The Blog of Baphomet

For me one of the benefits of working with the turning of the year (especially alongside the 8 colours of magic), is that I often feel as though I’m being asked to maintain a balance in relation to the diet of my magical/spiritual activity and to pay attention to the way in which such work promotes health. If for example the heights of ego magic at mid-summer risk the danger of grandiosity, so the demands of Lammas and harvest help ensure that I pressure test any sense of advancement.

In the Northern Hemisphere this time of year can be an interesting time to take stock. Whether we call it Samhain, Halloween or All Souls, the entry into the colder, darker period of the year often provides a natural impulse to slow down and review what we are doing and how this lines-up with our personal aspirations.

One of the great benefits of having both close magical friends and using a magical diary is that they both provide aid in the process of reflection and the way that I keep returning to important themes that I would have been less aware of if I had been left to my own devices. By making the most of such support, one of the reoccurring themes that I keep bumping into, is the importance of the body in my current spiritual practice. In discussion with beloved friends over cups of tea and in deciphering the rambling stream of consciousness contained in my diaries, I have to contend with the question of what it means to experience both the joys and limitations of the physical realm.

For much of this year I have been exploring my relationship with my body by reconnecting to my love of surfing. Living by the coast, I have the good fortune of getting into the sea and exploring the pleasure and challenges that it offers. I tend to surf either without a board (bodysurfing) or on a small inflatable surf mat. Both of these approaches are viewed as somewhat eccentric within the wider surfing community, but help maximize the rider’s closeness to the power of the wave. Outwardly the rider may not seem to be doing much beyond gliding down the face of the wave, but for me they provide a direct experience of nature’s power and the ever changing conditions of the Ocean. However odd and unimpressive this might seem to onlookers, the simple and intense pleasure of this watery Tantra keeps calling me back.

Inflatable surf action!

My relationship to surfing is a complex one. I started surfing at age 10 when living in Australia and was an enthusiastic devotee until my family returned to the UK 6 years later. For the next 10 years I hardly went in the sea, and my focus on Christianity and theological education provided all the distraction I could want. When I eventually started surfing again, I simply assumed that despite the need for more wetsuit, I would be able to resume my obsession as before. Sadly my body didn’t agree, and following the move to Devon with my partner I was quickly faced by the reality that this love of mine was making me ill. I was confronted by limitation in the form of chronic fatigue symptoms and the realization that I couldn’t really do this, and work and have a life.

The letting go of my surfing obsession was made easier by becoming a parent and the inevitable demands and focus that this requires, and yet I still can’t/won’t let go of this thing I love. Surfing inevitably teaches me all those hippy lessons about flow, and awe at nature’s beauty, but it has also taught me some important things about limitation and self-care. I now avoid those beautiful winter waves and when I do surf in warmer months, I pay attention to my diet, my Qi Gong practice and the need for rest. Other illnesses and life events have provided more stark challenges, but my ability to surf/not surf has definitely allowed me some insight in how I experience my body.

Within the excellent work that Julian has done mapping on the colours of magic to the 8 major fire festivals Samhain is seen as having strong correspondences with black magic and the realm of death. Perhaps this is inevitable as we hunker down in front of fires and contend with early sunsets, but this drawing in and reflection brings associations with endings, darkness and remembering those people or things we have lost. When we work with the body we can become aware of not only the intense pleasures that can be sensed and experienced, but also the frailty of our physical selves and their finite span.

For those of us walking a magical path, the reality of own deaths can trigger a range of differing responses. Having worked hard at refining our psyches via the rigours of esoteric endeavour, the ending of our physical life as we know it can feel like an injustice that we rage against in a desire to buy more time. Alternately, in taking inspiration from Buddhist practice, can we use our awareness of mortality to sharpen our appreciation of this moment and review how we wish to be living now?

If I knew that I had three years left, what changes would I be making in the choices I make and in the quality of my relationships?

What if I knew I had 1 year?

What if I knew I had 6 months?

Stark questions, but also ones that can inspire us to awaken and taste life more fully!

Blessed Be.

This proposal is an open invitation and not a strict program or dogma for prescription.

LSD, DMT, Psilocybin, Peyote, Ayahausca and other psychedelics, enthoeogens, shamanic medicines and hallucinogenic chemicals are generally illegal and targeted by nation states and supranational organisations like the United Nations, G20 etc. Production, distribution and possession are heavily penalized in the majority of countries around the planet, even though there have been some advances towards their accepted uses in spirituality, psychiatry, psychotherapy and neuro-research in various territories.

The cases of judicial injustice which have taken place internationally and continue to take place are staggering in multitude, at the level of a so-called “war on drugs” which has been declared to be taking place for decades. This war is a means of domestic and foreign repression, racial and class-based segregation and it fuels an increasingly privatized prison system which props up an economic order based on division and
exploitation. It is also a war against consciousness itself, who gets to experience it, how it gets transformed and who gets to control and define it. The psychedelic community is a revolutionary and subversive explosion of colour, love, possibility and positivity which has suffered since its inception from state repression, disruption, investigation and infiltration.

50-years-of-lsd-in-the-usa-358aaa2a-6eb0-430c-af86-71e825b78669

Subverting the State since 1967

There is a need within the psychedelic community for an increased awareness of legal, security and penal issues, from those who are in need of support and to those who will be. Without illegal chemists, distributors, local suppliers and trippers themselves, the psychedelic current wouldn’t exist. Currently the whole entire scenes which dovetail
with the psychedelic movement are based on ‘drug’ experiences which are criminalized and forbidden. Someone has to produce and supply the psychedelic and entheogenic medicines which are so prevalent and so there is a responsibility from the community to support those people who get caught.

A proposed psychedelic prisoner solidarity group would have to decide about a centralized or decentralized structure; their relationships to other entities such as government bodies, trade unions, penal reform organisations such as the Howard League for Penal Reform, Amnesty International, and prison abolition groups such as the Anarchist Black Cross.

The group would need at least four or five core activists in order to be effective at a wider level, needing all the usual resources that a group like this requires: laptops, phones, printer, photocopier etc. It would be thought that a small group which has a such a broad remit and potentially vast interaction with many incarcerated psychonauts and wider society could suffer from being overwhelmed with cases and avenues of expansion beyond its means. The group should be a means to collect and unify many drug war prisoners without being based on individuals solely. This is to focus on the overall picture of repression and to prevent the ebb-and-flow of interest due to a particular case coming to an end or to give the illusion that the group could be a solution to all the problems that an imprisoned person may suffer from. The group should not be a charity based organisation but a means of struggle for the acceptance of psychedelic substances and their positive uses. This also means the family and friends who are supporting their imprisoned loved one do not have to spend all their time doing the public outreach which could be achieved by the impact of a psychedelic prisoner solidarity group, if they wish to focus on more important issues, like practical help to the one inside.

Inside the System

The group would bring itself to the attention of the authorities quickly due to the campaign topic and the actual contact with prisoners inside. It would need to be up to date with law and policing issues and themes such as security and policy. The group would need to maintain virtual and physical presence, and provide accurate legal information and resources; it would network within and without the psychedelic community, researchers, medical community, marijuana industry, alternative and mainstream media, etc. It would maintain contacts with drug reform groups, lawyers and solicitors with expertise for those requiring their help; it would collect and maintain emergency funds for psychedelic prisoners and defendants; it would seek high-level public support from people, groups and entities of influence as a way to promote it’s causes; it would promote psychedelic culture and values, explaining the reasons to support advocated prisoners to the broader public. It would promote, through its outreach, the struggle for a world without need for a vast prison-industrial complex,
social repression and criminalization, for a better future and healing for all.

We can’t let those psychedelic chemists, entheogenic suppliers and drug war prisoners behind bars remain there, and we cannot fail those people who the state wishes to jail for many years, in some cases, for multiple lifetimes, like William Leonard Pickard. A movement for social change can be judged on how well it treats those who go to prison in defense of its principles, as a movement which forgets its prisoners, forgets itself.

If you’re interested in this proposal please get in touch.