The word portal comes from the Greek term πυλών 'gate'.

The sasiyruti Aramu Muru went through the portal of Hayu Marca, near lake Titicaca in Peru, after he placed the golden disk, Key to the Gods of the Seven Rays, into the carved door’s socket. The disk was from the main temple of Coricancha, and would only open the portal for a high priest, allowing him to walk through the stone. Aramu Muru would forever hide the golden disk in the Centre of the World, away from the invaders:

“They have come to take from our people all that is dear to us: our beliefs, our foods, our clothes, our metals… Some for need, some for fear, some for pure greed. In exchange they bring us disease and hardships. So be it!

Rimaykullayki, conquerors.

You think you can do away with our way of life and impose yours upon us. But our people will survive, and you too will eventually rejoice in the ways of the Inca.”

Footnotes:

Sasiyruti Aramu Muru – Priest Aramu Muru

Hayu Marca– City of Spirits – is in the mountain region of Southern Peru near Lake Titicaca, where there is a huge mysterious door-like rock structure.

The portal of Hayu Marca is carved on rock and is visible to the naked eye, albeit impenetrable. It was said to connect our physical world to a different sacred realm.

Portals have been used since ancient times to point out worlds beyond ours. They provide travel to other parts of the world or universe, other realms, or of other past or future times on Earth.

In literature they have been used to travel between different worlds, like in the Narnia Chronicles, by C.S. Lewis where the characters go through a wardrobe to find themselves in another world.

In the novel Outlanders Diana Gabaldon places a portal in a circle of large stones to travel through time.

A circle of quartz stones serves as the portal in Love’s Rebirth: A Tejana Story. It is used by Spiritual Masters to commute almost instantaneously from their Theological school in Kulkanzin, nestled deep within the wilderness of the Sierra Madre in Mexico, to the small Texas town of Santo Tomás. In the story the portal, Tlazolia Occepa, which means God's love comes again and again, was built by the Spiritual Order of the Ancients.

The Pylons of Egypt, the city gates in Babylon, and the Archers in Gothic architecture, all symbolically represented portals to another world.

Chinese folklore talks about the Gates of the Ghosts being open every year on July 1, allowing those imprisoned in hell to exit and for a short time enjoy the living world.

Egyptians believed that a door carved in a tomb wall or painted on it, was a threshold between the worlds of the living and the dead through which a deity or the spirit of the deceased could enter and exit.

In the Hindu tradition, spiritual portals are called tirthas, and they are sacred natural spaces that mark a crossing point between the land of the living and the spiritual world. Pilgrims travel to tirthas to cleanse themselves of their sins and achieve freedom from reincarnation.

The Maori, indigenous people of New Zealand, believe that the souls of the dead depart from this life at Wharariki Beach on the South Island of NZ, Te Waipounamu.

In Viking lore the threshold to a house was considered to be a point of contact between the living and dead. There are stories of women raised above the doorway of a Viking home to make contact with departed family members.

In Mexico El Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is celebrated on Nov. 1 and 2, also All Saints' Day in the Catholic Religion. Its traditions are intended to facilitate the return of departed souls to the Earth. Altars are built in honor of deceased family members.

Altar for “El Día de los Muertos”
Smithonian Magazine

Halloween is the evening before All Saints’ Day, a contraction of "All Hallow’s Eve." "Hallow" is a noun that means "saint" or "holy personage." The origins of Halloween can be traced back to Samhain, an ancient Celtic festival that marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter. The Celts believed that on the night of Samhain, the boundary between the living and the dead became blurred, and portals would open so that ghosts could return to Earth.

This Halloween you might want to check out some haunted houses’ portals in your area.

Or you might want to visit what was an Old West Stagecoach stop in Love’s Rebirth novel and is now a historical building and the Haunted Magnolia Hotel in Seguin, Texas:

http://www.hauntedmagnoliahotel.com/home.html

Before and after restoration of the Magnolia Hotel

https://www.facebook.com/historicmagnoliahotel

In any case beware of what you ask for. Unless you are a Spiritual Master some doors are best left unopened.

By Adria Cruz Tabor

10/17/2024

PORTALS

National Hispanic Heritage Month