Showing all posts by Satyr Magos

In art, witchcraft

Occult Art: DIY Grimoire

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

I may or may not have mentioned here that I changed jobs a few years ago, upgrading from the one-hour jewelry repair joint in the mall to my city’s premiere occult store. So, yeah. That happened. It’s been fucking fantastic, except for the temptations.

For two and a half years, I managed to walk by these every day and keep my hands to myself. Early in December I finally caved.

Jeweler’s Bench For Scale

This is not the first hilariously expensive journal I’ve bought for myself. I swore that this time I would not let it languish. This time I had a plan. Inspired by some occult-adjacent artwork, I set out to make a magical book that would work as well in a circle as it would in a photoshoot.

I actually started almost immediately, transcribing the Stele of Jeu onto some of the first pages of the book.

The Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphist

I can already report that the Stele of Jeu produces even stronger results this way than using my old “book of shadows”, comprised of computer-printed pages in a three-ring binder. (Which, to be clear, worked super well, both in private and in public. But it wasn’t #aesthetic enough for me at this stage in my life.)

Yesterday I spent a few hours playing with magic circles and orphic hymns.

For Conjuring Spirits of the Moon
For Conjuring Spirits of Venus

The hardest parts so far have been: A) recognizing that it is not going to end up being perfectly ordered; and, B) carpel tunnel makes hand-writing the text really, really hard (harder than the drawing, to my surprise). The first did not come as a surprise. My obsession with well-ordered books is part of how I resisted buying such a thing in the first place; convincing myself that the aesthetic was worth it was the first step in deciding to buy it. The second, though I should have known better, was very much a surprise.

Careful observers will note that, while the Stele of Jeu is at the very beginning, the conjuration circles are in the middle. No, I haven’t filled the space in between. I put the circles there because I intend to balance candles and crystals on the open pages, and I figure that will go better if it lies relatively flat.

For anyone who is curious, yes, those are the Athanassakis translations. The particular Triangle of Art is idiosyncratic, shown to me by the spirits of Saturn during my first run of Seven Spheres in Seven Days (which apparently I need to write a new post about, because the artwork on the first one did not survive migration to the new web host).

Future plans for the tome include adding the original Greek to the two Orphic hymns above, the healing prayer to St. Raphael that my crew and I have used to good effect on several occasions, and the most outrageous occult art illuminations that I can free hand under the influence of drugs and/or magic.

This level of drama is, of course, not necessary for the practice of magic. Not even the magic I intend to use it for. But I fucking love the drama: how else would so much ceremonialism made its way into my witchcraft? So I make fine jewelry talismans for myself, my friends, and for profit. I make art exploring occult and magical themes and images. And I make magical tools that double as props for occult themed photoshoots.

And I’m here to say: if you, too, are an artist and occultist, you should, too.

Even if you Keep Silent, and no one but you is going to see it.

In witchcraft

Dream of a Coven

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Since stepping into a leadership role in the Kansas City Pagan community, I have been asked one question more than any other. Though I have stepped back from that role, the question still follows me. It rings loud in every digital venue where Pagans gather.

“How do I join a coven?”

There are variations, of course: “Where do I find a coven?” “Are there any covens looking for new members?” “Where can I get an initiation?” “Will you initiate me?”

Responsible leaders always give the same answer: go to public gatherings and meet people. Go to New Age stores. Go to Meet-Ups. Go to classes and workshops. Go to festivals and Pagan Pride Days. Meet people. Make friends. Engage in the community at large. Wait for an invitation.

People don’t like this answer. Probably for a variety of reasons. And, to a point, I understand. I, too, once dreamed of joining a coven. Sometimes I still do.

The dream of a coven runs deep in modern neo-Pagan Witchcraft. It is, in fact, central to our founding mythology: Gerald Gardner, intrepid veteran and amateur archaeologist, initiated into New Forrest Coven by “Old Dorothy” and taught the old ways of magic and the Goddess. Gardner, in turn, recruited, initiated, and instructed his own students, and sent them out in the world to do the same. (1) Semi-public teaching covens tracing their lineage back to Gardner (and his rivals and imitators, such as Alex Sanders) then came to the United States to spread their traditions. (2)

From the very beginning there have been far more people who wanted to be in a coven then there have been covens for them to join. Books like Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft and Ed Fitch’s Grimoire of Shadows (originally distributed as hand-typed and photocopied manuscripts) invented the notion of the Outer Court to bridge that gap. In many ways the entire movement of Pagan festivals exists for the same reason. (3) In the process, an idealized image of witchcraft came into being: a handful or a dozen of beautiful, naked people, dancing and feasting and fucking in the moonlight, high on magic and religious ecstasy. And the word for that image became “coven.”

Now, the thing of it is, most US Witches and Pagans come from Protestant backgrounds. Even those from other backgrounds — particularly Catholic — grew up saturated in Protestant culture. Half the time a Protestant says “religion” they really mean “denomination”, and don’t really have a concept of how different non-Christian religions are from the church they grew up in.

So, with that in mind, it is my observation that many Witches in the United States mistake a Tradition for a denomination and a coven for a church. They expect to find them in abundance, with neon signs and open doors and waiting arms. They expect initiation to come without effort or cost.

Now, to be clear, before we go any further: I am not Wiccan. I have never been initiated. I have never been a part of a coven. Nor am I speaking ill of either covens or the desire to be a part of one. What I am is a student of the history and culture of the modern neo-Pagan movement, its origins and its offshoots. What I am is a member of the community for more than long enough to have seen some shit go down. The disconnects between the above expectation and the reality I describe below are features not bugs.

A coven is not a church home. You don’t shop around, Sunday to Sunday, for one that you just kinda like better. Initiation into a Wiccan coven bears more resemblance to marriage than to baptism. Finding a good, strong, healthy coven is like finding four to twelve spouses. It is hard. It is messy. It is deeply relational. It requires growth and compromise and hard-won intimacy on the parts of everyone involved.

Teaching covens do exist, but you can’t just walk in and take a seat. They have class cycles, and applications, and fees. And when you’re done, they send you back out into the world on your own.

A coven which is truly open to all comers … Well, firstly, it’s not really a coven in the traditional sense of that word. More importantly, it’s going to be as sketchy as a non-denominational church in a strip mall. The turnover rate will probably be high. The leaders may be seducing or assaulting their students. There is even a chance that it will be an honest-to-goddess cult.

And if they’re willing to recruit you because you posted to a Facebook group about how you’re new to the area, or to witchcraft, and how lonely you are and how eager for validation and acceptance? Double the risks. There are predators in every community, and Paganism is no exception.

And so the mods of whatever group you’re in invite you to come out in public, to join the community.

Let me join the chorus: Come on out. Join the community. Take some classes. Make some friends. If you can’t find a coven, maybe you can find a family and make one of your own.

—

1 – This is absolutely mythology, not history, utterly unsubstantiated even by Gardner’s own accounts. Please consult Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon for an accurate origin story.

2 – Again, consult Hutton. See also Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon.

3 – Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon covers this very well.

In Uncategorized

What Do Your Ancestors Deserve?

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

This article was written for and originally published in the Fall Equinox issue of The Center Spiral Magazine and is cross-posted at the Kansas City Sorcerous Arts Collective.

Ancestor veneration has always been a thing. It has been central to many indigenous practices for millennia; it has been a part of diasporic traditions for centuries; it is arguably the basis of saint cults. I even knew of academically minded neo-Pagans doing it in the 1990s. Watching the meteoric rise of ancestor worship among white neo-Pagans over the five years, though, has been a trip.

I can’t get on the train. I keep having to ask myself, “Who are these ancestors?” As far as I can tell, for most people that question seems to conjure first an image of their beloved grandparents, and then of their fantasies of Iron Age warriors and Neolithic wanderers, with little thought of the centuries in between.

I too, think of my grandparents and great-grandparents. I think of the racist jokes they told. Of the way they treated my mother and my sister. Of how they always had a justification for police brutality. Of how they ignored the AIDS crisis. How they opposed the Civil Rights movement. How they may or may not have fought in the World Wars, but certainly did not oppose the US genocides and apartheid state that inspired Hitler and the Nazis. How they fought to preserve slavery in the Civil War. I do not find these deeds worthy of veneration. Do you?

White people whose ancestors came to the United States before the Civil War have even less to be proud of. How complicit were they in displacing the indigenous population? Did they own slaves? Were they a part of the original, most guilty, colonizing forces?

As a white person, when relating to other white people, I always find a more-than-academic interest in ancestry to be a giant red flag. That territory is rife with phrases like “Christian civilization”, “heritage not hate”, “demographic twilight”, and “Jews will not replace us”. Other gems include, “the Irish were slaves, too” and “well, sure, but the Natives weren’t really using the land”.

Any white person interested in ancestor work of any kind needs to grapple with some basic facts of history. The very category of whiteness was invented to justify colonizing the New World: prior to that ambition, the only pan-European identity that existed was Christendom, and the wars of the Protestant Reformation will tell you exactly how unified that identity was. Slavery existed before white people, but one of the very first things “whiteness” did was to invent the most horrific form of slavery to ever be conceived or implemented. White people implemented brutal and murderous empires on a scale unknown in prior history. White people invented scientific racism. White people continue to reap the benefits of this rapine and murderous history, continue to hold the majority of the globe in abject subjugation.

Any white person interested in ancestor work also needs to look to the present and grapple with the reality of which white people share their interest in ancestry. Mormons, colonizing the dead through posthumous baptism. Confederate sympathizers. Neo-liberal and neo-conservative apologists who hide their racism behind “but our accomplishments”. White identitarians. White supremacists.

White identity and white nationalist groups surged in popularity following the 2008 election of Barrak Obama, the first Black President of the United States. That surge included a new vigor in neo-Pagan fascist groups like Odinism and the Asatru Folk Association. From where I sit, the renewed interest in ancestor worship by “apolitical” and “mainstream” New Agers and Pagans that I first saw in 2012/13 looks a lot like those ideas filtering from the extreme toward the middle.

I’m not accusing every white person interested in ancestor work of being a crypto-fascist. I’m saying that white people interested in ancestor work cannot just handwave history away. I’m saying that white people – white Pagans – cannot simply just jump from their “sweet old (probably racist, homophobic, and imperialist) grandma” to their Iron Age progenitors without dealing with everything in between. I’m saying that white people working with their ancestors must address the crimes of our ancestors, and the ill-gotten-gains that define our lives.

We must ask ourselves, “What do our ancestors truly deserve?”

White people who wish to venerate our ancestors must begin by determining which ancestors are worthy of veneration. This is the work of history. Of education.

When we make offerings to those who came before us, we must name the deeds that make them worthy. The inventors. The scholars. The plumbers and mechanics and crafters. The healers and care-takers.

And when we make offerings to those who came before us, we must condemn the deeds that make them unworthy. The colonizers. The slave traders. The slave holders. The rapists and murderers. The racists, the misogynists, and the homophobes. The status quo warriors of prior ages.

White people who wish to venerate our ancestors must work to atone for their crimes among the living. This is the work of feminism. Of anti-racism. Of anti-colonialism. Of anti-fascism.

If white people – white Pagans – are to venerate our ancestors, we must do so without nostalgia or sentimentality. Even as we lift up the heroes of previous generations, we must bind our evil ancestors to Tartaros. Or Hell. Or the Void. Anywhere but the mortal world where they can continue the works they began in life. And we must fight their unrepentant children who re-commit and deepen their crimes.

And we must beg forgiveness from the ghosts of those our ancestors wronged.

What do your ancestors deserve?

In Uncategorized

Introducing the Hidden Worlds Podcast!

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

August has been fucking bonkers, and super good for me in a lot of ways, but in all the hustle and bustle I forgot to make a major announcement here at the Obsidian Dream!

I’ve been talking about launching a podcast for literally years. One with Aradia. One with Kraken. One by myself. But it didn’t quite come together until the beginning of this year, when I began recording segments for my then-empty Patreon.

Friday, I finally launched the first episode of the Hidden Worlds Podcast. My interview subject was Emily Gabbert of the Kansas City Witches Meet-Up and Center Spiral Magazine. You can listen to the episode and see the show notes over at the Hidden Worlds blog. You can subscribe in your RSS-based podcatcher via this link. I’m working on getting it up and running on iTunes, Spotify, and all the other corporate curated spaces … that might take a couple more episodes to hammer out.

The Hidden Worlds podcast will consist of alternating interview and subject episodes, focusing on the visceral experiences of creating art and practicing magic. Unlike this blog, which hardcore targets the moderately experienced witch and magician, the Hidden Worlds blog and podcast will strive to be accessible to the more casual student of art and the paranormal. Every episode will end with the fun and exciting question: What Is The Strangest Thing That Has Ever Happened To You?

The podcast, like this blog, is free and will always be free. The only ads you will ever see or hear are for my own projects and/or the projects of my interviewees. But, because we live in the 21st century world of late stage capitalism on a dying world, I will beg you to support it out of the goodness of your own heart by backing me on Patreon. I have just finished revamping the tiers and rewards structure, as well as recording a pitch video. Please head over to my Patreon, laugh at the video, and consider pledging your support.

In art, witchcraft

Maeteria Magica: Talismanic Images

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

I have received a number of messages asking if my talismans are consecrated or made according to astrological timing. Overwhelmingly, they are not. I am not an astrologer, nor do I have the resources at this time to keep one on staff. There are advantages to this: firstly, astrologically timed and consecrated jewelry costs hundreds of dollars more than what I am charging; secondly, it leaves the owner of the talisman free to put the images to whatever purpose they want, with no interference on my part.

My talismans draw their power from the materials and images from which they are made, and from the consecration which is your responsibility to provide.

The Power of Maeteria

You can make a talisman out of literally anything. I have made phenomenally powerful talismans out of printed note cards, herbs, glue, and wax. Most of the talismans available on the internet are made of stainless steel, pewter, or pot metal. These are good enough for huge swaths of the community. They are certainly more affordable. I am offering something else.

I am offering fine talismanic jewelry made from pure copper, sterling silver, and 14kt yellow gold. As the shop grows, I will also be offering talismans with precious and semi-precious stones; ancient coins, arrowheads, and glass; and occasionally high-art found-object materials. Precious metals and stones take and hold magical energy better than anything; they make the best homes for the spirits you call and awaken. They are also — and this is arguably most important — really, really cool.

The Power of Images

The majority of my talismanic jewelry draws its power from either the images or the materials employed.

My Apotropaioi line — the Attic Gorgon, Humbaba, the Eye — are ancient protective symbols with no astrological associations or requirements that I am aware of. While they could certainly benefit from electional magic, they do not require it. The images themselves are tied to deep currents going back millenia, and need only be awakened and attuned to the owner.

Now, many of the traditional talismanic images do have astrological associations. While these pieces would benefit immensely from being crafted and/or consecrated in accordance with evectional timing, the images themselves have a powerful current of their own, and I do my best to tie the talismans to that current when I make them. Experimentation has proved to my satisfaction that while these talismans are not as powerful as those made in accordance with electional astrology, they are more powerful than those made of inferior material and without the current of the traditional image. They also grow more powerful over time through use and (re)consecration as opportunities arise.

Regarding Consecration

Because I am not crafting my talismans in accordance with electional astrology, and because I do not know most of my customers personally, it is my policy to do only a minimal consecration. I attune each piece to the currents associated with the images and materials from which it is made, making each piece more vessel than spirit. It is then up to the owner of the talisman to consecrate their piece in accordance with their own traditions of timing and rite.

I am a professional witch. I can perform the consecration for you. That service starts at an additional $50.

Electional Timing

I have every respect for the traditions of electional talisman consecration, and have used them to fantastic effect on a number of occasions. If and when I am made aware of an astrological election in sufficient time to use it to empower talismans, I will absolutely do so. Those limited-run pieces will be labeled and priced accordingly. If you know of such an election and would like me to help you take advantage of it, please give me at least two weeks notice in order to properly design the images, develop prototypes, and/or arrange for assistance with the casting and/or consecration. This service starts at and additional $100.

In art, witchcraft

Grand Opening: the Sorcerer’s Workbench!

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

After more than a year of talking about it, and jokingly referring to my personal projects as having come “from the Sorcerer’s Workbench”, I soft-launched an etsy shop at the end of march. By the end of May, very much to my surprise, I had over $200 in sales. Clearly there is an interest in mid-range fine talismanic jewelry, and I am delighted to fill that niche.

Welcome, now, to the grand opening of the Sorcerer’s Workbench! I have a dozen designs already available for sale.

Some designs are based on traditional grimoires such as Agrippa, the Picatrix, and the Lesser Key of Solomon.

Others are inspired by modern grimoires such as the Hekataeon.

Still others are riffs on tradiditonal/folk/mythic images, or inspired by my own spirit contacts.

I also do custom work, designing images based on your needs and inspirations, and incorporating whatever gemstones and sigils you desire.

So, please: check out my shop, and hit me up if you have any questions or commissions!

In scholarship

Personal Gnosis: Some Preliminary Thoughts

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

I’ve been using the word Gnostic a lot.

I should probably talk about it.

I first encountered the word “Gnosis” in Phil Hine’s Condensed Chaos. I met it again — a lot — in the various works of Peter J Carroll. Then I encountered it again, as “Gnostic” or “Gnosticism”, in Bart D Ehrman’s Lost Christianities. The last gave some context and meaning to the glib, 1990s pomposity of the first two.

Since then, it’s become something of a rabbit hole. Rune Soup. Aeon Byte. Ecstatic rituals, modern and ancient. Conspiracy theories.

“Gnosis” is generally understood to be Greek for “knowledge”. Touching base with the dictionaries at Perseus, it seems to be a little more than that: there is a strong implication of inquiry; Heraklitus used it to suggest cosmic knowledge; some sources indicate a sense of being known. “Gnosticism”, meanwhile, shares a key feature with the word “shamanism”: many scholars believe the word to be too broad, too modern, to be of use in discussing ancient sources. It is certainly a large and broad subject, too vast for me to discuss at bredth. But I do think it may be useful, both to my readers and myself, to talk a little about a few of the through lines and what they mean to me.

[A preliminary note: this is probably the first in what may be a very long series of posts. Due to its personal nature, it will not be as citation-heavy as later posts. When I start talking facts and theories, I’ll go back to Chicago Style for you. Today we’re talking about the broad strokes, emphasizing my feelings and UPG.]

Inquiry, Revelation, and Awakening

The mystic’s first task is to seek knowledge. No more, no less. Through research, experimentation, ecstasy, and art. Seek knowledge.

Having attained knowledge, having awakened to her truth, the mystic’s next task is to awaken the world around her. Not by sharing the truth she has found, per se, but by spurring others to seek out knowledge for themselves.

What “knowledge” constitutes Gnosis varies somewhat from tradition to tradition, even person to person. The broad implication always seems to be knowledge of the cosmos. Or, more narrowly, knowledge of the source of all things (“God”). The neo-Pagan term Unverified Personal Gnosis (UPG) seems overwhelmingly to refer to the needs, nature, and personality of the gods. From where I sit, Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel (KCHGA) would probably qualify, though I don’t know that most ceremonialists in pursuit of that Knowledge would consider themselves Gnostics. The Chaos Magick use of “Gnosis” to mean little more than “trance” seems, to me, to water the term down unnecessarily.

Divine Spark

When I first discovered the modern neo-Pagan movement in the mid 1990s, this was one of the ideas that drew me in. The notion that each person is born with a spark of the same divinity as possessed by the gods.

Ancient and more conventional versions of Gnosticism attribute this divine spark to an intercessory figure, often named Sophia, whose departure from the heaven / the true source / the alien God / whatever marks the beginning of the Gnostic narrative. There are too many variations to count or describe here, but the gist of it is that by accident, error, or mercy, the Sophia / savior figure brings the spark of divinity from heaven to earth and transmits it to humanity.

Many Gnosticisms reserve this divinity for humanity; animist visions perceive it in literally all things. For myself, I lean toward the animist vision.

In many versions, the Gnostic inquiry and awakening (see above) culminates in a visceral awareness of this divine spark. So awakened, and seeking to awaken those around her, the Gnostic seeks rites by which to return to Sophia and/or the alien divine source from which Sophia came.

Archonic Interference

There is something fundamentally wrong with the world. There are people and places, both mortal and cosmic, that clearly want nothing so much as they want everyone else to suffer. These corrupting, controlling forces are the archons, who seek to imprison all who bear the divine spark so that they might steal it for themselves.

The name “archon” also comes from Greek. The root, archo, means to be first; from that we have arche, which simultaneously means law and origin, and archon, which means ruler, lord, or king. Another common phrase in English is “Powers and Principalities”. The archons are cannonically cosmic tyrants; Gnosticisms which perceive allies among the forces of the cosmic forces refer to those powers as Aeons. In a perfect world, this would make all Gnostics Black Block anarchists; tragically, this is not the case.

In many forms of Gnosticism, the chief archon is the Demiurge: the mad god who either created our sick,sad world or who took the work of the true creator and perverted it into a prison. “Demiurge” is, of course, also from Greek: demiurgos, maker or craftsman. This monstrous divinity has many names; my favorites are Yaldabaoth and Sammael (they’re fun to say).

It is this aspect of Gnosticism which is often responsible for its reputation as world- and life-hating. Certainly those strains exist. But, that way lies nihilism, and I try very hard not to go there.

For myself, I do not see an inherent conflict between the notions that, on the one hand, life and the world are sacred; and that, on the other, there are parasitical and/or cancerous cosmic powers who wish to drain the joy out of everything. Just look at people. What is the cosmic reflection of earthly Status Quo Warriors? Of parasitic billionaires? Of murderous tyrants who claim divine favor and are not struck down by lightning?

As above, so below.

Live a Mythic Life

“Write your own Gospel, live your own myth.” This phrase comes not from ancient sources, as far as I can tell, but was coined by Miguel Conner of Aeon Byte: Gnostic Radio. It is, I believe, both his most radical and most useful thought associated with modern Gnosticism.

In the words of [look dude’s name up], “The awakening of any individual is a cosmic event.” Or, as Miguel Connor likes to say: The awakening of any individual is a cosmic rebellion.

If the gods who oversee the world are evil — and only the most toxically positive deny that at least some of them are — then to know goodness is to rebel against them. If the gods of this world wish us to live in ignorance, then to seek knowledge is to rebel against them.

There is a dark side, of course. The notion of a mythic life, a cosmic battle between an awakened elect and monstrous forces of control, seems to make Gnostics even more prone to paranoid delusions and asinine conspiracy theories than the rest of the New Age and neo-Pagan population. Frankly, I’m a queer historian: I know damn well how the rich and powerful have oppressed their subjects since the rise of agriculture; that doesn’t make the conspiracies that fascinate the pseudo-enlightened (chemtrails, hollow earth, reptilians, Bilderberg) any less farsical, particularly given how those same people point to feminists, queers, anti-racists, and anti-imperialists as divisive weapons and lapdogs of the Secret Chiefs. But I’ll dig into that, later, along with so many of the hanging threads above.

What’s important to me, personally, and to this introductory blog post is the mythic potential of life. Not every myth is heroic — we are not all (thank the gods) Theseus murdering the Minotaur, seducing and then abandoning Ariande. Some of us are the Roman citizen-soldier, whose only ambition is to go home and serve our families. Some of us are the Sybil, holed up in our divine caverns, hotboxing sacred fumes, spewing mad prophesy to those brave and desperate enough to listen. There are so many myths, and an infinite universe to fill with more.

In art, hedonism, scholarship

Pride and Paganism 1/2: Dance for the Dead

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

It’s Pride Season, and that always puts me in a contemplative mood.

I guess I should start by saying that I was a late bloomer. I didn’t grok that I was bisexual until I was about 21 years old. In my defense, sex education and mainstream culture in the 1990s had left me with the impression that bisexuality was something that only existed in women (and let’s not even get started on all the transphobia that my genderqueer ass is still struggling to sort out). I didn’t go to my first Pride Parade 2007, after I moved to St. Louis, in part to come out of the closet. I didn’t have much experience with the community. I was still pretty fresh out of the closet, still pretty ignorant of most politics. 

It was a lot spectacle.  I took hundreds of pictures with my first digital camera, a ViviCam3705.  It meant a lot to me to go with the folks of BASL, to see and be seen.  I bought my first pride jewelry.  I had my first “what do you mean you want to have an actual conversation before I suck your dick” encounter with a gay man.  It was wild.

Fast forward a decade and change.  I haven’t been to a Pride festival or parade in years.  There are a lot of reasons for this.  Part of it is that I’ve always worked weekends — even in shops where not every jeweler worked Saturday and/or Sunday, I’ve found myself in the position of Weekend Jeweler.  Part of it is poverty — in Kansas City, unlike St. Louis, Pride is a ticketed event, and the venue they chose previously was one whose policies made bringing your own food and beverages difficult.  Part of it is my growing sensitivity to heat — I had made plans to meet my friends at Pride after work, last year, but heat exhaustion defeated me.

Part of it, though, is that I don’t like the direction Pride has taken.  I’m a history-minded queer, you know.  I know that the modern liberation movement began with a riot sparked by police brutality.  I know that many of the first Pride festivals were Gay-Ins — massive displays of public queer affection meant to confront, shock, outrage.  It wasn’t that long ago that half the states in the country passed constitutional amendments in “Defense of Marriage“.  You can still be fired or murdered anywhere and everywhere in the country for being too visibly queer (particularly if you’re a woman of color).

So it bothers me that Pride events have been taken over by corporations that profit off queer trauma survivors’ and queer youth’s abuse of alcohol (without doing anything for the movement besides some PR stunts and HR handwringing).  It bothers me that people are advocating for larger police presences at Pride festivals and parades.  It bothers me that, in most parts of the country, Gay Liberation (a phrase that, when it was coined, was every bit as radical and frightening as queer anything) has become LGb(t) Assimilation.

And yet … cops whinging to be included in Pride parades is an improvement over clockwork raids of gay bars.  Corporate sponsorship / takeover of Pride festivals is better than every single queer knowing that his, her, or their job was at stake if anyone, ever, found out.  Assimilationism is better than countless lives swallowed by sham marriages.  But … those aren’t the only options, are they?

I oppose the institutions of marriage and military service.  And,  yet, I demanded an end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell because, so long as the institution of the military exists, it’s better that queers be allowed full participation.  I demanded Marriage Equality for the same reason.  Being able to imagine a better world does not mean we cannot or should not celebrate victories in this one.

Unlike marriage and the military, Pride is not an institution with roots in previous civilizations.  Pride is a late 20th Century bid for revolution.  The Gay Liberation Front, formed mid-riot, was as opposed to the Vietnam War and to poverty as it was to the oppression of queer people.  Thus, marriage be damned, Pride’s assimilation by mainstream capitalist and imperial forces is a betrayal of its own roots — a clear case of winning a few battles while ultimately losing the war.

I don’t have any answers here.  No thesis.  Just hard questions about goals, tactics, strategy.

Remember that the Nazis burned the library of Magnus Hirsfeld’s Institue for the Science of Sexuality, setting back sexual science and queer liberation by at least a hundred years.  Remember that in mid-19th century United States, the police systematically raided gay bars for fun and profit.  Remember that Reagan (and most USians) ignored the AIDS crisis for more than a decade, figuring that the queers deserved to die.

I dream of a better world, but I don’t know how to get there.

I believe in Pride.  The procession.  The pageantry.  The mad Dionysiac revel of it.  The seeing and being seen, our warts and asses (sometimes literally) on display beside our vital life and joy.  But it needs less Bacchanalia and more Sporagmos; fewer drunken satyrs, more maenads tearing blasphemers limb from limb.

When you dance for Pride, you dance for the dead.  Don’t let our murderers and their sympathizers turn a profit off of you.  Don’t let their successors use you as a public relations prop.

In witchcraft

Hekate: An Unexpected Devotion

Author Satyr MagosPosted on 2 Comments

This week has marked an anniversary, half-forgotten in the madness of 2018. This time last year, my working group participated in the global Rite of Her Sacred Fires. It was not the first time I had invoked Hekate, but it was the most significant up to that point.

I must emphasize “up to that point”. Hekate began to appear more frequently on our docket, culminating in a devotional Samhain ritual in which I make made myself a vessel for her so that my compatriots could approach and petition her for aid. Three months after that, Jack Grayle’s Hekataeon went live. Aradia and I dove in head first. Our copy arrived just in time for Paganicon, and we started the work as soon a we got back.

I am 38 years old. I have been practicing magic since I was 16. But I was raised with the blandest (functionally atheist) sort of Protestantism, and I did not reach out to the gods until I was 28. Excepting my easy relationship with Dionysus, I did not manage to cultivate anything resembling a devotional practice until I was 30, and that was very much rooted in the particular circumstances of the Sunrise Temple. I have had relationships with a wild variety of spirits and an eclectic assortment of gods and powers, but little of it resembled anything akin to worship. And until a year ago, Hekate was never even on my radar.

I began to work the Hekataeon at the end of March, as I was coming out of a deep depression, a descent that began early in 2017 and bottomed out last Thanksgiving. The ascent has been steep but rocky, and it is difficult to say how much of my improvement is the native cycle of my fucked up brain and how much is as a result of the work. I could not have begun the work had I not begun to feel better at the first of the year. Any daily practice would certainly have improved my life. But also, the calming and cleansing of mania is a recurring theme in the Hekataeon.

Now, a year after that first significant contact, I have participated in the Rite of Her Sacred Fires for the second time. I had just completed the twenty-seven days of devotional meditation that comprised the second section of the Hekataeon, studying the facets of Hekate, and was about to make the transition from Devotee to Adept. By the time this post goes live, I will have completed that initiation.

Jack Grayle’s vision of Hekate is Gnostic, cosmic — the beginning and end of all. As I dig in to his ancient sources, and compare them to other modern visions, I find that he is not alone in this. I wish that I were in a financial position to take Jason Miller’s Hekate Sorcery course.

I am a sorcerer. A witch. A heretic. A Gnostic. I make handshake deals and back alley bargains with spirits. I treat with gods and demons and angels as equals. I seek ecstasy. Not Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, but rather Gnosis — knowledge of the divine power from which mortal and immortal life both spring, and which I cannot believe is a person of any kind, not even a god. I reject the capital G.

Though I have courted a few, with varying degrees of success — Apollo, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Baphomet — Dionysus is the only god I have truly loved. I did not seek out Hekate, but rather met her through my friends. One thing led to another. And now … I have graduated from disinterested third party Reader to Devotee … and now to Adept. Degrees of priesthood follow, culminating in a binding contract that will last into future lives.

Devotion in this life I am prepared for. I do not know, however, that I am prepared to make any promises about the next.

For now, though, the road ahead of me is obscure. I do not know, precisely, what will be asked of me. The work may reject me before I am forced to reject it. Or the goddess and I may come to more complex and nuanced arrangements. Decision, after all, is her sacrament.

Until then, it seems, I am Devoted. Very much to my own surprise.

In witchcraft

Prosperity Mojo: Further Work with Bune

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

In early November, shortly after Jupiter entered Sagittarius, Aradia and I decided that the stars were reasonably well aligned for our working group to do some prosperity magic. But because our working group was getting a little burnt out on charging sigils with Orphic hymns, we decided to go in a slightly different direction: pulling out our collections of scrap fabrics, herbs, loose stones, oils, and whatnot, we decided to make mojo bags.

Having previously worked with Bune (October-November of 2018), I made the spontaneous decision to include the seal I had hand-engraved in brass in the otherwise conventionally Jupiterian prosperity talisman. It sits on my altar and I spritz it with prosperity spray every pay period.

But Bune likes public praise, and I’ve got to hand it to him: he’s delivering. Despite an otherwise slow holiday season at work, every pay check has been above average. My ebook sales bumped, and my Kindle Unlimited pageviews skyrocketed. It’s not a huge amount of money, but it’s workable and sustainable growth.

I keep hearing about how dangerous it is to work with Goetic spirits. How they’ll fuck up your brain and your life. And, don’t get me wrong, there’s some folks in the Lesser Key that I won’t touch with a ten foot pole. And it’s always possible that there’s something unique about my natal chart or my previous magical practice that makes my situation special. But so far, I’ve found Bune to be a reasonable and companionable partner in crime.