Journey Through The Obsidian Dream

It has been harder for me to maintain a daily practice of the LBRP than it was with the Q-Cross.  Nor had the rituals been as consistently powerful.  I don’t know if this is because I’ve been sick, or because of the insomnia I’ve been suffering, or because of the alien (to me) imagery, or simply a matter of insufficient practice.  It is certainly not just the ten minutes it takes to do it properly, except for the once or twice when that brief time has been the difference between breakfast before class and none.  Perhaps it is just that I know I am committing myself to perform this rite every day for at least the next year, and I am struggling with that level of sacrifice.

Since the Dark Moon, I have been less successful at visualizing the archangels – a failure I intend to remedy by drawing them – but the rest of the rites have been far more potent.  I am successfully conjuring the pentagrams well outside my Temple, almost to the limits of my House-wards.  The difference in power and effect is phenomenal.  What is responsible for this change?  Simply a matter of having practiced more?  The change from the waning to the waxing moon?  (I am, after all, more witch than magician.)  Could it be a benefit of the rites I performed at the Dark Moon – specifically the bolstering of my house-wards?  A clearing of psychic congestion allowing me to perform more effective rites?  A benefit of the deepening intimate connections I’m making here in Sunrise?

Regardless of the reason, in the last half-week my performance of the ritual has become more powerful, more clear, and more easy.  And this while performing the rite on  an average of only three or four days out of five.  I look forward to seeing how it continues to progress.

I have constructed a separate altar as part of my ceremonial studies.  This is actually part of the program, and a part that – having not seen it in Kraig or any of the other (admittedly few) systems I’ve looked at – strikes me as a particularly witchy approach to the subject.  Penczak’s High Temple is based on studying each of the Sephira in turn, and performing a number of rituals and practices associated (in his mind, at least) with that Sephira.

The first month I dedicated wholly to the Qabalistic Cross and to preparing for the next stage.  This second month is Malkuth.  I have learned (and performed far more days than not, and those I missed owing mostly to being very ill) the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.  I will be blessing holy water.  I will be performing a number of spirit-journeys aimed at acknowledging and mastering my Kingdom.  And, though not actually in the Program – Pencazk seems to think that Knowledge and Coversation of the Holy Guardian Angel will just sort of happen on its own, and he may well be right – in keeping with Jason Miller’s suggestion, once he finally weighed in on that big HGA discussion last month, I think I will attempt more serious rites than Penczak ever provides toward the end of that K&C, starting some time this month; maybe Crowley’s Samaekh, maybe something else … it’s research time.

In the meantime, here is my Malkuth altar, which I have been arranging to my satisfaction since I began my Malkuth study just after the full moon.

I think that the value of art as a form of magic, and as a way of performing magic, is often underestimated if not outright overlooked.  The creative, free-form sigils posited by chaos magicians such as Peter Carol (Psychonaut, pp.20-22) – and so many others that I could not begin to name them here – are a step in the right direction, but they still rely on an assumed distinction between the process of designing the sigil and the process of charging and firing the sigil.  This distinction, I think, cuts off the final product from a huge amount of energy and intention that the witch or magician is already putting into the project as a whole.

Part of this is a matter of intention: if one formulates the design of a sigil as a separate process from the charging of that sigil, the energy flow is truncated.  The energy of intention that goes into the formulation is simply discarded: the sacrificed time and creative energy of the formulation of the most perfect phrase, the energy that went into distilling that phrase into a set of characters, the various drafts and permutations – be it by means of planetary squares or Chaotist symbol-making – that lead to the final product. If one simply views the process as a whole, however, one can transfer all of that energy to the  final sigil, and have the Work half done before the circle is even cast.

I wonder if I’m making myself clear.  I’m not trying to piss in anyone’s cereal.  Let’s make this more specific.  Let’s leave this theoretical bullshit behind and talk about what I’ve actually done.

Now, dear readers, you may recall that I’m in the process of setting up a new temple.  On the first full moon, I laid the foundation and scaffolding.  At the following dark moon, I built the frame and put up the walls.  This week, at the Dark of the Moon, I installed the insulation, the first pieces of “furnature”, and – let’s not forget – some turrets.

I began by designing six sigils in the traditional manner: writing a statement, reducing it to its barest components, and – in all but one case – converting it to numbers and mapping it onto a planetary square.  In this fashion, I produced two Martian, two Venusian, and one Jupiterian sigil.

Any attempt to injure the master or guests of this house shall be thwarted.

Any who intend or contemplate harm to the master or guests of this house shall be dissuaded.

The master of this house shall be blessed with security.

…. and you get the idea.  You can see the other three sigils below, but as they’re bound to my Name, they will be of little use to anyone else.  (Although, if you really want to help bless me and my guests with harmony and companionship by putting them on your altar, you are a special kind of awesome.)

Having done this, I drew a picture first of my existing ward structure – remember the Pentagram Ward? – and added these sigils to it.  Note that the Venusian sigils (green) and the Jupiterian (purple), are all anchored inside the wards, while the Martian are anchored outside.  This is for two reasons: I don’t want either set confused about who they’re supposed to be working on, and to provide a certain degree of balance.  The balance issue is also why I chose to make an equal number of Maritan and Venusian sigils: I don’t want a house where people get lost or into fights on the way over, or one where every party turns into an orgy.

The sixth sigil – the funny space-dude-looking-one – was made using Chaos Magic methodology, transforming the letters into a shape.  This one helps keep my wards from draining me and my guests for power by syphoning off a small portion of the energy from every rite I perform here, in order to sustain the matrix.  The elemental glyphs, and the sun, moon, mars, and venus symbols are also there as power sources. 

The image you see above was drawn and colored in-Circle, after I spent the day designing the sigils themselves.  The image as a whole was then further charged with the help of another witch during the Dark Moon Esbat, essentially by pouring energy into it.  I will continue to charge this ward-matrix directly over the course of the waxing moon – performing rites to specifically establish each of the sigils in turn at the correct astrological time. In the meantime, my daily pratice will also fuel them, as will all my rites over the course of my time here.

Also note that there’s a lot of blank space around the edges.  Blank space where I can add more sigils, more “lines of code” to the house wards as things become relevant.

This is the sort of the things I’m talking about when I talk about the “art” of magic.

I should be writing about big, important, powerful, and interesting magical things right now.  ‘Cause, by Earth and Fire, have I been doing those: honoring the Dark Moon, talking to the strange little gods who live on my altar, and bolstering my house-wards with my first planetary sigils.

Unfortunately, as a result of these big, important, powerful and interesting things … my brain is thoroughly pickled.  So instead I will share a pair of links with you:

The Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn … and … The Hermaphroditic Chaorder of the Silver Dusk

Why aren’t I cool enough to be these people?

Let me preface this by saying that I know full well that I have really only just begun to walk my path.  Even after fifteen years of practice, of learning and teaching and research and occasional bouts of madness … there is so much more to learn.

Having devoted this year to ceremonial magic, I am currently pursuing the most intense and directed course of study of my magical career.  Six weeks in, it’s been both enlightening and energizing, both spiritually and intellectually.  I believe firmly that I will end the year a much more competent witch and magician than I began, ready to plumb the depths of the underworld and heights of the upperworld in ways that I can’t even imagine now.

And yet … there’s a part of me that feels like I’m taking a detour.  RO recently waxed poetic about how awesomely transformative it is to do magical service for others; Dr. Raven posted a ritual to help bolster the arts community.  I want to do magic like this.  I want to devote my time and energy to helping the communities I live in and, by extension, the world at large.  To teach and to heal … this is the work I increasingly feel called to do, especially since my initiation last May.  (And making a few bucks on the side doing it?  Wouldn’t suck.)

However much I learn from my ceremonial studies, however much the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake transforms me … I’m not sure I’ll have earned my next initiation – or, given the peculiarities of my practice, perhaps “achieved my next ascension” might be more accurate – until I have begun that service. 

But I really have no idea where or how to start.  Modern neoPagan witchcraft is so relentlessly self-focused that, except for the production of new books and the running of book stores, there is little room for such service … at least in the portions of the communities that I have experienced.  We often see such things as New Age or capitalist encroachment on our “more pure” spirituality.  But people tend to undervalue things they don’t have to pay for, and priests and healers have to eat just like everyone else.

Story time again, happy readers: it’s time for another episode of Great Moments in Holy Fuck I Was A Dumbass Once Upon A Time.  I tell this story now because it’s almost come up in quite a few conversations over the last months, and because I don’t often see discussions on the internet (might just be looking in the wrong places) of how magical practice can directly impact your health.

When I was in high school, and for a while after, I liked to use magic to get high.  I hadn’t really experimented with serious rites yet, mostly just casting circles and the push-and-pull of auras and pure-thought-visualization magics.  So I would get high by drawing in all the power I could, doing breathing exercises until I was dizzy, then put on a talisman to keep me steady* and go out rolling.

Then I lost touch with the people I was practicing with on a regular basis, and I got to where the only times I did any magic were when I was warding my house, helping someone else with theirs, or celebrating the Sabbats with the KU Cauldron.  I started attending the annual Heartland Pagan Festival – and oh, sweet gods, was that a high.  In a period of a couple months, I went from a regular, intense practice, to a feast-and-famine cycle of about four to eight weeks. 

Somewhere along the way, I blew a fuse.

From about the time I was twenty – not long after my friends disappeared and I moved out of my parent’s’ house – I started getting migraine headaches.  For those of you who’ve never had migraines – and especially you bastards who don’t quite believe they’re real – imagine overdosing on caffeine and then suddenly and inexplicably suffering the worst red-wine-tannins-and-cheep-gin-hangover of your life.  The light hurts not just your eyes, but your skin.  Noises and smells hurt your brain.  The only thing that helps at all is lying down somewhere dark and quiet.

After a while I noticed that the migraines came about every two to three weeks on average – sometimes more – usually right after I did a lot of magic, or after I’d gone too long without. 

I started up a semi-regular meditation practice, and laid off some of the big solo ritual, but the net result of that correlation was to slowly stopped practicing magic altogether.  I was about twenty-three.  The headaches went away.  The being crazy got worse.  I spent about a year and a half in my basement, writing a lot and meditating a little, and trying to get my head screwed on straight.  I stopped seeing auras.  I missed a Heartland Pagan Festival in favor of Laid Back Labor Day.  I looked back through my journals and the things I remembered seeing and doing … and I started wondering if I were really crazy.   As in, sending the nice young men in their clean white coats crazy.  I realized I hadn’t actually practiced any magic in a year or more.  I was … empty.  Hollowed out.

Then I went back to Heartland.  I took a great big breath of the life and power of that sacred land.  I drank deep of the power and beauty of the rituals.  (I might have even gotten laid.)  I rediscovered what I was missing.

I talked to D it a few months later.  I remember still-being awestruck by the experience – telling her how I’d been starting to think I’d imagined every magical experience I had before that.  Although I didn’t connect the two events at the time – and it would be more than two years before I actually left – I think it was within the next six or nine months of those events that I started to feel the urge to leave Lawrence – a steady restlessness, and certainty that it was time to move to a new stage.

The migraines have never returned.  My practice has slowly escalated since that nadir, but I have never felt as strong – magically speaking – as I did before I started getting the migraines.  Even now, with a daily ritual practice and a steady observance of both the Esbats and Sabbats … I think I may actually have diminished myself by abusing my talents back in the day.

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*In this instance, a hematite ring which – unlike a lump of hematite, which would have grounded me out fast and hard – kept me at a steady level, draining off very slowly.

I’ve been fighting illness since before I came to Indiana.  Sinus infections from stress and working twelve hour shifts in the mall and sucking polishing compound.  Seasonal allergies and the freshmen plagues that come with life at any school and doubly at a residential campus.  The restless sleep that comes from uprooting my base of power and trying to form a relationship with a new place.  The inevitable weakness that comes from loneliness.

Witchcraft draws its power from the here and the now and from relationships with the flesh and blood and bone of the corporeal world.  From what I’ve read and done so far, ceremonial magick seems focused on separating oneself from that world – the king is not a part of the kingdom, he is above it; to be at the center of the universe is to be separate from it.

I was sick as fuck, bedridden for a day, after performing the LBRP two days in a row.

Am I working against myself?  Are my ceremonial experiments undermining my attempts at integrating myself here?  Or is this a manifestation of what Frater Acher is talking about?  That in order for the work I’m doing to make me strong and rooted and integrated, I must first be weak, disconnected, and adrift?