It is sadly true that in many pagan and magical communities, individuals who have much to gain from working together are spending too much time and energy in pointless arguments, paranoia and hostility. We’ve all seen it — the “witch wars,” the malicious gossip, the fragmentation of communities over issues both great and small. Writing about the disconnections we encounter, as I did in the last issue, can seem like nothing more than complaints and accusations, but it’s necessary to look at our communities and groups with discernment, and to be honest about what we find there.

I feel this is doubly important now, because of the fractious and divisive tone the over-culture has adopted. You see it everywhere — from political discourse to mundane interactions. Media portrays a country divided, with the rhetoric running hot, violent and hyperbolic. Casual violence — in word and gesture if not outright blows — seems to be in the air we breathe. There are many reasons for this, but the illusion of separateness is at the heart of this phenomenon. Only by refusing to view other beings as worthy of respect, forbearance and compassion are we able to do and say the hateful, hurtful things that have replaced common civility in public discourse. I’ve done this myself, and I know it was my inability to trust, my unwillingness to see others as more than obstacles in my way, that was at the heart of my hatefulness.

Lately I found myself becoming enraged at the terrible traffic in my neighborhood, and “talking smack” about mutual friends with a colleague, for no reason at all. The negative emotional charge behind my reactions to both these events was shocking to me, and caused me to look further. My feelings of powerlessness and incompetence were at the base. Disconnected from my own sense of power and worth, it was an easy task to disconnect the very real humans in front of me from their own right to courtesy. Lacking respect for myself, it was easy to deny it to everyone else.

Alienation is the primary mental state of our culture, and the mechanisms that should be acting to bring us together are instead fostering the alienation and isolation, the outright paranoia of the other. “We” (i.e. “us”) are not “them,” and you can’t trust them. This wariness may be a logical precaution, but as magicians, we have to see look more closely at this message. Fostering this illusion of separation and hostility is in the interests of the dominator culture for various reasons — it distracts us from important things with red herrings; it discourages the building of alliances and coalitions; it reduces public discourse to the most infantile of bickering. All of this distracts us from the most pressing matters that demand our attention. We as magicians must be able to peer through this illusion of separation to see things as they are, connected in a web of interdependence so subtle and grand that we can only perceive tiny portions of it.

Connection is the natural state of life, not isolation. Predator and prey, seed and sower, flower and pollinator — it’s all about relationships and connections, give and take, a delicate balance that demands participation from all beings.

Of Wolves and Willows

I heard a report on NPR years ago that brought home to me the vast webs of connection that all Earth’s species share. In a move that is still controversial, wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park. Years later, biologists assessed the wolves’ impact on the terrain.

What they discovered surprised them. Creek beds that had been dry for years were suddenly full of water and wildlife. With wolves absent from the area, the elk had come out of the high country to graze in the low-lying willow stands along creek beds. Thus stripped of cover, the creeks would dry up. But with the wolves back in the landscape, the elk retreated back to the hills, and the willows were able to reestablish themselves, bringing along mink, otter, frogs, amphibians and songbirds. No one could have anticipated that reintroducing apex predators back into their former food chain would reestablish songbirds and crayfish as well, but it was true. We removed the wolves from the landscape long ago to serve human needs, and there were negative consequences we had in no way anticipated.

If those connections are rampant in the natural world, why do we think they don’t apply to us humans, and to human interactions and endeavors? The over-culture wants us to believe they don’t. Case in point: Many years ago I attended a lecture by Robert Bly, poet and a founder of the Men’s movement, and Deborah Tannen, linguistician and feminist scholar. The media hyped this event as the “battle of the sexes” and a “shouting match” between two polarized opponents. It was nothing of the kind. It was a lively discussion about gender, sex and power, where the tone stayed respectful and amiable, even when they disagreed. Bly and Tannen were able to discuss sensitive topics without degenerating into name-calling or antagonism, and were able to find more common ground than not. But that illusion of separation was what local media chose to focus on — men and women have different agendas, therefore they cannot be on the same side. Since they disagree on some things, they must disagree on all things, and what’s more, they must also be determined to destroy the other’s credibility. The over-culture sees anger and antagonism as logically following any kind of difference — if people aren’t the same, they must be in direct competition. This assumption that everyone is in an adversarial relationship has had a negative impact on all of us. This philosophical stance informs our thinking, if even on the most subtle level. It is our responsibility to look for a higher truth, and to find ways of coming together.

Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis

This is the promise of the Aeon. If we live in polarized times, with the discursive pendulum swinging wildly from one extreme to another, we as magicians have a responsibility to find that new middle ground that is informed by both the wisdom and follies of the past while creating something better. With clear-eyed discernment and openhearted compassion, we see through the illusions of separation, and resolve them in our own psyches. It is our responsibility to look beyond mere surfaces and to not fall prey to the prejudices and hatreds socialized into us. Each conscious soul must part the Veil of this illusion themselves, in order to fully integrate this lesson. The illusion of separation exists as a test to us and a challenge to our imaginations, to see if we can transcend our pain and powerlessness, to create something better. After all, we are divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union.

How do we get past this illusion of separation? Through engagement with the “real world,” the mundane, our dharma. For the next month, try to discover those connections in your life that are rendered invisible. Where does your tap water come from? Where does your garbage go? Where does your food come from? How well do you know your neighbors, your town? You might be surprised at the answers. You might also find new ways of connecting with the world, with other people, new ways of creating a better, more conscious life. And wouldn’t that be powerful act of magick?

©2010 by Leni Hester.
Edited by Sheta Kaey.

It might seem strange to discuss something as nebulous as “spirit” with such a formal word as “anatomy.” But rest assured that the word is appropriate and necessary. I use the word spirit here to refer to spirits as parts of living beings, in both therapeutic and everyday contexts.

Usually, on a daily basis, people tend to act as if the mind and body are separate and mostly unrelated, and the spirit is non-existent. And on a daily basis and in the daily world we function effectively and if not happily, complacently, as if the mind/ body/ spirit split is perfectly natural. But it does not have to be “natural.” In fact, I suspect that the expression of the “naturalness” of this arbitrary distance between the spiritual and the everyday is predicated not so much on the nature of the spirit, as on the feeling of distance and longing of the myth-tellers of our culture.

When I was young and just beginning to study and read, I found a passage in Michael Harner’s Way of the Shaman¹ that I took to heart. Harner wrote that it was expected that someone who was competent in the world of the spirits would be competent in the everyday world as well. Admittedly, the two worlds are not so separate, but there would have been no point in explaining that to my nineteen-year-old self. The lesson, however, remains the same.

The actual interrelationship between the mind, body, and spirit can be best understood by recognizing that the boundaries between them are imposed. Imposed by what, or whom? Imposed by the weight of culture and humanity’s aggregate experience, these boundaries seem as real as anything. They are artifacts of culture, as real as language, or education, or money, or status. Such boundaries are not something to be cast aside lightly. They are not something without meaning, power, and purpose. At the same time, they can be mutable and permeable, although we often treat them as if they are not.

One of the buzzwords of a liberal arts education is the word “hegemony.” This is an individual’s participation in his or her own subjugation under a system that works against his or her best interests. I bring it up here only because a similar relationship exists between a person’s mind and self. It is through our own constant efforts that both the body and spirit are subjugated, silenced, and held hostage.

For many people, especially as they age, the spirit — long ignored and fed only in dribs and drabs — atrophies and hardens, drawing its power not from the realm of the spirit, but from the body and the mind. Insofar as they have “spiritual” relationships, these tend to be based on group membership, relationships, and friendships. Family, church, workplace, home, a favorite sports team or television show, become sources of spiritual connection. Through these groups, our own neglected spirit comes together with the neglected spirits of others.

We participate in groups that share our spiritual power; we feed the egregores that define them and are also defined by them. But it is rare that there is any true source beyond the dim flames of spirit huddled together for comfort and warmth.

One of the greatest sources of spiritual connection available to us in our culture is relationships. Think about the rush of a budding romance; the first flush that lifts us up is the assuaging of our spiritual hunger. That is the spiritual side that draws us to a new partner. Within our culture there are few options to slake that thirst. Is it no wonder that so many of our stories focus on these moments? Truly, that is the meaning of soul-mate, and why, despite our best efforts and intentions, we burn out these relationships so quickly.

Most of the options that we can find in Western culture to counteract this effect are based on an opposing assumption: that the spirit is greater than either the mind or the body. People who find sources of spiritual sustenance outside of themselves and other people are often considered on the “fringe”: Charismatic Christians, New Age healers of varied stripes, as well as people who study magic can all fall into this category.

Charismatic Christians certainly gain from being able to offer a person access to the realm of the spirit, and hold that the spirit is greater than the world. They might, indeed, be the classic example of this method, though they are not the only one. New Age healers, as a group, often match this exact same approach. People who study magic — whether members of Western Mystery Traditions, Wiccans, or out-and-out neo-shamans — certainly can fall into this category.

Whatever the source of spiritual reawakening, a spiritually starved person will latch onto any source of spirit like a hungry baby to a swollen teat, or a drowning man to a raft . . . or another drowning person. Selfishness, fear, panic, and the struggle to draw a breath long denied come together in the newly “awakened” person. This can become the monomania of a new convert, the foolishness of a fresh love, the addiction of coming closer to the divine.

The interrelationship between the mind, body, and spirit is, in fact, predicated on the lack of actual boundaries between these parts of ourselves. Recognizing that mind, body, and spirit are not just interconnected, but of one whole, is not only more accurate, but also allows us to not be beholden to the tripartite model. Instead, we can use such models to interact with these parts of self. “Of one whole” here means interrelated, not undifferentiated. This is an important distinction. Just as we would not walk on our noses, we should not treat our spirits as our bodies, nor our bodies as our spirits. Each “part” of ourselves should be honored for what it is, and respected as such.

In our culture, when mind, body, and spirit do interact, it is usually the mind connecting directly with either the spirit or the body. The culturally common division of the physical from the spiritual prevents us from even examining the possibilities of a more complicated interrelationship.

When the spirit interacts directly with the body, it is an experience we label to instinct. That instinct is not biological, not inborn, but rather is a trainable and useful faculty. I imagine that referring to the spirit as “trainable” might offend some people, but I strongly believe, based on experience, that it is through the disciplining of our spirits that allows us to grow as people. And while a linear model (Fig. 1):

may be a legitimate model, a model that better fits my experience is one in which the mind, body, and spirit all directly relate to one another, and none is preeminent, or of greater value (Fig. 2).

The addition of the interrelationships among the three aspects in Figure 2 bears some discussion. The “self” here is neither illusory nor otherwise an aspect of the mind. Instead it arises in the commonalities of all the aspects of the greater self. Yet this model also gives a place to aspects of a person that were wholly ignored in the traditional model. Most specifically, I am referring to a deeper understanding of what are often called “psychosomatic” effects — effects that resemble illness but do not stem from physical causes. By Western models, these effects are “in the mind” but the relationship between the two aspects, if shifted away from the linear model, makes it clear that the effect could originate in the mind or the body, or perhaps even in the spirit.

The place where the mind and the spirit meet is what we commonly call the “chakras.” They are of the spirit but they are also the root of much of what we experience as the everyday mind. Emotions, thoughts, and our connections with others all reside in this place where the mind and the spirit meet.

At the same time, there is a place in the self, as many martial artists and professional athletes in general can attest, where the normal mind does not reach, and where (however it is described) the spirit and the body take action without the intervention of thought. This is the level of instinct, but it can be (and often is) far more than that.

The first step to train the spirit is to bring it into balance with the mind and body, neither ruling nor neglected. As that is done, the second step is strengthening the spirit and increasing its flexibility. There are a number of ways to do this: one fairly famous example would be the daily performance of a ritual such as the LBRP² or any number of similar traditions³. The training of the spirit is no different from the training of any other human faculty only in the details.

This article has come a long way to say that the human spirit is neither an unimportant part of the self to be disregarded, nor the central part to be put on a pedestal or put in charge, but truly an integral part to be trained, cared for, honored, and respected. Further, the mind is not the central part of the self, but only maintains that position by subordinating the body and distancing the spirit.

©2010 by Christopher Drysdale.
Edited by Sheta Kaey.

Footnotes

1. Way of the Shaman (2nd Ed.), Michael Harner, 1990
2. Modern Magick: Eleven Lessons in High Magick, Donald Michael Kraig, 1988
3. Chosen by the Spirits: Following Your Shamanic Calling, Sarangerel, 2001

To the COREz cru, and to Robert Anton Wilson, R.I.P.
ALL HAIL ERIS!

Back when we were whippersnapper wizards, knee high to an incubus, the feared and fabulous Churche of Random Ethicz (COREz) convened in desolate spots and dirty squats for ancient rites with a post-modern twist. Our Chaos Crèche was situated on this earthly plane in a Manchester basement. There was an elemental symbol on each wall, a gnarled fetish staff hung with charms in the corner, and a homemade Baphomet sitting on the altar, with a greedy pot belly and tiny red eyes glaring out from his black face. Lord Mungdungus was the driving force behind our devilry, a voodooist with a passion for astral fiddling, who invited Kali-ma for magical evenings in, feeling up hir knockers.

For our first rite in the new space, to christen it (so to speak), we began with the I.A.O. banishing ritual, a no-frills version of an exercise which traditionally involves the invocation of archangels, the recitation of sutras, or something else to clear the space of unclean spirits, hungry ghosts and other denizens of the astral plane. Flippant magi, too lazy even to take the Lord’s name in vain properly, we contracted the sacred names to vowels. We began with “iiiiiiiiiih,” sung high, with the hands above the head to energise the third eye, and next we intoned “aaaaaaaaah” with arms out to the side to warm up the heart and chest. Finally we dropped our arms and our attention to the guts to sing “oooooh.” It sounds like “oooooh, you’re in trouble now!“, which in fact we were. Someone traced a few pentacles in the air with an antique Nepalese blade, and Beelze-Bob’s your uncle, temple cleared!*At least that was the theory according to Mr. B, who did magick by sheer bloody mindedness, staring at sigils for bliss for hours at a stretch until he was damn well good and blissful. He was all bare bones, figure and philosophy, and he wanted our rites the same way, so we stripped the banishing rite of angels and drama, incense and nonsense, leaving only the vowels.

My ex-girlfriend sang “oooooh” for longer than the rest of us, instinctively aware perhaps that our opening was incomplete. She was the most unbalanced and most powerful of all of us, a witch from Tring (the site of the last English witch-drowning), who rode her ketamine-fueled broomstick across the astral sky, leaving a trail of sneezes. That day, however, everyone was straight.

The final joker in the pack was the Nealist, a no-holds-barred reality-wrestler, who began The Churche as an art project. This featured him standing alongside genuine street evangelists, distributing instructions on how to buy your way into heaven, and filming the inevitable row. He was the agent selected to interrupt and irritate the Archbishop of Canterbury during a ritual at his public address. The idea was to collect the anger of the earthly mouthpiece of God in a specially adapted bong Lord M was surreptitiously sucking on. I fear this bottle of unholy water is still in his possession.

We announced our intention to consecrate the crèche, and tied a button that had spent the day in my mouth onto the fetish-staff. Linking arms in the shape of a pentagram, talking in tongues, shaking and incanting, building up gradually to a high-paced cacophony of mock-Latin shouting: “dominu, infanto perterburantor rectibus rectum, nunc sordat frustus omniemnes et cetera, gets betterer.” When we were suitably wired, we exorcised the place in the manner of the priest from the exorcist, flicking holy water stolen from a church around with toothbrushes. When we felt we had the place covered we untraced the pentacles, dashed through the I.A.O., and went our separate ways to bed.

Back in the real world the following morning, I was in excellent spirits, blissing out on my bike up the Oxford Road, floating up the stairs of the Maths Tower, and giggling my way through my first lecture, but during the second lecture, a headache rapidly progressed to nausea and dizziness. By the bell my groans were disturbing the class. A friend from my Buddhist group was sitting next to me. She had attended the ritual humiliation of the Archbishop, and knew what antics I got up to whilst out of lotus, so she walked me down the stairs, helped me locate my bicycle, and because there was no way I could ride it, she took my arm and we stumbled through the streets of Fallowfield to my house, where she left me in the care of my witch. The rest of the day is a complete blur as I drifted in and out of consciousness; I only remember the pain. It was like nothing I had ever experienced, a migraine localized to a point above one eye, with nausea, loss of balance, and a feeling like millions of microscopic insects were crawling around under my skin. My witch spent the day looking after me, and told me afterward that I had been babbling in tongues and moaning. I had barely suffered even slight headaches before, but this was absolute agony. By the evening it had began to subside, but I felt occasional electric twinges in that spot for months. (Over ten years later, after a series of curious events beginning at the Stockwell Spiritualist Church and ending with a voice shouting my name as I lay in bed, I enrolled in a mediumship course and learned a lot more about that spot.)

The moral of the story is, of course, don’t be a fuckwit. Electricians take precautions to avoid shocks, and sorcerers, black, white, and all shades of gray should do the same when working with energy. Incant, invoke, do what thou wilt, but clear your space and your head, with as much intent as you put into your intention, before and after, and whenever you feel the need, even silently on the night bus. Golden Dawn novices spend their first year practising the banishing on a daily basis for good reason. Untrace the pentacles, thank the archangels, say your Hail Mary’s, bang your gong, do what needs to be done, but close your work and lock the door.

If you want magick in your life, it is yours, but start carefully with a tarot reading, a course at a psychic college, or a Daime session. If you feel an overwhelming pull to the left, there are instructions in Appendix Chaos, but master a proper banishing first, and steer clear of Ouija boards and Enochian until you know exactly what you are working with. My granny traced the goblins in her loo and the voices in her head back to a youthful Ouija board. There are all sorts in the astral, from glorious archangels to horribly boring grey shades shuffling along like commuters on station platforms, and there are also plenty of mosquitoes, flies, and worms doing their various jobs. Some entities love flesh, the way some of us love spirit, and they may exploit any opening you offer. They are not evil; neither are hungry tigers, but wise explorers take care in the jungle all the same.

Like psychedelics, magick opens you up, so dabble with respect, with experienced people. There is no need to be scared or paranoid, but no need to be silly either. Group work is much more unpredictable, because a group, especially a group of nutters, can easily raise enough energy collectively to frazzle someone’s circuitry, whereas one person usually raises only a safe amount. We precocious sorcerers had no doubts about the power of magick, but we didn’t appreciate the dangers, and we were too punk to care. I don’t think I permanently flipped my lid, and I stopped doing group Chaos works after that rite, but reality has never been the same since.

Magick works. It works wonders, but the most surprising thing to come out of the hat is the revelation that there is more to the universe than we are led to believe. Magick can also teach a young punk to take responsibility for his reality, which he makes up as he goes along, as he likes, and as he deserves. In this blurry plane, you get what you ask for. I spent hours one night catching a mosquito alive for a blood sacrifice to bring me ganja, which I was craving after a few dry weeks in Mexico. The following morning, wandering lost in the streets of Cuernavaca, I saw a man with a tattoo of a Chaos star, the symbol of my magical line. A magician stays alert for potential pathways, and I recognised an angel of Chaos disguised as a punk. When I stopped him, the first thing he said to me, even before “hello”, was “do you want a smoke?”

It was great to have a confirmation so quickly, and a welcome mash-up, but in retrospect, all it did was reinforce a habit. A magick wand can be a crowbar to bust out of your cage, but pursuing earthly desires reinforces the cage with magical metal. Living in a magical mode, you don’t need to do magick; it does you. Once the Monkey of Thoth is done peeking up the skirt of the goddess, once he is done trying to penetrate the goddess, he lets magick penetrate him, and he becomes the goddess. Coincidences abound. What you need falls in your lap at the perfect moment, without effort, and without incantation. But first you need to believe. Actually, you just need to try.

Evil eyes, Cupid’s arrows, and ghosts, holy and otherwise, were consensus reality for aeons, and everything from a broken arm to a successful hunt was a manifestation of spirit. We are in the midst of a coup. A godless clergy has ousted the sorcerers, rainmakers, and wyrd sisters, but it is a very recent, very local scrap. Reality used to be far more fluid. In Saint Médard in the early eighteenth century, for example, many thousands of previously skeptical eyewitnesses attested that they had seen miraculous healings, and convulsions during which people were impervious to torture and blows with sharp objects.546 This kind of thing is rare today. The scientistic faction stormed the field with brilliant gadgets and weapons, and new theories to dominate the mindscape. For astrologers, the ‘flu was an influence from the stars (hence “influenza”). Shamans saw malignant spirits, and for ayurvedic doctors it was imbalance between the chakras, but science shows us a bug, and who can argue with a bug? It is not the root of the problem. Like everything else, it is a shadow of something invisible, but it is a shadow anyone can see under the electron microscope.

With science, we live in a world of highly pervasive shadows. In a pre-scientific world, everyone can keep their local gods,their magicks and beliefs, and the world remains fractured, but science provides a truth that can’t be denied, and a language in which we can all communicate. Like Christianity, which highly dispersed and different peoples with a book to discuss and interpret the world with, science elevates us beyond our tribal cosmologies, and brings us together. Also like Christianity, it confuses itself for the one true truth when it is only one of many, neither the most interesting, nor the best for achieving certain ends. This truth is, however, potentially universal. It is capable of embracing even the magicks it ousted, if only the Scientistic Inquisition would stop applying the brain-screws, and bishops would obey their own commandments to look without prejudice, to experiment rather than opine, to explain as simply as possible. Science works. But magick plays as well. A mage incants, and within twelve hours he is rewarded with a bag of weed or a horrendous migraine. Sounds like a coincidence? Magick is the art of manipulating coincidence. It is also action at a distance, immediate transfer of information, hidden pathways, the memory of water; goblins pounding on the heavily stained-glass windows of the Churche of Scyense.

One big difference between magick today and in times past is that a working group can be much larger. The largest gathering in the history of humanity was a religious event, Kumbha Mela 2001, with seventy million souls havin’ it large in India. About 2.5 billion tuned into the necromancy of Princess Diana’s memorial service,547 and she was already making appearances and healing miraculously within days of her death.548 There is no technical obstacle to stop a group e-mail going to the entire wired world to organise a rite. We are limited by neither technology nor reality, only politics and lack of imagination. If we stopped squabbling and synchronised our wills and watches, nothing would be beyond us, not even refreezing our icecaps. The science of magick can dig us out of the hole we have made. Magick is on its way back, new and improved, post-scientific, post-modern, post-punk, and just in the nick of time.

So what are we waiting for?
. . . the bleedin’ Messiah?

©2010 by The Reverend Nemu.
Edited by Sheta Kaey.

Forgotten over the years
Pushed to the back of minds weighed down with mundane concerns
He waits in solitude for the day
When someone may remember, and keep him company

A chill wind blows from the north
Reminding one who lives along the shore
Of someone she held dear in time long past
Yet the thought is more a whisper than a shout

He feels the pain of being a promise broken
Yet still he abides behind the veil
A soul immortal cannot die
But can be buried by the wretchedness of anguish borne alone

He looks down upon the sea below his vantage point
And longs to be free of his boundless solitude
He extends his arms, and falling forward from the height, joins the sea birds in their flight
Twisting, wheeling, unafraid

The soul immortal cannot die
He touches surf and is drawn beneath the waves
The sun reflects off the surface of the water,
Revealing a dark, familiar shape below

Along another shore in a world far away
A woman feels a pang within her breast
She is weary and wishes she could sleep forever
And walk the shores of an eternal dream

Something lies beneath the surface of her memories
A treasure that she lost long ago
Someone who understood the unflagging sorrow
A breath inhaled and exhaled, lost forever

She will reach beyond the veil this night
And take the hand of the one who waits
Forgotten to the conscious mind that buries dreams beneath stacks of unpaid bills
Burdened by joys thrust aside in favor of unending toil

Some things cannot be explained away by logic
Tested away by science, prayed away by dogmatic religion
She has labored long and hard for futile gain
Happiness has waited long enough

Tonight she shall sail away to join the one who waits beneath the waves
To dwell on shadowed shores where the blinding light of the orthodoxy never reaches
She is weary of a world wherein to survive she must forget what she holds most dear
Tonight is her last night among the striving masses

Tonight at last he rises from the sea
To dwell forever in the shadows of a land
Created by the dark dreams of souls misunderstood
Never again shall he abide alone
For at last he has someone to dream with

Rose LeMort is a clairvoyant and fiction author. Her first published work will be a revision of the 2007 novel, Eternal Death I: Lost Beneath the Surface, which was originally penned by Lily Strange. The revised novel is due out by the end of this year. Rose works in tandem with her spirit companion, Kai Rikard. For more information, visit Rose’s website or her Facebook page.

©2010 by Rose LeMort.