Observations placeholder
Dionysos - Villa of Mysteries Pompei - The Liknon
Identifier
013514
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The Liknon was a winnowing-fan. The Greek word λίκνον [líknon], also means a "cradle". It is featured in the Dionysian and in the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Read the ‘expert’ opinion on this and they will tell you that “the winnowing-fan links the god connected with the mystery religions to the agricultural cycle” , or that “mortal Greek babies were laid in a winnowing-fan” and that in Callimachus' Hymn to Zeus, “Adrasteia lays the infant Zeus in a golden líknon, her goat suckles him and he is given honey”.
Now look at the painting by Jean-François Millet called the Winnower. It bears an uncanny resemblance to an apron does it not – much like the Freemason’s apron?
And the corn spilling up and out in a golden shower, does that not remind you of a form of energy? I wonder then what piece of the male anatomy could be cradled in such an object? And maybe jiggled about a bit……
A description of the experience
I am not going to speculate any further as to what this apron was used for.
Suffice it to say that a winnowing basket of exactly the same shape and size was portrayed in the Villa of Mysteries and we can see it left.
In the fresco it is to be found on the floor, and the initiate is a woman. The connection with the spiritual experience itself, however, is quite clear, as the initiate is having a vision. There is also a ‘winged god’. Most ‘experts’ say this is a person dressed up with wings. Either way, the initiate is reaching out in the manner of one who is well into the throws of a spiritual experience.