The Oracle of Delphi and Nostradamus with the Pythian Priestess

riverside_ashley_oppon, ashley p... _ apr 10, 2024 001_pythian_priestess

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[00:00:00] Ashley: Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dine with the Divine. I'm Ashley, your host, and together we'll be exploring the mystical, the magical, and everything in between. On today's episode, we're going to be chatting a lot about the Oracle of Delphi and the ever mysterious Notre Dame,

[00:00:16] so, we have a fantastic episode for you all today. I hope everybody's doing well, and I hope if you're not, I hope your week gets much better we have a fantastic guest as always. Today we have Ashley, known on in the onlines as the Pythian Priestess. She is an initiated priestess who practices Western Hermeticism and Ceremonial Magic as well as Witchcraft.

[00:00:38] She has been studying and practicing witchcraft over half of her life. She rose to TikTok fame in 2019 and has been teaching magic online at the Pythian Mystery School. Good grief. Actually the Pythian Priestess has been Has a BA in philosophy and theology and a master's in writing and producing for TV.

[00:00:57] Very accomplished. She also [00:01:00] volunteers at the Manly P. Hall University of Philosophical Research where she's taken several classes and earned certificates in the esoteric studies. She currently lives in LA where she works as a TV and media producer. How are you doing today, Ashley?

[00:01:17] Pythian: Hey, it's great to be here.

[00:01:19] I love that both of our names are Ashley. It's such a popular like 90s name.

[00:01:25] Ashley: I know very late 80s, early 90s. We're all Ashley's. I always think of like recess if you ever watched recess.

[00:01:32] Pythian: Totally. Absolutely. Yeah. All the Ashley's. Yeah.

[00:01:36] Ashley: Love it. Well, thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited to chit chat with you.

[00:01:41] So as I usually ask everybody, how did your journey into mysticism and hermeticism and how did all of that start for you?

[00:01:53] Pythian: It started when I was really young. I was four years old. So, to understand my upbringing, I [00:02:00] grew up in a very strict Roman Catholic household. And two of my great aunts, who were my babysitters when I was young, were Benedictine nuns.

[00:02:11] Oh, wow. And, yep. So, I remember when I was four years old, they asked me if I wanted to marry Jesus and become a nun. I said, no, I don't want to do that. I want to be a priest. Because he obviously has the real power. And they said, no, you can't do that because you're a girl. And I was like, oh, well, then I don't care about religion anymore because religion didn't care about me or like how I wanted to.

[00:02:39] Connect to God. So I spent 14 years in Catholic school scraping any bits of information I could find in the early 00's trying to find books, reputable websites, trying to learn anything I could about magic and it, I was so blessed. Moving out to Los Angeles and, there have been people along the way [00:03:00] who have helped me, boyfriends, ma, like their moms.

[00:03:03] And it was able to really unfold for me in a variety of ways, but it's really been my whole life. Oh,

[00:03:11] Ashley: wow. Your two great ants were both nuns. Wow

[00:03:15] Pythian: Yes, they were Benedictine nuns.

[00:03:17] They wore their habits daily and You know that they were a really big part of my life growing up

[00:03:27] Ashley: I think, oh, that is so interesting. I think it's so interesting that you at a young age were like, yeah, I want to have this connection to this, God, a higher power, the spirit, but also like, why do I have to be like a rung down?

[00:03:43] Like why do I, why can't I get to the top of that connection? Like that's such a. Insightful thing to think when you're young, yeah,

[00:03:51] Pythian: really like frustrated because like I knew what nuns did and nuns prayed and they helped people but the [00:04:00] priest was the special guy who got to touch the body of Christ.

[00:04:04] And to me, that was like, wow, to be able to like touch God that is so special. I want to be able to do that. And they're like, Oh, no, Not for you. Your cousin's skin though.

[00:04:20] Ashley: It's crazy when you think of how many people and when we're talking in like in the guise of like we'll just say Catholicism because that's what you're talking about. How many Women or people who identify as women want to do that, they're like, no, but like, this is what I want to do. I want to guide people.

[00:04:40] I want to help people. I want to really sit and learn. And , well, you can, but to a point, you just have to marry Jesus instead. Some people really want to, and all over different religions, they want to dedicate their life to either their prophet or their God, whatever. And to think that just because of.

[00:04:57] one's gender, you're being told, [00:05:00] Oh, you want to do this thing. That's so powerful and maybe possibly extremely healing and life affirming for you, but it's like, you're a girl. Don't do that.

[00:05:09] Pythian: Yeah. It was really frustrating. Like I felt very rejected. And that's how I felt for the majority of my life.

[00:05:15] I was very much an outsider. And even within my own family, I didn't really fit in. And so I think that's really what set me on that quest. The seeker's quest of understanding, what is the meaning of life? If I am not being surrounded with love and attention from my family, and I feel like I'm being ridiculed all the time, then who will accept me?

[00:05:36] Ashley: So, okay. That's that's fascinating. So, like you said, you're to figure out what you could do to, can keep your connection when you were in school. One of our other guests said like the Catholicism to which pipeline is strong, which year was right.

[00:05:50] , because we have a lot. We have a lot of guests who is they're all like, I grew up in a Roman Catholic family. It's always Roman Catholicism. I find [00:06:00] I always say it's the most magical Christianity that you can do. And I think it really does set people on a path. That's another conversation for another day.

[00:06:08] But so you went from that to then finding like hermeticism and Ceremonial magic. And did you, when you started, like, cause these are like big topics, we talked a little bit about hermeticism in a couple, in an episode a while ago, but it's like a big thing. Ceremonial magic is like a big topic and we'll talk about it one day, but How did you go, like what was your journey like finding that, like finding like witchcraft and then being like I want to do all this and like research all these things and go to school and learn more about this, like what was that like for you?

[00:06:44] Pythian: So I was in high school really searching for a truth. With a capital T, like what is the truth of the universe? Why am I here? What is my purpose? All those really teenage angsty questions. When I got to undergrad or [00:07:00] college, I took a philosophy introduction course. So I was really interested in philosophy, but I didn't quite understand what it was.

[00:07:07] Ashley: And

[00:07:09] Pythian: my introduction to philosophy Was a lot of the ancients. So we talked about Plato and then we moved on to like Renee and Descartes, which are more, more contemporary, but those, I started finding, those were the people who were hitting on the topics that I was interested in. What is the nature of the universe?

[00:07:28] Even Plato talks about like reincarnation at some point. And. It was during those four years that I started picking up on, I'm like, okay, so philosophy has a metaphysical side to it, but nobody wants to talk about it. It's not popular in, in the academic circles because it's considered woo. And I was like the queen of the woo.

[00:07:51] Like I aced metaphysics, like I really enjoyed that. And it wasn't until I moved to Los Angeles when I became [00:08:00] familiar with the Philosophical Research Society that Manly P. Hall Was my introduction to hermeticism, which is an incredibly broad topic. So first of all, the word hermetic means Sealed so it means that you don't talk about it.

[00:08:16] So like when I say hermetic It's not necessarily the name of the group or even like yeah, it's I'm telling you like I'm not gonna tell you Understand Yeah, so, Hermeticism is a mixture that, that really comes from Egypt, but even before that with the Babylonians and the oh, I'm going to forget the names.

[00:08:39] Hold on a second. Chaldean oracles. Which is Assyrian. So it all comes really from the Middle East. And then you have this thing called syncretism where things start to bleed out from the Middle East, going into Egypt and then Egypt really like becomes a powerhouse and has their mythologies and their [00:09:00] belief systems that some were borrowed from the, Ancient East.

[00:09:04] So, for example, the goddess I work with, the Greek Isis, is the Egyptian Aset and the Sumerian Ishtar.

[00:09:14] Ashley: Yeah.

[00:09:14] Pythian: So you see how that lineage goes back and Hermeticism is accumulation of all of that, but it's like a lot more too. So it's ancient Babylonian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Egyptian Hellenistic, Greek Phoenician, and you get this big mixture.

[00:09:30] So when it gets to. magic in the ceremonial sense, a lot of what you're looking at is stuff that comes from, which would be the Judaic and Chaldean

[00:09:44] Ashley: oracles. Wow. Okay. That's super interesting. And yeah, obviously, like you said, It means sealed and like I've only ever what I know of like the hermeticism is from like a [00:10:00] historical standpoint.

[00:10:00] So it's like what we've talked about in the past like where's the word come from and like what this and the different groups that we do know. That were formed around this subject in general, like we talked about the Golden Dawn and stuff like that before, yeah, so there's, obviously, I don't know what they did, they were secret society, that's not my business.

[00:10:19] I just know they existed. And I know some people who were in it, because it's recorded. But yeah, that's fascinating. All the and it's really interesting that, All those things have survived those thousands of years. You know what I mean? You think about there, you're like, damn, the, what we all learn in history class, when you're, I don't know how old you are, maybe fifth or sixth grade, when you learn about the fertile Crescent and the, yeah, this is what, you're talking about these people in Mesopotamia and that kind of that area when it's, when all this started.

[00:10:48] So that's absolutely fascinating. Wow. Okay. So, Then you went to school and you went to school for philosophy and theology. So yeah. So, I, [00:11:00] so in my other life, I always say I, I used to really want to go to school for theology. That's like my thing. I love theology so much. But people every time it's so funny when you tell people that they're like, oh, so you want to be like a pastor and I'm like, no, I don't like, I just like to learn about religion and mythology.

[00:11:17] I don't want to be a pastor. I just like to talk about it. So that's why I have a podcast now. But did you feel that like you, did you feel that In school, like in the academic sense, did you get out of it? What you felt like you wanted to get out of that kind of education about philosophy?

[00:11:32] Did it help you answer questions for yourself or was it like you wanted to do something more with it that you're doing? Did you even know that you were going to do, teaching magic to other people and this kind of thing yet? Or was it just like for your own knowledge at first? Okay.

[00:11:45] Pythian: I didn't think I'd be teaching people.

[00:11:47] It was very shameful. , like people didn't think what I was doing was cool. They were like, Oh you're a weirdo. Like, why aren't you adhering to science? And I am adhering to science, but when I took philosophy of science, it [00:12:00] makes your brain go twisty, turny, upside down, inside out.

[00:12:04] And you're like, well, what if there's I have a difficult time thinking that everything is just chaos. I think the world is too organized. Nature is wonderful. Like it's not random. So in theology, I did not take a lot of Christian courses. I was required to take nine credits, which was three classes, but the rest of them, the other 23 credits were all other religions.

[00:12:32] So I took like, I took world religion. I took philosophy of religion. I took Daoism because I was very interested in Daoism.

[00:12:40] And then I did take New Testament and Old Testament. Did I do fantastic in those classes? No, but I know them. I understand them. Yeah. And so I think, it all depends on your school and what they're teaching you, but for Us specifically at my college Flagler, it was about balancing both the philosophical side [00:13:00] and the religion aspect of it.

[00:13:02] So I'm very grateful for my teachings that I was given and they definitely opened up my mind.

[00:13:09] Ashley: Oh, wonderful. Okay. Whoo. So now we know a lot about Ashley. So we're going to talk a little bit now about our dish of the week. So this week we have one small dish. And as I said before, we're going to be talking about Notre Damas later.

[00:13:27] And one thing that I'll tell you before we start talking about him is that Notre Damas what do you call it? A Materia Medica, I think we're gonna call it. I think that's what it's called. It's like a book of like herbal medicine that he had written. So, but he also written some, he also wrote some fun recipes and one of them was candied orange peels.

[00:13:48] I was like, okay, this is cute. So, okay, so this is how you make a candied orange peel. According to Notre Dame, he said, take some orange and cut them into four or six sections. Is it candied [00:14:00] orange peels or candied oranges? All right, it's oranges. Sorry, just candied oranges. Yeah, I was like, I wrote peels. I don't know why I wrote that.

[00:14:08] Sorry. I was so sick. Take some oranges and cut them into four or six sections, but at least four. And then you remove the inside so that nothing remains except the peel. Oh, maybe I'm wrong. Okay. Don't worry. I'm just going to read this. With the flesh and the pips removed, now take your peel and leave it to soak.

[00:14:24] Soak in good clean water. And on the first occasion you add a fistful of salt because the salt will take away any bitterness from the oranges Then you leave the peel to stand for 24 hours Then you change the water and replace it with fresh water and then you carry on changing it and replacing it for nine days And at the end of the nine days you boil the peels in good spring water until There you test it with a pin and make sure it's soft and then it will go through easily and then you can eat them So, all right.

[00:14:57] That's candied orange peels with [00:15:00] Notre Dame everybody. I hope you enjoyed that. Yeah. It actually sounds, it sounds like a marmalade kind of situation like an orange jam, so thank you. Notre Dame is for doing that.

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[00:16:33] Ashley: Okay. So now we're going to go on to our. Tea time section. Tea time is when we learn a little something.

[00:16:41] So, since we're here today with the Pythian Priestess, I was like, that word Pythian, I've heard it before, I don't remember what it is. So, I said, let me go down my rabbit hole, and I did. So, here we are. So, the Pythia was the name of the high priestess Who is the highest priestess of the temple [00:17:00] of Apollo at Delphi.

[00:17:01] You might know this as the Oracle of Delphi. She was Oracle of Delphi. And so the name Pythia actually is derived from Pytho, which is a myth of the original name of Delphi. The, literally the town of Delphi.

[00:17:16] So, I'm gonna say this word wrong, everybody. Don't get mad. Etymologically, oh, I tried. Hopefully I got it. Pythian. Python. Oh my God. I'm sorry, everybody. I'm recording this after work. I'm all sleepy. I can't read. I'm going to repeat that because I'm going to edit some of that out. So Puthane, which means to rot, which refers to the sickly sweet smell of the decomposing body of the monstrous.

[00:17:39] Python, after it was slain by Apollo. So there's a lot of lore around exactly how all this started, but they're like the records of it Start at the end of the 7th century BC and they continue the Pythian priestess was Continued to be consulted until about the [00:18:00] late 4th century AD.

[00:18:03] So During this time, so there was a lot of different oracles in different towns around Greece. This wasn't just the only one, but the Delph the Oracle at Delphi was the most prestigious and authoritative Oracle. So yeah, she was like the creme de la creme of Oracles. So if you really need to figure out what the hell was going on, you went to and.

[00:18:27] It was, they were, the person who was the priestess at the time, sometimes there were three, I'll get into that in a second, but the person who was the priestess at the time was considered among Greeks, and among the quote unquote classical world, to be one of the most powerful women in that time. In the world.

[00:18:45] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She was a boss. I hate using boss. Maybe we're not saying that anymore, but she was a boss. Let's just say

[00:18:52] Pythian: that she really was. She was so powerful for being a woman in a time where women didn't have a lot of power.

[00:18:58] Ashley: Yes, [00:19:00] absolutely. People came from and we'll talk about the process.

[00:19:02] People came from far and wide to see this lady just to hear what she had to say. And actually, I thought this was interesting. The Oracle of Delphi is one of the best documented religious institutions of the classical Greeks. So. I know, isn't that cool? Yeah, isn't that crazy? Like, you think you know so much about Greek mythology and we read about it and we talk about it, but I didn't realize that it was one of the most, Documented religious institutions, this is what they talked about all the time, and there were multiple, think of all the famous philosophical guys, from Greece, Plato, Socrates, all them dudes they pretty much all, almost all of them talked about the Oracle.

[00:19:42] Pythian: Yep. Yeah. She was in play, she was in philosophical texts, historical records, she was all over the place.

[00:19:50] Ashley: Everybody loved talking about her cause it was a big ass deal. So nevertheless, details of how the Pythia operated [00:20:00] were scarce and missing again, but it may, it makes me think of what you said before, Ashley, about like hermeticism.

[00:20:06] It was a secret, like you, you're not supposed to know everything. Like that's the point. It's the occult. It's mysterious. It's. So everyone's like, Well, we don't know. Yeah, go ahead.

[00:20:17] Pythian: Yeah, I can tell you a little bit about her process. Yeah, go ahead. No, a whole lot. But from what I understand is that she only worked nine days a year.

[00:20:26] And it was the seventh day after the full moon. So the first Sunday after the full moon. And The first thing she would do is she would wake up and then go down to the Castilian spring underneath the temple where she would do her ritualistic cleansing. And then there were a lot of offerings and sacrifices made.

[00:20:47] The first one is laurel and barley meal. Then the people would start lining up even before dawn, and it was into three different sections. There were for the people who [00:21:00] were, like, reserved members of this special alliance of the 12 city states. The second was for locals. That was my cat. Hey now.

[00:21:09] It's fine. No problem. And the third was for foreigners. So, before this, anything even got started, the priests who worked there would sacrifice a goat and they would observe the animal before and during it's death and relay that to the priestess and depending on what happened, we're not really sure, but She would say, yay, I will do prophecies today, or no, it is a bad day to prophesize.

[00:21:39] That's already cool. So if you got there and you were waiting for like five hours, and she said, no, you'd have to wait a whole month before you could go back. Yeah,

[00:21:48] Ashley: it sucks. Because that's a long time. No, for real. And like, you think about transportation, right? You had to get there and it was by, it wasn't, it was by [00:22:00] horseback, if you were lucky.

[00:22:01] , if you, yeah, if you were walking, you could have been walking for days. You and these are the days when walking on the road was dangerous because you could just get Yeah, you could just be robbed like all the time. This was just what happened. So Not safe people were risking their lives to come see the oracle So yeah, thank you for saying that because that's more deep down in my notes And I think i'll have something else to say about that too.

[00:22:27] That was a perfect explanation. Thank you so much Yeah, so yes, so there was that and again, we'll go back into it. So one of the main stories is that the Pythia would give these would give The statement whatever they were gonna say and they would sometimes become they would be in a frenzied state So what they would do and there's a very famous painting that I'll try to put up.

[00:22:54] Everybody's seen this painting It's like a little stool. There's a woman sitting on a [00:23:00] stool, and there's a crack on the ground in front of her, and there's like vapors coming out of the ground. So, and I know you're like, I've never seen this painting, but I promise if I showed you, you'd seen it. Yeah, everyone's seen this painting.

[00:23:13] So, that's the Oracle of Delta, and they say that there was this vapor coming from the ground, and that, When it would come up, the Oracle, the Pythia, would like go into this state, could be a frenzied state at time, and they said she would speak gibberish, but

[00:23:33] Pythian: yeah, exactly.

[00:23:33] Ashley: It was nonsense. But then what they would say, so it's two things that people said.

[00:23:38] Number one, they said that. Sometimes she would start with nonsense, but then it would turn into didactic hextameter. So like, like a poetic speech. So if you've ever read any classic Greek literature, think like, the Odyssey or something like that. If you've ever read anything like that, and you notice that the way they write it, That [00:24:00] is the way they said that she would speak once she would start relaying the message But some scholars say that they don't think that's what actually happened They think that she would just say whatever she said and then like poets and stuff would then Interpret it and write it in this form Yeah, they think that and then there's also a well it goes along with that I'll tell you in a second.

[00:24:25] Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. But yes, so that's one of the big thoughts and it does make a lot of sense, right? If this person is in like a, A static state. How are they speaking in perfect didactic hexameters? Like, come on. Like, I don't know. Maybe it could be, but a riddles make sense.

[00:24:45] A lot of people speak in riddles when they're spiritually, in that space, but I don't know. Let's see. Let's keep reading. Let's keep talking about it. So they say that even though they think, sorry, this is another history thing, they think the Oracle of Delphi may have even been present in [00:25:00] some form since actually 1400 BCE in the middle of like the Mycenaean Greek period, because there's evidence that, yeah, there's evidence that the shrine that they had her in, was actually maybe a shrine dedicated to Gaia before Apollo.

[00:25:19] Pythian: Yeah, reading that.

[00:25:20] Ashley: Yes. So they think that might have what happened. So now another thing is, okay, this is another myth that we don't know if it's completely true, but they talk about how did it happen? Like, how did they come to be there? So I'm going to read this directly from Is this what I wanted to read?

[00:25:38] No, it's not what I wanted to read. But anyway, let's keep talking. Scratch that. So there, okay, this is what I want to read. So there's a lot of stories about the origins of the Delphic the Delphic Oracle. One of the explanations talks about there was this goat herder, and his name was Kortos. So Kortos one day was herding his goats and then [00:26:00] he, one of his goats fell into a crack in the earth.

[00:26:02] And start acting funny. So Cortis went to like, see what's going on. And he like went near this.

[00:26:12] And all of a sudden he said he filled, he was filled with divine presence and the ability to see outside of the present into the past and the future. So he was so excited. He went to go tell the people nearby the village. And many people started going there and they were experiencing these trances and convulsions.

[00:26:33] And They said some of them actually disappeared because they just ran off in these frenzied states.

[00:26:40] And they all started going up there and they all started experiencing these trances to the point where one of them would, well, not one of them, a couple of them would like run into the woods and they wouldn't be able to find them because they'd be so like overcome. So they then erected a shrine and people started worshiping there.

[00:26:57] And this was about like [00:27:00] 1600 BCE, and then after a whole, I don't get this part, but okay, after a whole bunch of dudes died there, they were like, you know what, we're just gonna have one young lady go there, and she'll be the one.

[00:27:13] Pythian: Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting, like, and like the woman wasn't, so for a while, some people think it was a young, like, virgin maiden girl.

[00:27:22] But. Later, it definitely wasn't like this woman was in her fifties, like her forties and fifties, and she would wear maidens clothes and essentially be like, all right, you are now the priestess. Leave your family, leave your kids, leave your husband. Goodbye.

[00:27:42] Ashley: Okay. Yes. They ran into her and they were like, I was just talking about this the other day, my coworker's like, how'd you kids had your wife?

[00:27:51] They literally told her to do that. Yeah. And it's actually, and again, that's another thing I'm going to talk about in a second, cause I have to find my notes, but there's a reason that they say they think it [00:28:00] changed. So yeah. So since the first operation, so. The first Oracle of Delphi, they believe that there was a god that lived inside the holy plant of, within a laurel, which is like the holy plant.

[00:28:13] Yes. Because she holds

[00:28:13] Pythian: that all the time.

[00:28:14] Ashley: Exactly. And they believe that was what gave the Oracle, like, the future when they were rustling the leaves. And also it was said that the, Art of divination had been taught by the god of the three winged sisters of Parnassus, the Thrae, at the time when Apollo was grazing his cattle there in this area.

[00:28:37] So the Thrae used to have a Kilron Mantian, an oracle that was by Lots in that area. And in the past it was possible that was the first oracle of Delphi that they used Lots.

[00:28:51] Pythian: Okay, cool.

[00:28:52] Ashley: Yeah. So then, so there was sometimes There was, okay, before the oracle Delcify was like the [00:29:00] hottest one on the, the ticket, there was three.

[00:29:02] So there was three oracles, yeah, and the one was called the Shethonion, and they used Egkomisi, which was a procedure that involves sleeping in a holy place so that they could have, like, a dream. And then, yeah, which is pretty cool. And then there was the other one that we talked about drawing lots. And then there was finally the Apollo Athenian, which was the Laurel one.

[00:29:26] So then since the introduction of the call of Dionysus at Delphi, so Dionysus is the God of like wine and oranges. Then they gave the Delphic God. Who is now Dionysus and Apollo. They gave the oracles now to the Pythia, and then everybody was into that. So, Dionysus was pretty cool, and everybody's like, Actually, we really like Dionysus, and we think he's probably accurate.

[00:29:51] So, we're gonna go with Dionysus and Apollo. Now, just like Ashley had said before they believed that in the beginning, the Pythia was a [00:30:00] virgin and a young girl. But then they said, There was this essay happening. Yes. There was some dude who came and did some bad shit and they were like, Oh, we'll do again.

[00:30:14] Patriarchy. They're like, we're not just going to get mad about this. But what we'll do is just switch it. So now we'll just put an old lady. They're not old. I don't mean you're old if you're in your fifties. I'm just saying they're like we're gonna put someone who's a little older then maybe they guess they won't get kidnapped or assaulted.

[00:30:30] I don't know. So, like Ashley had said before, again, they wore the clothes that a young woman would wear to resemble a young. Maiden girl. And then as according to tradition Simone was the daughter of Apollo and Simone was apparently the first Pythia. So one and again, I'm just repeating some things Ashley said, but They don't really know exactly how the Pythia was chosen.

[00:30:59] They think that [00:31:00] maybe the other priestesses, they think there was almost like a Pope vote. If anybody knows how the Pope's vote, they just all get together. Like who's the nicest one or who's like the best one to carry on the Catholic church name or whatever. Not necessarily the nicest. I shouldn't say that, but It's like a vote.

[00:31:13] They think that might have been how it was. And they were picked obviously when the predecessor died. All the women who were picked were natives of Delphi, and they were required to have a completely sober life and be of quote, good character, whatever that meant to them. So. Again, upon assuming their role as the Pythia, they ceased all family responsibilities, marital relations, and individual identity.

[00:31:39] Again, they could have been married, they could have already had kids, but, you couldn't hang with them anymore if you became the Pythia. And in the hey, yeah, in the heyday of the Oracle, the Pythia may have been chosen from an influential family and well educated in geography, politics, history, philosophy, and the arts.

[00:31:59] And [00:32:00] that's another reason I read they thought that maybe she did speak in that hextameter. Because they were like, if, yeah, they're like, if she, knew poetry really well and like how to speak in this like the way like an educated quote unquote educated person at the time would talk or write they were like maybe she did like that's how she spoke because she knew that's what would be expected of somebody who had her level of education but later on in later periods they chose women who were uneducated or peasants.

[00:32:32] On purpose. Yeah. Yes, exactly. On purpose. And they think that's when they probably had to start having people like translate it into the hexameter because those women wouldn't necessarily know that, especially if they couldn't read. Like how would they, yeah, how would they know any of that? So let's see what else we're going to talk about here.

[00:32:51] So it was a very respectable career for a Creek woman. Like we said at the beginning, it was like the highest level that you could be [00:33:00] at basically for a woman. They had a lot of liberties and they were actually rewarded with Freedom from taxation. So basically like a church or any religious institution.

[00:33:11] They're like, Oh girl, you don't have to pay taxes. Because you're doing something for society. I know. That's nice. Isn't it? I know they don't need my four gold coins this year. This is great. They had the right to own property. They could attend public events and they had a salary and housing provided by the state.

[00:33:30] And they were allowed to. Do a range of duties depending on their affiliation and often got to wear gold crowns, which is like awesome. I'd love a gold crown. During the main popularity. So this is what I was saying before during the pot like when it was really popular They think there may have been like three women at a time being Pythia so they would like there would be like one and two and a third one would be like on standby just like in case And again, this is again going with what Ashley had said earlier There was one day a month [00:34:00] that the priestess could even do It wasn't and it was only the nine months out of the year and they said that they were like, oh it's because The other three months Apollo deserts the temple and he has to go.

[00:34:10] Yeah, he has to go hang out with Dionysus You Cause yeah, he was like, yeah, exactly. He has to go chill with his brother. So he, we can't do oracles, but also they made the point like historians were like, but also it was like cold. So they were like, it may have just been like too cold to be hanging out outside the whole time.

[00:34:33] And they were like, yeah, maybe she just didn't want to be in the cold. And other people were like, yeah, it's really rough to get there this time of year. Cause those other nine months were the warmer months. Probably like your spring or fall and your summer. So at the end of each period, the epithia would be like completely exhausted.

[00:34:50] Apparently, the sessions were like so exhausted. And I feel like a lot of people who read tarot or do other types of divination, You can relate. It's just tiring, like, for us, [00:35:00] so I can imagine what this lady was going through, yeah,

[00:35:02] Pythian: and she's also, like, inhaling stuff, so. Yeah. Probably, like, messed her up, too.

[00:35:08] Ashley: Yeah, she's inhaling all these fumes, which God knows what it was. They still don't really know. What it was just so you know that spoiler alert, not really. So she would do all these, like, the fasting, the purification, like Ashley said, she would do all that. And they would also, a priest would, so after the seventh month of the year, she would be led to two ocular priests with her face veiled in purple.

[00:35:34] And the priest would then declaim, servant of the Delphine Delphinian Apollo, go to the Castilian Spring, wash in its silvery eddies, and return cleanse to the temple. Guard your lips from offense to those who ask for oracles. Let the God's answer come, pure from all private fault. So she would do her ritual, then she would come in [00:36:00] and outside the temple it said, know thyself, nothing to excess, surety brings ruin, or it would say make a pledge and mischief is nigh.

[00:36:11] That's interesting. And all those things seem to play like an important part in the ritual. She would remove her purple veil. She was usually wearing like a short white dress. Again, like if you see this picture, you'll know what I'm talking about. And then the whole thing would happen with the goat. A live goat would be set in front of the altar sprinkled with water. If the kid, meaning the small goat, trembled from the hooves upwards, it was considered a good omen for the oracle. But if it did not, the inquirer was warned.

[00:36:40] Quirer was considered to have been rejected by the god and the consultation would be terminated. If it was a good omen, however, the goat would subsequently be sacrificed to Apollo. In turn, the animal's organs, particularly its liver, were examined to ensure signs of were favorable, and then burned outside the altar of [00:37:00] Chios.

[00:37:00] The rising smoke was a signal that the oracle was open. The oracle then descended the atiton, which was Greek for inaccessible, and mounted her tripod feet, holding laurel leaves and a dish of Cassitis spring water, which into she gazed. Nearby was the Omphalos, which was Greek for navel, which was flanked by two solid gold eagles representing the authority of Zeus and the cleft from which emerged a sacred numium.

[00:37:33] Numia. Okay. That's a lot. Yeah. That's a lot of Greek. A lot of ancient Greek. Yeah. So, when the oracle was not When the Pythia was not available, they had like almost consultants that could help with simple no, yes or no questions to different people, they would use colored beans for their divination system instead.

[00:37:56] Now, all these people

[00:37:58] Pythian: We don't know how

[00:37:58] Ashley: that works. Yeah, [00:38:00] nobody knows. Yeah, they just like they knew but they didn't write it down for us and that's fine. Right, so there was a little bit of a process to journey to Delphi. First, like you said, you had to get there and you had to start to get in the mindset.

[00:38:13] Again, it reminds me of a lot of people who do readings or mediumship or Whether it's tarot, whatever kind of divination you do, runes, whatever people will tell people, look, like the reading or the healing has already begun when you ask for it. So they had to get into that mindset, like on their way.

[00:38:30] So the journey may have been hard, but they were like excited because they're like, Oh, I'm going to go see the Oracle. I'm just going to answer my questions. It's going to be, it's going to be awesome. Then you would get there. And the person who wants to be in person wants to ask a question, gets interviewed by like the, like other priestesses and people around because.

[00:38:49] They have to see, is this a real, is this a good question, or is this a bad question? And then if you come and you're like, okay, this is a good question, they'll be like, this is how you need to ask the question. This reminds me a lot of [00:39:00] like, how even I do readings with people. Cause sometimes they ask me questions, I'm like, that's a, that's not, I don't say this, but I'm like, that's a bad question.

[00:39:06] I'm like, why don't we eat something? Talk about it this

[00:39:07] Pythian: way, it's yeah, totally. And like, sometimes I read accounts of things that they were asked and I'm like, it's like stuff people still ask today. Like, is my wife cheating on me? Like, it's really interesting. Like, how should I make money?

[00:39:21] And it's like, Oh yeah, y'all had the same problem. I

[00:39:27] Ashley: was just talking about this the other day too. I was like, you think of like a teenage girl in or, and teenage boys. Teenage anybody in any time. They all have the same problems with having a crush Like I'm sure there was like a teenage boy in the year for who's just like damn that girl down the street She has cute goats and I always see her and her goats.

[00:39:48] She's so cute Like they have the same thing Yeah. And they were writing in their journals about it. So, people back then, they had the same problems. We have people like life was so much simpler. I'm like, I don't know if it was, I think they [00:40:00] had exactly the same problems just in different situations.

[00:40:02] So yeah, they would go. And then the priest who worked at the temple and the other people were at the temple would be like, okay, this is how you have to ask the, it's how you have to ask the Pythia. And they'd be like, okay, then they would get to visit the Oracle. They would be divided into groups, obviously.

[00:40:16] And then, They'd be led into the temple and they have to put the question to the Pythia and they receive the answer and then they just go. Don't know follow ups. Just leave. You have to go.

[00:40:25] Pythian: And it's really expensive because you had to pay for the journey there. You have to pay the entrance fee, which is a small cake.

[00:40:33] It's like made of honey and barley and it's like an offering to Apollo that got burned later. You had to pay for the second goat sacrifice. So like this like adds up and especially like, let's say you get denied and like the priestess isn't doing stuff. You have to wait a whole nother month. Like

[00:40:48] Ashley: yes.

[00:40:48] Pythian: Me.

[00:40:50] Ashley: And I was like, you had to save up for this. And that's like, God forbid she was like, actually the goats entered said not to dig. You're like, damn, that's crazy. So then there was a [00:41:00] person would return home and usually they would implement whatever the epiphias told them. And they would be a lot of the time they would see this guidance come through in their lives, obviously.

[00:41:10] So kings queens, especially of times of war, a lot of kings would go to the oracle. You think of like in 300, like as they would go to the oracle and be like, yeah,

[00:41:20] Pythian: I think of that movie all the time when

[00:41:22] Ashley: people talk about

[00:41:23] Pythian: Pythia. Yeah, probably wasn't that cool. Yeah,

[00:41:30] Ashley: I'm sure it was way more boring, but it was, yeah, exactly. They went there, though, to always consult before they went, and a lot of kings, before making any decisions, would make sure they consulted the Oracle. So, they tried to figure out, and they're still, honestly, trying to figure out what she wasn't hailing.

[00:41:50] They had a couple theories about I think it's ethylene gas. And they said, actually, probably not. And then some of them say, well, it was so long ago, we pro And [00:42:00] it was a gas, so it just disappeared into the air. We don't know what it was. And then some people say, because there are so many volcanoes around there there's volcanic activity, that it may have been like volcanic fumes.

[00:42:13] They don't know for sure but they know that now there's no fumes coming out of that place anymore. Parts of ruins of the temple still stand, so they know where it was, but there's no evidence there anymore of gases. So it's lost to history. Yeah, but I like to think that it was something cool. Hopefully it wasn't hurting the Pythia, but probably was, it was like probably a toxic gas.

[00:42:37] Yeah, it was probably a toxic gas, but I like to think that she was just there spitting spitting divination all day and like having a good time doing it. So. That is what the Pythia is, and that's a little bit more, now you know about the Oracle Delphi. Okay. So, now we're on to our last section, our story time.

[00:42:57] Today's story time's nice and short, because we [00:43:00] talked a lot about the Pythia, so let's just talk about somebody I've always wondered a lot about, because I was like, okay, we're having Ashley on, she knows a lot about, like, this, like, Western Hermeticism and I was like, what are some people who are really involved in this kind of thought process and I was like, hey Notre Dame is on this list.

[00:43:17] So I was like, let me hear the real story about Notre Dame. So here's Notre Dame's origin story So he was born either the 14th or the 21st of December in 1503 in Saint Remy de Providence France and again, i'm not french. I apologize for my pronunciations for anybody who does speak french Well, I know it's all wrong.

[00:43:38] I apologize. He where he was His birthplace still exists. You can go visit it and he was baptized michelle or like michael in french So he was one of nine children his dad's name was jacques de nostre dame and his mom's name was rainieri who was a granddaughter of [00:44:00] Pierre de Saint Rémy, who worked as a physician in Saint Rémy, where he was from.

[00:44:05] His dad Jacques family was actually Originally Jewish, but his grandfather, Notre Dame's grandfather was a money and grain dealer converted to Catholicism around 1459 and took the Christian name Pierre and the surname Notre Dame, which means Our Lady because that was the day that he was converged that his conversion happened.

[00:44:29] So when Nostradamus was 14, he entered the University of Avignon to study for his bachelor's degree. So after a little bit more than a year, he, where he studied grammar, rhetoric, and logic, which is interesting, he was forced to leave Avignon because basically it was COVID times, but it was plague times.

[00:44:50] So they had to close the school because they're like, everybody out here is getting the plague and we got to stop it. So he traveled the countryside now for the next eight years [00:45:00] researching herbal retinamines. So I think he wanted to be a doctor. Then in 1529, after a while, he was working as an apothecary.

[00:45:09] So now back then, to work as an apothecary, Okay, so now we know this apothecary is somewhere you can usually go get like herbal remedies and stuff or herbs. Back then to work as an apothecary was basically like an herbal medicine doctor. So you were working like a doctor, but you weren't like a licensed doctor.

[00:45:27] He entered the University of Mount Pelier to study medicine. to get actually his doctorate in medicine, but while he was there, he was still working as an apothecary. Then they found out he was doing that and they were like, Oh no, you can't do that. You can't study to be a doctor, but also be out here shitting on other doctors and giving, country folk herbal remedies.

[00:45:48] They said, Oh no. And they kicked him out of school.

[00:45:49] Pythian: Yeah, not good. Yeah

[00:45:53] Ashley: They were like, maybe don't do that.

[00:45:54] Pythian: Don't do that. Yeah, they're

[00:45:56] Ashley: like, how dare you help people who can't afford [00:46:00] medical treatment jerk and But people around him called him doctor because the people who saw him were like you're helping us like thank you so much he, so he got kicked out of medical school, but he really didn't care.

[00:46:13] He just went and kept working. He was pretty popular. He, but he did have this thing called a rose pill, which he said helped prevent the plague. I'm not sure that it did. But that's what he said. I hope he was doing it out of pure ignorance and not just, trying to make money. But I don't know.

[00:46:30] So then in 1531, he was invited to this place called Agin, which was somewhere where he could study and keep working. He married a lady. We don't know exactly who. Her name was Henriette, though we think. And he had two kids. Then his wife and his children all died from the plague. Sorry, Notre Dame.

[00:46:48] That sucks. Sorry about that. Then after their deaths, he started to travel and he went through France and probably went into Italy. Then in 1545, he assisted a prominent [00:47:00] physician at the time named Louis Sery in the fight against the plague outbreak in Marseilles. And then he went to a couple different places to help them stop the plague.

[00:47:11] Now in So now when he went to Italy, also, he moved more away from medicine and more towards like the occult and like magical stuff. So in 1550, yes, he started to be like, this is interesting. What's going on here? In 1550, he wrote a book, an almanac, and he changed his name. From his name, obviously last name was Notre Dame, and he just called himself Nostradamus, like one word, like Cher, like, and Madonna, like he's just like, I'm Nostradamus now.

[00:47:43] Yeah, so, so everybody bought this almanac because he was making predictions about stuff and people are like, damn, this is so accurate. So, he wrote One every year. So every year he wrote one people were, catching it up. So then [00:48:00] they were, all his almanacs apparently were supposed to contain about 6, 338 different prophecies.

[00:48:09] And there was 11 annual calendars and they all started on January 1st. But some of them sometimes started in March. We don't know why. And his main response was that. The main response was that the nobility and prominent people started to ask for other things. They started to ask for, like, horoscopes and, like, predictions.

[00:48:31] And he'd be like, okay. So he would start giving them. And So, like a lot of people go to an astrologer and the astrologer is like, tell me your birthday and if you know the time and if you know the place and writes out their chart for them. What Nostradamus would do, because he didn't have time for all that, is he would be like, tell me when you were born and they'd be like, this is when I was born.

[00:48:57] And he'd be like, okay, and he would just come up with a [00:49:00] chart and he'd be like, this is probably your chart. So he would just use charts of like people who may have been born that day and what their chart would look like. But then he, but he did make some, but then when people would be like, well, I don't think this is right.

[00:49:12] I don't think this is right. He would take it back and he would fix it. So he was a good dude. Then he wrote a bunch of different books that had tons of prophecies. And the thing about his prophecies were like, I'm not going to say they were wrong, but they were super, super broad. So they could relate to like anything.

[00:49:33] There was a while ago, we talked about Mother Shipton, who was an English herbalist and prophetess, and she would do the same thing. She had a lot of prophecies that people, , it's true, they say, she knew about cars, there were horses that didn't have hearts, but it's like, I don't know, that could have meant anything, like, like, there's, that one actually is probably pretty interesting, but there's some other stuff that,

[00:49:54] Pythian: like, Yeah, there's things that are, like, really hit or miss.

[00:49:56] Like, we think of Nostradamus, and we think of, like, people say he [00:50:00] predicted the Twin Towers and all that stuff. But, he did, like, he was, he predicted the death of a certain king that was pretty accurate. And it's like, okay, when you're doing scrying, and, like, you're, like, doing that prophecy work, It like it is hit or miss because you're looking at symbols, so yeah

[00:50:17] Ashley: Absolutely.

[00:50:18] Yeah, it's all like an educated guess and I feel very strongly that like when you're doing this kind of work like You can only see so far into the future. That's how I feel. Other people feel differently. That's totally fine. But I think he probably made a lot more predictions that made sense for his time.

[00:50:35] But now if you look at them, you'd be like, huh, that could mean like 17 different things now, but I think for his time, he was saying a lot of stuff that made a lot of sense. Like he predicted the death of this king and all this different kinds of stuff. So I think people thought it well. Some people thought that Nostradamus, now this is super interesting because Nostradamus, this is a, now think about it, this is the 1500s, this is when people were getting a little crazy with the whole burning [00:51:00] people and stuff like that, but he was able to duck and dive the Catholic Church because he was like, I'm just saying.

[00:51:07] I didn't say that I worship the devil. I'm just making, like, I'm just saying that maybe this is what it is. Here I have it says, Some accounts of Nostradamus's life state that he was afraid of being persecuted for heresy by the Inquisition, but neither prophecy nor astrology fell in these brackets and he would have only been in danger if he practiced magic to support them.

[00:51:28] So because he actually wasn't doing anything magical, They said it was fine.

[00:51:33] Pythian: In their opinion, scrying is pretty magical.

[00:51:36] Ashley: It's 100 percent magical. He was definitely doing magic. They just were like, oh no, it's not magic. Like, it was magic, but according to the law

[00:51:45] Pythian: of reality. Yeah.

[00:51:46] Ashley: Yeah, exactly.

[00:51:48] According to the law at the time, they were like no, it's fine. So, and anytime he could just be like, I'm not doing magic, this is stuff that just comes out of my head. And they were like, okay. And he put away, like, all his, tools [00:52:00] in a box every time the Inquisitors came by. But he Oh, also, and at the time he also feared that he would be beheaded, but actually, Queen Catherine this is Catherine de Medici, who was like a big deal at the time she actually had him become the physician in Ordinary, which I think is like the head physician to her son, King Charles the 9th of France.

[00:52:22] So, he was under protection of Catherine de Medici. One day, if you haven't read about Catherine de Medici, she was a beast. She was a beast. She was cool. She wasn't playing any games. So, he never showed any anti Catholic views. So the church never really got mad at him and he never got in trouble, which was great.

[00:52:40] One time, I think he got in trouble, something to do with like taxes. I think that was it. So he was scared, but he never got in trouble really. Then. By 1566, Notre Dame has had really bad gout, which ended up giving him terrible edema, which is like really bad swelling. And he [00:53:00] wasn't able to walk.

[00:53:01] And then he summoned a lawyer. So by this time, Notre Dame has had a lot of money. So he was bequeathing his property plus 3, 444 crowns, which now is like 300, 000. Like that's mad money. Minus some of his debts. He didn't have that much debt. And he gave it to his wife at the time he remarried and their sons.

[00:53:27] And on the evening of July 1st, he apparently told his secretary, he said, you will not find me alive at sunrise. And then the next morning he was found dead. He was. Buried in a Franciscan chapel in Ceylon, and it was apparently messed up during the French Revolution, but then they re interred him and he is still there at the Collège des Saint Laurent, if you ever want to, yeah, if you ever want to go visit Notre Dame's grave, you still can.

[00:53:56] So, that's the story of [00:54:00] Notre Dame, if you didn't know, now you know. Yeah, he made a lot of predictions, and there was a bunch of, they think they, what I read was something like, They only have , he wrote a hundred books, like these little books of predictions, but they only have like 25 of them.

[00:54:15] I think like 75 of them are like gone. Like you can't find them anywhere. So, maybe they're in the catacombs. I'm so afraid of the catacombs, but we'll talk about that another time. Yeah, so that's the story. And that brings us to the end of our show. Ashley, it's been an absolute pleasure.

[00:54:34] Thank you so much for being here. It was a pleasure to talk

[00:54:37] Pythian: and work with you as well, Ashley.

[00:54:40] Ashley: Yeah, this has been great. So Ashley, let us know, just tell everybody where they can find you on the internet if they want to check out the Pythian Priestess school or your website and all that kind of stuff.

[00:54:50] Pythian: Yeah. Totally. So you can find me across all the socials as Pythian. That's P Y T H I A [00:55:00] N. Priestess. And you can check out my app if you type in Pythian Mystery School. You can get six hours of free classes simply by making an account.

[00:55:11] Ashley: Wow. That's pretty good. Okay. Yay! So now you guys know where you can find me.

[00:55:16] Ashley and this has been great. So once again, thank you all for coming for the week. Thank you for coming to the chat. This is dying with the divine. This is the name of the podcast. If you didn't know I'm on Instagram threads. We're on YouTube Facebook. And if you really enjoy the show, you know what to do.

[00:55:33] I really appreciate it. If you give me a good rating, five stars is preferable, but whatever you say it with your chest. Yes, I got that from another podcast. Sorry, I think you should send gigs. And if you have any suggestions or questions comments, feel free to email me at dine the divine pod at gmail.

[00:55:48] com Also, check out our diners Club membership program So, and if you want to follow me, Ashley, I'm SankofaHS. That's S A N K O F A H S and [00:56:00] Sankofa Healing Sanctuary on Facebook threads and every place usually that you want to find me.

[00:56:05] So thank you so much. I hope you guys all have a wonderful week. I'll see you next week and bye.