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How I Sold My Soul to the Devil and Thus Found Odhinn

Rúnar munt thú finna    ok rádhna stafi, mjök stóra stafi,
mjök stinna stafi,
er fádhi fimbuldhulr
ok goerdhu ginregin
ok reist Hroptr rögna.

Runen wirst du finden und lesbare Stäbe,
sehr starke Stäbe,
sehr mächtige Stäbe,
gefärbt von Fimbuldhurl
gegeben von den magischen Göttern
und geschnitzt vom höchsten Herrscher.

Runes wilt thou find and read the staves,
very strong staves,
very stalwart staves,
which the mighty theal colored
and the magical gods made
and Hropt of the gods carved them.

“Hávamál”, verse 145. Old Norse version & English translation taken from Rune-Song by Edred Thorsson; German translation taken from Helrunar by Jan Fries, with little variations by me.

My first conscious contact with magick happened, when I took ‘magic mushrooms’ (f.e. Psilocybe cubensis, Psilocybe mexicana, Psilocybe semilanceata asf.). They worked for me as a trigger & made me aware of the fact that self-awareness is a miracle & mystery in itself. Having said that, let me state clearly that the prolonged use of such substances may have disastrous effects on the psyche. I’ve seen that happening to friends! Drugs, including psychedelics, are in most cases no help for spiritual seekers. (Heedful & experienced use of ‘chemognostic sacraments’ is possible in a shamanic and/or therapeutic context as the writings of Stanislav Grof prove. Nevertheless, most people misuse drugs. They try to escape reality & the responsibility of being human.) For spiritual pursuits – and most other endeavors in life – counts the following: Es gibt keine Wunder, nur Disziplin. (“There are no miracles, only discipline.”) Ian Read said this in his brilliant magazine RUNA, No. 19. (North Americans can purchase Runa Magazine from Runa Raven press, orders outside the US here) Most hippies & other protagonists of the 1960s who fished for short-cuts on the spiritual path somehow forgot about that. However, I’d argue that the first manifestation of my magickal path has been ‘psychedelic neo-shamanism’. What followed, sounds to me today like a cliché. An uprooted & alienated, urban & postmodern youngster tries to overcome his youthful nihilism by taking drugs & trying to escape consensus reality by following (what I then believed to be) AmerIndian shamanism. I was introduced to Castaneda’s books, Sun Bear, Terence McKenna, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary & Jim DeKorne’s Psychedelic Shamanism. I visited often the local forest of my town & have been doing ‘shamanic journeys’ to the underworld (today I’d say my subconscious mind or the Deep Mind, as Jan Fries calls it), where I met my ‘power animals’ & asked them questions about certain issues that were important to me. The shamanic journeys came to an end, when I came across a very mysterious & weird book: Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law). This “Book of Claws” :-) has been written by the notorious & furious, half-mad & half-ingenious Devil’s advocate: the Beast 666, also known as Aleister Crowley, called lovingly by us all who were ‘seduced’ by his exhilarated & energized enthusiasm Uncle Al.

Being who I am I found out EVERYTHING about Aleister Crowley & wanted only one thing from that moment on: to learn about magick.  This has led me at age 19 to the Ordo Templi Orientis. OTO is a group that promotes Crowley’s religion of Thelema (“True Will”) & occasionally practices (rather boring) rituals of Ceremonial Magick. While having been studying the stale & dogmatic system of Crowley, I slowly realized that there were other systems of magick around that have a far more easier & pragmatic approach to sorcery. (Then being “brainwashed” by modern occultism I thought of sorcery as a kind of ‘lower’ form of magick.) This was the hour of Austin Osman Spare & his ‘revolutionary’ method of sigil sorcery.

Because reading AOS is a rather complicated issue, it was the repeated application of ‘Thee Sigil Ov 3 Liquids’ in Thee Greyer Book that initiated a series of events that convinced me once & for all that magick WORKS as I got immediate results. (This manual was/is the manifesto of Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth that was founded in 1981 by Genesis P-Orridge, Peter Christopherson and others who are no longer its members.) It must have been what they call ‘beginner’s luck’! Such experiences with practical sorcery – those that manifest in the material world – are more important for the budding magician than reading thousand books by Crowley or whomever. I was 22 then. Thus my soul was sold to the Devil. He looked like him:

the inventor of magick and anything else that is fun & forbidden. But at that moment in time I already knew that the Devil was nothing but the degenerated manifestation of far older gods of our pagan forefathers. I believe these pagan gods to be the ecstatic Pan, Óðinn, Loki, asf.Of course any god that was associated with sensuality, sexuality & sorcery became a Devil. Satan does not exist, except in the minds of those that deny these aspects of Self.) As I’m a very loyal person it took me a while until I accepted the conclusion that my path lies outside of Crowley’s Current 93 & I left OTO at age 25. (Though to this day I find the 93rd Current an important one and I do believe that an intelligent and creative person can use Crowley’s work in a beneficial way.)

However, leaving OTO was an initiation in itself. But this initiation was not the kind of ‘freemasonic theatre play’ you pay 100 or 200 Euros/Dollars for to ascend in the artificial hierarchy of a magical order. No! This step has led to a spiritual crisis (the ‘Hagalaz-Nauthiz-Isa-Jera dance). It’s important to die before you die, my friends! This was the time, when I toyed around with chaos magick and, as I said before, there is no doubt that this current has brought fresh and new perspectives into contemporary magick. It synthesized the threads of the antagonistic twins Crowley & Spare in conjunction with the spirit of ‘free-form shamanism’ to bring forth a postmodern approach to magick, where “Nothing Is True & Everything Is Permitted” (Hassan-i Sabbah). I found a lot in chaos magick that inspired me, especially the fundamental insight that Gnosis & Belief are important for magick to work, though some chaos magicians already come to the conclusion that “belief alone is […] the basis of magick and gnosis is optional.” (Dave Lee, in a review of Advanced Magick for Beginners).

Dave Lee, Chaos Magus and Rune Master

But as time progressed my interest moved ever stronger towards the Runes. Simultaneously the chaos magick approach became an integral part of my magical assets, even if my ‘paradigm shifting’ always remained an unconscious process rather than a conscious attitude.

Though I have heard of the Runes for the first time when I was 15 or so, I’ve been confronted at that time only with the inauthentic Armanen-Futhark (composed of 18 Runes, which Guido von List ‘received’ in a state of crisis during which he was blind for a half year) and the terrible New Age nonsense by Ralph Blum (whose ‘system’ is anathema to anyone who is committed to the Runic Tradition). But since then I felt a deep respect for the Runes. Years later I found a book in the university library next to my school. It was called Leaves of Yggdrasil written by the Dutch singer, writer & ‘Norse Occultist’ Freya Aswynn. She inspired me to do a few divinations with Runes that were intriguing. However, as I don’t like to fiddle about too much, my focus has still been to unravel Crowley’s system of magick first. I also understood intuitively that Runes are nothing you can just explore in a few months. I understood intuitively that Runes are not just another ‘paradigm’ to ‘exploit’. Rather the Mystery encoded in the Runes demands of the Seeker to dedicate his whole life – and beyond – to the quest for Her: Runa.  Many years later, when I was already studying at university myself, I came across the German translation of Edred Thorsson’s Nine Doors of Midgard.

This was for the first time when it suddenly dawned on me that there is a Runic Revival going on and that the Runes have a tradition of their own. As I became already dissatisfied and disaffected with Crowley’s system and the OTO, and chaos magickalready began to crack open my head, I started to study the religion, culture and language(s) in which the Runes have originated [well, I studied one semester of Icelandic until now and I had to break off the course on Old Norse… but I will come back to it when time allowes!]. And here, for the first time, I realized where my roots lie – hidden.

I am still fairly new to Heathenism and it’s not long ago that I swore my first oath to Óðinn. But from the first moment on I read about the idea put forth by Edred Thorsson / Stephen Flowers that the Seeker has to emulate the archetype of the First Runemaster Óðinn, to emulate His act of ‘Winning the Runes’, for gaining insight into Runa – the Mother of all Mysteries – I knew this is where my magick has led me. (However, as I identify with ANON it must be considered that there is no ultimate destination. „Anon freely transmogrifies its arbitrary personality, refusing any identity defined by its environment. Residing in the ultimate freedom possible on the plane of illusion, it has choice of duality. Everything which exists for it is a form of desire, for this is the universe in which it willed to incarnate.“ — in: Liber Null, by Pete Carrol) Feeling attracted by the Mystery, I swore my first oath to Óðinn whilst holding my Sax against my beating heart and ever since I’m feeling the pull from Runa becoming stronger and stronger. Thusly the trail of the Devil turned out to be the demon’s footprint of the one-eyed God whose Rune-Might still manifests in Midgard. „When the written codes of Gods and Man are abandoned, what remains but the footprint of the Demon?“ (Fire + Ice) Now I began to know my own wyrd and destiny. And I hear the knocking of Sleipnir’s hooves and the winds on the raging sea, whispering from eternity: Reyn til Runa!

Edred Thorsson, Ian Read, Phil Hine, unknown, and Ingrid Fischer

And as long as there are those who devote themselves to the Quest for Runa like the First Rune Master did, who arranged and carved the Runes 2200 years ago in the form of the Elder Futhark, the Might of our Holy Gods still lives on. “Our freedom shall hinge on it soon… Take Wyrd in your hands & reclaim your Might.” (Sweyn Plowright/Fire + Ice) And it’s only now that I begin to have glimpses of understanding the words whispered to us through the ages. Just by reading these words and speaking them aloud I get my Óðr rises and combines with my hughr and minni:

Rúnar munt thú finna    ok rádhna stafi,
mjök stóra stafi,
mjök stinna stafi,
er fádhi fimbuldhulr
ok goerdhu ginregin
ok reist Hroptr rögna.


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Do What Thou Wilt

‘I thought they were more into restoring democracy’

‘Yeah, for now, though I don’t know how democratic it all feels when the partisans roll into town and call a meeting. But for the long run, when the Sheenisov have conquered the world -’ we share a laugh ‘- their theories advocate the weirdest kind of communism I’ve ever heard of: everybody owns nothing, or everything.’

‘Sounds like every dingbat communist since Munzer -’

‘No, no – every individual owns everything. The whole goddamn universe.’

‘Including every other individual?’

‘Only to the extent that you can.’

‘Nice if you can get it. I just want to be princess of the galaxy.’

‘Modest of you, my sweet. But that’s the catch – the universe is yours to take if you can.’

‘So what’s to stop me?’

‘Only the other contenders, and your possibly reluctant subjects. And the size of the universe. If you can get around all that – go for it, gal!’

‘Oh. I see. And there was me thinking that eating people is wrong.’

Tony does glance at me sideways, now. ‘Eating people is wasteful…but seriously, if you think it’s wrong, fine. I entirely agree. So do something about it. Arm the prey! Set up taboos. Give them teeth! Just don’t think that announcing you moral convictions affects any part of the universe further than your voice can reach.’

‘And they want to base communism on this…this unlimited selfishness? What’s to stop it all degenerating into a war of all against all?

Tony shrugs. ‘No doubt they expect we’d come to some kind of an arrangement.’

Ken Macleod
The Cassini Division

This is really the most important point that people miss when they begin playing around the edges of moral nihilism. No matter which way you choose, moral or amoral, you will still need to deal with practical necessity in the end.

“You are free to do whatever is in your power, and if you want to survive and thrive you had better do whatever is in your interests.”

Most actions traditionally considered criminal or immoral across a range of cultures have come to be considered so because they carry serious potential side effects. Emotional, medical, social and financial side effects. That doesn’t mean that they’re wrong, necessarily, just risky.

Some actions are risky to the self, some to others. Actions that are risky to others always end up being risky to the self, too, if only in a round-about way.

Some actions are so risky they ought to be classified as downright stupid!

On the other hand, there are many traditional moral injunctions, in our culture and in others, that just don’t make any sense. It’s when you run into one of these that you need to seriously start questioning your morality and where it comes from. And once you start pulling on that thread…oh boy!

Which leads us back to our starting point…While I have become quite convinced that all morality is a lie, I have also come to believe that ethics are extremely important. Ethics are derived from the practical necessity of dealing with other human beings. It’s only when we turn away from the twisted lie that is morality, and begin exploring practical frameworks for getting along with each other, that we can ever hope to begin making real progress towards a peaceful, enlightened and civil society.

Of course, that’s all assuming you consider a peaceful, enlightened and civil society important. It’s OK either way by me. I like to fight.

Hail Chaos! Viva Loki! Aum Wotan!

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The True Knowledge

I felt like sharing a quote today. This is from one of my favorite sci-fi authors, Ken MacLeod, and expresses some of the sentiments of my last post, only far better than I ever could.

Enjoy,

Clint.

The true knowledge…the phrase is an English translation of a Korean expression meaning ‘modern enlightenment’. Its originators, a group of Japanese and Korean ‘contract employees’ (inaccurate Korean translation, this time, of the English term ‘bonded labourers’) had acquired their modern enlightenment from battered, ancient editions of the works of Stirner, Nietzshe, Marx, Engels, Dietzgen, Darwin, and Spencer, which made up the entire philosophical content of their labour-camp library. (Twentieth century philosophy and science had been excluded by their employers as decadent or subversive – I forget which.) With staggering diligence, they had taken these words – which they ironically treated as the last word in modern thought – and synthesized from them, and from their own bitter experiences, the first socialist philosophy based on totally pessimistic and cynical conclusions about human nature.

Life is a process of breaking down and using other matter, and if need be, other life. Therefore, life is aggression, and successful life is successful aggression. Life is the scum of matter, and people are the scum of life. There is nothing but matter, forces, space and time, which together make power. Nothing matters, except what matters to you. Might makes right, and power makes freedom. You are free to do whatever is in your power, and if you want to survive and thrive you had better do whatever is in your interests. If your interests conflict with those of others, let the others pit their power against yours, everyone for theirselves. If your interests coincide with those of others, let them work together with you, and against the rest. We are what we eat, and we eat everything.

All that you really value, and the goodness and truth and beauty of life, have their roots in this apparently barren soil.

This is the true knowledge.

On this rock we had built our church. We had founded our idealism on the most nihilistic implications of science, our socialism on crass self-interest, our peace on our capacity for mutual destruction, and our liberty on determinism. We had replaced morality with convention, bravery with safety, frugality with plenty, philosophy with science, stoicism with anaesthetics and piety with immortality. The universal acid of the true knowledge had burned away a world of words, and exposed a universe of things.

Things we could use.

-Ken MacLeod ‘The Cassini Division
’

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I am Loki's Love Child

Just kidding! Hope I got your attention, though.

I can’t believe I’ve spilled so little ink (pixels?) on Loki with this little journal. If you’ve been following my writing for long you’ll know what a fool I am for the cheeky bastard. But how did I come to be a Loki lover? I mean, isn’t Loki, like, a BAD DUDE?

Well first of all we need to realise that his role in Norse mythology changes over time. For much of the myths Loki is a troublesome but sympathetic Puck, the partial outsider who initiates chaos but also fixes it in marvellously inventive ways.

Loki saves the gods from all kinds of messes (admittedly sometimes messes he created) and usually in doing so brings them all kinds of advantages. There’d be no Mjollnir, Skidbladnir, Sleipnir or Gungnir if not for Loki’s mischief and ingenuity.

Likewise, without Loki’s excruciating sense of humour the gods would have been thoroughly stomped on by Skadi (surely any myth involving goats and testicles has to be celebrated as a spiritual triumph!)

Not only that but for many adventures Loki and Thor are travel-mates and complement one another very well. The hammer god and the trickster are a perfect combination of character traits when you think about it: either on their own would have a much tougher time negotiating the dangers of Utgard.

And of course Loki and Odin are blood-brothers. Some people can’t understand this but I think they are forgetting that Odin is a lot more complex than just some boring “Our Father who art in Asgard” figure. People, Odin is not Jehovah! He’s a ragged, raging, womanising poet with a mouth filled with mead and veins filled with fire.

Of course Odin’s own ancestry is giantish anyway (like so many of the Aesir actually… this business about giants and gods being implacable foes is a myopic understanding of the mythology).

In fact if you think about it…Thor is the son of Odin and Jord – so he is himself of giant stock! Go on, someone tell me I’m wrong, I dare you!

Not familiar with these stories? Oh come on folks, I’m not going to retell these bloody myths here and now. Suffice to say, there’s plenty of hard mythic evidence to justify our celebration of Loki and his irrepressible spark. Go do some reading and drop a few blinders if you feel like it, too.

Ok, sure, so things go sour with Loki and the Aesir. Then again Ragnarok leads to rebirth and new life, and in a way even this terrible disaster makes ultimately for a brighter world.

I’m not necessarily defending Loki’s actions, but given that whole business with the gods chaining him down and dripping venom on him – well its understandable that he wasn’t a happy boy after that misadventure. Can’t have been much fun for poor Sigyn either, and she didn’t even do anything wrong!

So what about my personal relationship with Loki? You know, it was a gradual, bashful introduction. I got all curious about him, I guess because I myself have a very troublesome, cheeky streak. I like to “question authority” as Mr Leary would have it.

I might live in a glass house (don’t we all) but like Loki I still can’t resist chucking the odd stone or fifty.

That’s part of why we describe Chaos Heathenism as being internally contradictory. We rather figure that every other philosophy or approach to magic and/or Heathenism has its blind spots anyway so we might as well be up front about it. By embracing the attitude of a god of deception we actually end up being more honest. I hope.

I haven’t done it yet this year but usually around March I make an offering to Loki. Invariably he throws all sorts of trouble at me and I have to learn to laugh at my misfortune. On some occasions this has produced a string of events which – just like in the myths – have left me in a much better position for his machinations.

The thing is though – you can’t use Loki. I mean, if I did these offerings with the secret intention of getting something out of it, he’d shaft me for sure. And I wouldn’t blame him either. The motivation has to be one of reverence, respect and laughter. Loki kicks the asses of spiritual misers all day, every day.

I guess I also relate to Loki because I’ve often felt like an outsider, different, weird, strange – and in Germanic mythology he seems to occupy a similar role. At times Loki gives me courage to be myself, to stick it to the stiffs, and I really appreciate that gift.

It’s hard to be me sometimes, just because I don’t seem to play well with others in lots of contexts (though I think often that says more about them than about me). Loki has similar problem.

It isn’t malevolence – it’s just that when you can’t switch off your BS detector you can start to get a bit uppity. As I get older and braver I find it harder to silently choke on my troublesome instincts.

The danger is that this posture turns into an ego trip itself. “I am the great and mighty outsider, and all you sheep are just a bunch of worthless psychic wimps”. How many times have we all heard that little head trip? Sometimes these loonies even manage to accrue followers. Imagine – an army of perfectly uniform ‘individuals’. Classic.

Well I have no desire to be the next Heathen Osho (who seemed to have the spiritual goods even if he also developed a weakness for cult compounds, drugs and dodgy sexual manipulation).

But I still need to be careful because, as you might have noticed, I SOMETIMES FLY OFF THE HANDLE AND SAY STUPID, STUPID THINGS.

Ahh, that’s better. I hope you are getting a flavour for what Loki magic can be like. If you are a little horrified by your own antics then you are on the right track. Just don’t take it too far (except for when you really feel like it).

Loki can teach you a lot about your limitations, and about the limitations of others, if you spend a little time listening to his erratic advice. He can really help those of us who are deeply introverted to bust out and be ourselves.

The hilarious thing is that once you start acting out, you realise most people are too busy navel-gazing to notice you anyway. As Loko psychonauts Beastianity put it: “you’ll screw bars all over your windows and give thanks you don’t live in a prison”. Loki is great at shattering the mental halls of mirrors that we snare ourselves within.

Look, I am anything but an expert in the Loki way. I have so much to learn. I get so damn serious at times, so damn sincere that it hurts. I get really stuck in my little porthole into reality and I become an easy butt for jokes – but thank Loki I have friends willing to stick it to me.

It’s possible that some folks reading this article really might not know what the heck I’m on about. To these I invoke Loki – get out there and have some fun my troublesome friend!

The only way you’ll ever know is by giving Laufey’s son a go. So just call on him with honest passion and curiosity and a little love. He’ll take it from there.

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Culture, Genocide, and Whingers

One sometimes hears Heathen folk express the feeling that their culture is under attack; more than one Heathen I hold in high esteem has expressed the feeling that they are the target of cultural genocide.

I myself often resonate strongly with the sentiment expressed by Irish band Primordial:

Is this all I’ve been left?
Broken oaths and betrayals
The empty words and dead rhetoric
Of my sold and broken culture

And I said once before
That time heals nothing
I feel like a wounded animal
In the dying throws

Primordial make a particularly rich critique of monoculturalising capitalism; in footage of a live performance I have seen, their vocalist (A. A. Nemtheanga) announces to the audience between songs that “whoever you, whereever you come from, your rights are being taken from you!”

In a way this is a new face of universalisation – we are all the same in that our particularities are being assaulted and dissolved by a remarkable battery of largely commercial and technological social forces. How ironic and tragic.

And yet when straight, white men in patriarchal societies – and many of whom are financially comfortable – complain about being subject to genocide I cannot help but think they’re taking it all a bit far. Some Heathens even go so far as to be out-right whingers – you’d think such behaviour was mandated in Havamal!

The truth is that European ancestral heritage is most of all under assault from its own descendents. If we wish to preserve this heritage then it is European-descended people who need to be awoken from their post-monotheistic (or indeed monotheistic) slumber – at least for long enough that they can make a conscious decision about the course their lives might take.

On other hand, let’s take a reality check. Consider the awesome and under-acknowledged plight of the people of Tibet at the hands of Chinese imperialism.

These folk are being killed for the slightest infraction, forced at gunpoint to betray their traditions. What European can say the same? These stoic folk make the self-righteous outrage some Heathens express seem utterly fatuous, utterly childish. It’s a good thing Heathenism is so obscure or such vocal Heathen windbags would make us a laughing stock.

As part of my studies this year I had the opportunity to write a short report on the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal people in my homeland of Australia. I have presented it here so that my readers can get a clear idea of what it is actually like to be the subject of pre-meditated and systematic genocide.

Some apologists will accuse me of wallowing in ‘white guilt’ or the like, but personally I think this says more about them than about me. I don’t feel guilt at all, I just think it good taste to acknowledge cruelty and injustice even if if is inconvenient  for one’s comfortable complacency to do so. Indeed, acknowledgement is the most important step in righting wrongs.

Restitution of wrong is an ancient Germanic tradition (c.f. the practice of weregild); many of those who mourn the loss of the old ways in one breath want to deny the responsibilities these old ways impress on them in the next breath.

Such individuals therefore misuse the word ‘Heathen’ when they apply it to themselves. Hypocrite is more on the mark.

As I say, I take the views of groups like Primordial seriously and in many respects empathise and agree. But ultimately we need to recognise that even in the loss of our heritage we whiteys haven’t really had it all that bad (well, the Irish have copped much more than most European peoples and I certainly acknowledge that aspect of Primordial’s perspective).

We need to stop wallowing in negativity and paranoia and blaming everyone else and get on with building a positive culture of hope.

Part of that process might include acknowledging the problems of the world, even the problems facing us specifically – but it has to be done in a way that inspires or transforms, not mires us in hopelessness, paranoia, or xenophobia (all of which are traits we have inherited from dualist monotheism and which are alien to the Heathenries of old).

Ok, rant off. Hope you enjoy reading my little report….

What Was The Forced Removal of Aboriginal Children?

It was a systematic attempt, made by State and Federal Australian Governments, to destroy so called ‘full blood’ Aboriginals and to quench Aboriginal languages and cultures.

The idea was to remove any children of mixed ancestry and intermix them into white society until their Aboriginal heritage became dilute and dissolved over generations. The thinly-veiled hope was that “full blooded” aboriginals would die out naturally (poisonous imperialist-political appropriation of evolutionary theory).

Between 1910 and 1970 10-30% of all Aboriginal children were forcibly removed without warning from their families on the basis of their skin colour – not because of any kind of genuine welfare issue or need (Dow, 2008).

They were placed in work camps and foster homes (often with a thin veneer of Catholic or Christian charity) where the treatment often severe or arbitrary. They were often shunted from one place to another without warning, explanation or consultation. Much of the work they had to do was unpaid – that is, slave labour.

Estimates vary according to source and methodology but we can pretty safely say that at least 25% of all children removed in this fashion faced physical or sexual abuse from their supposed carers.

Importantly, rates of indigenous child removal from families are still many times the national average and it is hard to believe that racism is not still a contributing factor to this, above and beyond genuine welfare issues (Reconciliation Australia, 2009). It certainly reflects the intergenerational consequences of the forced child removal policis.

Much of this was first systematically revealed in Bringing Them Home (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission/Australian Human Rights Commission 1997), a Federal Government inquiry which received hundreds of submissions documenting untold human suffering and injustice.

The report popularised the term stolen generations in reference to the aboriginal children removed from their birth families.

Among its recommendations was advice that the Australian Government should offer an apology for its legislated acts against indigenous Australians.

Incidentally, former Prime Minister John Howard refused to apologise because he thought the current generation of Australians should not have to apologise for the actions of previous generations. Yet many Australians involved in the removals are still alive and more importantly indigenous Australians are still living out the consequences as fresh wounds – so his argument seems very weak.

Because so much is said about indigenous Australians, and so little energy has been spent listening to or acknowledging their experiences, I have attempted to use their own words to elucidate this presentation.

(All quotes taken from Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission/Australian Human Rights Commission, 1997 or Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission/Australian Human Rights Commission, 2007).

Consequences of Systematic Forced Removal

There’s still a lot of unresolved issues within me. One of the biggest ones is that I cannot really love anyone no more. I’m sick of being hurt. Every time I used to get close to anyone they were just taken away from me. The other fact is, if I did meet someone, I don’t want to have children, cos I’m frightened the welfare system would come back and take my children.
(Confidential evidence 528, New South Wales)

Relationships – we know that adoption runs best when the child is transplanted into a new environment that is secure and offers good opportunities for strong attachment development – hence the rigorous screening of potentially adoptive parents (Leon, 2002).

Forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their families involved them being shunted from place to place, abandoned to institutions or white foster parents that may have often been unfeeling or abusive. Having already lost their families, they then could not rely on having anyone else in their lives for very long – if indeed they could find any positive care-givers once they had been removed from their families.

As such they were treated in about as traumatising a way as possible for adoptees – their primary caregivers were taken from them (which is awful enough by itself) with uncertain possibility of finding a substitute securely attached care-giver. It is no surprise that there are significant negative personal and inter-personal consequences caused by these experiences.

Personal Consequences

I still to this day go through stages of depression. Not that I’ve ever taken anything for it – except alcohol. I didn’t drink for a long time. But when I drink a lot it comes back to me. I end up kind of cracking up.
(Confidential evidence 529, New South Wales)

Given the massive disruption and loss of attachment formation for these children, and the severe grief that goes with such wounds, it is not surprising that rates of mental illness and drug abuse are so high in Aboriginal groups. An individual’s abilities to form trusting relationships or have any kind of positive outlook on life would be severely impaired by these experiences.

We can imagine that these peoples’ experiences would leave them with very high baseline anxiety due to the fact that terrible things actually could and did happen at any moment. One is reminded of the concept of learned helplessness (Seligman & Maier, 1967) in this phenomenon.

Without understanding and support, and with their trust betrayed so frequently, it is no surprise that some Aboriginal people would struggle to seek help for their suffering.

And every time you come back in it doesn’t bother you because you’re used to it and you see the same faces. It’s like you never left, you know, in the end.
(Confidential evidence 204, Victoria)

Another significant pattern is that the more exposure to forced removal in personal and family histories, the more institutionalisation Aboriginal people are subsequently vulnerable to. Beaten down by abuse, loss and fear, they are thrust into a vicious downward spiral of despair and punitive control – hence the emotive and ongoing issue of the high rate of Aboriginal imprisonment and deaths/suicides in custody.

Inter-generational Consequences

When we left Port Augusta, when they took us away, we could only talk Aboriginal. We only knew one language and when we went down there, well we had to communicate somehow. Anyway, when I come back I couldn’t even speak my own language. And that really buggered my identity up. It took me 40 odd years before I became a man in my own people’s eyes, through Aboriginal law. Whereas I should’ve went through that when I was about 12 years of age.
(Confidential evidence 179, South Australia)

When it was originally commenced, the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their original families was explicitly justified in terms of destroying their entire cultures and race.

Government and religious/charitable agencies – no matter whether their intentions were good or not – systematically stamped out the stolen generations’ connections to their ancestral languages, beliefs, cultures and practices.

In terms of international law the Australian and State Governments, as well as the adjunct private agencies, were committing genocide and did so for sixty years. The consequent losses are dizzyingly incalculable on an individual level.

I have a problem with smacking kids. I won’t smack them. I won’t control them. I’m just scared of everything about myself. I just don’t know how to be a proper parent sometimes. I can never say no, because I think they’re going to hate me. I remember hating [my foster mother] so I never want the kids to hate me. I try to be perfect.
(Confidential evidence 529, New South Wales)

Having lost their true parents at a young age and being raised in institutional environments, many of those in the stolen generations had little experience of being parented. Without role-models, expectations or their own experiences of being parented to guide them they are left with unique challenges when presented with the task of raising their own children.

This in turn leaves them more vulnerable to the removal of their children for welfare reasons, which opens further layers of inter-generational disconnection, grief, loss and suffering. Even those born after the official end of forced-removal policies are forced to live out and face down the legacy of what was done to their parents and other family members.

Of course, the damage cuts both ways – the families who lost their young being wounded both personally and in terms of their social fabric.

Social Consequences

I felt like a stranger in Ernabella, a stranger in my father’s people. We had no identity with the land, no identity with a certain people. I’ve decided in the last 10, 11 years to, y’know, I went through the law. I’ve been learning culture and learning everything that goes with it because I felt, growing up, that I wasn’t really a blackfella. You hear whitefellas tell you you’re a blackfella. But blackfellas tell you you’re a whitefella. So, you’re caught in a half-caste world.
(Confidential evidence 289, South Australia)

Although the feeling of not belonging can occur in most adoption scenarios (Leon, 2002), for Aboriginal people the dilemma is particularly severe. They were put in the position of never truly being able to be accepted as white due to their skin colour, but were so dislocated from their culture of birth that they could not return.

This rootlessness and social alienation is a damaging existential wound which is difficult to quantify. Perhaps we can get some small insight into it with this thought experiment: imagine waking up every morning, looking in the mirror, and not being sure whether the person looking back at you is familiar or a total stranger. Imagine living that for the rest of your life.

I didn’t know any Aboriginal people at all – none at all. I was placed in a white family and I was just – I was white. I never knew, I never accepted myself to being a black person until – I don’t know – I don’t know if you ever really do accept yourself as being … How can you be proud of being Aboriginal after all the humiliation and the anger and the hatred you have? It’s unbelievable how much you can hold inside.
(Confidential evidence 152, Victoria)

Another significant social dimension of the removal is exposure to racism – both from white people but also internalised negative self-attitudes. Imagine being told your whole life that you must efface everything you are in order to become something that you will never quite be allowed to be!

The complexities of despair, pain, anger, hurt and guilt become written across the social context in the form of both internalised racism and of being a victim of racism.

Today many people dismiss Aboriginal peoples’ worth, judging them negatively because of the serious dysfunction in their communities. It is worth asking – with personal and cultural biographies like these would anyone cope any better? Unlikely.

Judging such folk for their perceived failings is terribly hypocritical, yet those affected by these forced removals might face such judgements every day of their lives, both from others and perhaps from themselves.

The Future?

Actually what you see in a lot of us is the shell, and I believe as an Aboriginal person that everything is inside of me to heal me if I know how to use it, if I know how to maintain it, if I know how to bring out and use it. But sometimes the past is just too hard to look at.Confidential evidence 284, South Australia).

As with any therapeutic endeavour, what ultimately matters is our willingness to have faith in those we work with regardless of how hopeless it all seems (Miller, Duncan and Hubble, 1997). This may take a lot of compassion, patience and care with the issues I have here discussed.

We have had two centuries of White Australia inflicting misery and failure on Aboriginal Australia by imposing and telling rather than consulting and listening, and this has played out dramatically in the case of the forced removal of aboriginal children. This has to change: one definition of insanity is doing the same failed action over and over and expecting it to yield different results.

References

Dow, C. (2008) ‘Sorry’: the unfinished business of the Bringing Them Home report (Australian Parliamentary Library Background Note). Retrieved 7 April 2009 from http://www.aph.gov.au/Library/pubs/BN/2007-08/BringingThemHomeReport.htm

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission/Australian Human Rights Commission (1997) Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. Retrieved online 7 April 2009 from http://www.hreoc.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/report/index.html

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission/Australian Human Rights Commission (2007) The Effects Across Generations. Retrieved 7 April 2009 from http://www.hreoc.gov.au/education/bth/download/effects_resource.pdf

Leon, I. G. (2002) Adoption Losses: Naturally occurring or socially constructed. Child Development, 73 (2), 652-663.

Miller, S., Duncan, B. & Hubble, M., (1997) Escape from Babel: Toward a Unifying Language for Psychotherapy Practice (Norton Professional Books). Norton: New York.

Reconciliation Australia, Sorry FAQ. Retrieved 7 April 2009 from http://www.reconcile.org.au/getsmart/pages/sorry/sorry–faq.php.

Seligman, M.E.P. and Maier, S.F. (1967). Failure to escape traumatic shock. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 74, 1–9.

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Grimmnomancy

Right: news, sales spiels and housecleaning aside, its time for more on my Chaos Heathen adventures…

Grimms’ fairy tales. Clint gave me a marvellous hard bound copy of this strange treasure trove when we met up recently (thanks Clint)! I read the whole damn thing years ago but at the time – well I just didn’t get what the fuss was about.

Many of the tales are just rearrangements of the same elements, many of the characters and scenes have become hopeless clichés. Is this, I wondered, really a useful or relevant link between modern times and arch-Heathen times?

I used to think a lot of rubbish when I was younger (not that I’m exactly old or crusty as someone about to turn 29 … I hope).

I’ve come to realise that this book can be used for divination, depth psychological exploration, inspiration (and article of mine for the next issue of Hex is inspired by a Grimm tale), operant magic, and they even shed fascinating light on the more ‘authentic’ old school Heathen myths.

You can probably think of another 50 or so uses if you like. Given the magical connection I have with Clint it seemed only right to set his gift to magical purposes.

Let’s say I do a divination experiment right now with this hidden trove of collective unconscious-soaked imagery.

Here’s a question I have: a relative has recently received a potentially very dangerous medical diagnosis. When the possibility of this diagnosis was first raised I threw some runes.

They specified the precise physical location of the problem, predicted that the treatment would be a shock to my relative’s system, but that robust health was in store for the future.

Confirmatory lots indicated the importance of keeping busy and not getting lost in ‘why me’ sorts of self-pity.

Ok, so the reading so far has been very accurate – it predicted which way the diagnosis would go and where the problem would be (there were several possibilities). Its prediction on the treatment to be adopted looks also to be confirmed though we will not know until Monday.

If random assignment of ancient squiggles can ever be called a reliable basis for future prediction then this reading seems to be doing well so far and provides an adequate point of reference for our experiment in Grimm bibliomancy. Here’s how it works.

First, I dwell in my mind on the images associated with the outcome of this situation, on my relative, on the feelings of care and fear the situation evokes in me, on the medical paperwork generated thus far, on the various possibilities for what might come next. I try to dissolve myself into this pool of imagery and emotion.

Then I open my copy of the fairy tales at a random page. The King’s Son Who Feared Nothing. A story with a recurring motif of a courageous hero whose faithful allies are able to cure him of all ills with the Water of Life.

Freely associating this water that the king’s son’s lion companion draws from a magical well (Mimisbrunnr? Urdabrunnr?) I am drawn to thinking about wyrd.

My relative’s wyrd will save them. Their medical orlog – their health – is good; and they have good helpers. There may be pain or suffering but nothing that cannot be salved and healed. Indeed, they might in some fashion become stronger for the struggle.

As in the story, it seems to me the treatment will be swift and successful, though it may need several applications for full success unfortunately.

Confluent with my reading is the emphasis on a strong, positive mindset, an unwillingness to be defeated – this seems to be important.

A reading like this is difficult to do objectively of course, because the subject matter is so close to home. But the motif of overcoming sickness or injury in this story is unambiguous, even if there is some struggle involved as well.

Perhaps not the best possible future prediction with the repetition of treatment… but it could be a lot worse.

So there you have the basics of Grimm divination, if presented in a rather simplistic way. Many of the elements in this story seem to tap into elder mythology – trickster giants, arm bands that bring strength, animal familiars coming to the rescue, and an ordeal in which for three nights the hero is beaten by goblins and three times healed.

There is an apple from a magical garden (Idunna’s garden perhaps?), and the motif of a weaker man sending a stronger man as his emissary for some task necessary for the winning of his bride (consider Siegfried and Brunhilde).

There’s even a sleeping beauty variation in the story, with the princess in a dilapidated castle (it is for her that the king’ son must endure the nights of goblin violence).

Crossing to alchemical thinking for a moment, the king’s son is an important alchemical figure, the heroic deed-doer who is able to shatter stagnation but who must die his own death in order to enter dissolution and rebirth as a divine king.

Here we can dream into his captive princess as the feminine aspects of the world with which the masculine must embrace in union. She in turn is the key to a kingdom, so through their union she is healed and restored to power and he is transfigured from energetic but callow youth into wise and noble leader. Each guides the other into their destiny.

Do these metaphors mean anything? As I find myself writing I see myself, people I know, reflected in them. I find myself realising that this bit of bibliomancy is far from finished when the original question is answered. I see invitations of resolve, hope, healing, or shadow echoing out from the tale into the figures around me.

All that it takes is a little imagination, the willingness to suspend control over your mind and instead submit to its rumination. The technique is simple – whatever comes to mind, take it as significant, meaningful, not random. “One word led to another word.”

One of the great things about doing divination with Grimm’s fairy tales is that you have so much material to work with! Let’s say you are using 16 or 24 runes, or even a tarot deck. This book has two hundred and eleven stories and you could easily draw on several to weave together a reading.

The lateral connection between them might offer insights that you could not have gleaned from just one story on its own. This works with runes and tarot, right, so why not old Germanic fairy tales, loaded as they are with mythic resonance (like birches and their endless secrets).

What about psychological exploration? Well it is the same principle really! In a sense psychological exploration is a lateral, synchronistic process. Pick an element. Tug loose a thread or two, dive in.

The more grounded you are in Germanic mythology and history you are the more easily you’ll latch onto associations. This is just another reason why grounding yourself in historical and mythological lore is so helpful.

The fact is, these corpuses, these texts are so steeped in memory. We’d be daft to pass up such rich and inviting resources, we’d be daft not to gaze at our reflections in these wells.

I find that, reading these tales, a silence, as though the world had just been born or is holding its breath before bursting into being, comes over me. Sometimes when I’ve been working as a therapist and a profound shift occurred for the client there has been this sort of moment and feeling.

But maybe psychotherapy isn’t always all its cracked up to be if the same atmosphere can rise forth from a few pages of hackneyed folk tales. Well of course everything has its place. What matters is whether the wells of our spirits are open and whether we are drinking from the underworld’s dangerous but generously offered bounties.

Grimm’s tales and operant magic? You could use a story as a sigil, recite it with building passion to a fevered, seething pitch (perfect for launching an intention). You could construct a spirit servitor and bind it to the reading of a story.

You could use a story as the basis for a visualised adventure which incorporates seeding of magical intentions into wyrd. You could use fragments of the stories as magical rhymes, mantras to trip out on, themes to spring-board yourself into introspective trances.

But don’t let my limited ideas stop you from coming up with something better! I rather hope that folk will be inspired to try out a bit of Grimmnomancy and leave some comments on this post documenting their efforts. The stories are public domain so you can find them on the net easily if you don’t own a hard copy of the book.

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Chaos, Wyrd, and the Left Hand Path

Magick is black

Reason is white

Thus magick’s unseen

It’s nature’s to hide


Introduction:

“No-Thing is true. Everything is trance-mitted.” The Fool of the Sacred Chao

My name is Matt Anon. I’m a Chaos Mystic and Left-Hand Path initiate (for my take on the LHP, see below), who studies Chaos Magick, Galdor and esoteric Runology within the broader philosophy of Chaos Heathenism. The aim of my magick is encoded in my name, beside the desire to fall in love with divine mystery :ᚱᚢᚾᚨ: and to reawaken the ancient wisdom in my Soul. I’m attracted by the conception of a Perennial Philosophy that appeared under different guises independent of epoch or culture and seek to understand its eternal mysteries. One of the maps of special interest to me that represents an expression of that perennial wisdom is the Runic tradition as it manifested in the cosmological and magico-mystical structures of Northern European spirituality. I’ve been interested in ecstatic experiences and inspired and altered states of consciousness since my youth. I hold many wyrd beliefs that are subject to change on my journeys along the pathways that lead down, around and up the Tree. That’s why I believe that beliefs and all dualities are fetters to be loosened (the mystic’s aim) or played with (the magician’s game), rather than unchangable dogmas set in stone. Two major influences are to be named that initially got me into the Northern Mysteries: Fire + Ice and True Helm.

I explore the Runic Mysteries by emulating the divine archetype of the Rune-Master Óðinn, who is seen as a mythical role model for spiritual development. But I would look at all philosophical, metaphysical and magical worldviews not as a reality, but recognize them “as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth.” (RAW). That’s why I combine different approaches and techniques of sorcery and mysticism (= magick) to my own Self-Empowerment and explore the mysteries of consciousness and nature.

Though I began experimenting and toying around with magick as a teenager (often intoxicated by shroooooms), my more serious and structured involvement with magick began in my early 20’s (see for my magickal background here). Having gone through all kinds of phases and systems, beliefs and dogmas (though for many years my main focus has been Crowley’s system of Thelemic Magick), ‘enlightenments’ and delusions, I stopped looking for an occult system that ‘explains’ everything and deludes the seeker that the inexplicable could be presented in a ‘step-by-step’-system to enlightenment. After all I came to ponder about the chaosmagickal saying: ‘Nothing is True, Everything is Permittes’. Nevertheless I’m against a postmodern (POMO) relativism with its “Anything-goes”- triviality. This is, perhaps, my only real criticism of the Chaos Magick Current (though also here we begin to hear diverse voices). Once I heard clearly “das Raunen der Runen” (the whispering of the Runes), I turned my face towards the North. In this regard I take the reconstruction of the Runic Tradition very seriously & do not think that it’s just another “paradigm” for the “paradigm pirate” to “exploit”. Such a person will never grasp the profundity of the Runes – especially, when one considers that Runa can never be fully grasped (I am deeply indebted for the concept of Runa to Edred Thorsson). What I liked about the term “Chaos Heathen” that Henry’s genius gave birth to, is that in Chaos Heathenism there are no members, there are no gurus, there are no systems and there are no dogmas. There is only you, you & Runa – the eternal & sacred Dance of Consciousness & Mystery. For the Runic Quest to begin, some essential qualities are required like a thirst for knowledge, a longing for something that is hard to define (probably what deRopp called “the Will to Power”, “the Will to Meaning” & “the Will to Transcendence”), a strong self (not what common man calls ego), courage and, certainly, humour – just to name a few. But the nature of collaboration or participation in chaos Heathenism, as far as I understand it, is defined by every individual herself. In this way, I’d like to begin this journal by exploring some concepts & ideas I came across since I got into magick. Though in magick nothing ever remains the same (hey, it’s the same with life, isn’t it?) I hope that in this way I can demonstrate how I approach “the lonely path where waits the eight-legged steed” (Fire + Ice / Ian Read).

Chaos:

Chaos defines, in many ways, my approach to sorcery. I am deeply indebted for the elaboration of the meta-system of chaos magic(k) made by Pete Carrol and the magicians who developed his ideas to present us an approach to sorcery that is authentic, individualistic, result-orientated and compatible with a world that has gone mad. However, it must be said that the Chaos approach was not invented by the chaos magicians themselves, but was there, hidden and applied and made visible for the first time in the Zos Kia Cultus of the artist and sorcerer Austin Osman Spare. But it was the Illuminates of Thanateros who took on the sparks of this flame and made a huge fire of it that burnt down most – if not all – assumptions of western magic(k), and thus created a tour de force, which changed the underworld of western occultism forever.

Chaos for me means that magick has no form, that the nature of the multiverse is unpredictable, that its behaviour is chaotic, that rules and “laws” are invented by the human hardware, the brain, for making sense out of information that is by its very nature inconsistent. The Chaos approach gives us the opportunity to look at different systems of magic(k) as arbitrary, children of their time and culture, and possible models rather than fixed ones that often can be limiting to one’s transpersonal vision of sorcery. Therefore it encourages the individual sorcerer to explore different perspectives and applications of doing sorcery and developing her own system of magick rather than following the worn-out paths of others. Thus Chaos becomes the major tool to look at various schools of magic(k) and to choose those elements that are appealing to the sorcerer and that work for her. However, to my mind this is – as paradoxical as it may sound – also the great weakness of the Chaos approach. In a way, the traditional assumption that everything must be kept in balance is, once again, also true in this case. By concluding that every traditional system of magick uses an arbitrary classification, we blank out the fact that the traditional ways of thinking are ancient & have been in use over hundreds of generations. They reflect what Carl Gustav Jung has called the Collective Unconscious. Individualistic approaches to sorcery are useful, but an Alphabet of Desire will never achieve what a system like the Elder Futhark can bring forth & reveal (I suppose).

Order:


Chaos is not my aim, it is my primal condition. Basically, the human being is a multiplicity of selves, a morass of chaos, “a ‘schizophrenic’ identifying in one moment with a dominant thought, emotion or sensation that wears the mantle of self, just to be pushed aside by some other ‘I’ in an equally mechanical and accidental manner” (see Robert S. deRopp: The Master Game). Thus it must be the first aim of the sorcerer to make her willed order out of this chaotic condition, to create a Magnetic Centre, to create a “soul”, as it were. Though the Chaos approach is very useful, I practice no apotheosis of Chaos. But also, Chaos is not a condition that has to be overcome, but which must be controlled to an extent that enables the sorcerer to exercise her will upon the multiverse. However, Chaos is necessary and can never be controlled completely, which is not desirable anyway. Chaos and Order must maintain their inherent moment of tension. A universe which is fully controlled, from which Chaos is abolished, is dead. In a universe where order is absent, intentional action is impossible. That’s why the intelligent sorcerer looks – as in every area of her life – for a harmonious balance. Chaos and Order are two polarities from which existence, as we know it, emerges.

Left-Hand Path:

I personally see myself going beyond the Right-Hand Path & the Left-Hand Path divide, at least as its modern, neo-satanic version is concerned. However, as the idea of the LHP has been such an important philosophical thread on my magickal path, I want to discuss it here. Genesis P-Orridge once said something about “the Path of No Distinction”. This, of course, is a Tantric idea. And Tantra is a good starting point to bring clear light into such a confused darkness, because, at its heart, the concept of the LHP developed in the context of Tantra. We should look there first to find some answers. So, I hear you ask, what is Tantra? I have two good excerpts I want to quote that explain Tantra very clearly:

“Tantra is … an attempt to place kama, desire, in every sense of the word, in the service of liberation… not to sacrifice this world for liberation’s sake, but to reinstate it, in varying ways, within the perspective of salvation. This use of kama and of all aspects of this world to gain both worldly and supernatural enjoyments (bhukti) and powers (siddhis), and to obtain liberation in this life (jivanmukti), implies a particular attitude on the part of the Tantric adept toward cosmos, whereby he feels integrated within an all-embracing system of micro-macrocosmic correlations.” (“Tantrism”, Andre Padoux, in: Encyclopedia of Religion”, edited by Mircea Eliade, Macmillan, New York, 1986, Vol. 14, pp. 272 – 76.)

David White adds: “Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices which, working from the principle that the universe we experience is nothing other than the concrete manifestation of the divine energy of the godhead that creates and maintains the universe, seeking to ritually appropriate and channel that energy, within the human microcosmos, in creative and emancipatory ways.” (David Gordon White (ed.) 2000: Tantra in Practice, Princeton University Press, p. 9)

So, for those of you who thought that Tantra is some kind of “sex religion” – sorry, this isn’t the case. In India the LHP-Tantrika uses unorthodox, transgressive means to achieve bhukti, siddhis and jivanmukti. She cuts her bindings from consensus reality and thus liberates the enlightened nature of her limitless consciousness. She transcends the limitations of the “socially constructed reality”, of the society and culture she lives in. By this she often works with behaviours, symbols, ideas and things that appear abominable to her identity and that are tabooed in her culture. Thus sex, death, drugs and madness become methods of transforming mundane consciousness into a state of enlightenment. Because everything is One, part of the same divine source whose nature is limitless consciousness, there is nothing to fear or to be rejected. Thus the Tantrika is freed from the delusion of separateness and embraces all existence, including her body and the material world. Because in India the left hand is used to do “unclean” things, this path to liberation has been called the Left-Hand Path. Nevertheless it is presumed by spiritual scholars that both paths, the Right-Hand Patt and the Left-Hand Path, lead to enlightenment. Not so in the Western conception of RHP and LHP in modern times. Here the basic idea is that every system of religion, mysticism and magic(k) that belongs to the RHP ultimately leads to dissolution, the Unio Mystica or the absorption of personal consciousness into godhood. Contrary to this popular conception the LHP magician initiates a process that is known as Self-Deification. Rather than dissolving into God (or Buddhahood) by confronting the abyss of existence/non-existence, the LHP magician tries to resist the urge to be absorbed and chooses to separate her psyche from the “objective” universe & to “create a self-aware, individual, enlightened, immortal and semi-divine entity” out of her “subjective” consciousness (see Ross G. H. Shott: The Dark Arts of Immortality). To my mind, this way of defining the spiritual journey (called Setianism, developed by Michael Aquino, founder of the Temple of Set) is short-sighted and rather an intellectual affair. I think the urge is rather stronger to be not absorbed and to maintain a kind of an ego. Please keep in mind that the whole discussion about separation (LHP) & annihilation (RHP) is a neo-satanic fantasy! Buddha once said something to the effect that what looks like annihilation to the outsider, is innermost bliss & enlightenment to the meditator. And this is the point: what modern Western LHP philosophy doesn’t seem to get is the mystical insight that it’s not just an either/or option of preservation or annihilation of self, but about the simultaneity of being self & nonself, the irrational moment of the Coincidentia Oppositorum – the paradox of Oneness. Fuck Hegel, when he mocks that the Coincidentia Oppositorum is“the night, when all cows are black”! Because this is the point, where the otherwise very useful tools of logic, rationality & the intellect collapse. Here language fails or becomes mystical poetry (thus not being an expression of logic anymore). So basically, my scepticism concerning these modern LHP conceptions comes from the fact that trying to preserve one’s ego is born out of fear and “denies thousands of years of meditative experience” (Sweyn Plowright). Eight seconds spent in Samadhi and such philosophical constructions would be burned in the inmost flame of uttermost ecstasy! The whole question of this appears so important to me, because the way one perceives the Sacred Self (or True Self) determines one’s interpretation of what happened with Odhinn at his Yggdrasil Ordeal, where he sacrificed himself to himSelf – expressed in his enigmatic words: sjálf sjálfum mér (myself to myself).

However, one can identify certain threads that can be found in both definitions of the LHP. First of all, there is the rejection of the common values of morality. The Left-Hand Path sorcerer deconditions herself from the cultural fiction she was brought up with – the cultural memes, as it were. Of course this doesn’t lead to an aversion of the values of one’s own culture. Because choosing to be anti-cultural would just mean to submit to a form of control and herd conditioning as well. The core idea here is to break inner taboos, to confront oneself with inner fears, disgusts, dislikes, repulsions etc. and to free oneself from self-imposed limitations of one’s identity (a form of Ego Magic in chaospeak; Ego Magic is about change, not about maintaining the ego like in neo-satanic philosophy). Thus a more authentic, flexible, fluid and free state of Self-consciousness can be reached. This procedure has been called antinomianism in the Western LHP tradition. This should lead to a rejection of dogmatism in general, which enables the sorcerer to question the “truths” of any magic(k)al ‘tradition’ and any route or map that pretends to show the entire path towards perfection. This leads to the second point of a genuine LHP sorcerer from my point of view: the developing of one’s own system of sorcery. (Don Webb in his witty book about the Setian path, Uncle Setnakt’s Essential Guide to the Left-Hand Path, stresses the point that one should first master a Traditional system of magick, before one attempts to create one’s own system. To my mind, this makes sense.) The sources for this process have been given to us by Austin Osman Spare and chaos magick writers. Further the LHP sorcerer doesn’t fall into the trap of denying their own ego, body and the material world. All of these are tools to power and fulfilment. LHP sorcerers don’t deny this world, they embrace it! LHP sorcerers realize that every individual has to follow her own path, her own unique explorations of what is possible for the body/mind/spirit trinity, without being dependent upon any person or system. Finally it must be add that sorcerers on the LHP are not interested in the “common good”, “God”, the “state” or any other abstract idea that submits the individual to some “higher purpose”. In the first place the LHP sorcerer strives for Self-Empowerment and her own enlightenment.

I think all those ideas describing a LHP sorcerer could also apply to a Chaos Heathen or be applied by a Chaos Heathen to her own ends, though, when I consider this thoroughly, what could be not applied by a Chaos Heathen? So, if one wants to preserve the idea of the LHP in Chaos Heathenism or apply it in that context, the best definition of the LHP to me would be that one does not follow anyone or any fixed routes to enlightenment, but rather that one follows one’s own path. The Chaotick Path makes more sense.

Magick & Wyrd:

Ceremonial Magic(k), also the one with Crowley’s ‘k’, has been associated for a very long time with so-called ‘High Magic’, which suggests that there’s some kind of ‘Lower Magic’. In the late 19th & early 20th century this meant that High Magic strives towards spiritual aims, whilst Lower Magic was orientated towards material results, basically sorcery of the rural population – folk magic (see Phil Hine: Condensed Chaos). The divisions between matter/spirit appear as utter nonsense in the face of modern neurology, or even neurotheology. This is one of the reasons why I came to reject Ceremonial Magic(k) & turned towards Chaos & Rune Magic(k). Such dualistic conceptions, like High & Low Magic, are rooted in Platonic Idealism, which were perpetuated by the monotheistic cults, from which they entered the ideological superstructure of modern occultism with its pretentious obscurantism and pompous, ego-blown ritualism. I wholeheartedly reject such short-sighted, body- and world-denying dualisms.

Magick, as Dave Lee has demonstrated in his wonderful & brilliant book Chaotopia!, includes three things:

1) making things happen to consensus reality (sorcery),

2) making things happen to one’s own consciousness according to will (self-transformation) and

3) experiencing higher states of consciousness, often leading to unitary consciousness (mysticism). In the first case (sorcery) we manifest results in Midgard or, to put it simply, in the material world. In the second case (self-transformation) we change the world of our subjective experience, which is the only way we can experience reality in the end anyway.

Self-Transformation (making things happen to consciousness) often leads to mysticism (see Dave Lee: Chaotopia!). This process (mystical experience) cannot be easily recognized by others as a result in Midgard, probably that’s why it has been excluded from chaos magick – a drawback Dave Lee corrects in Chaotopia!. In the final analysis, magick is a sublime art, and either the results of a working are ‘material’ in its plain sense or they remain – for the sceptic – subjective. The reason why I want to include “chaos-mystical”(Dave Lee) operations into the concept of magick (freed from its Low/High magic divide) has wide-ranging philosophical implications that stem from my vision of the world. This vision is holistic, animistic, & mystical – suspending the immanence/transcendence divide. Here the idea of Wyrd is very useful, which I sometimes refer to as The Net of Power. This multivalent term is reflected in Indo-European mythology of Indra’s Web and, most importantly, in Teutonic sorcery in the idea of Wyrd and the myth of the Three Norns. “Wyrd can be translated as ‘Coming Into Being’. Wyrd is imagined as a tapestry woven by the three Norns, called Urd, Verdandi and Skuld, representing an interconnected ‘fabric’ underlying all events that is manifest in every shape. Urd – still resonating in the German syllable Ur – suggests the primal or ancient and stands for the unseen influences underlying an event. It is the unmanifest potential, wherein all possibilities exist. Skuld means ‘should’ – that, what should happen if all progresses without interference” (see Sweyn Plowright: True Helm). But here we can see the wisdom of the Germanic peoples of old: Skuld is not a deterministic future, like the idea of fate in Christian conceptions of time, but is one that can be influenced, that is changeable and open to ‘chance’. “Verdandi is the process of ‘Coming Into Being’, that which is becoming or manifesting, the present moment, which we perceive as the manifest world” (Sweyn Plowright: True Helm). The sorcerer empowers herself by realizing that this vast Net of Power exists. Dr. Hyatt has described this concept in a non-Germanic context as “a web of gigantic sets of interwoven neocid-correlation matrices where one tiny push in the right place causes an entire field to collapse” (see Christopher Hyatt: The Psychopath’s Bible). We pull an entire system of symbolic signs and correspondences over this Net of Power(or we can say, the system emerges from the Net), which builds up our magickal “psychocosm” (Phil Hine). This enables us to manipulate the Net, or our Wyrd,according to our congruent Will. Thus chaos Heathen sorcerers empowerthemselves to make their innermost dreams, desires, visions and their quest for wisdom flesh. Hence the definition of magick has been often described as the pursuit of power.

References:

– CHAOTOPIA! – Sorcery and Ecstasy in the Fifth Aeon, Dave Lee

– THE MASTER GAME – Pathways to Higher Consciousness, Robert S. De Ropp

– TRUE HELM – A Practical Guide to Nothern Warriorship, Sweyn Plowright

– THE PSYCHOPATH’S BIBLE – For the Extreme Individual, Dr. Christopher Hyatt with Dr. Jack Willis

– THE DARK ARTS OF IMMORTALITY: Transformation through War, Sex, & Magic,
Ross G. H. Shott

CONDENSED CHAOS – An Introduction to Chaos Magic, Phil Hine

Edred Thorsson’s Radio Free Runa talks at: http://edred.net/community/

The band Fire + Ice, especially the albums: RUNA & BIRDKING

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Fearless Honesty

fearlesshonestyimage1Before all that necromantic chaos erupted I was using this blog to explore the notion of fear in my life. And I had concluded that in addition to my patron Woden I needed some other kind of help – for example, from Frey, the Worldly God.

I’ve been doing a bit of reading, and Frey is a fascinating character. The comments made here are mostly based in historical evidence though I’ve extrapolated from the sources in some cases (and resorted to blatant speculation in others).

In some sources he is presented as the chief god; and he is the ancestor of at least one royal dynasty. One of the Vanir, he rules over fertility, peace, growth, and organic strength.

Frey is also arguably a god of the sea, being the captain of Skidbladnir, a ship which he can fold up and put into his pocket. And his boar Gullinborsti draws his chariot freely over water and sky, as well as being a potent symbol of new life and fertility in his own right.

As a god therefore of the land, the sea and the sky Frey seems to rule over the three-fold order of the becoming of aletheia in Martin Heidegger’s philosophy; he seems to be the Lord of our fundamental embeddedness within and reverence for the world.

No wonder that the arch-heathens called him the Worldly God, for his domain seems to spread over all of being and throughout all out all the infinite relationships that thread being together.

fearlesshonestyimage2Frey is also an incredibly masculine, phallic god – towards all existence he turns his giant and unquenchable cock. His is an unfettered manifestation of eros – his way is that of immense and unending lust for life. Whatever comes before him excites his erection – his thirst for union with all of being can never be slaked. Truly he is a super-abundant god.

It takes incredibly courage and fertility to adopt such an attitude to life. To embrace all that life might bring us is no easy feat – Frey is quite the Nietzschean figure in his intense desire to affirm all that comes before him, no matter how painful, repugnant or rotten. Through his lust he beautifies even the most hideous and wretched. What unspeakable power flows through his veins!

Frey is a god of peace, though it seems he’s a powerful warrior when called for. For the most part, however, his way is that of frith – the fruitful and evolving bounty of right relations between humanity, gods, spirits and the natural cycles. He represents a different kind of masculine power to the cliché of the rigid warrior; his power is deeply peaceful, organic and rich, yet not in the least to be trifled with.

He is a cyclical, seasonal god, who dies but can never really be killed (At least until Ragnarok); who fades away and bursts forth once more with blazing laughter. Who both conquers and submits to the feminine in the world, forming an ecstatic and mutually pleasurable equilibrium with his various female counterparts.

Yet Frey is not just the god of this world. He is also master of Alfheim, which was given to him as a tooth-gift. As the lord of the elves it seems Frey is comfortable as the master of many domains and faces of reality. Here is a primal god of this-worldliness who is also a primal god of other-worldliness!

(As a side point, Frey’s very nature seems to violate the notion that heathen culture can be neatly divided into innangard and utangard, insiders and outsiders).

So with Frey it seems we have a god who can do it all. He is a lover and a fighter; a master of fertility, sexuality, and lust; a ruler of both this world and others. To his eyes, ears, tongue, skin and nose the world must seem endlessly loaded with riches, with abundant wealth even where our limited human perspective sees only misery or emptiness.

In reflecting on Frey I cannot help but ponder the question of whether it is not lust and sexual fire that binds the whole universe together. Nature has a determination and power that is truly awesome: one way or another, the sap always rises. Even in this modern ecological crisis – well perhaps humanity will wipe itself out, but nature will fight on and again flourish I am sure, no matter how dreadful the damage we inflict.

But perhaps we can dream into this metaphysics of sex still further – for what do the stars shine, dark matter sing, planets explode? Perhaps space is not a vast vacuum but rather aglow with the post-coital joy of the big bang.

Given the concertina theory of universal history it seems sooner or later that post-coital bliss will turn to foreplay, cosmic sex, and another big crunch and big bang, over and over. Perhaps this unimaginably vast cosmic orgy is all part and parcel of Frey’s incredible lust for life?

I have had at least one foot in Alfheim all my life, and struggled to be here in this world. I have been calling on Frey to teach me how to embrace this world and this life. Woven through this process has been the act of getting my first tattoos.

The tattoos are cryptographic bind runes. First I took the seed words. I used the aett/rune number coding system (see E. Thorsson’s Runelore) to determine a pattern of branches and then turned them into radial designs – one built on a Hagal shape, one modelled on a Helm of Awe.

The Hagal design spells out the word Honesty; the Helm of Awe design spells out Fearless. This formula – Fearless Honesty – has two aspects, inner and outer.

Within me they are an exhortation to be honest with myself, to take the time to listen to my own emotions and thoughts, my needs and desires. To hold myself with a little reserve so that I do not entirely lose myself in the world around me but retain my grasp on my own perspective and needs.

Beyond me they are an exhortation not to think I can or should hide away; that I can and should bring my whole being to bear on the world around me. That I do not need to compromise my being for the sake of the other person’s equilibrium or what I think they want.

These tattoos have become sentient it seems. Their voices rise up my arms into the back of my head and shove me forward when I am hesitant to be true to their meaning. Or if I slip into an old habitual pattern then I cannot avoid being aware of it, remembering it so that I know to change next time.

They’re harsh task masters, not at all gentle with me, but I need this militant attitude – it is good for me. Sometimes, paradoxically, being true to Fearless Honesty means admitting my fear, worry or uncertainty; sometimes it means not saying everything I could because that is the best way to be true to my internal compass.

Having these deeply personal symbols on my arms, clearly visible, really helps make objective my subjective desire and determination. And people notice them! Since I had them done any number of strangers have been drawn to me, curious, wanting to know what they mean.

Folk see immediately that they’re symbolic, and get very intrigued. It is good magic and gives me yet another opportunity to stand in the world, redeeming my inner and outer natures into the original inter-subjective wholeness of the world (the bridge over which perhaps Frey and Woden hold sway).

Using these bind rune tattoos as magical expressions of my desire has so far proved extremely fruitful; I feel deeply proud of them and in some respects feel more myself than I have in my entire life. It is even better that they’ve gone from being sigils to being conscious beings – I call that animism in action! I have a feeling that eventually I’ll be able to project them to work magic in the world; that’d sure be useful!

Oh, and I realise I’m becoming more attuned to other people too – to their attitudes, to the meaning of their words, to the things they are thinking but not saying but which they unwittingly betray in their non-verbal communication. I’m getting faster in my ability to analyse an understand exchanges where there is subtext and ambiguity.

Of course no tattoo can completely transform you, and I have to keep strong my commitment to these principles – just getting marks put into your skin doesn’t take away the effort that transformation always involves. But that said, in some ways I can now never go back.

Fearless and Honesty have become doors and conduits for this desire of mine to fuse Woden and Frey in my being. Bring it on!

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Necromancy Part Four

necromancypartfourimage1So I’ve been watched by Odin pretty closely these last few days. Everywhere, crows, crows, crows. They follow me like they haven’t for years. Its just ridiculous. And they’re shameless too, sometimes they just sit there, cawing maniacally – then when I move on they just fly right on after me. Shameless, like I say. You’d think they thought I was dead and ready for the munching or something.

Finally on Wednesday I realised I needed to do a séance with that ouija board I received. I’d been sick pretty consistently since Volksfreund and my adventures with the ghosts – it really took it out of me. Plus I’ve been super busy and keeping on top of everything has been a real challenge.

But on Thursday I was booked in to get my first tattoos done and since they’re all about manifesting in Midgard I decided I had to clear the otherworldly or necromantic stuff first, no matter that I still felt pretty lousy on Wednesday.

I get home at about 8.30pm, having been thinking about the séance, the ouija board, all day, focussing my intention on using it. I’m home alone, which is a blessing. I did some research and a lot of people report experiences of mischievous or malignant spirits using ouija boards to harass or scare inexperienced or frivolous seekers. At first I dismissed this as childish fears, but on the other hand some folk I respect hold similar views too.

Well I’m sitting at my computer and it just wont go online. Then I hear strange noises, movement. And I know I’m not alone. There are spirits here, they’ve heard my thoughts about the ouija board.

Before I do anything about them I quickly call Volksfreund to discuss the situation. He agrees there some weird business going on, but he doesn’t think these spirits have anything to do with the Old One or the sacred site spirits. And my instincts concur. He wishes me luck and I get ready to do this thing.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Earlier I showed the board to Volksfreund. We were a bit drunk. He opened the board and bang – this dark vortex opened. I told him to close it right away and he did. So this was coming, this crazy thing. For a week or so.

So when I realise I’m not alone, and that these beings don’t seem all too friendly, something strange happens. Bolts of trembling and electrical fire course through me and I leap up, possessed to the gills by WODANAZ and let out an almighty roar.

I was listening to “River of Fire” from our (Ironwood) album :Fire:Water:Ash:, an Odinnic possession song, and hearing myself on the recording recite the lyrics from Odin’s point of view really quickened the possession. Later I think Volksfreund said the spirits might have also been attracted by the music, I’m not sure if that’s true though.

Then Wodan and I pick up this old toy sword I own and suddenly a whole bunch of threads of wyrd are revealed. This old wooden sword was made for me by my grandfather (the one who left me his pocket watch, see my article on my altar) because as a kid I was obsessed with medieval weapons (hmm, can anyone detect some patterns in my interests?)

Later my father and I painted the sword silver and gold and sharpened the blade. It’s the only toy sword I ever kept; all the others are long gone, but something made me unable to part with it and I’ve carted around from household to household for years, it looking neglected and reproachful.

Well there I am on Wednesday (Woden’s Day) night, this sword in hand, possessed by Woden, and this almost ancestral sword is just about scintillating. Then I grab my rune carver/antique screw driver (again, see my altar journal entry) and carve a Teiwaz rune on the blade.

My mind shoots to of an article I recently read about Daoist ghost hunters, who use enchanted wooden swords, and a comment Volksfreund made about Odinnic-Daoist similarities. It all fits – and as a teenager I loved Hong Kong supernatural martial arts flicks like Mr Vampire!

I know, this is sort of syncretist, but it makes so much sense for my own personal history and nature. And really, I’m not pretending to be a Daoist, it’s just a (fruitful) analogy people! That sword also has a powerful ancestral resonance – how much more Heathen can you get than that?

Well Woden is coming through me and I invoke Elhaz to open a magical space. We set up the ouija board and I use a coin as the indicating device. I’m sitting by my computer to record what comes out. So I tell the spirits (or Woden does) that I’m not to be messed with. Then I ask them their business.

I find I don’t need to spell out whole words. My hand flies to the first letter and then the whole thought of the spirits appears complete in my mind for me. So our exchange is short and sharp. Here is the transcript”:

Me/Woden: Who are you and what is your business.

Them: Don’t you dare threaten us.

Me/Woden: Why not?

Them: We don’t fear you.

Me/Woden: That makes no sense.

Them: Fuck off.

Me/Woden: Why are you here?

Them: Everyone always wants to know that. Yes we know you don’t fear us.

Me/Woden: How many are you?

Them: Four.

Me/Woden: If you have no purpose here then leave.

Them: We have a purpose.

I asked them to state it, because that last thing they said was pretty nasty in tone. They refused to state it and I got sick of being jerked around. So I hit ‘bye’ on the ouija board and invoked Odin again.

That didn’t get rid of them – these buggers were much tougher than the spirits I’m used to dealing with. Then one of them said in a very eerie, threatening tone, “I am the Prince of Lies”.

I burst into laughter at that – did they really think I would take such silliness seriously? I demanded to know what they wanted and forced them to tell me – they had come because they sensed my desire to use the board, in fact they claimed to follow the copies of the album that the board came with and harass anyone who used it. Their only interest was feeding off fear or other emotions. Parasite ghosts you might say.

I drove them back, closed the board, and grabbed the coin. I visualised a sun wheel like a shield radiating from the coin in my closed fist and was shocked to find this produced an intense kinaesthetic and energetic response in my shoulder, arm and hand. In fact I could feel the shield as though it were a part of my body.

necromancypartfourimage2I later offered the coin to a Balinese cat we have that I regard as an effigy of Freya.

Having disoriented these unwanted spirits so, I wandered the house. I felt a really strong ancestral presence, both from my sister and some other female ancestor, this one from my mother’s side I think. That was lovely. They’d come to support me in driving out these very persistent and unwanted spectral interlopers.

Then Odin took me a third time. Staring into a mirror, we had a conversation.

I told him that the next day I would be getting two tattoos, two powerful visual oaths. I asked him to help me with fulfilling my oaths and he promised to do so.

I asked him what this whole psychopomp business was about, in particular about this talk that “arrangements” would be made for me so I could do it all the time, almost like a professional. He replied that there are no arrangements, but that all will be as it must be. He asked me if I understood. I can’t explain what he meant, but I did understand and responded as such.

The ghosts were gathering their strength now and I asked if he could drive them off. He said he could, but he also said that I could defeat them too, even though so far all I’d succeeded in was holding them at bay. He told me to chant Ansuz three times. I did. Then he told me to use that to find the right song to destroy them.

I didn’t know what he meant. Then it came to me, a poem of mine called “The Noose Song”. It’s about (funnily enough) being possessed by Odin. So I recite this song, which induces a powerful ecstatic fury if you do it with aggression and vehemence.

The ghosts were somehow forced into presence – no more hiding – so they attacked! And I slashed them to pieces with my sword. The last one I threw the sword at – and it stopped in flight when it hit the ghost, hung there for a moment in the air, then dropped as though it had collided with something solid as the ghost dissolved. Very weird thing to see I must say!

I called Volksfreund back to check in and let him know how it went. Its good to have a human point of support with this sort of crazy business I am finding. Oh yes, and my computer stopped malfunctioning as soon as the ghosts were gone.

Odin has been around a lot since, in fact I had a really dramatic possession just last night, but it’s all too personal to be writing about here. Sorry folks!

One lesson from this – even if you are focussed solely on working with the Northern Traditions, there are plenty of beings in the world you might encounter who aren’t from that particular idiom. In this case I don’t know what these spirits were, but the fact they thought they could scare me with a Satanic reference tells me that they’d not dealt with Woden before.

No matter how hard a reconstructionist you are, this sort of thing is going to happen – at least potentially – and I think the lesson is not to let one’s ideology or philosophy blind one to what is right in front of one. I might generally choose to work with the northern mythological forces, but I’m not going to ignore other entities just because that isn’t their preferred framework. That’d just be stupid.

What next in this front? I don’t know. The séance was pretty boring really, though hopefully those spirits won’t bother anyone else. And I learned some handy things, too. Plus, it’s always very pleasant to be ridden by my patron. Who knows what wyrd yet holds in store…

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