Baphomet | The Blog of Baphomet

The Magical Pact of The Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) have been experimenting with online magic way before it was fashionable (or necessary, as in the face of a pandemic…). Over the last few months, in addition to online meetings, the British Isles Section (each geographical region has autonomous ‘Sections’) of the IOT has also been producing more public facing content so that people can get a sense of the kind of the magical work we do firsthand.

You can now follow the British Isles Section of the IOT on Instagram where we’ll be sharing art, images from ritual work and a range of other enchantments. Over on YouTube, viewers are getting to discover the truth about the IOT with bite-size interviews hosted by former IOT Section Head Soror Brigantia.

Meanwhile, on my own YouTube channel ‘My Magical Thing’ continues to share objects and stories for a growing circle of esoteric and psychedelic practitioners. In case you’ve somehow missed them, the most recent film features the awesome editor of the psychedelic renaissance, Nikki Wyrd.

I’ve got a number of films ready to release over the next few weeks featuring everything from emerging ‘Instagram witches’ through to leading academics in the field of occulture. (In fact some of the My Magical Thing material is filtering from popular culture into academic online space.) Please like, share, subscribe and enjoy!

Still in virtual space: I’ve had the pleasure of leading weekly workshops in conjunction with Treadwell’s Books. The next one (this week) is on the subject of Left-hand Path Tantra. A few places are still left (geddit?) so grab some sacred ash, your kapala, and come and join me for two hours of theory, discussion and practice. In future, I’ll also be leading some very special workshops for the growing number of chaos witches and devotees of Baphomet out there, as well as sharing new content in my Cleansing, Banishing and Centering workshop, which received this rave review. Banishing magic pro tip! Here are two of the most powerful techniques known: The first is by me and my son, foolproof against any malignant entities, while this Vajrayāna left-hand path sorcery technique turns hatred from the haters into ecstatic kundalini energy! I hope you can join me at one or more of these Treadwell’s curated magical gatherings soon 😀

When it comes to the Tantric material one of its interesting aspects is how its ‘disturbing’ imagery (skulls, headless Goddesses spurting blood and other gore) functions as a mechanism to deter dilettantes, the prurient, and those without the necessary discernment or daring to walk the magical path. Some examples of ‘transgressive’ tantric images I use in my workshop come from the wonderful photography of Darragh Mason Field (I’ll be appearing on his podcast soon). In the episode where Darragh meets the Aghori in Varanasi he mentions how these Shivites – who get accused of all the usual ‘black magic’ stuff by the uninitiated – deliberately employ scary iconography and a dodgy reputation to keep away the hoi polloi. This strategy means they can get on with their devotions which, while extreme by some standards, are in no way abusive or threatening in the sense their detractors imagine. This gate keeping process works really well and can be found in many aspects of western occulture; By scaring off those who have been taken in by superficial ‘shocking’ stories of horror and malefic magic, only those with the determination to discover things for themselves, only ‘sincere seekers’, are admitted to the inner sanctum of the Mysteries.

Few actually bother to sit with the Aghori and find out the truth for themselves. I was honoured to be able to do just that while in Nepal in 2011. In fact I actually ended up taking over one Baba’s role for an afternoon. I had been chatting with the ash-covered incumbent of a little Naga temple on the outskirts of a town over several days. One morning I came to visit him, bringing with me my Thoth tarot deck. My host been drinking the night before and, after our conversation, where we discussed the relationship between the Thoth images and the iconography of Hindu and Tibetan Tantrism – he pulled a tarpaulin over himself and fell into a boozy, snoring slumber. Some local men from the village came up the track to sit beside me at the Baba’s fire pit out of which stuck his iron trident garlanded with rudraksha beads. ‘The Baba is sleeping’ I explained to the first visitor. ‘Ah yes!’ I was told, ‘this week the Baba is only drinking alcohol. No milk, no grain or meat. He is only drinking alcohol, he is very holy!’ This visitor soon spotted my tarot cards and of course asked for a reading. Several readings, and many chillums later, I left the tiny temple with my ‘very holy’ Shivite host still sound asleep.

One day I hope to return to the Himalayas but for now I shall content myself with the cliffs and hills of Devon, and those online meetings with marvellous magical people in far distant lands.

I hope that, dear friends, you are faring well in these difficult times. As I’ve said I plan to keep sharing those Magical Things. There are also some big projects in train right now designed to bring magic to some even wider audiences and, in time, gods willing, we shall all be able to share our magic not only online but in physical space too.

Wishing you and your community well.

Julian Vayne

For a while, before the office opens, I’m sitting in a hollow on the cliffs, overlooking the sea. I plan to meditate and sing and do some yoga for an hour or so. This will ensure that I’ll be in the right frame of mind for work. Below me is Boscastle harbour. I am sitting on the eastern side of that long inlet, a snaking chasm of rock, half barred by two gently curving sea walls (built in the 16th century). Behind this there are a few boats, some sand and seaweed. On the seaward side there are great cliffs. In undercut hollows, carved by the restless waves, blow-holes form, squirting jets of spray back over the rising tide. This is a deeply magical place, for me and many others. Boscastle is the beautiful, sometimes dangerous confluence of the River Valency and River Jordan. It is one of those deep wooded valleys (‘coombes’ we calls ’em in Devon) that are typical of the north Atlantic coastline. It is also the setting for the Museum of Witchcraft & Magic, where for one week in June I was the ‘Magician in Residence‘.

Beautiful Boscastle

The Museum of Witchcraft & Magic (MWM) is a collection that is locally adored and internationally recognized. If you’re not already familiar with the amazing range of things they do (from supporting international academic research, to commissioning new artworks) then please take some time to look around their online presence.

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Lurid old skool Baphomet

I’d been aware of the Museum for many years (if nothing else through those brilliantly lurid photos of Baphomet in occult coffee table books of the 1970s). But it wasn’t until fifteen or so years ago I went there for the first time. These days I’m closely involved with the Museum, including as Chair of The Friends of the Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft, a registered charity that supports the museum, in particular with its mission to educate and engage people. One aspect of engagement is to encouraging people to visit spaces like MWM. Visiting museums, especially places of the quality of MWM, can be a powerful, authentic, moving experience. Sure you can see many items from the MWM collection using their online database. However the physical experience of walking down the path, towards the wild Cornish sea, turning right and there, nestled against the rock, is the Museum of Witchcraft & Magic – that embodied experience takes some beating!

MWM’s work includes supporting the increasing appreciation, in academia and wider culture, of the influence of occultism (as I mentioned here). They’ve recently loaned objects to some internationally important shows, such as Victoria and Albert Museum’s exhibition, You Say You Want a Revolution. There are the many ways in which the MWM collection is relevant to wider culture. One of my own interests in this field is in the social phenomena of witch hunting as a form of scapegoating. The way in which communities, of many different sorts, go about hunting and killing ‘witches’ says something very important to all of us. In order to understand, mitigate and perhaps transform our scapegoating behaviour, we have to understand how it happens. Collections such as that at MWM can directly help us do this by bringing us up close and personal with objects that are the anchors for stories of prejudice, misunderstanding and punishment. (You can see some examples of the educational resources I helped to create, enabling young people to explore these issues on the MWM website. If you’re a teacher, especially of teenagers, you may like to check these out).

Inside MWM there are many wonderful things; the material traces of many expression of occulture. The galleries themselves are a cunning interplay of dark and secret with bold and well-lit spaces. The standard of presentation is second to none (and I’ve worked in many museums over the past 15 years). This excellent curation isn’t surprising given that museum director Simon Costin is something of a creative genius.

Tasteful modern Baphomet

(Talking of Baphomets, it was also during this week that I helped transport a rather famous Baphomet mask from London to its new home at the Museum. But more of that later…)

Baphomet, last seen in public on The Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square

For my week in residency I got to hang out in the library. This is, as you might imagine, another wonderful space. There are wooden desks, a gigantic witches ball in the window to repel the evil eye, and many, many books. I set up my office here; runes, two decks of tarot cards, crystal ball, special magic A4 white paper for sigils, sage smudge, some magical pointy things from the Himalayas – and we are good to go!

In residence

I’d imagined that I could spend much of the week writing and maybe doing a spot of research. In addition to an amazing range of books in the MWM library it houses hundreds of files containing everything from facsimile editions of Gerald Gardner’s original Book of Shadows, through to collections of obscure short-run occult ‘zines from the 1980s. However my research plan was not to be. Rather than reading the books I spent most of my time that week doing tarot readings for visitors.

This was both enjoyable and an honour. People often open up in a divination session and place their trust, to some degree, in the diviner. I encourage this, as an important benefit of having a reading is the confidential, candid, even confessional opportunity that this setting provides.

When people come to me for a reading I explain that I can’t divine the future with any great certainty. I usually joke that were this one of my special powers I’d divine six numbers, win the lottery and spend all my time on holiday. (Actually the problem with this analogy is I do generally to get to spend my time doing what I love, but anyhow…). Instead I explain that my role is primarily to work with clients to explore how things are for them, and to look at what possible futures and courses of action might emerge from their present circumstances. This makes the whole process about discovery; the reading becomes a space for mutual investigation and reflection. The querent is not the passive recipient of advice, but an active agent in their own narrative. For while there may be some circumstances where our options are limited. we do usually possess some degree of freedom; this realization is often a key outcome. Cultivating this awareness of freedom, in a realistic way, and exploring the options for change, are for me what tarot readings are all about.

Now I won’t lie, even within this broadly psychological paradigm of divination things with a distinctly parapsychological flavor do happen. For example, my usual practice is ask the querent to draw three cards. On the basis of these I begin a story, then together we explore how this might relate to their situation. Sometimes, especially when I’m on a roll and have been doing lots of readings over a short period of time, I say things in this opening section that the client responds to with surprise. ‘How could you have known that?’ they say. Then there are moments, perhaps halfway through reading (sometimes accompanied by a sense of having something speak through me, or some sense of ‘absence’) where a rush of words comes out. Again the querent may be impressed; I’ve perhaps articulated the problem we’ve been discussing in a radically new way that helps them see a totally new picture, or perhaps I’ve revealed how one character may be acting and what can be done to make things better. These intuitive insights may be surprising, including to me. But however spot on my words are I always bracket what I say. I explain that one reason we call this stuff ‘magic’ is because none of us (perhaps least of all magicians) really known how any of it works. I acknowledge that this is how things may appear in this moment, in this reading, but that the future is uncertain and new information and possibilities may well arise. I may be ‘inspired’ but I’m also quite clear that my impressions may be wrong or incomplete in any number of ways. Sure listen to the oracle, but take it all with a pinch of salt.

I’m pleased to say that I got really nice feedback from some of the folk I read for during my residency and I’m glad they found the sessions useful. For me whether a reading is heavy on the psychological exploration, or has significant parapsychological moments, isn’t what matters. What is important is that the consultation provides an opportunity to empower the querent; allowing them to find their own way in the world. This is the magic of it.

In the magicians chair

An additional delight of this week was to be able to spend time with many of the members of my extended family, enjoying this magical landscape and each other’s company. (Which is why each morning on those rocks I gave thanks to the Great Spirit – whom I call Baphomet – for those lovely people and the magic in my life.)

I’ve recorded a few thoughts towards the end of my residency about the role of the proverbial village witch on my Youtube channel too.

Many thanks to the wonderful people at the Museum for welcoming and supporting me during that week, and to all those people who came to see me over those days; may the royal road rise to meet you!

Blessed Be

Julian Vayne

PS Our next Deep Magic Retreat at St Nectan’s Glen will take place from 27th September-1st October 2018 For more details please visit our Facebook page.