Tag: pagan magick

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.

“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

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.

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