Uncategorized | The Blog of Baphomet

Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of data which is thrust in your general direction? Emails, texts, facebook and all the rest. Those pesky Youtube adverts, those annoying screens at the Post Office telling you about their latest service, posters, bill boards and all the rest?

I was chatting with a Sister recently and talking to her about a lecture I once attended which was delivered by Ramsey Dukes (Peace Be Upon Him). As part of his presentation Dukes produced two images. One of a modern day ‘data warrior’ some suited chap sitting in front of a bank of monitors providing him with stock exchange data, simultaneously using two telephones. This was contrasted with an image of Ramsey as a young muscular adept, standing alone in a forest glade (and looking pretty buff if I remember correctly). The point that Dukes was making with these images was that, although it looked like the stock broker was up to his neck in information, he was in fact data impoverished when compared to our dashing young sorcerer in the woods.

Streaming vast amounts of data

In a ‘natural’ environment, Dukes argued, when we are seeing, for example trees, there are many more colours in the tree than might be represented on our data warrior’s VDU. Then there is the way that the figure in the woods is receiving information in the form of smell, the complex sounds of the wind and of the nearby stream. There are the shifting patterns of warmth as the clouds occlude and reveal the sun. The buzzing and movement of insects, the kinesthetic sense of the uneven earth beneath the feet…you get the picture.

My Sister and I were talking about idea in terms of psychogeography, of getting out into the landscape. We were discussing how we make ourselves sensitive through the various techniques of interacting with landscape (some of which I’ve written about HERE). Being silent when we walk is one simple example. It’s often pleasurable to talk as we travel in the landscape but there are undoubtedly times when it’s a good move to shut up, to listen, to be receptive to the place rather than focus on expressing our internal dialogue through conversation.

As we fall silent we no longer need to attend to the narrow bandwidth of the human voice, and, since human interaction is a large part of what are brains are built for, this frees up plenty of processing power in our minds. We can then practice those lovely exercises such as seeing if one can hear five natural sounds (if walking in a rural or parkland environment) or seeing how many other conversations we can perceive (if exploring an urban space).

By becoming more open to outside impressions. Basking in the complex data flow of being, as I was today, beside a huge Cornish waterfall, we can open up not only our dominant senses (of sight and hearing) but we can open to the dark senses – the sense of barometric pressure, the ionisation of the air, even the scientifically measurable but (for most people) exceedingly subtle senses we have of geo-magnetism and of the lunar phase (if you want to know more about the dark senses the classic text is the one HERE).

A couple of days previously I was working with some academics from The University of Exeter. We were having a conversation, via Skype, with some game designers in London. When we’d done the lecturer explained to me how she’d spent almost the whole day in her office, doing on-line meetings. She described how she felt ‘blinkered’. Being tuned into the one channel of communication how she’d forgotten even to eat properly that day (a half munched apple lay on her desk). Here was another example of how we get tuned in to a particular channel (in this case video conferencing) and that actually causes a reduction in the amount of information we receive (remember, food is both fuel and information). Her abandoned apple represented a loss of gustatory data in her day.

Now this isn’t exactly a bad thing. Humans need to be able to focus on a given task and be persistent in their attention. Trance techniques (from drumming to TV) exist as ways to focus us even further into a very narrow band of attention. This is useful for many things including of course many types of magickal work

Thing is that in entering a trance we may loose, at least for a time, our global sensitivity to our environment. We don’t notice the world, and, if we do this too often, selecting only one channel of experience, we slip into information poverty.

What may seem odd then is this idea; that today many of us are actually not overwhelmed by information (like all those emails) but seriously under whelmed by it. And what’s more this relative paucity of information may be the thing that may make us less sensitive to the range of environmental data that’s always around us (whether we are inside or out).

There are practical consequences of this. Wikipedia teaches that after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami:

Anthropologists had initially expected the aboriginal population of the Andaman Islands to be badly affected by the tsunami and even feared the already depopulated Onge tribe could have been wiped out. Of the six native tribes only the Nicobarese, who had converted to Christianity and taken up agriculture in place of their previous hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and mainland settlers suffered significant losses. Many of the aboriginal tribes evacuated and suffered fewer casualties.

Perhaps in the light of the suggestion above the aboriginal people of the Andaman Islands simply had more data at their disposal and, as a result, were more sensitive to the impending disaster than their neighbours who had abandoned their traditional practices. Unlike many of the victims from elsewhere in the region ‘something’ told the Onge tribe to take to higher ground. I suggest this may have been because they had so much data at their fingertips in the form of a receptive engagement with the environment. They were able to notice subtle clues which, when correlated with cultural memory (of previous tsunamis) or perhaps emerging simply as a gut feelings, got them out of harm’s way.

So if you want to deal with your email backlog successfully, and indeed to work smarter (as they say) the best strategy is probably to go for a walk. To get out into that sea of data that is the landscape, open all the channels and max out on geosphere and biosphere bandwidth. And it may be the case that, if you want to write that article which has been in your brain for several days, you just need to go get some nature and fill up on living information. Then have some nice homecooked food, turn up the tunes and, in just a couple of hours, you can have (what I hope) are 1169 interesting words to share.

I remember the first time I really got turned on to poetry; it was while listening to “Sergeant Pepper’s” when I was in my early teens. Here was this fantastic world of opulence and decadence where sitars swirled, acid was dropped and Aleister Crowley stuck out his baldy head amongst the starlets and icons. Those moustachioed boys in their lurid band suits captured the spirit of the age not only via their music but also the lyrical vibrancy contained in tracks like “Lucy in the Sky Diamonds”, “Within, Without You” and “A Day in the Life”. This album had a truly magical impact on me, and has shaped the direction of my spiritual journey in ways that few books ever have.

Occultnik hipsters from the previous century

In thinking back to my own beginnings in paganism and magical practice, I was initially drawn to the path of Druidry and the emphasis on poetic inspiration that is found in the role of the Bard. Sadly many early druid revivalists (most probably influenced by Freemasonry) projected a rather linear grade system onto Strabo’s observation about there was three groupings or classes within the Celtic priesthood, and had placed the Bard at the bottom of the heap. Thankfully many contemporary druid Orders while retaining a three grade system to enable a holism in magical training are re-emphasising the mythic and historical centrality of the poet as custodian of tradition and inspiration.

Within the Druid tradition the idea of poetic expression is innately linked to the concept of “Awen” or Spirit of inspiration. Mythically speaking, Bardic inspiration and the Awen are inextricably linked to the tale of the great poet Taliesin who ingests this spirit via a magical elixir. As the brew was intended for dark Cerridwen’s son not the nascent Bard, she pursues him in a fit of pique. With the elixir on board he’s not so easy to catch, and so ensues the now legendary shape-shifting show down as she pursues him across the verdant Welsh landscape.

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the way in which we as magicians are seeking to describe the circular relationship that exists between magic and art. Shifts in consciousness can be accessed through art and the creative expression itself can entail the same internal processes as more formal meditative or ritual practices. Whatever the medium employed- be it dance, web design or good cooking, the connection between human creativity and spiritual aspiration feels fundamental. Unfortunately the need to keep reminding myself of this often highlights the sense of disconnect many of us get caught in as we lose sight of the sense of spontaneity and “Flow” that we can experience when we truly immerse ourselves in the act of creation.

The idea of “Flow” (see the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) – that sense of relaxed productivity that enables us to express our Self can extend out to all areas of life where creativity and fluidity are of benefit. For me this idea of Flow also connects to the tantric concept of “Sahaja” or naturalness and spontaneity. This idea of seeking to experience ourselves as more fluid and shifting can often help as adapt to our Postmodern world-seeing the self more as a river moving through an ever changing landscape rather than a pool in which its parameters are fixed.

Now this is all well and good, but how do we access this state of creative flow? Going back to the tale of Taliesin and the druid tradition, I think that there are a couple of pointers that can aid our journey:

The Role of Stillness – Of course I’m going to mention mindfulness practice! Cerridwen employees the young Gwion Bach (who was to become Taliesin) to tend the cauldron containing the elixir for a year and a day. So he sits, and he sits-listening to the wisdom of the old man Morda as they tend the cauldron together.
From the perspective of aiding the flow of the poetic this represents a profound listening to the self. In contrast to those traditions that promote a distrust of our intuition, the path of Bardic inspiration is one in which the deepest stirrings of our souls need to be attended to, be it Walt Whitman’s sense of nature mysticism or Rumi’s longing for the beloved. We are more likely to contact the poetic if we are able to access the fires of our passion.
Driven by Darkness – Once He has imbibed the Awen, Taliesin flees the on-coming wrath of Cerridwen. Cerridwen as the dark mother pursues him and doing so forces him to access those shamanic states that make transformation possible. The darker aspects of ourselves are often store-houses of poetic power that we need to access in order grow and develop. Into the Shadow we not only repress those aspects of our lives that we fear, but also the best parts of ourselves that we cannot acknowledge. The glory of Art is that it often provides a conduit via which out darkness can flow without overwhelming us.
Connection to the Elements and the three realms – In a way similar to much tantric technology, the arising of spontaneous, natural flow often comes through an increased awareness of the natural world and the body. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, most contemporary Druid orders include in the foundation of their training a thorough focus on the elements and the three worlds (earth, sky and sea). As Taliesin seeks to escape his pursuer it seems significant that the animals that they shift into embody each of these three realms.

That’s ‘awen’ not ‘Arwen’ though elves are cool…

Most of us are acutely aware how barren our lives can feel when we feel the absence of flow and creative juiciness in our lives. To contact our own darkness and connection to the body involves commitment-for Gwion Bach to become Taliesin meant job loss, dealing with confrontation and the transformation of his body. Dangerous I know, but worth the risk. As they say in the British Druid Order-“Be the Awen!”