Aphrodite & Venus： Love, Desire & War in Ancient and Modern Religion

This episode offers a critical, historically grounded examination of Aphrodite as a trans-cultural religious phenomenon rather than a stable mythological figure. It traces the goddess’s development from Near Eastern traditions associated with Astarte, Ishtar, and Inanna through her incorporation into Greek religion, where tensions between her martial, erotic, civic, and cosmic dimensions produced multiple and often contradictory forms of worship. The discussion then follows her Roman reconfiguration as Venus, focusing on the political and ideological implications of her role as divine ancestress and guarantor of imperial order.

Combining literary sources, archaeological evidence, cult practice, and ritual calendars, the lecture analyses how Aphrodite functioned within ancient economies of desire, gender, power, and civic cohesion, as well as how regional cults negotiated her ambivalent capacity to generate both harmony and destruction. The final section examines modern resurrections of Aphrodite in Neopaganism, feminist spirituality, Hellenic reconstructionism, and Western esotericism, assessing how contemporary movements selectively reinterpret ancient materials.

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00:00 Aphrodite and Venus: Cult, Myth, and Evolution

05:07 Origins and the Problem of Divine Genealogy

08:05 Mythographic Ambivalence and the Dual Birth Narratives

10:27 Panhellenic Proliferation and Local Variations

13:43 The Roman Transformation: From Foreign Goddess to Divine Ancestress

17:15 Mythological Narratives: Love, War, and the Price of Beauty

22:51 Dangerous Liaisons: Ares, Hephaestus, and the Comedy of Divine Adulter

20:05 Adonis: Mortality, Mourning, and Cyclical Return

22:37 Regional Variations and Lesser-Known Narratives

24:37 Cult Practices and Sacred Economies

26:41 Ritual Calendars and Festival Cycles

29:02 Regional Variations in Worship

31:59 Sacred Spaces and Architectural Statements

33:39 Modern Resurrections: From Antiquarian Fantasy to Living Religion

35:42 Wiccan Appropriations and Transformations

37:31 Hellenic Reconstructionism and the Quest for Authenticity

41:09 Feminist Spirituality and the Reclamation of the Erotic

43:04 Esoteric Traditions and Planetary Magic

44:31 Conclusion: The Immortality of Desire

47:55 Support Angela’s Symposium

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