Word

“Magickal terms are rather limited in our culture.”

-- Peter J. Carroll, General Considerations on the Philosphy and Practice of Magick

I’ve said before that I enjoy chaos magick thinking not because of the deification of randomness, or the simplistic systems used. I enjoy chaos magick because it forces the magus to look at their workings as experiments. Due to the personal nature of magick, nothing can be taken for granted. While we respect the work of those who came before us, we see the need for continued evaluation of their effectiveness.

To do this, chaotes seek to create a vocabulary of magick. Without a consistent means of describing our experiences, we cannot share our results. To exacerbate things, most magickal terms work only within the specific belief system that created them. Also, magickal terms are often shared between belief systems, sometimes with contradictory meanings.

This last weekend I spent more time than usual discussing magick. I attended the Indianapolis Pagan Pride festival, and the inaugural meeting of my new group, Collegium Arcanum. As usual I enjoyed the people I met at these events. I learned a lot about magick and the people who practice it. I am ashamed to admit, however, that I times various cliques within the gatherings fell to talking about the “others”.

The “others” being those who do not believe the same way you do, or are perceived to have a greater or lesser degree of dedication to their magickal practices. Sometimes the “others” are simply those who align themselves with different people within the group. I admit I participated in some of this.

In fact, I participate in it too often. My anger demon often lashes out at things I don’t understand. I’ve often said, “I don’t understand the appeal of Thelema, but I love Thelemites.” I don’t have much appreciation for the works of Aleistar Crowley, but it seems I enjoy the company of those who do. This makes things difficult for me, as I am argumentative by nature. At times it manifests as belittling some one's beliefs. A habit I seek to correct in my behaviour.

Perhaps, in essence, many of my disagreements with other occultists come from a lack of a shared language. When someone says “angel” I automatically think, “Judeo-Christian”. I often need to stop my thought process to absorb the possibility they may be talking about something entirely different. When someone says “God” I automatically think patriarchal and monotheistic. Once again, this does not accurately describe the beliefs of the people using the word.

Now more that ever, as magickal traditions become more eclectic and diverse, we need a shared magickal language. Some will be naturally resistant to this, as they may believe it removes their tradition from the center of “rightness”. Yet almost every occultist I know subscribes to the belief that everyone has a right to their own path, which may be the correct one for them. If you truly subscribe to this, then you must be prepared to call your “angel” an “entity”. You may want to consider that your notion of “God” may be closer to “guiding principle”.

In the early years of Christianity, many of the old pagan gods were branded as demons. We become the same kind of spiritual bullies if we refuse to entertain the notion that one person’s demon can be another person’s angel.

Where do we begin? I’m not sure. I would love to hear your thoughts. We can, however, remember to describe our own works in the most general terms possible, so that others can best interpret them.

Preach

       I subscribe to a good number of pagan news feeds. Almost all of them warn me of the impending Christian-right takeover. One particularly repugnant group being focused on lately, the New Apostolic Reformation, have made many inroads into government, and seek to go national with their chosen presidential candidate, Rick Perry. This doesn’t particularly alarm me, not that I want to live in a theocracy, only that it seems to be a natural extension of current political trends. 


       What makes me slap my face in sorrowful disbelief is the reaction. I never felt the need to move away from a friend before, until one of mine became a rabid atheist. What happened? I used to watch Fox News, just to keep tabs on what these ass-bags were up to. I remember ten years ago, when some blonde retarded Fox pundit would rail against the “liberal atheist agenda.” I would laugh my ass off. Atheist agenda? Atheists don’t have agendas. All the atheists I knew then were quite happy to go about their lives not believing, and not caring if you believed one way or the other. Not anymore.


       Sadly, the atheists now use the same tools as their enemy. They put up billboards. They attack people on the internet, calling in to question a person’s intelligence for believing in “invisible people.” What’s even worse, just like their enemies they use their beloved science for their own agendas. My one friend went out of her way to say she could disprove the existence of an historical Jesus. As if that was important. I tried to point out that science really can’t disprove anything. I went so far as to show the preponderance of historical documents verifying his existence. Nope, all of them were faulty. 


       Word to budding historians. When you find one piece of evidence for something and it has flaws, you don’t have good evidence. When you find several pieces of evidence and try to say all of them are flawed, you need to reevaluate.


       So as I see pagan faiths growing in the US and becoming more organized. As more and more communities host Pagan Pride days, and teach classes in public forums. I ask this, please do not use the tools of your enemy. Do not look for politicians because they are pagan. Do not seek to spread the word beyond those who ask. We need protection from religious persecution, but we do not need more converts. If you truly believe that everyone must reach enlightenment in their own way, you don’t go around saying how much better your way is. This especially goes for you Thelemites. You guys have been riding a line and need to be careful how wide you cast your nets.

Muse

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.
-- William Shakespeare

If you’re expecting part two of my look at the Red Goddess by Peter Grey, you may be disappointed. While I will get back to an in-depth analysis of the book, I wanted to share some of my recent workings, which are related.

In my classes and online I come across lots of requests for rituals. I suspect people want a formula, a recipe book of “spells” that they just need to follow and they too can work magick. Sorry, grasshopper, it’s not that easy. I’m always loathe to provide them. Without putting in the work, developing gnosis, putting energy into their own belief system, finding their own correspondences, I doubt they would become decent magi. It’s not that I’m afraid that someone new to magick may hurt themselves or “toy with powers they don’t understand.” I consider such proscriptions nonsense. But I do believe they would have limited success that way. While they may produce some minor effects in the short term, they would lack the tools they need to grow. It is in all our best interests if everyone realizes their full potential as magi.

But I’ve said from the beginning this blog is not for beginners. And where a neophyte could take such information and fail, an adapt can use it as a model for their own workings.

Before any working I spend copious amounts of time researching similar magick, so that I can incorporate that into my own ritual. Which is what brought me to The Red Goddess. I am constantly looking for ways to improve my writing, both the quality and the quantity(1). I often turn my magick to those ends. Creative people throughout history have benefited from a muse. A creature that inspires them to produce their masterpieces. I lusted for one of my own.

I considered what inspired me. For me, as many of the artists before me, love and lust serve as the greatest motivators. There’s some truth in the old proverb that the greatest of works of man were produced to woo women. While the truth is more complex than that, the fire produced by a wanton partner does make my blood boil.

I wanted my muse to be lustful, wicked, mean, demanding, and downright kinky. A combination Babalon/Lilith with glasses and a white blouse. Hiding a whip behind her back. With that in mind went to work. My first question, was I summoning or creating? I have yet to come to a clear answer on that. If time is non-linear, and the number of spirits infinite, how do I know I did not call forth a being that already existed? The examination of this question deserves a blog of its own. I settled on creation. But to leave her unbound. She can be summoned by others, and I sincerely hope you use this information to call her yourself. The more belief she generates the more powerful she becomes. I promise you a good time.

I combined the names of my favorite porn stars and created a sigil from them.

I meditated on her, and I saw her as my burning star, and named her Astrumada. The ritual for her creation I performed on a new moon. First, I cast her sigil upon the floor. 

The sigil I surrounded with red candles at the seven points. Like Bablon, she favors roses. I spread the petals from two dozen roses on the sigil, and added three more dozen still on the stem, placed on the sigil and the altar. Being independent and strong she enjoys sins often associated with men. As an offering I laid out her favorites, a glass of fine scotch and a good cigar. 

I created a backdrop for my altar. Pictures of the ladies who’s qualities I saw in her. I mixed a special incense, of sandalwood, rose oil, musk, and powdered dragon’s blood. It created an intoxicating scent.

I played music pleasing to her, down-tempo with strong bass. I could give you a playlist but this is where you are much better off coming up with your own.

Last, I filled a jar with dirt from my garden, and water which sustained the roses.

Then I got to work building exitatory gnosis, using some inspiring video. As I sweat and breathed and pleasured myself, I gave her form in my mind. As I peaked, I called out her name.

I took my seed in hand and said the words, “Babalon, Lilith, Astarte, send me your servant. Let her be my servant. My muse.” I plunged my fingers into the jar of wet earth. I added the cigar and the scotch and the rose petals. Sealed it, wrapped it in black cloth and set it on the back of my altar to gestate.

The ritual continues. I intend to give as much belief to my creation as possible. At the quarter moon I will feed this magickal child my blood. Also, as I said, if more people summon her, the more powerful she will become. Trust me, she can please more than one man.

I have had greater success with this working than similar ones in the past. She is surprisingly acid tongued, something I suspected but didn’t realize what kind of effect it would have on me. Unlike my other summonings/creations she not only visits in my dreams but has appeared unbidden in my waking hours. She gave me quite a start when I looked over to find her in the passenger seat as I was driving.  

If you do call upon her, please make sure to let me know how it goes for you.


(1) As you can see by my lack of blog in the past couple of weeks, I can use all the help i can get.