A Tale of Two Futures

We, the people of this planet Earth, have come to a nexus point between two futures, and depending on how we deal with the current issues and crises that face us, we will either give to our children’s children a world of catastrophic collapse or a brave new world beyond anyone’s imaginings today. There is no middle ground in these two options, and I will try explain why I think that this is the troubling truth. Pessimists and smart gambling types would bet that we will collectively fail, since the odds of a para-utopia occurring in the future are not very good. Even so, it is a race between the exponential forces of technological development versus the age old dilemmas of destruction, the veritable Four Horses of the Apocalypse. Although in a less mythical and more scientific perspective, these five horses would be succinctly labeled as the principle causes for the collapse of civilizations. It has happened before and it could very likely happen again. The outcome of this titanic struggle is in our collective hands today, to shape a future full of brilliant promise or to forsake our progeny and banish them to a world bereft of civilization altogether.

How I came to believe in such a stark differential between possible futures is that I happened to stumble onto a book recently written by an archaeologist named Ian Morris, and that book is entitled “Why the West Rules - For Now.” The subtitle, though, really caught my attention and drew me to purchase it, and I spent a couple of weeks reading it in the month of August. The subtitle is “The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future.” You have to admit that such a subtitle is quite compelling, if indeed the book delivers what it promises to the erstwhile reader. And, indeed, it does satisfy and amaze the reader, even those who are critical academics and reviewers. They had a fair amount of praise for this bold and visionary work, and there were very few detractors.

My current opinion about the stark differences between two futures has been stated quite clearly and adroitly by Professor Morris in his book, so I will direct you to the picture and the paragraph of text at the top of this article. It is, by the way, a quotation from his book. I happened to see that image posted on someone’s Face Book page, and I must declare that it really lured me in to check out that book. I thought that it might answer some questions that I have been puzzling over, and indeed it did and more. Therefore, I highly recommend this book, and you can find it here on Amazon dot com (or your local book store).

You see, I have been befuddled the last couple of years by all of the doomsayers who have been predicting the immanent fall of our civilization, such as the writings of John Michael Greer (see The Archdruid Report). I don’t take what he has written at all lightly, and neither should any of my readers. His hypothesis, drawn from the opinions of a body of scholars and scientists, that we had achieved peak oil production in 2005 is a fact, and since that time there will be less and less oil being extracted from the earth. As the reserves of the more easily extracted oil dwindle, it will make the search and the associated expense for extracting fossil fuels that much more desperate and dear. In time all reserves will eventually fail. Thus, we will run out of oil sooner rather than later. 

Sustainable methods of energy collection (as they are now known) can never fill the void of the glut of oil, gas and coal that has fueled our industrial revolution, and at the end of that epoch, we will certainly experience some kind of profound change. Mr. Greer is discounting that there will be any kind of technological breakthrough that might save our world, so according to him and others of his persuasion, we are in fact already witnessing a long and slow collapse of our current civilization, based as it is on fossil fuels. That is a fact, unless something else happens, maybe even something wonderful, magical, or even more terrifying than a collapse. Alternatives to Mr. Greer’s vision of the collapse of our civilization are actually not just wishful thinking as he has maintained.

I believe that it is disproportionately blind to totally discount technology when prognosticating about the future. Even more troubling is the fact that most soothsayers of the future, both positive and negative, have been proven in error to a lesser or greater degree. The problem with all of this projecting into the future is that there are too many variables to account for, and even something inconsequential today could have a profound effect tomorrow. Additionally, if we were in some kind of slow overall decline of civilization wouldn’t our vaunted scientific and technological progress also be slowing down? That is the question that I have been thinking about, since it seems just too simple and easy to declare that our current civilization, like all previous ones, will fall at some point. That we have passed the apogee of our ascent back in the 20th century and are now in decline should be apparent, but it’s just not that simple.

If anything, what seems to be occurring in our world today is that technological change and new discoveries are occurring at an even faster pace then ever before. It isn’t hard to speculate that if that pace continues unaltered or unaffected that it will open new horizons undreamed of by modern man, that is, if we don’t implode or succumb to the diseases that have brought down previous civilizations. We, as a world civilization, are unique because modern technology has completely saturated nearly every corner of our world. Therefore, a collapse would have to be a world transforming catastrophe in order to reduce the world back to a pre-industrial stage.

So, this is what has bothered me about the Peak Oil doomsayers, and finally, I have found a scholar and an author who has given me what I believe is the complete and balanced answer. As a civilization, we are in deep trouble facing nearly insurmountable crises, but we are also at the threshold of something absolutely incredible. There are two possible future paths, and if we can collectively respond to the challenges of the near term, then the greater challenges can be met with a technology that would seem to be like magic to us today. We are only talking about the next 50 years as this potential becomes revealed, or not. Thinking about the possibilities really takes my breath away for a moment, knowing that we are all living in the most interesting times for the entire history of humankind. I may live to see only the barest dawn of this brave new world, but the next generation (the aptly named “millennials”) will plot the course that will lead humanity to either perdition or revelation. The only question is whether or not we will have enough fossil fuels to get us to the next stage. That is the big question, that and whether we will collectively commit suicide due to the inherent greed and stupidity that is humanity’s lot.

This brings me to Ian Morris’ book “Why the West Rules - For Now.” In his book, Professor Morris lays down his basic premise of how to quantitatively measure levels of development at various intervals, from just before the last ice age to the present time, a period of 14,000 years. He has taken four categories and has carefully graded them for this very long interval. Early estimates are admittedly pretty rough (he has compared them to “chainsaw” sculptures) compared to later periods where more information is available. His four categories are energy capture and consumption, organizational capacity (literally the population of the largest cities), the capacity to make war and information technology. In addition, he has effectively shown that through most of this long interval, the West was favored over the East merely due to geography, the biology of plants and animals, and to a lesser extent, sociology. His basic idea is that all of the data that he has collected unequivocally shows that large groups of human beings are pretty much the same everywhere. (There is no basis for genetic or cultural superiority for either the dominance of the West or the East.) He also believes that the fundamental human nature is greedy, lazy and fearful. That people are just looking for easier, more profitable and safer ways to do things, even though they rarely know the impact of what it is that they are doing.

Agricultural based civilizations are limited in how far they can advance within the four areas of developmental measurement mainly because of the physical limitations of their ability to collect and consume energy. If the collective amount of energy is limited to fire, wind, manpower, and animal power, then there is a hard ceiling to the level of development that can be achieved. The early agricultural civilizations had a ceiling of around 24 points, and this was only broken when regional areas developed centralized city-states that could acquire and organize the land, animals and people of ever larger geographic areas. Then a new ceiling for such empire development was pushed to around 43 points, which the Roman empire and the Song Dynasty (in China) were unable to break.

Held to a stasis of development, these empires over time underwent a certain degree of collapse fostered by the age old calamity that kills off all empires - climate change, disease and mass migrations, to name three of them. Yet the collapse in Mediterranean Europe was far more severe and lasted far longer than the collapse in China. This is also the period when the East began to outstrip the West in development, and it maintained this dominance for over a thousand years. The West took many centuries to recover from the collapse of the Roman Empire, and even then the East reigned supreme until the advent of the industrial revolution. What spurred China on past the 43 point ceiling during this period was the creation of a great canal that connected the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, allowing for an even more direct connection uniting the southern and northern kingdoms. This advancement was absent in the West until later in the Renaissance, when sail-powered ships began to forge the great western trade routes that opened up the Americas to conquest. Marginal states that had previously existed near the Atlantic ocean instead of the Mediterranean were favored by this monumental event.

Even so, empires have ascended into prominence and then experienced a collapse. What usually caused these empires to fail was a combination of catastrophic events, and these Morris called the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, or actually, five. These five horsemen were the collective effects of climate change, famine, disease, mass migration, and the resultant collapse of state government. Obviously, an empire or civilization that is lower on the development scale tends to be less resilient than one that is higher, but that is not always the case. It was a combination of all five that felled the Roman empire, but the Song dynasty was able to recover faster because there wasn’t as much chaos associated with mass migration. 

The West and East became evenly matched just before the industrial revolution occurred, and there was only a slightly better chance that the West would outstrip the East if things continued based on an agricultural type of technology. Yet once the industrial revolution occurred in the West, and the whole basis of energy shifted dramatically to fossil fuels, beginning with wood and steam power, then proceeding to coal and then petroleum based fuels, the pace of change made a complete mockery of everything that had preceded it for five millennia. Starting in the 100 - 200 points area of development just before the industrial revolution, the Western level of development in just 250 years achieved the daunting and mind blowing level of 1,000 points by the year 2000 CE.

Professor Morris has plotted this curve of development, beginning in 12,000 BCE to the year 2000 CE, and that diagram shows the astonishing level of development that occurred, particularly starting in the 19th century. It is, in fact, an exponential curve and the pace of development since 2000 CE has not in any way slowed down or diminished. It has, in fact, steadily and exponentially increased and continues to do so today. If that exponential curve continues as it has since the 1800's, then according to Morris’s calculations, our level of development by 2103 will achieve a score of 5,000 points. So we will have progressed 4,000 points in just a mere 103 years. In terms of energy capture and consumption, Morris’ calculations show that each member of the burgeoning human race will be consuming something in the area of 1.3 million kilocalories per day! The largest cities could have an excess of 140 million inhabitants each.

The difference between a civilization at the level of development of 100 points and one operating at 1,000 points is quite dramatic, but think how dramatic the differences would be between our civilization now and one operating at 5,000 points! It is staggering and almost unbelievable, but not impossible. Morris has pointed out that there isn’t enough oil, gas, coal and uranium in the whole world to supply the power consumption that such a colossus of a civilization would require. However, there might very well be other sources of power that we either don’t know about yet or have only begun to investigate now. Certainly, if we learned to harness the full power of the Sun’s energy cascading and buffeting our planet every day or the radioactive furnace of the Earth’s core, there might be more than enough energy to fuel a juggernaut civilization registering at 5,000 points. There are many possibilities to consider, and the only factor is that we are seeing a limitation of time to fully exploit them. However, the amazing thing to consider is that the amount of time it takes from scientific discovery to engineering marvel has become a much shorter period as well, and it is likely that it will take even less time in the future.

Can this amazing revelation actually be our future? Will we change the complete nature of what it is to be human exiting in a technological world in a scant 100 years? Even if the pace slackens somewhat, the momentum may very well carry us to that brave new world even if things are slowing down, or for that matter, breaking down. We may find ourselves at the very edge of collapse when just enough technological advances have occurred simultaneously to rapidly change the entire world equation and transform the crises that we were facing into minor adjustments. 

Technological advances create nearly as many problems as they fix, but progress is something tangible that can be measured in a scientific manner. By taking the long view, as Morris has done, it allows us to view history in a more powerful manner, realizing that the exponential curve of development kicked in many decades ago, and we are now moving at an irrepressible speed. Is it a fast streak to our destiny or to a catastrophic failure? Few can really predict the future accurately by examining the past, because we are already well within completely undiscovered country. An exponential ascending curve of growth can be followed by an exponential curve of decay, but such a downward curve in our present world situation would likely cause a cataclysm and wipe out most of humanity on the entire planet. This, too, would happen in a short span of time. If we fall, it won’t be a slow decline, it will be more like a world apocalypse.

Morris talks about a science fiction story that he read as a kid written by Isaac Azimov. The story is called “Nightfall,” which is about a planet that circles four stars and where true darkness is only experienced once every 5,000 years. The human inhabitants of that planet have gathered enough archaeological evidence to realize that every time it becomes true night on that planet, the world civilizations, such as they are, completely collapse in that short stygian interval. Morris likens our present predicament as to having to deal with all of the issues that might produce a planet wide Nightfall type of catastrophe. He also talks about Ray Kurzweil’s theory of the Singularity, which is an event where progress becomes truly exponential. He quotes Kurzweil as saying that a Singularity is “a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep.. that technology appears to be expanding at infinite speed.” That would be a good representation of what Morris has shown as one of our possible futures if development continues at the present pace.

If you consider the implications that there are a large number of scientific research efforts going on today in areas that are just in their infancy, and that any of them or all of them could radically change the world that we live in, then this represents a counter balance to the doomsayers. The scientific areas of quantum computing and artificial intelligence, computer to human interfaces, nano-technology, robotics, genetic manipulation, fusion energy, and the constant breakthroughs in the areas of sustainable energy capture and use, and many others that I have absolutely no clue are taking place, could reasonably change the world as we know it, and do so rapidly and thoroughly. I won’t even mention that the more critical scientific examination of the world’s problems are vastly underfunded and under-staffed because human governments have not yet seen their critical importance. A Manhattan Project style of a government funded and organized project formed to solve the fusion energy dilemma or any other major issue would produce results even more quickly than what is now occurring. I believe that we shouldn’t write off either technology or human ingenuity when attempting to project the future. There are many tricks up humanity’s sleeve, and the final card in this game hasn’t even yet been dealt, let alone played.  

As an occultist, I have always been interested in looking into the far future to try to see what might be the fate of the human race long after I am dead. In my early years I used a number of techniques to assist me in seeing far into the future, as if to test my psychic abilities to the maximum degree. What I saw was both a utopia and a dystopia, and that double vision was some cause of concern. Later on I rationalized it as the fear of what the future might hold, and that such extremes were less likely to actually occur. Now, in the beginning of my autumn years, I believe that what I saw so many years ago during my youth was the true fork in the road for humanity’s future. There are in reality two potential futures, but only one will be the final outcome. The odds are probably against a positive outcome, and it is more likely that the future world will be a quixotic place where the few scant surviving members of the human race will live in a primitive paleolithic world surrounded by the massive ruins of a profligate advanced civilization whose mountainous debris will hide constant dangers, horrors and death for those brave (or stupid) enough to scavenge through them. I, for one, don’t subscribe to this scenario, and I have a better science fiction story to propose as a possible outcome for our future, and that would be Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End.”

You see, I am afflicted with a boundless optimism, and I believe, perhaps foolishly, that humanity will manage to reach the Singularity of the exponential developmental curve at the last hour possible. Humanity will wait until dire necessity forces them to make radical changes and adjustments, and then they will do so with an alarming speed and purpose. The many promising arenas of scientific and technological discovery will all collectively deliver the final push that humanity needs to achieve a miraculous and profound transformation of itself, its work and the planet at large. Humanity itself will be redefined and reformulated in a fashion that we couldn’t even begin to understand. We might even, at that moment, receive ambassadorial visitors from the far flung stars and galaxies who might assist us in making this final change. Certainly, when we become ourselves a star-faring people, we will find those who also made it to the Singularity.

History as we know and understand it at that moment will end, and technology will appear to be more like invisible magic rather than encased in material gadgetry. When I saw my vision of the utopian future so many years ago, what I saw was that the human race would split into two groups: those who would leave the Earth and be a star-faring populace and those few who would stay behind and steward the planet. The planetary stewards would labor over the centuries to remove all traces of the scars of the ascent of the human race and repopulate the planet with the countless organisms and creatures that were made extinct by human neglect and waste. In that time, there would be only a few small cities on the planet, and the rest of the world would be restored back to its original state, some million years before humanity even existed. Once their work was done, they would await the return of the star-faring race to take them to their final destiny.

And what, do you ask, would be that final destiny? Humanity would become something else entirely, and not at all human as we would define it, since there would be a complete fusion between human, machine, artificial intelligence, all supported by massive biological and genetic alterations that would astonish and maybe even repel us today. Humanity would become one massive sentient being of energy, completely unified in its multiplicity, since the container of consciousness itself would have become a repository for all of the diversity of the human spirit.  Such a brave new world it would be, indeed, perhaps as frightening to us today as it is astonishing. Even so, I end this article with a prayer for the future. May our future progeny inherit both the planet restored and the vast and distant stars and galaxies, and all of this in the most constructive and peaceful manner possible. May we also end once and for all the reign of the five horses of the apocalypse and discover our transcendent future.

Frater Barrabbas

Review of Ceremonial Magick for Pagans Lecture Series

John Michael Greer Workshop/Lecture Intensive at Eye of Horus

I attended the intensive workshop/lecture series that John Michael Greer presented at the Eye of Horus, on the last weekend of January (01/27 - 01/29). The intensive was well attended and consisted of a series of lectures that lasted for a total of 18 hours. Although the series was a bit pricey, I felt that it was well worth the money. JMG successfully gave all of us some very valuable and important information about ceremonial magick, and also how to integrate this body of lore into a uniquely pagan perspective. Out of a possible four stars, I would give it four stars - it was that good! I should also mention that the staff at the Eye of Horus were exemplary in their management and presentation of this important weekend intensive.  I give them high marks for all of the incidental things that they did to make this lecture series a success. The two afternoon catered meals were excellent, and the availability of refreshments was also greatly appreciated. 

John Michael Greer is probably one of the more brilliant, articulate and insightful occultists that I have ever met. He is obviously one of those remarkable men and women that I seem to run into from time to time, and I felt very privileged to hear what he had to say and to share thoughts and ideas with him. JMG was fortunate enough in his occult career to receive the teachings of several traditions, some of which were more intact than others, from individuals who represented the “old guard” of the occult community, now quickly passing away. Such knowledge and lore, which has since passed into oblivion, was brought to John’s attention, and he artfully pulled all of this lore together to craft a fairly comprehensive system of magick.

It’s rare these days to find someone who has a comprehensive knowledge of the practice of magick, especially possessing those more obscure and rare techniques that were once part of the regimen of the education of magicians and occultists. JMG shared a few of these obscure techniques and how they were supposed to work, and he laid down a foundation revealing what the older traditions and lore taught the aspiring beginner. These insights were profound and amazing! They were things that I didn’t know about, despite the fact that I have been a practicing magician for almost four decades. However, I will definitely add these insights to my own lore, and hopefully make it more comprehensive than it is.

I would like to share a few of JMG’s salient points which he made during this series of lectures, but I will omit the details and larger share of what he had to say. If you find yourself liking what I am presenting here, then I would advise you to either buy some of his books, or attend, if you can, one of his lectures at a pagan festival or convention. You can also read his blog, which is located here.

During the three day lecture series, John covered an operant definition of magick (Friday evening), the essential foundational practice (Saturday), and some methods for deriving a personal and pagan ceremonial practice (Sunday). This lecture series gave the attendees an overview of ceremonial magick, its usefulness, and how one might derive from it an essential practice. What wasn’t covered, of course, were the basic rituals and practices of an accomplished magician, as well as the steps and direction that one would take in the progression of spiritual and magickal growth. To acquire this additional knowledge, JMG basically said that there are plenty of books of these topics, and there are also many organizations that one might conceivably join to receive this more comprehensive background. What John sought to give his audience was the most essential element that one might need to actually begin to practice an effective system of magick. I can say without any doubt that he was able to achieve that objective, which is why I believe that this lecture series was so valuable to me and to the other attendees. 

First of all, John’s main definition, which shapes his overall perspective, is that magick is a function of consciousness. John uses Dion Fortune’s amended definition of magick, which she appropriated from Aleister Crowley. Dion Fortune has stated that “magick is the art of changing consciousness in accordance with the will.” I have found that this definition is actually quite concise, and it would be in agreement with my own experiences. This is particularly true since I work a form of magick that focuses mostly on theurgic ordeals instead of specifically making things happen in the material world.

Some have said that JMG’s perspective on magick seems to be heavily aligned with the mental model of magick; that magick is something which occurs exclusively within the mind. Yet this perspective is far too simplistic. John has stated that the mind is the receptor of the field of consciousness, and not necessarily the exclusive generator of it. That would mean that because consciousness acts as a field that is both external and internal to an individual being, the border between the mental and material worlds is both porous and eminently elastic. Also, everything that we perceive about the outside material world is a mental reconstruction, so much of what is construed as objective sensorial apperception is actually a mental map of reality. While reality has physical constraints, the mind actually has no boundaries. This creates a very fascinating tension between the supposed perspectives of objectivity vs. subjectivity.

According to JMG, the three most important activities that act as the foundation for the practicing magician are encapsulated in ritual, meditation and divination. These activities are pulled together to form an essential discipline that is performed on a daily basis, without fail. The kind of ritual that could be used in this daily practice would be the lesser ritual of the pentagram and the middle pillar exercise. Other rituals could be used as well, such as generating sacred space (setting a magick circle). Ritual activity is some action that is deliberately magickal and that serves no other purpose. Meditation is defined as the practice of discursive meditation, which is the intense focusing, scrutinizing and reflecting on a written tract or text, and divination is the drawing of a single tarot card, rune, I-Ching trigram or geomantic character to act as a revealing significator for the day. This threefold activity should be performed each and every day, in a monotonous, endless, periodic repetition. Taking this practice beyond the point of boredom and mental rebellion is the key to making it into a technique for self-empowerment and an important exercise of the will.

Mr. Greer also told us that discursive meditation was almost a lost art, and that the various “meditations” found in the Golden Dawn initiation and training lore required this kind of activity. In the 19th century everyone would have known how to do discursive meditation, so it would have been an assumed practice, requiring only a simple rubric to inform the initiate that certain training lore was to be inculcated through this technique.

I also discovered that I had been confusing discursive meditation with contemplation, although the source of that confusion had more to do with popular usage and changes in Catholic church practices. It would seem that contemplation replaced discursive meditation in Catholic practices (through the writings of Loyola Ignatius), and was only salvaged by Martin Luther, the Anglican church, and other early protestant churches. However, by the 20th century, discursive meditation was dropped from most protestant church practices, except the Anglican church and some Lutheran churches. Present day western practitioners use the Eastern definition of meditation, which is to empty the mind. This is actually how contemplation was originally to be used. However, the Catholic tradition (until the 17th century) used the following practices (called the “lectio divina”) in conjunction with meditation.

• (Discursive) meditation - reflective reading of sacred texts and other material.
• Affective Prayer - spontaneous reaction in response to these reflections.
• Contemplation - reduction of meditation and affective prayer to a state of quiescence.

The popular definition of contemplation is that it is an operation of intently looking, thinking or examining something, such as a concept, ideal or short statement. It would seem that the definition of contemplation has been used to replace what used to be called discursive meditation. Needless to say, the same process is utilized whichever word is selected. Also, the above pattern of practices would represent a foundational technique that could focus and empower anyone who would use it, which is exactly the kind of mechanism that JMG was describing for magicians.

If a magician has adopted a core discipline that uses discursive meditation, then the obvious question would be, what is the focus for that meditation? The focus is anything that is used as the repertoire of the ritual body, the adopted symbology of the occult system, or the beliefs and affirmations that represent that core philosophy. The foundational ritual or rituals would be based on the rite that opens the self to the domain of the occult system, and the divination system would contain the coded symbols (representations) relevant to that system. Thus, the foundational practice would represent the method through which the magician would activate and enliven his or her target occult system. Not only would this practice empower the individual practitioner, but it would also make the chosen occult system both real and accessible.

In addition to this foundational practice, the magician would also acquire practices and techniques that would train the will and the imagination. The combination of these practices would ensure that the magician learned to be wholly self-directing and capable of producing occult symbols and representations in the mind’s eye, whenever required. Learning to master the will and the imagination allows the magician to not only powerfully influence and direct his or her own mind, but also to influence events and other individuals. In this manner, the mind becomes a potent tool that can change the magician’s consciousness at any given moment, and direct it towards a more progressive and evolving state of being.

Once these tools are acquired, then the magician can determine his or her own personal destiny and ultimate direction. Yet without these tools firmly developed and in use, an erstwhile magician will be unable to accomplish much of anything, other than wishful thinking and even self delusion. The foundational practice is the key to gaining everything that the magician seeks to acquire, and I am quite indebted to JMG for making this quite clear. Although I had the pieces of this practice already in my lore, I didn’t have it grouped in such an effective manner, so I learned something new and important. 

There were many other topics discussed during JMG’s class, and what I have revealed here is only a small sample of what was covered during those 18 hours. These topics, and many others, can be found written up in far greater detail in Mr. Greer’s books. So if you find what I have summarized here interesting, then I would recommend that you look over his list of books and find one to purchase. (I will be reviewing some of Mr. Greer’s books in this blog over the next several months.) I would recommend this book for the beginning solitaire practitioner, and this one for anyone who wants to assemble a magickal lodge.

I also personally found JMG to be quite witty, charming and at times, very animated. He made a very long series of lectures interesting, engaging and, I might add, fulfilling. The time often seemed to slip by because we were so wrapped up in his narratives. We spent a lot of time laughing at his amusing stories and enjoying some playful banter. John particularly enjoyed picking on me, although he did it with a great deal of humor and warmth. He also deferred to me when discussing a topic that was not directly in his area of expertise, which I might say, happened only seldom. JMG has a comprehensive knowledge of magick, and there wasn’t any question that he found either too rudimentary to answer or too complex to explain.

A great time was had by everyone, so I can’t but personally recommend John Michael Greer, his books and his ideas.  

Frater Barrabbas

Novemberist Work - Where Did the Year Go?

Here it is, the end of November, and I have not yet gotten into the temple to do some magickal work. I had to make a business trip early this month, and then traveled down to Milwaukee to see my brother just before the Thanksgiving holidays. I also had to focus on getting the final set of edits done on my manuscript for the book project, “Qabalah for Beginners,” and that took most of the month as well. Not only did I have to produce a finished copy of the manuscript for submission, but I also had to supply the tables, timeline and examples of the 22 diagrams. Luckily, I found representations on the internet for what I want Llewellyn to produce for the diagrams, so I included them with a document that gave further instructions for each. The whole mass of documents, spreadsheets and pictures were bundled up into a zip file and sent off to Llewellyn for their perusal and inspection. 

 

We’ll see how things develop from this point on. I have successfully produced the required manuscript and materials as my contract required, so now it’s in the hands of the editors and the publication committee. They could reject the book and decide not to publish it, but I doubt that will happen. I suspect that what will happen will be a round of revisions and rewrites, and then it will be assembled for publication. I am expecting myself to be quite fast and efficient in the turnaround process associated with the rewrite phase, so maybe the book might be published in the autumn of 2012, or perhaps in the Spring of 2013. That’s a lot of time, so I will be working on other projects in the interim.

By the way, I just wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday season, starting with last week’s U.S. celebration of Thanksgiving. I have a number of things to be thankful for, and I stated these when my girlfriend and I had a feast of roast duck with a cherry sauce, wild rice, cranberry fruit salad,  and brandied carrots. It was a different sort of thanksgiving dinner than is regionally typical, but it was filling (yet not too filling) and also quite delicious. I said that I was thankful for my wonderful relationship, loving critters (four cats and a dog) and steadfast employment. Of course there are many other things that I am thankful for, but these three seemed to top the list.

I have been periodically communicating with John Michael Greer, and he had highly recommended a book for me to read, so I purchased it and am reading it now. I have always wanted to examine the Neoplatonic roots for modern occultism, but found that it was a very complex topic to examine. JMG has made that process much easier for me by recommending the book “Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus” written by Gregory Shaw (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995). I must say that I am enjoying reading this book, and I am also discovering that a number of very important occult concepts which I have long held are actually derived from Iamblichus’s work. I decided that it would be useful for me to remark on some of the more salient points as I carefully read the book, chapter by chapter. I might also add that this is not an easy book to read, and sometimes I need to use my Classical Greek dictionary to get at the roots of some term that is being used (and not adequately defined). It would seem that Mr. Shaw expects his readers to be much more knowledgeable of Plato’s works and the core issues of Neoplatonism than I have at my disposal. Since I lack this knowledge, I have had to do some ancillary study to make complete sense out of what I am reading. Even so, I have found this book to quite illuminating so far. I could go so far as to recommend it to my readers as a book that they should look over in their studies.

For many years I have been told by various savants that the roots to modern occultism, and even witchcraft and paganism are to be found in tenets of Neoplatonism. I have long regarded this idea as a great truth that I have not had the time or opportunity to adequately verify. I just accepted it as true without knowing the exact details. At this time in my studies, I feel that I need to finally examine this topic as thoroughly as I am able, even though I might lack a deep understanding and knowledge of classical philosophy. I have read over some of Plato’s dialogues, but not to the detailed level or with the required understanding that would make acquiring the knowledge of Neoplatonism an easy process.

I envy those occultists who have a classical education and are fluent with the writings of Plato, especially if that knowledge includes being able to read his works in classical Greek. Having a smidgeon of Greek and a rusty and ill used knowledge of Latin does put me at a slight disadvantage. Some of the various quotes that scholarly authors like to put into their published works includes languages that I regrettably don’t know, such as French, Italian or German. So I stumble along, and if I need to decipher an important and cryptic quotation made in another language, I will attempt to parse it myself or use some other online translation process. I suppose that if I were truly qualified to study this material and expound on it, then I would have already mastered these other languages. So what I will do is just attempt to distill some important points in the language that I am quite familiar with, which is English.

One thing that has always put me off from accepting Neoplatonism is its assertion that material existence is somehow debasing, or that the material cosmos is to be considered either inferior or controlled by demonic powers. This idea and opinion has a kind of prominence in Christianity (prior to St. Thomas Aquinas) and also was well developed in a number of forms of Gnosticsm. That some forms of Christianity still devalue the material world could explain why certain sects are predisposed into believing in an immanent apocalypse, which would make all forms of conservation seem irrelevant. I believe that it has fostered a deep sense of disrespect for the Earth, or that it is somehow irrelevant or even contrary to spiritual redemption. This negative impression of nature and the material universe has always puzzled me, since it’s not part of my thinking in regards to my pagan religious beliefs. Yet even so, I have found that this kind of thinking has unwittingly infected even my beliefs, based as they are on a modern paganism. That it was popular amongst the Greek intellectual pagans of antiquity (and by extension, to the entire Roman world) to believe that the material world was defective and life was not worth living seems to be in conflict with what I would have thought as a healthy form of paganism. Perhaps this pessimism could be summed up by a famous quote of Sophocles, who was amongst the more brilliant and creative minds of the 5th century BCE.
 
“Not to be born is, past all prizing, best; but, when a man hath seen the light, this is next best by far, that with all speed he should go thither, whence he hath come.” - Sophocles (Oedipus at Colonus)

This latent pessimism can also be found, although ambiguously, in two of Plato’s famous dialogues, which were the “Phaedo” and the “Phaedrus.” I have said ambiguous because the very opposite opinion can be derived from Plato’s other famous dialogue, the “Timaeus.” For some reason, Plato believed that from a cosmic perspective, the material world was good and that human beings had a soul that was fully engaged in the process of creation; but from an individual and psychological perspective, he saw human nature as trapped and imprisoned in matter. This ambiguity caused a major schism in Neoplatonism, with the philosophers Plotinus and Porphyry taking the ultimate stand that matter was inherently negative, and the opposite was taken up by Iamblichus, that matter, and the cosmos which it represented, was positive. For Plotinus and Porphyry, the soul did not fully descend into the body, and that it was up to the philosopher to forge a pathway that would allow for a complete escape from material existence. Like Sophocles, they seemed to believe that the material world was the domain of demonic forces, and that not to be born at all was a better fate for the human soul. Of course this perspective seemed to feed some gnostic cults, whose anti-cosmic beliefs were based in part on the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Porphyry.

Porphyry’s doctrine of the undescended soul was the ultimate conclusion of this rather negative perspective. Even though this idea was not to be found in any of Plato’s dialogues, the Neoplatonists, starting with Plotinus and continuing with his student, Porphyry, seemed to accept this tenet as a great truth. An undescended soul represented the implied fact that the human soul was identical to the divine Nous (thought). It represented that humans were locked in a material existence and were bereft of any spiritual connection with the divine. The solution to the problem of material existence was to sever that partial connection between the soul and the body, which would have been to the undisputed benefit of the soul against the body. Additionally, to be redeemed, therefore, one had to escape from the cosmos of matter. Porphyry went so far as to say that the wise philosopher shouldn’t even participate in traditional or civic festivals, such as sacrifices and other religious celebrations of the time, because they were tied to the powers of nature, which were controlled and directed by inferior demonic gods. In taking this stand, he seemed to advocate the division of the sensible cosmos from the noetic, proposing a world of extreme dualism. 

However, in my opinion, this perspective of the world of matter as being the source of evil for the human condition presents a tenet that I would have to reject out of hand. In my experience, life is a mixed bag, and it is, to a certain extent, based on the motivations and expectations of the individual, as well as their outcome. I believe, to a certain degree, in the power of self-determination and the ability to transform and change, not only the individual, but even the world at large. The philosophy of Plotinus and Porphyry would seem to paint the material world as a kind of prison for the soul, where the mechanisms of fate (as determined by a negative astrology) and the extreme limitations and suffering of life would ensure that most of humanity could never evolve or even be capable of any kind of spiritual transformation. That seems too pessimistic for me, and there is nothing in my life experience that would even support it. As a naive optimist, I believe that everyone has at their disposal the mechanism of ascension and the realization of the Godhead.

For this reason I have found myself shying away from Neoplatonism and its philosophical creed, that is, until I discovered that Iamblichus broke completely from his predecessors and stated the opposite position - that matter is an important part of the greater good. While it is undeniable that material existence imparts suffering and trials, it can also be said that maintaining a balance between material desires and drives, and the desires and aspirations of the soul and the intellect is the key to a harmonious and fruitful existence. One of the ways of establishing that balanced relationship is through a religious life, and most particularly, the practice of theurgy.

Theurgy is defined as the “work of the gods,” and that work consists of invoking the powers of the physical cosmos, and through a linkage with the divine, cause a state of union to exist between the soul of the individual and the World Soul. Theurgy allows a fully embodied soul to engage the divine powers hidden in matter, and to thereby realize the paradoxical nature of human existence, which is that it is both mortal and immortal. Theurgy aids the soul of the individual practitioner to directly participate in the creation and salvation of the cosmos - to precipitate the ultimate union of the many into the One. The goal of theurgy, then, is to assist human beings to gain union with the One, which is a form of spiritual ascension. The World Soul, or Anima Mundi, is analogous to the soul of the individual and the ultimate expression of the One (the Unity of All Being). As Plato said in his dialogues, the world is a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence and is therefore, an intermediary of the Gods and the One. I think that many pagans can easily identify this concept of a World Soul with the modern concept of the Gaian eco-consciousness.

As Iamblichus has stated in his book, “De Mysteriis:”

“And thus, from on high to the lowest things, the Egyptian doctrine concerning principles (archai) begins from the One and proceeds into multiplicity, and the multitudes in turn is governed by the One; and everywhere the indefinite nature is ruled by a certain and defined measure and by the highest uniform cause of all things”

What Iamblichus is saying is that there is an unbroken continuity between the divine and the material world, since matter is divinely created and therefore is dominated by the One.

Theurgy, according to Iamblichus, has two basic functions. The first is that it consists of rituals conducted by mankind that assist in preserving the natural order. The second is that these rites are empowered by divine symbols, which causes the human spirit to ascend to the level of the Gods, and thereby to join with them. This is what is known as “taking the shape of the Gods.” A theurgist is simultaneously mortal and immortal, both man and god, and through theurgy, he or she becomes an icon (what I call an imago or eidolon) and an incarnated symbol of the divine. In this manner, a human practitioner of theurgy becomes powerfully aligned with the World Soul, and becomes fully awakened to his/her augoeides soma, or star-body.

What this means is that the ultimate purpose of performing ritual magick must be the revelation of the higher self as the augoeides, or holy guardian angel, and through it, to consciously exist as the mediator of the divine agencies of the One. Whatever else a practicing magician might attempt or seek to materialize, this ultimate goal represents what he or she will eventually achieve. I think that to state the overall premise of being a magician, and performing magickal rites and workings, is that it is a process of ascension and union with the One. It would seem to perfectly represent what I have been maintaining all along, and it makes sense as a pagan and a witch. It also likely makes sense as an esoteric Christian as well.

These are some of the concepts that I am examining and analyzing from this wonderful book, and I will be discussing other important elements as I read and digest them. What I am seeing from this information is that the Neoplatonism of Iamblichus would seem to agree with how I perceive ritual magick and pagan occultism. I guess you could say that I owe a great debt of gratitude to JMG for directing my attention to this book.

Frater Barrabbas

A Canticle for St. Frater Barrabbas

According to John Michael Greer, I have passed the self-initiation grade and I am a believer in Peak Oil and the decline and end of our industrial civilization. I won’t, of course, live to see it happen, but I believe that John is correct in saying that there is little likelihood of a different scenario playing out. According to some of the experts, the year 2005 was the year of Peak Oil, and from that epochal date, the amount of available crude oil will slowly decline, following the reverse bell curve, until it becomes a scarce commodity, sometime in the early 22nd century. 

 

Will other forms of energy become available as alternates to the fossil-fuel based energy that we have been addicted to for centuries? I would say that it is very likely that forms of solar, wind and thermal energy will take the place of coal, gas and nuclear fuels; but they will not be able to completely replace our current level of energy consumption. Maybe some form of fusion energy will be developed and put into place before the decline really sets in. Still, that will take care of the need for electricity, but it will not fuel our need for transportation and the important use that petrochemicals play in our agriculture and industry. Perhaps we can travel and ship things via electric trains, or ships that use something other than bunker oil for fuel, but the days of modern cars, trucks, ships and airplanes are likely limited. Without all of these props of a modern technological world, our lives will be profoundly changed for all time, and we can be assured that changes of this kind will not be a good thing.

Mr. Greer is predicting a likely collapse of the industrial civilized world, and I feel that he is correct. You might disagree with him, but based on our currently available technology, a world without cheap crude oil will be one that will be severely diminished in many respects. Considering that the current technological world will probably not go out with a whimper but with a bang, our future progeny can expect to inherit a world wracked by endless wars, pollution, famine, pestilence, mass population shifts, mass population die-offs and the collapse of the fossil fueled based economy, technology and even civil government. Add to that radical climate change, and you have a fearful prognosis for the future. Since all of the governments in the world are unable and unwilling to make changes that might forestall such an eventual cataclysm, it would seem that our collective fate is sealed.

There is nothing that I can do to change this dire future except learn to live with less and at a much more modest level. This is part of my future retirement plan - survive on as little as possible without being poor or destitute. I think that it's possible for me to put together a life that is comfortable and sustainable until I am no longer amongst the living. I am going to try to go this route, ironically when many others are just seeking to retire at the same prodigious level of excess as their parents, or even greater. 

 

However, one thing that I would like very much to do is to assemble a small cache of books and writings, all of them occult related, and some of them would include my own works, place them into an airtight and water-proof chest of some sort, and burry it in some strategic place where it might be found many centuries from now. I can imagine someone accidentally finding this chest of books long after the apocalyptic end of civilization as we know it, and after opening it, discover the many occult writings and ideas of an unknown author and occultist named Frater Barrabbas Tiresius. Maybe if I am lucky, the person who digs up this chest will be a monk of some future monastery, where such information of the past epoch has been gathered together for preservation, examination and study.

I can imagine this monk, toiling away, carefully digging the chest out of its hole, then recognizing that it’s from that distant time before the apocalypse. He would then eagerly have it transported by a mule team to his monastery, where it will be opened and the contents examined. The monks won’t know who I am, but I will be a voice from the past, presenting to them an exclusive collection of preserved secret knowledge and occult speculation to puzzle over. Maybe they will speak English, or maybe they will speak some kind of polyglot. A few will know how to read and write standard English, and I can imagine my books and papers being carefully examined, categorized and then safely stored away. At some point they will be studied by some scholar who will note them as an important find, and then seek to pull from them whatever is useful.

Who knows, maybe the information stored in those books and papers will help to trigger a renaissance of occult thinking and magickal practices. I might even be considered some important mage from the past and have some degree of fame amongst the small community of literati. I might even be canonized, and some monk might write up a canticle celebrating my mythic deeds. It would be a Canticle for Frater Barrabbas Tiresius, a mage from the pre-apocalypse time of mythic ill-repute and grandiose excess.

My papers and books might not be understood completely, if at all - or they might even be considered heretical. Who knows? Yet if I don’t plan for the creation of this chest, filling it with books and papers that can last several centuries and carefully burying it, then these scenarios have no possibility of ever occurring. Since I do believe that the far future is one that is dire, with even a long period of dark ages, then I can at least be certain that all traces of my existence will be completely and forever lost. Therefore, I have decided to produce this chest and its contents, and burry it where it will be found, but not too quickly. It will be a time capsule into the future, and it will be my hope that the distant ecotechnic future will find it useful, perhaps even giving me a place of honor amongst sages in the unknown future.

No one can really know exactly what the future holds for all of us collectively, but I think that John Michael Greer and others of his persuasion have shown the future for what it truly is, a time that will challenge humanity and maybe even cause its extinction. I hope not, but let us be prepared for the worst, and perhaps because of our meager efforts, a better world will come to pass in the mists of the future age.

Frater Barrabbas


Note: Apologies to Walter M. Miller Jr., for his Hugo Award winning novel, “A Canticle for Leibowitz,” whose theme was used to write this article. 

Is the Dream of Starship Flight Over?

I have been following John Michael Greer’s blog, the Arch Druid Report, for some time now, ever since I met him at Pantheacon and later at Paganicon early this year. I have some of his books, but only recently did I become aware of his rather fascinating ecological writings. John’s vision of the future is nothing like Star Trek or any of the other more nuanced science fiction stories; it’s probably closer to Road Warrior or the Postman, but perhaps not that grim. The basic idea behind John’s thesis is that the period of unlimited cheap energy resources has already passed, and humanity is now on a path of accelerated decline. As energy resources become more difficult and expensive to extract, the civilizations of this world will be forced to change course and become much more innovative, conservationist with an emphasis on long term sustainability. This change will have a massive and profound impact on our civilization and the life-style of humans everywhere.

Perhaps the biggest change will be that we will no longer consider expanding out into outer space, thinking about colonizing nearby planets, or even building a permanent space station. Our halcyon days of the glorified exploration of outer space are nearly over, and with the retirement of the U. S. Shuttlecraft, the end of the space race is now quite apparent. Mr. Greer has written an excellent article about the end of the space race, and you can find it here. Some may not agree with his assessment, but I have found that his arguments are compelling and significant. In the past, humanity has found the means of replacing one highly unsustainable energy resource for another, but at some point, physics, geology and ecology will pose dire limits to any kind of future unsustainable energy resource use. It’s not rocket science, if you pardon my pun, but simple mathematics.

Eventually, civilizations must replace unsustainable resource use with something that is much more modest and sustainable, or they will ultimately extinguish themselves. So the times that we live in now are at a crucial cross-roads, and what happens in this century will determine if civilization as we know it will either come crashing down, or dramatically change with an emphasis on sustainability. We face the possibility of a dark ages lasting for centuries, or the more immediate transition to a new and better way of existing in a world of limited and precious resources. Most likely, the future will actually be something in between these two possibilities.

One of my favorite authors, Michio Kaku, wrote a book called the “Science of the Impossible” to examine the various tropes found in science fiction books and movies, and to explain their possibility in terms of what we know about science today. He listed a number of possibilities for potentially traveling to the stars, but all of them would require an enormous expenditure of energy and material resources, particularly using mechanisms that have not yet even been proven to work. The biggest obstacle, of course, is getting into orbit around the planet, and this could be quite an obstacle unless we were to build a rail gun for nonhuman payloads, and perhaps some kind of ultra-tall elevator system. The rail gun is feasible using today’s technology, but human beings couldn’t withstand the G-force required to send an object into space. Anti-matter can only be produced in tiny minuscule amounts using enormous amounts of energy to run an enormous particle accelerator. 

 

Even if this were possible, traveling faster than the speed of light has its own troubling and dire limiting detractors, including the fact that once an object attains the speed of light, it also acquires infinite mass. To travel to the stars efficiently requires the bending, folding or ripping of space time, or to generate a wormhole between distant points and safely travel through it. To attempt to perform these kinds of operations would require a technology and an energy resource equal to that of a small star. All of these considerations and ideas are far and away beyond even the most optimistic progress of the scientific and technological developments of the next several centuries or more. Michio Kaku considers star travel to be a combination of class I and II impossibilities, and so we must think of them as either very far flung future possibilities or as mere fantastic speculation.

We face an immediate future of the decline of our industrial civilization and the enforced changes that will shift the focus of our planet inward, as we attempt to cope with these changes and find a solution to our problems on a planetary scale. Pollution, climate change, over population, the scarcity of energy and other resources will occupy humanity for the next few (or several) centuries. Once our civilization has re-established and re-structured itself around a completely different material lifestyle, then we might proceed forward, but at a much slower pace. All of this depends on whether science can come up with completely new and different ways of getting more out of less resources or discovering completely new untapped resources, but the likelihood of that possibility seems dimmer now than it did even a few decades ago.

These changes, although drastic and perhaps even terrible, will occur during a time when we must focus on the earth, making it a more sustainable and habitable place for many species besides ourselves, since a planet that has only human life on it (and little or nothing else) is a dead planet. During this time, we will also need to change our spiritual focus, and this is where I believe that the old religions and their creeds will give way to new religions that are based on earth-centered spirituality, material recycling, conservation, resource reclamation and a disciplined material frugality. It will be, in a word, a very Capricornian age, but one that is steeped in an outward social sodality and love of the earth, and a pragmatic and practical spirituality. Magick will likely become an important mechanism for self-illumination in the West, but there will be a need to be focused outwardly as well as inwardly, and pure mysticism would likely be deemed too much of an inward escape from dire and important material considerations.

Interesting times have come upon us, whether we want them or not. The industrial world is beginning its decline, but we can start doing things today to ensure that there is a path for the world to transition to a more sustainable style of life - one that would hopefully be more democratic and egalitarian. I believe that John Michael Greer has a lot of excellent ideas of how this transition might be accomplished, and what we can do today to ensure that it happens in a peaceful and gentle manner. On the other hand, the future that awaits us all might be more like a kind of hell on earth, with war, famine, disease, and a general and traumatic breakdown in governments, civil order and life as we currently know it as our collective fate. Our future may be more like the Road Warrior, Zardoz or the Postman than Star Trek if we don’t start making the transition today. “Meditate on that in the second level.”

Frater Barrabbas

Paganicon 2011 - First Time A Great Success

Hexagram Controversy

I wanted to post a short article about my weekend experience with Paganicon, which was the very first pagan convention in the Twin Cities. Overall, I would rate it quite successful, and it is my hope that it will become an annual institution. While it was not anyway near as large as Pantheacon, it was well attended and easily exceeded everyone’s modest expectation. Where Pantheacon is a venue that serves nearly 2,400 people every year, Paganicon didn’t even have 10% of that volume, but it was a more intimate and engaging gathering.

There weren’t crowds of folks and the venues were much more modest, but overall, I was impressed by how well it was organized and staffed. The staff of Paganicon deserve a lot of credit for having put on an excellent convention, and got nearly everything right for the very first time. My hope is that the community and staff will be encouraged to do it again next year, and perhaps for many following years beyond that. It was a great way for pagans and wiccans in the tundra capital of Paganistan to meet and greet, share ideas and knowledge in the middle of what is ostensibly the period of late winter. There may have been snow on the ground and it was quite cold outside, but inside the Double Tree Hotel, it was warm and friendly - almost as if summer had come early. I suppose that having an indoor pool nearby in the atrium helped to give this impression.

Because I had to miss Friday, I didn’t get to hear the keynote lecture given by John Michael Greer, nor was I able to attend the opening ritual and the concert, all of which I was told had turned out quite excellent. A one way trip from my house to the hotel was over 31 miles, so I could only justify going on Saturday and Sunday. I had workshops to present on both days, so that would also allow me to attend some lectures and also socialize with attendees.

I arrived at around 10 am and got registered and found out where everything was located. Then I made it to the panel that I was to take part in. The panel was called “So You Want to be a Pagan Author,” and I was joined with Veronica Cummer, Dr. Murphy Pizza, Corrine Kenner, Barbara Moore and Scot Stenwick. We spent an hour and a half sharing stories about what it’s like to be an occult author. I think that I said it all by declaring that if you want to be a pagan author, don’t quit your day job - it doesn’t pay very much. There was some interesting stories shared, as well as quite a bit of good humor. I enjoyed being on the panel and helped to liven things up a bit by making certain that there were plenty of jokes and laughs to share. The panel lasted until the lunch hour, when everyone broke up to find something to eat.

Lunch was a very idyllic experience, since I ran into two of my dearest friends, and with them, I invited John Michael Greer and Scott Stenwick to share a table at the in-house eatery. I spent my lunch talking, eating and drinking (although not at the same time) with these friends and luminaries, and it was a most excellent time. I found John to be a highly intelligent occultist, worthy of all of the compliments and accolades that he has received.

After lunch, I went to Scot Stenwick’s workshop on Planetary Magick, which I thought was quite excellent, even though sparsely attended. It would seem that Scott had the bad luck of presenting a workshop at the same time that John Michael Greer and Steve Posch were giving their presentations. However, I thought that Scott did a good job presenting his information in an efficient and succinct manner. I also learned some interesting things while attending this workshop. For one thing, I realized how Scott refers to the sphere of planetary magick using a metaphysical perspective, referring to it as the macrocosm, whereas I see it as a psychological operation using classical archetypes. I think that both of these perspectives are not only valid, but describe this phenomenon in a different but complimentary manner. What I distilled from Scott’s discussion was that planetary magick works with the macrocosm, and that the lesser invoking hexagram ritual is the key to opening the magician to that domain. You can find a copy of the transcript for the workshop here.

One of Scott’s most important declarations about planetary magick is encapsulated in the following quote: “The correct method for most macrocosmic work is in fact to combine the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram with the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram.” This clears the magician’s personal field of consciousness and then calls the macrocosmic forces into that field. I found this statement to make a lot of sense, although since I don’t use these rituals, I couldn’t verify that statement off of the top of my head. According to Scott, in the typical Golden Dawn planetary working, both the LBRP and the LBRH are used together. One would assume that the magician’s “operant field” would be wiped clean of any macrocosmic influences if these two rituals were used without a corresponding lesser invoking ritual of the hexagram. Scott had a particular issue with the way that these rituals are presented in Donald Michael Kraig’s book “Modern Magick.”

Much later, I looked over David Griffin’s “Ritual Magick Manual” and found that the typical Golden Dawn Planetary working did indeed perform the LBRP and the LBRH together, but only as part of the purification stage of the working. The lesser invoking ritual of the hexagram and the superior form of the hexagram are used once the lotus wand is unwrapped and the Qabbalistic Cross is performed. This, in my opinion, wouldn’t necessarily weaken the working, since the intention is to clear the magician’s operant field of all influences, microcosmic and macrocosmic. I also looked over Regardie’s book “The Golden Dawn” and found that it was kind of vague and ambiguous as to how exactly to apply the lesser hexagram invoking and banishing rites (volume 6), but perhaps there is another ritual where the methodology is completely encapsulated. When I examined Donald Michael Kraig’s book “Modern Magick,” I did indeed find the LBRP and the LBRH tightly coupled together for a basic regimen of work, and that would certainly be problematical, since the same working has meditations and a Tarot reading. Closing one completely off from the macrocosmic influences would certainly hamper any kind of clairvoyant operation. However, Kraig’s book doesn’t have any planetary or zodiacal magickal workings or techniques in it, so one could assume that it is a more basic work than David Griffin’s work.

After doing this research, I can see where Scott would have a problem with Kraig’s book, but it would seem that a proper working of the Golden Dawn tradition for planetary magick would follow a formulation that seems both logical and practical. I suppose that one could omit the LBRH in a planetary working, but it would seem that the intention is to completely clear one’s field of all influences just prior to performing a specific invocation. This is a moot point for me, of course, because I don’t even use the lesser pentagram or hexagram rituals in my elemental or planetary workings. Instead, I work with a consecrated magick circle, which appears to clear the environment of any and all unwanted influences prior to performing a working.

Since my class was the next venue for the same classroom as Scot’s class on planetary magick, attending his class gave me an opportunity to quickly set things up for my class. My class for that period was on Elemental Magick, and it’s one that I have taught previously. I had nearly a full classroom of attendees, and the presentation went pretty much without any glaring mistakes or omissions. I had to spend a bit of time explaining some of the ritual structures in greater detail, and on a few occasions I briefly got a bit tongue-tied, but overall, the class went very well and the attendees seemed to comprehend what I was talking about.

After my class was completed, I got together with my two friends and we made plans for our afternoon. I had been invited to dinner with some other friends that I hadn’t seen in many months, so that seemed like a good thing to do. I had to leave the convention to attend this soiree, and since it would last most of the evening, I wouldn’t be returning. This meant that I would miss the panel on Hedgewitch Craft, organized by Veronica and her fellow authors, who had helped to write the anthology by the same name. Regretfully, I could not do both things at the same time, so off I went for dinner and some socializing.

The next day, I arrived a lot earlier to present my class on the Twenty-two Steps of the Cycle of Initiation. I was wondering if anyone would make it to this early class, but I was pleasantly surprised when around a dozen people showed up for the class. I was able to present it without any problems or issues, and I believe that the attendees got a lot out of the material that I presented. So I was pleased with it and felt that I had comported myself in a thoughtful and knowledgeable manner.

As a side note, I won’t ever again be presenting these two workshops in their current format. Instead, I will be converting them to Powerpoint presentations. I think that this will be more helpful, both for the attendees and myself, since I can dispense with drawing things on a white board or having to look at one of the handouts while I am teaching. I will also be able to leave my outsized Rider Tarot deck at home, and I can also show other Tarot Trump cards as examples for my class on the Tarot. I think that this is a winning scenario, so all I have to do is to find a nice background theme template to complete this transition.

I also attended Steve Posch’s class “Amber Road,” which I thought was a truly excellent and compelling class. Steve has been examining samples of a massive collection of prose poems found in Latvia, called “dainas” [songs]. These songs are from the 19th to the early 20th centuries and encapsulate a very pagan way of looking at the world. For those who might not be knowledgeable about that area of Europe, the Baltic states (of which Latvia is a member) were the last to convert to Christianity, and even then, pagan sentiments and beliefs persisted until the early 20th century. These songs represent the old pagan way of looking at the world and life in general, and therefore, can act as important pointers and lore generating speculation about our own paganism, telling us what we might have gotten right, and what is still missing. I found the translated poems to be beautifully inspiring and seemed to open a window on world that time and progress had all but forgotten. I thoroughly enjoyed this class, conducted as it were by Steve, who is himself an accomplished poet, pagan ritualist and a natural sage. Everyone who attended was captivated by Steve’s rendition of the poetic songs and his analysis of the same. It was a very good presentation, and a perfect way to end my Paganicon experience.

What I came away from both attending workshops and being a presenter is the notion of just how diverse, deep and really evolved is our local community. Even though it was far smaller than Pantheacon, it was never-the-less just as deep, significant and enjoyable. It’s my hope that there will be more venues like this in the future.

Frater Barrabbas