Tag Archives: Chaos Magick

On magic and miracles and of Beit Shami tradition of Lighting Hanukkah candles

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Recently I learned of Beit Shamai Hanukkah tradition of starting with all eight candles on the first night and going down to one candle on the eighth. The more common Hanukkah tradition follows Beit Hillel – on the first night you light one candle and add another each day so by the eighth day you have all the candles burning in your Hanukkiah (Hanukkah’s special candle holder).

Once I understood the reason for this minhag (custom), it seemed to me the appropriate way for us Chaos Jewitches to celebrate Hanukkah 

To remind you, Hanukkah or the festival of lights is a holiday that is celebrated for eight days, in memory of the victory of the Hasmoneans in the rebellion against the Greeks, the rededication of the Temple, and the miracle of the oil jug. The holiday is marked by the saying of praise as well as the lighting of Hanukkah candles, on the eight days from the 24th Kislev to the 2nd of Tevet.

The Miracle of Hanukkah is an Aggadah (story) depicted in the Babylonian Talmud as one of the reasons for Hanukkah. In the story, the miracle occurred after the liberation of the Temple in Jerusalem during the Maccabean Revolt, and it describes the finding of a jug of pure oil that was just enough to light the lamp for one day, but that then lasted for eight days. 

There are two ways to understand the miracle: 

  1. You can focus on how the miracle power grew day by day, and by night it came to its full potential.
  2. Or, you can argue the opposite: that the magic was at its peak on the first day and by the eighth day its potential was already established in the hearts of all, but no longer visible.

Beit Hillel follows the first argument above, and as far as I know, it is the more common and popular tradition followed by most Jews around the world, celebrating the miracle getting bigger and stronger each day.

Beit Shamai focuses on the potential of the divine miracle and how the magic was much greater on the first day than on the last day. If we replace the word miracle with the word magic, suddenly it seems obvious why Beit Shammai chose to focus on the potential of the power of magic on its first day

This phenomenon, according to Chaos Magic, is described in one word — Gnosis, which is one of a kind and an extremely powerful experience. But as most of us know, the feeling and the memory of it, fade in the days that follow.  Beit Shammai’s Hanukkah tradition also focuses on the gnosis’s full potential or the miracle of the light that shone bright and strong on the first night.

I assume that most of you if you have read this far, do not follow Beit Hillel or Beit Shamai, but rather swim in the fertile waters of Chaos Magic or Chaos Craft Consciousness, and miracles, wonders, magic and sorcery are part of your path. Therefore, this Hanukkah, we would be celebrating by focusing on the divine magical potential for the entire eight days of the holiday. That means, eight candles every day for eight days!

When we focus on the divine potential of magic and its possible power, we are connecting and resonating with energy and information vibrating throughout the cosmological grid of the torus doughnut.

Chaos Monk – An interview with Steve Dee

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Click here to buy Chaos Monk

I am a big fan of Steve’s writing. At first, it was his posts on the Blog of Baphomet that drew my attention to his writing. His very unique and personal take on chaos magick resonates with everything I wanted to learn and explore for myself at the time. Steve and I corresponded for a while, I can’t recall for how long, but I can say that his teaching, guidance and mentoring had a profound impact on my life. 

Chaos Monk is an invitation to spiritual intensity. In the face of life’s brevity, it seeks to offer a challenge to consider what truly matters and how we might find skilful means for exploring such a question.

From my own personal experiences of working with Steve, I can say that his ‘monastic ways’ always help and guided me in the most intense and crucial times of my life.

Sometimes the deepest and highest forms of gnosis are in simplicity, faithfulness and accountability and stillness.

Other titles by Steve Dee:

A Gnostic’s Progress: Magic and the Path of Awakening

The Heretic’s Journey: Spiritual Freethinking for Difficult Times

Chaos Craft: The Wheel of the Year in Eight Colours 

 

Chaos Monk

Can you introduce yourself and say a little about what you do, and your aims and objectives with Chaos Monk in your writing?

Yes, I’m Steve Dee. I live in Devon in the UK where I work as a Psychotherapist within the National Health Service. I like surfing, walking and leading a fairly quiet life. My writing is generally the over-spill of my own exploration, research and magical practice. I tend to make sense of things by trying to write about them and hopefully what I write can be helpful to others.

If you haven’t already, can you say a little more about your family background, ie past and current – ie are you married, children, work – people like a little bit of personal stuff if you ok to share?

Sure, I come from Cardiff in South Wales but also spent a chunk of my childhood growing up in Australia. I studied theology when I was in my late teens-early 20s and came close to becoming a monk and an Anglican Priest but this all changed when I bumped into the Gnostics and Carl Jung.

I identify as being Queer. I have a long-term partner and we have two young adult sons together. I am quite introverted by nature and friends often describe me as being either a contemplative or a hermit.

When my Christian faith expanded in my mid-20 I decided to train as a social worker (rather than the priesthood) and eventually trained as a psychotherapist specialising in family work and working with people who self-harm.

Do you call yourself a magician/chaos magician, witch, or monk –  if so what does this mean to you? And is it important?

I would probably describe myself as a magical practitioner or Gnostic explorer as these are vague and talk about the doing of stuff. Other words like Witch or Yogi also apply but I use them less as people tend to have more preconceived ideas about what they mean.

You are primarily interested in what I think is called Chaos magic?- can you explain what that is and what it is that attracted you to that way?

For me, Chaos Magic focuses more on what you do rather than having to believe in a specific worldview or metaphysical scaffolding. These things can be helpful but they can also be limiting.

Personally, I am more interested in what happens when we use Gnostic technologies for opening up the body, the heart and the mind. This has a lot of similarities with how I see the early Yogis trying to use the whole of their lives as a laboratory for exploration.

You’ve written 3 previous books – can you say a little about them

Chaos Craft (2014) was co-written with my good friend Julian Vayne as a result of us running a magical group for a number of years that sought to explore a form of Witchcraft heavily inspired by Chaos Magic. The book maps the 8 colours of magic from Pete Carroll’s Liber Kaos onto the Pagan wheel of the year and then describes some of the bold magical adventures and ideas that resulted from this work.

A Gnostic’s Progress (2016) Seeks to explore how the cosmologies and practices of the early Gnostics can be of value to contemporary magicians. It’s full of fun experiments and strange ideas for triggering experiences of awakening from sleeping states of consciousness.

The Heretic’s Journey (2018) explores what it might mean to be a Spiritual Freethinker in response to attempts in society to create dogmas and orthodoxies. It looks especially at Queer theory, Surrealism and the Ma’at current as a form of Post-Crowley Thelema.

 Is the journey in your books for everyone or is it only for the expert or indeed aimed at the beginner?

People often describe my writing as being clear but some of the ideas that I reference are quite complex. So I hope that a newcomer would find something helpful and inspiring, but I write because I find it interesting and personally illuminating rather than having a specific audience in mind.

That’s a lot of questions – can you try and summarise, in a nutshell, the enduring message of the book – Chaos Monk

I don’t think I can do better than quoting myself in the book’s introduction :

“This book is an invitation to spiritual intensity. In the face of life’s brevity, it seeks to offer a challenge to consider what truly matters and how we might find skilful means for exploring such a question. As the pace and pressures of daily living seek to crowd out our ability to find space and silence, I believe that those traditions and techniques associated with monasticism provide vital keys for regaining our balance. While some may view such paths as ones of restriction or severity, as we travel together I hope to demonstrate the profound value of what simplicity, faithfulness and accountability might bring us when viewed through dynamic and responsive lens of Chaos magical practice.”

Anything else you want to add?

Your greatest magical act is to fully manifest to the world the uniqueness of who you are. That’s what the world needs. Know Thyself! Create Thyself! Become the One you know you are.

Do you have a webpage or blog?

Yes! https://theblogofbaphomet.com/

 

Renenutet

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It’s the 8th day after the full moon, Ugraparbah night, a night of radiating terror. The hunger is immense and the knowledge is out there, just reach out and let it flow through you, download it and upgrade yourself. 

So, it’s a day after the last quarter of the moon and finally, the time felt right for the Renanuteth invocation, the Serpent head goddess, the mother of all serpents. We kept delaying it, as she demanded an offering of that intoxicating smoke, one needs to be very certain of time, space and mind to offer it. 

The temple space is ready,  Zar music is playing in the background and on the altar between the burning candles a silver plate with a bunch of dry leaves, our offering, Salvia divinorum.

It’s been a year since we last journeyed into the Salvia dimension and I was very nervous to cross the gates of these ancient strange worlds again.

Some of you know that I’m an experienced traveller in hyperspace and in some of the galaxies and constellations I travelled to, I feel at home, (ayahuasca, mushrooms, peyote, San Pedro, to name a few) but Salvia, is a whole different story. 

We opened the space and read the invocation:

Thōzo pithē etc  (Thermouthe Pythia)

Thermouthē

The doors are open

And seven virgins 

Shall arise from the deep earth

Their garments of purest linen

Their faces those of serpents

You are the fates of heaven

Wielding golden wands

Welcome

Hail thou seven fates of heaven

O noble and good virgins

O sacred ones 

Hail thou chrepsienthaēs?

Hail thou menescheēs

Hail thou mechran!

Hail thou ararmachēs

Hail thou echommiē

Hail thou tichnondaēs

Hail thou erou rombriesē

Hail thou seven

snake-headed goddesses

The fates of heaven

The goddesses who hold the pole in its place

Thozopithe formula

Hail thou bear goddess,

Great one

 ruling heaven. 

Reigning over the pole of the stars. 

Hail Highest one, 

beautiful-shining goddess. 

Whose element is Incorruptible. 

Hail thous Composite of the all, 

The all-illuminating, 

bond of the universe

You who stand on the pole, you who the lord god appointed to turn the holy pole with a strong hand. 

The first offering 

As soon as the first offering is done, I noticed a very subtle movement, like ripples of heat and colour emanating from the altar. I look around the room, there’s a strange glow all around the fireplace.

The colour-heat ripples around the altar are getting bigger and before I realise what is happening a wave of serpent-like fractal shapes and colours are flowing over me. I try to stay calm, letting the serpent aura engulf me. Yeah… stay calm, I keep hearing myself mumbling…

Something is moving along the altar, two serpents, one black and the other colourful.  Both glowing and moving (flowing?) down the altar along the wall towards the fireplace. The coloured serpent disappeared in the fire, and the black serpent stopped at the left of the fireplace and erected itself. Beautiful, fearsome, awesome, terrifying. Her flaming eyes pierced mine with a hypnotic gaze.

I tried to shift my gaze, to move a little but I was frozen with awe and terror. She’s getting closer, her aura is so bright and huge I can nearly touch it (that if I wasn’t freaking out here, my heart is racing. I think I’m going to faint.) Wait, she’s communicating with me. I can hear a strange whisper echoing inside my head, an ancient serpentine language vibrating down my spine. She’s taking over me, crawling up and down inside my body.

I can’t take it anymore, I cry out and fall down to my knees, I can hear myself praying in her ancient language.

Praying for mercy

Crying my heart out for Her to spare my life.

She’s gone.

My Serpent queen. 

The Second Offering 

Still shaking, I place the second offering on the altar. The smoke is thick and white.

The music is rhythmic, hypnotic, wild and tribal. I can feel it in my bones like the rhythm is part of me. I hear the ‘mama song’ and I can feel them, my three beautiful mamas, dancing around me, opening the gates for me, making me see.  The Zar company are here, with their drums and songs. His Holiness, the Nubian priest is there too. So majestic in his white robes. He stretches his arm out and invites me to approach. The music stopped and everything went quiet. 

Stillness, like we are all frozen between time and space.

The air is crackling with static electricity and energy, it feels like we are trapped in a teardrop that is gonna explode any moment now.

Cacophonia. 

An explosion of sounds, screams and shouts, and crazy rhythms are turning slowly into music and songs, these ancient songs and hypnotic rhythms I’ve heard before. The music gets louder and louder it takes over me, it’s in me, it’s coming from inside me, I am the music.

The black mama took me by the hand and started to dance. We are dancing. Blue mama is to my right and red mama to my left. More people joining in and circling us, with their drums and bells, all dancing the wild ecstatic dance. I can feel something behind me, not sure what, it sends shivers down my spine. Black mama holding my hands tight looking into my eyes and smiling, whispering in her ancient language, “keep dancing habibti”. I close my eyes and I dance and spin, I can’t feel my body, there is something on my back, I freak out but black mama’s hands are squeezing mine reassuring me to keep dancing, so I find my rhythm and let go, I  can fly. I can see the company from above in a dancing frenzy, the Nubian priest is on his knees praying and crying, the three mamas spinning like mad dervishes. 

All of these are orchestrated by the elder of the company. He is standing in the middle of all the maddens, a big grin on his face drumming his magickal drum and shouting mad order towards the sky.

I can feel he’s calling me, I can feel his drumming vibrating in my ears and heart, and I hear shouting and wild screams. Black mana’s grip is tightening around mine and I can feel her pulling me down.

I crash back to the here and now.

The Third Offering 

At this point, I’m weary and tired, but there’s no way back, it has to be done.

I inhale the smoky essence of the offering and lean back into the fluffy white clouds.

There’s a huge wheel in the distance. The wheel rotates slowly as if spinning in a very slow motion. With each rotation of the wheel, it seems that I’m moving forward towards it like it’s pulling me nearer to it somehow. 

I look down at my feet and realize that I am attached to the wheel like Leonardo de Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man.

As soon as I understand that I’m attached to the wheel, it starts to spin faster and faster. I can see myself spinning, turning, becoming an endless spiral of Fibonacci numbers, and fractals.

I close my eyes and think to myself “I can relax now”

Boom, I’m back in the room.

We closed the circle, taking extra care to see the portal tightly shut, and making sure that no strange entities lurked in the shadows. 

I don’t know when I’ll go through this portal again.

The Spider

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Last night I dreamt of a huge spider sitting on the wall and looking at me. I have no fear of spiders but neither got the need to have a pet tarantula. When I woke up I couldn’t help the feeling that the spider in my dream was trying to tell me something, to deliver some kind of totemic message.

 So what does the spider mean to me?

The spider symbolizes a few things:

  • Patience
  • Receptivity
  • Feminine energy
  • Creativity
  • Weaver of life’s fate
  • Shadow self, dark aspects of life or personality

The spider has 8 legs that resemble the 8 points of chaos, the all-seeing eye. The Hunter – the spider weaves its web so very finely and transparently, so the prey won’t notice it and will fly straight into the deadly trap. When weaving its magical trap, the spider is actually weaving its life story, home, food and creation.

The spider, though not reptilian, is somehow connected. The Serpent represents the male/yang/kundalini energy; the spider the feminine. Like the serpent who is the keeper and guardian of knowledge, so is the spider guarding fiercely at the gates of the unknown.

A while ago, I saw a spider catching a fly. Watching the spider hunt was mesmerising and made me think of how we humans are conditioned to think with our emotions, and feel everything. By doing so we are actually missing the beauty (and maybe the secrets) of nature.

Nature is like a spider, weaving its web of flora and fauna all over, and when it is time, hunting them down with fire, storms, floods etc.

Sometimes nature is the prey as when we cut down the forests or pollute the air and the sea.

The spider reminds me of my skills as a huntress, as the creative weaver of ideas and dreams, or as my dear friend Steve D. wrote in My Spidey  Sense is Tingling, “she skillfully walks her web rather than getting caught within it like a fly!”

“Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted”

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 To Erik 

 

A few days ago an old friend that I haven’t heard from for a long while contacted me. She wants to know about Chaos Magick and handed me a list of questions.

I met L’ a few years ago on an ayahuasca retreat.

So “how is the plant medicine related to Chaos Magick”?  She asked me

I must admit that I had to stop and think about her question, I found it surprising not to have a straight forward answer right there and then.

For the last ten years or so I’ve been journeying the parallel paths of ayahuasca and chaos magick. The more I drank ayahuasca I felt that my magick my craft, Chaos Craft, is evolving and becoming like second nature to me. I learned and practice as much as I could but the real teaching always came in the form of a very dark and bitter liquid – the ayahuasca tea, the pure essence of probably one of the most powerful and wise plants entities. 

“So how did you start with Chaos Craft and how do you practice? And how are the results?”

L’ bombarded me with all those questions and all I could think at the time before I managed to say anything was, ‘wow, slow down woman!’ and while I was trying to get my head around all of this and taking a breather she drops the final question: “If nothing is true, and everything is permitted, then how do you choose?”

How do you really? And where do I start? I told L’ that I need some time to think and I’ll get back to her. And here I am, still thinking and not sure at all how it all started. It is funny how we journey on our paths for a long time thinking we know it all and everything is sorted and then we meet a neophyte, a beginner, along the way with all those questions and you find yourself sitting down and revising all you know, but thinking about all this stuff, “it’s cool, it’s like food for the soul”.

I met SteveD on the ‘Apophis Club’, an online forum for the discussion of Michael Kelly’s fantastic book Apophis. The Apophis Club was and still is a great virtual meeting place for magicians on the Draconian / Sethian current. It didn’t take long for me to notice Steve’s unique way of thinking and writing, and after a while of communicating on the forum, I asked Steve if he can be my mentor (I had to really twist his arm to agree) and once we establish the ways of mentoring communications (we were living in deferent countries at the time) I followed Steve’s guidance onto the most fantastic and magickal path – Chaos Craft. 

I had many questions, and at certain times I probably overwhelmed SteveD with the intensity of my curious mind. But I was blessed with the most patient mentor and even at times when I was a pain in the ass he managed to see through all my bullshit and guide me through. I couldn’t be here without his mentoring and I feel blessed that our paths had crossed at that particular moment in my life, that he is still part of my life. Kheper!

Chaos Craft was the perfect way for me to weave together my shamanic and Sethian practices and progress in my own personal way and time. What appeals to me at the most was that I didn’t have to climb the usual system of magickal schools of collecting grades and titles but advised to focus on creativity and an open mind. Before you know it, I could see the magic everywhere and without any manuals or “how to do” books, I just knew what to do and how to attract the magic into my life. 

So you asked me ‘how do you practice and where to start?’ 

The best way to start anything is by collecting information about it and nowadays it’s very easy, just google Chaos Magick and start reading.

You will find lots of stuff, it won’t take long to find the Chaos Magick classics and you probably should read through some of them but the most important in my opinion is to use your intuition and read what you find the most interesting for you. Anyway, a good place to start on the Chaos Craft path is Here and Here. 

I find it very helpful in starting a personal journal to record your observations and dreams and maybe learn some divination technics, most popular are the Tarot or Astrology but there are lots of divination technics around so just pick the one you are most attracted to and start learning it.

Personally, I use dream divination and find the Tarot a great tool to learn about dream symbolism. 

I think that it’s a very good idea to start and connect to the cycles of the year and the moon and to the rhythms of the earth.

Make an altar – an offering table to Baphomet, to focus and connect with Baphomet. 

The next step is banishing, there are many ways and many rituals for that, my personal favourite is The Gnostic Pentagram Ritual Here 

So, Get a notebook and turn it into your personal journal, start documenting your dreams, insights and observations.

Learn some form of divination.

Connect to the cycle of the moon and the rhythm of nature.

Invite Baphomet into your life – make an altar.

Start practising  The Gnostic Pentagram Ritual

While you practising all of that, carry on reading and learning and if you can find a mentor to guide you through it ‘s even better.

And now for your final question “If nothing is true, and everything is permitted, then how do you choose?”

                                “لا شيء حقيقي وكل شيء مباح”

In the words of Hassan-i Sabbah  

“Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted” 

although we may no longer understand the exact context, these words seem relevant to our times as chaos magicians, where it is a kind of formula similar to, but I’d say better than Crowley’s “Do What Thou Wilt…” etc.

I found Erik’s words on that matter resonate with me and my understanding of the concept.

‘Nothing is true’ “means that truth can only be experienced by each individual for themselves- for me, it is a gnostic paradigm that tells me that only through experience can you come to know the true nature of things and ultimately reality itself. 

‘Everything is permitted’ is in my interpretation literally that we are free to take responsibility for our own actions and that there is not one moral authority who can dictate to us.” 

So, my dear L, 

I hope I’ve answered some of your questions or at list gave you a few ideas of how and where to start.

I’m adding my personal favourite booklist but remember that what works for me not necessarily will work for you, there are many books out there so find what you like and start creating your own path.

Io Baphomet

Booklist

Rhythms of vision by Lawrence Blair

The Sea Priestess by Dion Fortune

All of Julian Vayne’s books, 

Getting Higher: The Manual of Psychadelic Ceremony

Seidways by Jan Fries

Liber Null & Psychonaut by Peter J. Carroll

Condensed Chaos by Phil Hine

SSOTBME Revised an essay on magic

Apophis by Michael Kelly

Chaotopia by Dave Lee

The Eternal Moment

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The Eternal Moment

On the longest night of the year, the tribe gathered for the Winter Solstice ceremony.  The Spice is very strong and it doesn’t take long before the doors of perception have opened before us. My ‘mission’ is to raise Babalon. My Babalon work will be like a prayer to raise her power and energy in Everywoman.

I believe that Babalon is Everywoman, but many women deny her existence, some are afraid of her, and some are so prudish they truly believe she’s an whore. I embrace my Babalon, she is integrated within me, she is part of me and always was. There was a time I didn’t know who she was or what is her name, so I called her “Everywoman”.

I’m Every Woman –  A Tribute to Whitney Houston 

“Whatever you want, whatever you need, anything you want done baby, I’ll do it naturally.”

The ritual and ceremonial music are vibrating in the air but for some strange reason I can’t get out of my head the 80s anthem song by Chaka Khan – “I’m every woman”.

I remember the first time I heard it, the Chaka Khan version, and how I thought to myself, what a great song, perfect for me. The song came out in 1978, I was only 10 years old.

In the 90s Whitney Houston took Chaka Khan’s song and made it into an even bigger anthem, a classic that will never go out of fashion, a good party will always have this anthem at the peak of the night.  I was a party girl back then, The Ministry of Sound and The Zap Club, were like my second homes. One night at the club, I recall thinking to myself; if “God is a DJ”, “Everywoman ” must be his wife! I didn’t know anything about Babalon or the Scarlet Woman at that time, but an affinity with Everywoman was always part of me.

Whitney Houston was born with the touch of the Red Goddess, she was beautiful, talented and charismatic. It didn’t take long before she became world-famous, she was, and still is, the most-awarded female artist, and remains one of the best–selling musicians of all time. Whitney Houston was a goddess, flying high and far, but she couldn’t handle the fire of the Red Goddess, and soon those flames consumed her. After over a decade of meteoric success, she allowed her demons to take over, and she burnt out.

So I toast the first cup of Spice to you Whitney, and to Everywoman out there.

Here She Comes

My mind is racing. I really don’t understand where did all this stuff come from? I’m here at the ceremony and all I can hear is these 80s–90s club anthems playing in my head, and think of Whitney Houston. But then something at the corner of my eye catches my attention. I’m looking but not too sure what I am seeing. It’s a crack in space/time, like in the Dr Who episode “The Crack in the Wall”.  I knew it was her on the other side. I call her, come, enter, my beautiful goddess. Flames burst out of the crack, it can only be her, and there she is – Babalon! 

She is shining like the sun at sunrise, and the only thing on my mind is the question – Who swallowed the sun? Now as I write it down, it’s a bit obvious, don’t you think? But at the time I just couldn’t see it. 

The Library of Babel

As soon as she enters, I know – Babalon is the librarian of the Library of Babel. I am very pleased with myself and move on to other things. The goddess NewMedia is here too, and she is loading me with information, I need to write all this stuff down, I need to remember it all. I see the connections in everything I do, like synapses that pass electrical surges through a great spider’s web, or was it the WorldWideWeb? Marketing, advertising, books, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing … attention, attention! The system is overloaded. I’m stuck in a loop, thank god it’s time for the second cup.

Shiva is serving the second round of Spice. He has a special gift, he is a master of blessing the Spice, and this time he adds a special boon, a magickal journey.  As soon as I drink the second cup of Spice I’m back at the library of Babel. I’m lost in a maze, it’s HER maze, it’s HER LIBRARY! She is not the librarian at all,  it’s her library! At the very same moment, I notice a little path that leads to a garden.

The Garden of The Forking Paths 

The garden is strange, if anything, it looks like another maze, like the library. It’s kind of grey and dusty. I go down the path, thinking to myself “So who swallowed the sun?” At that time I didn’t have a clue. Then another thought crosses my mind – why is this garden so “forked”? A garden should be light and green, soft and gentle, that word, Gentle, made me stop for a moment, and I rethink it all again.  Why is the garden so forked? A garden should be light and green and soft, like The Garden of Eden. The word EDEN in Hebrew means – Gentleness = עדן = EDEN. The path I chose in The Garden of The Forking Paths leads to The Garden of Eden!

This realization made me stop for a moment. I looked at the 9th Gate card that I had brought with me. In the card, which I painted a few days earlier, behind Babalon is the Ninth gate illuminated with the sun’s rays. I look at the card for a while, and as soon as I put it back in my bag, I’m back in The Library of Babel. I look around me, books are floating in the air, staircases spiralling in all directions like some weird Michael Escher picture. Then BANG! The Ninth Gate materializes in front of me in all its glory, and at the same time, the shocking realization; SHE IS THE LIBRARY, SHE IS THE LIBRARY.  Another crack appears in space/time. The room is spinning, thunder and lightning, a cacophony of strange and very loud noises. The library has exploded and I’m being sucked into a black hole, what remains of it is spinning around me; books, staircases, labyrinths, forking paths, gardens, all in a mad and chaotic dance, spiralling towards the black hole.

I’m going mad, am I going mad? I know I must look into the crack that grows with each moment, I know who’s coming, but I dare not look. I go down on my knees and try to pray. But only one word comes out of my mouth:

Baphomet 

I forgot all the words to the prayer. I can hardly find my voice, all  that comes out is a faint mumbling of just one word, the one that makes sense:

Baphomet

Baphomet

Baphomet

Each time I repeat this word, things get clearer.

Baphomet. 

The room has stopped spinning.

Baphomet.

I can breathe again.

Baphomet. 

The books and the staircases are still spiralling around me but in very slow motion.

Baphomet.

Quiet. 

Everything has stopped as it is, books and staircases frozen in a mid-spiral in the air. I can hear the beautiful ancient mantra, the sound of the sea, and waves on a breezy sunny day, and I remember.

“I believe in one secret and ineffable LORD; and in one star in the company of Stars of whose fire we are created, and to which we shall return; and in one Father of Life, Mystery of Mystery, in His name CHAOS, the sole viceregent of the Sun upon the Earth; and in one Air the nourisher of all that breathes.                                                      And I believe in one Earth, the Mother of us all, and in one Womb wherein all men are begotten, and wherein they shall rest, Mystery of Mystery, in Her name BABALON.    And I believe in the Serpent and the Lion, Mystery of Mystery, in His name BAPHOMET.”

At this moment the beautiful shamaness comes and crashes on the mattress next to me, she knows nothing of Baphomet, but she understands Chaos. Together we are experiencing The Eternal Moment, we both know that the only time is now, and this now is for eternity. I hug her, whispering in her ear “Open your eyes, and call Hir, Baphomet, sHe is already here” She does and she sees what I see. 

“And I believe in the Serpent and the Lion, Mystery of Mystery, in His name BAPHOMET.”

The tribes of the Spice are the tribes of the serpent and the lion (well, the Jaguar really…) Some follow the serpent, some follow the Jaguar, and all drink the same Spice, both tribes share similar ceremonies but different rituals.  Baphomet walks among our tribes naturally – which takes me back to the beginning of the journey when I heard Whitney Houston singing in my head the lines “Whatever you want, whatever you need, anything you want done baby, I’ll do it naturally”…  Sooo Baphomet…

In the Thoth Tarot, the card Lust, ‘appears the legend of the woman and the lion, or rather lion–serpent’ (The Book of Thoth). Another realization of eternal moment, Babalon rides Baphomet just like the tantric Kali rides Shiva.

“And I believe in the Serpent and the Lion, Mystery of Mystery, in His name BAPHOMET.”

Baphomet is the serpent and the lion, Mystery of mystery; the Fifth Head of the Serpent is The Raging Lion!

“The Desire and aspiration of the highest, most spiritual spark of your consciousness is to clothe itself in flesh and personality and to Come Into Being here and now. The purpose of Initiation is not to swap one for the other: it is to open the eyes of both, perceive what is Real, and empower the entire Self to its maximum potential…” (Michael Kelly, Dragonscales)

“The Fifth Head, that of the Raging Lion, is one specifically focused upon Desire, upon passion.” (Michael Kelly, Dragonscales)

With all this in mind, I hear the call for the third cup.

The Third Cup

The third cup is a meditation journey on the sounds and vibrations our Music Master has prepared for us.

The Music Master and I go back a long way. He was there the first time I took the Spice. He taught me how to listen to the vibrations and how to see with my ears. His journeys are my favourite part of these ceremonies, and after a night of illuminated Chaos, I am looking forward to lying down and chilling out on his magickal carpet.  The third cup is the cup of the Shamaness. I love this woman with all my heart. We look at each other and smile. I say: “Only a little cup for me this time”, she looks at me, smiles back and pours the Spice, a full cup… I drink the blood of the dragon and lie back on the cushions and fly.

The Seven Jewels of the Red Goddess

In the myth of Inanna she descends into the underworld, and meets the guardians of the seven gates, who will not let her pass through unless she leaves one of her jewels in each gate, only then can she proceed into the underworld.

The Seven Jewels are:

  1. The Great Crown
  1. The Wand of Lapis Lazuli
  1. The Jewel Around Her Neck
  1. The Jewel On Her Breast
  1. The Belt of Jewels Around Her Hips
  1. The Jewels Around Her Wrists and Ankles
  1. The Jewelled Robes

In his book Dragonscales, Michael Kelly asks what these seven jewels are. On page 125 of Dragonscales, he writes:  “As an exercise for further thought and meditation, I would like to throw out the suggestion that the seven jewels of Ishtar are resonant with the Seven Heads of Apep, but in reverse order, with the Jewelled Robes having an affinity with the Head of the Scorpion and the Great Crown having an affinity with the Head of the Typhon. This affinity and this inversion of ordering may be suggestive of one of the secret links between the Lady and the Serpent.  Muse upon it…”

I’m flying the magickal journey the Music Master takes us on and musing upon Michael’s riddle. It doesn’t take long and I’m back again at The Garden of the Forking Paths. Now there are new paths ahead of me, and I don’t know which one to follow.  There’s a tiny voice in the back of my mind that whispers “Follow Me”… so I follow it down a very narrow and ancient path.                                                                                                               

I love the author Tom Robbins. Back in the 90s, I read quite a few of his books which probably helped a lot to shape the way I think and perceive things. There is something in the myth of Ishtar’s seven jewels that reminds me of something he wrote, but what was it??

The song about Miriam the Prophetess is playing and I remember. In his book ‘Skinny Legs and All’  Tom Robbins writes the story of Salome and The Dance of The Seven Veils. The myth of the Seven Veils Dance and the myth of The Seven Jewels probably is based on the same myth of Inanna/Ishtar. In the original dance of The Seven Veils, those veils come off in the same order as the seven Jewels:

  1. The Veil Around Her Face
  2. The Veil around The Shoulders                                                   
  3. The Veil Around Her Neck                                                                  4.
  4. The Veil On Her Breast
  5. The Veil Around Her Hips
  6. The Veil Around Her Wrists and Ankle
  7. The Veil Around Her Legs

In the book Skinny Legs and All, Tom Robbins actually does reverse the order in which the veils are coming off Salome:

I’ll try to explain:

The First Veil to come off is the veil around her legs, ‘The Jewelled Robes’, think again what the Jewelled robes might mean… she is dancing and her most precious jewel is unveiled. “Because Veils of ignorance, disinformation, and illusion separate us from that which is imperative to our understanding of our evolutionary journey… The first of those veils conceal the repression of the Goddess, masks the sexual face of the planet…” By taking her Jewelled Robes off first, our Red Goddess has awakened the Serpent, the Typhon, the Kundalini.  So, our  Salome is dancing and the veils of illusions keep coming off, one by one, unveiling and, abandoning old patterns such as blindness to the wonders of nature, politics, religion, money, death, and time.

The Seventh Veil:  The Veil around Her Face – The Great Crown – The Head of The Scorpion;

“The illusion of the Seventh Veil was the illusion that you could get somebody else to do it for you. To hang on your cross.  Everybody had to take control of their own life, define their own death, and construct their own salvation. And when you finished, you didn’t call the Messiah. He’d call you.” (Skinny Legs and All)

This is all very much in the spirit of the Scorpion Head…

For me the theories of Tom Robbins always make sense. And now it’s nearly the end of the journey and the sun is going to rise any minute. I can see that at the end of the path I’m journeying, there’s another path to follow (it is the garden of the forking paths after all) but I’m too tired now, maybe next time…

The Great Crown – The Head of The Typhon – Spirituality and Awakening.  What a Night!

Here Comes The Sun.

“Whatever you want, whatever you need, anything you want done baby, I’ll do it naturally”

IO BAPHOMET