Tag Archives: freemasonry

Appliqués by Benin Artist Narcisse Dotou

Narcisse Daphnée Dotou crafts symbolic appliqués representing Vodun gods and African diaspora spirits. Dotou’s images encourage introspection, offering a visual journey into one’s inner self. The viewer is asked to concentrate on the visuals and consider them thoughtfully, just as one would with a tarot card. Only then can the object’s grandeur gain a mystical and meaningful quality.

To make an appliqué like this, you need at least three weeks before doing it. We make the drawings on paper and then we start by cutting things out. Materials include sewing needles scissors cotton fabric of different colors fabric. Everything is done by hand except the border which was done by machine. My teacher was François Codjo Yemadje who is from Abomey, Benin.

Narcisse Daphnée Dotou

Narcisse Daphnée Dotou was born on October 31, 1991 in Benin and has lived in the Mono department for a long time. He is an artist trained in the traditional art of tapestry sewing. The motifs of his refined works cover a wide spectrum. These include the varied symbolism of the ancient kings of Benin, which is the former Danhomey, representations of the traditional gods of Benin voodoo, Haitian voodoo, Cuba, but also modern themes and works made especially at the request of customers. In addition, Narcisse is an excellent connoisseur of the Cotonou art scene. He is happy to advise you and act as an intermediary if you have any wishes or requests.

Interested in Dotou’s appliques you can contact him via Facebook at Narcisse Daphnée Dotou.

The Voodoo-Culture Introduction from Soul of Africa Museum

It is better to be an oracle than a king by P.D. Newman

It is better to be an oracle than a king

To play the lyre, and the aulos, and sing

Leading maenads ‘round in a ring

Yes, ‘tis better to be an oracle than a king

written by ©P.D. Newman

P.D. Newman is an independent researcher located in the southern US, specializing in the history of the use of entheogenic substances in religious rituals and initiatory rites. He is the author of the books, Alchemically Stoned: The Psychedelic Secret of Freemasonry, Angels in Vermilion: The Philosophers’ Stone from Dee to DMT, and the forthcoming title, Day Trips and Night Flights: Anabasis, Katabasis, and Entheogenic Ekstasis in Myth and Rite. The Secret Teachings of All Ages (TV Series documentary) 2023

The Relationship with the Star

The Tantra is a special connection (fusion) with a deity or geometric symbol. Meditating on this double generates a navigating map towards a sapient future self. This is traditionally similar to a Yidam in Tibetan Buddhism.

I was inspired by Chögyam Trungpa’s book The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness and the metaphor of the Star in the Tarot. Tantra means weaving and is about a relationship between the projector and the projected (or programmer and program) The woman in the painting is a personal interpretation of Tara, the mother of liberation.

from my personal Tarot symbolique et maçonnique by Jean Beauchard. The Star card with it’s twin geometric blueprint below the surface of the image.

from a French Freemason Lodge

“The Star, still called pentagram, represents for the Pythagoreans, the radiant initiate. Indeed for a long time, we represent a man, arms and legs apart, registered in the Star. His five points are thus attributed to the five extremities of the man whose head occupies the summit. She can register in a circle. It is no longer about the man inscribed in the matter, but about the man who has straightened up, who has reached his Star.”

étoile flamboyante: Love when it is sufficiently intense, is source of light and knowledge, in this respect we can say that the blaze associates with the star is Love.

“If we manage to register in the Flaming Star, to use this magnificent template which is offered to us we will have, found our balance, realized our own unit and we will have found this spark of divinity in us which will allow us to blaze. The Star, under the Delta, receives its influence as it receives that of the Sun and the Moon. She is the Great Architect of the Universe in Man in general and in the companion in particular. It blazes in addition to the radiation of the Delta, it completes the Knowledge by Love.”