PROMETHEA:
SYMBOLS: Caduceus, Third Eye, Tree of Life, Symbols associated with Yesod.
USUAL IMAGE: Heathy athletic woman with olive skin and stylized "Egyptian" dress, though different avatars vare greatly.
HOLY BOOKS: Promethea, Books 1 - 5 by Alan Moore artwork by J.H. Williams III and others.
HOLY DAYS: N/A. Though I guess one could say September 25 which is National Comic Book Day in America.
PLACE OF WORSHIP: The Imagination
FORM OF WORSHIP: Write, draw, sculpt, exercise one's imagination in some manner or other.
AREA OF INFLUENCE: Goddess of Imagination.
SYNODEITIES: Biliku: Spider Goddess of the Andanese Islands. Goddess of storytelling, weaving, fate, and magic. / Saga: Norse Goddess of Storytelling. / The Muses (Greek) / Wonder Woman, Buffy (Pop Culture)
DETAILS: What's the deal McCombs, have you lost it? Placing not only a fictional character among the ranks of Sophia, Horus, Kuan Yin, Durga & the Greenman but placing one from a comic book there?
Has all this finally driven you mad? Well, first of all I do more walking than driving and second of all yes I guess it is madness of a sort.
The madness of a major move to a new place of residence after 14 years of living in one place is always stressful and time consuming and I also spent more than a week away from almost all technology while on vacation this month so I just did not have the time to do the research I usually do.
And yes oh my detractors I actually DO research on each month's God or Goddess, going so far as to not only buy check books out of the library but even reading them.
With this month's activities I had to decide between ether a rerun or going light, I thought I would do the one you see here, however don't sell Promethea short!
The story of Promethea, a 32 issue series from America's Best Comics (a subsidy of DC Comics) is written by Alan Moore a practicing magician who seems to be writing the series as a magical act that is presented as an initiatory quest into the mysteries of the Imagination while at the same time acting as a primer to things magickal. As such I would guess that it is the first such item ever to be done is such a manner.
Mr Moore has pointed out in interviews how studies have found that the most effective method of transmitting information seems to be in the form that we would call the comic book.
The story of Promethea starts in Alexandria 411 AD when a Pagan magician, knowing that he is soon to be killed by fanatical adherents of the new religion contrives that his daughter, named for Prometheus and fated to bring a new kind of fire to mankind, is sent into the desert where she is rescued by Thoth / Hermes who saves her by taking her into the Immateria (at the end of the 32ed Path of the Cabbala) where she becomes a living story.
From there she manifests though different avatars in the physical world to fulfill her ultimate fate to bridge the gap between the material world and the world of imagination.
This is halted for a time in 1097 at the Battle of Antioch when a Muslim and Christian Promethea battle one another to the death.
She returns in 1751 when a romantic poet causes his housekeeper Anna to channel the first avatar of Promethea in over 700 years. This however does not go well when Anne dies giving birth to a baby that is only half real.
The next incarnation of Promethea takes place though Margaret Taylor Case when she introduces a character into her newspaper comic strip Little Margie in Mystic Magic Land.
After that introduction into the modern world Promethea continues to appear in one pop culture media after another, while at the same time appearing physically by transforming ether the writer or artist who has envisioned her or as a loved one of that artist.
After Margaret Case the other Promethea's are, Grace Brannagh a 30's pulp magazine artist, William Woolcott a comic book artist who draws and becomes her as a superheroine from 1941 to 70, and Barbara Shelley the wife of the artist who brings back the character after Woolcott's death.
Promethea almost disappears with the death of Steve Shelley until she manifests for the last time when collage student Sophie Bangs begins a research paper on the odd phenomena of a character that keeps appearing from writers and artist that know little or nothing about the work of the others who have used the name.
Sophie it seems is to be the ultimate avatar of Promethea who will bring about the destruction of the world, not though violent but by rebuilding it anew when all cross the 32ed path and the world of the flesh and the mind become one.
While this is going on she is challenged by The Temple who want to stop her at all costs, a magician who raises the Goatia on their behalf to destroy her, a Y2K where things actually go bad, and a trip up the Tree of Life in search of her friend Barbara who has passed on.
So, no... Promethea is not a goddess like the others that have been on this site, however I think that Mr. Moore's unique effort is worthy of note for those who might otherwise not take notice of something that might be dismissed by the comic fan-boys as too metaphysical while not even being noticed by the esoteric community due to the media in which it is presented.
That's why I say give Promethea a chance. There might be more to her then you imagine.
