Losing My Religion?

I have engaged in some further discussions about the topic of the Dark Night of Soul recently on Face Book. What has come out of this discussion is a more refined definition of the Dark Night of the Soul that magicians as well as mystics might experience. According to those who disagree with me it has to do with the aftermath of experiencing a powerful but momentary union with the Godhead, in all its glory and majesty. The resultant sense of loss after such an experience, also temporary, produces in the magician the archetypal Dark Night of the Soul. Tomas Stacewicz has responded to what I wrote with his own article, and you can find it here. I have also read with interest what he has proposed as comments on one of my Face Book status postings,

While I would never say that it is impossible for a magician and initiate to experience pain, darkness, doubt, fear and even despair while undergoing a powerful transformative initiation (in fact I have stated that this is very likely), I wouldn’t necessarily equate that intense experience with what a mystic undergoes through the Dark Night of the Soul. This is because a mystic nakedly approaches the Godhead by faith alone, whereas a magician is armed with faith based on the experience associated with magical experiences. There is also something decidedly masochistic about how a mystic deliberately prepares for this occurrence. Christianity does emphasize the suffering of Christ on the cross (particularly in Catholicism), and so a Christian mystic should also experience a similar level of suffering in order to be considered legitimate. Also, as I indicated in my article, the Dark Night of the Soul is nearly a constant companion for the mystic, but it doesn’t seem to be something habitual for the magician.

Tomas seems to have ignored the details that I presented in my article about how a monastic adherent seeks to undergo union with God and all that it entails. Based on what I have written, it makes more sense for mystics who have diminished and emptied themselves so that only the naked and unadorned psyche is still extent to have these kinds of experiences. How could worldly magicians who are still full functioning and participating in the mundane sphere be capable of having this kind of experience unless they themselves were reduced to nought?

I think that Tomas is actually engaging in a romantic association and a glorified identification with the mystic path, even though, unlike a mystic, he is still functioning in the world. He has a job, material possessions, property and social obligations. A true mystic would have eliminated everything in his life that might have interfered with achieving union with the Absolute. Tomas seems to believe that because he has experienced what he thinks is the archetypal Dark Night of the Soul that all such experiences must be the model and foundation for all other magicians. In fact he goes on to point out that experiencing the Dark Night of the Soul as he defines it represents an important mile-stone signifying one’s true level of development and achievement. In other words, if you haven’t experienced this phenomenon, then you couldn’t possibly be an adept, or for that matter, an initiate. He is quite adamant about this belief, and there seems to be no middle ground. Here are Tomas’ words to that effect.

“However, my own experience [of the Dark Night of the Soul] and the experiences of other initiates proves beyond any doubt that it is possible and even constitutes a requirement to become a successful Magician or Adept.”

I suppose I should be insulted by what Tomas has said (since it excludes me from being a magician or even an initiate), but I won’t take it personally. I have the utmost respect and admiration for Tomas and I believe that he feels the same way about me. Despite the narrow definition that he has flatly proposed, we have agreed to disagree. Still, I felt it important to respond to some of his points to more clearly define the nature of my own tradition and magical perspective. Tomas seems to believe that I omit the importance of the Dark Night of the Soul in my magic because I define matter and spirit, and my pagan path, differently than he defines his spiritual path. He sees it as a difference in our paths, but I think that it is merely a difference in semantics.

While I agree that our paths are somewhat different, it is difficult for me to accept that they are that much different. My reply to Tomas is that he might be conflating the Dark Night of the Soul, which is a very specific phenomenon in Christian mysticism, with a difficult and particularly harsh transformative initiation. Of course, this is matter of opinion, but I felt that it would be constructive to contrast how we see reality and perhaps get a glimpse of the truth behind our passionate beliefs.

In my previous article I did state that painful transformations can and do occur, but if and when they occur they usually represent something specific about the individual and their own spiritual process, and they are not necessarily archetypal to all such experiences. The cycle of transformative initiation is something that is constantly repeated and it has lesser and greater cycles, so there would be a periodicity to experiencing intensely powerful and difficult changes regularly in the life-span of a magical initiate. While magical initiates follow the cycles of light and darkness and that this is feature of their path, the experience of darkness that a magician undergoes is not same as the Dark Night of the Soul. It is has neither the intensity nor the depth, and this is because it is just one phase of the initiatory cycle.

Another point that Tomas has made in his article is that modern pagans cling to the material world and are unable or unwilling to detach themselves from it in order to truly experience the manifested glory of the Godhead. Here are his words:

“All spiritual paths and the followers thereof distance themselves from the material world to a certain extent, Theurgy as well as Mysticism”

As I pointed out in my article, a modern pagan doesn’t differentiate between spirit and matter, rather they consider them to be fused into a holistic structure that can’t really be separated except through the artifice of the mind. Modern pagans don’t “cling” to the material world, they in fact embrace and fully live in it, and they celebrate its various wondrous mysteries and manifestations. We perceive that spirit and matter are conjoined in union so that life and the material reality becomes something sacramental. Thus, to a modern pagan, every living thing is a sacrament!

I also find the term “pagan reconstructionists” be somewhat misleading regarding my own beliefs and practices because as a modern pagan what I do has only the barest and rudimentary relationship to ancient pagans and the paganism of antiquity. Granted, there are pagan reconstructionists, but I am not one of them. That is why I call myself a Modern Pagan and not a reconstructionist. Even so, what I am doing is celebrating a religious tradition, although it is a very modern and newly developed one. Our work as Modern Pagans and Witches is not yet complete. In fact, we have only begun our spiritual and religious adventure. However, all magicians are more or less modern, since the cultural context and consciousness of even a few hundred years ago is irreparably lost to us.

Because I have equated the transformative cycle of initiation with that of the Hero’s Journey, I have also shown that a complete cycle includes both a descent and an ascent. The initiate undergoes a total shattering of the self and then a reconstruction and a reintegration. Such a process is often painful and difficult, perhaps even profoundly so. Still, the purpose of this cyclic process is for the initiate to psychically die and be reborn so that she might evolve and succeed in integrating the archetypal cosmogonic cycle with the temporal world - in other words, to achieve her individual and her collective destiny. In order to play a part in the destiny of the world, the magician initiate must be fully engaged with that world. It is also important to be balanced enough to avoid the extremes of material imprisonment or material corruption. Therefore, to be a magician and an initiate it is important to be able to function in the material world so that she might help to change and transform it. A magician is not detached from this world, in fact, the world in its spiritual and material manifestations is the great teacher, guide and even the harsh mistress of trials and life threatening challenges.

Tomas also discussed in his Face Book comments that the Dark Night of the Soul was analogous to losing one’s connection to the Godhead and then experiencing the darkness of doubt, loss of faith and the miseries associated with suddenly being bereft and abandoned. While I don’t doubt that this is a real phenomena that an initiate can experience, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is the same as the Dark Night of the Soul. The process of the transformative initiation cycle reaches its highest point when the initiate experiences a complete breakdown and shattering of the self. Would that kind of experience also produce the same feelings that one might mistakenly think is the Dark Night of the Soul? Certainly it would be painful, perhaps even agonizingly so, and it would seem that one is deserted, alone and without any advocates or assistance. As I have stated previously, when this happens in a successful initiatory cycle it is just one of many stages. So these feelings, however intense, quickly pass as the initiate experiences the next stage, which is union with the opposite and hidden dark-self and a complete revitalization and restoration.

When I have undergone this process I have experienced the pain of the breakdown and shattering of the self, but it is always followed by the joy and celebration of rebirth. I could indulge in the pain and attempt to prolong it, but I see no reason to do so. The natural cycle consists of a shattering and a breaking down of the psyche into the rudimentary parts, and then a corresponding powerful regeneration and rebirth. Why would I attempt to block or halt this natural process? I suspect that doing so would distort or even cripple the transformative process, making it like a regressive fall into madness. Yet the tendency to rebirth seems to be much too powerful to resist.

My case is that a magician experiences a total shattering and destruction of his psyche instead of experiencing a Dark Night of the Soul . He might believe that this experience is the Dark Night of the Soul if he is so romantically inclined. That is what I think is being described by initiates and magicians who believe that they have experienced this phenomenon. I don’t either doubt or dismiss what they have experienced, but I choose to frame it differently because to me the whole context of the experience is a magical process, and it is startlingly different from what a mystic undergoes. 

Still, the question remains that Tomas has pointed out in his Face Book discussions. Can one loose their connection to the Godhead and still be a magician? This statement reminds me of that song by REM “Losing My Religion.”

“Consider this

Consider this, the hint of the century

Consider this, the slip

That brought me to my knees, failed

What if all these fantasies come

Flailing around

Now I've said too much” REM - “Losing My Religion” (part of the lyrics)

When it comes right down to it I suppose anything is possible in the various experiences and phenomena of magic; but losing one’s connection to the Godhead is a peculiar one, at least in my opinion. Let me explain why I think that this is so.

I have defined ritual magick as the methodology that incorporates the practice of godhead assumption as the fundamental state of consciousness for all magical work. So, that means that an initiate who performs magic is doing so under the aegis of his or her personal godhead. If that is a prerequisite then it would be difficult to lose connection to the greater Godhead and the One because the personal godhead is synonymous with the greater Godhead. There is no difference except in one’s mind and perceptions.

As the initiate progresses through the transformative processes of initiation, the apparent differences melt away and the initiate becomes more aware of the Godhead Within and the greater Godhead Without, and that they are one and the same. Is there any possibility that one might lose their connection with the personal Godhead? Perhaps in the beginning when it is a new experience which hasn’t become an integral part of the magician’s innate nature; but once it does, then any kind of spiritual disconnection is unlikely to occur. It wouldn’t be impossible, but such an occurrence would represent a catastrophic setback. It would be a total nullification of one’s entire initiatory process.

In all of the years that I have practiced ritual magick, I have never experienced this kind of loss of connection. I am aware of my inner godhead and often it resonates in a synchronous manner with the greater Godhead. Sometimes my mundane life has most of my attention and at other times my magical and pagan religious work are my primary focus. I also need to manage and balance living in the material world with being a pagan, witch and a ritual magician. I am focused on world events, thus making me worldly, but I also am keenly aware of magical and spiritual processes within and outside of me as well.

As a magician, I am seeking to be a master of both the material and spiritual world, since from my perspective, they are one and the same. What this means is that I experience a cycle of magical and mundane occurrences, and both of these occurrences are part of the overall process of conscious evolution. They are just part of a greater continuum that reaches from my unique individual experience and perception of life and its meaning all the way to the absolute levels of being. In my opinion, the road to self-mastery is where these different levels become unified into just one level all within my overall perception. Perhaps the one Tarot card that epitomizes that whole process to me is Atu V, the Hierophant.

Anyway, I have never been in a situation where I have not had, in some manner, a connection with the Godhead. For me it is only a matter of precedence, intensity and focus. I have never lost my “religion” since it is completely integral to my being. I know the nature of Spirit from my experiences with it, but I also know that it resides wholly and completely within matter, and the truth is that there is no distinction between them except in my mind. My beliefs and my faith are based on my experiences. From these experiences I seek to derive various maps, rules and doctrines that encapsulate what I have experienced. This is an evolving process, so what I hold to be true today will undoubtably change tomorrow. It is quite a different process than holding particular truths and doctrines based on faith alone, which is the starting point where the mystic begins his or her path.

Someday, perhaps in the future, I hope that I will be able to completely eliminate the distinction in my mind between spirit and matter, and when that happens, I will know what it is like to be a man and a god simultaneously. Until that time, I will continue my work and strive to realize the mystery and nature of the Godhead within me, and by outward projection, to know it in the world.

Frater Barrabbas

Depression, Dark Night of the Soul and Magick

The last couple of days I have had some interesting conversations with some of the more insightful magicians who are my friends on Facebook. They are discussing the phenomenon of the Dark Night of the Soul, and that feelings of desolation, despair and a deep depression which can occur to anyone who is following the initiatory path of magick is also analogous to the classical definition of the mystical Dark Night of the Soul. There seems to be the consensus that all magicians at some point retire from the world (and in a sense, renounce it) and undergo the mystical rigors of the Dark Night of the Soul while seeking union with the One.

Strangely, I seem to be one of the few who finds issues with this kind of explanation and I have respectfully disagreed with those who have espoused this perspective. I think that it has more to do with a mystical approach to the Godhead than a magical approach, and there are also the issues of chronic or situational depression, isolation and despair that have really nothing to do with spiritual ascension. In clinical depression, removing oneself from the world is a common symptom and strong feelings are often replaced with a feeling of numbness, stasis or apathy.

The real question then is whether or not the iconic Dark Night of the Soul is real for mystics and magicians alike. Some have also questioned whether there is a difference between the two paths since they seem to lead to the same ultimate place. (I intend to answer these questions, hopefully once and for all, later in this article.)

Don’t get me wrong, since I am far more of a theurgist than a thaumaturgist, I do cultivate mystical experiences and encounters in the magical workings that I perform. However, there is a vast difference between having mystical experiences within a magical context and functioning as a mystic. They are not at all the same thing, in my opinion, and I believe that some magicians seem to confuse these two very different processes. Magicians can and do have mystical experiences, but they are not mystics. This is because a magician’s whole spiritual purpose is quite different than that of a mystic. This differentiation leads me to make some theological considerations regarding the context through which the Dark Night of the Soul occurs, both from a monotheistic and a pagan perspective.

From the perspective of the Abrahamic religious traditions (and also, to an extent, within Western metaphysical philosophy) humanity is in a fallen state and requires some kind of redemption in order to be spiritually fulfilled. The first step in finding redemption is to renounce the material world, since it’s the source of all that is fallen, separate and distinct from the Godhead. The physical world and all it contains is, therefore, unredeemed. Thus the seeker of spiritual redemption first realizes the fallen state of humanity and also the abject condition of the material world and thereby renounces it, but once this is done then he or she will undergo and experience probably the most difficult and bitter isolation imaginable in order to begin the process of achieving redemption. Let’s keep in mind that this is the particular mystical path to redemption (union with God) and not the general path to redemption (blessings and forgiveness of sins) open to all faithful adherents.

Yet in order to achieve redemption and salvation, mystics must transcend all that binds them to their physical lives, egocentric sentiments and their material circumstance in life in order to truly realize the hidden presence of the Godhead. Only by employing this extreme degree of self-sacrifice and world rejection is redemption possible, for without it, the seeker can’t cross the boundary that separates humanity from God, which is the sole objective. (Of course, there are other ways that the layperson can receive a certain kind of redemption for their faith, such as being redeemed through the intercession of Jesus Christ, nevertheless, the path of the mystic is the most onerous and difficult to undertake.)

However, in my opinion, a modern pagan has no need for any kind of redemption because he or she doesn’t subscribe to the belief that there is some kind of separation of Spirit and Matter, or that matter is in a fallen state along with humanity. Pagans don’t believe in original sin, so they don’t need to be redeemed. In fact the whole Lurian Qabalistic legacy doesn’t make a lot of sense to someone who is a modern pagan since the idea that spirits are trapped as “sparks” in the dross material world has the same kind of antinomian quality associated with theologies that reject the divine nature of the natural world (such as sects of Gnosticism, Fundamentalist Christianity and Neoplatonism). Since pagans embrace all material life and consider it to be sacred and imbued with spirit, then there is no need to somehow either elevate or reject matter.

To a modern pagan, Spirit and Matter are unified in emulation of the One, which is the nameless source of everything. Matter is imbued with consciousness and everything is therefore connected together. If one wishes to experience the divine, then nature is the principle place that one should focus their attention. I have found this philosophy to be an important remedy for the disease of duality that appears to plague most Western religious and philosophical systems. Also, there is no division between Deity and humanity, since the individual God/dess Within is also synonymous with the Cosmic Deity. If there is no fall and no original sin for modern pagans, nor any kind of division between the Godhead and humanity, then redemption is quite irrelevant and so is the Dark Night of the Soul. All that is required is for one to learn to see and experience the world as a holistic fusion of spirit, mind and matter, resolving itself into the One.  

The term “Dark Night of the Soul” was a phrase invented by the Spanish poet and Christian mystic St. John of the Cross and given to the title of a series of poems he wrote (La Noche Oscura del Alma) even though the process he describes was certainly not his invention. The poems he wrote depict the archetypal process or journey that he underwent when he sought a more perfect union with God. It is called the “Dark Night” because it symbolizes the ordeal that the soul encounters when in that intermediate state between renouncing the world and reaching the illuminating presence of the Deity. It is an experiential process that can and does happen for years, and in some documented cases it is only intermittently resolved. According to St. John of the Cross, this process has two stages; the first is a purification of the senses, and the second and more difficult, is the purification of the soul. The purpose for both of these ordeals is to eliminate all irrelevant and worldly things from the senses, mind and soul of the seeker and thereby to become worthy of union with the Absolute.

Purification of the senses is accomplished through a form of deprivation, where the mind and body are put in a situation where all sensory distractions are slowly attenuated until the life of the monk is one that is regulated by religious services, prayer, meditation, contemplation, work, and the basic needs of plain food and drink, rudimentary shelter, austere clothes, and little or no creature comforts whatsoever.

Purification of the soul is accomplished through strict forms of prayer, meditation, contemplation, and the enforcement of disciplines such as silence, isolation, self-humility, surrendering one’s self completely to God and the stripping away of all personal pride and self-definition. After a long period of this kind of rigorous discipline (and others even more inventive) the mind, and therefore the soul, will be purified of the distractions of the ego, personal vanity, and even one’s sense of identity. In the end, all that will remain is the nameless human being stripped of all extraneous things and naked and humbled before God. It is in such a state while waiting for the manifestation of God that the darkness reveals itself, filling the monk with doubt, fear, terrible and tormenting visions and nightmares, hopelessness, and the despair of failure - of being unworthy. If it were not for the brief but overpowering experience of union with God that uplifts and transforms the monk then this process would produce nothing but self-destruction. However, it is a deliberative process and also one that is voluntary.

 

From the standpoint of Christian mysticism, and even other forms of religious mysticism, it would seem that this process is quite relevant and necessary to achieve spiritual maturity and the realization of Spirit within and transcending all matter. However, there would also be a corresponding negation of the material world and its various trials and tribulations. Overcoming the Dark Night of the Soul would at least confer on the mystical seeker a certain amount of freedom from the travails of the world, since such a person would be functioning temporarily at a transcendent level of being. Such exalted states of consciousness are difficult to maintain even for someone living a secluded life in a monastery, so the Dark Night would be something that would periodically reoccur, again and again. According to the various writings of the Christian saints, including modern ones such as Mother Teresa, the Dark Night of the Soul is an almost perpetual companion for the mystical seeker.

However, would such a process as the Dark Night of the Soul that I have described above be something that a magician might encounter if he or she were following an initiatory path within a pagan-based system of ritual magick? That’s an important question, and I believe that it is definitely not part of the magician’s initiatory process - at least for a pagan. Why do I think that way? Is there a real distinction between the magician and the mystic? I have already dealt with this issue in a previous article, and you can find it here. There are other possibilities, such as a Christian magician who is following a path that alternates between the paths of being a magician and a mystic. I would find this confusing and perhaps even contradictory, but given the predilection that monotheistic religions have for antinomianism, it is possible.

A magician does have specific ordeals and issues that he or she must successfully resolve in order to achieve a stable level of spiritual maturity, but the Dark Night is not one of them. I have also written up what I consider to be the pitfalls of following the magical path and you can find that article here. However, this doesn’t really answer the question as to whether or not a magician can experience or even succumb to despair and internal darkness while undergoing what I have called transformative initiation.

Transformative initiation is not to be confused with ceremonial initiations that confer certain privileges and obligations on a member of an esoteric organization. A spiritual transformation is never something that is controlled or contrived by the magician, but it is something that can be triggered by specific magical activities. A spiritual transformation follows the pattern of the Hero’s Journey as associated with the seventeen stages of the cycle of transformation and the five stages of the cosmogonic cycle. I have written about these stages and how they typically impact someone who is undergoing them through a powerful spiritual transformation. While this is an archetypal process, it is also very specific to the development level and needs of the individual undergoing it. It is, in word, a rebirth, which is both archetypal and quite unique.

The cycle of transformative initiation consists of two halves. The first half of that cycle is the descent into the dark underworld of the deeper soul where the former egoic identity is shattered into fragments and later recombined into a completely new psychic structure. The successful completion of the supreme ordeal is where the initiate gains the vista of the cosmogonic cycle and realizes his place and role within it. These stages of shattering and reintegration are extremely difficult, painful and can produce the most extreme sensations of loss, despair, darkness and stasis for the initiate. However, these emotions are followed by joy, realization, ecstatic union and illumination. The second half of the initiatory process is the ascent out of the underworld and reintegration into the mundane and material world. However, the vision and the revitalized self are also reintegrated into the world and so the previous life of the initiate is now dead and replaced with a whole new perspective and life directive. Of course, that is the case when a transformative initiation is successful. There are cases where an unsuccessful transformation could produce regressive effects, but this is typically indicative of unresolved psychological issues.

If there is a possibility for darkness and despair then it will be experienced when the magician initiate is deep within the underworld, having experienced a complete shattering of the self into its most rudimentary parts. However, this period doesn’t last long and it soon replaced with the opposite feelings of joy and illumination. In this case, the underworld serves as a cocoon preparing one for transformation.  It is also possible that the magician initiate could experience a kind of depression after having successfully completed a very difficult spiritual transformation as a kind of “let down” after the fact – as if there should be something more. Yet even this state shouldn’t last long. Still, if a transformative initiation should fail then what I am saying here will not be what the initiate experiences. There are many possibilities, but the real issue here is whether or not the initiate is balanced and relatively normal, or whether he or she is additionally afflicted with some kind of psychological issue.

As you can see, the entire cycle of transformative initiation and its overarching purpose is to reintegrate the initiate with a renewed self-image and sense of purpose in the mundane world. According to the creed of ritual magick, the real work is to integrate Spirit and Matter, first within the self, and then in the world at large. Magicians are the teachers, initiators, leaders and social transformers, using a combination of religion, science and magic to change themselves and the world as a whole; to bring to fruition the cosmogonic design as coauthored by the Godhead. In other words, to fulfill their own destiny and the destiny of the whole world simultaneously. That objective can’t be fulfilled if the magician has renounced the material world. He or she must be immersed within it, but neither imprisoned nor corrupted by it.

Then there is the metaphorical beast of depression itself, and this is something that lies beyond the actual process of spiritual ascension or magical transformation. Whether the state of depression is situational or chronic, it can be quite a formidable opponent. People need to understand (if they don’t already) that depression is a medical condition. Even if this is an individual and personal ordeal, it has greater social and even psychological implications. I would never recommend to anyone that they not seek out proper help when faced with an insurmountable and unresolvable problem. I, myself, cannot speak to depression as a chronic malady, although I have experienced it in a situational context from time to time.

However, there are many ways of dealing with the malady of depression and the magician or mystic must deal with it (or any other psychological disorder) to achieve spiritual maturity. Chronic depression is a clinical disorder that can be mitigated with mood altering drugs and/or lifestyle modifications to balance and enhance brain chemistry; but situational depression sometimes requires the ability to detach oneself in order to accurately assess one’s situation and truly realize positive attributes of one’s circumstance.

I really do believe that there is always a way or a path that can lead one to a more healthy and happier mind-state, sometimes the difficulty is just finding it. I also have little pity for someone who persistently indulges in their internal pain and depression and doesn’t seek any kind of help, counsel or even some temporary diversion to drive the gloom from their mind. There is a stigma in our society that prejudges anyone who acknowledges psychological issues, so admitting them and seeking help can be intimidating. Still, this is one barrier that a person must overcome in order to find relief. You can find more information on chronic depression as a disease on the NAMI website here.

Sometimes we just need a pep talk from someone outside of our situation to get us out of a slump, or perhaps some coaching to remind us that we do have resources and abilities to change our lives. A loved one can remind us of why we are here or even a beloved pet can do this when we are assailed by doubt and despair. Still, we are not completely helpless nor are we without any means at our command to change our lives in such a manner as to give us joy and happiness. This must be realized as an important truth in order to motivate ourselves into finding a solution.

Obviously, this is a very difficult condition to overcome, but it can be conquered. In fact it must be conquered if we are going to achieve anything in our lives. That fact alone can often help someone overcome their situational depression, since doing nothing will ultimately achieve nothing except prolong that dark and seemingly endless night. Break up your life patterns, try something new, get moving and then see what happens. Often, having something important to do will help you forget that you are feeling blue.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said in his book, ‘The Crack-up,’ “In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning.”

Frater Barrabbas

(With editing assistance and  clarifications on depression from my lady, Grace.)

Building A New Geomantic Elemental Oracle

Over the next several months I will be slowly and incrementally writing up the 256 octagrams that make up the Geomantic Oracle that I have invented. As I have previously stated, it is based rather loosely on the classical system of Geomancy. The Geomantic Elemental Oracle is a complete and comprehensive system of divination and magic that incorporates the ideas and structure of the I-Ching while maintaining a more western and elemental approach to this type of divination system. You can read my previous article here, and this should give you a pretty good background to what I am proposing to do with the Oracle.

I have to admit that it’s quite exciting to give birth to a new Oracle. I am not just following what has been established by tradition, even though there is a precedence for me to create such a divination system. Certainly, there is a need for it, and I feel a special calling to build it, even though it will take months or maybe even a year or more to complete. I believe that this massive project will be well worth the effort since the result is already turning out to be quite compelling. What I have decided to do is to share a completed octagram Oracle chapter here and in future articles so that you can see the results of my work. I think that you will be as excited about these fascinating octagrams as I have been in deriving and writing about them. Each chapter contains the Octagram, its attributions, keyword, and then a description, judgement and finally, an image. When completed, there will be 256 of them, and I suspect that they will run the complete spectrum of all possible human experience.

Here is the first one which I thought was interesting enough to share with you. If you have a moment, feel free to let me know what you think of it. Others will follow from time to time, but of course, you will only be able to find all 256 in a forth-coming book.

Frater Barrabbas


#30 Earth of Fire base qualified by Water of Water. Keyword: Seeing Deep Visions

Seeing Deep Visions indicates that a doorway has opened up so that the querent might be able to see deeply into the intrinsic nature of things. This is a very auspicious time that can have a momentous impact upon the querent. Many things have lined up in such a manner that the sage has a clear view of what lies far below, but this view is very temporary. Seeing must also be accompanied with perceiving, recognizing and understanding. It is important that what is seen is carefully examined over time, and it is even more important for the querent to seek out the guidance and counsel of other insightful minds, since what is seen may be obscure or even allegorical. The sage must persevere to fully realize this great gift of deep vision, and it will require effort and diligence to build that understanding and so not waste the momentous gift of seeing clearly and fully. 

Judgement - Seeing Deep Visions is a great gift, but it makes the sage responsible for understanding what is revealed. Thus, it is a gift and also a great challenge. Careful perseverance brings great good fortune, but wasting such a gift is the height of folly.

Image: Seeing Into the Well of Souls - thus the sage is given the boon of seeing into a greater depth than any previous insight. With this boon is also a challenge; will the sage take the vision as a blessing or as a curse? Only careful examination will further the blessings of wisdom thus acquired, but impetuousness will spoil the view.

Thoughts on Wealth and Magical Power

Spring has finally come to the Great White North, and the leaves are starting to bud. It is looking a lot nicer since the browns and greys of winter after the snow-melt and rains have become green with the promise of warmer weather and a verdant rebirth. Still, there are cool days and a quite a lot of rain, but at least it’s rain and not snow. Despite the fact that the warmer days of summer are approaching us again, I find myself overloaded with work, so I can only gaze at the wondrous changes through my window.

Presently, I have begun the arduous task of transitioning from my old job and role to one that is new. I need to focus on mastering new skills, dusting off knowledge and techniques long stale and getting up to speed with a completely different technology. These are delightful things for me to do because I always love new challenges and learning to master new technologies. I am grateful that my company is giving me this opportunity to re-tool, but I can hardly blame them. Finding people with my business knowledge is quite difficult, since what I do isn’t just limited to knowing how to use fancy technological applications. The fact that I also know how to write is also somewhat unique to an IT professional, so I can see the practical reasons why my employers want to give me the opportunity to retool. It’s far cheaper and faster to allow me to extend my abilities than it is to hire someone with all of the abilities that they require.

Thus, my work related on-the-job training and the massive workload will keep me busy for quite some time. This is why I haven’t been writing articles for my blog lately and why I am not likely to write much in the future either. I am just too busy making certain that I can continue to function as I have done previously in my career, and so manage to continue getting a good paycheck to put a roof over my head and food on the table. I am not wealthy but I am also not poor. I have been quite fortunate and I am grateful for what I have been able to accomplish in my life so far.

I know all too well that things can and do change, and the fickle finger of fate can just as easily afflict one with misfortune as it can seemingly award one with good fortune. I would like to believe that my magical abilities have helped to shape my fortune over the extent of my lifetime, but it could have also been my ability to periodically reinvent myself and to be fairly practical minded when it came to money and career choices. I like to think of myself as a man of magical power and arcane ability, since I am a witch and a ritual magician. Yet when it comes to talking about magical power and how that mysterious quality can impact one’s temporal and material reality, then things can become murky or even a bit confused. Allow me to explain what I mean by this statement.

There are essentially two basic kinds of magical workings that most ritual and ceremonial magicians might perform, and these consist of the works of thaumaturgy and theurgy. Thaumaturgy can be defined as essentially making things happen in the material world based on a combination of magical and mundane steps. Thaumaturgy is therefore mainly concerned with producing material effects regardless of the medium (such as energy, spirits, psychology, etc.). Typically, a thaumaturgical operation will be able to “bend” probability so that something that has a distinct possibility of occurring can be “willed” into becoming manifest. Theurgy, on the other hand, is concerned with spiritual insights, wisdom, occult knowledge and conscious illumination. Therefore, when magicians talk about influencing events through the application of magical rituals, they are usually talking about thaumaturgy. When they talk about transformations and transcendence, they are talking about theurgy.

In my book “Disciples Guide to Ritual Magick” I have discussed the nature and quality of the concept of magical power. I have maintained that it is a subjective phenomenon that has more to do with the experience of magic and its apparent meaningfulness. A powerful magical ritual is one that has profound meaning and significance for the magician. Magical power is therefore a metaphor for the emotional experiences of meaningfulness, profound significance, and insightful synergy that accompanies a successful working.

Of course, a working that fails to produce the desired effects could also appear similarly ground-breaking, but magicians typically remember their successes and try to mitigate or even forget their failures. I often refer to a magician recounting his or her exploits and successful magical workings as “tales of power.” They have a tendency of magnifying over the years and with the many renditions. (I suppose that the failed workings and misadventures would be called the “tales of folly.”)

A powerful magician is one who can not only get the desired results that he or she is striving to achieve, but does so in an obvious and profound manner. This is to say that really good magic always produces far more than just the desired outcome. It teaches, instructs, guides and ultimately leads one to a greater level of being than what might have been otherwise. What I am implying here is that thaumaturgy can and does lead the magician to theurgy, although not always and certainly not immediately.

Even so, magical power should never be confused with real power in the material world. While it is possible that the archetypal magician should be materially successful, perhaps even wealthy and widely influential, this seldom ever occurs. Why is this so? Why are magicians to be found in mostly the middle or lower classes and not amongst the wealthy elite? Shouldn’t magical power be synonymous with material power?

Anton Lavey once drily stated that real occult masters and men of magical power should reside in a station of life commensurate with their magical prowess, that is amongst the elite, and if they didn’t, then they were just a bunch of deluded frauds. I read this bit of hyperbole in Anton’s monthly periodical “The Cloven Hoof” and I can see that some folks have taken it to heart over the years. This belies the fact that Anton himself passed away leaving a very modest and meager estate behind him. He was also something of a steadfast atheist and didn't believe in any "occult powers."

Needless to say, I have often sensed a bit of snobbery and a sneering quality of prejudice from the quips and comments made by middle class white male magicians who like to look down their noses at those who are materially below them, including those men or women of color who are not part of the supposed elite of middle class magicians. Of course, whatever material stability one has these days has been bought dearly for the price of actual material freedom, since the typical working stiff can’t afford not to have a job and a career in order to survive. There are some lucky few who make a living offering their occult services for a fee, but the rest of us have to work a mundane job in order to make a living, and that takes us away from what we would rather be doing with our time. However, those magicians who are doing well money-wise have managed to leverage their middle class roots and privileges into a stable material existence, but this could change at any time. Misfortune occurs every day and happens to everyone at some point, but those who are rich and powerful are less impacted by it.

Additionally, look at the general population of the U.S. and see who is most engaged with the practice of magic. The number of middle class magicians and their potential middle class clients is quite small compared to the rest of the population of middle class folk. This is not so in the lower classes, particular the ethnic minorities and non-white people living in urban areas. There are far more magicians operating in these communities and people who will engage them for a modest fee than in any other community or class. When you think about it, doesn’t that really make sense?

When upper class people seek retribution for a wrong that they experienced at the hands of someone else do they go see a magician or a root conjuror? No, they go see their lawyers and sue the crap out of their would-be perpetrators, or they pull some influential strings and cause all sorts of woe to those sorry bastards who have wronged them. They don’t need any magic because their money and influence is all the “magic” that they ever need, and it usually protects and empowers them quite well. They can afford to be rich assholes when we would never consider behaving in that way. The rest of us poor schmucks have to make do with intimidation, physical threats and perhaps even violence, and if that can’t be done, then we either have to lump it or perhaps engage in some magic either on our own or by hiring a magician, witch or root conjuror.

 

For this reason, the very powerful, well connected and wealthy elite have viewed the practice of magic, particularly thaumaturgy, as disdainfully irrelevant. To them the religious status quo has always been an integral part of their outer social image. They might be interested in oddities or attracted to novelties, but in most cases, when they indulge in such matters they are just considered harmless wealthy eccentrics. They actually don’t deviate too much from social norms because it’s bad for business. So for this reason magic has always been and always will be the proclivity of poor and powerless people because they don’t have the means of throwing their weight around, whether by material power or by the threat of violence. They are, in a word, the little people that the rich and powerful treat with indifference or scorn. I count myself as part of that faction of “little people” regardless of my paycheck, since misfortune could easily take away everything that I have materially achieved in my lifetime. There is little difference between the urban poor and myself, at least when compared to the mega-rich, so I should always consider my material interests when voting. You can bet that I don't vote for Republicans or Libertarians.

Do my words bother you? Do you feel the need to dispute what I am saying because you think magicians should be powerful in all areas of their lives? Well, then, here’s a little test. Compare your vaunted material power and swagger to that of the Koch brothers and see how it stands up. I am certain that you will handily lose that comparison. They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars attempting to buy the supposed democracy that we live in, and they are gradually succeeding. For instance, instead of talking about what we need to do about climate change and how we should mitigate its dire effects, we are instead talking about whether or not it is real. The scientific consensus is that climate change is practically a fact, agreed to by over 97% of scientists. The global ice caps are melting at an unprecedented pace and it is obviously due to the high levels of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere. How did so much carbon-dioxide get into the atmosphere? Simple, from the massive burning of fossil fuels. Heavy mechanized farming has also greatly contributed to the green-house gas effect. Still, we have the majority of conservative politicians and media pundits denying that climate change is even happening, and all too many people are foolishly agreeing with them.

This is only one of several conservative themes that are completely absurd yet nevertheless are being seriously played out in our country, pitting lies and hyperbole against scientific fact. Modest gun control as a form of second amendment abrogation is one, Obamacare as a national disaster is another and voter fraud is still another. Not to mention the supposed fake scandals that are being acted out by the Republicans in Washington against an administration that is boringly bereft of scandal. Why is this happening? Does the fact that the Koch brothers own a major share of the fossil fuel industry have any bearing on why the conversation about climate change is stale-mated by those who outright deny its reality? As Bob Dylan sang: “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”

Progressive policies tend to assist the many for the sake of taxing the wealthy few, and so they are a method smoothing over social and economic inequalities. They don’t in any way discourage anyone from becoming wealthy, and in fact, they greatly assist in social and economic mobility. However, such policies have been demonized by those who wish to enlarge and expand economic inequality. Want to guess who is pushing such ideas into the political consensus? The Koch brothers and their mega-rich allies!

To humorously misquote Ronald Reagan, let me boldly tell my fellow Americans, “Rich people aren’t the solution to our problems, they are the problem!”

We magicians and witches are natural subversives working against the established order. Whatever you have is just waiting to be taken away by the .1%, so struggling against the system, whether clandestinely or openly, is the only way for us to survive. Thinking that we have powers to directly influence the world that we live in is a time honored illusion indulged in by middle class magicians. We can, in the end, only influence ourselves, and even then we are not immune to misfortune. So, don’t be fooled into thinking that you are safe from economic calamity, because you aren’t.

Even great magicians have their ordeals, difficulties and times of hardship. Misfortune has always been the true test of one’s character, personal strength and personal empowerment. Therefore, it is better to admire the magician who comes from a poor family and succeeds than to admire some arm-chair magician who has never had to struggle and fight for what he has.

Frater Barrabbas

Revision of Geomantic Elementals

(Newly made geomantic sticks)

This article is taken from a new book that I am writing about Geomantic Elementals. I decided to share it with my readers to get some feedback about this new way of approaching Geomancy that is very different than what is considered traditional. I am often accused of taking traditional material and profoundly changing it, but I believe that I usually have practical reasons for doing this. Here is my story about how I am approaching Geomancy, and how I intend to repackage it so that it is analogous to other systems of divination and magic. You may disagree with what I am proposing to do, but I hope that I have stated my intentions clearly enough so that you might realize the implications of what I have discovered about this venerable and antique system of divination. 


Introduction

When I was just 18 years old, so many years ago, I had a vision of a system of divination that was based on but differed profoundly from the traditional divination system known as Geomancy. I had been playing around with Geomancy ever since I first got a copy of the book “Mastering Witchcraft” by Paul Huson. I also found it later in the book “The Magus” and Regardie’s “The Golden Dawn,” and since I had made myself some nice geomantic sticks out of ebony in my highschool jewelry class a couple of years previously, I wanted to make use of them. (I still have those same geomantic sticks today, even after nearly four decades of time and use.)

However, for whatever reason, I found the system of single and double dots and the limitation of having just 16 permutations for performing a reading awkward and much too sparse. In order to perform a rigorous and in-depth reading you had to cast enough characters to fill the twelve houses of the old-style astrological square houses diagram, or work with the overly complicated shield chart with 15 place settings. This was done no matter what kind of reading was deployed, whether highly detailed and long term, or just short term and brief. You could also just throw a single character or two, or three to answer a question, but even that was just not enough.

I found this methodology paradoxically a bit too complex on one hand and too limiting on the other. Since I also had recourse to other systems of divination that were easier to use and could produce a deeper and more meaningful reading, I felt that Geomancy wasn’t as useful or as readily available to me. I was, however, particularly impressed with the I-Ching that I had just recently learned, and I was disappointed that Geomancy wasn’t as powerful as that system. Certainly all of the attributes were there in Geomancy as compared to the I-Ching, but they just weren’t arranged in a manner to take full advantage of having the most amount of attributes for a divinatory system. I found myself relying on the Tarot and the I-Ching for my divination needs, and I only used the geomantic sticks to answer yes or no questions, which they seemed pretty good at doing.

Just for my own amusement back in those early days, I had decided to try to approach Geomancy in the same manner as the ancient sages did when assembling and composing the I-Ching. How I did that was to take the instances of two dots or one dot for each of the four levels of the Geomantic character and make them into solid bars and broken bars, just like in the I-Ching.

Once I did that it dramatically and completely changed the Geomantic characters into something much more eloquent and powerful, at least in my opinion. A solid bar consists of two dots and its polarity is masculine and it represents “yes” when performing a simple oracle. A broken bar consists of one dot and its polarity is feminine and it represents “no” in a simple oracle. Two solid masculine bars represents the element Fire and two broken feminine bars represents the element Water. Because the element Air is masculine, it has a solid bar on top and broken bar below it, and the element Earth, which is feminine, has a broken bar on top and a solid bar below. Thus I was able to determine the four elements through the use of two positions of either solid or broken bars, or a combination.

That’s all well and good, but the next thing that I did turned out to be quite surprising. Looking at the sixteen Geomantic characters in their new form of solid and broken bars, I was able to determine for each the combination of elements that they contained within their structure by using the key definition for each element. The use of solid and broken bars made these Geomatic characters look more like I-Ching trigrams, except these were specifically elemental quadragrams, consisting of an element qualifier and an element base. Just like in the I-Ching, I found that the new structure lent itself to combining these quadragrams to formulate octagrams. Now instead of just sixteen Geomantic figures, there were 256 octagrams representing a complete oracular system, just like the 8 trigrams producing 64 hexagrams in the I-Ching. 

(Example of the Elementals of Water)

Not only that, but I had also determined that with just four throws of my geomantic sticks, I could build up an octagram and also determine if any of the eight lines were changing from broken bars to solid, or solid to broken. This new attribute of changing lines gave me a total of 2,048 total attributes. Therefore, using this methodology that worked so well in the I-Ching, I had produced the potential of a massive, powerful and completely comprehensive system of divination. What was required, of course, was to produce a “Book of Changes” where all of these attributes would be covered at least enough to actually perform readings. On that last task I faltered, since it would have required too much time and a steady discipline to complete. However, now decades later, I feel that I should revisit this system and produce a Geomantic Elemental Book of Changes and bring Geomancy divination into the post-modern age.

Now most people who know anything about Geomancy would probably ask why I would  do this and therefore, radically change an already existing and perfectly vetted traditional system of divination? Who was I to change something that had been effectively used for centuries before the Tarot became popular and replaced it? There are a number of occultists who are attempting to bring the age-old practice of Geomancy back into vogue, and I believe that those who have a fondness for antiquarian occult practices would find my rather radical and creative approach to the subject of Geomancy nothing short of disrespectful, presumptuous and even disgraceful. 

Add to that the obvious fact that what I have derived has little in common with the traditional meanings of the Geomantic characters. Anyone who is knowledgeable will be able to quickly determine that what I have proposed is a radical departure from what is traditional and accepted. At that point I will likely be pilloried by my critics for messing with established tradition and they will undoubtedly say that I was “hoisted on my own petard” because I had produced such a monstrosity.  I can hear them yelling for the tar and feathers, too. However, allow me to continue to describe my approach and maybe I can postpone the immanent demise of my reputation.

My approach to Geomancy is first and foremost based on the sixteen Elementals, which we can also find in the sixteen court cards of the Tarot and also subtly represented in the 64 hexagrams of the I-Ching. There are sixteen Geomantic characters, so why wouldn’t they be applicable to the sixteen Elementals? What I have found is that the Geomantic characters aren’t at all the same as Elementals and that means that Geomancy is a separate and distinct system that doesn’t relate (except very obliquely) to any of the other systems of divination. 

I found this discontinuity to be strange, but it’s really a matter of either accepting and maintaining what is traditional or looking at an old system with completely new eyes. I chose to do the latter because I wanted a system of elemental divination that was directly related to other elemental systems of correspondence. Perhaps the reason why I had abandoned Geomancy so many years ago was because it didn’t relate to any of the other systems that I was using. A stand-alone system is a lot weaker than one that can be integrated into a larger network of correspondences - or at least that is my opinion.

What I am proposing is analogous to those other systems of divination, but it is also unique, in-depth and comprehensive. Why would someone use my proposed system of Geomantic Elementals when they could use the Tarot or the I-Ching? I believe the answer to that question is to be found in the large number of attributes that Geomantic Elementals contain. If you want an in-depth oracular reading then your oracle better have a lot of attributes in it in order to be comprehensive and thereby to duplicate, in some manner, the vast diversity of the material world.

I believe that the traditional system of Geomancy doesn’t have the kind of depth which is needed in order for it to be a comprehensive oracle, so I proposed adding new levels and dimensions to it so that it could be comprehensive. I also believe that Geomancy became unpopular because it was unwieldy, unrelated to other divination systems and because it was far too thin to be a comprehensive system. Even though I am proposing a radical departure from traditional Geomancy, I believe that it incorporates the best features of the Tarot and the I-Ching. Even so, I will call this new system Geomatic Elementals instead of Geomancy, just so no one confuses what I have written compared to what is traditionally accepted as Geomancy.

Additionally, Geomantic Elementals can be used to perform passive oracular readings or active magical workings. An Octagram consists of two Elementals, so it functions as a hybrid binary or dual Elemental force, which should allow for a lot of magical possibilities and outcomes. In fact such a deep system would be able to respond to any kind of need for a material manifestation, which Elementals are quite effective at producing. Now that we have the hybrid system of dual Elementals, there is the ability to generate a precise magical power that is much more versatile, efficient and effective.

Since I have equated the Geomantic characters to the sixteen Elementals, I can also use the Elemental Enochian Calls to summon them. The method of invoking a dual Elemental would be to use Elemental Pylons set to the four Watchtowers and four Angles, thereby drawing them into the center of the circle at the Ultra-point and Infra-point and thereby generating a fusion at the heart of the center of the magic circle. So, a Geomantic Octagram consisting of a dual Elemental is both a divinatory oracle and a precise magical power. What I am talking about here is a complete system of magic as well as a deep system of divination.

Frater Barrabbas

Passing of Another Giant

I meant to get this article out in a more timely manner, but life has intervened and it remained unpublished until now. Many apologies for that tardy action on my part.

***

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

“Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,

His private arbours and new-planted orchards,

On this side Tiber; he hath left them you,

And to your heirs for ever, common pleasures,

To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.

Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?”

Julius Caesar, Act II, William Shakespeare

Another founder has passed from our ranks, and we are left a little bit less than we were. So it is with the death of Donald Michael Kraig (March 17, 2014), as it was with the death of Isaac Bonewitz just a few years previous, and our ranks have thinned ever more. The works and contributions of Donald Michael Kraig were significant because he was one of earlier writers and proponents of Golden Dawn magic and also of a form of western Tantra and sex magick. Like Isaac, Don will be missed and what he might have contributed to the movement that he helped to build will forever be lost to the occult community.

I didn’t know Don very well. I met him at a few gatherings in the past and we probably had a couple of exchanges. He was a friendly man with a great sense of humor, and a wry wit, which I had come to know more from his blog articles and comments than actually talking with him. Don’s two large literary achievements will far outlast his shortened life and he will soon become more of a paragon of positive achievements and respectable annotations than the positive or negative sentiments of those who actually knew him. This is the process of becoming a legend and a venerable spiritual ancestor, a transitional stage that wipes the slate clean of any critical or negative opinions. Don is now well on the road to becoming a spiritual ancestor to all of those who continue to read his books and follow his teachings.

It is never good to speak ill of the dead, and it is also, more or less, pointless. However, Donald Michael Kraig was successful because he was generally loved and admired by many occultists, not to mention his overall good reputation within the community. He will be greatly missed because of what he might have accomplished had he been able to live another 20 or more years. The same is also true about Isaac Bonewitz. Both of these giants will leave large gaps in the productive and accumulative knowledge of paganism and magick, and it will probably take several individuals a number of years to finally contribute what these two great individuals would have contributed had they lived longer lives.

This brings me to the whole point of my article, and that is that the most productive and insightful periods of life occur (in my opinion) during the golden years, which occur on and just after one’s retirement. It isn’t a time when individuals take a vacation from all aspects of life, in fact, it’s just the opposite. As long as one retains a certain amount of good health and has the material means to survive and live a long and productive life, then the period of the 60's through the 80's should represent the achievements of one’s final and greatest works. Mr. Kraig was only 4 years older than me, so we are both part of the same generation. Yet at my current age and level of experience, I can already see how so many things that I have worked on, researched and developed over the last decades are connected in amazing ways, and how they might be improved and given a final formulation if I am granted the time to do so. I have, therefore, achieved a certain breadth of vision and a perspective consisting of many years of experience that will allow me (hopefully) to complete the work that I started when I was a nascent teenager.

It is my hope that all of my various occult and magical projects will be able to be completed and resolved to the highest level of elegance and efficiency that I can make them. Since I am a Capricorn by birth, being able to finish everything in life is an important higher objective for me. I have already gotten to the point where I can perceive how things are connected together, and also how they might be developed to a final level of completion. It’s helpful to have many years of experience to be able to gain insights into one’s own work, to step back and see it from a greater perspective. I must admit that when I was a lot younger I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, and my work often seemed to be disjointed and not at all connected. Now I can finally see the connections, so I have learned to see the “forest” of my occult work from a greater perspective than each individual “tree.” My only hope is that I be granted enough time to do something about this wonderful vision.

Will I finally get to that point of completion which is in my nature to seek? It is my fervent hope, but how I live my life now (and take care of myself physically) will determine whether or not I will survive into my 80's, although genetics does have a hand in longevity. I only wish that both Donald and Isaac could have lived well into their 80's because I believe that this same process of reflection, insight and experience would have made their final achievements so much greater than what their shortened lives have bequeathed to us who remain.

Even so, I am grateful for the work that they did and I look forward to the decades ahead when others will come forward and push their work to the next level. I also hope that our remaining elders live much longer, prosper, and help the pagan and magical community achieve its ultimate goals of legitimacy and profound depth.

May we all live in the blessings of good health, wealth and life regenerated. 

Frater Barrabbas

Magick and Crossed Aspirations

When I attended a lecture that Ivo Dominguez Jr. gave on “Karma” at Paganicon, he touched briefly on a condition or situation where the goal that someone is seeking to realize can be rendered impossible simply because they are at crossed purposes. This condition of being crossed could occur because someone close to the one who is seeking that objective is secretly working against it, that the objective is desired by others and there is competition, or that one’s own mind or desires are at cross-purposes with one’s external objective. Ivo compared this situation to a wagon being pulled by different people in different directions, and in some cases the handle that one person is pulling would have more than one branch attached to it, and each branch was getting tugged in still another direction by forces within. The net result is either that the wagon is stubbornly stationary or it can go in a direction that we consciously don’t want it to. Regardless, the outcome is not what is expected nor desired, and the reason is called being at cross-purposes, or being “crossed.”

In the lore of Hoodoo magic this is a typical malady that a conjure man or woman has to deal with in order to help a client. Usually, it takes the form that someone has jinxed or even cursed another person so that their luck and good fortune evaporates. From that moment on, everything that they do or try is thwarted by some unseen or unknown adversary. Such a person has been cursed and crossed so that they will remain locked in a downward spiral of bad luck, missed opportunities and the constant occurrence of maladies, catastrophes and suffering. The conjure man or woman has to break the jinx or curse afflicting their client, reverse its affects and then clear and open the way for forward progress, so that their client might retrieve the accumulation of blessings denied them. It is a rigorous process and it typically assumes that clients so afflicted are being crossed by someone outside of themselves, whether that individual is close to them or not. Therefore, one who is crossed has been jinxed or cursed deliberately or even unwittingly by someone who is envious or covetous, thereby ensuring that the source of misfortune is always external to the victim.

The Hoodoo world is full of negative and positive magic wielded by conjure men and women or unsuspecting spiteful individuals, all of them warring against each other for the sake of third party clients, and that anyone’s hold of good fortune and luck is highly precarious. In the privileged world of the ritual or ceremonial magician, such drama is usually absent. As a ritual magician and religious celebrant I have had very few opportunities to counter curses or jinxes cast by other people. This means that most of time I am free to work magic on any objective I desire and should expect a reasonable return for my work. Thus I live in a world that is peaceful, free of the dynamic exchanges of negative and positive forces, and placid with the boring expectations and occurrences of a happy mundane existence. I have no recourse to blame outsiders for anything that might happen to me. Whatever happens is either my responsibility or accidental and totally beyond my control.

Even so, crossed aspirations can and do happen even if no one is behind them except our own hidden selves. We often see ourselves as singular unified beings with typically singular aspirations, but this, of course, is an illusion. We are actually a conglomeration of different and even conflicting personal desires, self-images, identities, and each of these different personalities has a somewhat different and distinct set of aspirations, emotions and desires. If we seem to be acting as a single being with a single purpose, then that is just the mask that we wear at the moment. We are multiple beings where perhaps one or two attributes rule over the rest, but those dominate traits can and do change over time. When someone that we haven’t seen in a long time tells us (whether pleasantly or as an insult) that we haven’t changed a bit, they are obviously and completely wrong. Different people might actually see different masks on the same person and think that they are actually seeing that person for who they are. Yet human nature is very complex, and people are of more than one mind, opinion or feelings about nearly everything. We work hard to create a mental fiction of ourselves so that we are somehow singular and unified in purpose, but it is in fact a fiction. If you don’t believe what I am saying, then just examine your own Astrological natal chart and you will see how internally conflicted and contradictory you truly are. And all of us are so collectively blessed and cursed by this malady.

With this little and disturbing fact in mind, you can see how easy it is for anyone to be at cross-purposes with themselves. In fact, when the magic fails to produce the outcome that we expect it should, or that the opposite occurs, or perhaps even something catastrophic happens, then we should use our expertise with divinatory tools to determine if we are at cross-purposes with ourselves. Such divination may reveal that the performing of magic had little or no bearing on the issue, or that the probability was so small that a slight bending would make no difference. It could be that the magician failed to perform the most important corresponding mundane actions or that the target was faulty or lacked clarity. As Chief Dan George famously said in the movie “Little Big Man,” to his adopted son, “Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Still, if a magician has been attempting to achieve a specific goal and has failed to do so over a period of time, even when it appeared that the odds were very much in her favor, then it’s time to look at the possibility of crossed purposes. When a magician is crossed regarding a specific material objective, whether it is money, a good job, a stable home or a relationship partner, then any attempt to achieve that objective will fail.

How do we know when we are being crossed? What are the indicators? The key to discovering this situation is a combination of divination and meditation. Divination will show you if your objective can be achieved in a reasonable amount of time. A big clue that one is crossed is if the divination that the magician has performed results in a confusing or inconclusive reading. For instance, if you do a Tarot card reading on the desired objective and it shows no conclusive outcome or produces a reading that makes little sense, then you should consider the possibility that you are crossed. Further Tarot card readings might help to identify what is crossing you or give you additional information; but it can just as easily continue to show you nothing.

At this stage, the magician uses a combination of contemplation and meditation to perform a process that I call “self-scan.” This is done by emptying the mind of everything, especially that specific issue that is vexing one, and then over a period of time when the mind is at rest, begin to ask questions about the nature of the objective. What I have discovered is that the outcome from performing a self-scan can reveal if one has conflicting desires that render the overall objective null and void. That’s when questions such as “Do I really want this outcome?” or “Do I want to assume the responsibility for following this path?” should be asked, and the answers carefully examined. The revelations produced from a self-scan session can be used to spearhead further divination on the subject matter. Over time, the magician will find out what is really going on inside of him and whether or not the objective is worth pursuing.

If the magician decides to pursue the objective even though he or she is not fully aligned internally in order to make it possible then a process of uncrossing must be engaged. Here is where the Hoodoo conjure folk can show ritual or ceremonial magicians a thing or two about overcoming obstacles and achieving goals regardless of adversity.

Much to my regret I can say without embarrassment that I experienced just such a crossed purposes situation that lasted for decades. I just couldn’t figure out what was going on and whatever divination or magical ritual workings that attempted to perform just never seemed to produce any results. Had I known about this potential issue of crossing that plagues nearly everyone at some time then I would have been able to resolve it much more quickly than I did. As it turns out, I fumbled along for many years until I intuitively determined what was going on and managed to rectify it. What was that crossed purposes situation that bedeviled me? It had to do with successfully finding a lover and lifetime partner for a long term relationship. Allow me to briefly describe what I went through.

Many years ago I fell in love with a woman that despite all my desires, intentions and attempts otherwise was never meant to be successful. We all have had these kinds of thwarted desires and deflected amorous objectives, and most of us get over them and continue to successfully find that one person who does love us and want to form a long term relationship. However, for me it was an unhealthy obsession that lasted far longer than it should have. I am not completely at fault here, but I should have been able to see the wisdom of the moment and disengage myself from this woman to look elsewhere.

Even when I had completely resigned myself to the true futility of such an objective, my obsession had created an internal process that had a life of its own. While I sought for the companionship of other women around me, part of me was still pining for this woman even though I knew she was impossible to achieve. I had unwittingly created for myself a powerful crossed-purposes type situation, and this marred and handicapped me completely regarding finding a relationship. The obsession had to be starved over a long period of time before I had any luck at finding a potential mate. Whatever magic I worked to resolve this situation did nothing to alleviate it, and in fact there were plenty of clues written in my magical diaries from that time, both from a magical and divinatory perspective, that I had compromised myself. I was in a trap of my own making, so it required me to understand this fact before I could find an exit.

Only after a long period of time did I finally realize what had happened to me, and only then, was I able to resolve my issue. Still, I could have resolved it so many years ago had I understood the pernicious nature of being at crossed purposes, and that uncrossing is an important tool and technique even for the practitioner of high magick. 

Hoodoo techniques for uncrossing vary considerably amongst different conjuring doctors and their various traditions, mentors and personal tastes. However, an archetypal Hoodoo methodology for uncrossing consists of the following steps, although there are many variations.

1. Divination to identify nature and source of crossing.

2. Bathing, foot washing, blue baths (Reckitts Crown Blue), vigil candles, prayers and psalms

3. Curse/Jynx Reversing - reverse candle burnt upside down, enemy binding, mirror magic (reflecting and returning the curse), mirror box/coffin with charged and bound enemy doll, further bathing and cleansing (removing jynx/curse).

4. Road Opening - vigil lights (road opening candles), use of Van-van or road opening oils for final cleansing and preparation to retrieve lost blessings. Prayers, psalm reading, receiving blessings from root doctor or church, or both.

5. Lucky spells to activate and achieve lost/stolen/blocked objective.

A magician could, if they have a facility for Hoodoo, develop their own low magic technique using the above five steps. Still, what can the ritual or ceremonial magician do to counter a situation where they are at crossed purposes with themselves? How can they use the tools already at their disposal? I feel that I can apply the knowledge that I have of high magic and Hoodoo uncrossing and therefore propose a series of steps and magical actions that magicians can use to uncross themselves.

The following nine steps can be performed if magicians suspect that they (or their clients) are at crossed purposes with themselves. These nine steps can be grouped into three major magical workings, to be performed at different times but in close proximity to each other.

1. Self-scan - determine through a combination of divination and meditation sessions the nature of the crossed-purpose issue. Meditation should consist of emptying the mind (contemplation) and then focusing on specific questions about the nature of the problem. The results from this step are used to assist and facilitate the next step. The magician can also discover if there really is a crossed purpose issue producing a blockage or thwarted objective. (1 step combined/alternating)

2. Cross-roads divination session: During the dark of the moon, the magician will, in her temple, erect a cross-roads tying together the four circle angles within sacred space. In the center where the four angular directions meet, the magician will use a black mirror (peering through an image darkly) to retrieve an image, name and phrase associated with the specifically identified obstruction found in step 1. Once this image and name/phrase is discovered, the magician will produce a sigil symbolizing that obstruction on parchment with the pen and ink of the art, and then consecrate and charge it. (3 steps)

3. Validate crossed-roads divination results with another self-scan session. Make certain that the charged sigil resonates with the energy of the obstruction. It is possible that more than one obstruction may exist, and the magician may have only identified the dominate one. It might be necessary to repeat step 2 if other issues are uncovered in this step. Once all of the issues are identified and symbolized by blessed and charged sigils, then the magician may continue with the next step, which will be performed just before the moon is full. (1 step combined/alternating)

4. Perform cleansing exercises, a meditation vigil and a ritual bath prior to performing the main rite for Opening the Way, which is to be done that evening. (1 step)

5. Cross-roads Opening the Way rite: Magician erects a cross-roads tying together the four circle angles within sacred space. A small cauldron is placed in the center of the circle, and the magician takes the sigil(s) in hand and focuses intently on them, discussing and reviewing the nature of the crossing associated with each one, tearing up the sigil, and then when all of the pieces are in the cauldron, burning them together. Take the resultant ashes and use them draw an equal arm cross on the forehead with the left index finger (sign of the Lenten abnegation), then proceed to the Northern Watchtower and perform the “opening of the portal gesture” therein. Proceed into the Northern Watchtower and turn to face the south, reading off a series of affirmations and intended objectives that are now free to be acquired. Then seal all of the nodes and the working is done. As an additional empowerment, the magician can place one or more (metal) talismans for the appropriate planetary intelligence or godhead in the Northern Watchtower prior to the working in order to facilitate and charge the affirmations at the end. (These should be touched and focused on when entering in the Northern Watchtower. (3 overall steps)

Once the above workings are completed, and after the moon has passed full, the magician should perform some divination to check on the efficacy of the working. He should notice a profound alteration in consciousness and feel completely resolved as if the obstruction was overcome and nothing further can thwart his intentions and objectives in this matter.

Five of the most dramatic parts of this overall uncrossing working are the black mirror scrying, the blessing and charging of the sigil, and the burning of the sigil, wearing the ashes on the forehead and then performing the opening portal in the North, representing the opening of the place of darkness to the light of one’s renewed aspirations. These five ritual actions will symbolically destroy the sigil of the blockage, mark one’s self for their passing, and then open the gateway of material achievement and thereby remove the obscuring darkness of the crossed purpose that has been blocking the desired achievement. The magician can also perform specific workings after a successful uncrossing to assist in the acquisition of the objective, and this time there won’t be a possibility for crossed purposes blocking the outcome. 

Variations on this working can be performed without altering its overall impact, but I believe that this high magic technique of uncrossing should give the ritual or ceremonial magician the mechanism to remove and eliminate obstructions. May you always be uncrossed and unobstructed when pursing your objectives, but if not, then you can uncross yourself. 

Frater Barrabbas