DubhGhaill

Ninety Percent Bullshit

Ninety percent of everything you’ll ever read or hear about magic is total bullshit. Only about ten percent of magic is stuff that might actually work.

Of the ten percent of magic that might actually work, ninety percent of that isn’t really supernatural at all. At least ninety percent of practical magic is made up of stuff that could easily be explained by logic, science or common sense – but which is not widely known only because it is unpleasant or taboo.

Occult and esoteric both mean “secret” or “hidden”. Remember that.

Of the ten percent of magic that might actually work, only about ten percent of that (about one percent of all occult knowledge) is actually made up of the genuinely very strange and inexplicable.

There are things about the universe that we don’t know and there do seem to be forces that we can’t explain. Anybody who tries to tell you that they’ve never experienced anything genuinely spooky is either lying or has an extremely closed mind.

On the other hand, anybody that tries to tell you that they can explain the unexplainable is generally full of shit and should be treated with extreme caution. This is where the ninety percent bullshit in magic (and religion) comes from. It’s a combination of outright fraud, willful self deception and half assed attempts to explain and control things that nobody really understands – yet.

A real magician, like a real philosopher, knows what he doesn’t know and isn’t afraid to admit it.

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God and the Devil

The entire universe is alive and everything is interconnected.

And if there was ever anything worthy of being called the One True God, then the Living Universe would be it.

And if the entire universe is alive and everything is interconnected and we call that God; then that means that we are inside of God and we are part of him/her/it!

Or, as a Hindu might put it – I am God and so are you!

Most people that have this realization seem to then somehow infer that this unity with God implies that we should unconditionally love everything and be kind to everyone. Hence the assertion “God is Love”.

I rebel against this notion consciously, intellectually and emotionally. Or, to put it another way, I think it’s a bunch of bullshit!

The fact that everything is interconnected does not imply that feeding your children will somehow fill my belly. What I do affects you and what you do affects me, but that does not actually mean that we are one and the same person. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours…and it’s going to stay that way until I decide to make what’s yours also mine.

So don’t try to give me any of that “what’s mine is yours” crap, because I’m not falling for it!

To continue with our previous metaphor…

If the entire universe is alive and everything is interconnected
and we call that God
and we realize that we are all one with God
and that God is Love
but then I reject that knowledge
and I insist on remaining separate and selfish
and I reserve the right to love, hate and discriminate as I will…
then I guess that I must be the Devil.

For what else could the Devil be, if not the individual self who rejects the unity of all?

Which I happen to think is really a pretty cool idea, actually, because it means that now I get to be God and the Devil!

And so do you! All you have to do is reject oneness and just be yourself. How awesome is that?

Man…if you thought realizing oneness with God was an ego boost, just wait ‘til you’ve tried being the Devil for a few days. It’s great. I’ve been at it for years and I can’t get enough of it!

Hail Chaos!
Viva Loki!
Aum Satan!

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Medieval Fight Book

A new National Geographic Channel special on Talhoffer’s Medieval German Fight Book is currently available on YouTube.

The manuscript includes seige engines and techniques for combat with a variety of weapons, including unarmed and dagger work.

 The show includes reproductions of some surprisingly advanced technologies (including a medieval frogman suit), and re-enactments of a couple of different fighting techniques. I think the highlight for me was seeing ARMA director John Clements demonstrate half-swording techniques against an armoured opponent in free sparring.

Highly recommended. Watch it while it’s still available.

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Words

What’s in a word? What’s in a name?

Everything.

Names are important. Words are important. Ideas are extremely important and words are the handles by which we grasp at them. The ancient Celts and Germans recognized this fact (though they may not have fully understood its implications) hence the strong association between Magic and Poetry in Northern European culture.

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It’s been a month since I last posted on Elhaz Ablaze. I’d planned (and promised) to write here once per week, but another online project has recently begun to consume the bulk of my attention. I’ve begun writing an Autobiography, of all mad and crazy things, on the website that was originally intended to promote my business as a Personal Trainer.

There’s no accounting for it. At the end of the day, I’m just not as smart as I’d like to be.

On the upside, I’ve actually been writing (fairly a lot, at least by my standards) and consistently about five days per week.

For years, I’ve dreamed of becoming a writer. Now, finally, at the age of thirty two I have found the courage to begin doing the work required to make that happen. The results are not yet to my satisfaction, but I am improving and growing in confidence with every day that passes by.

–

And what of “DubhGhaill, the Warrior”? Oh, he’s still around, though my “warriorhood” takes a very different form these days.

I first got into the Martial Arts because I wanted to learn how to fight. Over time, I became obsessed with visions of glory and an early death. Now I train because it makes me a better man. The Martial Arts, like Physical Fitness and proper Nutrition, are just one factor in the building of a full and complete life. Art, also, is important…and Religion, too. I wish that someone could have explained that to me when I was younger, though I doubt very much that I could have understood.

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Stuff I’m Reading Now: S.M.Stirling

This is not directly related to Heathenism, but I felt that some of our readers might enjoy hearing about the incredibly aewsome Sci-Fi series I’m reading now. 

The series is written by S. M. Stirling, whose works have been slowly working their way onto my favorites list for a while now.

The first books of his I read were the Falkenberg’s Legion Series, co-authored with Jerry Pournelle. They’re hard core military science fiction centered around a mercenary force hired to train and set up the army of the newly settled planet Sparta. I first discovered these when I was living in Brazil. There was a great big multi-lingual used bookstore in the city that was well stocked with military sci-fi and I’ve been hooked ever since.

The next books of Stirling’s I read were the Draka Series. These are more in the alternate history/military sci-fi genre, chronicling the takeover of the world by a race of Nietzchean supermen from South Africa. Inevitable comparisons to the Nazis are subverted only by having the Draka kick Nazi ass and enslave the entirety of Europe, as well as Asia and Africa.

Most recently I enjoyed reading his Nantucket Series, exploring the adventures of a small population of Americans who find themselves unexpectedly transported back to the year 1250 B.C.E. That’s a really fun one, filled with Indo-Europeans, Homeric Greeks, Egyptians and Babylonians running every which way.

But now I’ve starting reading a series from S. M. Stirling that I just had to share with you all. This is the Emberverse Series, which asks the question “What would happen if guns, bombs and electricity all just suddenly stopped working…for ever?”

Well, if you answered “it would be chaos and lots of people would die”, then give yourself a cookie. (Or don’t, if you’ve been following or nutrition posts.)

But there’s more! Some people would survive (and this is where it really gets fun!) and maybe some of those in the best position to survive would be the ones with skills applicable to surviving in a world without advanced technology. Ex-military, martial artists, hunters, horse wranglers, Wiccans, organic farmers, medieval re-enactors, living history types…wait, what, back up. WICCANS? You expect me to believe that WICCANS would be the people most likely to survive a technological Apocalypse?

Yeah, well, it makes some sense if you think about it. There’s a fair degree of crossover between Neo-Paganism, organic farming and the whole re-enactment/living-history vibe. If our hypothetical Wiccans were lucky enough to team up with a few hunters and ex-military types early on, they just might have what it takes.

Now, I grant you, this whole series would be made a whole lot more realistic if the primary protagonists had been Heathens and not Wiccans. (Everybody knows that Heathens are the hardcore survivalists and that Wiccans are just a bunch of tie-dyed hippies.) But from a mass market publication, I think we can understand that that may have been expecting too much. We almost get there, anyway, as the Wiccans’ strongest allies end up being a bunch of bear-skin wearing mercenaries with a Tolkien fetish.

Believability is not really the primary factor here, anyway. These books are fun! Particularly if you’re anything of a history buff and have ever wondered “wouldn’t it be great if we could all go back to fighting with swords and spears and arrows?” Well, here you have it. There’s plenty of good, gritty medieval combat action. There’s plenty of singing, home-brewing and old school country cooking. There are plenty of references to magic and mythology that fit in perfectly with the context of the story, without too much blurring of the line between fantasy and sci-fi.

I’m only on book two of the series, but so far I rate Emberverse two-thumbs-up. Start with Dies the Fire.

P.S. The primary action of this series is set around Portland and Oregon, which may or may not make this extra fun for certain individuals.

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Clean, Sober Heathen?

It’s been over six months since I quit drinking and cleaned up my diet.

Living really clean has been a strange experience. On the one hand I feel a lot more solid, a lot more present and a lot more me than I have for a long time. Physically and emotionally, I feel like I’m seventeen again.

On the other hand, I’ve been feeling a lot more cut off from the people around me. I won’t share their drink and I can’t share their food. I’ve become an outsider and, for once, that’s not the way I wanted it to be.

The question of how to handle Heathenism without drinking has also been bothering me for a while. 90% of my experience with Heathen group ritual has always involved massive binge drinking. It shouldn’t really be an issue, as I’m mostly what you’d call a solitary practitioner anyway, but I really miss toasting the gods (and a glass of milk just doesn’t seem to have quite the same zing).

This gets even more complicated when you consider the fact that, for a long time, I’d been getting signals that “the gods” wanted me to quit drinking. Alcohol had definitely ceased being useful as a social lubricant and instead become a threat to my work, my health and my family.

Staying clean is undeniably the right thing for me to do. My new ascetic path has, in some ways, brought me a feeling of being much closer to the gods (Odin in particular). Unfortunately, it has also left me confused as to how to properly express that closeness.

Perhaps now I finally have an answer.

In the past I’ve always “shared” a drink with the gods. Perhaps now I have a chance to really sacrifice. I’ve given up drinking (a sacrifice of self to self) but of course the gods have not. What greater sacrifice could there be than to offer them that which I crave without ever taking so much as a drop?

This idea requires exploration.

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Kali Kaula

It’s been a long time since I found a really good book.

Nah, that’s not entirely true. There have been several good books over the last six months, but it seems like it’s been a really long time since I found a decent book on occultism or spirituality. Since reading is such an important part of my life, not having a good occult/spiritual book to read can leave me feeling somewhat…disconnected.

(To my mind, all letters have great power. Magical symbolism be damned.)

Well, a really good book has finally arrived! Three days ago I received my copy of Kali Kaula by Jan Fries. It’s good! It’s thick, it’s meaty! Jan stays true to form in this one by continuously presenting multiple points of view and refusing to marry himself to any one interpretation of the evidence (very refreshing after some of the paradoxically dogmatic Hindu books I’ve read in the past).

Now, in the interest of full disclosure I must admit I haven’t actually finished the book yet. (Yes, I know, bad form. I’ve had three days, so what am I playing at?) So in lieu of a full scale review, I’d instead like to present a couple of charming and relevant quotes.

When I was completing Cauldron of the Gods, a friend asked what I was reading. ‘It’s the Kaulajnana nirnaya’, I replied, glancing happily at the little red book, with its tattered cover and goddess-knows-what-do-they-use-instead-of-paper look so popular among Indian publishers, ‘…wonderful stuff on meditation and one of the most practical Tantras I’ve ever come upon.’

‘Not Celtic stuff any more?’

‘It’s getting on my nerves. There is far to little practical material in surviving Celtic lore. I’m fed up with question marks, medieval myths and idle speculation. At least the Kaula folk had a clear interest in things that work. And they had a sense of humour. That’s something amazingly rare in old literature.’

This, in a nutshell, sums up a large part of the reason why I spend so much time reading Tantra, Yoga and Taoism when I’m in between good Heathen books. I enjoy history but I’m not a historian, or even an academic.

The other half of the reason is covered below…

Last, let us take a look a the outcast among the gods, the dangerous Rudra…

…The original Rudra is a dweller of the solitude and the wild places, a lonely wanderer, he is a lord of wild beasts, poisons and diseases. An expert in herbal lore, he is also the healer of the gods. He is the creator, protector and killer of cattle. With his bow he takes the lives of beasts and men.

As father of the Maruts, Rudra is accompanied by storms and gales. The Maruts (winds) are usually Indra’s warriors, but their parents are Rudra and Prsni. The Maruts are celebrated as workers of marvels, bards, heroes and protectors of the divine order. The move over earth like the howling storm gales, splitting mountains, shaking forests, and releasing storm, lightning, thunder and rain. They are the patrons of poets and singers. Their common wife is Rodasi (firmament), who appears elsewhere as the wife of Rudra. Occasionally, the Maruts are addressed as Rudras, i.e. as personifications of Rudra.

In the late Vedic period we meet Rudra clad in fur, dwelling among desolate mountains, with green hair, a red face, and a blue-black throat. He is called upon by hunters and folks who have to dare the forest and by herders fearing for the health of their cattle. His sons Bhava and Sarva roam the jungles in the form of wolves. Much like the Germanic storm god Wodan, Rudra appears in a wild hunt, and is accompanied by a horde of dangerous women who a noisy and hissing, snatchers and devourers of flesh (Gonda). One of his names is Hara, meaning the Bandit, the Destroyer. Later he acquired the placating name of Siva (the Auspicious One), and today he is almost exclusively known by this title.

Get the the picture? I’ve long believed there’s a lot that Heathens and Neo-Pagans could learn from Hinduism in general and Tantra in particular. As I believe I may have also mentioned before, I highly recommend reading anything and everything by Jan Fries.  The fact that this was a book on Tantra and written by Jan Fries made it an instant “must have it now” kind of item.

This is his sixth work. I own all six and haven’t been disappointed with any thing he’s written yet.

Kali Kaula – A Manual of Tantric Magick by Jan Fries

Also by Jan Fries…

Visual Magick: A Manual of Freestyle Shamanism 1992

Helrunar: A Manual Of Rune Magick 1993

Seidways: Shaking, Swaying and Serpent Mysteries 1996

Living Midnight: Three Movements of the Tao 1998

Cauldron of the Gods: A Manual of Celtic Magick 2003

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Wolf

There is something deeply, primally satisfying about jogging shirtless and barefoot under the hot, midday sun. I feel like a wild animal, some un-caged beast running free on the streets of suburbia.

I feel wonder in the gaze of the civilized mortals around me. They know that I am not one of them.

For five months I’ve been living sober and eating clean. I run, I lift, I box, I wrestle and I fence. Each day that goes by I feel myself growing harder, stronger, closer to the earth.

We each must find our own way to relate to the gods. This is mine.

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Honor Your Ancestors

A fundamental tenet of Reconstructionist Heathenism is that we should honor our ancestors and practice traditions in line with our genetic heritage.

On the face of it, this seems a fairly reasonable suggestion. What’s always confused me, though, is why so many people then proceed to focus on just one aspect of their own ancestry, and one short period of history at that. And while we’re at it, why is this so often treated as a commandment and not just a helpful suggestion?

When I think of “my heritage” there are many different periods that come to mind. My immediate ancestors were Australian for several generations on both sides and my Australianness is something that I, predictably, feel much more connected to since having left that great land. Beyond that, there is much  of history that I cannot help but find fascinating.

The Viking age has always caught my attention, for sure, but then so has the Renaissance. So has the stuff that came before the Viking age. More recently I find myself returning, again and again, to the period that came before iron, before bronze even before agriculture.

Honor your ancestors? Absolutely. Why not? But honor all of them, all the way back, from those within memory to the beginning of time.

This gives us a lot more tradition to play with.

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Nerd Religion

A friend of mine recently posted a link this interview between Deepak Chopra and Grant Morrison on Facebook (Hey Barry, nice find!)…

which in turn reminded me of this book, which I’ve been meaning to get around to reviewing for a while…

which in turn triggered off this weird, disorganized, stream of consciousness style excuse for a blog post.

Enjoy…

I’m a nerd, a geek, a dork. And if you’re reading this, then there’s a good chance that you are too.

I love history and mythology and sci-fi and super-heroes. I love stuff with Ninjas in it. And Spartans. And Vikings, of course, I love Vikings too.

Oh, and while we’re at it, I also love stuff with vampires, werewolves, witches and ghosts.

Oh, yeah, and aliens…and conspiracy theories…yep, just one big all-round dork.

And it’s very likely you are too.

See, Heathenism and Neo-Paganism are Nerd Religions. Magick and ritual are really nerdy, dorky, geeky things to do.

And that’s OK.

There’s nothing wrong with being a nerd. In many ways we’re smarter, tougher and braver than the normal folks who had such easy childhoods. We should be proud of our geek status, and we should be honest about it too.

And that means being truly honest about who we are and where we really came from.

For example, how many of us really got into Norse mythology directly? Probably very few.

I grew up on Greco-Roman mythology, King Arthur, Robin Hood, Br’er Rabbit, The Magic Faraway Tree, Star Wars, Forgotten Realms, The Karate Kid, Marvel and DC, Stephen King and Anne Rice. I didn’t even start reading the Norse myths and Sagas until I was already in my twenties.

My point is this, all of that stuff I read before had its effect on me. None of us come to any religion or worldview as a blank slate, everything that we’ve learned up to that point has an effect on how we receive new ideas when we encounter them. Many of us in Heathenry and Neo-Paganism seem to come from a heavy background in comic books and sci-fi and, you know why, because comic books and sci-fi are heavily pagan genres.

Take a close look at the themes and archetypes and you’ll discover a great deal of similarity not just across cultures but across millennia. Most shocking is that this effect works backwards as well as forwards, myths written thousands of years before the industrial revolution contain sci-fi elements that are hard to deny.

So, it makes me wonder, to what extent do any of us really choose the religions we claim to follow? Most of you reading this will have come to where you are as a convert, having shed the religion (or lack of) you were raised in, but to what extent do we choose our religion as adults and to what extent is it chosen for us (perhaps indirectly) by the myths and archetypes we are exposed to as children?

And if that’s true, do we really need to call ourselves “Neo”-Pagans or Reconstructionists at all? Aren’t we just natural, home grown, organic Post-Christian Heathens? Or something?

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