Showing all posts tagged talking to spirits

In witchcraft

Farmhouse Séance (or, Baby’s First Circle)

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

After the wedding, Aradia and I drove south to meet and camp with Pasiphae and Aidan (and their two daughters) somewhat east of St.Louis, in the rural regions whence both Aradia and Adrian hail.  The weather quickly drove us back to Aidan’s family land – where we had intended to meet at some point anyway and fantasize about converting it to a covenstead-slash-commune.  Through a series of miscommunications and Great Moments in You Had to Be There, Aradia and I ended up at the farmstead almost an hour ahead of the others.  Though the GPS led us to the address without difficulty, the nature of rural areas made us uncertain that we were in the right place, and we approached the house with caution.

Aradia approached first, only to retreat in surprise: the house did not like her.  So of course I had to investigate for myself, receiving a similar rebuff: we were not the people who belonged there.  Though the house was unlocked, and nature called loudly, we waited outside.  It was only when a family member arrived to work on the plumbing and to show us in that the house accepted our presence.

When Pasiphae and Aidan arrived, the feeling of uninvited faded further – though Pasiphae confessed that she had always felt it, as well,  and Araida and myself continued to feel scrutinized.  Aidan gave us the grand tour of the house, the crumbling sheds, the barn with the fallen wall at the pig wallow where a town drunk had fallen in and been devoured in his grandfather’s time.  The feeling of being watched grew stronger.  Aradia and Pasiphae grew increasingly nervous, though for myself the strongest impression I got was one of “What the fuck?  These people can see me!”  There was talk of doing divination to see what was going on (or had gone on) with the house and the land.

I felt watched, bordering on leered at, as I showered in the basement.(1)  Later in the evening, Aidan and I went on a run for ice and beverages, leaving Aradia and Pasiphae alone in the house with the daughters, Things One and Two.  They were thouroghly freaked when we returned.  Pasiphae reported being watched from outside the living room window; Aradia reported that Pasiphae slipped into trances.  As we continued to discuss the events and possible options – divination, circle-casting, ways to protect the children’s dreams – a light bulb exploded in Aidan’s hands, which he took as a warning to “be careful what you say.”

The whole situation reminded me of my first exorcism; perhaps that explains was why I was as cautious as I was.  I took out my Robin Wood deck and began asking questions: What will happen if we try to contact the spirits of the house and land?  How much of this drama did we bring with us?  The first answer was unclear, but the second was crystal: most of it.

It seemed inappropriate to just say that at the time, though, so I spent the next few minutes talking everyone down to the best of my ability.  That done I suggested a plan of action: use one of the poker decks that lived in the house to ask a yes/no question, “Would you like to talk to us?”, before casting a circle to shield the girls and their dreams (to say nothing of ourselves and our own.)   The answer we received was a resounding “yes”, so I put on my ritual jewelry (including the recently dedicated bracelet) and we cast the circle.

Pasiphae sat on the couch, holding a sleeping Thing Two.  The rest of us sat on the floor, Thing One safely in Aidan’s lap.  As always, we cast the Circle hand-to-hand in silence.  Thing One sat there quietly, at first – willing to endure what was expected of her for the moment.  Then she started smiling.  She reached out, grabbed Pasiphae’s foot (which Aidan was also holding, as her one hand was on mine and her other was holding Thing Two), and Aradia’s hand.  The Circle suddenly had five points instead of four.  A shit-eating grin spread across her tiny face; she was so high on power that I could feel it over my own.

I got out my cards and told them to start asking questions.  I started again with the Robin Wood deck, but switched to Crowley Thoth almost immediately:  Aradia and Pasiphae have only ever used the Thoth deck, and I was being ridden too hard to help in the interpretation.  They asked questions, I laid out cards – one, two, three, or more as the spirits of the house and land moved me.  Occasionally I was able to offer input or clarification, but not often. 

Thank the gods Pasiphae took copious notes, because I don’t remember much of the details.  Those spirits rode me hard.  I remember that there were at least three of them: the house, a guardian of the land, and at least one other.  I remember that it was very clear that they were no ghosts: none of them had ever been human.  I remember that they were asking the wrong questions, but I couldn’t tell them what the right question was – “What would you like to say to us?”  Finally, I reached a point of exhaustion, and Thing One was starting to get twitchy.  They asked a question that I hoped was close enough – “What would you like to happen?” – and we closed the Circle.

Thing One didn’t want to ground.  She ate every bit of power we released as we undid the Circle.  Pasiphae and I did our best to drain her back out, but she hung on to as much as she could with that same shit-eating grin.  Within ten minutes, she was out like a light.

The whole farm house seemed much more calm.  Everyone was more relaxed.  The children were safely asleep.  We were proud of ourselves.  Aidan was securing the children in their beds; Aradia was having a celebratory smoke.  Pasiphae and I were still in the livingroom, and it hit us like a ton of bricks: I felt the energy like a punch to the spine, just a little above my One Point, and surging out to my limbs.  We both nearly broke down and cried.  I slid off my chair, grabbed the tarot deck again, and laid out a basic 10-card spread (which I almost never use, favoring my Two Pillars variant).

Here were the answers to the question they were supposed to ask.  The house and the land needed change.  They could not stand being abandoned.  They needed a caretaker.  And they were damn glad to have had the chance to talk to anyone.

We all slept shortly thereafter.

(1) Though I later concluded it was Frigga’s handmaidens (remember the wedding invocation?) ogling me, not the house or the land.

In witchcraft

My First Exorcism

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

I performed my first exorcism at the age of twenty.  I was still living with my parents.  My best friend, Aurvandil, and his lover were living in a strange, half-underground two-but-really-one bedroom apartment in the biggest apartment complex of our hometown.  They had a ghost.

They lived with the ghost fairly amiably for most of the year.  He’d slam the cabinets closed if they left them open, slam the sliding shower door open if they left it closed, and a few other things I can’t now recall.  He was easy to appease, and Aurvandil was (and is) a superstitious sort, so he let it be … until things went awry.

We never figured out what set the ghost off.  Aurvandil was sitting in his easy chair watching television, his lover was laying on the couch with her book.  He kept his “water pipe” by the chair, invisible from most angles, beside an end table where the ash tray and the TV remote lived.  Out of nowhere there’s a loud, glassy, CRACK, and the smell of bong water fills the room.  The ash tray has moved itself from the center of the end table to the center of the bong, which is now laying shattered in a pool of resinated water.

I was the only witch he knew.  Of course he called me.

I brought over my Tarot deck, cast a circle, burned some mugwort, and asked the ghost what was wrong.  It didn’t answer so much as give me the finger.  The ghost was mad, it wouldn’t say why, and it was pretty hostile.

I got scared.  Aurvandil got scared.  So I recast the circle, and pushed it to the edges of the house.  I pushed the ghost out with the circle, and anchored the circle to the walls.

No more banging shower door.  No more slamming cabinets.  No more exploding paraphernalia.

Aurvandil did tell me that he could sometimes hear knocking on the walls … coming from the underground side in the office-sized second bedroom.

We were young and dumb, and if I had it to do over I’d do it differently … but that’s beside the point.  We were both very pleased with the results at the time.  Looking back, though, I wonder what I might have done differently.  I know things now that I didn’t know then, but I think if I’d approached the problem differently, there might have been a more peaceable resolution.

In witchcraft

She Below

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

As I ruminate on the subject, I realize that my first contact with the divine came well before the events that make better stories.  I can’t actually find the event in my journals, so I am uncertain as to the exact date.  I know it was the Spring Semester of 2008 or 2009.  It was a beautiful day: the sun was shining, the grass was green, and I was meditating on the lawn at Maple Woods Community College – trying to balance myself between Earth and Sky.  I felt something move beneath me: female, more spiritually massive than anything I had ever encountered before, and waiting for me.  I didn’t fall over, but it was a near thing. 

All my life, I have sworn that I would honor any divinity that deigned to seek me out, and I will confess that I was somewhat concerned as to how I might be held to that oath.  I felt that presence several times – always patient, always waiting, inscrutable and distant beyond my ability to comprehend or express – before the definitive encounter in November of 2009.

That encounter came at a workshop Aradia and I attended at the local New Age bookstore.  A lecture on Qabalistic thought and the 10 Sephiroth concluded with a guided meditation to the Sphere of Malkuth.  Oddly, this involved first ascending to Yesod before descending back to Malkuth.  Perhaps this is simply the best way to do things – either in general, or in the case of an open workshop where many are unfamiliar with the Qabala.  Moreover, it has been suggested to me by a Chirotus that there is a second Tree of Life, inverted below the first, and that I somehow descended to that lower Malkuth.  I wouldn’t know: my ignorance of High Ceremonial Magic is vast. 

Ultimately, the mechanics of the experience are a little bit beside the point.  I descended to the underworld, where I was led to a sacred grove and a pillar of light.  I rode the pillar of light up, then down.  And down.  And down.  And someone was waiting for me. 

A gigantic queen reclined before me, gloriously nude except for her crown, flanked by lions.  I had done some research in the preceding year, regarding goddesses of the deeper earth: I knew the iconography.  Even had I not, her name echoed in my mind.  Rhea.

I do not know how to describe our exchange, precisely.  My notes record that I petitioned for her patronage*, but it would be as accurate to say that she claimed me for her own.  Either way, a bond was forged – my first formal bond, though I had served Dionysos and Hephaestos in word and deed for years.  Then she sent me on my way, long before the others were done with their journeys.

Since then, she has made frequent appearances in my explorations of the Underworld.  When I journeyed in preparation for my initiation, it was to her temples that I was led.  Later, she instructed me to inform an Earth-worshiping friend – a monist, actually, who has expressed discomfort distinguishing individual deities – that she was waiting and that it is to be my task to introduce them. 

Despite all this, I have not yet succeeded in incorporating her into my ritual practice.  I need to find or make an idol, sooner rather than later.  Fortunately, the Magna Mater is patient beyond mortal comprehension.

*”Matron” might be more literally correct, but that word means something else in English.

In witchcraft

Gods of Earth and Sky – First Contacts

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

I want to write about my experiences with Dionysos and meadmaking.  Which of course bring to mind my experiences with jewelry and Hephaestos, and with the upperworld journey that deposited me at the feet of Apollo – to our mutual surprise.  I want to write about my experiments with my Kouros and Cycladic figures, and my attempts to reconcile my fundamental queerness with the archetypal Divine Masculine and Feminine.  But, because I’m crazy, I cannot tell these stories out of order.  In order to tell these stories I must first tell about the first times I felt the direct hand of the divine.

My first direct, personal contact was with a god I have yet to put a name to, in Thoth’s Grove at Camp Gaea, on Beltane of 2009.  There was a lot going on that night, apparitions the like of which I had never seen.  But that touch in that grove … that was about me.  I performed my dedication that night at his behest, utterly abandoning the ritual I had been planning and simply letting go.

The next direct contact was late November of the same year: a Tree of Life meditation at a public workshop led me further down than it was intended to, into the den of the Magna Mater.  She had been waiting for me.

Each of these deserves a full post of its own, and will get one. But it’s interesting to sit here for a moment, to look back through my journals, and recall – and in some ways realize for the first time – the way events in 2009 set so many changes into motion.  My dedication.  My initiation a year later.  The Name I tried to give up and the Name I took tor replace it.  The gods who have come into my life, the powers I have navigated and been transformed by.

I am no longer the person who retreated from St. Louis, let alone the person who left Lawrence for St.L in the first place.