, as it led to a great number of well-mianing people being deeeived, and relieved of their money by a certain bogus Mystic Society of speculators, born in Europe, only to be exposed and i\y to America. Thr luime is derived from the ancient Lookshur in Belooehistan. lying l)etwccn Bela and Kedjee. The order is very ancii-nt and the most secret of all. It is useless to repeat that its members disclaim all connection witli the *'1I.B. of L.", and the tutti qiianti of commercial mystics, whether from Glasgow or Boston. Lycanthropy i(!r.). IMiysiologically. a disease or mania, during wliich a pcisoii iina^MHt's lie is a wolf, and acts as such. Occultly, it means tlu.same as "were-wolf", the psychological faculty of certain sorcerers to appear as wolves. Voltaire states that in the district of Jura, in two years between 1598 and 1600, over 600 lycanthropes were put to death by a too Christian judge. This does not mean that Shepherds accused of sorcery-, and seen as wolves, had indeed the power of changing themselves physically into such ; but simply that they had the hypnotizing power of making people (or tliose they regarded as enemies), believe they saw a wolf when there was none in fact. The exercise of such power is truly sorcery. " Demoniacal" posse

The Lupercalia, as described by Blavatsky and recorded by Roman historians, offers a vivid glimpse into the ancient world's engagement with cyclical renewal and the expulsion of the undesirable. The festival, held on February 15th, was a potent blend of the sacred and the raw, invoking the god Faunus (often associated with Pan) and the wolf, creatures embodying wildness and primal instincts. The Luperci, robed only in the skins of sacrificed goats, would run through the streets, striking women with strips of hide. This act, far from being mere brutality, was believed to confer fertility and cleanse the city of lingering impurities from the old year, preparing it for the burgeoning life of spring.

Mircea Eliade, in his seminal works on religion, often explored the concept of the archaic calendar as a cosmic drama, where festivals reenacted primordial events to regenerate time and reality. Lupercalia fits this mold, a ritualistic purgation that mirrors the earth's own shedding of winter's dormancy. The act of striking, rather than being purely punitive, can be understood as a symbolic expulsion of negative forces, a ritualistic "scaring away" of bad luck or infertility. The youths, stripped bare, become conduits for this primal energy, their nakedness a symbol of their unmediated connection to the forces they invoke.

The subsequent replacement of Lupercalia by Pope Gelasius with Candlemas, a Christian festival celebrating the purification of Mary and the presentation of Jesus, is a classic example of religious syncretism. The Church often sought to supplant pagan festivals with Christian observances, absorbing and transforming their energies. The light of the candles, replacing the wilder rituals, signifies a shift towards a more refined, spiritualized form of purification and celebration, though the underlying human impulse to mark transitions with ritual remains constant.

In our modern, often desacralized world, the Lupercalia serves as a reminder of the profound human need for catharsis and renewal. It speaks to a time when the boundaries between the human and the wild, the civilized and the primal, were more fluid, and when rituals were essential tools for maintaining cosmic and social order. The energy of Lupercalia, though ancient, echoes in our own desires to shake off the old and embrace the new, albeit through less literal, perhaps more psychological, means. It prompts us to consider what primal energies we might still need to acknowledge and ritualize in our own lives to achieve a genuine sense of rebirth.