The Ekklesia Antinoou In Fifty Years

This month at the Patheos Pagan Channel, we've been asked by Dr. Christine Hoff Kraemer to imagine what Paganism might be like in fifty years' time. I've enjoyed reading the various answers for this, and I look forward to reading others before month's end. However, I don't really feel qualified to state what I think our various forms of Paganism will be like and what roles they will fulfill in the next half-century. I suspect if I were to outline things in any detail at all, some people might feel like I'm trying to "dictate" what I think the "perfect" and "acceptable" forms of Paganism will be like and will include, which will—of course!—reflect my own viewpoint and likely no one else's. As I've been accused of being a "Nazi fundamentalist" a few too many times for even making such suggestions about my own preferences for the Pagan movements previously, I think it would be wisest, as a minority viewpoint within a minority viewpoint, to not discuss this further.

But, can I at least speak for the Ekklesía Antínoou, the group I founded? Truthfully, no; but, I can speak from that tradition, and present one viewpoint of what it could be like. Keep in mind that this is only my own opinion, and one that depends to a very large extent on pipe-dreams: imagining that things go as completely wonderfully and fortuitously as possible, and with immense amounts of luck and perseverance and dedication involved. If one tries to aim as highly and imagine as boldly and as broadly as possible, perhaps if only a tenth of what is imagined occurs, that will still be something worth striving for to one's utmost.

And, taking a much-needed and inspirational page from Rhyd Wildermuth , I shall present this in the form of a story. Get comfortable, folks!

It is Friday, April 11, 2064, at about 1:00 in the afternoon, Pacific Standard Time—daylight savings has been abolished for several decades.

A large group of people are gathered around what has been my temporary bed, and which will soon be my death-bed. My bed sits in one of the side-chapels of the Temple of Antinous, located just outside the town of Coupeville, in Whidbey Island County, in the state of Washington, in the country of Western Cascadia on the North American continent. The Temple has been operating continuously for nearly forty years, thanks to that old institution known as the State Lottery that, miraculously, I was the sole winner of in 2018. "Sometimes, we get lucky," I often said then, and I've often said it now each time some new and talented person comes forward to help build the modern cultus of Antinous. I wonder if the god himself has said that on occasion.

My three current lovers are gathered closest to me, and two other former lovers who are still very good friends of mine (and the list of such individuals, while it requires more than two hands to count, is still modest enough) are also in the room. One of them at the foot of the bed is smirking, apparently at some private joke between em and one of my former lovers on the other side of the room. I have always wanted to be surrounded by people with good senses of humor, and there's no time like approaching death for such humor to emerge: that's why I want them all here. Hadrian was exemplary, but his famous last line, "and you won't make your usual jokes," will not be said of me. If I can have my last verbal utterance be a colossally bad pun that leaves everyone groaning for weeks, it will have been a good life, I think.

The outdoor cremation ground is already prepared, and there is someone from the coroner's office outside as well, who will be verifying my death and signing the certificate moments after it occurs, and it will be occurring soon. The tall, handsome, African-American cisgendered heterosexual lawyer—who is also a Mystes of Antinous, and has been handling our legal affairs now for the past twelve years—catches my eye. When he initiated with us then, it was extremely unusual and unprecedented: a trained lawyer wanting to be among the Mystai? Very strange... but no matter what his relationship with Antinous, and especially with the hero Memnon, has been over the years, he's a damned good lawyer, and has been an incredible asset to our organization. He has not allowed our organization to pay him for his services for all of 2064, and I've given him as much crap about this as possible every time I've seen him; but he had no answer for me other than tears in his eyes when I told him that my personal icon of Antinous, which has been with me for more than fifty years and is in the room with me now, will be his when I am dead. The "Book of Books" (all four volumes of it) will be going to the new Mystagogos and head priest of the Temple, but the lawyer gets the bust. Perhaps that will be my final pun.

A few of my nieces and nephews, and one of my surviving siblings, are in the room with me as well. I can tell that my sibling isn't entirely comfortable with all of the ceremonies going on outside, and which will follow when I actually do die, but that they are here is still something , and a thing not to be ignored nor diminished. My nieces and nephews are a different story entirely: if they weren't here, I'd have put my death on hiatus until they arrived. They have not only been supportive of me in the past two years, but one of them has been involved in this religious practice since she was a tween. (Giving her those Egyptian hieroglyphic blocks for her first birthday was a really good idea!) And, since she's been living at the Temple compound for just over a decade, I know that my family's connections to this religion will persist for a long time.

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Two young people are in the room as well: the outgoing head of the Phratria of Polydeukion, who is about to turn twenty years old, and the incoming head of it, who is now fifteen. While they are a smaller group than the Mystai of Antinous, and always have been, they are perhaps even more dedicated than many of the Mystai of Antinous. They have that youthful energy and optimism and hope, and they want to be taken seriously by anyone since society-at-large still doesn't take young people seriously in anything, much less spirituality. Because the Mysteries of Polydeukion were revealed to young people exclusively back in the 2020s, they have been maintaining that organization since then, with some gentle guidance from the Ekklesía Antínoou, since that time, and very definitely since my own initiation into those Mysteries by the original Phratriarch (who is now in his mid-50s). I know the group is in good hands, because they are not my hands , and never have been.

And then, there are my allies. They're not just in the room here, but have been holding continuous vigil outside it for days. At the moment, the head of AMHA is in here, and I can hear the woman from Sharanya chanting Kali mantras outside the door, and many of the others are joining her. Two Come As You Are Coven members have been making me food for the last few days—a little less every day, as my appetite has been diminishing with each day's passing. (It's more food for everyone else to eat, and to be donated to the needy as well in our Temple's soup-and-salads kitchen that feeds the underprivileged of this area daily.) I barely finished one slice of the chocolate orange they brought me this morning on my breakfast plate, after it had been offered in yesterday's Temple rituals. This morning, one of the CAYA members, at my request, sang and danced a hymn to Artemis that made me smile and shed tears of joy a bit; I'll be missing the Natalis Dianae in August, and the Megala Antinoeia later this month, but I have not missed the chance to honor that great goddess one last time before I depart. The representatives from House Sankofa and the Thiasos of the Starry Bull have been standing by, but are mostly quiet at this point. The head of Neos Alexandria is outside, and I've already heard her planning the memorial volume to me that will be published by Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the next year.

I suspect the founder of Mup is outside inciting an orgy in another side-chapel with some of the Unnamed Path, Minoan Brotherhood, and Radical Faeries members who are present. I know people from at least three Afro-Diasporic faiths are outside, and the Kemetic Orthodox religion is also well represented. The PanDianics are certainly out there, too, and there are even a few feminist separatist Dianics out there that I've grown to respect and be friends with over the years, even though we don't remotely agree on almost anything. There are various Wiccans and Druids outside as well, polytheists of many descriptions, Gnostics, Thelemites, Fellowship of Isis priestesses and priests, and even a number of Christians and Sufis joining in the vigil taking place. My colleagues from a few Shinto Shrines in Japan and in the Cascadian Republics are also present, though they will be departing soon so as not to be tainted by my death—I fully understand this, and also appreciate the one Guji who is also a Buddhist who said he would not leave. And, my colleague from House Thyrsatrae is also standing by, holding the space as only they know how and protecting it, and is ready with the waters of Nyx to anoint my body as soon as I have stopped breathing. It won't be long now.

On the walls, I've asked the various icons of Antinous, Hadrian, Sabina, Polydeukion and the Trophimoi and Herodes Attikos' family, Lucius Marius Vitalis, Glykon, Chnoubis, the Tetrad++ Group, Bes, Hathor, Ptah, Nefertem, Sekhmet, Demeter, Persephone, Artemis, Sterculinus, Hermes, Lugus, Hanuman, Shiva Nataraja, Narasimha, Brigantia, Brigit the Poet, and Cú Chulainn (and a few others) to be interspersed with photographs of old friends on occasions I have remembered and been thankful about for decades. There's the photo of me and Margot Adler at the book launch for her fourth edition of Drawing Down the Moon in 2026; there's myself with Selena Fox of Circle Sanctuary in 2022 when I was at last able to attend a Pagan Spirit Gathering (since I was able to get someone with a camping trailer to accompany me!); there's Don Frew and me at the World Parliament of Religions in 2033 in Rio de Janeiro (and I'm sunburned like you wouldn't believe after having been at a beach in the country where thongs were invented!); there's me and the Guji s of the two Tsubaki Grand Shrines in Japan and North America when I went to Japan in 2030; there's me and the (at-the-time) new Dalai Lama in 2040; there's me and Rabbi Blikstein near the Wailing Wall when I visited Israel in 2045; and there's me and Pope Emeritus Hadrian VIII in 2050, not long after he resigned his papacy and Pope Francis IV was installed. There's also a photo of me and three former United States presidents—back when there still was a United States!—in 2029: Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. I was surprised when I got the invitation to be at the Prayer Breakfast that year, and I remember very well how many people protested my presence, but nonetheless, the food and the conversation were quite memorable.

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And, perhaps the strangest of all: with a bit of dried saliva from various people spitting on it over the years (and more recently) when they saw it, there's the photo of me and, shall we say, a certain pastor of a breakaway Baptist church from Topeka, Kansas when he and his group showed up to protest the opening of our Temple. No, he still carried on with his antics for several more years, and I never saw nor spoke with him again, but when we brought them food and drinks and they set their "Fag Temples = Faggots Damned To Hell!" signs down for ten minutes, and he ate quietly and spat "Have a nice day!" to me when he was finished, it felt like something had happened. Oh well... he's been dead for nearly forty years, and their numbers have dwindled since then. "May I rejoice in the successes of both friend and foe," I've been praying for over fifty years, and there was no occasion of my life where that line echoed in my head louder than in those few moments.

This is a good place that has been built, I think, and so much wonderful work has been done here over the past four decades. The Temple itself is a grand structure, and is the heart of my spiritual and material existence at present, and has been since before it was completed. But, the Mystery House next to it, which only a small handful of our thousands of members have seen the insides of, is a marvel unto itself. In thousands of years, if our religion no longer exists, will there be as many "mysteries" about the Antinoan Mysteries as there have been about so many other lost mystery traditions? Who knows...but this will make a very interesting archaeological site, if it is not still in use, or hasn't been appropriated by some other religion, just as Hadrian's Pantheon—the inspiration for the general structure of the Temple of Antinous—was in its own time.

When the United States collapsed, and the various regions fragmented into their current status, there were some very strained and difficult days, but it ended up only being days , thankfully, as regional governments emerged quickly and often with little change from the previous state governments. It wasn't ideal, by any means, but it was much smoother than many had feared. However, for three weeks, our Temple compound was a small place of sanctuary for people from the surrounding area, of many different religions. Everyone was accommodated, fed, and sheltered as long as they needed (and some of them ended up sticking around and becoming a part of our community, even though they brought their religions with them). There was that one unforgettable night, when we were all gathered in the Temple itself, and the small detachment of the Revolutionary Army rolled through town after they had landed one of their air transport crafts to the south. There were around ten fatalities from shootings in Coupeville that day, but they dared not come into the Temple compound. We heard their armored car arrive outside our gates, and the only sound from inside they could hear was the chanting of our hymns. I don't think that was an occasion where the gods protected us—I think we were lucky and they were just scared , and in the position they were in at the time, who could blame them? Their cause was losing momentum, and they had seen untold bloodshed in the previous weeks. Had they killed anyone in the Temple compound, they might have had a rash of new martyr cults to deal with afterward, and that's always where things get ugly with religion and politics. The martyr cults amongst other religions that did actually emerge are still thriving several decades after, even though the names of the Revolutionaries have been nearly forgotten.

This morning, I told the nurse who is one of my former lovers and a Mystes of Antinous, "Thank you, but with all due respect, feck off!" when I said I wanted to go to do Inundation in the main Temple fountain but he objected because I've been too weak. It was difficult, and I needed two people to help me stand and be with me as I submerged myself in the pool, but I'm glad I did it, as it will be the last time I will do such a ritual. We had morning prayers in the Temple, and I spoke along with the Obelisk, the Prayer Against Persecution, and the Antinoan Petition as I have for so many years, this time not leading the prayers but instead only saying them along with the leaders whose voices are much nicer than mine has been for the last five years. I thank all the gods I am dying at home, in my community, with the people I love and in the Temple to the god that I have loved the most for my devotional life.

I have no doubt, however, that my own life's length has been because Antinous has saved me , in the original sense of the terms: he has made my life in every respect better and happier, and has made me healthy despite all of the problems I have had. Asthma, type I diabetes, cancer (twice!), and even my partial blindness—the only thing they couldn't seem to cure eventually—made things difficult for more years of my life than I prefer to remember, but they couldn't keep me from doing the work I wanted to do. The thirty books I've written, the hundreds of public rituals and lectures, the founding and accreditation of the Academia Antinoi as a graduate seminary, and the opening of the Temple of Antinous here, with other Shrines in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Brazil, Australia, Canada, Japan, and the Republics of Texas, the Mississippi, New York, and Florigeorgia...it's all been worth it and successful. No, we're still a tiny religion and a minority amongst minorities amongst the estimated one million polytheists worldwide, but the people who are involved with this religion are serious and dedicated and want it to continue.

It is 1:35pm, and I can see my last breath on the horizon. As planned, everyone leaves the room, with only the nurse and my House Thyrsatrae colleague still in here, but I am not looking at them after I thanked them as everyone else left. My eyes are fixed on the image of Antinous I've had for more than fifty years, which will be the last thing I see in this world as I close my eyes.

But, ever the one who finds prolonged concentration difficult, my eyes flicker over to the clock, which reads 1:38pm as I glance from it one last time to Antinous before closing my eyes.

Three days later, after cremation, my ashes will be gathered, taken in a boat past the ninth wave on the west of Whidbey Island, set ablaze with oils again and the smell of storax resin, and dropped into the sea. In the cenotaph to Antinous in the Temple will be built a small chapel with my name on the inscription plaque, and the titles I accrued over the years. If people want to honor me, they can look at the beautiful Puget Sound to the west of the island where I was born, or they can come to this place at the Temple. Vel in limine mundi, Ecce! Ego semper sum coram te! : Even at the edge of the world, behold! I am in your presence!

The Ekklesia Antinoou in Fifty Years