{"id":249,"date":"2012-02-09T12:27:42","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T18:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.wordpress.com\/?p=249"},"modified":"2012-02-09T12:27:42","modified_gmt":"2012-02-09T18:27:42","slug":"of-tradition-synthesis-and-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/09\/of-tradition-synthesis-and-danger\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Tradition, Synthesis, and Danger"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have noticed by now, dear readers, that I cannot keep my mouth shut when I see people talking about things I have an opinion on.\u00a0 And y\u2019all know <\/em>that I have opinions on nearly every fucking thing on this mad, spinning Earth.\u00a0 But that\u2019s what blogging is, right?\u00a0 An opportunity to express our opinions?\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s one thing, anyway.\u00a0 Unlike some of last<\/a> soapbox moments, though, this is not a direct response to anything.\u00a0 People write things, I read them, and it makes me think.(*)<\/p>\n

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a traditionalist.\u00a0 I have never been invited to join a Lodge or Coven.\u00a0 I had long disdained the grimoire traditions, and while I have come around on that issue in theory, the fact is (for reasons too numerous, and ultimately too obvious) that they will never be a major component of my practice.\u00a0 It would be an oversimplification, but my practice could be fairly described as eclectic Wicca.<\/p>\n

Nor am I a cutting-edge radical, disdainful of everything that has come before.\u00a0 Hell, I didn\u2019t even get into studying Chaos Magick until I started my ceremonial project.\u00a0 Embarrassing as it is now, I didn\u2019t really understand where the one ended and the other began; I just thought of Chaos as post-modern choose-your-own-adventure ceremonialism.\u00a0 I know perfectly well that it\u2019s a fucking bad idea to summon Goetic demons without the full pomp and circumstance: they\u2019ll take that shit personally<\/em>.\u00a0 I know better than to mix and match traditions with no regard for the histories involved or the subtleties of difference in technique and emphasis.<\/p>\n

My practice lies somewhere in between these two extremes.\u00a0 I have pushed the Wiccan framework as far as it can go and serve my needs, and in doing so I have read about as far and wide as one can on the subject without ever being initiated.\u00a0 I have moved beyond Wicca using shamanic techniques gleaned from Michael Harner, Gale Wood, Christopher Penczak, a few friends, a hand-full of workshops, and an ever-growing body of UPG\u2014ever conscious of the deeply problematic elements of neo-shamanic practice, ranging from bad scholarship to appropriation of indigenous practices to outright \u201cplaying Indian\u201d.\u00a0 I have incorporated energy work with no parallel in any tradition I can find in print\u2014Maya Heath\u2019s Energies<\/a> is the closest I\u2019ve ever seen\u2014but which a significant minority of the practitioners I\u2019ve encountered in the world recognize as close enough to something they, too, did when they were young.\u00a0 I\u2019ve incorporated some of the Chaos techniques from my as-yet-incomplete survey\u2014sigils in particular\u2014and I\u2019m working on comprehending certain portions of ceremonial arts as well\u2014the evocation of spirits.<\/p>\n

But, as you have already surmised, I am not content to merely reproduce the work that has been done before: I\u2019m pushing forward in the directions that are most interesting to me, and where my native talent calls to be explored.\u00a0 I\u2019m experimenting with mask-making, and the particular sort of invocation and embodiment unique to mask-work.\u00a0 Through my shamanic work, I\u2019m engaging in congress with spirits the likes of which I have never seen addressed in anything I\u2019ve yet read.\u00a0 I\u2019m experimenting with the use of sex, drugs, and music in my magic: this is fucking ecstatic work, folks, and sometimes I need higher octane fuel than I can (yet) get my brain to produce on its own.<\/p>\n

RO (and all the others) is right to point out that yes, there are dangers.\u00a0 When you mix traditions and tech\u2014and I do both, for all my concerns about cultural appropriation and pissing of the various Powers That Be\u2014things can go horribly awry.\u00a0 But I\u2019m with RO on the next step, too: do it anyway!\u00a0 Magic has been a process of experimentation and syncretism for as long as people have been doing it.\u00a0 Sometimes you\u2019re going to botch.\u00a0 Sometimes you\u2019re going to piss off some people \u2026 or some spirits \u2026 or maybe even some gods.\u00a0 People can be managed.\u00a0 Spirits and gods can be propitiated.\u00a0 Magical backlash can be healed.<\/p>\n

Hell, some day you might even fuck up so bad that you have to step out of the game for a year.\u00a0 Or three<\/a>.\u00a0 But you come back to it.\u00a0 Trust me: you\u2019ll fucking come back to it.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re hip deep in the forces of creation, y\u2019all.\u00a0 No matter what you\u2019re told, there are no flawless systems.\u00a0 Even when it looks like you\u2019ve found one, you\u2019re still going to have to adapt it to your own particular brain and body.\u00a0 And even if you don\u2019t, some spirit you get involved with is going to issue a geas or taboo that\u2019ll fuck up your perfect tradition, rock your boat, and maybe even upset your whole damn world.\u00a0 (Trust me on this one: if it\u2019s happened to me once<\/a>, it\u2019s happened to me twice<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\n

(*) But rather than link to any of the inspirations for this musing in the text body above, I\u2019m going to collect them here to make sure that none of this very interesting reading material gets missed.<\/p>\n

RO has posted<\/a> twice (at least) on similar<\/a> subjects, and introduced me to some very interesting and important work<\/a> being done in the Celtic traditions.\u00a0 Jason Miller has also talked about his syncretism<\/a>, personally, and recently more generally<\/a> (though his snark about the issue of appropriation is grossly inappropriate).\u00a0 Peter Alexander Vaughn has a couple<\/a> posts<\/a> that touch on the issues.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure there\u2019s still something important that I\u2019m missing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have noticed by now, dear readers, that I cannot keep my mouth shut when I see people talking about things I have an opinion on.\u00a0 And y\u2019all know that I have opinions on nearly every fucking thing on this mad, spinning Earth.\u00a0 But that\u2019s what blogging is, right?\u00a0 An opportunity to express our … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[21,47,125,149,164,265,281],"class_list":["post-249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scholarship","category-witchcraft","tag-art-of-magic","tag-christopher-penczak","tag-jason-miller","tag-magic","tag-michael-harner","tag-talking-to-spirits","tag-traditions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-41","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}