January 10, 2016 by The Blog of Baphomet

How to Avoid Bad News

Spoiler alert; I don’t think we can… but, there are ways of putting bad news in its proper place. Perhaps by focussing on accentuating the positive on a daily level, we can go some way to eliminate (or at least minimise) the debilitating impact of the negative. Sometimes we might feel as if we are drowning, powerless, under a tidal wave of saddening or maddening pieces of information, as the global connectivity of 2016 allows us to hear of everyone’s misfortunes.

What can we do about this? Magically, we have the massive advantage of understanding how small acts done with intent create ripples which spread into other aspects of our selves. And, our environment (because, of course, there is no real boundary between these things, as any fule kno).

The following can be done with various amounts of surrounding ceremony, from providing a simple physical marker (ringing a bell, lighting incense, a number of conscious breaths) to more elaborate representations to emphasise the intent we carry into the activity (casting a circle, using another banishing method, constructing a sigil or talisman to concentrate the magick raised, or perhaps dedicating the activity to a deity or other suitable spirit).

Go for a walk

This has to be one of the easiest ways of instantly changing one’s mood. Away from the constant stream of ‘news’ via whatever streams of information we usually allow to enter our consciousness, we find reassurance in the rhythms of walking. Since before time began, before Greenwich was invented, before dinosaurs, before hair first sprouted, our ancestors walked. Next time you go for a stroll, wherever it might take you, feel into the realm of the incredible antiquity of this activity. Look around you without words. See how long you can manage to quell the narrative voices which tend to comment on all the issues of the day, whether personal or wider scale. Creating a pause in this constant commentary, allows other feelings to arise which are prompted by the biological reality of where you are, right here, right now. A useful technique is to move the gaze so it rests upon any thing for only a short time, long enough to recognise and focus, then moving on before any words start to make associations. Appreciate each scene for merely what it is at that moment. Even a few minutes doing this is worthwhile, although if you can you would do well to be outside for a good half an hour.

Music and dance

We all have access to more music than we can shake a stick at. Put on something to suit the mood, or to change it! and do some movement. No-one is watching or evaluating, get active by thinking of this as non-censorship of your body’s desire to do stuff; we spend a lot of time telling ourselves NOT to do x or y, and certainly not z, so by removing limitations and positively encouraging the body’s basic drive to move we could well encourage greater happiness on many levels. For those who may have restrictions, any moves you make are valuable. If you are lucky enough to have acquired the skill of playing music, do that! Singing also counts as moving in this system, as it uses a totally different set of brain cells than talking, and controlled breathing counts as moving here. The point of this suggestion then is to interact with the body pleasurably, without any goal of result, to experience the joys of existence.

Go with the flow

Flow states can be reached by so many routes. The phrase describes that place we reach when we become so engrossed in a task that it ceases to be a task and instead we ‘disappear’ into the action, our identities dissolve with the world around us. For me writing, working, doing chores around the home, and in fair weather a little light gardening, can all lead me to this. In days gone by I would have counted reading, but I am not so sure now, as it feels too passive to be empowering. Creative arts often allow flow states to occur, regardless of the skill level of the person. Remember the intent is to enter the flow state, not produce a masterpiece.

Throw things away

Most of us have stuff we don’t need. Get rid of some of it. Throw it to a charity shop rather than the bin if you can, the important theme here is to make space, as well as removing past baggage. You are living in the present. Let that happen. (Loads of tips exist online for various tactics, so I won’t repeat them here; basically though, my own practice in this area leads me to suggest small and frequent forays into cluttered spaces, rather than the daunting prospect of a major clear out!)

Grow something

I am hopeless at indoor plants. Except for a money tree which has lived with me for over a decade; despite a nasty fall a few years ago, it continues to flourish. Looking after a living organism puts us in touch with the underlying pace of life, how each day influences the years. (Fyi, I don’t hold with minute hands on clocks; their invention was the moment time became a problem rather than a handy indicator. Hours were plenty good enough for thousands of years…)

My jade/friendship/luck/money tree, transformed by a magickal lens

Notice your food

Pay attention to it, how it tastes, savour the nourishment.

Do things with other people

Whatever we do we must bear in mind that doing it in groups changes its impact. It is too easy to feel we have made social contact by remote interactions (and indeed these interactions can prove better than total isolation). Nothing can substitute for the physical presence of others though. Do magicks with others, find them, make things up together.

Techno appreciation

Getting in touch with Nature is all very well but we live in the 21^st century, and would be daft to turn our backs on what amazing toys it has to offer. Read books yes, but also USE the internet. Search for obscure facts, employ technological hardware/software to cast spells. Explore how to, keep your skillz up to date. Value those parts of invention which bring Life to life. See the beauty of our recent achievements.

Many of these ideas are fairly obvious and look like simple everyday practices. By directing our collective attention to the enjoyable we can rediscover (and remind our selves and each other), of what we really do, that we do in fact have an effect upon our worlds, that this world has a ground upon which we build our subjective individual understandings and stories about who we are. Let the words follow the phenomenological, get right to the raw stuff of life and revel in it.

Worries and sorrows will never cease, indeed they can have importance and should not all be casually dismissed. When they come to us on top of a rich layer of memories of enjoyable magickal involvement with the immediate, we can better see them for what they are, and maybe, do something with them.

December 15, 2015 by The Blog of Baphomet

Magic in the Darkest of the Seasons

The Wheel of the Year spins, towards the darkest phase of the year here in the far north (i.e. Britain) .

Yesterday I was at a funeral in the local crematorium, to say goodbye to someone that I’d known in the course of my museum work. Within that garden of well-trimmed yew hedges, punctuated with sober brickwork structures, I stood out of the rain in the tiny waiting room. Drinking the vending machine coffee, and feeling emotions rising in me. This time last year I was swept up in that surreal swirl of organisation which attends the end of a human life. My Dad having passed away after a brief illness, I went with my Mum to speak with funeral directors, to make formal registration of the event. I helped her enter data into Governmental web forms.

A midwinter spirit

It is during the winter months that most people in Britain die and, while some of this may be put down to infections, most of those deaths are not, at least overtly, directly caused by the darkness and harsh weather. Yet the correlation between death and the winter has remained true for hundreds of years. It is this fact that gives the death and rebirth of the solstice added poignancy. Thus there are those bitter sweet stories of the relationship between sacrifice, death, winter and spring, from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to The Selfish Giant.

Christmas, or Yule, or Mithrasmas (or whatever you like to call this feast) is the pivot point of the sun’s journey. It is overflowing with symbolism; there is the iconography of everything from the Messiah through to the Krampus; there are stories of hope and redemption, gifts brought at midnight by an aerial shaman, and ghostly tales from Christmas past.

The actual human deaths that occur in the deep midwinter enrich the symbols we absorbed as children; the Christmas tree, singing auld lang syne, then singing about the birth of magical child here to bring peace – as we mature as people, our reading and relationship with these symbols becomes deeper and more complex. Christmas becomes bitter sweet; an assertion of life and joy in the face of pain and heartache, but (if we are fortunate) we can continue to see the underlying message of renewal, of transformation and hope. Opening our-selves up to that Midwinter spirit, with all its sadness and joy, its blend of longing and elation, can be a difficult thing. For many people the black dog of depression follows them about in this season; echoing the outer darkness within their mindscape.

Given my own story at this time of year I can fully appreciate some recent writing by Anglesey Druid Kristoffer Hughes about the death of his Father, John Hughes, on the 11 of December:

This day, 10 years ago, was a dreadful day. We sat and we waited for the edges of forever to open and allow him respite and freedom from the pain of cancer. It is a day that none of us will readily forget. As twinkling fairy lights lit the streets beyond the hospital, as carolers took to singing, my Dad turned his face from this world and ventured into mystery.

The mystery of life and death was the subject of recent meditation I shared with folks at The Psychedelic Society of London (where I took part in a collaborative ritual event).

Psychedelic supper time

After an excellent evening of food and simple, highly accessible ceremonial practice, one participant asked whether, as an occultist, I had special powers. Where had all my years of magical ceremony, gnostic states and spiritual adventuring really got me? Could I leap tall buildings in a single bound, or perhaps control the weather with my mind? What was the kind of power that magic provides to those who practice it successfully?

There are lots of potential answers to this perfectly legitimate question. But one special ability many magicians aspire to, is to be able to live this life fully. To engage and connect intimately with the universe in which we find ourselves. This is the work of living a fully human authentic life (and the praxis of magic is a great way to approach this process). Come this time of the year, this time of death and of tinsel, this authenticity for me is about being able to hold the paradox of midwinter, to be empowered by it, and to express that insight in relationship with others (as Kristoffer did in sharing his writing about his father).

We can describe this aspiration (or, to the degree we manifest it, this ‘special power’), to be authentic, fully alive, in terms of doing our (True) Will, manifesting our inner nature, being in tune with the web of wyrd and all that (should we wish it to sound properly esoteric).

Of course, in answer to the question about ‘special powers’ one might offer stories about the many and varied ways that magic works. I’d claim magic is capable of making all kinds of transformations in the world (from things that look like applied psychology, through to proper parapsychological and synchronistic effects). However if the Great Work of Magic is really that, Great, it has to be about more than gaining skills in spells that increase the probability of accomplishing some simple desire.

But are such Taoist musings simply a cop out because sane people generally don’t claim to have any demonstrable superhuman abilities? What’s the use of doing magic if you can’t do literalist Harry Potter style spells? The difficulty is that real magic, outside of the imaginal world, does not often look like ‘special powers’. Magic is much more subtle and indeed far-reaching, which is why it is so difficult (and often meaningless) to empirically test. Any magician worth their consecrated salt is also aware that there are always multiple ways of reading any event in the universe. (Even something as ‘nuts and bolts’ real as the brain structure changes that appear to be the result of mindfulness and other practices). The most effective of magicians generally hold lightly to their accomplishments, not because they do not believe in their agency, but rather because they believe that ‘as above, so below’, and they know that the simple cause-and-effect/linear chain-of-events view of reality is only a partial truth.

What magic looks like (in your head)

Moreover when we are faced with human scale reality, for example the inevitable death of those we love, this is where our magic needs to be at its most powerful. Not in trying to hold back the tide of reality, like some kind of death-defying comic book character, but rather to learn how to flow with the way the world is; with grace, kindness and strength. To use the challenges we meet as humans in our work to make our soul.

So what might the star-following, wise magus want for Christmas? What gift of siddhi or mystical insight might we hope that the Santa Shaman might present to us? (Especially if we’ve been good all year; done our meditation and body work, done Priest work for others, deployed our magic in day to day acts of sorcery, undergone powerful initiatory journeys etc etc…)

For myself I’d like the power to enter that Mystery of the Darkness (a mystery glyphed in the Chaos Craft system by octarine). To fully know, at all parts of my self, the potential and power of transformation possible at the time. To pay attention to, and be inspired by the stories of this season; in myself, in the landscape, in the communities I meet; and to communicate that wonder to others.

At a human psychological level this darkness works its magic by transforming the loss I feel when I think of my Dad. Instead I am thankful for the fact that these feelings arise because I loved my Dad and he loved me. I notice the loss, the darkness, acknowledge it. Then I become aware of that tiny, but bright light of hope. This is my gratitude to the universe for having this good man in my life. I reach out through the web of wyrd to those others who sit with loss at this time of the year and wish that they too can find their own light in this long night.

At the end of his writing Kristoffer likewise goes beyond this own sadness into an affirmation of his connection to his father; a clear act of magic:

“…I sense that part of the Universe that holds his experience of being Alan John Hughes, my father…
And that for today, is enough comfort for me to hold his memory close and know that a part of him lives on.”

Christmas is a time for magic. Part of the magic of this time is that we come together, friends and family and share our company and stories. We feast in the darkest of seasons, we shine the light of our humanity through our communities and this illuminates us all. As magicians we seek to place our attention into this time, for ourselves and the liberation of all beings, we step into the octarine unknown of the new year. We tune in to the tides within the micro and macrocosm and use these to empower our Great Work of transformation, in whatever way makes sense for us. Not as superheroes but as fully realised (and ‘realising’ – it being a process) flawed, mortal, fabulous humans.

Seasonal Shiva; Yuletide intervention by Number One Son

May you be blessed with the magical gifts of this midwinter spirit; with peace, delight, joy, empowerment, transformation, and may these manifest in your life in the way that serves your unique humanity in the best way possible.