July 2, 2016 by The Blog of Baphomet

On Childish Religion

I tend to think of the range of human traits as being something akin to levels on a graphic equaliser. When we are born the mix of genetic, epigenetic and other factors mean that we arrive into the world with certain levels or ‘settings’. If I think about my own children for example, both are highly intelligent, loving and creative people (naturally) but I can clearly see that some of their inherent style (their settings) are quite different. Number One Son, for instance, is less physically demonstrative than his brother. The difference in their style, their settings, being rather like the difference between a cat and dog (a cat eventually sidles up beside you for petting, whereas a dog comes bounding over, tail furiously wagging). While I’m aware of the process whereby parents’ expectations influence the way they behave towards to their children, these ‘nature’ rather than ‘nurture’ differences do seem to be inherent.

Another setting in which my own children differ is in what we might call their religious sensibility. Number One Son, while acknowledging the significance of religion in culture and the possible limits of science as a means of exploring the world, is himself a rationalist. He can see the significance of archetypal motifs and metaphors but currently likes mathematics and logic as his preferred approach to understanding reality.

Number Two Son is somewhat different. In a world where arts are contrasted with sciences (yes I know that’s a false, even dangerous dichotomy) he would be described as ‘the arty one’. His setting for ‘religious sensibility’ is quite different (at least at age 10) from that of his older brother. As an example, when one of our chickens died Number One Son wanted to dissect it (he was 13 at the time and considering a career as a surgeon, in the light of my parents’ medical backgrounds). Number Two Son instead wanted to bury said chicken, say prayers and lay flowers on its grave.

The Art and Science

In my own childhood I also had a strongly developed desire to engage with spiritual or religious things. I’ve written before about my early experiments in creating my own god and developing a liturgy that I found inspirational, so it has been great to observe my younger son creating his own religious ideas. (See The Rite to Roam, in Deep Magic Begins Here….)

Recently Number Two Son has evolved his own religious system. This is centred on a figure he calls ‘Jimaon’ (pronounced ‘jum-own’). Jimaon represents, according to my son, ‘the best that anything can be’. Thus Jimone exemplifies a sort of perfected or ideal state of being (or doing). A person, for instance, is part of Jimaon when they are being true to themselves and their ‘inner nature’ (as Taoists might express it, or perhaps ‘doing their Will’ in Thelemic language).

Within our summer house Number Two Son built an altar to his conception of the sacred. We gathered sap from a resinous tree in the local park to burn as incense, lit candles and Number Two Son led us both in prayer and song in praise of Jimoan. If you want to join in with this new religion all you need to do is pray to Jimoan each Tuesday, asking for help in being the best that you can be. (Interestingly we had the word Jimoan inscribed on paper on our altar since it was impossible, though not necessarily forbidden, to represent Jimoan graphically.)

The First Prophet of Jimoanism

Number Two Son (who plays guitar) and I also composed a song in praise of St.Nectan’s Glen, a magical spot in North Cornwall (where we sometimes go to attend public Pagan ceremonies marking the turning of the Wheel of the Year). I’d written the words (having been inspired following a ritual there) but it was Number Two Son who wanted to figure out the musical notation for the piece and worked diligently with me (I’ve not yet learnt to play an instrument and so was unable to write the tune) until the song was completed.

Being in a family context in which belief is something to be explored rather than to didactically defined (which, in their own way, was how my parents raised me), is a very valuable thing. My feeling is that this fits the needs of children, and indeed people, much better than a situation in which ‘the answer’ (to life, the universe and everything) is already (supposedly) known (by adults) for certain.

For some people maintaining an open minded attitude means throwing the baby of religion out with the bathwater of belief. But while the emerging forms of radical atheism certainly have their place in culture the idea that religiosity is somehow inherently stupid just doesn’t address the human need for meaning or the sacred. Our own settings can be such that the spiritual quest is important, so simply denying this isn’t realistic or helpful to adults or to children. But the issue here, as ever, is how this spiritual unfolding is permitted to happen. Philosopher and chaos magician Christopher Zzenn Loren writes in his book Unspirituality: Permission to Be Human:

“Children are defenseless to the ‘virus of dualism’ in whatever form it comes in – which is why [religious ideas] should not be introduced until [children reach] a cognitive age. Religious indoctrination is not required to raise healthy children. Their imagination should be nourished… but not invalidated or shamed. [The result can] be a neurosis, which I believe, is why [people] go to religion and metaphysics when they get older… In the best scenario, children would grow through their imagination into creative adults in an environment that is based on current psychology and a science-based education.”

The key word here is ‘indoctrination’. For while it’s impossible for parents and carers not to allow their own beliefs to inform their parenting style, and therefore their kids’ experience of the world, there are better or worse ways of doing this.

Indoctrination implies a style of teaching that aims at convincing a person to fully accept the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group and to not consider other ideas, opinions, and beliefs. An inevitable effect of indoctrination is that it erodes our empathy for other people. The ‘other’ is reduced to a series of simplistic narratives out of which arise prejudice and, more often that not, hatred.

Those who have been indoctrinated have reduced capacity to see nuance and complexity. They seek instead to maintain their cognitive make-up (beliefs) by imagining the ‘other’ as just as monolithic in structure as their own worldview. The fear of ‘Islam’, of ‘The European Union’, or whatever, prosper in such environments of indoctrination and these inflexible beliefs in turn thrive in situations that promote binary separations into them/us (or ‘Leave’ versus ‘Remain’). It’s a truly vicious circle.

Official UKIP Poster

Unpicking indoctrinated beliefs is tricky but not impossible. One way to do this, which is commonplace in more liberal forms of education, is to challenge the idea of the monolithic other by encountering things that don’t fit our fixed stereotypes. Discovering, through direct experience, that ‘all <name of outsider group> do not believe in or behave in ways that <whatever our prejudices predict>’ is one way this process can happen. The difficulty is that these experiences are ideally at a lived interpersonal level rather than in the abstract. Hearing (in the context of the recent referendum in the UK for example) that ‘not all people who voted ‘leave’ are racists’ is much less powerful than having a friend (who isn’t racist) explain their reasons for voting the way they did.

Many such attempts to broker lived encounters with ‘the other’ have happened across time and cultures. Examples range from student exchange programmes, town twinning and comparative religious studies (especially where young people from different religious backgrounds get to talk to each other in mutually respectful contexts). Extremism, be it of the little-Englander variety or Wahhabism can be challenged through these and other processes. These methods rely on playing the long-game. But, even in face of apparently hardening attitudes and divisions in our societies, this is a game worth playing.

To make deep transformations at a cultural, generational level what matters is how we enable our young people to see beyond the comforting certainties of simplistic narrative. To support them in a way that nurtures the skills and courage necessary to make their way in the world without seeking safety in simplistic dualisms and enacting the prejudices that flow from those beliefs.

This is a Great Work that would make us Ancestors our children could be proud of.

June 11, 2016 by The Blog of Baphomet

Group Wisdom and the Chaos Magick Tarot

I’ve been playing with the excellent Chaos Magick Group tarot recently. This wonderful collaborative work of contemporary occultists is still available to purchase, though I understand this may not be for long. If you want a copy, as E.A.Koetting might say, better act now!

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to present this deck at a large meeting of members of the IOT, and indeed to use it in a ritual context. Although I and a couple of other members of the IOT contributed card designs to the project, this tarot emerges from the wider chaos magical community. The virtual work space (a Facebook group) in which this deck was created provided the means for geographically distant occultists to work together. The creation of media by magicians, working in virtual spaces is, I suspect, something we will see more and more of. Working on these types of creative projects seems to me to be a good use of the technology I and my peers have access to.

I really enjoy collaborative working (many of my books are co-authored for this reason), so when it comes to doing magical ceremony the stuff I like most is group practice. While I’ve been involved in a few experiments in group ritual over Skype and using other tech, so far nothing comes close to being in the same physical sacred space with other magicians. Working directly with others is rich territory; there are many practices that would be impractical without collaboration; there is the possibility of camaraderie, of feedback, of challenge and much more. For me the IOT provides and excellent network through which I get to meet and work with cool magicians in physical (as well as sometimes virtual) spaces. I’m also fortunate that my relationships within the shamanic and Wiccan communities means that I’ve been able to physically work alongside some fabulous practitioners of those styles too.

Of course solitary work is important but even activities such as mindfulness meditation can benefit from the existence of a sangha, a community of practice (which provides the opportunity to practice together). Sure there may be people who, in terms of their own style, prefer to be primarily solitary. However humans are social creatures and I think that it’s helpful to bring our magic, especially our ritual work, into contact with other humans.

Loners who just can’t stop joining teams

One way this happens for me is via the work of being a celebrant or Priest. In that capacity those of us who do this kind of work make an offering of our skills to facilitate ritual for others. But this isn’t the same as working in a community of peers, be that a coven, temple, working group, circle or whatever. Working with other people helps us to not disappear into obsessive or narcissistic paradigms (aka up ‘one’s own arse’). Magicians, by the nature of their studies, can benefit from the occasional reality check and outside critique. A good community of practice, while supporting the basic premise of spiritual endeavor, seeks also to help the individual develop the Self (or find their ‘True Will’, ‘make their Soul’, become ‘Illuminated’ or whatever) in context of others. This is important since this is where we live – with other people.

Cultivating good, mutually beneficial relationships with others is an important part of the development of any magician who wishes to be enriched by the (human) spirits they consort with on a daily basis. The mythic tower inhabited by the iconic solitary sorcerer may make for a Tolkienesque glamour, but successful magicians are real people living with families, colleagues and the rest of humanity, connected within the noosphere of the 21st century. Meeting other humans in physical magical spaces (of an ongoing esoteric community and within ceremonial settings) – for all the slings and arrows of social interaction – helps us understand who we are, as magicians and as people.

So back to that example of good collaboration via the internet, the CMG Tarot. It was suggested in the group that contributing artists write some text to accompany their work, so here’s a brief commentary on the cards I created:

The Ace of Disks is also known as the Root of the Powers of Earth. In divination it indicates the core qualities associated with the Earthly element. These include wealth, work, the physical body, property, diligent study, territory.

The quality of this card is generally beneficial, pointing towards productive striving, steadfast discipline and success. When this symbol is encountered in difficult circumstances the process may be that of struggle, limiting obligation and toil, but unless the conditions are very difficult, there is still the suggestion of success if determination is applied.

The disk shown is the Pentacle held as part of the regalia of the British Isles Section of The Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros. A ceremonial requirement of this tool is that it is regularly used in ritual with non-members of the IOT since the purpose of the pentacle, as a plate, is to share (typically offerings of food). The disk itself is fashioned from a mirror (since magic is all about smoke and mirrors).

Various ritual items emblematic of the diversity of chaos magical practice are shown arrayed round the disk. These include the vertebra of a whale, a rudraksha mala, a chicken mask, a reefer, a drum, a scourge, a dildo and sundry other objects.

The Ace of Disks is typically the card upon which the publisher of a deck sets their seal or monogram. In this case the disk displays the eight-fold star of chaos and the koan ‘Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted’.

Ace tarot

The Ten of Disks is the final card in the tarot deck. It represents the full unfolding of the earth element and the ‘completed’ journey of The Fool that is the narrative of the cards as the Mutis Liber. Using the astrological scheme devised by McGregor Mathers, this card is related to Mercury in the sign of Virgo, while the number 10 denotes the sephira of Malkuth, the World, and the final outpouring of the divine emanation. This combination of symbols strongly links this card to The Great Work as the full-flowering of illumination; however this does not lead to ‘resting on one’s laurels’ but paves the way for a new iteration of the magical process.

(The bad news for folk who think they have ‘attained’ Enlightenment (or whatever) is that nothing stays the same and there is always the perennial question, ‘what next?’)

Within the New Age paradigm this card may represent ‘prosperity consciousness’ and our ability to manifest our wealth. This may suggest a change from a scarcity based frame of mind to one predicated on an imagined universal abundance (or at least the possibility of realizing desire). The fruition of investments may be indicated by this card, retirement, and a sense of accomplishment. Like the rune Othala this card is related to the idea of inheritance (of money, property, genetics, stories of our culture), the wealth that comes to us and which we in turn pass on to others.

The disks show in the image are drawn from many nations suggesting they are owned by someone who has lived a well-travelled and rich life. The disks are shown spilling, or perhaps flying, out of a bag. This bag is the same one typically carried in images of The Fool over the shoulder as a bindle, or on the back as a knapsack.

The bag is emblazoned with the stars of deep space recalling the primeval Kia from which emerge all the objects of the world. The title of this card is ‘Lord of Wealth’ and the wise understand that Wealth, though symbolised here as coins, comes in many forms. (All money is forged not of metal but from the imagination. The person with a rich imagination, combined with the diligence represented by the earthly disks, can never be poor.) The coins in this card are free from their original containment in The Fool’s knapsack, since Wealth implies freedom and exchange rather than avarice and acquisition. They have, in an esoteric sense, been put into circulation (‘spent’) by The Fool during the journey through the other 76 cards. In the 10 of Pentacles the initial ‘capital’ of The Fool reappears in the form of experiential Wealth because he has invested in the journey and not retreated from engagement with the World.

One of the disks shown is a solid gold chaosphere owned by a former British Isles Section Head of The Illuminates of Thanateros, this was crafted by the master jeweller Russell Lownsbrough. Another is made of chocolate.

Lord of Wealth

The tarot cards are a magical community, a jostling pack of spirits. They mean things in themselves (though not perhaps without an observer…) but gain so much more in relationship with their fellows.

As occultists we also live among the spirits; of animals, plants, places, people and more. It is in those relationships where much of the magic happens, just as it is within the combination of cards that the reading, the transformative journey of question and revelation, unfolds.