The representation of the wolf in Iberian iconography, as a cult totemic animal, with strong roots in pastoral populations, related to myths and religious symbolism, represents ardor, heroism and warrior mysticism. Combat scenes between wolf and man are common, some symbolize death threat, lineage of power, protection in combat ... and the cult of the night, the path or initiation rite, in the passage to the afterlife, lupus as a guide in the afterlife ...

So recurrent in Iberian art, we find it in the sculptural ensembles of "El Pajarillo", in the Elche-Archena style ceramics, in the mints of the Iltirta and Iltiraka mint, in the "Copa del Carnassier", in the "Torso de Guerrero de la Alcudia"... and in the "Pátera de Perotito" where a young man, his hands are raised in a ritual position, is devoured by the wolf, merging with him, in his transit with the beyond ...

Because the wolf is also death, dying to live, dying to resurrect, when we are eaten we will renew our spirit, as a different being that is reborn as a new man. A journey of the initiate to the world of spirits, a descent to the bottom of the caverns, twinned with a wolf guide who will transfer us his great qualities...

"God is in the center, all roads lead to Him."

"Tradition is not a childish and outmoded mythology but a science that is terribly real"

The thinker, philosopher and poet Frithjof Schuon, promoter of the Sophia Perennis —influenced by the work of René Guenón—, and philosopher of the metaphysical current of Shankara and Plato, scholar of Christianity, Islam and Sufism, advocated the "Unity Transcendent of Religions" (above the devotional, totemic, animist, shamanic, telluric or lunar religions of a matrix nature where the possibility of Awakening to the Supersensible Reality or to the Supreme Principle that is found at the origin of the Cosmos is not conceived) as an antidote to modern nihilism.

Tradition, understanding this not as folklore or customs but as a reflection on the physical plane of the Transcendent reality, as a bridge between heaven and earth. Thus, man is not shielded before transcendence, he can come to see the light and update that transcendent seed within himself. An initiatory path of the hero to update the spirit that we carry in potential to conquer eternity, transmuting us into unconditioned sacred warriors of the world of becoming.

Let us think of Rome and its solar spirituality, of the Greek Dorians of Apollonian worship, that lineage that founded Sparta, of the Celtiberians with their warrior brotherhoods and the mors triunphalis, of the ascetic warrior cavalry of the High Middle Ages, of the Arthurian cycle, the Temple , the Holy Roman Empire, Taoism, Tantrism, the Vedas, the samurai and Zen Buddhism… where Tradition was very much alive…

That traditional world that also considered that the forces of nature were alive, they had a soul. Nature and the universe was someone. There was a sacral interpretation of virgin nature. From the Plains Indians —Schuon "saw something of the nobility and majesty of the Primordial tradition"—, the Celts, the Slavs, the Germans, classical Greece or ancient China.

Thus, there are clues in the world of Tradition to enliven the Sophia Perennis and face the darkness of the modern world or kali-yuga. The world of Tradition as an antidote to the Modern world.

When we enter the extraordinary history of Ancient Rome we come across its legions, its conquests, its epic battles, its emperors and its Immense Empire, its founding myths and its gods, the principle of citizenship, the law, the senate and the Roman people (SPQR), but we also find stories of persecutions, of slave traders for the Mare Nostrum, of prisoners of war and gladiators who fought heroically in the arena of the Colosseum to conquer their freedom —Many of them, of course, confronted in the amphitheatres attracted by the search for recognition, fame and glory.

"He was not the most honest or the most pious man, but he was a brave man" P. Reverte.

If you lived dangerously and your life was hanging by a thread, if you defied authority, defending your reason and rights with the proud point of your sword, if you sacrificed yourself and were generous and human, if you were fearless, reckless, arrogant, brave, adventurous, seductive, rogue, loyal, if you were capable of the most heroic but also the meanest actions, if you were guided by your code of honour, if you sought glory on the margins of society and the law, if you lost your innocence in the face of the harsh reality of mud and blood, and if, disenchanted, everyone abandoned you. .. then you were probably an Old Thirdsman, a tired hero in rusty armour, a forgotten anti-hero like a cursed Alatriste.

Brave elite warriors whose origins date back to the feudal Japan of the 10th century. Considered the noblest caste of soldiers who served the emperor, their lives of honor, loyalty and justice —strictly governed by the Bushido code—, encumbed them to the moment of greatest glory and splendor during the Sengoku period (1467-1568).

According to the warrior proverb, A true warrior does not fight for hatred against those in front of him, but for love of those behind him.

The origin of the fascination and curiosity for the mysterious and the unknown in Spain is lost in the mists of time. There are the cults of the sun and the moon, the Iberian gods, Celtic naturalism, Phoenician pantheism... To this day it continues to accompany us along with the seduction of the secret, the eschatological and the dark.

Faced with the empire of scientific reason and materialism, we walk in the footsteps of Magical Spain to observe the footprints of our ancestors and their intimate interconnection with the spiritual and sacred. Our hallmarks —which are our roots, our character, and our Hispanic spirit— lie behind the popular tales and legends handed down generation after generation, behind folklore and its enchanted places, and are already part of our collective unconscious. Reconnecting with all that supernatural universe —forces of energy and telluric power—, far from trickery and ignorance, and rescuing the heritage of that wonderful world is what moves us.

A mythical Spain, rich in Templar constructions linked to dark treasures, secret societies, legends of the Grail, magical beliefs of Islamic culture, Jewish sorcery and cabalistic magic. A Spain of heterodox tradition, miracles, saints and martyrs, idolatry and apostasy, superstition, demon worship, apparitions, processions of penitent souls or souls. A black Spain of obscurantism and witch hunts too. A Spain of stories and legends such as that of the cleric of Eiztari-Beltza and the legend of the black hunter, the nymph of Júcar, the xana Caricea, the mariños of Lobeira, the fish Nicolás, the treasure of the castro of Altamira, the gap of Roldán , the curse of Laurinaga, the legend of the magician Illán...

An unknown Spain with innumerable magical routes to get closer to its legends, the enigmatic, the sacred and the magical. Itineraries through dark worlds and worlds of light, through ancient forests, magical mountains, mystical enclaves, entrances to the afterlife, cave paintings, therapeutic sanctuaries, villages, cursed hospitals and convents, enchanted castles and hermitages, hidden chapels, abandoned holy places , cathedrals, churches, monasteries, mosques, synagogues, alleys of the dead, caves, underground, crypts or catacombs.

Magical walks that bring us closer to the ancestral arts, covens, spells, bewitchments, spells, spells, invocations, curses, evil eyes, sorceress entanglements, ritual and power objects, talismans, amulets, sacred relics; beings from here and there such as evil spirits, demons, angelic entities, possessed, exorcists, mummies, tormented ghosts, heretics, inquisitors, goblins, witches or goblins.

A journey through the geography of the mysterious through its mystical, enchanted and haunted forests like those of Orrius or Baztán; of its centuries-old beech forests inhabited by ireltxos (mischievous geniuses), lamias (seductive nymphs) and genius-protectors such as Basajuan in the magical Otzarreta; or by the chestnut and oak forests and powerful healing springs such as those of San Juan Xar.

This fantastic journey will go through its mountains of great spiritual charge and telluric force, with entrances and interdimensional portals such as that of Montserrat (La Moreneta) dominated by the great stone of the devil that points towards the sky —as a trace of the flight of the devil according to the legend of the woodcutter, a place of pilgrimages in search of the Holy Grail. Or by its rivers bathed in water nymphs with duck feet like those of Bidasoa; its black lagoons dominated by man-eating marine beings in the Sierra de Urbión. And its mountains of souls on the banks of the Duero or mountains of Celtic rituals like the one in Pindo inhabited by magical creatures. Without forgetting its enchanted roads like the Asturian one full of mythological characters and legends or with stories of witchcraft, black magic and cannibalism like those that took place in the Zugarramundi caves.

We can discover the magical thought that underlies Spain through its cities and towns, as in Galicia with its witches, its churches of souls, its old cemeteries, its stone crosses, its Santas Compañas, its pilgrimages or its Camino de Santiago to Finisterre; as in Aragon and the route of the chamineras and the scarecrows; as in the unusual and secret Barcelona that keeps in its Gothic quarter stories of freemasons, Templars, inquisitions, hermeticism and Solomon's talismans.

Or like in the imposing city of Toledo whose hinged entrance door to the old Regnum Gothorum already anticipates magical and hidden elements of the hermetic-alchemical tradition. A city that reveals its secrets, its hidden soul and its magical knowledge —magic, bewitchments, spells, spells and incantations were considered part of the Toledo sciences, which were not at all associated with fanaticism, superstition and ignorance— Inside we find: wise men, such as those of the School of Necromancy —to which famous witches, magicians and necromancers such as Enrique de Villena who practiced divinatory and magical arts attended—, who try to know the mysteries of the Ars Toledana, books that connect with the forces of the invisible, works of valuable knowledge in astronomy, alchemy, mathematics and magic from the different Greek, Arab and Jewish cultures, which were translated by the Toledo School of Translators in the time of Alfonso X; evidence of worship to the secret science of Baphomet by the order of the Temple; or clues about King Solomon's Table —which gave unlimited knowledge— and the Caves of Hercules —which accumulated knowledge and secrets, where only the chosen ones could access them.

In our journey through the sacred and profane —in the forests, towns and cities—, therefore, we can trace magical elements, hidden keys to our history and our traditions, vestiges of our distant past in order to understand thought, anthropology and the beliefs of our ancestors that still survive. We can know how they related to that invisible and supernatural world —which was in full harmony with nature— and make this magical and living Spain the “initiatory Spain” towards a knowledge without prejudices, towards a superior knowledge that reconnects us with the remote and the mysterious.

The representation of the wolf in Iberian iconography, as a cult totemic animal, with strong roots in pastoral populations, related to myths and religious symbolism, represents ardor, heroism and warrior mysticism. Combat scenes between wolf and man are common, some symbolize death threat, lineage of power, protection in combat ... and the cult of the night, the path or initiation rite, in the passage to the afterlife, lupus as a guide in the afterlife ...

So recurrent in Iberian art, we find it in the sculptural ensembles of "El Pajarillo", in the Elche-Archena style ceramics, in the mints of the Iltirta and Iltiraka mint, in the "Copa del Carnassier", in the "Torso de Guerrero de la Alcudia"... and in the "Pátera de Perotito" where a young man, his hands are raised in a ritual position, is devoured by the wolf, merging with him, in his transit with the beyond ...

Because the wolf is also death, dying to live, dying to resurrect, when we are eaten we will renew our spirit, as a different being that is reborn as a new man. A journey of the initiate to the world of spirits, a descent to the bottom of the caverns, twinned with a wolf guide who will transfer us his great qualities...

The Iberians gained fame for their fighting prowess, but their writing systems, their trade, and their art show that they were much more than great warriors. Their mother tongue "Iberian" was spoken from the Hérault River (France) to Porcuna (Jaén) and they left thousands of inscriptions written in an original alphabet of signs that was a mystery for centuries that little by little is deciphering ... Written on coins , lead sheet, amphorae, mosaic, stone stele, silver crockery or trousseau, painted and engraved ceramics, copper plates, silver trousseau, walls ... Its enormous diffusion in the peninsula reveals to us how consolidated it was. The same alphabet was also shared with the Lusitanian and Proto-Basque languages.

[In the image the head of the wolf on the pectoral disc of the armor of the Iberian warriors]

["BAN" (people) "KEBERRIE" (Iberians) "EBAR" (from Iberia). According to the interpretation of the inscription on a bowl from the city of Turba]

«The war reached us all, in the heat of battle, we well knew the sovereign wolf God and his ferocious consecrated warrior brotherhoods that, through magical rituals, acquired fury for combat, assuming the faculties of the wolf and after his death triumphant, Vaélico, thus referred to by the Vetones, accompanies them on their journey to the beyond.»

Bringing in the work of Robert E. Howard was almost a must here at Culters. Heroic Fantasy and Conan has accompanied us since we were children, at home we devoured, in addition to the adult comics of Totem and Cimoc, the super conan and their wild sword. The cimero barbarian, that rogue-air hero who took on Lovecraftian creatures, demonic armies and sorcerers, had us completely overshadowed. Today we are especially interested in how much of ancient cultures there is built in all that Hyborio universe - which emerged after the sinking of Atlantis - of his stories. Serve this "Conan in heroic times. The Era of Hiboria" as a tribute and reminiscence of all that.

Landscapes of shady lands, winds from the north, peaks and hills surrounded by lush forests populated by tribes and warriors fighting in neighboring countries that take us to a lost era before the Neolithic. In those places we see European barbarians similar to the Celts, Goths, Vikings, Vandals, Cossacks, Tatars ... Druids, mercenaries, invaders, thieves, pirates, sailors, adventurers, savages, kings, civilizations, regions, mountains, jungle and desert, distant places and mythical, mysticism and Nordic beliefs, medieval culture ...

We find a perfectly recognizable cosmos, from north to south, from the West to the Far East, emerged after the decline of the precataclysmic civilizations - dominated by the kingdoms of Kamelia, Valusia, Verulia, Grondar, Thule and Commoria -, after wars, migrations and crossbreeds. Different places populated by the most varied races of the Hyboria era. Here are some interpretations:

Zingara —located on the Iberian peninsula, land of knighthood, chivalry, nobility and conspiracies, you travel through Celtiberian Spain but also Imperial Spain in other passages—, Vanaheim —Nordic town with red hair whose name comes from the Scandinavian god Vanir—, Asgard —Norse inhabitants with blond hair whose name comes from the Scandinavian god Aesir—, Nordheim —constituted by Vanaheim and Asgard, is a snow-covered Norse territory inhabited by peoples similar to Germans and Vikings—, Hyperborea —whose name evokes the mythical land of mythology. Greek, inhabitants of Norse culture that shows similarities with the Finns, Varangians and Russians—, Cimmeria —the land of Conan, the Cimmerians are the ancestors of the Celts, Gauls and Scythians—, Aquilonia —one of the most powerful, cultural and militarily, led by Conan, located perhaps in France, Great Britain or Italy - Argos and Nemedia - along with Aquilonia arose after the collapse of the Acheron Empire by the invasions barbarian ions (similarity to the Roman Empire) -, the Pictish lands - the tattooed Pictish inhabitants of northern Britain, with similarities to Native Americans versus European settlers or perhaps indigenous peoples versus Roman invasions of Britani -, Brithunia - similar to Roman Britain—, the Empire of Acheron —whose name was brought from the Greek mythology of Acheron, one of the rivers of Hades—, Zamora —browned and dark-eyed, semi-made people who recall the inhabitants of Ancient Palestine. , an exotic town of dances and initiation rites—, Stygia —a territory whose inhabitants are versed in magic and secret arcana, worshipers of Set, the Egyptian god—, Shem —Semitic references, resembling Arabia, Palestine, the Middle East, deserts with nomads and city-states, people from whom Phoenicians, Hebrews, Assyrians, Canaanites ... descended, protectorate of Styigia, like Palestine with respect to Egypt, Khitai - think of traditional China - Yamatai - a fantastic and stereotypical Japan—, Ophir —a desert kingdom similar to Arabic, a reference to the biblical region Ofir, perhaps referring to Africa or India, famous for its gold—, Black Kingdoms —primitive African natives—, Corinthia —populated by navigators and philosopher, similar to the land of the ancient Greeks—…

The image comes from the bronze Celtiberian hospitality Tsera in the shape of a wolf in zenith perspective that appeared in Burgos, related to a Celtic myth of the end of the world, known as the myth of the “Wolf that devours the Sun”.

The representation of the wolf in Iberian iconography, as a cult totemic animal, with strong roots in pastoral populations, related to myths and religious symbolism, represents ardor, heroism and warrior mysticism. Combat scenes between wolf and man are common, some symbolize death threat, lineage of power, protection in combat ... and the cult of the night, the path or initiation rite, in the passage to the afterlife, lupus as a guide in the afterlife ...

So recurrent in Iberian art, we find it in the sculptural ensembles of "El Pajarillo", in the Elche-Archena style ceramics, in the mints of the Iltirta and Iltiraka mint, in the "Copa del Carnassier", in the "Torso de Guerrero de la Alcudia"... and in the "Pátera de Perotito" where a young man, his hands are raised in a ritual position, is devoured by the wolf, merging with him, in his transit with the beyond ...

Because the wolf is also death, dying to live, dying to resurrect, when we are eaten we will renew our spirit, as a different being that is reborn as a new man. A journey of the initiate to the world of spirits, a descent to the bottom of the caverns, twinned with a wolf guide who will transfer us his great qualities...

To approach the Tolkien universe on the anniversary of his death is, in addition to remembering his life and his original work, to approach the myth, his ancestral conception, his values and his wisdom. To travel through Middle-earth with its dragons, hobbits, dwarves, elves, giants, wizards, ents, demons, skin-shifters, orcs, uruk-hais, nazguls, men... through its amazing landscapes, kingdoms and places, and to be left alone with the epic episodes and battles against the diabolic hosts of the dark lord Sauron would be to miss his spiritual teachings.

Through the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings or the Unfinished Stories we can learn from the magical and ancestral wisdom of the great wizards or sacred sages, observe and teach us against corruption, degeneration, weakness, envy, the mastery and ambition that will lead to a scenario of struggle between good and evil, as well as contemplating with hope the incarnation, love, friendship and dedication of archetypal characters with heroic vocation such as Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo or Aragorn who will give us life lessons.

[Interpretation of Tolkien's original drawing]

Adventurers, warriors, survivors, barbarians, nomads and plunderers, the epic Goths crossed half the world, living mythical episodes. Related with the Nordic universe, they worshiped the kingdom of Asgard, their eagles and crows that whispered to Odin the thought and memory of the mortals, guide them from the legendary corners of Scandinavia, crossing the Balkans towards the West. They saw the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Muslim, and built a new powerful hispanic state where they coexisted with the three cultures.

"God is in the center, all roads lead to Him."

"Tradition is not a childish and outmoded mythology but a science that is terribly real"

The thinker, philosopher and poet Frithjof Schuon, promoter of the Sophia Perennis —influenced by the work of René Guenón—, and philosopher of the metaphysical current of Shankara and Plato, scholar of Christianity, Islam and Sufism, advocated the "Unity Transcendent of Religions" (above the devotional, totemic, animist, shamanic, telluric or lunar religions of a matrix nature where the possibility of Awakening to the Supersensible Reality or to the Supreme Principle that is found at the origin of the Cosmos is not conceived) as an antidote to modern nihilism.

Tradition, understanding this not as folklore or customs but as a reflection on the physical plane of the Transcendent reality, as a bridge between heaven and earth. Thus, man is not shielded before transcendence, he can come to see the light and update that transcendent seed within himself. An initiatory path of the hero to update the spirit that we carry in potential to conquer eternity, transmuting us into unconditioned sacred warriors of the world of becoming.

Let us think of Rome and its solar spirituality, of the Greek Dorians of Apollonian worship, that lineage that founded Sparta, of the Celtiberians with their warrior brotherhoods and the mors triunphalis, of the ascetic warrior cavalry of the High Middle Ages, of the Arthurian cycle, the Temple , the Holy Roman Empire, Taoism, Tantrism, the Vedas, the samurai and Zen Buddhism… where Tradition was very much alive…

That traditional world that also considered that the forces of nature were alive, they had a soul. Nature and the universe was someone. There was a sacral interpretation of virgin nature. From the Plains Indians —Schuon "saw something of the nobility and majesty of the Primordial tradition"—, the Celts, the Slavs, the Germans, classical Greece or ancient China.

Thus, there are clues in the world of Tradition to enliven the Sophia Perennis and face the darkness of the modern world or kali-yuga. The world of Tradition as an antidote to the Modern world.

The Iberians gained fame for their fighting prowess, but their writing systems, their trade, and their art show that they were much more than great warriors. Their mother tongue "Iberian" was spoken from the Hérault River (France) to Porcuna (Jaén) and they left thousands of inscriptions written in an original alphabet of signs that was a mystery for centuries that little by little is deciphering ... Written on coins , lead sheet, amphorae, mosaic, stone stele, silver crockery or trousseau, painted and engraved ceramics, copper plates, silver trousseau, walls ... Its enormous diffusion in the peninsula reveals to us how consolidated it was. The same alphabet was also shared with the Lusitanian and Proto-Basque languages.

[In the image the head of the wolf on the pectoral disc of the armor of the Iberian warriors]

In 1212 three kings put aside their differences and, shoulder to shoulder, galloped and charged in the Navas de Tolosa against the Almohad army of Miramamolín Al Nasir that was determined to reconquer Spain and reach Rome itself.

Horsemen, cavalry, council militias, military orders, Templars, Calatravos, Santiaguistas, volunteers, gentle men ready to fight the half moon. The confrontation was cruel. Terrible scenarios with metal ripping and tearing ...

When it seemed that all was lost for Christians, the banner of the three wolves was raised...

It is Lopez de Haro who, together with his son and his Castilian knights and innkeepers, set out at the head of the vanguard determined to immolate themselves. King Alfonso VIII of Castile, who looks at it excitedly, launches the attack shouting "Here, Bishop, we all die." Pedro II of Aragon and Sancho VII of Navarra followed him ...

The epic and the enthusiasm seizes everyone and it is that the three kings ride and charge just through the hills of the Navas de Tolosa de Sierra Morena...