Dionysos is a dangerous God and this is a dangerous book. 

Herein Dver reveals a ‘new’ face of Dionysos which she explains isn’t entirely new but is significant in its appearance at this time. Many polytheists will be familiar with Dionysos as a God of pandemonium, wild revelry and wine, but less as the yeast that transmutes the wine and the silence and stillness ‘at the heart of the Dionysian storm’, as mushrooms, as mycocelium, as mold. Here He is revealed as ‘mycogenous: arising from or inhabiting fungi.’

Dver’s revelations began when she ‘noticed a blue-green mold’ on half-evaporated wine she left too long in a silver kylix on Dionysos’ shrine. In an epiphany she realised He was not only in the wine but the mold and fermentation. This book is the result of five years of cultivating mychorrhizal insights.

‘The Way of Mycogenous Dionysos’ is described as ‘a path of mysticism – or mycomysticism’, ‘at times contemplative, at times shamanic… ultimately transformative.’ 

‘The heart of the tradition’ is presented in ‘The Book of Hyphae’ which contains gnosis and practice and is supplemented with exegesis at the end. 

These words, ancient Greek names for Dionysos, lines from the Dionysian tradition and new epiphanies, are not just to be read, but to be meditated on, ingested, for the Dionysian devotee performed and practiced to work the processes that will transform them into mystes and mycomystic. 

Although I am a Brythonic polytheist with little experiential knowledge of the Greek tradition I am familiar with Dionysos in mythology and as a presence. As I read this book for the first time I found certain words and practices jumping out at me and recognising a number of mychorrhizal connections. 

I found it to be of deep interest that, like myself, Dver has been inspired to draw upon practices from yoga with it being notable that the Greek, Brythonic and Hindu religions all share Indo-European roots. 

One that stood out was a breathwork based on the words βίος ‘bios’ ‘life’, θᾰ́νᾰτος ‘thanatos’ ‘death’, βίος ‘bios’ ‘life’ combining them with the three colours black – exhalation, white – ‘the liminal space between breaths’, and red – ‘the inhalation’. Later Dver explains these colours are central to the Orphic strain of the Dionysian religion and combined create a colour called orphinnos. I have been guided towards similar breathwork and black, white and red are the colours of Annwn, ‘Very Deep’, the Brythonic Otherworld.

Another practice is singing seven epithets of Dionysos activating the seven chakras / energy centres. In ascending order from root to crown, Khtonios (of the earth), Auxites (growth), Purigenes (born of fire), Omadios (eater of raw flesh), Iakkhos (the ritual cry), Kruphios (ineffable), Lusios (loosener). 

The words that leapt from the page most were ‘Bakkhios Himself has freed me.’ A shiver ran up my spine when I learnt ‘This line is adapted from one of the Orphic gold tablets which contained instructions for the soul of a dead person navigating the underworld’ and is ‘a totenpass’ ‘passport for the dead.’ 

Dver says, ’It is a prayer for liberation, a hope, a plea. It is an affirmation of devotion and dedication. And if you sing it long long enough it becomes an ordeal, a sacrifice’ and ‘could comprise one’s entire devotional practice to Dionysos.’

Another practice is practicing death, lying in shavasana ‘corpse pose’, surrendering oneself to the fungal processes of decay.

Dver has found a likeness between Shiva and Dionysos and I have found likenesses between Shiva and my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd. All are Gods of ecstasy with associations with death and dissolution and renewal.

Not long after I read this book, having received it as a birthday present, over the November full moon I was plummetted into a process of dissolution myself. Then release from old things holding me down. As I read it again that phrase leaps out, echoes in my mind, ‘Dionysos has liberated me.’ I believe these words, the fungal touch of this God, had a role.

On a final note I would like to mention the three wonderful colour plates. ‘Mycogenous’ and ‘Lichenized’ are devotional art and ‘Remediation’ is a mask worn when lying in corpse pose and all are made from organic materials.

The book arrived beautifully wrapped and it is clear every stage in its creation has been carried out with devotion. 

I would recommend it to Dionysian devotees and to polytheists with an interest in building a devotional practice based on mystical revelations. But be warned, like fungal spores, these words, this God is dangerous. Do not expect to open it, turn its pages, without releasing a little Dionysos into your world.