Chakras: Sahasrara
Chakras are centres of energy which govern certain zones of the body; they convey energy between dimensions (or planes of existence) and are centres of subtle forces, the generation of prana (energy) and higher consciousness.
Sahasrara is located at the crown of the head or is sometimes considered to be above the physical body. Its lotus contains a thousand petals, of which five represent all the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet. Through this chakra, universal existence, with no boundaries of “I” consciousness in the body, is realised.
Parambrahma rules this chakra, symbolised by the triangle of consciousness (called Veeja). This centre represents the overcoming of obstacles, and merging into the void, or the supreme light beyond form, an experience beyond description, according to most yogic scriptures and saints.
Meditating here enables one to cross the boundaries of creation, preservation and destruction so you can taste the sweet nectar (amrita) that flows in a constant stream from Sahasrara. One is no longer subjected to birth or death. At this state of awakening, individual identity disappears forever and one identifies with supreme consciousness. Remember that the deathless state does not mean one will never leave the body, but rather that the conscious mind merging with the infinite is achieved as a permanent state which will not be disrupted by the body dying.
Brahma
Chakra Structure
Sat Nam
Seshat
Information source: Energies of Transformation, A Guide to the Kundalini Process, by Bonnie Greenwell PhD.
©StarofSeshat 2012
Chakras: Ajna
Chakras are centres of energy which govern certain zones of the body; they convey energy between dimensions (or planes of existence) and are centres of subtle forces, the generation of prana (energy) and higher consciousness.
Ajna is located between the two eyebrows and is the source of two nervous flows, one through the eyes and the other through the mid-brain.
This chakra governs inner vision and the dynamic activities of will and knowledge. This “third eye” is associated in many cultures with light, inner knowledge, intuition and psychic abilities. Opening this chakra involves the integration of both the intellectual and emotional poles. When Kundalini reaches this chakra, consciousness transforms.
The goddess of Ajna is Hakini Shakti, with six faces and six arms. When she is red this indicates Kundalini knowledge is fully awakened; when white she represents a state of calm; when dark-blue she is about to proceed into a formless state. If seen as a mixture of white, red and black she is demonstrating a blending of the three gunas – sattva (harmonious consciousness), rajas (activity) and tamas (inertia).
Meditation on this chakra is said to bring visions of the highest truth and ultimately the wisdom of the Self, the highest knowledge. It is often referred to as the governing chakra for all of the others, and some yogis recommend concentration only on the ajna, or initially there, before awakening the energies of other chakras. It can affect the development of the qualities inherent in all of the preceding chakras, and enable an aspirant to reach a state of non-dual awareness. Complete mastery of the lower chakras is believed to be only possible once you have acquainted yourself with ajna.
Hakini Shakti – Ajna Chakra
Sat Nam
Seshat
Information source: Energies of Transformation, A Guide to the Kundalini Process, by Bonnie Greenwell PhD.
©StarofSeshat 2012
Woman as Guerrilla Art
I’m tamping furious that the bastard council didn’t even let the Guerrilla art stand for a week before they removed it (see this link -> HERE). The area looked sanitised and wiped clean, the presence of the two stags still hanging somewhere in the air.
I have been slowly digesting yesterday which was a pretty dire day. Woman wasn’t at art group. She has injured herself. I was surprised/not-surprised at the lack of emotion in me at that news. I found it interesting that Alpha Psych who so patently has a thing for her, gravitated to her seat and spoke about her art with the postscript, “Although we shouldn’t talk about her when she’s not here.” Preferably not at all, I thought. I find her simpering, weak-woman ways irritating. She is one of those women who plays the helpless female, batting her eyelashes like she’s in a sand storm. I look to the men and see with horror that they fall for this manipulation. It may look endearing in a woman under thirty, but post-50 you really need to chuck the hormone replacement and grow a pair.
As I walked past the copse cleared of stag-art, I thought about how nearly every female friend has confessed to me that they have hairs on their toes … as if it is an admission of something grotesque, anti-social and, even, inhuman. We are primates. We have hair, we have odours, we need food and sex. We are not hairless, odourless, silicone sculpted, poison-injected doll substitutes but creatures with lumps and bumps, blemishes and squidgy bits. We are not sanitised areas cultivated with weed killer, we are living Guerrilla art… and we too are subject to removal.
Sometimes we remove ourselves, sometimes others remove us. In my own case, one indicator of my Presence is an acknowledgement of my needs and the subsequent follow-through. Plastic dolls have no needs. Guerilla art demands your attention and emotional response.
Recently, people keep asking me, “What can I do for you? Is there something I can do for you?” and the question surprises me each time, baffles me, leaving my mind to scrabble for something, the multiple censors hacking at thoughts like a series of slicing blades, trying to find something to say, something doable, something that isn’t “too much”. Asking for anything is a HUGE force of will for me. The double edge of this being that if I do ask for something (and usually I will start with something very, very little like “message me”) and for some reason it is not possible, or life gets in the way for no other reason than life throws a curve ball, then I take that as proof that I am plastic to that person; I withdraw and shut down.
In my five-year relationship with my abusive ex I asked for something once. We lived in a small flat. I was in the living room, he was in the kitchen, and I asked him to please bring me a glass. He was so enraged that he grabbed the dirtiest glass and tossed it at me on the sofa. Serves me right for relaxing enough to think I could ask for something… except of course, now I think, what a tosser (literally and metaphorically)!
But things are very different these days. I am a different person, changing rapidly, although I still really struggle with asking for things. Fantasy is one thing, reality is another.
After my massage which has left me feeling marvelous and fully anchored in my squidgy femaleness, I went for a coffee at my favourite cafe. I saw an interestingly lopsided coffee and walnut cake and asked for a slice (that was always my favourite as a child … the thrill of surreptitiously sneaking in a hit of caffeine as I wasn’t allowed coffee or tea until older, the same justification saw me develop a love of rum and raisin ice cream … !). As the manager cut me a slice, she nodded to the new cook, a young girl, and said, “Cake looks lovely, K.” And it was, so I took the time to scare the bejeezes out of K. by sneaking up on her and growling “Gorgeous cake” in her ear … She blushed and looked chuffed to bits, nervous because cake-making is her new endeavour in the kitchen.
I hate it when women diss other women, when they sit in a public place, point and list the faults. “Look at her extensions! Look at her belly! Look at the way she’s dressed.” It used to be easier to mumble agreement, but actually, no: the girl with the bad extensions has a pretty face, the woman with the big belly looks like she would be a real laugh and great to cuddle, and the woman with the odd clothes looks like she doesn’t give a shit, so yay for her!
I always make the effort to acknowledge the good things about women (I don’t say anything to men because the usual assumption then is that you are cracking onto them … booooring!). When I worked in the bookshop, a woman came in with her 80+ year old mother in a wheelchair. The old woman had fancy nails, and I said how lovely her nails looked. Her face lit up like a beacon, “Really?! I’ve never had a manicure before, my daughter just took me this morning!” and she beamed with pride. I was so pleased I said something, kicking aside that cruddy English reserve that means you “shouldn’t” engage on a personal level with strangers (I only engage personally, incapable of doing otherwise).
The thing is, women need that positive feedback. And I hate women who enforce the negative cycle of synthetic moulding, the belief that anyone else should conform to anyone else’s ideas. Yes, men play a huge role in this; whatever the pundits say, this is still a patriarchal society. And as a friend and I joked recently when discussing weight, the last thing you want from a man is a bloody solution (have you tried such-and-such, why don’t you go on a diet)! No, what you need then is for him to say you are gorgeous and perfect, because to be honest, you probably are: note how I slip easily into pointing the finger away from myself to you – I can dish the compliments, although I struggle to take them. But I do love those friends who have actually said they are willing to invest “years” into complimenting me until it finally sinks in … drip, drip, drip – it feeds my parched soul and yes, I do feel the desert in me starting to bloom, for which I thank you.
So, embrace the gorilla [sic] in yourself! Be hairy and smelly. Eat and have sex. Be beautiful, because you just are.
©StarofSeshat 2011
Scarlet Imprint on The Tower & Armageddon – Seshat on a microcosmic response
Thrilled today to find that Scarlet Imprint had posted a new blog entry with a field recording of Peter (one of my favourite magickians in “the public eye”) giving a talk on Armageddon, Babalon and the challenge facing us as individuals and as humanity.
Here is the blog post:
… do take the time to listen to the entire talk, unlike many speakers, Peter is very easy to listen to and the time flies by. I know that we are all attuned to 5 minute focus these days, but push yourself a bit!
The talk was interesting for me on a personal level for several reasons. Babalon entered my life in 2008; during that time she stripped me bare, turned my life upside down and threw me into a period of extreme turmoil and terror. After my last (and hopefully last) suicide attempt, I awoke initially peeved at the world, that it was still there and I still had to engage with it. A month later, Pomba Gira came down on me and I became her devotee. In turn, she has also stormed through my life, but in a gentle-raucous way, the way that extreme laughter can make you hurt but feel so good. So much has changed both in my head and heart since she came to me (and by coincidence Scarlet Imprint have recently released a book on Pomba Gira: Pomba Gira and the Quimbanda of Mbumba Nzila by Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold – I will be reading that after my current study book, Holy Harlots, Femininity, Sexuality, & Black Magic in Brazil by Kelly E. Hayes).
In the talk, Peter spoke about Armageddon and the need for magickians to respond (I won’t detail his talk here, because I really think you should listen to it yourself). All of what he said reflected my own thoughts over the last couple of years, and my own personal revelations – yes, on a macrocosmic level, but more specifically on a microcosmic level. And just as I have struggled with the concept of my own life being something I wished to preserve, so part of me listened and thought, “Is humanity worth saving?” Through my own studies in paleontology I have seen a distinct pattern in the life of the earth and its animals, and our own destruction, in which ever form, seems inevitable and justified. In my own mind, I do not see that Armageddon is coming, but that it has come, it is too late for mankind [sic], but not for individuals – as contradictory as that may sound.
I agree that there is huge benefit in learning a martial art, connecting with like-minded communities (specifically within the magickal subculture), learning how to glean our needs directly from nature rather than relying on oil-driven industries: yes, all of that is right and rather along the lines of “good advice will never harm you, even if it won’t directly cure the situation” (not that Peter was suggesting a “cure”).
But I am drawn once again to reiterating things I have been saying for years and experiencing for years. There is a need for us to drastically dispense with the trappings of our “social selves”, to realise that the persona we project is usually not who we truly are. Mental health is a case in point: where else do you see such a dramatic and often violent stripping of the social niceties to reveal the true bones of a psyche, often damaged by the demands and experiences of a sick world. We become the earth, walking examples of excessive stress, tired hypocampi, exhausted adrenal systems. We are ravaged and pile-driven, raped in the head, raped in the body – literally and figuratively. And like some inverse homeopathy we continue to feed the disease with more disease: as pagans filling our heads with fluff and saleable shit, buying our spirituality with the “must-have wand”, the matching cloak … all the while we are layering more and more plastic turf over polluted ground, allowing the pollution to sink deeper and deeper into our souls.
There is something in experiencing the head-smack of mental health WHILE practising consciousness and awareness, because you can bypass years of deconstruction and experience the polluted soul much more quickly than, say, someone who is stuck at the material level of life consumption and believes themselves to be “well”.
My last suicide attempt shook something within me and my health in very many ways has started to climb since then. It felt like a final purge of soul pollution, and even though I experience the dregs occasionally, I am in a place of construction and re-formation, aided by by the spirits of Lucky Hoodoo and my devotion to Pomba Gira.
I doubt I am expressing myself half as eloquently as Peter, but the point I want to make is that we, as magickians and witches, should not get stuck at stock-piling cans of peaches because I personally believe that nothing will save our world, and this is a natural cycle on this particular planet. But there is a microcosmic Armageddon playing itself out within each of us, and it is up to us individually as to whether we respond to it or die face down in the poisoned earth. There is more than this planet, and the transmutation of our Selves has to go hand-in-hand, or even take priority, over what we can change in the visible, mundane world. What we see is merely an echo of a greater reality; our microcosmic experience broadcasts a macrocosmic echo.
One night I was walking and saw a tree. Then I saw through the tree and experienced the essence that was expressing itself as a tree in this world. There is a dire need for us to find our own essence, the point of being that is represented as us on this plane of existence: because who we think we are, is not who we truly are. And if we continue not-knowing, that will be our own personal, inevitable Armageddon.
©StarofSeshat 2011
A coughing salutation to Pomba Gira
I don’t know how people can look down on the devotional work involved in being a witch or on a spiritual path, that you have to at some point “move away from devotional work” … it can be exhilarating and who wouldn’t want to plug themselves into a kosmic circuit occasionally?
Wonderful afternoon. I decided to take advantage of the sun and head for the river to say my thanks to Pomba Gira.
I thought I would avoid “Suicide Bay” as I call it but instead be positive in moving forward and head for “Cow Cove” instead. But Cow Cove was full of people and dogs, so I headed off into the woods for Suicide Bay.
Rather more overgrown than my last visit in January, but I managed to find the path down to the river.
And it couldn’t have been more beautiful.
The sun reflecting iridescent green off the water reeds.
I sat down and placed my three red roses in front of me, my vanilla flavoured cigarillos, my new silver lighter (oh, it has two hearts engraved in the top!), and a bottle of water.
I am not a smoker. But I will do anything for the spirits and god-forms I work with. There are things in this sensual world that they cannot directly experience, and it is my job as priestess to facilitate the experiences for them in return for favours. It is not full possession that takes place, more a meeting of peripheries that allows them to taste and feel through me. I have always found it a very easy state to slip into.
So, to begin. Light cigarillo. Hmm. Now, the man in the shop showed me how the lighter worked… he did something with his thumb and there was a flame… is this fire magic beyond me?! Something is meant to slide open … I’m buggered from the start if I can’t even work the lighter … Ah. Ok. Got it.
And then the choking inhalation. I have smoked spliffs before but never a cigarillo which is a heavier hit of tobacco on the lungs.
I chanted, smoked and plucked petals from the roses tossing them before me as I sat in the sunlight by the river. At one point the river seemed to flow backwards …
Two topless men plus “hard-man dog” appeared from round the bend in the river; they had waded through the shallow waters. They grinned at me. “You look happy,” said the one. “I am!” I replied, and meant it. I felt totally content, and now bemused at what they really thought of this woman sitting plucking petals off roses while choking on her vanilla cigarillo and muttering under her breath.
On the way back I encountered another topless man (it is hot today!) with six-pack stomach (not that I was looking). The cougar in me purred. He jogged towards me to open the kissing gate at the edge of the field so I didn’t have to lift a finger. We had “a moment” and I walked on smiling … no, I think smirking and grinning like a Cheshire cat would be a more honest description.
I feel like I have managed to put something behind me. Ritual grounds me, makes me feel whole and connected. Devotional work – aligning myself with god-forms, patrons and spirits – it’s all a necessary part of connecting the dots.
©StarofSeshat 2011
Indians [sic] and shamans [neo-sick]
My German family emigrated to America in the 1950s. My Oma (grandmother) became an educator (assessor of children’s learning levels and needs) on the Navajo Reservation, where my family also lived for a while.
In my late teens and early twenties I travelled from the UK to spend time living with my grandmother in an area called the Checkerboard because squares of land belong to the Navajo Nation (a dependent state existing within the independent state of America) and some squares belong to the Federal Government of the US.
While there I took up Navajo language classes and met a Navajo woman who worked for the Navajo Nation Government. Her work involved travelling hundreds of miles daily over the Reservation. She invited me to travel with her for four months and during that time she adopted me as her daughter, introducing me to Navajo or Hopi Native Americans as her daughter.
First point:
Native Americans are NOT Indians
Native Americans are NOT American Indians
Native Americans are NOT North American Indians
They are Native Americans because they are the original people native to that continent; any other name carries with it a shed load of political hegemony and implicit colonial abuse.
I learned a lot from my Navajo mother and her friends about what was considered acceptable to Native Americans, what were sore points, how their history affected them … how thousands were deliberately wiped out by white Europeans distributing plague-ridden blankets among them; how some native peoples have been completely exterminated. Their history is no less painful, political and rife for misunderstanding than the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian Holocaust, to name but two.
After my time on the Reservation, I went to Germany where I spent a year beginning my translation career. There I encountered a heavily sunbedded female with a suede, fringed jacket, plaits and feathers in her hair. She “identified” with “Indians” [sic]. I felt sick to my stomach at her ignorance. No. Don’t give me any bullshit about naive enthusiasm: if you are truly interested in a Native Path then do your research, learn the history, the current politics and the current discussions around the misappropriation of native culture and spirituality, which continues to this day, and is felt by so many NAs to be a continuation of the colonial hegemony they have had to suffer for centuries.
Following on from this: the word “shaman” has become a word bandied around as easily as “witch” (I will deal with that another day). Banging a drum, chanting and speaking to imaginary spirits does not make you a shaman. Pretending that you “journey” every time you touch a rock does not make you a shaman, nor does it make your experience “shamanic.” The concept of “journeying” has also been watered down to be meaningless half the time.
There is no documentation of shamanic culture per se in the British Isles. If you refer to Celtic shamanism, the same point applies as there is no documented proof of exactly what the Celts did except for tales told by Roman historians, and the Romans defeated the Celts … we all know what history is like when written by the victors (blood sacrifice, baby-eating, water poisoning, with the odd truth thrown in – who can say what is true and what isn’t?).
I met two shamans/medicine men on the Reservation and they gave me none of the “foot in both worlds” bullshit, none of the “hang on, I’m just speaking to my spirit guide, Jack”.
If you look at shamanism as practised amongst Native peoples in America (there are many different peoples – different languages, different religious practices, although most will have a name for themselves that translates as “The people” – consider the Navajo word for themselves “Diné”), and if you look in particular at the shamanic practices still found in Siberia you will see a very different picture from the neo-Shamanic practices of British/European wannabes.
As a knowledgeable friend concurred, calling yourself a “traditional shaman” is a tautology shouting “fluff” because true shamanism is by definition “traditional”. However, the word “traditional” sells more books, doesn’t it? Kerching! $££$$£
Shamans are known for communicating with spirits, but again, this is not a running conversation with an ancestor sitting on your knee, your hand up its spiritual backside as you channel its wisdom. No. Communication with spirits is usually within the context of an ecstatic ritual, or within a ritual context that will suspend the natural (or more apparent) senses.
Be warned that not all is what it seems. I have met two shamans. One I had more contact with than the other. But they were not bullshitters.
If you are interested in Native American spirituality – remember that there are many, many different Native American peoples and that not all are the same. Have the courtesy to research their history and their current politics. Read authors such as Ward Churchill – academic historians; don’t just read people with fake names like Starhawk (who is a respectable neo-pagan but NOT a Native American).
And if you come across someone calling themselves a “shaman”, add “neo” in front plus a large pinch of salt. Don’t part with money. Trust your gut. And read around the subject.
©StarofSeshat 2011
THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR
If you wish to copy this text, please link back to this blog and accredit me, the author. Thank you.
The Pagan Calendar is divided into eight ritual and celebratory events: four major and four minor celebrations that mark the passing of the year and celebrate a phase in the relationship between God and Goddess. This is sometimes referred to as the Wiccan Ritual Year or the Wheel of the Year. Since many pagans who celebrate these festivals are not Wiccan, we shall refer to it as the Wheel of the Year. Why a wheel? This is because the symbol that illustrates the sequence of the year is usually drawn in a circle, representing the continuous coming and going of the seasons and the years. A line has a beginning and an end, but a circle has always represented The Infinite.
[Image courtesy of Golden Valley Art]
[Copyright ©Golden Valley Art]
The four major festivals are called the “Greater Sabbats”, whereas the remaining four are “Minor Sabbats” and fall on the solstices and equinoxes.
These eight festivals of the Pagan Year are distinct from the “esbats” or monthly marking of the new moon and full moon.
Some pagans celebrate the festivals on the dates as dictated by the Gregorian Calendar, other pagans will celebrate the festival at the closest full moon, and others will look to the specific astrological conjunctions that mark the beginning of a festival.
According to Ronald Hutton (seminal historian on paganism), there is no evidence that pre-Christian people celebrated the eight festivals of the year. Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh were originally Gaelic quarter days. The concept of adding the equinoxes and solstices was adopted by modern Gardnerian Wicca in the 20th Century which also brought it more into line with Neo-Druidry. Many native peoples will have marked the equinoxes and solstices, which are observable in nature, but the actual eight-part Wheel of the Year is a more modern creation.
Some names for the God: Sun King, Green Man, Horned God, Father Nature
Some names for the Goddess: Mother, Maiden, Crone, Wise Woman, Mother Nature, Lady of the Wild Things
Samhain (31 October – 2 Nov)
Samhain (pronounced Sow-en) is considered the Pagan New Year. This is a time of celebrating the lives of those who have passed on and is a festival of the Dead. There is a general belief that the veils between this world and the afterlife are thinnest at this time of year, and as such it is a perfect time to welcome back the Dead, to remember them and hold feasts and celebrations in their honour. In paganism, death is very much a part of life, and is not seen as something morbid; it is a time to contemplate life and death as a sacred whole.
The old year dies and dissolves for the new year to begin. Death is merely a reminder of rebirth and how the Wheel of the Year keeps turning, even beyond the grave.
Other names: Halloween, All Hallows Eve, Feast of the Dead, Ancestor Night, Festival of the Returning Dead
Yule (19 – 23 December)
Yule, which is also known as the Winter Solstice, marks the longest night of the year when the sun is at its lowest point. Between Samhain and Yule, the Lord of the Night (symbol of death) has ruled and the Goddess in her Crone aspect has given us wisdom. Now it is the time when Light returns and the Great God/Sun or divine male is reborn. It is one of the four solar festivals.
Other names: Winter Night, Winter Solstice
Imbolc (1 – 2 February)
Imbolc (pronounced Im-olc with a silent “b”) celebrates the land awakening and the growing strength of the Sun/God deity following his rebirth at Yule. The Goddess is venerated in her maiden aspect (her three aspects being: mother, maiden and crone/old woman). It is a time of cleansing, purification and dedication. The young god approaches the maiden goddess with desire; their love igniting the creative energy we see in spring.
Other names; Candlemas, Brigid’s Day, Bride’s Day
Ostara (19 – 23 March)
An equinox is when the sun crosses the celestial equator – day and night are of equal length: for pagans this is a solar festival when the powers of winter and darkness are equal to the powers rising to bring summer and light. The Horned God rides forth on the hunt and heralds in a time of celebration. Winter is behind us and the potential for life and growth abounds.
Other names: Lady Day, Festival of Trees, Spring Equinox
Beltane (1 May)
Beltane is a time when the Great God and Goddess are united in sexual union: the mystery of the Sacred Marriage of God and Goddess, the Hieros Gamos/”greenwood marriage” that is often replicated within ritual through the year. Hence this is seen as a fertility festival, represented by such rituals as dancing around a phallic maypole. The God impregnates the Goddess creating the potential for life, the harvest of the land later in the year.
Other names: May Day
Midsummer (19 – 23 June)
The summer solstice marks the midsummer point of the year when the sun is at its highest point: the longest day in the year. One of the solar festivals; this is when the God is crowned Lord of Light and is at the height of his power. Having known complete love with the Goddess, he now turns and sets sail for the Land of Rebirth. From this point his powers start to wane and the days become shorter. The Goddess prepares to give birth to the fruits of the land, the annual harvest.
Other names: Litha, Summer Solstice
Lughnasadh (1 – 2 August)
Lughnasadh (pronounced loo-na-sah) is a grain/corn festival or festival of the first fruits when pagans give thanks not only for food, but for all gifts and blessings, granted by the bounty of the fertile Goddess of the Land.
Other names: Lammas, Festival of the First Fruits
Mabon (20 – 24 September)
Mabon is an equinox, which is when the sun crosses the celestial equator – day and night are of equal length: for pagans this is a solar festival. As the days lengthen, pagans once again consider the darker faces of God and Goddess. It can also be a time to honour old age and the coming winter. This is a second harvest celebration, giving thanks for and sharing the fruits of the earth to ensure the blessings of God and Goddess through the winter.
Other names: Autumn Equinox, Second Harvest, Wine Harvest
Recommended Reading:
Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, by Scott Cunningham
Hedge Witch: Guide to Solitary Witchcraft, by Rae Beth
©StarofSeshat 2011
What is a pagan?
If you wish to copy this text, please link back to this blog and accredit me, the author. Thank you.
Nb: If you find two pagans who agree, you haven’t found two pagans! 
What is a Pagan?
A pagan is person who practises a spiritual path; he or she follows either an established tradition under the “Pagan” umbrella or takes aspects of paganism, which are meaningful to him or her, and creates a way of living. A pagan is not somebody who only worships once a week or at special times in the year; a pagan path embraces all aspects of living and is a philosophy as well as a spirituality.
So what comes under the “Pagan” umbrella?
There are innumerable pagan paths: some draw on native religions such as the traditions and beliefs of Native Americans; some look to history and “re-kindle” Greek, Roman or Egyptian mythologies; then there are the neo-pagan religions of Wicca and the eclectic lifestyles and approaches of Green Witches, Hedgewitches and Kitchen Witches. There are Discordians and the followers of the Feri tradition, modern-day neo-shamans, magickians, wizards and witches. But not every pagan is a witch!
Pagans can be monotheists (believing in one god or goddess), polytheists (believing in two or more gods/goddesses), polyentheists (believing that god/goddess exists in all things) or even atheists (no belief in a god/goddess).
Paganism can (although does not have to) incorporate occult studies, and indeed some occultists would not describe themselves as pagan, although some definitely would. The occult world includes Thelemites (who follow the religion/philosophy of Aleister Crowley), Satanists (Satanism as created by Anton LeVey in the 1960s), Luciferians, Gnostics, Qabbalists … the list is virtually endless.
Isn’t it a bit vague having so many different paths under one word?
Yes and no. It can appear vague and confusing when you first approach paganism, but once you start learning, studying and exploring you will be overwhelmed with the richness both of paganism and the diversity of the people attracted to it. One thing is key amongst pagans: to accept the path that the other person walks. There is no preaching and there are no attempts to convert people. We are happy to be who we are, and we rejoice in seeing other people be who they truly are. Human diversity is celebrated within paganism!
Is paganism a cult?
No, paganism is not a cult. There is no one figure who commands all pagans. Even though there are occasionally oddballs proclaiming that they are, for example, King or Queen of the Witches, this is something rejected by pagans and usually cause for much hilarity.
We abhor bullying and coercion in any area of life and this is something that goes very much against the Pagan Path. To reiterate the previous answer: There is no preaching and there are no attempts to convert people. We are happy to be who we are, and we rejoice in seeing other people be who they truly are. Human diversity is celebrated within paganism!
The word “cult” is often used as a slur word to disparage someone else’s religious or spiritual beliefs. Often people using the word “cult” have their own agenda of conflict and negativity, rather than a true desire to promote spirituality and personal growth.
Are pagans devil worshippers?
The majority of pagans do not believe in the devil; Satan or the devil for them is a construct of Judeo-Christian religions and mythology. There is a lot of confusion in this area as the pagan image of, for example, Pan (who is the god of nature, hunting and revelry) has been subsumed into Christian culture as the epitome of “what the devil looks like”. Pan is by no means an evil god, and many pagans would even dispute the existence of evil itself, but would say that “evil” is energy just as “good” is energy: a gun is only a piece of metal until the gun-holder decides how to use it. This is a key point within paganism: there is no doctrine telling us what is wrong or right. We each carry a heavy responsibility as to how we use this “moral energy”. It would be easier if we were told what to do, but instead we have to cultivate self-awareness, respect of others, sensitivity to the environment, a knowledge of cause and effect and make our decisions bearing all this in mind within our spiritual framework.
Are pagans witches?
Some pagans are witches, but the majority are not. Many pagans do not practise witchcraft or spellwork. Witches can come in many guises: some are Wiccans, some Dianic witches, Green Witches, Hedgewitches, Kitchen witches, etc. Traditional witchcraft and Voodoo even draw on the spellcraft of Pennsylvanian Christian pow wow magic. Witchcraft is like a river with many tributaries feeding it – some of which lead to surprising sources.
What is a pagan ritual?
The answer to this will depend very much on which tradition you choose to work with. A pagan ritual in general will aim at focusing the energy of the person or participants (if it is group work); this energy can be drawn from themselves or from any of the Five Elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Ether/Spirit, for example. Sometimes the energy is focused on sending healing to people, or on blessing the group, reconnecting with deity or many other things.
Rituals can be either in a group or worked individually. Rituals can be as elaborate or as simple as you wish. The main point, however, is to learn the basics and for that there are many good books and (through the Herefordshire Moot) willing people to teach and advise you.
Do pagans believe in Jesus?
Some do and some do not. Many pagans believe in a wide variety of higher beings. Jesus is one of these beings for some pagans. Some believe he was a great spiritual teacher, but not a god. Some have no feelings about him at all.
Who is the pagan god?
There is no single pagan god. As mentioned before, some pagans believe in one god or goddess, some believe in two or more and some believe in none. It depends on the tradition you are called to work with.
What do pagans do?
Pagans are just like anybody else. You will find pagans working in industry, in the military, employed, unemployed, well, sick, happy, sad, divorced, married, hand-fasted (pagan marriage) and other. Most pagans will work around the pagan year honouring the equinoxes and solstices, marking the new moon and full moon. Some will do elaborate rituals in groups or on their own, some will do nothing more than light a candle and internally connect with what is important to them.
Do pagans pray?
Some pagans pray in what would be recognised as a “traditional way”, others use forms of meditation, drumming, chanting or dancing. There are many ways of connecting with deity and pagans are pragmatic in that, if it works, they’ll try it!
Where are the pagan churches?
Most pagans would say that their church is Nature and that She is where they worship. Others might say that when they cast a circle (create a sacred space), that is their church. Since pagans believe that deity is everywhere, however deity is conceived, the idea of a fixed building in which to worship is unnecessary.
How do you become a pagan?
Try firstly to read as much as you can about paganism and its different offshoots. Meet up with pagans. Ask lots of questions! When you feel the time is right, you will know how best to dedicate yourself to your chosen path and deity or deities. Most people begin with a personal, individual dedication. Groups, such as covens (not all groups of pagans are covens), do not usually allow people to join them until they have shown a commitment to studying and learning about that particular path. A moot, however, is a social environment for meeting pagans: you don’t even have to be pagan to come along, just bring your interest and respect for others.
What do I need to be a pagan?
You only need yourself and a sincere interest to learn, a yearning in your belly that this is where you belong, combined with an open heart and mind for your fellow pagans. No one is going to judge you if you step on this Path and decide at a later date it is not for you. Our Paths can be winding ones, and each step teaches us something valuable.
Why do people say bad things about pagans?
People often ridicule what they do not understand. Hollywood has also created many damaging and untrue stereotypes. This is why it is important for people genuinely interested in paganism to inform themselves from reputable authors and to meet up with real pagans. You cannot teach your paganism by watching “Charmed” or “The Craft” or any other light entertainment. Paganism is a spiritual way of living that requires commitment, soul-searching, self-awareness and hard work. Nothing worth having comes easily, but the joy of finding yourself on the right Path with like-minded others can’t be overestimated.
©StarofSeshat 2011
Stop breathing immediately!
A little ritual work this evening, a medium dose of reading and a lot of ritual writing. Good to be back on track after a break of a couple of weeks – too long; I felt the spirits nudging me kindly, but enough’s enough and I don’t want to drag my heels and get a sledgehammer hint over my head that I have been neglecting Them.
A beautiful reunion this evening.
Ritual writing exhilarating as always. Because I find it easier to speak my rituals than to write them, especially if I am adapting from several books, I use a voice recognition software which can be a tad unreliable as I am very soft on my consonants (my German heritage is sadly lacking there).
This evening I was also adapting a meditation written by Ariock Van De Voorde in ATUA (probably the most vibrant and inspiring collection of occult essays in a very long time – more on the book at a later date – if you don’t have it and are interested in LHP or the Voudon Gnostic current, then you MUST buy this book – you snooze, you lose – and there is so much to explore!). The meditation is a method for approaching those hard-to-manage, obtuse passages we all hit against, here specifically in the Voudon Gnostic Workbook, although it could be applied to any occult reading. His advice however was interpreted thus by my voice recognition software as I read from the book:
Once you have either finished a chapter, or encountered a section that you find particularly obtuse, immediately stop breathing [sic].
… a little harsh even by my standards. However, Mr Van De Voorde had in fact merely suggested “stop reading”. Phew. Inhale. Exhale. Phew. I shudder to think how often I would have to cease breathing otherwise!
So a productive evening. I mastered bullion knots this afternoon and am a quarter of the way through finishing a necklace. Candles still lit that will accompany me into the Land of Dreams, incense still permeating the room … I felt the floor tremble when the spirits came. Beautiful Aakhu. Beautiful Spirits of Hoodoo.
©StarofSeshat 2011
Jungle gnosis
Somewhere I read about the transition in Man’s relationship to the divine from those beings more powerful than humans but limited by certain human-like failings and personality traits to an ultimate, infinite Being who is infallible and omnipotent.
(Traditional) Gnostic thought holds onto man’s direct way of relating to the gods saying that Man is too distant, too spiritually imperfect and far removed from that Ultimate Source to be able to communicate with It. As humans, when there is talk of becoming divine and being a god, it is this lower emanation of godly forms that is referred to not the original source.
These godly forms in the Egyptian religion are referred to as Neter; sometimes translated as god/goddess, it also refers to an aspect of the original Source, an emanation composed in a godly form conceivable by human minds.
The Gnostic hierarchy of being seems to me often to be quite artificial and a typical human construct that aims at forcing some semblance of order on the chaos of The Unknown.
Potentially I can see merit in using a commonly held construct from the perspective of being empowered by the collective unconscious: why cut your own path through the jungle when there is a well-worn path before you that others say heads in the right direction?
That is a crossroads in itself: trust the Path that others follow and rave about or rely solely on your instinct (and the Guardians from other realms) to guide you through the jungle and (perhaps) risk getting permanently lost… or found, maybe the others are all lost – megalomania rules!
If following the well-worn or even less-worn path were a successful road to divinity (absorption into or manifestation as divinity depending on your right- or left-sided bent respectively), then surely mankind would exhibit a greater degree of enlightenment for humankind is nothing if not sheeplike in its general tendencies and beliefs.
That’s an off-the-cuff statement because I can also see that even if some follow in word, the majority do not follow in deed and remain encamped outside the jungle …
©StarofSeshat 2011
Hoodoo and the beautified dead (aakhu)
Tip No. 1: Don’t try to write a blog post on the Egyptian continuum whilst simultaneously listening to Eddie Izzard doing a gig in French and English. Zut alors, ma tête est fucked.
I have been working with the Spirits of Lucky Hoodoo. The basic system is surprisingly simple, although I would personally say it is demanding in that it requires daily input and is not something you drag out of the cupboard at full moons and high holidays. I am not an expert, so can only speak from my experience which is that the spirits require, and deserve, a continuous relationship.
My path has always pushed towards a life focus, not a cherry on top of the cake approach to spirituality. It is not something I want to put to the side or commercialise. I don’t want it to be a high days and holy days affair; I want a daily, hourly love affair.
I have read David Beth’s book Voudon Gnosis (the first edition twice, the second edition – which is an entirely different book – twice), and done (done? is that the right word? practised… followed… ) two of the rituals in the back of his second edition book.
Firstly I read the rituals through and as happens each time I have read a VG text by David, every fibre in me says, “Yes! That’s right!” Whereas, for example, when I read Ford, I think, “What a prat.”
But when it came to following (!) the rituals I hit against an internal wall.
I read somewhere about how occult groups, when working together, build up and acquaint themselves with a particular continuum. They essentially learn (or create) a language which they use to communicate with, to command and bind themselves to that particular continuum.
I am not part of any group, but I have spent nearly the last ten years working with Egyptian deities. They are Home for me. They are the Dark and the Light. When I go off my path and start losing myself, I know because when I return to Them, I become whole and centred, at peace and focused – the feeling is physical and intense.
So I have spent a couple of weeks rewriting David’s rituals (still in progress); listening to the Neter/Neteru, incorporating my understanding of the Duat and the role of Osiris, Anubis, Maat, Apophis, Seth and aakhu. The fact is it fits! Nothing essential was changed, and it fits. It works perfectly.
Gnosis before Logos. The word must never be made from steel, but must bend to experience, and experience must bend again to further experience, ad infinitum.
One of the main issues regarding my interest in LHP has been that the fundamental objective of the Ancient Egyptian religion was/is to maintain Ma’at and avert chaos. There are complex rituals to empower Osiris in his battle so as to enable the rising of Ra again each morning – this was not a given, not predictable, but a battle on a knife’s edge each night. That dark realm of chaos and serpents which threatened Ra and life itself was something to be feared; even Osiris was not a sure bet to bring back the sun from the Duat, hence the rituals to aid him. So to attempt to work directly with those spirits that moved through the realms of “chaos” went contrary to everything I believed, and yet the compulsion would not cease.
But now I know the Duat slightly better and that there is a thin path there to be trod. The other day I walked up to town and saw everything resplendent around me in full summer glory – lush greens, blue skies, the light glancing off the river – and I saw death in it all, because without death life could not survive. Death is the base and the foundation from which life comes. There is indeed still a nightly battle to draw Ra up into the sky, but life is a battle and never comes without pain, screaming and crying; does that make pre-birth a bad thing, that to manifest birth there has to be pain? I know pain.
Today I wrote to a friend and said, “It may sound like a contradiction, but I have been considering suicide and also feel optimistic.” Although maybe my optimism is more concerned with the direction of my spiritual path than with Life per se. Synchronicities are like petals on a path leading me through it all.
I am aware that I, as a person with bipolar, am a liability and that most if not all magicians would run for the hills before working with me, which is fine. I have heard magicians and sorcerers say either in general or to me specifically: if you are ill it means you are a crap magician (I’m a witch anyway, so suck and swivel); and if you have mental health issues you must never deal with spirits (why? it just makes it harder not impossible, and in some ways I have the edge on someone who is sane and limited by the boundaries of their sanity).
It’s not about being gung-ho, as in my mind that is also a disrespectful attitude to the spirits and Neter you wish to work with, but I refuse absolutely and categorically to be told I should not work my Path as I do.
Who should I listen to? Magicians with a body-fascist tick? Or the spirits themselves who (so far) through answering and granting what I have asked for, give their blessing to the relationship I strive to establish with them?
Blessed are the Neter for their gifts of Heka and Akau. Blessed are the Aakhu. And blessed are the Spirits of Lucky Hoodoo.
p.s. Please refer to my Who am I? page if you have any questions regarding my personal affiliations, just so there are no misunderstandings.
©StarofSeshat 2011
An occult truth
Having read David Starr Jordan’s essay The Philosophy of Despair (which was surprisingly optimistic), I am now reading A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga by William Walker Atkinson. In a description of the occult awareness of “I”, the author talks of the initiate’s arising sense of self through the Instinctive Mind which is based in certain feelings, wants and desires of the body, representing form and substance; such people use their thinking power purely for the gratification of their bodily desires and cravings. Their “I” is bound up with the senses and with those things that come to them through their senses.
The next stage is when the initiate advances to a higher conception of the “I”, she begins to use mind and reason, passing on to the Mental Plane, where the mind begins to manifest through Intellect. The mind seems more real than the physical self, and at times she is able almost to forget the existence of body.
However, in this stage the initiate is continually confronted with the Unknown. The higher the level of “book learning” the greater this disturbs her.
The tortures of the man [sic] who has attained the mental growth that enables him to see the new problems and the impossibility of their answer, cannot be imagined by one who has not advanced to that stage.
In this stage the mental self is considered a higher partner to the lower companion, the body. There are more riddles than answers. She becomes unhappy.
Such men [sic] often develop into Pessimists, and consider the whole of life as utterly evil and disappointing – a curse rather than a blessing. Pessimism belongs to this plane…
This is where I am at the moment. I am reassured by the encouragement that there is no going back, that once on the Path there is only stagnation or forward movement.
In a suggested meditation on “The Realisation of the I”, the author describes a meditation where the initiate is to focus on the Ego being the Centre of Thought, Influence and Power – once recognised, these qualities will become manifest. This is not about comparing yourself to others or denying the centredness of other people: it is an endeavour to realise that
…YOU are a great Centre of Consciousness – a Centre of Power – a Centre of Influence – a Centre of Thought. And that like the planets circling around the sun, so does your world revolve around YOU who are its centre.
Such realisation is not a mental or intellectual exercise, but a gradual expanding of consciousness through meditation and concentration. This is an occult truth.
©StarofSeshat 2011
A star to guide me by
I went for a walk this evening in the dark. Everything is icy and frozen. I stood on the bridge and watched sheets of ice float in the black river, gathering on the one side at the roots of a willow. Last year when the river froze over there was a large trout lying at that spot. It had come up for air and been trapped in this alien world and died.
First I walked down one side of the river, matching my slow footsteps to the beat of the music I was listening to. I turned to walk back and saw the nearly full moon peering around a cloud.
I walked down the other side of the river. It was so tempting to slide down the banks and tap at the ice floes. How hard are they? How thick? Would I fall in? Would I die if I fell in?
I found a safe path down to the water’s edge and sat in the crook of a willow tree. Looking up I saw the stripped branches of the tree and then the moon unveiled herself and shone. I prayed to my Lords Osiris, Sobek and Khonsu and the ever-present Isis. There were the footprints of gulls in the snow. The ducks floated in the water at the edge of the ice. Occasionally one started grumbling and gacking, a vocal ripple taken up by the others until they once again fell silent.
I found a new path, one that took me further along the water’s edge. I only stopped when I couldn’t see any more, the branches too close overhead and blocking out the sporadic lunar appearances behind the clouds. There was no way except either back or up, so I chose up and promptly slipped down the bank falling into the snowy grass. As I looked up I saw the masts of a sailing ship. A new path and a ship? It hadn’t been that long since my last visit to this stretch of the river. I grabbed at the grass and hauled my twisted toe and wrenched back up onto the walkway.
The ship is composed of three masts (two with look-out baskets) and a prow. The appearance is of a buried ship, submerged: a representation and reminder of the past and things buried (I read on the sign). How appropriate. As I stood there on what would have been the deck I looked up at the main mast and saw the moon; I looked to the bow and saw a star. The clouds in the dark sky, backlit by the moon, looked like gods and I inhaled the air they sent into my lungs.
Some things became clear to me this evening. As ever my blessed Egyptian gods are kind to me and guide me… by moon and by star.
Frozen river near where my brother lives
©StarofSeshat 2010
Rant alert: being darker than the darkiest dark-darkness is like so orgasmic
I get so fed up of people play-acting a persona or bigging themselves up to be something they only aspire to be. Yes, my cynic may be coming into play here and also my natural English propensity for understatement, but still…!
I hit against a similar frustration when I was on that dating website and I meet it again and again in the pagan/occult world. Perhaps it’s a lack of humour on their part, or an excess of humour on mine… or a lack of humour on mine…
Seshat: Hello, who are you?
Other: I’m a man who walks the paths that others fear to tread.
Seshat: Oh. Really? Sounds lovely. And what do you do when you’re not walking the paths that others fear to tread?
Other: I’m breaking the rules, pushing the boundaries, living life on the edge.
Seshat: Sounds a bit samey to me.
Such stupid, empty statements are the greatest shield against intimacy. So when does a man (or woman) practising detachment become just a man (or woman) with intimacy issues??!
The cooler the man, the sexier he believes himself to be, the more the empty-headed women flock around and believe the myth of stud-ness he weaves around himself, the more I laugh and can’t take him seriously in any respect.
Other: You’re laughing… at least you’re pleased to see me.
Seshat: Trust me, it’s only my top half that’s pleased to see you.
It is impossible to have any kind of meaningful conversation with someone who is more interested in their own appeal than in being appealing to you:
Seshat: I like your accent.
Other: Yes, I do have a nice voice, don’t I? Nice and deep. Sexy, isn’t it?
Seshat: Um. Yes.
Other: I saw you looking at my arse. I have a good arse, don’t I? Loads of people have said that.
Seshat (who had actually been looking at a squirrel): Um. Yes.
Sure, confidence is attractive. Even confidence verging on a quiet arrogance can be sexy. Maybe that’s the key word – quiet. I just wish some of these people would shut up! Yes, I know you are amazing, handsome, sexy, desirable to all of female flesh; I know you are the darkest, darker-of-the-darkest-darkier-dark-darkness I will ever have the pleasure to meet… So cut the crap and get real.
I thought walking the Left-Hand Path was about a brutal self-honesty and a desire to cut through the egotistical bullshit, to pare away the excess and get to the pure white bones of Self. So why does it have to come with the LHP™ commercialised pantomime pony-arsed prancing of a bunch of teenagers high on their first sip of absinthe? But that’s unfair to teenagers, especially as most of the people are older and should know better.
But even apart from the LHP “I’m so dark my own mother couldn’t find me in a coal shed” crew, there are still those, for example, amongst the pagan crowd for whom every floorboard creak is a ghost trying to communicate, and every poorly developed photo is a sign from the other side. I recently had to bite my tongue while I was shown a “ghost photo” which was actually just a “crap photo”. As my friends know, I am not a “social” person. I don’t do airs and graces very well. I once had a very well-heeled boyfriend (son of wealthy family, royal associations) who was just about to embark on a political career in London working for Lord S. We broke up when he moved to London because he couldn’t trust me not to leap on the tables and talk about the redistribution of wealth to his cronies … and yes, he actually said that to me. Prat… although he does have a point.
Oh, I’m just sick of all the bullshitting. I’ve seen women acting the “I’m a sultry whore” who use the adjective “orgasmic” like teenagers use the word “awesome” – and both sound like idiots to me. And I’ve seen men acting the “I’m a dark stud machine”. They are welcome to each other. At a Year 2000 party I attended in Israel, I saw a couple dancing: she stood on the spot twiddling her hands and wiggling her hips looking abashedly at the floor; he circled her making enormous thrusting gestures with his hips. It’s easy to fall into stereotypes, to hide behind the image of being whatever you happen to think is safest… because I do think that this insistence on image is about staying safe and not showing who you really are. As such you do yourself the biggest disservice IF you are actually serious about internal spiritual progress as opposed to group acceptance, getting laid and being cool.
Anyway, that’s some of my rant-urge exorcised tonight. My sub-conscious is bubbling with a restless fury, even though consciously I am feeling quite chilled and amicable (believe it or not!). Might as well end in the vein that I started:
©StarofSeshat 2010
The merciless path through the tended garden
I was interested to hear in David Beth’s podcast about the concept of the Merciless Path. How willing are we to sacrifice the comfort of living like others to pursue our spirituality? What are our priorities? Is our spirituality a mere hobby, an addendum to the rest of our life? Or is it our life, prioritised above all others and above all things? Is our passion for the divine compulsive or merely permitted at convenient moments?
In separating from my partner last year, I made a very conscious step to follow the Merciless Path. From then on, everything was to move me along that path; even my translation work I view as a means to an end, a means to fund my study. I am also lucky enough to work from home, which means I can break from work to do whatever ritual is required at whatever time of day; a luxury that not many people have.
So a commitment has been made. Sometimes that feels enough. Most of the time it isn’t. In listening to David’s podcast I became very aware of how little I know, and how far I still have to go. A tiny part of me (the child) sighed and wanted to sit and sulk. The greater part of me felt inspired and eager to ‘get on with it then’.
There is a quote in Aghora Vol. I (Svoboda) that describes it well:
To be a guru you have to say, “I know and I can teach you.” But if I say that, well, I’m finished. I can never learn anything else. I have shut myself off from anything new. If I remain a student all my life, though. I will always be ready to learn new things.
Although the least of my aims is to be guru to anybody (I have been asked and always respond with a gentle ‘no’ – I am willing to be a friend and exchange mutual discoveries and learn alongside a person, but I am no teacher), I am still conscious of how easy it is to rest for too long in the limited knowledge we possess. There is always more. To be reminded of and excited by another’s passion for More is a great inspiration to study and practice. It is like being reminded of the horizon when we have spent too long looking at the path directly in front of our feet; we have to be aware of the path directly in front to avoid stumbling and falling, but the horizon is the inspiration and reason for walking.
Another interesting point in David’s podcast was the questioning of our motivations in learning magick and in practising our spirituality. To really develop there needs to be a sharp blade of honesty applied to the fruit of our being – peel off the skin and see if the fruit beneath is truly edible, unripe or rotten. The pursuit of spirituality has been a priority for me since childhood, even before my introduction to monasticism, I knew that the relationship with god was the backbone to my life and always would be – I couldn’t conceive of a life that wasn’t focused around working towards divine union (something my dreams showed me at the time). And yet, even with such a focus it is easy to allow ego-motivated needs and weaknesses to infect our direction. I am starting to slowly uncover motivations that at times may drive me, but which ultimately steer me away from true divine union. This is a continual process of self-examination; a garden will always attract weeds, so the gardener must work at the soil while enjoying the fruits of her labours.
I have seen the level of work required in my spiritual garden, and I dare to see the potential there for growth. Time to get to work and get my hands very dirty.
© StarofSeshat 2009
The support of the whole of antiquity …?
I have just re-read Madame Blavatsky’s article entitled Ancient Egyptian Magic. The article contains very little concrete information about Egyptian Magic and focuses instead on ridiculing for the most part archaeologists; she seems to find it amusing that men of science sit amongst the remnants of a civilisation trying to classify things according to scientific principle, when every which way they turn they are faced with ‘magic’. The main impetus of the articles seems rather to prove the philosophical lineage that Theosophy was apparently based on. She rounds off the articles rather abruptly with:
“For the present, enough has been said to show that the Theosophists have the evidence of the whole of antiquity in support of the correctness of their doctrines.”
What a coincidence that I suggested in a comment yesterday that Josephus (that first century Jewish historian) perhaps suggested the Hyksos as being the antecedents of the Jews as a way of underlining their antiquity. Such a longing for the ‘support of correctness’ from the ‘whole of antiquity’ is still prevalent in today’s pagan community where people try sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully, to draw a line of antiquity up to present-day practices.
As individuals we may not need to underline the antiquity of our beliefs and practices, but as a community [sic] to hold our own against the Big Three (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) for example we feel we need to match their history. A sad truth and personally one that I feel falls under the bracket of counting angels dancing on the head of a pin (a waste of time, I’d rather just watch them dance).
This is surely one of the differences about paganism; we are (or should be) unafraid to take the wisdom of history, apply it to practice and consideration, and reshape as appropriate. Change for change’s sake never facilitates progress, but neither does the calcified reliance on ‘our roots’ and on ‘the way things have always been done’. If spirituality is a growing thing, if our relationship with the divine is to develop, surely we must expect change and rejoice in new spiritual traditions arising, IF THEY TRULY ENGENDER SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND DIVINE PROXIMITY (thus excluding cults of personality and such self-indulgent paths focused around ‘wot I beleev’ and that encourage people to part with money to share in the egotistical meanderings of more powerful personalities).
Maybe our roots do stretch back to earlier cultures; after all we recognise the spirit in lightning, rain, the hills, the earth – we worship the female aspect of divinity alongside the male; some are pure polytheists, some monotheists, some animists or even a mixture. There is much to be learned from the past, and not just from pagan religions of antiquity, but we mustn’t allow ourselves to fossilize in seeking justification for all our beliefs and practices in the cultures and religions of long-dead peoples.
I am constantly researching and reading about Ancient Egypt – the culture, land, the people, the religion. But my primary aim in this is in looking to regenerate what I learn to make it applicable to now; perhaps the word ‘reinterpret’ is more accurate. I am not creating a religion (Heaven forefend – the Christian analogy of a plank in my eye, a splinter in yours springs to mind!) but neither am I getting too stuck in the past. The prime focus is me, my spirituality and my self-development which edges me into divine proximity with the ultimate source both within and without. I am aware of the lack of connectivity in that statement; that it essentially sounds like I stand alone conversing on a mountain top with my personal burning bush. That’s not how it is, or how it should be. I am the only one who can walk my path; no one else can move my limbs. Only by walking the path can you meet others along the way, support each other, shout back directions to stragglers and listen to those ahead of you as they shout to you when you fall behind. This is a busy road and I, for one, am not walking it with my eyes shut and my fingers in my ears. I am conscious and connected to my fellow travellers (of whatever religion or spirituality), and it is only natural to want to talk about the origins of our journey (both personal and suprapersonal), just as long as we keep moving forwards and remember where we are actually heading.
© StarofSeshat 2009
Holy is the Whore
Oh-oh-oh, holy is Whore, but happier yet the manless Whore who touches Herself in an empty cave. She sinks under the covers of Her courtesan bed and revels in the cool space of freedom to sleep alone.
Women come to share their passion and love, to parade the man of their dreams before Her; but She sees the cautious, trepidatious look of frightened prey in the woman’s eyes as she wonders if her wild creature will behave, flex his claws or drool on the floor.
I know that look, She says, and holds a mirror to Her face, admiring the brightness of Her eyes that no longer hold the look of fear. Satisfied that only Her spirit resides within, She puts aside the mirror and returns Her cool gaze to the woman before Her.
The Whore gives her blessing because it is asked for. Each woman must whore herself in the way she best sees fit. Who is She to point out the risks and flaws, the endless fights that lie before the woman? Some people need to stand pushing against the wind, they are forever crooked and without the wind to battle they would fall down. Maybe she is a crooked woman who needs the childish moaning and futile breezes of a man’s ego to keep her straight.
The woman passes, the man leads, and the Whore sighs and reclines back in comfort. Holy, holy, holy is the Whore. Whole, whole whole is the Whore.
©starofseshat 2008
The evil in my bathtub
While reading W. E. Butler, I came across a chapter called The Kings of Edom in which he tries to describe evil. The premise for this chapter is that the magician must work on his [sic] character by rooting out the evil within. In order to root out the evil, one must know what evil is. It is a slim volume (entitled Magic, Its Ritual, Power and Purpose) so I wouldn’t expect the author to go into huge amounts of detail, but … yes, you’ve guess it … I don’t agree with a lot of what he says.
Firstly he states that: “The first type of evil is the innate resistance of form to force.” By this he means the concept of inertia or the restriction of free-flowing force, and here at least he admits that some kinds of evil are not evil at all. So, for example, Evil No. 1 expresses the restriction of force in the form of steam (force) in a steam engine (tool of restriction) producing positive results, which means it is not evil. Butler calls the results “useful work” … so any force I can harness that makes useful work is an evil which isn’t evil? This is therefore good? Oh, the grey fields of semantics that stretch before me…
Then, for Evil No. 2, he makes a rather extreme leap from the mundane example of a steam engine to the superlative metaphysical concept of “The Abortion of Space”, that space where “evolving life, finding no resistance, no fulcrum for its lever, may be absorbed and rendered impotent… ” (sounds like the town centre on a Saturday night to me). So I am at a loss to find a mundane example that would fit his idea of inertia that is evil… either it is a steam engine (useful and good) or an archetypal emptiness outside the bounds of description (bad).
Evil No. 3 he calls “unbalanced force”. He doesn’t seem to mean neutral forces that need a tool (magician) to be applied in one direction or the other; here, he speaks of a “perfectly good and useful force or energy [which] is displaced in space or time and the resulting out-of-balance is definitely evil.” Thinking that we might be getting the nitty-gritty of it, I read on to his next example… “The water in the bath is good, but the same water escaping from the bath and cascading down the stairway, is evil.” Now, call me pedantic, but I would call an overflowing bath an inconvenience or an annoyance but not evil. I understand the idea that he is trying to convey, but really … a bath. What about genocide, rape, child abuse, the petty emotional abuses between parents and children, between lovers and friends? Nope. A bath. How very English.
Under the banner of Evil No. 3 he also speaks of displacement of energy in time. He talks of modern civilised man regressing to a “lower and primitive level of human culture” (regression to the past), and of people trying to materialise in the present a state of civilisation only possible in the future (anticipation of the future). On a macrocosmic level I think that this could put a severe cap on progress, as how would any civilisation develop without those people who strive to manifest “higher concepts” now. He rags on pacifists (bearing in mind this was written shortly after WWII), saying that they are trying to manifest a future state of humankind in the present; i.e. we are not ready for pacifism so we should not attempt it. But this also presupposes that mankind would be capable of it in the future. Who is to say what state of civilisation is unattainable to us in the here and now, let alone in the future? This philosophy, in my mind, leaves no room for idealists, scientists, artists, inventors or even mystics.
Confusingly (to me) he states that these two shades of evil under Evil No. 3 are “positive evils” … but wait! There is also something called a “positive positive evil” which is manifest in “the existence of organised evil”. Here we touch on the “calculated beastliness revealed during the second World War”. Now the language may be anachronistic, but we know what he means. From here he moves on to say that, “All the old religions have taught of organised spiritual evil, and the Christian Faith has personified it as Satan.” After this he goes a bit “Atlantis”, a bit “Lemuria” on me, and starts talking about the psychic atmosphere around the earth becoming over-clouded with evil and that every two thousand years the Logos and Lord of Light transmutes the “evil conditions of the planet … into higher conditions and influences – a World Alchemy!” Naturally he is talking about Jesus, but I can’t actually remember any period of peace or goodwill following the supposed life of Jesus … war followed war followed persecution followed occupation followed crusade etc. etc. THIS is the world alchemy? THIS is the righting of balance? And since we are at that two thousand point of transmutation yet again … tell me, where are the signs for another such alchemical experiment?
Okay, so on a macrocosmic level, I think his examination of evil stinks. However, on a microcosmic level I can see some value.
Evil No. 1 (the evil that isn’t evil, remember?): The productive and creative harnessing of internal forces and energies to achieve some type of gain (financial stability, health, creative expression, happy relationships, etc.)
Evil No. 2: The uncontrollable abyss of anger turned inwards (an internalised abortion of space), the dark shades of depression, the feeling of futility in the face of a meaningless world.
Evil No. 3: In social anthropology taboo is defined as “matter out of place”, hence having sex in a Christian church is taboo but having sex in your own bed is not – in the former it is in “the wrong place”, in the latter it is in the “right” place (right and wrong as judged by the respective society you live within). So could Evil No. 3 apply to us when we are in the wrong place in life – the job we know is wrong but never have the courage to leave; the relationship we know is harmful but never have the strength to finish. And then we can also be in the wrong headspace: angry (which can be a misdirected expression of hurt or love or fear), afraid (sometimes an expression of the need for change against the overwhelming feeling of helplessness). So Evil No. 3 could be “matter out of place” mundanely, emotionally and spiritually and pushes us to question “Am I in the right place?”.
I also like the idea of regression to the past and anticipation of the future applied as evils to the microcosmic self. Briefly (because it is a simple idea), how often do we get bogged down in dwelling on the past or dreaming about the future without realising that the sands of time are slipping through our numb fingers all the while and we are not living NOW?
And as for positive positive organised evil … this is where I come unstuck on a microcosmic level. Maybe this is the meeting point between the evil within me as an individual and the evil within us as a social community. This is where evil steps across the boundaries of internal expression and becomes manifest in the larger community of mankind. Maybe this is where we decide whether to stay silent as so many did in Nazi Germany, to lock our doors against the screams, to turn off the television when the reports of war get too unpleasant. This kind of evil doesn’t need us to become card-carrying members of the Nazi party or to search websites on how to become a suicide bomber, all it takes is silence; the quiet consent. Here we encounter Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil”; a choice we encounter daily.
So, this is what I have squeezed out of Mr Butler, and since his premise was one of microcosmic application, perhaps it was more successful than I at first supposed. However, it is still a very unsatisfactory treatise on evil, but an interesting exercise nonetheless.
Now, excuse me while I go and check my bath, one can’t have beastly unrestrained evil flowing all over the floor, now can one??
© starofseshat 2008
Bi-spirituality
I have read, heard and seen descriptions of the LHP that describe it as a path for material attainment, development of self, preservation of ego, it is rooted in achievements in this world, in not putting blind faith in an external deity but in revealing ourselves for the deities we are.
I have not yet met a rich LHP-er … and the insistence on material benefits, on the enforcement of Will and Ego in spite of others’ needs and wants all smacks to me of a little child who believes the world owes her or him, that if she cries the world (parent) will supply, and if they don’t she will make it happen by stamping her little feet. The fact is that we have all already gone through a deity phase where we believed we were god, where we believed the world rotated around us and that all others are passengers on our ride. Maybe this is what Jesus meant by us becoming like little children … we should recognise the innate godness within us. And yet we all know what it is like to live with a toddler, to struggle against their innate selfishness and insistence on pushing the boundaries of what those around them are willing to give. Some people never leave the toddler mind-set and they are neither easy to live with nor particularly likeable. So if in an LHP sense they are living their Will, should I applaud them and say they have obviously attained a higher degree of spiritual progression than others? Excuse me while I yack on the floor, I think you know my answer here.
For me the LHP is not just about shaping your mundane world as you will, it is about facing the internal boundaries and demons and freeing yourself internally. Getting stuck on the material gains and “da big bad evil wot is me” is such a consumerist approach to spirituality, one wonders if they have seen the film and bought the LHP T-shirt as well.
Now, I start to feel like a spiritual bisexual: where the RHP-ers look at me with suspicion for my LHP leanings, and the LHP-ers look at me with disapproval because I talk from a spiritual and self-development aspect that at times may resemble RHP. People don’t like messy boundaries. In our discussion months ago about the LHP/RHP we all pretty much agreed that ultimately we will all have aspects of both in us, but the point is perhaps to strive in the direction of one path, or not, as you will. People like labels and they like to feel they belong – even non-conformist, chaotic LHP-ers care or why bother walking round with such big labels attached to their chests? I have never been one for neatness in definitions, I am too aware of how messy, bloody and chaotic life really is. To me the wish to force a neat boundary and label on a thing, a person, a spirituality or direction is yet again a shout of fear from a person who cannot cope with the fluidity that is life.
To summarise: Know Yourself, expand gently or expand violently, lean left or lean right, count how many toys you have gathered in your playpen, or walk away from your pen and head for the horizon …
©StarOfSeshat
Fetters, abyss and bones
Yesterday’s post on revenge, love and indifference gathered a lot more interest than I thought, so I wanted to continue today on that theme.
On the left-hand path we work with the darker forces, the fallen goddesses and the demons. In my dedication to the Egyptian pantheon this is fairly easy as each god or goddess has a darker aspect, so (apart from beings like Apep/Apophis, etc.) I am dealing with harlequin beings where it is just as easy for me to touch on the dark as on the light.
We may call on the Light to guide us in our lives, to protect us and shower us with blessings (an over-simplification, but I’m trying to make a point here); so what do we call on the Dark for? Once again I have seen people get stuck in using the dark gods like some kind of boyish gang to wreak revenge on anyone who has ever slighted them. The question is, will the score ever be settled or will the gunslinger keep firing shots at the shadows? Perhaps the aim here, or rather the hope, is to achieve a level of internal justification and clarity, to release the past through “righting the balance” - an eye for an eye (except many LHP-ers scoff at the idea of balance, so again, I question the motivation for focusing on revenge). It’s almost as if once the decks are clear of all the dross that has hurt and betrayed them, THEN they will move onto the next stage. I am minded of Aleister Crowley’s comment of those brothers who did not achieve the leap over the void (the relinquishing of ego), that they were brothers of the left-hand path. Yes, we do not reliquish ego in the same way as RHP-ers; but I think the abyss is just as much of a risk and failure to LHP-ers and in that sense he was right. Is not the point to become mistress even of our own egos? So where is the mastery when we indulge in rolling around in the mud of egotistical revenge. As I said yesterday, revenge can get us well and truly stuck in a prolonged, eternal relationship with the person we hate. I would rather cut the bonds, be free and fly off to the stars. From that celestial position I look down at the earth and see a muddy battle field of flailing arms and fists; a Hieronymus Bosch scene of humans convinced they are free because they fight, but unaware of the mud that sucks at their feet.
So, that is one reason to call on the darker forces, to get your own back. But how disrespectful would it be to those gods and demons to just use them for that purpose (like using a car as an outdoor seating arrangement). This is where it becomes tricky because by starting to discuss the concrete specifics of why we might call on a darker force, I could betray my own motivations, and frankly, that’s nobody’s business but my own. So forgive me for flipping to a certain vagueness…
The LHP is about pushing your boundaries, pinging that internal censor that says run, and standing your ground in the face of the worst. Through my years of illness, I faced the concrete possibility of death three times. It was indeed my very own personal initiation, and Death became a reality to me not just a concept. It’s not that I have completely lost my fear of Death, I know Him and He knows me; we are already acquainted. That was a major boundary to break and one that has freed me to undertake an awful lot more in my pagan life. It takes energy to hate, it takes energy to fear. Our limited, human frames (though not the internal, eternal spirit) can only supply us with so much energy; once we release a fear we have an energy supply available to us that we didn’t have before. This can then become a driving force to move us onto the next stage of Becoming.
Now, I know that some of you who would put yourselves in the RHP camp would say, we do the same thing; we face our fears and grow, we Become, so what’s the difference? The difference is in the method and this is what gives the LHP its reputation for being dangerous. I have used the analogy before that the RHP may be about expanding boundaries, but it is like expanding a bowler hat, it is gentle, takes time and does not push the person … erm… or the hat… beyond its limits. In my brief time as a Catholic I was told, “God will never present you with a challenge you are not capable of mastering.” Jolly good. That’s the RHP. The LHP WILL present you with unmasterable challenges, the LHP will break you apart and crush you back to dust for you to reform yourself with spit and mud as in the First Days. This is a faster path, and one that is fraught with more possibilities for mental, physical and emotional breakdown. I’m not going to cite pathetic Hollywood images of the demon hord tearing the flesh from your bones, or possession or what-not. The danger as ever lies with your Self and in your Self; it will just FEEL like the demon hords are tearing at your flesh… ah, but what beautiful white bones lie beneath. And perhaps here lies the first boundary to ping for those intent on revenge; while we wreak revenge we are in control and that need for control screams of a fear to lose control. That fear is one of the biggest fetters we must learn to break; to learn to be strong when we are in control and when we have NO control.
I am laughing now because surely you must think that LHP-ers are a complete bunch of nutters, either childishly stuck in gunslinging fantasies of revenge, or laying themselves open to mental disturbance and demon buffets. There is more than just this, it’s up to you to read between the lines.
©StarOf Seshat
Thought for the Day 2
Taken from “Modern Luciferian” by Rev. Frederick Nagash
To the Luciferian nothing comes before the self and its development and progress into the new or “manifested self”. We constantly strive to improve our-self and our “Utopia” to live the only life we’ll have to the fullest …
Everything in your Utopia is a manifestation of your own will, for good or bad. If you let someone use or take advantage of you, don’t complain about it later, eliminate them like the parasite they are. Tell them you no longer will let them feed off of you and you don’t want them around you any longer, erase them from your existence. If you want more money get a better job, or higher education to be paid more, the weight of your own existence is in your hands. This total responsibility of the creation and maintenance of your Utopia is what frightens off most people, we’re not most people! …
Finally, the term Luciferian can never be given to one with the following attributes:
- Someone who speaks without action.
- Someone who blames others for their own faults.
- Someone who has no thirst of [sic] life or knowledge.
- Someone who cares little about them self [sic].
- Someone who is afraid or hesitant of total liberation.
- Someone who thinks Luciferianism is their way or no way. Luciferianism and Luciferic Thought should never be systemized [sic] or standardized to the point of alienation of individual thought.
- Someone who thinks that they’re “evil”. Evil and Good are creations of Christianity, not of individual thought.
- Someone who feels as though they need to talk, act or dress a certain way.
- Someone who feels the world treats them so horribly so in turn they adapt [sic] the I don’t care anything [sic] attitude “Apathy”.
Spelling and grammar mistakes are his 
and apart from his rather superficial comment that Evil and Good are creations of Christianity (maybe he should study pre-Christian philosophy and religious-cultural comparative studies), I agree with much of what he says; in particular his stance against having a victim mentality and bowing in apathy to a world we think it “just so unfair”. Luciferianism is a spirituality of adults not teenagers or children. We have to take responsibility for our own lives, for the people we surround ourselves with, for our financial, emotional and health issues. If we have abdicated this responsibility in any way by relying too heavily on others then we need to take our power back otherwise how can we hope to meet others as equals let alone as superiors?
Health is a major issue for me. I do everything I can to maintain enough of a balance to stay functioning and working. Throughout my illness, the days in bed, the days in pain, I continued to work and maintain my financial independence. Having grown up with debt, this is tremendously important to me. I have seen sick people rely so greatly on their loved ones that even if they became well they would be entrenched in NEEDING (emotionally, financially and mundanely) the support of others; in being ill they have abdicated ALL of their power. Nagash’s text also reminded me of a woman I know who was extremely unhappy in her life. She felt misunderstood, unloved and neglected by her husband. Over the years her asthma turned into emphysema which became so chronic she needed a lung transplant, which nearly killed her. I knew her before the emphysema and remember her sitting at her kitchen table crying. She said she felt like Life’s train had passed her by and she was standing on the platform watching as it rattled through the station without stopping for her. It was a very sad moment and incredibly frustrating for an outsider. I saw that the only person who could stop that train was her. She was waiting for her husband to listen to her, for him to treat her with more respect and love … and she waited, and waited. She was literally choking on the suppression of her own Will. Her illness meant that eventually he HAD to focus more attention on her, he HAD to give her more time. Passive aggression will out, and often the person acting the biggest victim has the most power over a situation. I personally can’t stand people who moan and whinge about a situation that 1. can’t be changed (so find a way to deal with it) or 2. they are the ones with the power to say yes or no to the situation, to actually do something about it, instead of waiting for other people or Fate to make their lives better. I can’t think of one person I know who hasn’t had shit happen to them in their lives: sexual abuse as children, rape, parental bullying, homelessness, loss of work, loss of loved ones, etc. etc. etc. But the way people respond to life varies greatly. Some assume the mantle of victim and wrap it so tightly around themselves you will never ever find skin. Others bluster action and do nothing. Others quietly act and forge their way through life. Others oscillate between all behaviours (if I am honest, that is probably me – but at least I am aware of this!).
So to turn Rev. Nagash’s attributes of a non-Luciferian into positive ‘writs’:
- Always follow your words with action
- Know your faults and root them out in your own heart
- Drink from the well-spring of life and knowledge
- Care about yourself (aim to care more than anyone else has ever cared for you)
- Be courageous and embrace total liberation
- Live Luciferianism as YOU see fit
- Don’t concern yourself with being evil or good – just BE
- Dress and act how you like (really, who cares?)
- Take responsibility for your life without leaning too heavily on others – shirk off the chains of apathy. The only way to be truly free of the world is to throw yourself into it.
©BatShedim 2008
Thought for the day 1
I heard a man say this morning that the point of religious practice is to create a sense of perspective on the world. It takes us beyond the everyday mundane and puts our trials and pain into a context.
A Christian would say that the pain they suffer – the anger, fear, loneliness etc. – is a result of their sinful condition. They might also say that experiencing the pain brings them closer to the suffering of Christ on the cross, and hence to the salvation he brings them. They look for the light outside of themselves, and they head towards it.
A Luciferian would recognise anger, fear, loneliness and pain of all kinds as innate to the human condition. That’s life. C’est la vie. Things will always make us angry, people will always hurt us, no one can bridge the internal loneliness except us by finding the courage to allow certain people in. The Luciferian would work towards mastery of that inner darkness; reaching a place where we are not ruled by such passions, but where we truly control them to our Will. By pushing these internal boundaries, we become our own Source of Light. We become Lucifer, the Bringer of Light.
No one said this was an easy path. I myself am swayed daily by the emotions that others bring up in me (distress, worry, fear, anger, rejection). Until I gain mastery over my Self, and work through the internal dross, beat away at the outmoded habits and behaviours, I will continue to be ruled by others and reAct to their actions. It is a life’s journey working towards detaching myself from such knee-jerk reActions; working towards the day when I take back control, act from my Will instead of re-acting to others’ Wills. There is a romanticism about being ruled by our passions, and yet as Luciferians, we should not wished to be ruled by anything except our own cool Will. That does not negate the experience of passion, quite the opposite. It frees us to partake in a deeper passion, frees up energies that are squandered on people who don’t deserve it, so we can experience bliss with those who do.
No one said this was an easy path.
©BatShedim 2008
