The White Ladies: History or Myth ?

The majority of female secret societies are in their origins related to the cult of the mystery of life and fertility.

In this case of the White Ladies, their roots are in the Greek worship of the goddess Aphrodite.

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, lust, beauty, sexuality and reproduction.

Although it is often referred to in modern culture as "the goddess of love," it is important to note that it was not usually love in the Christian or romantic sense, but love as physical or sexual attraction.

According to Greek mythology, Aphrodite had no childhood: in all the images and references she was born adult, nubile and infinitely desirable.

Due to its immense beauty, Zeus feared that Aphrodite was the cause of violence among the other gods. For that reason he married her with Hephaestus, the stern and ill-humored god of fire and forge.

However Aphrodite, still married to Hephaestus, was not faithful, and kept frequent romances with other gods, especially with the mighty Ares, but also with Dionysus and Hermes.

He also had lovers among mortals, such as Adonis, Anchises, Phaeton and Kratos, among others.

Aphrodite had her own festivals, the Aphrodisias, which were celebrated throughout Greece but particularly in Athens and Corinth. In the temple of Aphrodite located on top of the Acrocorinth (before the Roman destruction of the city in 146 BC) sexual relations with their priestesses were considered a method of worship of the goddess. This temple was not rebuilt when the city was re-founded under Roman rule in 44 BC. C., but it is probable that the fertility rituals lasted in the city, near the agora.

Venus

Venus was an important Roman goddess related mainly to love, beauty and fertility, which played a crucial role in many Roman religious festivals and myths, but from the third century BC. C., the increasing Hellenization of the Roman upper classes identified it as equivalent to the Greek goddess Aphrodite.

His cult began in Ardea and Lavinio (Lazio). On August 15, 293 a. C. it was dedicated its oldest temple of which one has constancy, and on August 18 the party called the Vinalia Rustica was instituted. On April 25, 215 a. C. was dedicated a temple outside the Porta Collina on Capitoline Hill to commemorate the Roman defeat in the Battle of Lake Trasimeno.

Christianity

The cult of Venus was banished by Christianity, like all pagan cults.

However, it was kept secret by different groups, not necessarily composed exclusively by women.

But by 1200 literary allusions to the cult of the goddess began to appear, as well as various medieval legends, now yes, already converted into an exclusively feminine cult surrounded by mystery, such as the legend of Tannhäuser.

This German story tells that the knight and poet Tannhäuser found the Venusberg, a mountain with caves that contained the underground home of Venus, and spent a year worshiping the goddess there. After leaving the Venusberg, Tannhäuser had remorse and traveled to Rome to ask Pope Urban IV if it was possible for him to be absolved of his sins.

Urban replied that forgiveness was as impossible as it would be for his staff to flourish. Three days after Tannhäuser left, Urban's staff blossomed. Messengers were sent to look for the gentleman, but this one already had returned to the Venusberg and never was seen again.

It has been asserted that the Venusberg is only one of many groups, of the then called Ladies of the White Rose, which would have been discovered by Tannhäuser, and that the knight would have succumbed to the temptation to take advantage of that discovery for his own benefit.

From the Roman upper classes, to the nobility of the European Middle Ages, the cult would have remained, although undergoing transformations in its interaction with other pagan cults.

Century XVIII

With the weakening of the power of the Church, and the proliferation of secret societies, the European courts would be the ideal breeding ground for the reappearance of the legend of the White Ladies.

Far from its religious connotations, the organization is again mentioned with insistence, always linked to women of noble families.

The apolitical nature of the organization, as well as the fact that its members were exclusively women, contributed to its never being seen as a risk to the power of the day, as would other male secret societies.

However, that same contempt meant that they were never infiltrated as the other secret societies would be.

This has had as a consequence, on the one hand a deep ignorance of its internal functioning and on the other that from many intellectual circles the existence of this society of women was ruled out.

Those who defend the existence of the White Ladies argue that these two are the most important causes why the White Ladies have remained in the shadows to this day. For those who claim that White Ladies exist, ignorance and disbelief are the best defense of this organization.