I’m
finding it an odd experience being an essential worker during the
Covid-19 crisis. In many ways the world is a much quieter place, it
takes less than half the time for me to drive to work than usual and
the streets are deserted. In my life however there is a higher degree
of activity than usual as my place of work responds to the crisis, I
am busier than ever. I exist in this strange place amid this duality
of activity and inactivity- in Isa my life is the swirling
undercurrent of activity while all on the surface is still. The birds
sound much louder than they used to.
I
find myself on occasion feeling somewhat envious of my magical
friends who are utilising the freed up time for a magical retreat.
Then at other times I remember the people who have lost loved ones,
the people who have lost their jobs and income as a result of the
crisis, people who are vulnerable — and then I am grateful for my
own situation. The truth is while part of me would like to retreat
and isolate I would not do that. If I was not working I’d be
volunteering.
I
find myself in a position of solidarity with other essential workers;
the people who clean the hospitals and shops, shop workers, factory
workers, care workers, steel workers, police and the postal services
and the many many others who do jobs that run so smoothly we are not
aware of their essential work. The unknown heroes of the crisis. It
seems that some of our most essential people are the lowest paid,
putting themselves at risk every working day for a pittance. I find
myself grateful for the locksmiths – it’s a bit challenging
having a lock down when one is locked out, as I found out! I am
grateful to the magicians who are on retreat doing their magick to
eliminate the virus. Julian
Vayne’s work on ‘Hearty’ is something that I found very
inspirational.
sigil of Hearty
I
worry about my friends doing the front line work in the hospitals but
I get the vocational drive behind why they have to do what they do. I
worry about the people who are street homeless and hope that they
have found shelter and that the people helping them are OK.
A
great deal of my magical work over the last year has been about space
clearing and protection and I wonder if a part of me knew that there
was something coming that I would need protection from. Reflecting on
2019 I did feel a sense that change was on its way leading to my huge
space clearing and decluttering project where even my paperclips were
cleaned with Florida water and prayed over. I developed a fondness
for Psalm 121 which in the context of Covid-19 feels very relevant
and I find myself saying the psalm before I enter the workplace:
Back
in 1993, my IOT group made a healing servitor. I imagine most readers
of this blog will be familiar with the idea of a servitor, but just
in case, it’s a helper spirit, generally one you put together
earlier, that does something specific for you. This entity was more
than the usual small servitor right from its inception. We gave it
more pure chaos, so that it has more degrees of freedom, is capable
of making more elaborate decisions. Thus it belongs to that curious
class of entities that is more than a servitor but not as complex and
autonomous as a god/dess. I’ll just refer to it as a spirit.
Such
spirits are formed from group magic – in other words, they are
egregore spirits. We have a few examples of such spirits in the IOT,
most of which have been, or will be, loosed on the wider world at
some stage. One such is IZAWA – a spirit whose remit is to support
the psychedelic gnosis. This has been brought gradually into the
wider world via the Breaking Convention conference and other non-IOT
events.
The
healing spirit has been through a number of changes. When we first
made it, it didn’t even have a name and sigil, but it always had
the added chaos. It was made to be capable of healing at any level,
because it’s equipped with heuristic ‘expert software’
concerning human existence, so it evaluates what you need and then
turns itself into whatever will provide that.
It
was made collectively in 1993, and had already created another
dimension to itself by 1994, as I learned when I scried it that year.
It had acquired a home, a pyramid of green laser light at the bottom
of an ocean trench. It had generated for itself a massive and ancient
prehistory, upping its dramatic glamour considerably, and this is
always a good thing with spirits. I was not the only member who
detected its new form – I had a report from someone a long way away
who saw much the same as I did.
In
1995, it was named, by another group. Around a large octagonal altar,
we called it and scried for its name and sigil. It is called KAWA
POHR.
It
was definitely evolving now. On more than one occasion, non-members
have detected its presence, quite often behind some degree of
disguise, which the spirit judged would appeal to the recipient and
make the healing work better.
In 1997 it was released to the wider magical world, in the course of a series of intense workings against the HIV virus. A group called Temple T, led by Peter Mastin, installed a huge industrial sized version of KAWA POHR under the dance floor at a London venue called Turnmills. This was the home of Warriors, a gay dance club. The idea was to use the intense collective energy of the music, dancing, chemognoses and sexual energy that pervaded the dancefloor. Temple T had a trigger track of the KAWA POHR mantra embedded in the playlist at some point in the evening and sigils in some lights. Before the club opened, we would perform a ritual on the dancefloor, then reappear at the end of the night in robes to complete the working. So involvement with the club was quite extensive and depended on the cooperation of the club promoters. A significant number of deep remissions were reported, including massive increases in T-lymphocyte levels, and a remission of Kaposi’s Sarcoma (For some more on Temple T see this interview with Peter Mastin in Fortean Times).
Sigil of KAWA POHR
The
pathworking instructions for the original servitor are in my book
Chaotopia!, but here is the full ‘suite’ of pathworkings.
Part
2: The Pathworkings
Version
1: For work on yourself and your group
Close
your eyes. Consider what you need from this session.
It
is twilight. You are on a beach, whipped by a wind of spray, with the
sea crashing nearby. The light is fading rapidly.
You become aware of a slow throb, a heartbeat pulse of infrasound. The heartbeat still sounds in your mind … Gradually, you begin to make out syllables, dim echoes of a word … Begin to vibrate this heartbeat sound out loud “… munumm munumm …” the sound builds to a mantra “… munumm munumm munumm munumm munumm …”
As
you look out to sea, you detect a faint shimmering light under the
surface of the water.
The light brightens, flashing with faint colours. A circle of flickering lights plays over the sea, like a slice of an aurora. Call the servitor’s name: “KAWA POHR, KAWA POHR …”
Suddenly
a massive wobbly sphere bursts out of the sea and hovers in the air.
It is milky-white, with flashes of octarine, yellow, green and pink.
It heads straight for you, and envelops you. You sink into it, until
you are completely enclosed in it. Around you writhe sentient swathes
of coloured lights, harmonizing and strengthening.
This
may be as far as you need to go…
Version
2: A deeper healing experience
You
find yourself borne aloft in the sphere, over the ocean. The servitor
sinks into the water, taking you with it. Down, down you dive, the
waters darker and darker, into the dark heart of the ocean, into the
depths. There is no light down here, only the light from the servitor
itself.
Let your vision penetrate the sea … down, down into oceanic silence … down, down into a dark stillness where distant light flickers and throbs. As you continue to sink, you see a faint light … there is something down here, and you are heading straight for it. A greenish glow fills your vision, and suddenly the object becomes clear: a trapezoid, a truncated pyramid, made of solid ocean-green light edged with metallic purple. This is another phase of KAWA POHR, this is its home, this is the place you come to for deep healing. The sphere enters the trapezoid, and you see the interior, a maze of shifting green light, shimmering underwater radiance, that penetrates you cells and revitalises you, teaches you how to heal yourself.
Version
3: Sending KAWA POHR to someone far away
Work
Version 1 up to where the sphere appears above the sea.
Tell
KAWA POHR whom you are sending it to, and what needs doing.
Now prepare to launch the servitor into the aethers. If you are in a group, join hands in a circle. We will launch the servitor up and out of our auric space at the end of the countdown, with a great outbreath, a surge of voice. Resume the mantra, feeding power to the servitor “… munumm munumm munumm …”
Dave Lee is the author of several books, including Chaotopia, Bright From the Well and Life Force: Sensed Energy in Breathwork, Psychedelia and Chaos Magick. Visit his website and sign up for his newsletter.
Evocation of Kawa Pohr from the Illuminates of Thanateros
Coming
out is always a difficult process, whatever it is that you’re
coming out as. Going against the expectations of your society,
against the pressure of your peers and all expectations that there
may be. It’s difficult to admit that there is something about you
that is different. It’s especially difficult if what you’re
coming out as is not cool, not well thought of and seen mostly as a
stupid piece of crap.
I
have come out in all sorts of ways over the years and what has been
difficult, the most challenging thing to admit to not just to the
world and to myself that … my favourite magical paradigm is …
disco. Yes, disco. Not heavy metal not black metal, not punk, not
dance. Disco!! And I don’t know anyone who would admit to liking
this form of art, but go to any night club and see what happens when
a disco track is being played. I think I’m not the only not so
secret lover of disco. And OK it ain’t Mozart; I see no complex
equations within the sounds of the disco notes … but it is the most
overwhelmingly optimistic sound I’ve heard and it fills my soul.
And
I also like Titania’s Little Book of
Spells by the way. Since I’m coming out I may as
well say it- the books are furry and pink and purple and I love them
and I see nothing wrong in that.
So
where did my love of disco emerge? When I did I realise that this was
the sound for me? It came about due to my deep love of magick, magick
for its own sake, magick for the pure joy of doing it. There are
always several layers of statements of intent within my rituals and
more often than not hidden in the main statement of intent is a
secondary statement of intent. While I call it secondary often it is
the most important statement of intent which is “to experience Joy
while doing this Ritual.” It’s through this experience of the joy
of magick that the disco paradigm emerged and took hold of me.
How
it came about is that a group of friends and I regularly meet up to
practice magical rituals, to share and swap techniques and we chose
to have a number of sessions around certain themes. We could not help
but see the overwhelming similarity between the great God Baphomet
and John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. From
this we felt that we would do an evening of disco magick and would
boogie – boogie – boogie with the gods in good ol’ disco style.
“As above, so below …”
I was working with the voodoo paradigm at the time so I undertook a great work which I called Disco Voodoo, calling upon the Lwa via song, selecting the disco tracks that I felt most summed up the qualities of the spirits. And it rocked!! The voodoo spirits loved the disco music and manifested more strongly than they ever had to me before and I knew I had found my crossroad, my gateway in to the spirits of voodoo.
But
why disco? Why did the Lwa respond so effectively to this music?
There are many reasons; one reason is that disco music is very much
about being alive, and full of metaphors and symbols about the things
that we do to create life. The highly sexualised lyrics and rhythm of
the music combined with the love of life that only the dead can feel
led to a merging of life and death and love and loss into a single
paradigm that can be described as Thanateros.
During
that temple meeting Disco Voodoo also known as Makossa Voodoo took
form and is developing into a complex system of spirits some of
African origin some of which are Welsh connected to my local area all
of whom are called up by a number of sacred chants from the disco
paradigm.
After
Hexagram 8, Pi / Union, the work fell apart. Basically, each of us
needed to do a lot of work on our own emotional stuff. This will
probably be familiar to anyone who has worked with an initiatic (as
distinct from a purely pragmatic-sorcerous) approach to magic: you
take yourself up into higher consciousness a lot, you will likely
find there is a lot more grunt-work than you thought when you come
down. So we decided to do the work individually at our own pace. My
sequence got as far as 12, P’i, Standstill. Which was pretty apt; I
never resumed the work, nor did my co-workers.
Through
rapidly to meet a guide tall and kingly, in purple and wearing a
sword. He has long red hair and beard and dark grey eyes. I am
reminded of my Grey King experience of about a year ago, so I vibrate
the Godname of Kether. White radiance washes through him; his eyes
have turned green, and he smiles faintly.
“It
is good that you are cautious. You have come to a place where night
and day cleave together, and many strange currents cross.”
The
garden is diamond-shaped, the long axis east-west, in small stone
pieces in a tight mosaic of shades of green, spiralling about a
rectangular pool with steps leading into dark water. In the east is a
throne of purple-grey rock with armrests carved as lion’s heads
inlaid with silver. Two standing stones delimit the short axis of the
garden, which stands on a high rocky hilltop. It is just into dusk.
“P’i
is the axis about which revolve the cycles of night and day, yin and
yang. You have come to the yin garden of this axis.”
I
notice that the guide wears about his neck a Maltese cross of
double-headed axe blades on a cord of plaited straw.
“Standstill
is alertness through the dangerous time of change. You may prepare by
bathing in the pool.”
I
do so; the water is hot, from a deep mineral spring, sulphurous, and
draws out impurities through my skin. When I emerge the air smells of
cinnamon. It is getting dark.
I
look at the strange arrangement of standing stones; the guide says,
“Under different conditions their position is changed, to the long
axis or elsewhere. Much about the harmonization of earth-currents may
be learned from this hexagram.”
It
is dark now, in the dark too of the moon, and billions of stars seem
to race overhead as we whirl through space. They seem to point to a
distant mountain-top, where stands the garden of Chien, the Creative.
We
constructed rituals using the eight trigrams, which had
dragon-spirits that Mike had contacted. As with the ritual described
in Temple in the Squat, our Summer Rite in 1981 also involved
Qabalistic Archangels and Enochian names – the God-names and Kings
of the quarter positions and other Enochian spirit names.
The
work was very poorly grounded. The following year, 1982, I took the I
Ching work with me on my European travels. This was not a good time.
The following item is where I tried to use an astral gate for some
useful advice, but instead had an extraordinary vision amidst
personal disaster.
MARDI
17TH AOUT: Opened I Ching gate in the Cathedral here, in the Goddess
chapel.
——
——
—
— — —
——
——
——
— —
——
— —
—
— ——
A
landscape, hills, green, shading to distant ochre-red round-toped
hills by a lake. My guide is purple, cerise, an intellectual, a
diplomat in demeanour conceals a warrior in spirit, tight-belted over
his lush shirt, hands me a sword which I raise aloft, it becomes a
curve of brilliant white light reaching over the lake: lake, sword
are one in a circle of brilliance, a furnace of truth through which I
step into the ‘interior of colour’, the heart of every jewel, I
am tasting the beauty of atomic matrices, so peaceful yet so alive it
is here, magenta green yellow, then the core itself, a black
double-pyramidal diamond absorbing all light. I hold it, identify
with it, become an infinite web of black and white cuboidal atomic
webs through which speaks pure intelligence:
“You
have outgrown many levels of symbolism and reached the heart, the
shores of the life/death duality. I need tell you no more in this
accustomed way. You will return to your world through the heart of
this net; take this” – a nine-pointed snowflake star mandala with
3D sigils in its core. It reaches my throat chakra, and it burns and
is heavy. No, I will not carry it, it is too heavy. “You have gone
thro this illusion of power too, sacrificed the lesser for the
greater.”
I
returned, flashing almost instantaneously through the symbols.
I
left my silver neck-chain here in sacrificial gnosis.
Dave Lee is the author of several books, including Chaotopia, Bright From the Well and Life Force: Sensed Energy in Breathwork, Psychedelia and Chaos Magick. Visit his website and sign up for his newsletter.
’’If
there is no God or Devil, no Heaven or Hell, and if the place we go
to when we forsake our physical bodies is merely a ‘sea of memory’
in constant flux, then would it not be better to ‘make a deal’
and know exactly what you’ll become and where you will go when you
die, or persist with the constant fear and anxiety of an uncertain
fate..(?)” Denerah Erzebet (The Rites of Astaroth)
Over the last year I made several attempts at spirit evocation using a Goetia type formula with mixed success. I tend to take the position that the demons listed in the grimoires are neither ‘evil’ nor ‘good.’ The rituals were performed by myself as well as in group settings. Some of the summonings seemed to set off a series of events whilst others seemed to not culminate when they were supposed to with the most intense visual experiences occurring at unscheduled times. The format I used was to summon the demon into a cauldron that would be placed at the centre of a circle of magicians with a triangle of art around it and a protective circle around that: cleansings would precede and follow each ritual. Incense was burnt inside the vessel in an incense burner placed over the sigil.
The
first temple summoning of a Goetia entity was Ashtaroth. I like to
use very unorthodox methods in my magic with a particular leaning
towards the trappings of traditional witchcraft. So in this ritual I
used a small dutch-pot with Ashtaroth’s sigil in chalk at the base.
The dutch pot is a particularly useful tool in witchcraft, lending
itself to all sorts of sorcery; it appears very much like a
traditional cauldron but with a flat floor it lends itself well to
having sigils drawn inside it.
We
had another magician present who did a brilliant Lesser Banishing
RItual of the Pentagram and after a relatively short summoning we did
some connected breath-work: breathing deeply we chanted ‘Ashtaroth’
on our outbreath. We kept this up for 20 minutes. This ritual was
reasonably intense but without any major effects during the
summoning.
I
myself have experience of Ashtaroth through my work with Exu Rei das
sete Encruzilhadas, a powerful spirit who will intervene on the
physical plane especially if etiquette is not properly observed, with
a penchant for cigars and rum. A series of synchronicities did unfold
in parallel with a Soror who was making offerings at the Crossroads
for Lucifer in identical fashion to how I did for Exu: both entities
being associated with Venus as the Morning Star. A Tarot ritual
preceding this did point out to me that paths would cross with this
person in no uncertain terms- it did in the familiar challenging ways
that I have come to expect when working with Exu.
The
second conjuration was out in the country with a group of magicians
and it was Asmodeus this time. I brought my dutch pot and the ritual
was preceded by a thorough cleansing ritual performed by a very
competent magician and he did it in the manner as set out in the
grimoires. I used the Asmodeus prayer from Spare’s Grimoire of
Zos, bowdlerising it somewhat as I could not imagine this temple
indulging in an evening of fornication. This time we used the
connected breath-work again chanting ‘Asmoday’ on the outbreath.
This was followed by the ‘spontaneous path-working’ method that
we devised where a vision would be passed around the circle with a
squeeze of the hand, each participant adding to it. The ritual
completed at exactly the stroke of midnight and we had some
insightful visions.
For
my third demonic conjuration I would break-away from traditional
goetia-type work altogether and loosely follow the ritual as outlined
in a book called The Rites of Astaroth. This would be
considered a dangerous rite which culminates in trading one’s soul
to gain favour with this demon. In principle I would have no
objections to trading my soul to Astaroth: is it not the case that
practically every religion requires its adherents to dedicate their
soul to the object of their adoration anyway but dressed up in
different words?
I
made a few adjustments but the rite is performed from the full moon
to the new moon in a very left-hand path fashion. I made offerings of
my own blood on each day of the rite and made a point of learning the
conjuration from Grimorium Verum off by heart: mastering it by
the day of the actual rite. The blood offerings were astoundingly
powerful! I had ordered a sigil that was laser-branded onto wood and
that I was wearing around my neck. I pricked my finger each day that
I conjured Astaroth using sterile diabetic lances and anointed this
talisman. There is something very primal and potent about letting
your own blood, even if it is only such a tiny amount. The
discomfort, the psychic link and the vital energy all help strengthen
the magic. This was a revelation to me!
I
did want to get in touch with the author to have some insight on the
magician’s state of sanity after having completed the rite and by a
strange coincidence I made her acquaintance on Facebook! I timed it
so that I could have the weekend off on a river-boat. The climax of
the ritual would be to summon Astaroth as a demoness or entity of the
opposite gender and to consummate the ceremony sexually. Astaroth is
historically associated with Astarte and Ishtar and mentioned in the
Bible as such, so it makes perfect sense in this context. My feeling
throughout was that Astaroth is female or at least gender-fluid.
I
do much of my magic whilst working at my job as a gardener. Michael
Bertiaux discussed the fact that many of the African slaves would do
their sorcery whilst labouring in the fields in his Voudon Gnostic
Workbook and I took my inspiration from this. I use the time that
I do monotonous work to also do magic or to learn lines off by heart.
During the time that led up to the ritual when I was learning the
conjuration, Ashtaroth seemed to manifest very intensely. This would
in retrospect have been the correct time to have consummated the
ritual as outlined in the book but I wanted to keep to the schedule.
I had intense visions and instructions on how to draw up a pact and
what should be included.
The
encounter had a very erotic flavour of the type associated with
incubus/succubus phenomena documented in the witchcraft trials. I
also had an intense dream that I had impregnated a black woman who
would have our baby and it was going to be called Cressida. I had no
idea what the significance of the name was until I researched it.
Cressida was the daughter of the seer Calchas in Greek mythology. The
book has a ritual for creating a magical child and it seemed that I
was on my way of having done so already. The name has become a word
of power for me with some weird effects when I intone it. When I say
the name I feel like a female spirit superimposes its body astrally
over mine.
When the actual day of the ritual arrived I headed out of London with my shamanic drum and a sacrament expecting a night of drumming and conjuring. I did actually draw up a pact with clauses to ensure that I get to know Astaroth a lot better before commending my soul to her. The ritual itself ended up being unspectacular. I was not ready for an all night session of drumming so I decided to keep the sacrament for another day in the future – maybe after my nine-month pact comes round. I intoned the conjuration that I had learnt 108 times and did a good amount of drumming. Astaroth did hear me and I have come away from this rite with a new method of magic that I will be experimenting with based on my experience with The Rites of Astaroth.
The book The Rites of Astaroth is available from Draco Press
The
Illuminates of Thanateros recently held an Open Circle in South
Wales, with an assortment of magicians both inside and outside the
IOT. We’ve been doing this for some years now, increasingly
replacing the elaborate conference-style events of old with pop-up
magical gatherings and semi-open circles.
Yes,
semi-open. This means that non-IOT magicians join us for the
shenanigans. This further means that in the interests of our oaths of
confidentiality, any IOT members are made known as such only with
their express permission, even within the Circle. However, just
because you don’t ‘out’ other members doesn’t mean that you
yourself can’t go public as a member of the IOT. That’s for
secret societies, which we are not.
All
of this breaks the mould set by more traditional magical
organizations, but it’s an exciting development within an Order
whose mission is, quite simply, to encourage and facilitate the
practice of chaos magic in groups, thereby enabling wider access to
magical culture in our society – Aepalizage! – as we like to say.
While
the network may be the new shape of magical orders, the Circle is
still how the magic happens: people getting together and doing the
thing. Not that you can’t do magic on your own: of course you can.
But the accumulated magical skill and experience plus the undeniable
social proof effect of being amongst colleagues gives each magician a
powerful platform from which to work great magic, magic often
unavailable to the loner.
Every
group that’s met regularly and kept good records – yes, even an
informal Circle benefits from keeping a magical diary – every group
can confirm that the magical results really go with a swing when we
all pitch in together. That, after all, is why we in the IOT also
describe ourselves as a Pact; a group of free individuals who agree
to act together in each others’ interests, in contrast to an
hierarchical Order.
So
we got together and did the thing in Swansea, South Wales, a sort of
planned ‘bring-a-ritual’ party. After a keynote address and
ritual by Soror Brigantia 739 we swung into a parade of excellent
magical work. No, I won’t tell you without permission what we did;
what goes on in the Circle stays in the Circle. If you want to know,
join in next time. Or maybe even set something up yourself; just find
some others.
I
mentioned above that at the start of my magical career my development
was split into two apparently distinct directions – Pete Carroll’s
chaos magic, and a more traditional, psychism-based thread that aimed
at full initiation, at some degree of awakening. This latter thread
continued the rather mystical development I’d started in some of
the better of my teenage acid trips.
These
two threads did not need to be as separate as that – the sceptical,
meta-view pragmatism of chaos magic could be applied with tremendous
success to mysticism, just as it had been applied to magic. This did
eventually happen, and partly by my own efforts in writing Chaotopia!
many years later, and the work of Julian Vayne, Nikki Wyrd, Alan
Chapman and others who brought a healthy scepticism to mystical
matters but did not throw out the baby of luminous vision with the
bathwater of religious ideology. This took years; the original, 1978
chaos magic was very much a product of Pete Carroll’s own view of
magic, which is strongly anti-awakening.
So
while I was taking active part in chaos workings out in East Morton
(see the last two episodes), I was also working with another group,
who were less impressed with the chaos magic approach, because of
this lack of mystical perspective. This group included friends whom
I’d first met through the early LUUOS, and the work we did was
inspired by the Phoenix Light Lodge, which was run by Mike and
Marian, whose working at my Leeds squat I described above.
A
theme which ran through much of this work was astral doorways,
especially involving the I Ching* hexagrams. The experiences we had
would stimulate a rich dream life. In turn, this dreamscape was
dotted with conflict. Some of these astral battles were inherited
from Mike’s previous work with a very dangerous and unbalanced wizard
called Ian, but most of them were magical dramatizations of personal
issues.
I
wrote things like:
SAT
4TH JULY 1981: Did we really see a hexagram on a flag in the park
today? Certainly the bottom half – the Abyss Trigrams…!
We
mixed the I Ching into aura work:
SUN
5TH JULY: Pranayama, LF WITH TRIGRAMS:
Very
balanced sensations. Brought fountain up thro central Trigrams.
At
some stage we decided to ‘gate’ all the hexagrams, in the usual
order, and write a book about it. To unify the style of the visions,
we made an intention to channel some kind of garden for each of the
hexagrams, as a locale for the vision. The book never happened. Here
is an example:
TUES
6TH OCT 1981: CHING GATE 2: K’UN, THE RECEPTIVE
Into
temple without delay, and then rapidly through gate. Stepped onto a
lawn of succulent dark green creepers with violet flowers. Guide was
a woman, medium height, with a strong high-cheekboned face, clear
steady grey eyes, black hair swept back from her face, robed in
bright yellow with yellow sash. She welcomed me, showing a gold ring
with a large bright emerald, to the garden, which was a terrace,
ending at the downhill side with a white marble balustrade, each
column finished with stylized lions’ heads. On the other side of
the valley are rolling hills, shadowed depths of green, and in the
distance mountain peaks with winter sunlight reflecting from their
snowy caps.
There
are no paths in this garden, but a set of steps at each end of the
balustrade, edged with rambling roses. The lady walks down the
farther one, and I the near one, down to the next level of the
garden, where we sit on a bench of granite beneath an ancient elm
whose gnarled and black roots reach up to the seat and beneath it.
‘See’ she says ‘how different he is from you, yet you both
exist in this immense earth’. The sun seems still in the sky; it is
late afternoon and winter, but not cold. The sky is the blue nearest
white, pure crystal radiance, and my heart is at rest in this
timeless garden. ‘Now let us see motion’ she says, and a swallow
wheels against a backdrop of eternal now. Once again the garden is a
node of stillness.
We
return to the temple door. She gives me a word, not, I think, her
name: ‘Shua’; a feather falls to the ground as I re-enter the
Temple. I am reminded of Lorca’s lines: ‘ There is a bitter root/
and the world has a thousand terraces’.
*We used the Wilhelm translation, mostly, the one with Carl Jung’s intro in the front. The name was spelled I Ching, rather than the Legge version’s Yi Khing.
Dave Lee is the author of several books, including Chaotopia, Bright From the Well and Life Force: Sensed Energy in Breathwork, Psychedelia and Chaos Magick. Visit his website and sign up for his newsletter.
In
occult circles and within occult literature we hear a great deal
about people who make outstanding contributions to magical practice.
There are, for example, countless blogs and publications regarding
the fantastic work undertaken by Aleister Crowley, Edward Kelly, John
Dee and Austin Osman Spare — to name just a few.
While
the contributions of these men cannot be undervalued, the lack of a
female role model can leave many female practitioners of the occult
wondering where their place is in all of this and where are the
female occultists. It’s my opinion that the female role models are
there, such as Dion Fortune. It’s just that they don’t get as
much ‘air time’ as the men. For me personally one outstanding
example of a female magical practitioner is Harriet Tubman.
Harriet
Tubman was born Araminta Ross in the 1820’s and was born into
slavery. A remarkable woman, she liberated herself from the bonds of
slavery and fled to Pennsylvania. Not content with this she made
several trips back south to liberate other Afro Americans held in
bondage. She even risked recapture by going back to Dorchester County
– where she had been held in slavery – to free others.
She
became one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad
and one of the most unusual. Few Underground Railroad conductors
would conduct their people all the way from plantation to freedom.
Most of the time they would work as a team with different conductors
picking up the escapees at different stages of their journey. Feeling
a sense of responsibility towards the people she had freed Tubman
would take them on the whole route.
Due
to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 it become legal for bounty hunters
to cross into a free state and recapture escapees. Tubman took her
charges all the way to Canada to ensure their continual freedom after
escaping. Most conductors would only lead 2 or 3 escapees; Tubman
made a speciality of conducting larger groups of sometimes up to 25
people. This was dangerous work. Most conductors who did take their
charges for the whole of the journey were white men and were
therefore protected in some measure by this status. Tubman was a
black woman and an escapee herself making this work more dangerous
for her.
However,
unlike many of the men who did this work Tubman was never caught. She
had an innate sense of strategy and knew her terrain well – for she
was also a Hoodoo woman, a practitioner of Conjure. She is famous for
her Christian faith as in those days it was not uncommon for a Hoodoo
practitioner to also be a Christian. She could hear the voice of god
who would tell her what lay ahead on the course she was travelling on
the Underground Railroad and she would change direction if she was
told that danger lay ahead.
During
the civil war she worked as a nurse for the Union and a considerable
amount of her nursing was aiding soldiers who had contacted
contagious diseases. Tubman of course never contracted those diseases
herself. As she was a Hoodoo woman and knew the herbs and plants and
their medical properties she was able to take measures to protect
herself. Due to her advanced ability as a strategist she also worked
more directly for the army and led a raid during which 750 Afro
Americans achieved their liberty. She truly earned her nickname of
‘the General.’
After
the war she worked for civil rights for women and Afro-Americans.
When she saw that older Afro-Americans with poor health were not able
to obtain the health care they needed she used all her financial
resources to establish housing for them where they could receive this
care.
Harriet Tubman was a very practical woman who used her Hoodoo and conjure skills in a very real way to achieve very real results within the realm of civil liberties and for that I applaud her. What better role model could there be?
One of my core magical skills is within the healing arts and I have spent many years studying various healing magicks along with the practical skills of massage and reflexology. Along the way I have studied with a huge variety of people and engaged in many different types of healing systems. There is one thing that most of the complementary therapy arts have in common is in the value of meditation. I have adapted my own style of meditation for alleviating stress which I have found useful on many occasions.
The meditation starts by creating the right type of healing space, too often I’ve been healing rituals done in draughty community centres, churches and halls where a portable heater, some throw cushions and some banners with colourful designs can be added to promote a more relaxed atmosphere. An altar to your favourite healing deities is helpful and in the centre of the circle should be a single candle plus some quartz crystals to amplify the energies.
This is almost a word by word transcript of the meditation that I like to use, it can be adapted to suit different circumstances.
The Meditation
Find a comfortable position and relax keep you’re back straight and relax all parts of your body. Now allow your mind to settle and take some normal breaths focusing your mind on the rising and falling of your chest.
Now I want you to breathe in a healing breath and imagine/think/feel that you are breathing in healing light. This healing light can be any colour you choose as long as it is one that is healing for you. When you breathe out I want you to imagine/ think/ feel that you are breathing out all of the energy that you no longer need in the form of black smoke. Now breathe in through your nose the healing energy and now breathe out of your arse. That’s right breathe out all your negative energy from your arse.
So breathe in through your nose, out through your arse, in through your nose, out through your arse. That’s right. And when you breathe out through your arse I’d like you to softy say this mantra to yourself “shit happens”.
That’s right. In through your nose out through your arse: shit happens; in through your nose out through your arse: shit happens. And as you start to feel more comfortable with the fact that shit sometimes just happens I’d like you to consider the wise sages of old and their advice “sometimes there is a mountain, and then there is no mountain, and then there is a mountain and then no mountains. So it is with your shit in your life, sometimes there is a mountain sometimes no mountain, shit happens. So breathe in with your nose and out through your arse: shit happens, in through your nose out through your arse: shit happens.
I’d now like you to consider the Tarot card, the Wheel of Fortune. Sometimes you’re on top of the wheel, sometimes below and sometimes to the side; so it is with the shit in your life, shit comes and shit goes, shit comes and shit goes. Breathe in through your nose, out through your arse, in through your nose and out through your arse, in through your nose out through your arse, that’s right sometimes shit just happens.
And when your experiencing stress in your life you can use this meditation to help you relax and to know that surely as shit appears it disappears: shit comes and shit goes; so its okay to have some shit in your life. It is after all nothing that can’t be resolved by good plumbing and some antibacterial wash. In through your nose and out through your arse, shit happens.
And if there is someone in your life who is giving you their shit you can teach them this meditation and tell them simply to “blow it out of their arse.” In through your nose, out through your arse. That’s right.
Now I’d like you to slowly open your eyes and come back to the room confident that sometimes shit just happens.
This meditation is best led with a serious expression and all the trappings of a New Age Temple.
Soror
Brigantia is the current head of the British Isles Section of the
Illuminates of Thanateros.
For
those deficient in irony, let it be noted that Levity is not the same
as ineffectuality. This technique yields results. (ed)
Soror Brigantia and I took my Mari Lwyd for a canter at the Chepstow Wassail and Mari Lwyd Festival. If you have no idea about the growing Welsh revival of custom of cavorting in public with a horse’s skull here’s a very good outline of the Mari Lwyd tradition.
Bearing
a Mari Lwyd is more like wearing a mask than operating a puppet. To
me that makes it Invocation rather than Evocation in the usual chaos
magic senses. Invocation may be identified by the extent to which
another presence seems to displace your own at the controls and
exhibit behaviours out of character for yourself. And what do you
call the person under the horse? I can’t even use the common Voodoo
term ‘the horse,’ because, well, you see? So I’m going with
‘bearer’ for now.
One
or two Mari bearers had confirmed to me that they could feel an
overshadowing presence of a properly woken Mari. I had all day to
check this out, and yes. My Ostler for the day, Soror Brigantia,
spoke afterwards of feeling like I’d been away all day and she’d
been left with the Mari. I found it confusing and difficult to carry
on a human conversation while under the horse, and managed only the
briefest social interactions.
However
Ffynone Mari turned out to be quite in demand with the littluns and
made herself available for having her muzzle patted and stroked. It
all sounds very cutesy until you realise you’ve been normalising
contact with death and the Otherworld in a society in screaming
denial about both.
The
high point of the Festival is a meeting at Chepstow bridge, where
three paradigms come together. First was the massed cavalry of Mari
Lwyds, 34 on this outing: a record set earlier in the day during the
Mari Lwyd Pageant, a beauty contest for horse skulls in sheets.
Picture it. Next were the Border Morris and various Morris platoons,
faces blackened (eat it, social justice warriors: it’s a
traditional way to preserve anonymity in these parts, and nothing to
do with American racism); and the Wassailers, whose big moment
earlier had been waking up the apple trees in order to ensure a good
harvest this year with the Old English greeting Was hál!
— ‘Be Well!’ which we toasted with mulled cider, welcome in the
damp cold of the day.
The
night-time clash at the bridge was a noisy, rival supporters sort of
affair, and then, as they always report, ‘peace broke out,’ and
we all headed back into town together to drink and make merry.
It should be no surprise to a chaos magician to see such a cluster of paradigms playing nicely together. The mutual appreciation was obvious. Lessons to be learned there. But enough of the worthy and meaningful stuff: suffice to say a good time was had by all, especially by Ffynone Mari.
