Gianni Morandi, Wolves and More Sex Magick

The Wolf Moon arrived yesterday ... and in honor of the majestic Wolf, the first photo I saw signing into Twitter was this wonderful photo of Il Volo with the incomparable Gianni Morandi. Last time we saw photos like this, the guest singers appeared on the second album (Placido Domingo, Eros Ramazzotti), so that was my first thought: is Gianni making a guest appearance on the Spanish version of the new album? What a way to get me to buy the Spanish version – put Gianni Morandi on it!!

And you may say, "Hey! What’s dem gotta do wif a wolf?" Well, first: not much. OK, nothing, really. Second: get your dentures fixed; you’re slurring again. Third: SPEAK ENGLISH!

But fourth: the photo did get me singing Morandi’s Fino alla fine del mondo ("Until the End of the World") all day, which I suppose is the Italian pop equivalent of howling at the moon with indescribable loneliness. The British equivalent would be Duran Duran’s Hungry Like the Wolf (2004) and the American? Probably Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London (Live in Passaic 1982 of course! If you have a favorite song that transforms you into a hungry wolf by the second note, let me know, and I’ll try to link to a live version.



I ran across a perfect example of the damage that the judeo-christian-islamic mindset does to their cultures when the topic of sex is under discussion. In this case – and I don’t know who the writer is in this case – someone is writing out a rather confusing sex magick spell.

I’m willing to lay down good money on his national origins: either British or American. Same problem that I have had in the past with writing out spells: what is its purpose? and, where did you get it? are two pieces of information it would be really helpful to know. Both are missing. Obviously, it’s a sex magick spell, given the instructions, and the fact that part of the spell involves invoking Baphomet.

Here’s another problem: Baphomet. Taken out of Wikipedia:

Baphomet is a supposed pagan deity (i.e., a product of Christian folklore concerning pagans), revived in the 19th century as a figure of occultism and Satanism. It first appeared in 11th and 12th century Latin and Provençal as a corruption of "Mahomet", the Latinisation of "Muhammad",[1] but later it appeared as a term for a pagan idol in trial transcripts of the Inquisition of the Knights Templar in the early 14th century. The name first came into popular English-speaking consciousness in the 19th century, with debate and speculation on the reasons for the suppression of the Templars.[2]

Since 1855, the name Baphomet has been associated with a "Sabbatic Goat" image drawn by Eliphas Lévi. It represents the duality of male and female, as well as Heaven and Hell or night and day signified by the raising of one arm and the downward gesture of the other. It can be taken in fact, to represent any of the major harmonious dichotomies of the cosmos. However, Baphomet has been connected with Satanism as well, primarily due to the adoption of its symbol by the Church of Satan.

Given the sketchy history of this figure of Baphomet I doubt I’d have any reason to invoke it without doing considerable more non-Wikipedia research on it – there are so many other well known and much admired deities you can invoke if you’re casting love or lust spells. Even Aleister Crowley had some trouble trying to research the thing, and if it was something invented by Templars to placate christian torturers ... I have the same problem with it that I have with a lot of other wiccan stuff: NOT TRADITIONAL!

But fine. So maybe this spell writer knows something about Baphomet we don’t. But here he is describing the steps of the invocation. Keep in mind that all he’s doing here is raising sexual energy:

"Then when done, visualize yourself as a sexual beast; doing what beasts do when in heat. And it's probably better if you intent someone who already has that look and body language which says "Let's whoopie". Use the picture to masturbate and do all manner of nasty obscene acts."

Well, alrighty, then!  I have yet to read a traditional Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek or Roman spell that uses the words "let’s whoopie" and "nasty obscene acts" in their spells, although you’re right, I haven’t read them all. Still, I doubt I will find phrases like that. Thinking of sex as a "nasty obscene act" is not how the traditionalists thought before the common era. They considered it normal. "Nasty" is something right out of the christian playbook of shame. In other words, this apologist has already turned a simple energy raising spell into something shameful, ugly and disgusting. Made me want to say, "Ew!" and wash my hands with antibacterial hand gel or something.

Okay, so when we’re not a teenage American boy thinking himself all that, down there in his basement and writing up his own version of a titillating spell ... the truth is, a little research will bring you to the realization that sexual energy is a potent and powerful force.

So, here’s another spell example: the writer – who thankfully has dispensed with the christian "sex is dirty and bad!" messages she might have been handed in her youth - has found a picture of a man she finds arousing and desirable.

And I clutched that to my chest as I went into an altered state, which was extraordinary and intense, with amazing feelings of energy coursing through me. And I then proceeded to use a little good old-fashioned sex magic, which is essentially the harnessing of one's arousal and orgasm. That energy is directed into what it is that you are longing for, the goal of your spell, the object of your prayers. And for me it was embodied in this image.

See? No drama, no cringing, no euphemisms that make you go "ew" – none of that. The two examples are night and day. One was the product of the guilt-ridden christian culture, the other wasn’t. One was enthusiastic and positive; clear-headed, even. The other sounded like something that just crawled out of the sewer.

And while I realize I haven’t finished with the list of fallen angels yet, it also made me wonder if I wouldn’t learn more history on the incubus if I researched traditional sex magick spells. Hmmm.

Waiting on the Wolf Moon

Ahhh, we are moving towards the Wolf Moon on the 26th of January...legend has it that at the time of this moon, one often heard wolves in their packs howling in hunger, inching ever closer to the night fire. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule.

And you carry the wolf far back in your earlier ancestral memories ... think of all the mythologies about wolves you "understood" without needing to have them explained to you: Little Red Riding Hood, the song "Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?", the term "wolf" bring applied to a male predator, the stories of werewolves, even the Twilight series ... can you think of more stories about wolves?

(And for anyone interested in the full moon calendar for the year – voilà!)

Full Moon Calendar 2013

January 26th, Full Wolf Moon, 11:38 pm
February 25th, Full Snow Moon, 3:26 pm
March 27th, Full Worm Moon, 5:27 am
April 25th, Full Pink Moon, 3:57 pm
May 25th, Full Flower Moon, 12:25 am
June 23rd, Full Strawberry Moon, 7:32 am
July 22nd, Full Thunder Moon, 2:16 pm
August 20th, Full Sturgeon Moon, 9:45 pm
September 19th, Full Harvest Moon, 7:13 am
October 18th, Full Hunter's Moon, 7:38 pm
November 17th, Full Beaver Moon, 10:16 am
December 17th, Full Cold Moon, 4:28 am

Looking through the day books ... this appears to be St. Agnes Day:

So. Once upon a time (when I first started this blog and before everything went to hell in a hand basket, as they say), I had started out on a "Search for a Soul Mate". That was put on hold while I bravely ... okay, whine-ingly and grumpily ... attempted to recover from one disaster, loss and illness after another. And now here we are, back at St. Agnes Day.  This is hardly a witchy sort of thing, but it did make me laugh. The history behind the day: how to find a husband. All sorts of witchy ideas on how to do that, though.  The ideas are just ... at least in my case ... a tad dangerous.

" ... fetch at midnight from the nearest churchyard a half brick, which she should place under her pillows, by this means, she was sure to dream about courtship and marriage. "

Sleep all night on half a brick, eh? As for the "nearest churchyard" ... hmmmm. That would be Saint Michael’s, built in 1886, and if you’re thinking anyone was buried in the small grassy patch in front of it, think again. No bricks laying around – very clean church. Good thing too; me sleeping on a brick all night, cut in half or no, would not result in a pleasant morning.

Another idea: Instructions from circa 1800 suggest ...

" ... the parties inquiring must lie in a different county from that in which they commonly reside; and, on going to bed, must knit the left garter about the right-legged stocking, letting the other garter and stocking alone; and, as they rehearse the following verses, at every comma knit a knot:

This knot I knit,
To know the thing I know not yet,
That I may see the man that shall my husband be;
How he goes, and what he wears,
And what he does all days and years.
- Accordingly, in a dream,
the desired one will appear,
with the insignia of his trade or profession. "

Here’s hoping his insignia is a caduceus, since the very idea of me – the absolute non-knitter – waving knitting needles around is as dangerous as ... well, let’s just say things could get seriously ugly.

So much for Saint Agnes.

The History of Italics and Perfect Music

Okay, I was wrong. "Italic" actually does have something to do with "Italy" – so named because the guy who happened to invent the slanted Italic typeface was Aldus Manutius, a Venetian printer. But still, the word "italic" does not mean, "having to do with Italy", it means, "having a slanted typeface." So I was at least partially right.

But then ... I confronted yet another OCD moment generated by a dumb re-tweet:

"You shall move forwards the moment you cannot accept failure any longer, for success comes to he who accepts nothing less."

The Grammar and Spelling Psycho Police Squad

See, now - THAT was "italic".  But to continue:  ARGH! No, no, no, no!!! The word is FORWARD! FORWARD! FORWARD! Singular, singular, singular! [BLAM! BOOM! KER-SPLAT!!] [Pause] [Blink] [panting heavily] Hey, what happened to "she"?

Back to business. I seem to have run off in a hundred different directions lately ... at the moment, I’ve just finished reading Graham Phillips’ The Marian Conspiracy, not because the topic has much to do with the direction of this blog, but more because every once in a while, a good old-fashioned "whodunit" conspiracy theory is entertaining.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t all that entertaining. Completely lacking in logic (you have no idea), filled with wild guesses, haphazard and bizarre suppositions, and historically inaccurate and ludicrous leaps of fancy passing for reason. Among the many problems with the book: he never even addresses any of the other "conspiracy theories" – such as the "ben Pantera" story, or the other Mary’s – i.e., the Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalene story. In the blink of an eye, we jump over to England where he announces he has located the resting place of King Arthur, so it appears he’s trying to wrap up every myth in Western Europe.

Has anyone ever looked at a map? He’s trying to tell us that Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus’ mother Mary in tow (keep in mind the woman had to be in her 50’s or thereabouts) jumped into a small boat, rowed the entire length of the Mediterranean Sea, through the Pillars of Hercules, up the Atlantic Ocean, past all of France, Spain and Portugal, rowed past the mouth of the English Channel, up the western shores of England and sidled up to a wild, unfriendly island off the coast of a country that we now know as Wales?

WHY?? Just because Romans were unhappy with the irritating new cult of christians? Hell, christians have managed to irritate everyone (when they weren’t slaughtering them) since Day One , so if relocating to Wales was the answer, the island would have sunk into the sea by now from the population overload. What, the two of them couldn’t have moved to a village where no one knew them? (I had the same question when it was theorized that Joseph traveled all that way with Mary Magdalene. And she was relatively young.)

One fully expected the author to leap to his feet and declare that – eureka! - he had also solved the mysteries of the Loch Ness Monster, Area 51 and Mothman while he was at it. His big proof for Mary being buried in Wales? An ancient tombstone slab with the astrological sign for Virgo on it, despite the fact that ten to fifteen years after the crucifixion – an estimated time of death for her - no one on the planet gave her a moment’s thought, or thought she was a virgin at the time of his birth. This virginity thing was wholly an invention of the church, quite some time later.

Really. By the last paragraph you’re banging your head on the nearest hard surface in frustration.

So next: Sephir Yetzirah (or The Book of Formation). This text, written somewhere between the 3rd and 6th centuries, was somewhat misrepresented at first as another medieval text on the creation of the earth (much like Genesis), but is more a reflection of the creation of the Kabbalah. Maybe they’re the same thing, but this is the first text I’ve read where a Creator is actually defining the parameters of the Universe – bringing the Universe into being and setting its borders, that is - with musical sounds and letters.

Another coincidence of belief. I tend to think there is something to the musical sounds. Going back to my first mention of my dream about the Sea of Octagons – the Soul Nursery – the other thing I mentioned was the music. Thursday, December 6th:

"I’ve written the first seven sets of verses, which, in my theological world, began with a dream. Difficult to explain: an endless field of octagons, brightly lit from within, moving gently, and within each, twin souls, wrapped around each other, like a "yin" and a "yang" symbol, but not exactly. The souls were cared for, but I have no memory from that dream of anyone or anything beyond what I’ve described: a distant view of the nursery, the knowledge that I began there and the touch of my soul mate. This was my "memory" of a "soul’s nursery". I also remember the music in this dream, which could never be recreated, as it consisted also of sounds and notes which don’t exist in our world, so I can’t even describe them, other than to say that the sound was the very source of bliss."

Actually, I can describe it more accurately in words than in music. Picture a few bars from a beloved symphony on a page. Doesn’t matter which one. Now imagine that the page is transparent. The musical notes on that page don’t merely progress from left to right on a scale, there are also variations of those notes behind the notes you see on the clear page, and notes behind those notes, and on and on, to the far reaches of space. BUT – there are even more notes lifting off the page towards you (the viewer/listener), through you and past you. And – here’s the kicker – all of those infinite notes are in perfect harmony, with each other. Or at least, that was my understanding of what I was hearing, in that dream, a perfect symphony. Notes I’d never heard before; music I’d never experienced before. Blissful was the only way to describe my reaction to that music. No composer alive could recreate that sound – it vibrated all the way through you and made you whole. Now THAT I could believe (because I have never forgotten that awesome dream): that all of reality was created with the use of sound.

It seemed that perhaps the mystical arm of the Kabbalah had snuck its way into the old testament – primarily because when I started reading about the first emanation, I was reminded of, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." (John 1:1) – followed by page after commentary page of (christian) nitwits annotating the sentence with the nonsense that the "word" behind the creation of the entire Universe was the "Good News of the Gospel" (riiiiiiight. Bet Buddhists and Hindus would be just thrilled to hear THAT!), which had to send everyone with a working brain up the walls, or with (jewish) nitwits insisting that anyone who interpreted the concept of evil in the kabbalah structure in any way but theirs were "heretics".

Source:  www.learnkabbalah.com/evil_kabbalistic_views/

But you know me and my dead-eyed squint at the different ways people look at evil. I have very strong opinions about the sorts of things I consider to be "evil"; not everyone shares them. That doesn’t make me wrong and everyone else right, or the reverse – it means we differ on the definitions and examples of "evil"- who and what it is.

I am STILL trying to figure out what was so awful about incubi.

Applause for Lexa Roséan

Ahhh, Saturday. Saturn's day. Or "Day of Cronus", if you lived in Ancient Greece. One of my favorite (not) descriptions of Saturn, written in 1995: "Saturn is the Roman and Italic god of agriculture and the consort of Ops. He is believed to have ruled the earth during an age of happiness and virtue."

Italic god, is he? Really! So, he’s actually Saturn? (*sigh*) Does someone need to mention that the nation of Italy didn’t even EXIST until the 19th century? And that the word "italic" has nothing whatsoever to do with the nation of Italy? Once again ... [KA-POW!!!]

Source:http://www.crowl.org/lawrence/time/days.html#Saturday

Lest anyone think I do nothing but complain about annoying and illiterate witches all day, au contraire! Found a Saturn Anti-Theft Spell written by a witch named Lexa Roséan, based out of New York City. (Naturally). The way she wrote up this spell is spot-on perfect:

She cited the original source for it, and even quoted it. Now here I might have even been a little more specific. Was she referring to The Veritable Key of Solomon or something else? But I am definitely not going to complain about the way she did it. If needed, you could track this down. Just might require a little more research.

She next said, "Here are alternatives you can use to make the spell easier." I might have wanted to know why she chose to replace the original ingredients and steps with these new ones. But I’m still not going to complain, teaching witches like Lexa are so rare.

And THIS, friends and neighbors, is how you write up a spell for others to use:

Saturn Anti Theft Spell
Excerpt from Easy Enchantments by Lexa Roséan

This spell will invoke the watchful eye of Saturn to protect your valuables.

Ingredients needed: Earl Grey tea bag, lemon peel, ginger, peppermint, black pepper, cinnamon powder

In a medieval book of talismanic magic, believed to have been written by King Solomon, there is found a seal of Saturn which protects and guards all property and wealth one may possess. The Hebrew words hael hagadol hagebor v’hanorah1 are written around the outer circle of the seal. The middle circle holds the names of four great and terrible angels and the innermost circle contains the Tetragrammaton or the four sacred letters comprising the most powerful and holy name of G-d. Believe me, if you have a copy of this seal, ain’t nobody gonna touch your stuff!

I’m not talking a Xerox copy from a book. I’m talking a properly prepared copy drawn up by an initiated ceremonial scribe. A copy drawn on goat skin parchment using dragon’s blood ink and a crocodile quill pen. I’m talking a copy prepared in the correct manner and time. It must be made in the hour of Saturn, on the day of Saturn, which must fall on the third of the month of Saturn, in the year of Saturn’s rule.

Interested in the easy enchantment equivalent? One Earl Grey tea bag. Empty contents into bowl. Add lemon peel, ginger, peppermint, pinch of black pepper, and cinnamon powder. This is a very powerful protection powder that is used to invoke Saturn’s watchful eye. Sprinkle around your treasures or stuff in small pouch or zipper lock bag. Place in purse or carry on your person. Don’t worry, ain’t nobody gonna touch your stuff! http://www.lexarosean.com/spell11.htm

But here’s also a good example of why explaining substitutions is so important. I’m not sure what an "initiated ceremonial scribe" is, but all of the other ingredients are not that difficult to find, in today’s day and age. "Goat skin parchment" is no doubt used because Saturn rules Capricorn whose symbol is a goat. Companies like Pergamena sell white goat-skin parchment. Dragon’s Blood is a plant, not the blood of an actual dragon. Readily available. "Crocodile quill pen" – hmm. Would a Cross Sauvage Crocodile Pattern Fountain Pen be a viable substitute? If not, why not? What was the importance of a crocodile in an invocation of Saturn? Crocodile seems more of an ancient Egyptian spell than Palestinian (let’s stick with the ‘King Solomon wrote this’ belief for the time being), but I could very easily be wrong.

Speaking of Invocations of Saturn, does anyone know the source of the invocation below? While looking up the properties of Saturn I ran across this "Invocation of Saturn".

"Ancient Saturn, of bones and honored dead, he who perseveres and guards the astral gates, who leads the Lords of Karma and crystallizes that which is needed and removes all negative blocks from my path, grant me the authority required over all legions to manifest my will. Ruler of Capricorn, exalted in Libra, element of earth, banish all evil energies that stand in the way of my perfection."

In a state of grumpy annoyance that NO ONE who published this invocation on the net cited an original source for this (where's Lexa Roséan when you need her?), I did a Google search on "Ancient Saturn, of bones and honored dead" and found only mindless repetitions (9 or 10 times at least, judging by the Google options tossed back at me), by people behaving as though this was a traditional, time-honored invocation, but without bothering to cite a traditional, time-honored source for it. So maybe it IS a "traditional, time-honored invocation", but I doubt it, based solely on "banish all evil energies that stand in the way of my perfection." Who defines what "evil energies" are? And what, exactly IS "your perfection", sweeties? Why should anyone assume that it is "evil energies" standing in the way of your perfection? Or maybe YOU are the "evil energy standing in the way of your own perfection", and you’ve just banished yourself! Ahhh, justice.

Other issues with the invocation: "astral gates" and "Lords of Karma" are two of the last phrases you would expect to find in a traditional invocation to the Roman god Saturn – or the Greek god Cronus, either – so that’s another red flag. Lastly, a brief pass through the attributes of Saturn failed to turn up attributes mentioning "bones" and/or "honored dead". There would be a lot of other deities who are connected with "bones and honored dead", I should think ... or maybe I missed something. Actually, the "grant me the authority over all legions to manifest my will" did sound at least John Dee era-ish (and thus Crowley-ish), but the rest of it didn’t. Verifiable source, anyone??? Did somebody invent it? When? Who? Why?

Following Up on Last Year's Issues

"The practice of magic was omnipresent in classical antiquity."

One of my favorite opening sentences in a textbook – possibly ever. Bibliographed. Footnoted. Cited. Loved it.
Graf, Fritz. Magic in the Ancient World. Philip, Franklin, trans. Harvard University Press, 1997. 

Ah, the utter joy of discovering legitimate magickal traditions and not the nonsensical burbling of Tinkerbelles and Twinkies claiming to be witches when the truth is they have half of their sizeable rumps ensconced in local churches, singing "kum bah yah" around campfires just like they did in childhood bible camp. I’m serious, most of those women have deprived so many students of legitimate power in favor of "feel good" silliness, they should be run out of town on a rail.

I know, I shouldn’t be singling out christians devolving into christian-wiccan idiots for their disastrous leaps of logic that send them flying into the nearest abyss. Great example: (tune up the violins); "Every time I hear a newborn baby cry ... I believe." They even put that one to music. One of the most inane voids of logical course ever devised. Really??!!?? You believe ... what, exactly? That infants of any species are born with an inherent ability to express their basic needs? That proves evolution in the art of survival if anything, not a deity.

But that logical failure crosses all belief systems. I was also reading H.P. Blavatsky’s preface to the first volume of Isis Unveiled: "Prove the soul of man by its wondrous powers – you have proved God!" – in her "ex nihilo nihil fit" discussion, raising again the problems with idiots not realizing they are giving a sole deity a capital "G" ... raising all sorts of new issues. This is the same designation used by "an unspiritual, dogmatic, too often debauched clergy; a host of sects, and three warring great religions; discord instead of union, dogmas without proofs, sensation-loving preachers, and wealth and pleasure-seeking parishioners' hypocrisy and bigotry, begotten by the tyrannical exigencies of respectability, the rule of the day, sincerity and real piety exceptional." (same source) So why use the term?

But setting that aside for the moment in favor of the (il)logical leap, above: noooooo, (assuming you can conclusively prove the existence of a soul of man by any method, in the first place) you have only proved that men have souls. Can’t even prove that women do, according to Blavatsky, which seems an odd premise in a book written by a woman, but no matter.

(And by the way, for those who never bothered to pick up some elementary Latin: "ex nihilo nihil fit" means "nothing comes from nothing". And here you thought Rodgers and Hammerstein invented that, when they wrote the lyrics for "The Sound of Music". Ha! Not likely.)

Or this, in a discussion of Plato:

And the greatest philosopher of the pre-Christian era (i.e., Plato) mirrored faithfully in his works the spiritualism of the Vedic philosophers who lived thousands of years before himself, and its metaphysical expression. Vyasa, Djeminy, Kapila, Vrihaspati, Sumati, and so many others, will be found to have transmitted their indelible imprint through the intervening centuries upon Plato and his school. Thus is warranted the inference that to Plato and the ancient Hindu sages was alike revealed the same wisdom. So surviving the shock of time, what can this wisdom be but divine and eternal?

Oh, I dunno..! Knowledge which had survived the "shock" of time might not be automatically "divine and eternal", but (logically speaking) "very, very old"? I really hate stuff that is supposed to be passing for logical deduction failing in an "epic" fashion, to use a contemporary adjective. Point being that if Ms. Blavatsky had something worthwhile to say, we might never know about her message if we can’t bring ourselves to progress in her book beyond the preface after reading nonsense like this.

I would dismiss this with, "So much for the theosophists" were it not for her basic, underlying premise that there is one "universal" truth and that all of earth’s belief systems contain one facet of it. I can’t swear that’s true, I just suspect it is; still, she hasn’t proved that in Isis Unveiled, or ... at least not so far. All she’s done is irritate me with logic failure.

I also basically agree with her overall opinion of Plato and the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries on him, although – again – have problems with her logical deductions.

"The philosophy of Plato, we are assured by Porphyry, of the Neoplatonic School was taught and illustrated "in the mysteries". Many have questioned and even denied this; and Lobeck, in his Aglaophomus, has gone to the extreme of representing the sacred orgies as little more than an empty show to captivate the imagination. As though Athens and Greece would for twenty centuries and more have repaired every fifth year to Eleusis to witness a solemn religious farce!"

In this, I actually do agree with her, but I wouldn’t use the "twenty centuries" length as a source for logic, unless it was used by some christian to prove the veracity of their faith. I’ve actually seen them try this: "It HAS to be true. It has lasted for 2000+ years!" Then, of course, you ran roll your eyeballs at them and bring up the Eleusinian Mysteries, or even this quotation, just to watch their heads explode, trying to discredit it without discrediting their own mythologies. To come up with strong proof that the Mysteries were legitimate, it would be required to recreate them, as it appears no one broke the law and wrote down their experiences. Or at least we haven’t found a document thus far.

Although, you possibly could remind them that actual manifestations were recreated at every initiation, which might stump them for a while – until they start singing (tune up the violins); "Every time I hear a newborn baby cry ... I believe." And at that point, I give you full permission to slap them. Initiates in the Mysteries had lots more foot blisters but lots more fun – read about the recreations of Baubo and her dirty jokes sometime.

I know I haven't finished the list of fallen angels in the incubus/succubus discussion, but I did run across an interesting discussion on the word "demon", which does possibly explain the change in the word in the christian era into something exclusively malevolent, when it was not intended that way in ancient Greek:

"DAIMONION is a diminutive of DAIMWN, which originally meant something like "dispensing power" and which was often used of a god whose name was either unknown or not deemed important to identify in this instance. DAIMONES are nameless supernatural powers, generally thought subordinate to the Olympian pantheon. Bauer cites in particular a celebrated passage from the Symposium of Plato where Diotima is trying to define EROS as a supernatural power that mediates between humanity and the gods. If you want to understand what is meant by that phrase there, you really ought to look up that passage in the Symposium and read more of it. DAIMWN and DAIMONION can mean so many things across such a range that I don't think it would be fair to venture any simple account."

Source: a 1998 discussion, now archived, on http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

Moving forward: January. The month of Janus, the God of beginnings and transitions. From the online etymology dictionary:

"January (n.) late 13c., Ieneuer, from Old North French Genever, Old French Jenvier (Modern French Janvier), attested from early 12c. in Anglo-French, from Latin Ianuarius (mensis) "(the month) of Janus," to whom the month was sacred as the beginning of the year (see Janus; cf. Italian Gennajo, Provençal Genovier, Portuguese Janeiro). The form was gradually Latinized by c.1400. Replaced Old English geola se æfterra "Later Yule." In Chaucer, a type-name for an old man.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=January