Tag: illuminates of thanateros british isles

You Are the Light: Inspiring Your Magical Community.

These are the notes of the talk ‘You are the Light: Inspiring Your Magical Community’ given by an IOT member at the Festival of Lights, Swansea, 2016.

What follows has basically been a pep talk to myself, brought to you in the hope that you find it useful too. The context of this talk is how we can each contribute to growing a magical community where we are. Some will want to stay at a greater distance, some will want to be deeply involved, but all are in their own way a part of our magical community.

We live in a broken culture. Everything about it screams to us that we are nothing but meat robots, designed by the random banging of particles and conditioned by forces outside our control. We are led to believe that everything we know is wrong and and everything is going to kill us.

Apparently, what we should do about this is blindly believe the experts who tell us all this, put ourselves in the hands of the authorities who pay those experts, and tranquilise ourselves and each other with light entertainment and shopping. Oh, and hand over our money quietly and regularly.

It’s rubbish, isn’t it? It’s no way to live. And it’s a travesty of how we ought to be living.

As pagans, occultists, ‘spiritual’ people and so forth we know better. Whatever our individual beliefs we each know that we are not pointless puppets and that this mad sorry-go-round that is our society is in need of that dimension which we might call the divine, the holistic, the spiritual, the Mystery, whatever you call it.

Unfortunately, on a day-to-day basis, it can be hard for us to hang onto our sense of the Mystery etc. etc.. We are bombarded and indoctrinated in our very homes by television, social media and news media and essentially panicked into doing nothing about it. We have war after inexplicable war, reports of weather becoming unsteadily more extreme, health scares, scapegoating of minorities, oh and brace yourselves folks because it looks like we’re heading for another worldwide recession. You won’t hear that on the BBC.

We bolster our morale with our sense of Mystery etc. etc., only to have the boffins of the culture deride us for fantasising like children. As a result we often doubt ourselves and our beliefs and what they mean in our lives. It’s too easy to lose your pagan spirituality down a dark, dark hole. And if we struggle on alone against this constant pressure, we can either buckle and conform and backslide into being just another consumer, or we can drive ourselves into a mental breakdown trying to deal with it all. Marvellous choice: depression or psychosis.

A grim fightback is not an option. Mostly because grim is not an option: that’s no way to go through life. If we find ourselves down a dark hole, what we need is some light.

So where does it come from, this light? In this Festival of Lights, what’s going to keep us lit up? Society at large wants us to always look to someone else, but society at large is ignorant and broken, so we’re not going with that.

1. Expect Light: let there be light. This time of year confidently expects and welcomes the increasing daylight and the rising of the sap. Change happens because people’s expectations are raised. Look around and see the possibilities, and see where change is beginning to bud.

We see some of the signs of the times: the broken materialist culture and its deadening effect on the spirit; the worsening unfairness of inequality and its deadly consequences for the have-nots; runaway consumerism and its destruction of cultures, species and climate. But we also see people rising up against these things, drawing on values that can’t be claimed by the banks, with vision that can’t be bought and sold, expecting and insisting that things change for the better.

So, reflect on your expectations. Can you imagine what it would be like for things to be different? If so, why not come to expect them to be so?

2. Be the Light that you want to see in the world. Thanks Ghandhi. It’s not the government, it’s not some charity, it’s not some wealthy benefactor, nor some guru or expert. It’s you. Every man and woman is a star, said Aleister Crowley. Every person is indeed a star. Inspire others with your own example of being the Light. Be the pagan you want to see in the world.

2a. To do so, develop your path. And your skills. Find in walking your personal path the motivation, the reasons, the inspiration to be That Pagan. Your path, whatever it is, has all you need. Wring it out, get all you can from it.

2b. In magic, we notice that if you want a spell to work you have to muck in and help. As Herakles told the cart-driver who’d gone into a ditch: put your shoulder to the wheel and I’ll help, but if you won’t help yourself you’re on your own. Exam success = spellcasting for it + doing the revision. The Warrior’s Call – magic – the sigil plus activism – it’s boots on the ground make the trucks turn around. By doing something practical, you are investing yourself in your magical act. You are part of the magic you cast. When you use magic to solve a problem, expect to be part of the solution. Therefore seek to contribute.

3. It’s not ‘me’: it’s We. The stars don’t shine alone. Although each is a tiny pinprick of light at a vast distance, together they create an awesome spectacle in the sky. For tens of thousands of years our ancestors have looked up at the stars and seen in their patterns and movements a divine order which they then sought to bring down to earth so that they could enter into union with the heavenly pattern, as above, so below. Individually we’re not much, but together we are the magnificence of heaven, inspiring all who live under the sky.

3a. Solidarity. Leave no-one out. A bit like the Buddhist boddhisattva vow not to get off the Wheel of Rebirth until all beings are liberated. Likewise, we are to accept each other, include each other, help each other along. And it’s hard to do, acting in solidarity with people with whom you deeply disagree. But we need to commit to this aspect of the project or it won’t come off.

In fact, pagans are very good at playing together nicely, compared to the different denominations of the mainstream religions. But we should be the last people in the world to refuse to have anything to do with someone because of religious or spiritual differences. In fact, I would recommend that we do everything we can to step beyond our cosy little circles of people who disagree with us and play in with others, without trying to change them. I would say that anyone, whoever they are, who wishes to be our allies in this should be welcomed as such.

3b. Nobody’s indispensable. Social work, charity work, voluntary organizations all create burnout. The people in them see so much need and they overextend to do the most they can. Inevitably, they make themselves indispensable to the effort, which means that when they burn out and drop out the whole effort falls apart without them.

3c. Be generous. Share the information, share the resources, share the decisions, share the limelight. Share the effort. Many hands make Light work.

Recap: Expect meaningful pagan living to be a powerful social force in our community, Be That Pagan, seek to contribute, in solidarity with each other and welcoming to others. Don’t be afraid to reach out and to share. After all, you are the Light.

The Insubordinate

Chaos magicians in general don’t like their magical life to be controlled by anyone. Yet the little pond of occultism is crammed with wannabe Big Fish; Mages, Grand Masters and Ipsissimi just gagging to tame us to bridle and bit for their own purposes which could make them anything from benign tyrant to barking mad cult leader.

The IOT was never going to be just another magical order: we are the cats you cannot herd. So how do we keep things organised while safeguarding our personal autonomy within our Pact? Or, as it’s mostly asked, how does a Chaos Order work?

One of the answers is the Insubordinate. This role is a mainstay of the Pact’s anti-authoritarian way of doing things but is by definition pretty alien to the majority of occulture. If you haven’t read the definitive account in the Book of the Pact, here’s a link: https://iotbritishisles.com/the-book-of-the-pact/. Let’s see what it says:

A repeated phrase in The Book is “Criticism in the Pact flows from the bottom to the top.” Just as there’s nobody to tell you what to think or believe, there’s nobody wagging their finger at you telling you you’re doing it wrong. This is the complete opposite of authority-led groups. Nevertheless, we have ‘leaders,’people ‘at the top.’ And so the role of Insubordinate was devised to keep them in check.

“Every Magister Templi, Adept, Magus, and Section Head, is assigned an Insubordinate … elected by Initiates and Neophytes.” They don’t get to choose somebody compliant: they get an Insubordinate foisted on them who is nobody’s pet.

“It is the task of the Insubordinate to ensure that the Magister Templi, Section Head, Adept or Magus does not neglect their personal magical progress and that they carry out their tasks well. There are different ways to fulfill the duties of the Insubordinate.

  • They may convey criticism with the loutishness of the Jester, making everything appear ridiculous,
  • or inquire with the Fool’s naivety about issues that are unclear.
  • Taking the role of Chaplain, the Insubordinate may point out personal weaknesses and blind spots of the recipient of the insubordination,
  • acting as Confessor they may receive reports on personal developments, as Inquisitor they may raise an objection to decisions.”

Accountability is the name of the game here. The Insubordinate is not just some personal assistant or PR rep. They proactively take the poor hierarchical figure to task where necessary, and may be as searching and uncompromising as they like. The German term for the Insubordinate is ‘Querulant.’ Says it all.

“These five roles of the Insubordinate consist of the following tasks.

  • Ensure that all explanations, speeches and teachings are clear to everyone and criticize those, which are not, and demand their clarification. Thus, the Fool’s task is to simulate ignorance where others pretend understanding.
  • Convey criticism with a certain easiness and impertinence. Thus the duty of the Jester is to take something appear ridiculous which others would like to diplomatically overlook.
  • Point out personal weaknesses and blind spots. Thus it is the responsibility of the Chaplain to handle personal issues in an impartial manner.
  • Receive reports on personal magical development without commenting on them. Thus it is the task of the Confessor to offer protection from laziness and self-satisfaction.
  • Hold the right to veto any instruction and to inform a Magus, the Section Head or the Council of the Magi about its exercise. Thus it is the Inquisitor’s duty to prevent the abuse of position.

Predominantly the Insubordinate will conduct their official business with the Recipient of their insubordination in private. It may be advisable for the Recipient to inform their Insubordinate about any controversial events beforehand in order to prevent the exercise of a veto in public.”

That veto. The unstoppable power to say ‘No!’ to what a higher grade proposes, with no comeback. This is a powerful tool for undercutting authoritarianism.

Furthermore, the Insubordinate may use their role on behalf of any other member who feels a need to criticise, especially those who might not feel comfortable presenting their criticism themselves. The Insubordinate’s intervention gives them anonymity and shields them from any possible reprisals.

How’s a megalomaniac supposed to operate under these conditions? Thanks to the Insubordinates, not at all.

AEPALIZAGE!

the Kite

“This Is My Will”

by Soror Brigantia

Developing a magical will has never been an issue for me. Stubborn and determined to the core; formulating a goal, planning the process of achieving said goal, executing the plan and achieving the goal at the end has been a natural process for me.

This has been surprising for some folks that I have met throughout my life, who thought that being introverted meant being weak and took it upon themselves to foolishly attempt to bully me into a course of action that I did not want to take. However nothing will persuade me into doing something I do not want, immovable as a mountain and as stubborn as Balaam’s ass … I would not be moved!

If my heart is set on something I will achieve it by hook or by crook. If I find that a door is closed unto me then I will either get a battering ram and smash the door to smithereens or will take the side route and find a way around the door, perhaps through a side gate that’s been left unlocked. I have always found a way. If a person gets in my way, well, that only encourages me to work harder for the goal and makes the victory all the more sweet.

This has served me well in the sense that I have met all the goals that I had as a child and have had awesome experiences – seen things and done things that go beyond what would have been expected for me as a child. I have also gone beyond my own expectations of myself as a direct result of my experiences within the Illuminates of Thanateros and have done things I would not have done otherwise and have been all the better for it. I have used a combination of magical and non-magical means to build for myself the life that I wanted.

However this determined carpe diem nature has also led to a feeling of tension or stress within my self; the type of tension that any completer/ achiever has I guess. Sometimes I enjoy the fight and sometimes I don’t but it does feel like a fight on occasions.

Due to the pandemic however I have experimented with a different way of doing things. Maybe this is because the keyworking I was doing made my working life busier than it usually is. Sometimes the pandemic stress impacts on my cognitive functioning and just getting through the pandemic successfully is all one can manage. Maybe it’s because I am getting into a time of life where I want to chill more and no longer feel the need to be so goal driven.

Lately I have been experimenting with working more with the energy that is there and making that work for me. Instead of battering down the closed door I am now finding a different door one that is open and working with that as opposed to aggressively focusing on the locked one. Working with the Tao and finding the path that is obstacle free and making that work for me is a gentler way of working with my magical will.

I don’t always achieve exactly what I want with this method, I achieve something else which is of equal value with the knowledge that aggressively achieving is not always necessary. There are other ways to live.

This has led to my now having more than one way of working with my magical will. I can choose to work gently with the energy that presents to me but I can still take a battering ram when I want to. Flexibility is the key.

Soror Brigantia is a Magus of the Pact and a former British Isles Section Head

Artistry in Magick

by Soror Brigantia 739

For many years it’s been my preference to undertake works of magick in a way that is aesthetically pleasing to me. While magic can be done without this and can be done without any magical tools at all, for me nothing beats the sheer joy of creating a piece of spell work that is beautiful, using tools that have been beautifully handcrafted by artisans or crafted by myself. I find that this is particularly effective if I want my heart to sing during the ritual to make use of magical items that do just that.

Having always had a great appreciation of art and spending many a happy afternoon mooching around art galleries, exploring the emotions that the art work invoked in me and how I related with the art, doing the same magically is a logical consequence.

One of my most interesting experiences in a gallery was viewing Van Gogh’s Starry Night in The Museum of Modern Art in New York and being asked by security to move along as I had been staring at the painting for too long. The reason for my length of time at the painting was due to having transported into the painting itself and directly interacting with the night sky in the painting. To me it felt as if I’d been there a few minutes but it was a couple of hours. It was a very confusing experience for my 20 year old self but nonetheless an awesome experience and only increased my love for that particular painting.

My opinion on making magick beautiful has become a tad unpopular as more pragmatic magic-on-the-go systems tend to be popular within chaos magic but I have my reasons for taking the time to make a ritual visually appealing. I have found that the beauty and artistry of some magical paradigms and rituals make a helpful counter to the ugliness that can be seen in the world today. Sadly, I cannot walk through a town centre without seeing perpetrator behaviour, arguments, people who are depressed, anxious or broken due to the pressures of life. I see alcohol and drug abuse and on occasion signs of human trafficking. This is happening within half a mile of where I am currently sitting – or perhaps even closer. It breaks my heart; I have nothing but empathy for all of the tears of Erzulie.

If I can undertake small acts, however small to create an act of beauty in this world then I will, and I will bring that into my magical practice whenever possible. What difference that may make to the world I do not know but as Gandhi said “What you do may be insignificant but it is important that you do it.”

So I have spent some of my time during lockdown doing what a lot of people are doing- making arts and crafts. Some people are making clothes, knitting blankets and doing some awesome embroidery. My crafts are of course of the witch variety and some of these have been inspired by my 2018 visit to New Orleans. People who practice Conjure and Voodoo in New Orleans are experts in making magical objects and know how to do it with beauty and grace.

Inspired by their example I have made magical objects that are physically in the New Orleans style although they would have been magically charged differently, in my own Welsh way. Some of these objects have taken months to make, which is beneficial during these very stressful times. During the making my mind is focused on my statement of intent and not on how stressful my life is being a key worker in a pandemic, so the work has a therapeutic as well as a magical value.

I find that the process of making magic a work of beauty as well as finding the beauty and joy whenever and wherever you can not only counters the ugliness that can also be found in the world but also brings the magician into the place of calm stillness where one is better able to find one’s own practical solutions to the difficulties that we encounter in the world today.

The Art of Chaos

Dave Lee’s Tales of Magic (16th Instalment)

1983: More Chaos (in both senses)

Some time in 1982 Pete Carroll went to live in Bristol and founded an IOT Temple there, known as Cabal Heraclitus. In 1983 he asked our little Leeds group (PD, Robin, Rodney and myself) to try out a new series of sorcery pathworkings, the Cthonos Rite (a CD of this is still available from New Falcon, http://www.originalfalcon.com/chaos-magick-audios-1-cthonos-rite.php ). This is a set of five elemental pathworkings, suitable for enchantment, divination, illumination, evocation and invocation.

Here is an excerpt from the first one:

THURS 10TH NOV 1983: TEMPLE OF EARTH (Evocation)

The room is square, faintly illuminated by a glowing yellow double-cube altar on which is a pen, ink, a small wand and a square of yellow paper.

Around me is visialised a bright circle on the floor, and to the North, a bright triangle of evocation.

Sigil drawn on paper, black on yellow, of ERAMI (a Franz Bardon spirit), and traced over with the wand drawing it in light, and making the intention to summon him.

We asked him to produce £22 within a week. On THURS 17th November I noted: ‘Failure’.

Overall, we had three failures; the above one, our skrying for a hit single (Water/Divination Temple), and a weather spell (Air/Invocation Temple). The Spirit / Illumination working was a telepathy experiment which produced a partial success. The big hit was the Fire (Enchantment) Temple (I also wrote about this in Bright From the Well):

MON 21ST NOV: TEMPLE OF FIRE: Intention: To cause mistakes in the reading of the BBC 9 o’clock news between 9.10 and 9.15 this evening, fault on sound severe enough to warrant an apology.

At Rodney’s, 8.35-58 pm, Astral Travel incense and oil.

Standing in a line facing the aperture in Temple of Fire, visualizing BBC News Studio, with chaosphere above newsreader influencing her to be confused in speech, clock on wall repeatedly running between 9.10 & 9.15.

Chaos reigned throughout the working: candles wouldn’t light, then were knocked over, tape had irritating feedback noise through it, alarm bell in the bakery a few doors along went off near the beginning of rite and only stopped at 9 o’clock. There was a problem with finding TVs that were working and not being watched on other channels; eventually we ended up at a friend’s, at 9.06!

Total success: Just after 9.10 Sue Lawley made a slight speech fault and corrected it. During film there were overlapping voice-tracks for which she apologized at 9.14. This is thoroughly chaotic, for BBC news!

The only meeting of Cabal Heraclitus I ever went to was a public event, on Yule 1983, with the band Mark Stewart and the Mafia. The rock star was to be a sacrificed god. I was to be his attendant, and my friend Jessica was to be High Priestess. The other four ritual participants were Cabal Heraclitus members. One of them was quite well know for losing it and causing crazy scenes. Someone had passed round some speed in the afternoon, and that was probably a mistake, given the presence of that person.

THURS 22ND DEC: WINTER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION, BRISTOL:

Present: Pete Carroll, Faedra, Claire, Richard at quarters. Jessica and myself.

The scripted and rehearsed order of ritual was abandoned, due to some problem Mark Stewart had. He read some Burroughsian texts but, as for the magical working, only its barest framework was used. The Mass of Chaos B was read from the stage and various proclamations were made, before chaos – in the vulgar sense – broke loose and Faedra jumped down off the stage and started fighting with a member of the audience (Simon).

At this point, Pete seized the microphone and wound it up, announcing ‘The manifestation of chaos is at an end.’ This was optimistic – the two chaps in front of the stage kept slugging it out for a while longer, but at least it enabled the magicians on stage to relinquish any further magical responsibility.

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.

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.

Dave Lee’s Tales of Magic (15th Instalment)

The I Ching Astral Doorways II

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.

THURS 19TH NOV. 1981: CHING GATE 12: P’I, STANDSTILL

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.

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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.