Strange and Sinister Qualities of Otherness

 

“And now for something completely different.” - Monty Python

Otherness and the stigma of being defined as “other” is a way of classifying something or someone as not being normal, acceptable or not belonging to the group. It is also a quality of the preternatural or paranormal experiences that can accompany magical or mystical activity. This dual semantic meaning represents two very different perspectives - one based on prejudice and the other based on wonder and awe, yet they are linked in some very interesting ways.

When the connotation of otherness is applied to a group of people who are different in some manner (often superficially) then what is occurring is a form of racism, ethnic exclusion or bigotry. It is a process of dehumanizing a group of people to allow its antagonists to behave with extreme prejudice without any accompanying guilt or doubt. When a group is dehumanized then it is easy to denigrate and persecute them, justifying and even making a virtue out of the collective cruelty and evil perpetrated against them. It is a way of justifying prejudice and excusing antipathy for what is truly an overall lack of compassion and empathy.

Not everyone is capable of allowing prejudice to guide their actions towards a group of people who seem different, but some seem particularly disposed toward this mind-set. It is a simple solution to a very complex social phenomena, that social diversity and multiplicity is responsible for personal failings. It is also motivated by the fear and loathing of the unknown, and an intolerance towards anything that is different than what is accepted as right and, supposedly, good. It is, in fact, a propensity for those whose political affiliations are conservative and whose religious perspectives are highly sectarian and inflexible.

Through my many years of practicing Witchcraft and being engaged with the outlying pagan and occult communities, I have seen both a tendency of inclusion and also, oddly, exclusion. When I have gone to pagan gatherings I have found that there is typically a small minority of black people in attendance, and in some gatherings, I saw none. While this community has, for the most part, been inclusive, accepting individuals and groups that would find a tolerant community in which to belong nearly impossible for them, there are other groups who are not so accepting. I recall a group of wonderful young gothic Satanists who were treated in a prejudicial manner at one pagan gathering (they had to leave early), and I also witnessed a “women’s only” private gathering turn away transgender women as not “true” women. These are problems within our group, but with such a socially diverse population of people who consider themselves members, it is my hope that such exclusions will become more rare or even nonexistent.

What I can say is that for the most part, pagan and occult communities are inclusive and accepting because all of them have experienced the sting of prejudice, rejection and even persecution. These people know what it is like to be excluded, mocked, and socially ostracized, so they should be sensitive and self-aware about being that way themselves. Witches and Pagans are the paragon of otherness, and they passionately love and celebrate it, much to the dismay of those who believe that the White, Saxon, Protestant way of life represents the only thing good in American culture. There are so many fascinating things happening when different cultures, races and ethnicity meet and peacefully interact and create a new way of seeing and loving the world. That is the operation of human diversity in action, and I have seen it as a great goodness, and a powerful, positive cultural process. It can and it should be a guiding principle for all Witches, Pagans and occultists in general.

Then there is the “otherness” that marks a paranormal experience. That kind of “other” is not represented by any identifiable group and it is not a reaction based on prejudice or bigotry. It is not the stigmatizing of an individual or a group, since it is the direct experience with phenomena that is unknowable and inexplicable. For those people who cannot accept diversity and cannot face something that is incapable of being neatly defined or classified, encountering the domain of the paranormal represents the height of fear and rejection within them. They will either flee the source of such phenomenon or they will reject and disbelieve it, pretending that it doesn’t exist. If they are religiously conservative they will readily define it as evil and associate it with the Devil. To many Witches and Pagans, the experience of paranormal activity is the very thing that they seek to verify their belief in the efficacy of magic and the incursion of Spirit into the material world.

All religious individuals who experience the paranormal phenomena of Spirit in the context of religious activity will define that experience as an affirmation of their belief and as a foundation for their faith. When such experiences occur outside of a religious context then they will be likely defined as being malefic and diabolical, an uncalled for spiritual sign, or a mere coincidence. This process of defining such an experience will depend on the person’s religious orientation, whether they are a conservative monotheist, an open minded religionist, a polytheist or an atheist.

A Witch, Pagan or occultist will see such a phenomena as a very positive sign, and in fact, they might be more open to observing such experiences as a normal part of their existence, therefore, experiencing them often and pervasively. I would have to classify myself in that category, since I have seen a lot paranormal phenomenon occur often in my daily life. Am I hallucinating or deluded?  Not at all. I am just sensitively aware of my environment and open to the wonder that is the world not filtered by rigid assumptions and beliefs. That is the most important key to engaging with and being immersed in paranormal phenomena, to be open, sensitive and aware. Having developed this kind of mind-set over the passage of many years, I find that such occurrences happen often and frequently - making them not so paranormal after all. All you have to do is to look for them with an open mind and a heightened sensitivity and they will be readily perceived.

Some paranormal experiences are just curious occurrences that get my attention, as I go about my daily business. They might be a bit odd, certainly curious, but not exceptionally so. However, when working ritual magic, meditation or just being aware to a heightened degree, there are times when such phenomena cause my spine to tingle, the hair on the back of my neck to stand up and my senses to switch into a different mode of perception, one that I associate with the reception and sense of the magic in the world. I can truly say that I live for those moments, and they have made some of my more memorable magical experiences powerful and deeply meaningful. It is times like these when I know that the magic is working and that I have entered a kind of spiritual twilight zone where thought becomes form and form becomes thought, the nexus of all conscious being. It is also the place where I meet and socialize in my mind with various spirits, deities, angels, demons, fairies, and the ghosts of human ancestors. It is also place, a domain of spirit, and the roads that lead to it and through it are the ghostly roads of arcane knowledge. There are powers and energies there, buried treasures, and there are brilliant lights and a Stygian darkness overall. It is, in fact, a total and complete personification of the paranormal “other” that fuels both magic and mysticism, and gives life to all religious beliefs and practices.

This is the “other” that represents the mysteries and magic of our world, and it is to be embraced and celebrated. We can only encounter this domain if we have removed our prejudices, fear, and denial and instead we have become fully open and aware. It also requires a heightened sensitivity that can be developed through the arts of meditation, breath-control, trance, contemplation and some years of steadfast practice. Using psychotropic substances can help in the short term, but only meditation will make that sensitivity a uniform and permanent part of one’s perceptual awareness. Engaging in practices that manipulate the symbolic world, such as ritual magic, will be the final piece in this transformation of conscious awareness. These practices represent the means to obtaining an awareness of the paranormal world that resides and pervades our mundane world. All we have to do is consistently engage in them, the rest will follow as that practice matures and becomes a kind of second nature.

Now that you know that “otherness” is something to embrace, it should eliminate from your mind any kind of prejudice against that which is different, abnormal or paranormal. This is, of course, the required state for perfecting the art of ritual magic.

Frater Barrabbas   

Pandemic Isolation and Gifts of Writing

Over the course of three years I have not posted very many articles to my blog, and this was due to a couple things that happened to me. The first is that I came off a work-related dismal project that destroyed my profession self-esteem and then by being demoted to my old job, trying to rebuild my reputation and bolster my confidence. It was a difficult time, starting in the last quarter of 2017 and finally ending in the end of 2019. I had paid for work-related relocation from Minnesota to Richmond, Virginia and was stiffed by my company, who broke their promise to compensate me for that move. I proved to myself once again why corporate cultures and the managers that preach it are not to be trusted. As far as work is concerned, “To thine own self be true.”

There were amazing coincidences and magical happenings during that time, all without me working any magical rituals at all. What I had set in motion in June 2017 had helped me to overcome a career disaster and turn it into a providential gain. During that time I was working sometimes every day beyond eight hours without much of break, and I was getting to the final stages of burnout, which has a lower threshold for someone my age. What happened to me was a kind of intervention that saved me and my career. The irony was that getting demoted set me up for a future promotion that helped me to completely reinvent myself professionally.

I believe that this kismet occurred because of the time and effort that I had invested in creating a talismanic magical machine. It helped me sell an oversized house, move across the country and establish myself in a new environment. What catastrophes I endured ended up benefiting me greatly, and I believe that the magic I had set in motion on the Summer Solstice night of 2017 made it all possible. Granted, there were mundane actions that I took to mitigate the disaster that I endured, but overall, I was very fortunate not to lose my job and reputation while having relocated to a town where the job market was unknown to me. All of that action in my life took me away from writing articles, books or working ritual magic. What little time I had was spent either reading, studying or meditating. I had to travel a lot for my job, and the novelty of that feature in my life soon wore off.

The next thing that happened in my life was the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. I was already relocated, no longer traveling, telecommuting and resigned to my demotion when this terrible calamity struck the whole world. What it did to me, a man in his late sixties with allergies, was to shut me up in my house. I then traveled only when necessary and then, locally, shied away from appearing in public and infrequently saw the few friends that I had made. There wasn’t a lot to do and I don’t like being idle, so I wrote two books from the period of early 2020 through early 2022.

I have crafted a book titled “Elemental Powers for Witches” (already out in December 2021) and another one titled “Talismanic Magic for Witches” (out in February 2023). Both books required quite a bit of research and writing, and between that, my job and my relationship, there was little time for anything else. I will do a write up on these two books, but I wanted to let you know what I was busily doing during this period of the Great Pandemic.

You can see that I was not idle as far as writing is concerned, but from a magical perspective, outside of continuing effects of the talismanic machine that I previously built, not much else has happened. I would like to get back into a magical ritual practice and a regular practice of meditation. I would like to attend a Zen Buddhist retreat somewhere, and I would like the pandemic to transition to an endemic occurrence of coronavirus strains no more risky than the flu. I get a flu shot every autumn, and I could see getting a  coronavirus shot every autumn as well.

Another thing that I need to do is to get to know my local Witchcraft and Pagan community. I am unknown to that community, and there is much I would like to share, teach and collaborate with others of like mind. I greatly miss having the social dimension in my life, but the pandemic cut off my exploration of the community, and I am hoping to renew that exploration sometime later this year.

Anyway, I have also taken up writing blog articles, so you will start seeing some on a regular basis. I will try to post some interesting ideas and things that I discovered in my extensive period of study and research. I am also going to write yet a fourth book in the “For Witches” series, and this one will be about Witchcraft based theurgy, or what I call advanced liturgical magical practices. I will want to bounce some ideas off of my reading public before I commit them to my writings and judgment of my acquisitions editor.

Bright Blessings -

Frater Barrabbas  

Truth or Lies and Magic

 To believe in the efficacy of magic and to practice it is also to be accused of possessing or believing in a fantasy world that doesn’t bear the scrutiny of science or logic. However, as someone who believes and practices ritual magic, and who has done this for decades, I find that such a simplistic approach does not take into account that human nature has an emotional and romantic dimension to it that cannot be dispelled by logic or empirical science. While the concepts of spirits, deities, energies and paranormal qualities can be shown to be attributes of the conscious mind itself, and its cultural collective, occult practitioners have typically had to deal with the cognitive dissonance of living in the post modern world and practicing rites that would be better understood from the perspective of the middle ages or the early renaissance. Still, these are all phenomena that are a part of the emotional, irrational and artistic, creative mind-set, neither invalid nor subject to scientific testing.

What this means is that a practitioner of ritual magic can live in the post modern world and also work with deities, spirits, energies and seemingly paranormal perceptions without dooming their ability to objectively deal with the world and function in a rational and logical manner. Practitioners of magic do not reject the world of science, logic and academia as some might think. Instead they extend their world-view, beliefs and perceptions to include other possibilities and perceptions based on their experiences, realizing that magic and its various attributes are part of the phenomenon of individual and collective consciousness. In other words, the world-view of science and the rational liberal arts are the foundation to understanding and practicing the arts of magic and the philosophy of occultism. Beliefs are tested by experience and by peer review so that they might retain a high degree of sane rationality. When this balance between belief, experience and factual knowledge break down then all sorts of crazy ideas, conspiracies and forms of outlandish self-glorification can and do occur. It starts one down a slippery slope that can lead to a form of complete social dislocation and even temporary madness.

We engage with our ritual magical practices with our feet firmly planted in the world of occult philosophy, science and the liberal arts, taking a rational and balanced pathway that is guided by a certain degree of skepticism, objectivity and input from our peers. Using this approach, we keep ourselves from acquiring a world view that is wholly divorced from facts, logic and rational thinking. This is not say that I am promoting an approach to magic that excludes imagination, creativity, artistry, vision and emotional aspiration, in fact these are critical components for practicing ritual magic. What I am promoting is a healthy balance between occultism and its practices and an objective world-view based on facts. So we can practice what Dion Fortune referred to so many decades ago as “Sane Occultism.”

This brings me to the point of my article. I am presently observing my nation torn apart by divisive and delusional beliefs and opinions that have absolutely no basis in facts. Of course, even the media inspired perception of a social division in our country is likely a form of sensational hyperbole, but it is occurring within a group of people on the far right of the political spectrum, leaving those of us in the center and the left scratching our heads and trying to understand what is happening to some people. I had thought that my beliefs and practices would be subject to derision and disdain, but actually, I seem to be very rational and sane compared to these folks even if I practice magic and talk to spirits and deities. One would think that I was the odd-ball individual promoting and practicing a system of dubious and nefarious behaviors. Yet compared to these folks, I am the paragon of sanity and rationality.

In our troubled times, facts are no longer seen as the foundation of knowledge. What appears to be important these day are emotionally driven opinions that do not require any kind of rational analysis or scrutiny. Logic and critical thinking are given up for emotionally satisfying platitudes, politically toxic propaganda and view-points based on a fantasy world-view. This disease of the mind is affecting a small percentage of our nation’s population, but they are driven and given currency but media companies that seem to be only interested in making money and not reporting the news in a factual manner.

I am, of course, referring to Fox News, but they are just one of many right-wing media organizations that are spewing a form of poisonous propaganda that is endangering our democratic institutions. The conservative political mind sees the slowly changing demographic of our nation, where white Christian Protestants are becoming a minority in a very racially and culturally diverse country, as a kind of existential threat. The only solution in such minds is to suppress the rights and civic privileges of those who are not of the white race in favor of those who are, and thereby establish a kind of racial and religious apartheid backed up by a political authoritarian regime that would replace our democratic republic.

I can tell you right now that in such a regime people like me would not only lose our rights, but also our freedoms. I would be part of the unruly crowd that would find itself in concentration or reeducation camps, if not outright exterminated. I might be a white northern European man, but I am certainly not the right kind of white person because I am not at all Christian. I would imagine in such a nightmarish world that many others of my fellow Witches, Pagans and various other occultists would find ourselves zealously persecuted. We would be joined in our imprisonment by blacks, non-white Hispanics, Jews and people of color. Since I have written articles and published books, I would be one of those targeted and unable to hide in the anonymous crowd of white faces.

Of course, this kind of extreme outcome is not very likely to happen, since the majority of Americans have a tendency to rebuke authority and to be largely contrarian and nearly ungovernable as a people. I doubt that if obvious and threatening moves were made to deconstruct our democracy and to install a religious and racial based tyranny that the majority of the people of my country would not take that change without a very forceful backlash and inspired moral outrage. Such a perceived civil war would be over quickly if it even had the chance to start. What we are seeing today is the balance tilted to the far right, and our social and political world is due for a swing to the political left that is coming soon. That is, certainly, my fervent hope.
 
The phenomena that we are witnessing is the gullibility, foolishness and cognitively biased perceptions of a small percentage of our population who are misled and misinformed by money grubbing media companies and cynically calculating politicians. As this process continues to spiral to ever greater confabulations there is a corresponding increased incidence of deadly violence perpetrated by right-wing gun toting fanatics and their fellow paramilitary cultists. What was once fringe racism and bigotry is now become the main-stream through the efforts of conservative pundits, soulless and power-hungry politicians and certain oligarchs who wish to transform our nation into a society of servants and a wealthy master class. None of that will likely happen, but in the process there will be people killed, insurrections and civil disorder. I believe that it ultimately will give birth to a more just, diverse and tolerant society since many of these intolerant conservative activists are members of the older generations. Those who believe and actively support racism and bigotry are on the wrong side of history, and that they, too, will be diminished and disappear over time.

So what does this have to do with the practice of magic? I have outlined a phenomenon that is happening now. It is a terrible object lesson of what happens to individuals and groups when critical thinking is rejected over emotional-cognitive bias and paranoid delusions. We are meant to be challenged at all levels, and we should try to meet those challenges with as high a degree of objectivity, alacrity, critical thinking and even some helpful peer review. If right-wing nut-cases got to talk to their relatives and community members who did not share their beliefs, and actually listened to them, noting that there are differences of opinion without a deviation from objective facts then they would probably have to loosen their rigid perspectives and realize that they are surrounded by people with a diversity of beliefs, but who share a common humanity. It is my hope that such a reconciliation does finally occur, but at times it seems like a forlorn one.

As ritual magicians and occultists, we must always walk a balanced pathway so we do not succumb to fantastical beliefs that have no basis in facts whatsoever. We see the various news outlets pushing right-wing fever dreams and we can observe what happens when people start believing in outright lies and propaganda over facts based on our shared social reality. This is something that we need to passionately avoid so as to embrace the unifying quality of empathy and compassion in all that we do. We are, after all, human beings, but that does not mean that we need to dispose of our common sense in order to obtain the temporary security of the mind-set of a cult.

Frater Barrabbas