Tag: chaote

The Bee, the Bluebells and the Buddha

by Soror Brigantia

In my workplace we have a chillout room, where people can go if they are upset, stressed or need a moment away from the hustle and bustle. It’s a beautiful room set up with relaxation in mind.

When I first arrived at this workplace there was one thing however that spoiled the effect of this room for me. In the room was a poster depicting the Buddha on top of a mountain, surrounded by lush vegetation, with the caption “When you reach the top of the Mountain keep climbing.”

I hated that poster, partly because it does not make sense. When one has reached the top of a mountain how can you climb any further? What are you supposed to climb on? The clouds? Secondly when I have achieved a goal that’s been difficult I don’t keep climbing, I take a moment to feel smug about what I have achieved, take a day off relax and to remember to feel good about myself. I did it, I achieved my objective, now I can chill. I’m not going to keep climbing; I’m going to take a break.

I felt exhausted just looking at that poster, and needless to say the poster is no more, it is an ex poster. For me it summed up everything that is wrong in our culture, the constant drive to achieve and do, the constant striving due to an underlying belief that we are only valuable when we are doing things and achieving. This is one of the beliefs that underpin a capitalist society and makes the wheels of industry turn- we must work because what are we without it, what value do we have? For me this negative message was summed up in this poster, all bound up in New Age wrapping and definitely not what Buddhism is actually about. Capitalism pretending to be Buddhism.

Since the lockdown began while my working life is busier than it was prior to the crisis. And my personal life is different. There are no more magical outings, no in-person temple meetings, no occult conferences, no pubs, restaurants etc. Outside the working environment there is little for me to do, work towards, organise or strive for. Over the Easter holiday I found that I was bored and not feeling that great about myself on account of not having achieved anything with this time. Then I remembered this awful poster and saw that while I may see through the capitalist belief systems I am in fact just as bought into them as anyone else.

Having had that realisation I went and sat by the front steps and watched the bees. They were very enthusiastic about gathering pollen from the bluebells and I sat and watched. Firstly I watched without judgement, and then I meditated on how the bees enable life to continue and how all things relate to all things. I watched them for hours. Then I saw how important it is to just stop and watch and listen, as we miss so much of what’s really happening around us when we are too busy to notice all the interlocking and interconnected workings of Baphomet.

Since that day I have slowed right down. I still do things if they need doing but I do them more slowly, focusing more on the process and less on the end result, and I enjoy doing the tasks a lot more as a result. It feels that my life outside work has become a meditation as I spend more time watching and listening to the sights and sounds of nature around me. I am no longer feeling that I must be achieving to be valuable.

I can sit and listen and be at peace.

Soror Brigantia 739

The Great Magical Lockdown

We’ve been in lockdown for weeks now, hiding from each other so as not to spread the lethal disease. At least we’re still breathing. Already there may have been people we know who haven’t been so lucky. Our own responses are ranging from happy productivity for the natural hermits to cabin fever for many of the rest, with the added nagging worry of where the money’s going to come from for this. And as the social distancing precautions begin to slip, cracks are appearing in the solidarity of lockdown, as more people get fed up with it and decide that breathing’s not that important anyway.

We magicians might be among those asking themselves ‘Am I doing enough during this enforced leisure time?’ assuming, of course, that we’re not among the quietly heroic essential workers risking their lives so that we can have anything from medical care to sliced bread.

So what are we doing with this unwanted gift of time? Me, I’m writing a book. Woo, go me. Some of us are cracking on with some intensive/extensive practice, the Great Magical Retreat. And some of us are fraying at the edges. Or maybe all of the above.

In general, I try to keep a balance between structure and license. I get up, I do the daily stuff, from hygiene and housework to meditation and magic. Structure, see. However, I also feel free to miss something out, to not get much done today, to feel like shit if I feel like shit, dialling down the expectations in order to remove that Work Ethic pressure to produce. License.

Structure and license, then, moderating each other (more or less) so that neither runs off with your marbles. The ancients called it Temperance.

I maintain a fairly positive attitude of gratitude. This isn’t a matter of airbrushing the unpleasant bits out of my experience, although it has meant that I use the antisocial media less than I did before lockdown in order to screw down the toxic demands to be outraged and afraid. As magicians we should be filtering the bullshit as standard practice, but it’s more important than usual right now.

Instead, I voice aloud my thankfulness for particular things in my day: this meal, that weather, this moment of quiet joy. The voicing aloud seems to make the difference: try it. I’m not saying pray to anything, just acknowledge that you’re glad that whatever-it-is is here right now.

My meditations include the all-inclusive contemplation of my immediate surroundings, my own experience and present state of mind, accepting all, letting all blow past, fixating on nothing.

I’m lucky enough to have a household of people, but I miss the Bunburys, the periodic disappearances from the respectable world to do disrespectable things among disrespectable people. Y’know, occultists. But we have internet chat. It’s a poor substitute, but better Prosecco than no wine at all. So I make a little time to chat with my family and friends, and most of all, my tribe.

I feel very lucky to have the Pact. Right now our Section has weekly online ritual meetings and catchup, which fulfils my definition of the Pact as “a group of free individuals who agree to act together in each others’ interests” with group magic as the mode. Group magic is only the tip of the iceberg of our magical practice, but the fellowship of the members is truly extraordinary. Dave Lee has described it as a sangha, the Buddhist term for the community of fellow-travellers on the Great Way, which I’ve not noticed anyone else but myself using until Dave. I’ve argued for years that a magical community is the second most important aid to remaining sane in the wacky world of wizardry, as you can read from that first link above. (the first most important thing? Your own bullshit detector, natch). It’s a privilege to be part of such a tribe. If you have one, you can’t do better than to connect up to them as close as you can under the circumstances, even if you’re not suffering from the isolation as much as many. It’s a collective sanity thing, and it’s not just about yours.

I hope you find these suggestions encouraging and useful. Stay well. Choyofaque!

The Kite

Reflections on Covid-19

by Soror Brigantia

28.03.2020

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:

“I lift up my eyes to the mountains—

where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip—

he who watches over you will not slumber;

indeed, he who watches over Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep.

he Lord watches over you—

the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm—

he will watch over your life;

the Lord will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore.”

Stay Safe.

Soror Brigantia 739, 1º IOT

Psalm 121 from the New Living Translation

Psalm 121

I Believe in Miracles

by Soror Brigantia

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.

How to Sell Your Soul

Experiments in Spirit Evocation by Frater Ananael

’’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 Open Circle

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.

And then, of course, there’s us.

Frater Kaitŵm.625, the Kite, 2º Adept IOT, British Isles Section Head

His website, The Kite’s Cradle

Dave Lee’s Tales of Magic (14th Instalment)

The I Ching Astral Doorways I

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.

Remembering Harriet Tubman

by Soror Brigantia

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?

See more at http://www.harriet-tubman.org/

Healing Meditation

by Soror Brigantia

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)

Ridden by the Horse

Ffynone Mari with chaostar and rain bonnet

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.

Invocation of the Mari Lwyd

Kite