Esoteric philsophy | The Blog of Baphomet

I have recently been going down a spiritual rabbit-hole regarding how we as magicians might use contemplative practice. Having spent a lot of years exploring the use of meditative states within yogic and Buddhist traditions, I have also (via that mighty Trappist Thomas Merton) started looking at the way in which deeper internal states were being articulated within Abrahamic mystical traditions. Via his exploration of St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart and the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Merton dives headlong into the mystical depths of spiritual practice.

The early stages of most spiritual journeys are often filled positive, affirmative statements aimed at locating meaning and exerting control. Those walking the paths of more orthodox religious expression might speak of Cataphatic theologies or the Via Positiva in which we aspire to affirm the promises of faith and the joys of our newfound purpose. I’m pretty sure we magical heretics also have our own version of this. While we may be sceptical about the big promises of father/mother gods, we may well experience the rebellious sugar high of our newfound antinomianism. Having gained our hard-won freedom from the conditioning of family and culture, we often get busy with the project on greater understanding, greater control and endless amounts of information. This of course very cool, knowledge is power and knowledge of the previously forbidden can be truly liberating! But is it enough? Is it enough to sustain the long haul of becoming through initiation and countless cycles of alchemical refinement?

Many of us are drawn to magical or Pagan spiritual traditions because they offer a more balanced and integrated way of engaging with the dance between darkness and light. Whether via those deities that express the destructive aspects of life or the wheel of the year itself, we are forced to articulate and explore the aspects of life that many of us (if given the choice) would choose to ignore. While part of us might shy away from the challenge of such work, the deeper parts of our soul seems to recognize the need to engage with the dynamic tension present within life. The balancing of darkness and light is key to the alchemical work we are engaged in. I really like the quote below and the mention of the emerald vision brings to mind our own internal work with the darker aspects of reality:

“The passing from the ‘black light’ from the ‘luminous night’, to the brilliance of the emerald vision will be a sign…of the completed growth of the subtle organism, the ‘resurrection body’ hidden in the physical body.”
Henry Corbin The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism

So often it is our encounter with the world and the other that challenge any simplistic notion of control. For the freshly minted magician it’s an easy mistake to make, as much as we might place a high value on spiritual autonomy, it is not the same as an imagined utopia of hermetically sealed isolation. Yes our personal Great Work often leads to an increased sense of our separateness as part of our refined sense of self-awareness, but we still remain within the world with all the connections and context that this entails. The complex mess of our world means that we eventually have to confront the dryness of our meditation, our emptied rituals and our unanswered prayers.

The way of the Via Negativa is one in which our words run dry and the work becomes truly gritty. We may to struggle to describe our work and it may feel easier to say what it is not. We are those who die before death so that we can fully become what the mundane world can’t handle.

The early visibility of the path dims and we feel that are operating as much by touch and instinct as we are with planned intentions. This may be the place where silence becomes our friend/enemy we may need to find those contemplative tools that allow us to sail its seas. Mystery may become our watchword as we feel the gravitational pull forwards into goodness knows what!

We may sense vast spaciousness within the self; the orthodox may describe this as ‘not self’ but we are the magicians who are often called to cross desert places in search of wisdom. This realm of dark light is where the unconscious bleeds in and our art and ecstasy often reveal more about who we really are than our well-devised narratives. In the desert our uncertainty can be treasured and when treasured these ‘WTF?’ moments become the fuel for our unfolding.

In the desert the light pollution of our self-story gets turned down and in this silence we look upwards. It’s unsurprising that magicians spend so much time staring up at the stars. This is the realm in which we encounter distant sparks in a vast darkness. In looking we are filled with the dread and awe that reflect our internal world and the journey we must take.

Steve Dee

The September Equinox is a time of balance. Occurring under the auspices of Libra this is the season of Adjustment, of Justice, and a time to measure our harvest. It is a time for looking at relationships, the interplay between the dark and the light, and that which connects these polarities.

This year has been difficult for many people and so, as we in the northern hemisphere slip into the dark half of the year, we are faced with the need to address these shadows. To help us in our transition, one approach is to look not only at the ‘things’ in our lives, but also to be attentive to the ‘between spaces’. This work can, and should, unfold on may levels.

The body is the first temple and so, as we in the north head into the dark, we can prepare our bodies for this time by attending to our physical ‘spaces between’. One example of this would be in our bodywork where we can focus on the fascia, the connective tissues that attach, stabilize, enclose, and separate our muscles and organs.

We can pay attention to the fascia using any number of approaches including yoga, tai chi, massage of self or others. We can use supplements, notably hyaluronic acid, and good diet to support these tissues. We can consult a healer if necessary. The fascia can be regarded as the primal matter of the body, from which the tissues of bone, muscle and other organs differentiate as the embryo develops. As such it isn’t just the ‘padding’ between structures but rather the foundation of our form. Paying attention to this ‘in-between’ aspect of our organism helps our whole being emerge in a good way. As a wise friend of mine remarked recently; ‘focus on the fascia and the chakras will sort themselves out’.

For magicians, bodywork is crucial because, well, as above, so below. Bodywork implies acting with the aspiration to be as fit as we are able to be in our current context. This investment, in what these days is usually described as our wellbeing, is for the benefit of ourselves and others. Bodywork, however we do it, helps us have more capacity when we face the slings and arrows of Fortune. It’s a good investment. As they say in the memesphere; ‘make time for your wellbeing or you will be forced to make time for your illness.’

Moreover if as magicians we are to stay in tune with the patterns in the wyrd we must be able to listen, and bodywork trains listening the body. In my own approach to this work I’ve been exploring Butoh, inspired by a friend’s investigations of this technique. This way of movement that originated in Japan proceeds from a deep listening to the tides in the body. As with shamanic transformation into animals, we quiet our minds, allowing a spirit to enter us, embodying that force in our dance. (Or at least that’s how I’ve been approaching it at the moment.). Have a look at this example of the practice and, more importantly, give it a go:

Seeking balance includes becoming aware of opportunities in daily life that I can use to support my practice; especially in the busy autumn and new academic year. When I teach students I often suggest that they look for these opportunities, so their magic becomes seamlessly blended with daily activity. For example; when we brush our teeth, which we probably do twice a day, we can do so while wondering if the toast is burning, or thinking about what we did last night or whatever. But we can also recognize this simple, almost automatic act of self-care, as an opportunity to work with our awareness. We can simply brush our teeth. Remaining fully present in the act. When out mind wanders we notice this and return to awareness of brushing our teeth. Thus we have turned a straightforward act of dental hygiene into a chance for mindful awareness.

Noticing and using these little opportunities for finding the magic in daily life is essential. While of course sometimes we may find ourselves doing more or less elaborate ceremony, daily chores like cooking, cleaning, mending and making can all be magical acts if approached in the right way.

The equinox period also provides a chance to pay attention to personal points of inbetweeness and transition. This could mean doing practices at the interface between sleep and wakefulness. Recommended reading on this topic includes the excellent Liminal Dreaming by Jennifer Dumpert (also a contributor to the My Magical Thing series). In her book Jennifer brilliantly updates the use of the traditional black scrying mirror by suggesting you use your ipad or phone screen while it’s turned off. The tech, whether you’re doing it with an digital tablet or obsidian mirror, is simple. Having done any preparations for the work you deem suitable, sit or lay down so that you are holding the black mirror in front of you. Allow yourself to dream, to doze (this technique works well just before bedtime). As you fall into a microsleep the hypnagogic state, with it’s boundless creativity and complex brainwave patterns, emerges to generate images, ideas and sensations. As your hands drop the mirror to your lap you’ll jolt into wakefulness. Simply repeat the practice; gazing into the mirror, slipping into the liminal state noticing what’s there, and then jolting back into awareness. Repeated over multiple sessions this is a very effective approach to scrying. The images may begin to appear in the mirror itself as the duration of the hypnagogic state extends. Suitable incenses can be usefully employed to increase the potency of this method.

I’ve also been getting to the liminal state at the other end of the day. Over the last few months I’ve been doing online wellbeing teaching under the auspices of the National Health Service. Some of these sessions happen in the mornings from 7 to 8 am. To make sure I’m in the best state of mind to help others, I’ve been spending half an hour each morning before I teach in meditation. While most of the time I do my meditation practice seated or standing, for these 6 am sessions I use Shavasana while still in bed. Obviously some mornings I slip back into sleep but then hover in the hypnopompic state, as my meta awareness notices that I’m sleeping, and I return to conscious attention on my breath. This practice also allows dreams, that may have been brutally banished by the alarm clock, to gently seep back into memory. More broadly, as the duration of the light changes this alters melatonin production in the pineal gland. This makes the equinox season a good time to start a dream diary and to explore dream magic.

Experiments with liminal psychedelics, such as orally consumed Salvia divinorum, nitrous oxide and ketamine may appeal to psychonauts at this time. However chief among the magical medicines of the autumn is of course psilocybin. I was honoured this month take part, for a second year, in the Tam Integration Psilocybin Summit. If you missed this stellar, richly diverse event you can catch the recorded presentations online. I’m also working on a course for the Fungi Academy on Psychedelic Journeywork with sacred mushrooms. Now the proud possessor of studio lights, teleprompter and high end camera, we’re working to create some real quality material. I’ll keep you informed as the project progresses.

Reflecting in this way – on what we have done and where we’re going next – is also part of the equinox process. We look back at what we did over the summer, we consider what we have harvested from this year, and we prepare for the period ahead. Though we may wince at idea that winter is coming, especially in this time of pandemic, the skillful person will try to re-frame the situation. We can look at this moving inwards, into the dark, as a challenge. Therefore this is time to take stock, to enumerate our resources, our allies, to work on our health, and built our resilience. And to do so does not mean slipping into some kind of alt-right survivalist nonsense, for if ‘I’ am to survive then it must be ‘we’ that survive together.

Back in the temple of the body we can use this equinox time to pay attention to the biology of our gut. This is another good way to do this work of ‘in-between’ magic. After all about 50% of the cells in your body are the intestinal flora. The human gut is, according to some, one of the most densely packed and potentially diverse ecological niches on our planet. Feed your gut, however this works for you, and pay attention to the feelings and needs of the millions upon millions of tiny spirits in your body without whose collaboration you would die. Make a healthy alliance with your gut feelings, listen to what they tell you. If your equinox is one of springtime that’s where spring tonics come in. If you’re passing into the dark this may mean eating microbiologically enriching foods to set you up for winter.

By recognizing ourselves as a microbial biome we bring into focus our inter connectivity rather than our (apparent) sovereign self of separation. Our gut creatures are the ‘inbetweeners’, the interface between self and the nourishment we need from the world.

The equinox season invites us to notice connections where previously all we perceived was separation and distance. I am reminded of this teaching by the marvellous spider webs, spanning improbably wide gulfs in my garden, binding things together.

Though we may be located apart let us be cognizant of the connections between us, change what no longer serves us, and nourish our Great Work. Let us celebrate the turning of the year. Let us acknowledge the entering of the dark for some, the emergence into the light for others. We are different, we are connected, we are together.

Julian Vayne

Online magics

I’ve doing a whole bunch of workshops via Treadwell’s Books. We’ve got a packed program right through until December, I hope you can join me there.

The awesome Dave Lee is also doing online stuff these days. To find out more the best plan is to subscribe to his excellent newsletter, check his website for details and for info on current courses.

Nikki continues as Editor of the Psychedelic Press quarterly journal; the autumn issue is now available.