Cut the cow shit!
I’m as tall as a cow. I found this out as I walked through the cow fields and one came up and eye-balled me. Cows today must be GM-cows because I’m sure they never used to be that tall, and at 1.75m I’m not short either.
Short. I wish that was the excuse for why I struggle so much with the stiles. Predominantly a British phenomenon:
Doesn’t look too tricky to clamber over, does it? But is it left foot first or right? Which leg do I swing over and when? Usually I get stuck half-way across and sit with a blasé expression, pretending to admire the view while I consider whether to just throw myself off the thing or tackle it limb by limb.
I encountered similar difficulties when getting into the jeeps and pick-up trucks of my family in New Mexico. They live in the mountain desert so it’s high off-roaders only for them. I tried reversing in, but my legs are two short. I tried launching myself in front first and army-crawling my way on elbows over the back seat. Nothing but nothing was elegant. My family found it hilarious. I pursued different options like an alchemist seeking a way to transmute base metal into gold; but my elegance remained tin.
This evening I sat down by the river, watching fish jumping for the evening flies. Four swans floated past, each raising up out of the water to stretch and flap their wings, not together or randomly but one after the other. I saw flowers floating past and thought about garlands of flowers offered on the Ganges. A flock of ravens hiding in a tree was disturbed and raised a great racket as they flew off – I have never seen so many in one group. The pinky-orange sun slipped behind a cloud and I headed home.
On my walk I thought about art group today. There was only me, Woman and Beta Psych, so we just sat and talked. Woman narrowly avoided having her eyes jabbed out with paintbrushes when she TOLD me that I wouldn’t self-harm if I had a boyfriend. I coughed up a fur ball and said, “Cutting is not about being single.” She said other stupid, facile things and contradicted herself, or damned me to hell as irredeemable, by saying that men would be scared off by the intensity of my scars. I’m fucked either way, or not as the case may be. I said, that such people could “jog on” as far as I was concerned, that I didn’t need namby-pamby people who cringed at the sight of my scars around me. Life is too short and there are plenty of people who accept all aspects of me, or who have indeed been there themselves. As an LHP-er I don’t think that I have to surround myself with the twee people to feel good. No I don’t have to be nice about people’s beliefs in angels because that will make me a good person. Angelly-Wangelly stuff does my head in as much as therapy-werapy stuff dressed up under the abhorrent term “life coaching” – both run the triple knife edge of doing nothing, being childish make-believe or doing harm to fragile psyches. In any case you might as well imagine a smurf on your shoulder and listen to what the smurfing hell it has to say to you … you will make just as much progress by channeling your own subconscious that way. You do not invoke an archangel for a cuddle, FFS.
I said, I missed TMIWTM. Woman asked, “What does he give you that you can’t get from us?” I replied, “Everything! I have told him things I haven’t said here, and he knows things about me that no one else here knows or will ever know.” She looked shocked. Beta Psych appeased her with, “One-to-one is very different to a group working environment.” You bet your bejeezes it is. I said that I had never been so emotionally close to a man before. I heard her jaw hit the floor. She doesn’t like TMIWTM. She saw him for a couple of sessions 15 years ago and he told her she needed marriage counselling. 15 years later, she still needs marriage counselling… today she admitted to violence in the marriage on both parts.
Nobody’s perfect. But I do get tired of people trying to heal others when their own lives are fucked; or people in bad relationships telling you that a relationship will sort all your problems; or when people pretend to be open-minded but have surprisingly narrow and sudden limitations. I’m fucked in the head. I know that and admit it freely. You literally read my heart on my sleeve and the state of mind in the scars on my arms; but at least I am honest about it. I don’t bullshit and I don’t play around with other people, pretending to be something I’m not.
If I’m tin, then I’m tin but I keep trying to be gold. And somethings will never change: I will always be as tall as a cow.
©StarofSeshat 2011
The day I met a Thelemite
I was visiting a friend in a coastal town. Finally I had time to relax and just take in the sea air. My friend is a non-pagan with an open mind to all of my ways. Her partner calls me a Wiccan and I don’t object; it is a conceptual handle on what I am, as anything beyond that starts to sound a little too Middle Earth for him.
It was a bright but cold day when we headed to the sea. We found a café along the pebbly beach and settled in to be chilled by the wind and warmed by coffee. I offered to buy the second round and headed to the small wooden hut that served as kitchen and counter. A man stood there already waiting for his double latte with chocolate sprinkles. He eyed me suspiciously, a look that became rather sharper when he noticed my unicursal star broach. He nodded at the broach and said, “Love is the law… ” Suddenly I felt like a German spy from the Quiller Memorandum, “No, zes are not ze braend of zigarettes dat I normally smoke …” I replied “Love under will” and then stood awkwardly looking at him, feeling like we should now do some kind of black ghetto secret handshake ending with us bumping shoulders.
He grinned and I wondered if I should have just feigned ignorance and said my broach was a pretty star and that it went with a super-duper outfit I had at home.
He asked me if I was from the area, I said no and studiously avoided saying exactly where I was from. No need to worry about intrusive questions, he was more interested in telling me about himself, ending with, “Don’t you think I look like Crowley?” You and all the other overweight bald Thelemites, I thought. “Oh, yes,” I said. “Definitely a resemblance.” I made regretful noises about how I must return to my friend who was starting to look in need of coffee-defrosting. I saw him gearing up to ask to swap contact details. On his in-breath I jumped in firmly and said, “SO nice to meet you. LOVELY talking to you. MUST go.” And I trotted back to my friend, coffees in hand. I prised her chilled fingers off the old cup and slotted in a new cup which started to send heat up through her arm, enough for her to bend her elbow and swig a few gulps.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“Oh, just another Aleister wannabe.”
“Aleister who?”
“Exactly.”
She looked at me confused. I gave a big ‘never-mind’ smile and toasted her with the coffee.
“93!”
“Is that how much I owe you? I thought it was your round …”
I leant across and gave her a big kiss on the cheek.
“I must teach you the Secret Handshake of Middle Earth at some point …”
©StarofSeshat 2009 This is a work of fiction, any resemblance to persons living, dead or other is purely coincidental.
The demonic in me
In Arthur Versluis’ The Philosophy of Magic he writes:
“There is one aspect of invocation that must be reiterated: the difference between expulsion of the demonic and invocation of the daimonic… the invocation of devic or celestial influences implies the expulsion of the lower, bestial or demonic creatures which ordinarily inhabit the mind of man – the demons of desire and hatred… Each time we manifest desire or aversion, we are bringing to life, signing a pact with, one of the demons of ego.
The reason the true magus – in the vernacular – ‘consorts with demons’ is to expulse those inner forms of ego. Every instant, every day that one lives without having expulsed those demons is a day lived in a tacit pact with them…For these reasons, the popular image of the magician as one who ‘consorts with demons’ is at once ironic … and accurate…”
This passage struck a chord with me, not least because it was a topic I was discussing with a friend not too long ago. He said that anything in your life which controls you instead of you controlling it, is demonic and calls for some kind of exorcism. That in itself resonated as I feel that I am undergoing an exorcism of my past at the moment which is freeing me physically and mentally. I know a couple of people who have confided in me that they are scared of their own alcohol intake that it is potentially problematic and yet they do nothing to change the situation – this could be classed (according to the above definition) as a form of demonic possession. Compulsive eating is demonic as the sufferer of this condition is most definitely under the control of the disorder, not the other way around. The uniting thread seems to be compulsion, a forcing of our will away from the middle path, often away from what we know is good for us: a compulsion to self-harm through excessive food, excessive alcohol, dangerous relationships or >insert your chosen ‘sin’ here<. Although I know that some people may get their knickers in a twist about me suggesting even indirectly that their ‘weaknesses’ are demonic and they are in need of an exorcism, I hope that they can overcome the knee-jerk response (which may indeed be the inner demon recoiling at being uncovered!) and consider the concept. I find the idea of almost personalizing the compulsions within very interesting. We can often recognise the compulsion, the end-product as it were, but not know the origins which is why we throw ourselves into therapy or compulsive repetition of our errors – so easily one demon can become legion within us if we don’t deal with the original intruder; after all, once demon number one has settled into the comfort of an entrenched ego, why wouldn’t he send out a general invite to his mates?
Yes, I am being flippant, but the concept still holds and it is helping me compartmentalise a mess of feelings inside me. So once the demon is identified, the question is, what to do? I think that is a personal decision, and I would not give a generalised answer to that when someone may take it as law and run with the idea right over a cliff (metaphorically speaking … although isn’t that what Jesus did with the devil whose name was ‘Legion’?). I am still pondering the nature of my demons, and bizarrely the thought of them doesn’t scare me. Colin Wilson wrote a fantastically interesting novel called The Mind Parasites – creatures that have colonised the minds of all men [sic] and who control the fate of mankind by remaining hidden in the depths of the unconscious. After reading that book you never look at the dark, quiet corners of your own mind in the same way again! But where as these parasites frightened me, the concept of the demonic doesn’t. I am keen to know them, because once known, once I have their name, I will be able to oust them from my being and I find that a very positive thought; just as once I admitted that my illness was psychosomatic, rather than clasping a sweaty hand to my forehead and curling up in victim mode at the wasted years and torments of my own mind (!) I felt hugely rejuvenated and empowered. Real chronic physical ailments are sometimes manageable but never curable. By admitting the potential psychosomatic origins of my illness, I have unleashed a flood of energy and uncovered some dark corners with the light optimism: if it is in my mind, then I can conquer it and be well. If the compulsions are demonic, I can know them and expel them. Of this I have no doubt.
The other aspect to this concept is that ego and habit energy is the resting place and breeding ground for such demonic energies. So logically, a two-pronged attack both on ‘knowing your demons’ and on breaking down ego and habit energy would be the most successful. I feel that the last month when I was riding on an artificial high (as genuine as it felt at the time, it was un-real), I was actually surfacing the wave of my ego. It felt good, it felt great, if felt compulsively, addictively wonderful – like too much chocolate, too much coffee, too much sex. And ultimately it was ‘too much’ of everything, it took me away from the middle path and I lost myself in ‘feeling’. I brought a lot back from the journey – there are things I learned – but it showed me once again how deceptive the path of ego can be. We think we are being true to ourselves, when actually we are living a fantasy.
So there are a few essentials for me that come from the concept of the demonic: as Dion Fortune indicates in her book Psychic Self-Defence, the greatest protection is being very grounded in this life, being grounded enough to give a belly laugh at a good film. I am finding my Kundalini yoga supremely grounding; it is what broke the cycle of flying high-higher-highest and brought me gently back to earth. I am now incorporating a minimum of two meditation sessions a day, where I can tune back into myself and check how far I have strayed off the Beauty Path. And this new moon I shall be beginning some ritual work to face my demons. I have Sobek to my left and Anubis to my right, and I am more than ready to stare into the mouth of Apophis. May Osiris bless me and my path. It’s time to know the demons, and really know my Self.
© starofseshat 2008
Ludlow Book-Feast and Bun-Fight
I had been looking forward to the Ludlow Esoteric Conference and Book Fair for several months. It did not disappoint, although the entertainment and lessons came in unexpected ways!
The Green Witch has given a very fair assessment of the lectures that day, including a good summary of the nasty little showdown at the end of Ken Rees’ lecture. I too have signed up for The Regency discussion group, and look forward to hearing more about it.
The research I did prior to the conference as background for the lectures oddly took some of the interest out of the lectures for me. The first talk on John Dee and Edward Kelley’s travels told me nothing new, although I enjoyed looking at the copious slides (even though one person said it was a poor excuse for showing the family’s holiday pics 
). I think my stamina has waned in some respects and I find it quite tedious now to sit through a lecture unless the speaker is brilliantly interesting as Guy Ogilvy was last year (I could have listened to him talking about alchemy for hours and only felt more rejuvenated not exhausted by his speaking). And yet I can read for a day and always feel immensely satisfied; writers do not necessarily make speakers, and speakers do not necessarily do justice to their subject matter. Although I did enjoy Ken Rees’ talk – an entertaining, balanced and academic view – not something we see often in the pagan world. I will certainly attend more conferences (it’s good for my soul like metaphysical porridge and green tea!) but ultimately I shall always prefer a book which I can put down every now and then to make a cup of tea or cuddle the rat (that is not a euphemism, I do mean cuddle the rat!). As such I was happy to abandon the main part of the day’s lectures in favour of getting to know Arnemetia and Mereth better. This was personally a more valuable and nourishing experience than any lecture. I was overwhelmed that day by the care shown to me by my dear Green Witch, as well as Arnemetia and Mereth, who (although we have communicated for over a year) were meeting me in the flesh for the first time. I have rarely encountered such genuine kindness, and it did my spirit good. Apart from which, days out with the Green Witch are always Good Days.
It was interesting that my urge to protect myself psychically for the conference – an urge which had pestered me for a few days – was justified. There was one rather toxic lady there who was leaking nastiness. I sat near her at one point and spent a lot of my time shielding from her. The last thing I wanted was to draw her attention and thankfully I slipped under her radar. It’s always worth trusting your instinct and setting up protections – it’s better to be protected and not need it, than unprotected and covered in someone else’s psychic ooze!
One major highlight was the book fair. I heard one man say that the Ludlow Conference was his excuse to buy occult books for the year, and I can well understand why. Throughout the year I scan second-hand bookshop shelves for occult books of interest. Generally I buy what I find, but this book fair (a modest 5 stalls) was a collection of gems that made it difficult to choose. If I had found any one in isolation in a bookshop I would have been pleased, so to see so many in one room was utterly bibliorgasmic for me! My library on Egyptian magic/spirituality/mythology is expanding nicely. Once I have my core list of titles I shall be setting up an intense reading/re-reading schedule. The results will be formulated in my very own book of Egyptian Magic, a sourcebook for me to use and peruse. I can’t wait … well, actually, I can, because I know the journey is going to be just as enjoyable as the destination.
A very satisfying day in all. Some interesting ideas bandied around between the Green Witch and Mereth (which I hope come to fruition, to the benefit of us all). Next stop the Thelemic Symposium in Oxford and then Witchfest International!
© starofseshat 2008
Ludlow Esoteric Conference & Occult Book Fair
This post relates to the Ludlow Esoteric Conference & Occult Book Fair which is now in its fifth year.
Since some of my fellow attendees are pushed for time, I thought I would put together a few notes for us on the subjects that will be covered by the speakers, merely as a “heads-up” for what we can expect.
Hope it’s useful 
Speakers:
Tracy Thursfield – Eliphas Levi & The French Occult Revival
Robin Cousins – The Travels of John Dee (Illustrated talk)
Julia Phillips – Madeline Montalban
Ken Rees – The Regency
Alan Richardson – W.G.Gray
Eliphas Lévi was born Alphonse Louis Constant in France, 1810 – 1875.
Lévi studied at a Catholic seminary where a lesson on animal magnetism and the devil, positing that the vital energy of the body is controlled by the devil, sparked his interest in things occult. He became a deacon in 1835, but not a priest, and was later excommunicated for his left-wing political views.
“Magus Eliphas Lévi” became his pen name and is a translation of his own name into Hebrew. He made a comfortable living from writing and giving occult lessons. His most popular work is entitled Transcendental Magic, originally translated by Arthur Edward Waite of the Golden Dawn.
Lévi believed there was a universal secret doctrine of magic spanning all parts of the world, traceable back through history.
To some he is best known for his work on the alleged deity of the Knights Templar, the Baphomet, the image of which usualy fronts Transcendental Magic. Lévi‘s Baphomet (a goat-headed man/woman) was a symbol for him of the absolute, an expression of dualistic nature in the combination of both male and female qualities.
His writings had a big impact on Arthur Edward Waite, S.L. MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley (who claimed to be the reincarnation of Lévi and gave a nod to Baphomet with his moniker The Beast).
Interestingly, he was apparently the first to incorporate the goat-headed face of Baphomet into the inverted pentagram, attributing evil to this “new” symbol, and separating the pentagram’s meaning into upright as good, and inverted as evil.
You can download free books by Eliphas Lévi at:
References:
Contravorscial [sic]
John Dee 1527 – 1608
English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, advisor to Queen Elizabeth I and suspected government spy with the code name “007″ (later assumed by Ian Fleming for his character James Bond).
The latter part of his life he devoted almost exclusively to magic, alchemy and Hermetic philosophy. Specifically he sought contact with angels through a scryer (as he himself found contacting spirits too tiring). His greatest success was through Edward Kelley whose prolific angelic contacts dictacted several books including that of the Enochian or angelic language.
The relationship between Dee and Kelley broke up not long after Kelley’s pronouncement that Uriel had ordered him and Dee to share their wives! Dee orginally obeyed this command as coming from God but eventually the strain of the situation took its toll.
Dee was a Christian, preluding the angelic communications with much praying and fasting. He believed that numbers were the key to knowledge and that creation is an act of numbering; consequently his kabbalistic angel magic and practical mathematical work were one and the same for him and posed no opposition to each other.
His popular work The Monas Heiroglyphica was a discourse on a symbol created by Dee believed to be the ultimate symbol of occult knowledge.
Dee was accused of being a wizard in 1604 and sought protection under King James I. This suspicion was long harboured as shown by the attack on his home by a mob in 1583. The mob destroyed an extensive library and occult instruments.
He died in poverty aged 81.
You can download free books by John Dee at:
References:
I haven’t been able to find much information on Madeline Montalban, inspite of her apparent importance.
Also known as Dolores North, she was one of the 20th century’s most significant female magicians.
She knew Aleister Crowley and mixed with other occultists of the 1930s but formed her own path of magic. She founded the Order of the Morning Star around 1945. To this day it still offers correspondance courses; a large part of the curriculum focuses on angelic magic. In her teachings, she emphasized that magic is a practical tool, and that results would follow in the wake of applying her methods.
She wrote monthly articles on Tarot (her speciality) in a publication called Prediction.
She died in 1982.
Reference:
The Regency was a magical group working in the 1960s and ’70s in which Ken Rees, the speaker, was involved.
Robert Cochrane was a practising witch apparently initiated into an entirely different hereditary lineage to Gerald Gardner. He formed his own coven called the “Clan of Tubal Cain”. Also known as the Royal Windor Cuveen, it was this group that disbanded after Cochrane’s apparent ritual suicide at Samhain in 1966 and reformed under the leadership of Ronald White as The Regency. The group also included Doreen Valiente. The group’s rituals were often more dramatically pagan than formalistically high ritual magic. They operated for over twelve years and disbanded finally in 1978. This secretive group was important to the development of Wicca, although unheard of by most.
Reference:
History of Wicca by Julia Phillips
William G. Gray (1913 – 1992) was a British occultist and founder of the magical order of the Sangreal Sodality, a magical association, founded on the Western Mystery Tradition. Their rituals appear very Christianocentric. Quoting Witchvox:
“There is one noteworthy distinction between the type of sacrifice offered by members of the Sangreal Sodality in their Mass and the sacrifice offered by conventional Christian services. In Christian practice, bread and wine are either regarded as being transubstantiated into the actual body and blood of a Redeemer Figure or they are used to memorialize symbolically the last meal shared by that Redeemer and his personal disciples. Within the Sangreal Sacrament these elements signify the body and blood of every person sharing the sacrament either directly or in spirit alone. The life forces of Sangreal Sodality Initiates are offered up to the Divine Entity they invoke and invite among them during their Rite of Light.”
Gray placed high value on the use of magic for personal development. He viewed contact with higher beings as a way to pursue good and avoid evil in the world.
For more information on the Sangreal Sodality:
