Walk like an Egyptian!!!!

Or otherwise entitled – WTF is it with Regardie and his unicursal hexagrams?

Whilst to the casual observer I would most likely be labelled a Ritual Magician rather than Witch, I am afraid my approach borders on irreverent so I never feel the title applys.  For example it takes all my will not to fall around sniggering whilst trying (and I do emphasise trying) to perform the morning of Isis in the L.V.X. Just the act of taking the posture has me internally humming the Bangles!

The truth of the matter is, that I believe most Ritual Magicians (and those magic practitioners with a heavily ceremonial bent) to be so far up thier own fecal orifices that they can actually see daylight at the other end! And mostly because they are so stuck in thier own dogma they have actually forgotten the point of being a magician is to not just have repeatable results, but to operate in the most expedient and efficent manner possible. So operation after operation they will contort and posture, because some big name said, something along the lines of “well if you stick your right leg behind your neck whilst tickling your left ear with your right elbow, then the four great princes will physically manifest in unison wearing macdonalds uniforms, ask to take your order and then whistle Dixie”! And supposedly all thier mates have done it and it works!

A perfect real life example of this is Regardies inistance of using the Unicursal hexagram in the lesser and greater hexagram rituals. Now the unicursal hexagram is a beautiful sigil, it is a powerful sigil, it is a geometrically perfect representation of the cosmological model, but effective ritual device it is not! Assuming that you can actually trace it accurately without getting your knickers in the proverbial twist, you will be so boss eyed that you will have lost the bloody intent of why you are there in the first place. Thus ruining the flow of what is a rather lovely and effective ritual. Sheesh even Uncie Al uses the classical hexes in the big blue brick!

Now I know that some purists will say that the act of tracing the correct hexagrams is more powerful than using the classical hexes, and I am sure this is true, much as people may tell you to open the watch towers in the enochian rather than the english translations of the calls as they too are more powerful. But the question I have to ask, is why do more than you have to, why kill yourself to achieve the results, if the simpler way works, why complicate it?

Or lets put it this way, if you wanted to make a post to your blog, would you write it out long hand, then fire up your PC and Scanner, then Scan your handwritten document and run it through an OCR (correcting mistakes as you go) before copy and pasting into the editor, or would you just type it in direct?

To Memory

One thing that so many magickal practitioners forget when working with deity is that the source texts are a veritable treasure trove of information. Now this isn’t to say that deities are static creatures far from it, they have most certainly grown and developed, but the source texts do give the practitioner a bloody good place to start; just remember though that exclusive and slavish devotion to using the source texts leads to Dogma, which is the failing of every religious practise.

That not with standing, I have need to work with a particular Deity, I need to ask for thier help, I have only had contact with this Deity once, and that was in a group ritual, that I didn’t do the research  or the actual evokation for. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t go un-prepared anywhere near a Deity that I didn’t have some form of established pre-existing relationship with or hadn’t researched extensively. But needs much when the devil drives, so there I was frantically scrabbling for info, when I came across this beauty.

Orphic Hymn 77 to Mnemosyne (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.)

“To Mnemosyne (Memory), Fumigation from Frankincense. The consort I invoke of Zeus divine; source of the holy, sweetly speaking Mousai nine; free from the oblivion of the fallen mind, by whom the soul with intellect is joined. Reason’s increase and thought to thee belong, all-powerful, pleasant, vigilant, and strong. ‘Tis thine to waken from lethargic rest all thoughts deposited within the breast; and nought neglecting, vigorous to excite the mental eye from dark oblivion’s night. Come, blessed power, thy mystics’ memory wake to holy rites, and Lethe’s (Forgetfulness) fetters break.”

Bizarre and things!

It appears that even though I have had a resonable leave of abscence from this blog, there is still traffic trickling through; okay the figures aren’t very significant, but then neither am I, so it surprised me when I logged on today and saw the stats. Most likely they are random curious surfers and something I posted matched thier keywords, and the precee they saw on google or other search engine piqued an interest. But it got me thinking, perhaps I should post a bit more, perhaps there is a small percentage of the internet population that might find my posts interesting. So whilst this place will always remain my quiet haven just for me, perhaps I should endevour to post a little more regularly for those whose voyeristic tendancies may be satisfied by my meandering, so with further ado, I shall progress onto the main focus of this post.

Astrology

I don’t do Astrology, or perhaps I should say I didn’t do astrology, of all the occult sciences it is the one that has never resonated with me, perhaps it is memories of being a teen and pouring over very badly written horoscopes in Just 17 magazine, that could be interpretted just about anyway the reader wanted, the whole thing just left me cold.

Yet looking at it objectively, it is the one that is actually the most logical, the most scientific, you can actually place the movements of the planets for any specific moment in time according to your specific longditude and latitude, you can then record and observe events, study the empirical evidence looking for pattern, themes and correlations, now of course the results are still subjective but they are theoretically more precise than other more popular form of divination. This is an area that should be right up my street, that is how I operate both magickally and mundanely, in the known, the observable, the recordable.

Anyway until the last couple of days the why’s and wherefore’s of my lack of knowledge and lack of desire to remedy my ignorance has been something that has never even crossed my mind. So when I recieved a phone call from an elder telling me to hang fire on some work I am doing because to use thier words “there is some wierd shit astrology going on” and they were worried for my outcome, I just shrugged, that was thier bag! But they were so insistant, that I agreed to do some conventional divination just before the alloted planetary hour, ask the powers if I should motor on forward or desist for the short term until things were more favourable.

Who’d have thunk it eh! 3 out of 3 techniques came out with the same result, hang fire, so, I think perhaps it is time for me to do some good ol book learnin’ and start actually working out this stuff.

Perhaps I might use this blog to document my trials and tribulations of learning a topic that I had always written off as a bit fluffy and how I incorporate it into my daily dealings.

Occultists disease – Beautifully Wrecked?

This has always been an area of deep interest for me, and something came up today on another blog (http://goldenthreads.wordpress.com/) which sparked me writing something that I have been pondering posting for sometime.

For a long while it bothered me that so many people in the Pagan and Occult comunities seemed to “suffer” with such an extensive and bizarre range of physical and mental illnesses. I listened and analysed this phenomena fairly carefully and the suffer’s seemed to fall into three distinct categories. Those that professed they were ill and expected it somehow to make them very very special as a result. Those who professed they were ill (and most likely were) who would shout and stomp about the first group and how it “was giving the real sufferer’s a bad name” but would then use ranting about group one as an excuse to do exactly what they were blaming group one of doing which was making themselves look special via thier “oh so awful illness”, both of course whilst claiming some kind of specialness also using it as an excuse not to actually do any magic or any of the work that pertains to it; and then there are those who definitely were very ill but just got on with it, never mentioned it, this final group I designate as “The beautifully wrecked”, but I will come back to them in a bit.

Fairly early on in my path, I became quite worried that somehow I had allied myself with unstable characters, that the pagan comunity was full of kooks and hypochondriacs looking for a way to be special, to gain self validation, to find a meaning. But then I spoke to my sister who has worked her way through just about every denomination of christian church available to her and really it doesn’t seem to be much different. There is something about “cult” communities that draw those that need whatever the “something” is, that group particpation gives. From that point on I stopped railing against either group one or group two, thier actions were thier way of getting whatever it was that they needed. That said, I did make a concious effort not to “feed” thier need, lol as my mum said, if you ain’t got anything good to say, don’t say anything.

I then came across the interesting concept of the “Occultists Disease”, this is often cited as being Asthma, but in reality seemed to cover a range of respiratory and pulmonary disfunctions. Big names such as Crowley, Chumbley, Gardener and Bennett are all cited as having suffered. I looked into this futher and discovered current real life practitioners who also suffered. I asked my mentor one day, does the act of practising magic eventually destroy you, and thier answer was “if your doing it right, then yes”. Take what you will from that statement and don’t neccessarily take it at face value either!

But the one thing that does stick out, is that all those names achieved after thier own fashion, “greatness” they were active participants in thier Great Work, they were beautifully wrecked. They did not, it seems use thier “disease” as an excuse. So now adays when I come across someone claiming to be a practitioner, but add the caveat fairly shortly after that they have an illness, I look at or listen to thier words very closely, if they are beautifully wrecked then I take heed of thier words, the others I just quietly walk away from.

Accessing a Current Pt. II

I’ve been thinking further about my previous post regarding accessing particular strains of a magical current. And some interesting conundrums have come up, so I am going type as I think (it’s preferable to staring at lines and lines of computer code which currently mean nothing to me as I am brewing the mother of all migraines unless I can get to the pharmacy at lunch).

I suppose the first thought is, why do a lot of lineaged folks get so shirty at the idea that outsiders might actually have a magical “handle” on at least part of thier current without being initiated?

I suspect it comes down to two reasons, nothing more, nothing less. The first being that there are so many Grand High Pooh Bah 10th Degree MucketyMuck High Priestesses, who are 17 years old but they have been running a coven since they were 12; yeah right, okay these folks don’t actually exisit in quite the extreme I have described. I’ve been doing the online and real life out of the broom-closet type thing for more than a few years now, and very rarely do you find one of these types.

But the paraody description proves a point, there are so many out there claiming to be something they are not. Who have read a couple of llewicca books and think it’s all about green candles dressed in patchouli oil. They give themselves a title and post on a few forums, attend a few moots and declare themselves a “witch” or “magician” or my favourite a “shaman” lol with an emphasis on “sham” hahaha! These folks are dangerous, if you took them into a magical operation and you got a full corporeal manifestation, they would brick themselves, run a mile or run amuck, placing you and everybody else participating in the ritual at risk. So it seems to distance themselves from this particular type of practitioner, it’s best to make the blanket statement “Your not in our gang there fore you cannot know the password to get into the club house”!

The second and less common reason is, I believe because their magical world view is incomplete. It is beyond thier comprehension to understand that others may have managed to tap the current, outside of thier own praxis. Please note though, this may be down to the limitations of the particular lineaged individual, rather than representative of the group into which they are initiated, it may also be down to the limited teaching they themselves recieved, both here and now from thier superiors and also from the current itself.

I have discovered though over the years, that the real practitioners, esepcially the lineaged ones, get the idea that what they access isn’t unique to them and are happy to have “inter-trad” discourse, within oath bound limitations. It’s interesting how many folks complain about trad-crafters and thier riddles, but it is amazing how much oath bound material can be “transfered” through the act of riddling without breaking oaths at all. Esepcially as most of the mysteries are hidden in plain sight for those with eyes to see

Which of course then leads nicely onto the main focus of my ramblings, the concept of the magical current and the oath breaker, or as the more romantic and dramatic person might call them, the warlock. I’ve heard of people who have been stripped of thier lineage/initiation/placed under the ban, what ever you want to call it. I’ve even met a few, and have worked magically with one or two.

Now this of course is something that I wouldn’t reccomend as a general rule, oath breakers are, after all, just that, and lets face it would you trust someone mundanely if they cannot keep a promise, let alone magically. However, the two I worked with, one was stripped of thier lineage, because it turned out thier HPS was the oathbreaker, the other for political, “mob rule” reasons, so neither were technically untrustworthy magically, things might have been different if they were.

BUT and this is a big but, does the actual act of stripping a person of thier lineage stop them accessing the current, or thier ability to pass it on. Now I have given this some thought and will discuss this with those older and wiser than me at an appropriate time.  Yes it is magically possible to physically block a persons access, it could be done in a number of ways, including a direct working against the practitioner or via petitioning the enitites of that particular frequency of the spectrum.

However, in reality I doubt this happens very often, it’s more like a “sending to coventry” in the manner we all saw when we were kids, cut them out, turn your back and make damn sure as many of the other kids in the playground hear about the misdeed so as to ensure that nobody else will play with them.

Which of course then leads to another interesting conundrum, does the act of banishing an oath breaker actually remove anything other than the mundane label given to them by thier club? I suspect not!

Accessing a Current?

Following a rather interesting blog entry by http://pagantoday.wordpress.com/ who I have enjoyed reading since I signed up, it got me thinking, not so much about the great wiccan/Wiccan debate and the validity of self initiation, but more the implications of such actions. But I suppose, loathe as I am to do it, we need to look at the purpose of initiation.

Talking to hardliners, they will tell you that you cannot access the mysteries unless you have been initiated into what ever the Trad is that you are claiming to be. Now I tend to think they are both very right and horrifically wrong. These so called “initiations into the mysteries” in my opinion is just the vehicle with which a particular group accesses a magical current.

I’ve been struggling with the term “magical current” and how to explain it. As a priestess of my chosen path, I can feel it and use it, but it is harder to convey in mere words, but I think I have come up with a good analogy.

If we consider magic to be much like the entirety of the light spectrum, some wavelengths are accessible by everybody and are there to be used, we could liken this to the visible spectrum of light. But further, with careful training and appropriate “filters” put in place it might be possbile to access the invisible spectrums, ultraviolet, infrared, microwave etc. Different groups will tap different parts of these unseen spectrums and this is thier current and “transmission” of the way to access these spectrums are formalised in the initiation ritual.

Now it is perfectly possible as a solitaire to also access these currents; in fact there is some basis for the argument that by being a solitaire this allows a freedom not enjoyed by others who maybe either through ignorance or deliberate choice be limited to a singular current and nothing else.

The problem arises as to what current the solitaire is actually accessing though; for example: Solitaire A decides to self initiate, and either through luck or hard work successfully accesses a part of (or even the entirety of) one or more magical currents, but what she has accessed is Luciferian rather than Wiccan (which is what they are after), what should they call themselves?

It then gets more complicated, what if Solitaire A actually accesses the current they are after, then finds a suitable Coven of the lineage they are hankering after.  Should thier existing link to the current then entitle them to a “fast track” scenario, especially if it is also obvious that they have put in the prerequisite practical and academic work in?

Lets say this happens and Solitaire A quickly makes it through their neophyte grade as a result of partial access, but they also have partial access as a result of thier self initiation to an other current. How will that affect the coven they are working with, this stuff is pretty viral you know, so then all of a sudden does the Coven have the right to claim thier name as associated with that current? Or should that part of the neophyte be “purged” for the sake of lineage and purity?

Tricky isn’t it? I do not profess to know the answer to any of it, my knee jerk feeling is that self initiation is perfectly possible and totally valid, as long as you do not claim to be of a named current (after all you will not really know if the current is the right one). If you feel like you need a name, call it yours, give it, it’s own name. After all that is what most of the big names in times gone by did.

I am not in a position to run a group, but the time is drawing nearer and nearer, and I suppose at some point I am going to have to discuss this with those older and wiser than me, but as for embracing or exterminating access to other currents brought in by self initiated neophytes; my gut says that as long as it isn’t at the complete other end of the spectrum or destructive, it should be integrated in a manner that benefits all. That’s how witches/magicians grow and progress, rather than becoming stale and dogmatic.

But of course all this is just my personal opinion and your mileage may vary.

Rather enjoying myself

I’ve spent best part of a fortnight now perusing different peoples blogs, it kills the time at work whilst I serve out the remainder of my notice and start looking forward to the new role awaiting me at the back end of this month.

Something has really struck me about the wordpress community is how little “flaming” and “trolling” goes on, even on the more heavily trafficked blogs. Opinions are given and discussed in an adult and appropriate manner. People seem to accept that not everybody is going to agree with everybody else. There is also a distinct lack of attention seeking “ranting” with heavily vieled comments refering to “somebody” else, never quite naming them but making sure every bugger in the world will know who is being spoken about.

Just people sharing thier thoughts, thier work, thier days and nights with little desire for anything other than the need to write it down. I am seeing little of people screaming out for validation. It’s really rather wonderful and I am really feeling good about creating a little place here where I can prattle away to myself and quietly enjoy the cathartic process of blogging.

Does make me wonder though, him indoors and I have joked about what archaeologists of the future will make of us; will there be in 10,000 years time a dig that uncovers a landfill full of server disc’s, will they surmise that in the early 21st century that there were different tribes; the wordpress tribe, the LJ’ers, the Moveable Types, the Blog Spotters. How will they define those tribes?

Hahaha perhaps the Moveable Types were Nomadic, the LJ’ers were group oriented warlike tribe, the Blog Spotters solitary creatures; but what would the wordpress tribe be? Lol the Druids perhaps

And who would they surmise our gods to be, assuming that God is even a concept in 10,000 years time, well of course there would be the great gods google and wikipedia that is for sure, would they assume that we were like the ancient egyptians we found cats sacred when they stumble upon Icanhazcheeseburger? Will leet speak be the new sacred alphabet, with great minds pondering for hours in a monastic and scholarly manner on the occult meaning of the words ”pwned!!!!” and “kthnxbye”

Fluffy neo-pagan mistakes 101 (part deux)

We had dinner with friends last night, they are new friends, although our knowledge of them goes back several years, it is only in the last 6 months or so the relationship has developed.  New, but not actually new relationships seems to have become a bit of a trend over the last few months, and is something I want to embrace further in the coming year.

Having withdrawn almost entirely from the online community in which I was almost obessively active (although I ended up creating this anonymous blog as I realised journalling was an important part of my personal outlet a few weeks after I deleted my very long running and active journal); I started to realise how disfunctional most of the online occult/pagan/magical communities are, and the real life ones aren’t an awful lot better as a “general” rule, remember rules are from time to time meant to be broken and as such there are always outstanding exceptions to EVERY rule.

But, there is something inherantly “wrong” with groups where people declare almost obsessive loyalty to “friends” they have never met, or journals where you have a “friends” list and again those so called friends you may not actually know from adam. Friendships should be real and tangible things, built over years, drinking, eating, sleeping, loving, grieving, arguing and a multitute of other things, done together, here in the flesh, not the aetheric realm of cyberspace.

So when approaching the online pagan/occult/magical communites there is one fundmental thing to bear in mind that even if like me you weren’t looking for an order/lodge/coven (lets not even go there purleeese), and just hoping to find like minded folks with which to interact, the “real deal” ones aren’t sitting tied to a computer day in day out posting mindless drivel to big themselves up in a “ooo look aren’t I uber maggiiikkkal”. Real folks are living it, really living it, what ever “it” may be, what ever is thier true will and purpose.

And don’t be fooled by the “hardcore” pagans/witches/magicians either, most of them haven’t got a clue. They have read just enough to make them sound academic and credible and are exceptionately good with wikipedia, but that is the limit of thier experience, all will be “damaged” in someway, all “unstable”, all “looking” for something that will fit thier blinkered view of thier tiny corner of the world. And if they don’t find it, they will destroy what they find, all the time professing that they are right, that thiers is the one true way (ring any bells anybody?) and declaring others clueless idiots in the process, so as to ensure that they can continue kidding themeselves in the process.

Anyway, some how, whilst I came away older, wiser,a bit battered around the edges and with a lot less “friends”, fortune smiled and rewarded me with a few long standing aquaintances, who once I wised up a little, offered the hand of friendship. Real people, genuine people, who very quietly go about thier business, with little fuss or “dwama” ™.

So I am sitting here contemplating the new year that is fast approaching and wonder what other old yet new experiences I will have, and felt I had to share five years of hard earned experience when dealing with the online community, makes me feel a bit of an idiot really, as it isn’t rocket science.

Christmas…A time for patience not peace!

This will grow over the next few days I am sure, with major rantage predicted within 24hrs. It’s been 48hrs since my home was my own and I am now really starting to feel it. I cannot move in my own kitchen without the MIL hanging over my shoulder inspecting what I am doing. I cannot pick up a book without being interrupted, and half my books I cannot read in front of the MIL and FIL for fear of offending them. My main christmas presents are still wrapped upstairs, as it was decided that it would be politic not to open them. What are they, the works of Copernicus and Kepler for goodness sake.  In that particular relationship “Women know thier place”!!!! We learnt this lesson the hard way when the books of Hebrew and Greek Gematria and the Gnostic Gospels were discovered and many stern looks were given.

You know this may be the season of goodwill to all men, but I have decided that goodwill when your home is involved has a finite time limit, it may be about 72hrs, I fear if they stay longer I may have to actually escape my own home and go refugee with well basically anybody that will lend me a sofa.

Genius Loci – fluffy neo-pagan mistake 101!

Tonight seems like as good a night as any, (if not more so) to discuss this topic. It’s a sure fire way of weeding out the fakes and the flakes that is for sure.

You will hear in RL and read many a post by the ardent neo pagan telling you how good they are at connecting with the land, how they are red in tooth and claw and understand and honour the ancestors, my arse. Now go and ask them about Genius loci, and 9 times out of 10 they will tell you great tales of “experiences” they have had in neolithic and megalithic so called “sacred” sites, if your lucky you might get  one that has done a little more historic research and might tell you of local lore and legend.

Now ask them about necromancy and watch the newbies blanche and the hardliners scream about judeao-christian influences that are supposedly not “real” witchcraft.

Now go and ask them what they do with thier ancestors?

What am I getting at here, well it is a common newbie question, “how do I work with the genius loci?” and they get fed drivel. They think they have to find a special place, somewhere “sacred”. This is normally told to them in a supercillious manner as if they should know better and thus the eager but innocent newbie damn near kills themselves feeling inadquate trying to find that special place, clueless (as thier erstwhile superiors are) to the truth beneath thier noses.

If you want to work with Genius Loci, the first thing you should be doing is establishing the spirit of the place in which you live. Each house has one, the Greco-Romans called them Lares, but here in the UK we have an abundance of welsh, scottish, irish, manx and cornish folklore that indicates that we too, honoured ALL spirits of the place especially domestic. You should feel it, work with it, feed it, include it into your family life, if your “out” enough give it an image to dwell in, a focal point.

Then you need to consider other kinds of Genius Loci, those that are integral to you, in reality you will be commiting an act of necromancy because from time to time you will end up conversing with the spirits of the dead, YOUR ancestors. Set them up a place to live, preferably in the heart of the home, they too need to be worked with, honoured and fed, after all they are your elders, those that were, are and will be; after all time is subjective, not relative.

And remember, these are YOUR true Genius Loci and the ones that will teach you the most, be it that you live in a city bedsit or a remote derbyshire cottage. And anybody that tells you, that you are being fluffy, smile gently and laugh at them, because the chances are they haven’t actually got a clue, and most certainly never trust a person that claims to be a real “practioner” or pagan when they do not understand this concept, chances are they are full of bull.

A word of warning though, don’t ignore your Genius Loci or get bored with working with them, they have ways and means of letting you know thier displeasure. If you can’t keep up the work, don’t start it at all, it is, believe it or not less of an insult, than starting a job and then leaving it undone.

So why tonight, is it appropriate to discuss this topic, well at the dark time of the year was the time for stories of old, stories of the ancestors, it was a time also of weaving and spinning and household chores, a time when your own Genius Loci was the most important of all, so if you were to want to work with them tonight would be a good night to start, lol so leave a bowl of milk out for the brownie why don’t you