The beginner's guide to Hellenismos

Welcome to the index page of the (Elaion) beginner's guide to Hellenismos. This ongoing project strives to create a concise yet informational, practical guide to the practice of Hellenismos. It is an attempt to standardize the worship of the ancient Hellenic Gods and to provide members of Hellenic organisation Elaion with the basics to start their worship. During this project, I will have the help of Elaion co-founder Robert Clark, who has previously written many wonderful essays on our religion, and who is more knowledgeable on the subject than I can ever hope to be.

The primer will cover both the view point of someone new to religion in general, as those who came here from a Christian or Pagan background--without making mention of either too much. It will be both a practical and theoretical guide and once it's completed (and edited), it will be added to the standard package a new member of Elaion receives (as an e-book) and downloadable from both Baring the Aegis and the Elaion website in both .pfd and .epub. Other formats to come later, if requested.

You will find the tentative index below, and you will be able to follow along with the progress from this brand new page, aptly named 'The beginner's guide to Hellenismos'. The posts that contain the information from these chapters may be split up, which is why there will eventually be a full document to download.

If you have additions to this index, please feel free to contact me about it either through the comments, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, or e-mail at baring.the.aegis@gmail.com.

• Introduction
  What is Hellenismos? Who do we worship? Why do we worship the way we do? What is our history?
• Ouranic versus Khthonic
  The distinction between Olympic, Earth and Underworld Gods.
• Generations of Gods
  A more in-depth look into the pantheon.
• The daímones
  On the lesser spirits of Hellenismos.

• Ritual and sacrifice in Hellenismos
  On how and why we worship.
• Traditional versus Reformed Hellenismos
  There are different terms for different levels of reconstructionism a practitioner might apply. This is an overview of those terms.