|
Welcome
The Celebrants of Antinous are a
self-selected few. Like the deity they honour, they
are vigorous of the mind and spirit. They are seekers,
and they are artists.
Through the study, expression and
performance of the Sacred
Texts of Antinous, Celebrants are invited to embrace
and embody His most powerful and enduring message: all
that is Sacred is sired by the Profane; every Divine
is impotent in the absence of a Mortal mind to conceive
it.
If nothing of the above makes sense
to you, it is unlikely you’ll find wisdom here.
If, however, you’ve discovered in these words
an intriguing and provocative challenge, then you are
most welcome, and invited to stay for as long as you
wish.
About This Site
This site and its contents are the
creation of Shawn Postoff. I'm a professional screenwriter,
playwright, filmmaker and novelist whose interests are
many and varied. With The Sacred Antinous,
I'm attempting to construct a comprehensive "Anti-Religion"
- a canonical collection of "sacred" writings
that paradoxically advise their reader to avoid the
standard trappings of an organized religion.
The closest approximation for a genre here
is Historical Fiction. The Sacred Antinous
uses as its starting point the few extant facts that
are currently available in the historical record concerning
the emperor Hadrian, who reigned from 117 to 138 CE,
and his young Greek lover, Antinous. Building from the
established (and sometimes disputed) timeline, I am
trying to fill in the missing links with a comprehensive
set of "Sacred Texts"
that seek to flesh out the story in a way that is culturally
sensitive, historically plausable, and dramatically
intense... (more)
The Romulus and Remus of Clichés
The
legend of the founding of Rome involves two brothers,
the sons of Mars, who were raised by a she-wolf until
they were discovered by a shepherd and brought up by
him to adulthood. On the site where they were found,
they decided to build a town, but fought over who should
be its first ruler. Romulus, alas, was the victor.
With regard to this website
-- in particular, its construction and ongoing improvement
-- there are a couple of legendary and fraternal clichés
that suddenly become quite useful to us. The first is
"All Roads Lead to Rome." While this was probably
once true, what the statement fails to mention is that,
in their construction, the roads very likely expanded
outward, away from the central city. This in turn gives
us a nice metaphor for The Sacred Antinous:
it has been launched with a core of essential texts
(namely, The
Epistles of Antinous and The
Gospel of Hadrian), and will subsequently begin
to slowly extend its narratives out into a wider world
of satellite characters and motivations. And because
this site was always envisioned as an ongoing work-in-progress,
we suddenly and delightfully find ourselves arrived
at that other much loved cliché -- the one that's
forever employed in counselling patience: "Rome
Wasn't Built in a Day." As I'm sure is obvious,
neither shall be this site.
Advertising
In order to offset the costs of running
this site, and also to raise money for the Performance
Campaign, The Sacred Antinous makes use
of advertising and affiliate links throughout. Notable
and trusted affiliate partners include Google, Art.com,
Amazon.com, CafePress.com, and a host of other companies.
Each time one of these sponsors
is clicked, visited, or makes a sale through this site,
The Sacred Antinous will receive a small commission.
I ask that you support and patronize these sponsors
should you feel the urge to shop.
Every effort has been made to select
sponsors that I hope will enhance the content of the
site and provide a value-added experience to its visitors.
There is, however, one glaringly obvious exception:
In many of the Google text ads (like the one at left,
for instance), it's highly likely that there'll appear
at least one reference to either the Bible, the Gospels,
the Epistles, God or Jesus. 99% of these ads are inviting
you to discover or renew your commitment to the Christian
faith. And although I could have easily adjusted the
Google display settings to ensure their exclusion, I've
deliberately followed the lead of Hadrian himself and
very intentionally left them alone. Why? Because I like
to think that their annoyingly evangelical solicitations
from the margins of this very pagan website add a nice
little dash of historical authenticity. Enjoy!
|