How to enter your Inner Realm - or 3 exercises on elastic awareness

In evocation magic we strive for conscious contact with specific spirits. Sometimes this happens through visible appearance. Other times we allow the spirit to chose the best way to manifest - may it be in our inner realm, in dreams, in inner sight, etc. However, I guess we'll all agree an unsuccessful rite is a rite without any conscious contact.

In my recent posts on Ancestral Magic I shared some adventures I encountered while exploring a type of magical contact that's new for me. To embark on such a journey the magician needs two keys mainly: 

1. A technique to enter into the inner realm and access the stream of ancestral consciousness and
2. the ability to maintain what I call an 'elastic awareness' that maintains an unintentional and open state of consciousness.

Josephine hands over a great key for the first point in her Void exercise. However, it is the second point that will make your journey through the void a successful spirit encounter or just plain daydreaming. So it seems there is something to be said about how we use awareness in magic - may it be in rituals or in expeditions into the inner realms? 

Funny enough, the best teacher on it I found so far is Fritz Perls. This man certainly knew a lot about contact, awareness and how to bring these two together in order to travel to places we haven't known before. Perls didn't apply his techniques he created to magic or any type of spirit communion - but to commune with ourselves. 

So let's take a brief look at contact and awareness in Perl's own words: 

"It emerged that we had to shift the concern of psychiatry from the fetish of the unknown, from the adoration of the 'unconscious', to the problems and phenomenology of awareness: what factors operate in awareness, and how do faculties which can operate successfully only in the state of awareness lose this property?" (Perls, Gestalt Therapy, p.15)

"Contact as such is possible without awareness, but for awareness contact is indispensable. The crucial question is: with what is one in contact? The spectator of a modern painting may believe that he is in contact with the picture while he is actually in contact with the art critic of his favorite journal." (Perls, p.15)

"In the struggle for survival the most relevant need becomes figure (or better: Gestalt - ed. Acher) and organizes the behavior of an individual until this need is satisfied, whereupon it recedes into the background (temporary balance) and makes room for the next now most important need. In the healthy organism this change of dominance has the best survival chance. In our society such dominant needs, for example, morals, etc., often become chronic and interfere with the subtle self-regulating of the human organism." (Perls, p.18)

Well, sounds like a lot of psycho-bullshit? I guess Perls would agree pretty much. So let's give it a try and turn it into practical experience...

Step 1:

As you are reading these lines become aware with what you are in contact already. Scan through your bodily emotions while reading this. What does your stomach tell you? What contacts are your legs and feet picking up? Read this with minimal brain activity and allow your conscious to meander through your body... Can you feel your blood rushing underneath your skin? What type of awareness is present in your chest? What type of awareness is in your mind? 

Perls said: contact can happen without awareness but never the other way around. The first step in exploring our Inner Realm is to create what I called an elastic awareness. An awareness that rather than pursuing it's own intent and direction is open to be approached, to accept and to explore without desire... Our awareness needs to learn to sit still and perceive. Full of contact. Then we will realize how much we have ignored before. And that rather than trying harder, trying not all often can be the key.

Please don't get me wrong - this has nothing to do with replacing your magical strive with a strive for Nirvana. The goal of this exercise is not emptiness, but fullness. It is to perceive and become aware of the richness, the diversity and multitudes of contacts we are engaged in at any moment. This exercise is a fundament in order to be able to listen to the spirits. Because the spirits are talking to us through the contacts in our bodies.

Step 2:

When you are in bed and before your fall asleep create contact with your bodily senses again. Walk through your body, limb by limb and pick up the emotions and sensual impressions that are already there. Don't try to create any contacts. Just allow your awareness to flow through your body and discover the things that are present already... Once you have explored your entire body allow your conscious to rest and come to a halt in your chest area. Now all impression merge into a single vibrant perception of your bodily field of contact. Full presence. You feel the energy in your body, undistinguished from your conscious. 

Did I first listen to this song or
first think of this post? Does it matter?

Then slowly expand your field of awareness beyond your bodily borders. Allow your senses to expand beyond your skin... I normally do this by listening to the things around me. The wind on the leaves of a tree through the open window, a passing car, the slow breaths of my dog in the room next door. Whatever ambient sounds there are, just allow your senses to merge with them. Your field of awareness expands. And after a short while you will find it has become a sphere of consciousness, expanding beyond the room you are lying in, into the night, including street lamps, concrete and cars... all contacts presently waiting for my conscious to find them.

Normally I come to pause once the sphere of awareness has grown to roughly 100 feet in diameter. I then rest in the present awareness of all things inside my consciousness now. My body, the body of my wife, the darkness, the body of our dog, the house, the night sky, the streets... It is a wonderful feeling, liberating, without any intent or tension, completely calm. All stress from my workday has disappeared as I myself have vanished. What is left is a glowing sphere of consciousness, allowing the night wind and ambient sounds and wandering cats to pass through it. 

Step 3:

Combine Step 1 and 2 into a single exercise and perform at any moment throughout your normal workday. Make it a habit to discover contacts you were involved in but not aware about. Make it a habit for your senses to expand beyond your body. Feel the grass on the front years behind the window, feel the electric buzz of computers and coffee machines around you, feel the rush of a street car and the energy fields of 40-something people in it passing by... Allow your awareness to become an open system, to become the Linux version of consciousness. 

Once this third step works well for you in random situations you shouldn't have any problems to explore your inner realms. Well, you might have problems at your work place now instead though. Cause sitting in your chair, eyes closed and drooling isn't really the picture of a high performer many bosses have in their mind. But hey - there is a price to be paid for any big achievement!

Let me close this on a final note that connects back to the journeys into my own Ancestral Magic I had shared before...

Last week I was at an airport, tired and exhausted, arriving at night, standing on the escalators and watching the commercials passing by. When suddenly I felt Immar's presence within me. This had never happened before - I hadn't even considered the possibility that Immar might contact me on her own initiative! Yet while I was ascending to the next floor I could clear feel her gaze through my eyes. There was a significant amount of surprise and astonishment going on on her end... Maybe that is how I looked to her when I gazed at the ziggurat? She stayed with me on my entire journey through the belly of the airport. Only when I entered the taxi and spoke to the driver I felt her presence withdraw. Probably because I had left the timeless entrails of the airport, these synthetically lid passages of glass and commercials, of silence and polished floors. A space without any intent except for passing through it. An open system, a passage of time.

When I had entered the taxi my mind had closed again. I started to re-focus on my journey to the hotel, showing the address to the driver, watching passer-bys and starting to think about the day to come...

I learned it early on in my Arbatel Experience and am still so much working to get it right. My angel told me in no ambiguous language: "Everything will be good, as long as you don't have a plan."

::

But when he swam out

in this black void of nothing

he was anxious, but excited

and he didn´t know

he wouldn´t come back

to shore again.

Johnossi - Maverick

Learning the Magic of my Ancestors - part 3

The third trip to the city of clay started from my actual temple. It was a week of vacation, the sun was shining bright and warm outside, I had finished my standard meditation and left the communion with my angel. At this point my mind and body are charged and radiant with energy yet very quiet and peaceful. It's the perfect mindset to continue an exploration into the unknown, ready to accept anything that might come along...

I entered the Void through the flames on the altar before which I was sitting. Their fire burned away all outer shapes and pulled me into the darkness I had come to appreciate so much. After a while of getting acquainted to the emptiness within and around me, I raised my right hand in front of my eyes, used a knife to make a deep cut into my palm and saw the stream of blood emerge... Then I sank backwards, just like the two times before, and allowed the stream to carry me through the Void and out into the desert.

Doreen Valenza: Vision Seekers-Memento Mori-
The Ancestors of the Family speaking to me #3

As the current was carrying me backward I tried to be mindful of the environment and catch glimpses of the shore, the sky and the colors around me. However, all impressions remained blurred and somewhat faint. The only clear sensual impression was my own being in the river, rushing through its waters... I guess traveling through the stream of blood is a journey through time. It makes sense that unless one stops and climbs out of the stream all impressions remain somewhat distant and faint. Otherwise the influx of memories would be huge and completely overwhelming...

Just like on my two previous visits I got caught in a fish trap after a while. The water was pushing me to the back of the trap and rushing past me. Then the trap got pulled out of the river, it was emptied into another basked fixed to the back of a carrier and we set in motion on our way through the desert. This time, however, the basket didn't have a lid and I could see snippets of scenery and the bright sky above as we were walking towards the city. I also remember the walls of the city looked really colorful... 

Maybe I should share some context here? Since the last journey I had received instructions from an inner contact to research on a specific aspect of the magic of the Arabs, Greek and Chaldeans. My studies had pivoted on the magic of the Chaldeans for several weeks now and I had refreshed a lot of my understanding of their cosmology and spirit realm. One of the things I remembered clearly from the studies was the fact that in Chaldean times the ramparts of rich cities were adored with small, colored domes which were attached horizontally to the walls. Maybe it were these domes that were shining brightly in the sun and creating the colorful view of the city we were approaching? Or maybe my imagination and astral perception simply mingled? Either way, it was a stunning sight and I wondered why I had missed it on previous trips to the city?

Then we approached the huge gate. Again I saw the guarding spirit standing on an elevated post in the shadows under the main arch, staring straight in front of him and chattering his teeth. Once we passed through the gate I was surprised to catch a glimpse of my ancestor: She was approaching from the right side of the gate, walked towards the carrier in whose basket I lay and grabbed me right out of it. Nobody seemed to realize her burglary or at least no one complained... Through dusty streets filled with market stalls Immar carried me back to her hut. 

In the small room of her hut Immar puts me down on something she has carved on the floor. I don't get to see it clearly, maybe it is the spirit gate she showed me on my last visit? Then smoke appears and washes over my fish body. Is Immar blowing the smoke over me from a bowl of burning incense? As the smoke covers my body my shape changes and I turn into human form. I am not a naked boy anymore; this time my human form is much closer to my actual shape and age.

Immar is sitting on her bed. I take a seat on the low chair opposite her. Now I can sense her sadness, it's incredibly present and strong. Immar isn't crying yet sitting quietly on the bed of straw. Something inside her seems to be the source of constant pain and grief, but she has become too used to it to complain or cry... I hold out my hand and she puts hers into mine. We sit there quietly for a while holding hands. Now I can feel that it's her heart that's weak.

• Immar: I need water.

I understand that water to drink will not stop her thirst; it's her heart that has run dry. I open my own heart and allow the waters of my heart to stream into hers. Through the physical connection of our hands I can see a rush of energy pouring into her. Immar's shape changes. As my heart-waters start to fill her heart she turns younger. After a while her skin has become firm and radiant again. She looks much better now, yet I know that we haven't cured the source of her sadness yet... There is something else we need to do.

Immar turns over and lays down on her bed. She seems to be very tired. I get up and stand above her. Without knowing the words that I am saying, I am starting to sing. My words, the melody, everything is flowing out of my heart in its own way and form. I try not to control anything. The melody of the song to washes over Immar's tired body... Then I hold out my hands over her heart area. Immar is lying crouched on her right side, eyes closed, her face turned to the dark clay wall in front of her. I don't know if she is still awake or sleeping? Suddenly I can feel the presence of my angel standing behind me in the small room. His presence is strong and bright, his light shines through my body as if I am made of glass. My glass body bundles his rays into my hands and his light is streaming through my palms over Immar's heart...

At this point I have become a tool, a spoke in a process that is much larger than myself. My angel is working through me; I don't have to do anything except for remain calm and present and allow his force to use my body as a channel. I can see his light working on Immar's heart. Then something is extracted from Immar's heart. It leaves a hole and my angel fills it up with a shining force or presence I do not know. Like a wound that is filled with healing herbs Immar's heart is filled with a bright, living light. The presence that has been extracted from her heart is held tightly in a ray of energy next to her heart. Looking back I cannot tell whether it was a dark substance or simply a shadow. I know I remember my first thought: ‘It must be a worm.’ Without having prepared anything in advance I know what to do next.

Beside her bed I can see a small stack of green leaves with a dark paste greased upon them. I take the substance or shadow extracted from Immar's heart, pull it out of her body and put it onto the paste of the leaves. Then I roll up the leaves and lash them up with a cord that had been prepared underneath them. I hold the roll of lashed leaves in my hand; they are filled with a vibrant presence I do not know and don't want to know any better... I step outside of the hut and burn the leaves. Their ashes fall down and I catch them in a small clay pot.

For a short moment I am unsure what to do with the ashes. They are not secure yet, they still carry the imprint of the energy caught in the leaves... I look back into the dark room, Immar’s silhouette on the low bed. A moment later it's completely clear what to do with the ashes. 

I walk out on the street and follow its path to the base of the ziggurat. There, beneath the stairs leading up on the huge building I find large pots of clay that look like immense cauldrons. They are filled with earth. As I come closer and look inside them, I see that it's not earth they are filled with but ashes of multiple shades of grey. I empty the ashes of the leaves into the clay pot. From somewhere I gained a clear understanding of what will happen with them: at certain times priests descend from the temple on top of the ziggurat. They empty the clay pots and carry the ashes to the top of the ziggurat (well, to be precise I guess some slaves will do the carrying for them?). Then they perform rituals over the remains of the ashes, banishing the wicked spirits still caught in them from the city. Planetary beings assist them in these rites.

I walk back to Immar's hut. She is sitting on her bed, looking very happy.

• Immar: What can I give you in return?
• Acher: Can you teach me something about your gods?

She gets up and stands close to me. In her hands I can see an oblate - or maybe it is a coin? Without hesitation I open my mouth and Immar puts the oblate underneath my tongue. I turn around and look outside. The night sky has changed. Or is it really night or simply a different, darkened visions of my eyes? As if painted with broad brushes I can suddenly see the presence and work of the spirits in the city. They are shining like moving rays in the dark; their predominant color is a silver-white-blueish radiance that is moving over the flat roofs of the city, swirling and working on multiple places. There are so many of them? I can see them rise into the night sky and shoot down into the city again. It’s a busy coming and going. I am thinking: ‘There are probably as many spirits as human beings in this city...` Then I turn back to Immar. To my surprise I find that we are shining as well. Our bodies look like complex nettings of irradiating twigs. It's breathtakingly beautiful! I feel like a walking, shining lamp in the astral realm...

Finally we depart and leave Immar’s hut. Above the ziggurat I can now see a huge tower of light raising up into the night sky. The massive building of the ziggurat is dwarfed by the sheer size of this shining, vibrant, living tower of spirit presence. Without understanding any of the techniques or details, my heart immediately gets it: all physical objects in this city are potential interfaces between the material and spirit realm, potential focus points of energies. And the tallest building erected by humans is just the base of a much larger manifestation in the astral realm. One building is built upon the other, interconnected, like Yin and Yan, yet existing in two different realms. Is this the nature of every true temple? I have never seen something like this before.

Then I leave the city without turning back. I return to the river in the desert and flow upwards through its current, back into the darkness of the Void.

A ziggurat (also: ziqqurat) is a type of step-pyramid temple first built by the Sumerians 5,000 years ago in southern Mesopotamia, made of sun-dried mud bricks. The peoples of Mesopotamia – the Assyrians and Babylonians continued building ziggurats for thousands of years. (source)

::

These experiences are becoming so intense, so intimate maybe I should stop reporting openly about them? I should ask Immar about her opinion on my next visit... Looking backwards now the most striking thing is the way magical teaching seems to work on the inner realms? It seems to be less verbal, less focussed on speech or writing than we know it from the manifest realm. Immar doesn't show me any books and she doesn't give lectures. She just shares experiences. When I am with her everything is alive, fluid and emerging. Nothing can be fixed and all structure evades in light of the living presence of the experience itself... When it comes to teaching on the inner realms words don't seem to matter that much? When I asked her to teach me about her gods, she didn't tell but she showed me her gods. 

I wish we could achieve a similar state of instantness, of presence and sharing of vision on the material realm... How would a school, a study group or an occult order look like if we were capable of sharing our visions like Immar does? Well, and maybe without drugs? These seem to be an essential ingredient of her magic so far... 

My experiences in the city of clay also raise questions about the Grimoires and forms of written magical tradition for me: How much magic can we actually share and pass on by writing things down? Doesn't the written word kill or at least confine the living spirit? Is it possible to share anything more than just the 'grammar' of a dead language by passing on written knowledge? And how much arduous work is it for all of us to re-create dead languages from dusty books of grammar - rather than traveling to the places where languages are still alive and spoken by living beings?

I'll leave you with one thought that has come back to me repeatedly since my third visit at Immar's hut: Maybe the whole Western Magical Tradition of the past 2000 years has been dominated way too much by men? Maybe it's a predominantly male trait to look for patterns, structure, grammar and everything that can be fixed and pinned down first and foremost? Weren't it male biologists who traveled the world, hunting for unknown species  and drowning them in millions of glasses of pure alcohol? I haven't heard of a lot of woman taking such an approach to exploring the unknown... Maybe it's as simple as that: Less structure and more living. Less science and more art. Less obsession with objectivity. And more experiences in our own inner realms? 

Learning the Magic of my Ancestors - part 2

A few weeks after my first ancestral journey I embarked on the second expedition. Since my return from the city of clay I had been curious to learn more about my ancestor's magic. However, it took a few weeks to integrate all the impulses I had received, to make sense of this new experience and relationship before I felt ready to return and re-engage...

Here is my account of what happened during my second visit. This time I was sitting in the small meditation room up on the first floor of our old house. Incense was raising from the Tibetian skull cup in front of me and filling the room. I had just finished my standard meditation, opened my eyes and looked at the cup of water that I had placed next to the incense... I stared at it for a while, closed my eyes and took its picture with me into the dark. The room and all outside world disappeared as I saw myself standing in the water bowl. Finally I had reached the Void again and enjoyed the quietness, the openness and the vast space stretching out around me in all directions...

It was clear that I had to follow the exact same path again in order to return to my female ancestor. So I cut my hand open and sank backwards into the stream of blood. After some time I emerged from the Void into the burning sun of the desert and allowed the stream to carry me in its current.

Sigil of Immar's spirit gate

as carved on her floor

Before entering on this journey I had drafted somewhat of a strategy on how to better engage with my ancestor. Last time I had taken over her body, not introduced myself and probably violated most unwritten etiquettes of ancestral visits? So this time I needed to do better. My idea was to enter the city in the shape of a fish. That had been the shape I arrived in the fish trap during my first visit and it seemed like a good approach to get through the guarded gates of the city. I would then call on my ancestor and ask her to come to the market and buy me from the fisherman that had brought me there. Once in her home I could take my human form again and we could interact openly and undisturbed from the outside world. 

I was flowing in the bloodstream through the desert, a crazy plan on my mind and no idea of where this would take me... It took much longer than before, yet at some point I found myself caught in a fish trap again. The water was rushing over me and I was stuck in a braided basket. Finally a hand pulled the basket out of the water and emptied it into another, larger basket which was fixed to the back of a man. A lid closed above me and I felt how the man set in motion. I was lying in the shade of the basket in my fish form, waiting for the man to arrive in the city...

After a long travel the lid was opened again. I found myself in a relatively dark room, tamped stairs were leading down into it and all walls as well as the ceiling were made from earth. I had been thrown onto a clay pot full of fish, when suddenly my ancestor was descending over the stairs and picking me up. Without hesitation she wrapped me into a cloth and disappeared again. When I saw the light again we were back in here small hut made from clay.

The loom was still standing to my right. On my left I saw the clay pots on the shelves; in front of me stood a low bed made from straw on which my ancestor was sitting. I am not sure how this happened, but once I looked around in the hut I realized that I had lost my fish form and had taken the shape of a naked young boy. My skin was almost white and I was sitting on a low chair opposite her...

• Acher: What is your name?
• Ancestor: (I am not going to share her full name; let's just call her Immar which I consider to be her first name. Her full name consists of six syllables and four words.)
• Acher: I am the one who comes from far away.
• Immar: Me too.

I don't recall why anymore, but at this point in our conversation I tried to change my shape. Maybe I started to feel uncomfortable being naked in front of her or maybe just being so much younger? I shifted my shape without intention and immediately turned into an old man.

Suddenly Immar was gone. The entire hut had turned empty from one moment to the next; the loom was gone, only some broken clay pots were left on the shelves... I shifted my shape again and returned to the form of the young boy. Everything was back in the room, Immar still sitting opposite me. A thought struck me... I carefully shifted my age forward, like the dial of a clock. I could see how Immar turned older immediately. For some strange reason the only way for us to communicate with each other at that particular time was in the shapes we had naturally taken: for me as young naked boy and for her as a woman, probably somewhere in her late 30s...

• Acher: How do you speak to the spirits?
• Immar: I just stand in their space. A physical space that is. Their power is connected to the earth and can be activated. Like this...

I look on the tamped floor in front of me and see a large sigil carved into the earth. (The closest form my mind could recreate after the expedition is the picture above.) Immar uses this sigil to open the spirit gates; the spirits pass through the earth.

• Acher: What can you teach me about your magic?
• Immar: I animate substances.
• Acher: How do you do that?
• Immar: I use everything that is ready to share. There are potent substances that can grant life to lifeless forms. I search these substances and I use them on others. Thus life is passed on, shared and I can animate things.

My view is caught by her underarms. Scars grace her dark skin, in the twilight of the room they look like bracelets covering everything from her wrist up to the elbows. I understand that scorpions play an important role in this, but I don't get to understand why and how she uses the poison to create these scars...

Immar hands me a drink in a dark clay pot. Now I am standing on the sigil on the ground; the drink is sticky and bitter. My body becomes weak. Immar takes back the bowl and hands me a paste of green herbs. I swallow the herbs; they taste dry and even more bitter than the drink. A strange perception is running through my body: I feel how my physical muscles and nerves turn weak and I am close to fainting. At the same time a new force is coming to life in my body, rushing through me, like a spirit in a new house. Something is entering into me.

I have become weak and shiver. I lay down on her bed. Immar approaches the bed and lays down next to me. My body becomes lucid, then transparent. I turn into smoke. I leave her hut through the open clay door into the streets. 

I return to the outer ring of walls that protect the city. The huge gate appears in front of me. It doesn't have any wooden doors, or at least I don't see them? Yet, this time I do see the magic it works even clearer: the inside of the gate is covered by a shiny, glistening web. The web is almost as dense as a lucid yet somewhat milky piece of glass. It protects the city from evil. I am flowing through the web and out into the desert. It's night. I return to the stream I had been caught in as a fish... Then I flow upstream like before, a long time, until I enter back into the Void.

::

It was only a couple of days after this second expedition that I realized something important. It was a feeling that had followed me, all the way up the river and through the Void. Immar was sad. Something burdensome and heavy was upon her. She hadn't mentioned it - probably because I hadn't asked for it. For a second time now I had come to her with a clear idea of what I wanted to receive - and yet with nothing to give back? 

Sometimes I really do get tired of myself. Mostly that is when I do the same mistakes over and over again. This clearly was one of these cases - going back to my ancestor for the second time and behaving like a small kid. Me, me, me! Well, maybe that was why I had been forced into the shape of a naked young boy?

Pondering about Immar's sadness and the course of our second encounter the strategy for my third visit became clearer: Next time I would return to give something back. 

:: continue with part 3 ::

Learning the Magic of my Ancestors - part 1

So much has been happening - and so little time to wrap things up in writing and share with you. My apologies. But let me try to make up - and share things as they happened, step by step... What we will embark upon together if you like is an expedition into magical workings with my ancestors. More specifically with a female ancestor of mine living in a city built of clay... 

Below is the story of how it all began. Since this first encounter I did three further visits which I will share shortly with you. I have learned a lot since then from the lady at the loom. And I guess what started as curiosity about an exercise in a book is slowly coming to life in a relationship across millennia of time... 

Since reading Josephine's book Magical Knowledge II I have been fascinated by her approach to magic - and most of all by the types of ancestral workings she explains. So after experimenting with using the Void as a gateway to the inner realms, I started out to explore my own bloodline... Here is the account of the first expedition.

::

Today I undertook my first ancestral journey through the Void according to Josephine's instruction. Unfortunately I had her book borrowed and so I had to recall the flow of the exercise by heart - which might be a good thing considering this is a journey through the time buried in my own blood.

Anyway, currently staying in the hills of wonderful Liguria I found myself a remote place behind a cemetary in the olive groves. I laid out a circle of small stones, sat myself on the bare ground and placed a small kitchen cup on a flat stone in front of me. I sprinkled water into the four directions ofthe sky and pouered therest into the cup. Finally I anointed the front and the back of my head with the water and sank into meditation.

My bloodline - some stuff I did with clay
and cherries fallen from a tree after my
first ancestral journey... 

After a while I found myself in the Void. I relaxed and enjoyed the darkness and space around me, void of any borders or objects restraining the flow of quiet consciousness. My right hand appeared out of darkness in front of me; I took a knife and made a deep cut into it... Blood immediately poured out, started to cover the ground below me and formed a current that dragged me backwards. I briefly thought that this makes perfect sense as my plan was to flow backwards in time. Then I let go and allowed the stream to carry me with it in its current... After a while I emerged out of the Void in a stream that led through a rough, desert-like scenery. The riverbed was carved deep into the sandstone and the shadows of the cliffs protected it slightly from the piercing sun. 

At some point I felt the urge to get out of the water. I climbed out of the stream and walked through the desert. Behind some dunes I discovered a tribe of shepherds who sat around a fire that had burned down to a pillar of smoke raising into the sky. I sat next to them and allowed their voices to adjust to my ear. I asked them what my relation was with them. They looked surprised and answered I was just one of them; a shepherd in their tribe. I asked for their priest and they told me to enter a black tent behind them. So I did. Inside I found the contours of a big person wearing a wooden mask and sitting in the back of the dark tent, half covered in cold sand. I asked something I forgot - and got a vision of his mask coming to life and bending towards me in a scream as a reply. I left the tent, walked back to the stream of blood and jumped into it again. Immidiately it carried me further backwards in time....

At one point I got caught in a fish trap. Somone took me out of the water and stabbed me into the stomach with a black, triangular knife. Then he put some pounded herbs into my mouth. Both the wound in my stomach and the herbs disappeared at the same time. The men was wearing his hair and beard in the knotted style of the Chaldeans or Assyrians. Through the desert he took me to a town build from clay. We entered the city through a huge portal. Under the arc of the portal on my right I could perceived the ghost of the guardian spirit of the portal. He remained calm and only chattered his teeth... 

On entering the inner city I immediately realized the huge ziggurat forming the center of the town. It raised high above the other buildings and most streets seemed to lead directly towards it. So did the one we walked on. The fisherman took me to a small house on one of the main streets. Inside of it was a wooden loom. On entering the house my own shape had changed; I now was a woman whose age seemed to constantly shift between young and beautilful and old and exhausted... I remember me thinking that maybe I had lived for a long time in this house, thus my changing shape might reflect all the years spent living here? 

I sat down in front of the loom and started to work. Immediately a feeling of deep meaning and satisfaction filled me: I could see the colored strands of wool weave together and hear the sound my hands on the wooden loom. To my surprise I realized that weaving on this loom was a purely magical act - my lips were reciting incantations as I created a specific pattern from the strands of wool... 

On turning around I saw the back wall of the clay hut covered with hollow-ware of all sorts. Some of them contained herbs and incenses, others parts of animals and liquids. I walked to the back, took one of the clay pots and went back to the loom. From inside the pot I smeared a dark-red liquid on my fingers and started to rub it onto the wool on the loom. Again, I knew this was a magical act for a specific purpose. Maybe to bring the patterns in the wool to live? Yet my body did all movements automatically and I didn't have any specific understanding of it. It felt as if I was a guest in this body, silently observing and lost in the deep yet foreign meaning of its actions...

Finally I got up from the loom and stood in the main door of the clay hut. Night had fallen upon the city and I saw lights burning high up on the ziggurat. Above me, pure and bright I saw the stars in all their constellations. Only then I realized that the eyes in this body were different from my eyes today: Everything looked as if shining from within through them, as if these eyes didn't try to distinguish between living and dead substances. Through these eyes every living and dead body seemed to be clothed in a silverfish spirit body, veiled softly and shimmering around it. Even from the stars I saw living lights streaming down into the streets of the town....

I think it was at this point that the Void started to return. It surrounded myself organically, like mist that raises from the fields... It washed away the lights and colors with darkness. My body had disappeared and I was back flowing in the limitless darkness ofthe Void. I allowed for the cup of water to come forth from the Void and the natural world around me to re-emerge from the water. Then I opened my eyes and drank the water from the white cup.

::

What I know now on reflection is that the woman on the loom wasn't an earlier incarnation of myself but one of my ancestors. Only now do I understand how important this differentiation is! This explains perfectly why I didn't had any control over her movements and didn't know what she was doing when being inside her body. She simply had allowed me to enter her body. To her I was an ancestral spirit (from the future) visiting her and she willingly had shared her body for a short while with me. When she stepped out of the hut and looked up at the stars, the Void re-appeard - because she had pulled me out of her body...

Next time I return to the city of the ziggurat I need to be much more respectful of her own individuality and being! And I need to find myself a different body so we can talk face to face. 

I am curious to learn about her magical loom and the type of magic she does with it. And maybe I can be of good service to her? I guess it should all start by introducing myself to her, just like any civilized person would do in any ancient or modern times - rather than taking possession of your body out of nowhere? I guess rudnesses like this only are accepted among ancestors...?

::

Stay with me. A few weeks later I returned to the city of clay. I'll be back posting the second visit shortly... That time my female ancestor told me her name and more about the specific type of magic she is working on.

:: Read on here ::

The Magician as a Hero - or allowing the wilderness to be wild

Here is an interesting idea to make magic a little less chauvinistic. But watch out - if you are a somewhat like me it might result in a spark of disillusionment initially... 

In a newspaper I recently stumbled across an article reflecting on the nature of heroes. The idea and fixed story pattern of a hero obviously is one of the most famous Topos in all cultures. However, the author's reflection on these basic pattern of any classical hero story struck me as quite new and compelling. Here is my English translation:

“From Odysseus to John Wayne the hero has always been the one without a home - or the one who found his way back through a long journey only. His adventures always took place beyond the borders, in the open wild not yet subjugated to any law or civilization. However, open spaces like these have almost completely disappeared in modern times. All seas have been mapped, all mountains have been conquered and all wilderness has been explored before. The classical hero, the one who brought law and order to places that still used to be in a state of raw natural wilderness slowly but surely has become unemployed.”

Now, let’s replace the word ‘hero’ with the word 'magician' and make another few adjustments to the quote. And then read it again: 

“From Odysseus to Aleister Crowley the magician has always been the one without a home - or the one who found his way back home through a long journey only. His adventures always took place beyond the borders, in the open wild not yet subjugated to any law or civilization. However, open spaces like these have almost completely disappeared in modern times. All inner realms have been mapped, all demons have been conquered and all magical wilderness has been explored before. The classical magician, the one who discovered keys to places that still used to be in a state of raw natural wilderness slowly but surely has become unemployed.”

Pause for a second and watch your emotional reaction... How does this feel? No spiritual wilderness left to be explored, no new tribes of demons or spirits to be discovered, all magical paths mapped in neatly pocket-sized glossy books for us?

Well, I can tell you how it feels for me. It's a total nightmare! And I immidiaterly have to admit: I really hadn’t been aware about this. But a big part of my fascination for magic seems to be exactly that: the adventures of the hero passing through the unknown (inner) wilderness.... 

Let’s think about it: despite the deep sea maybe the inner realms are the last open space left in our sphere of existence? Maybe the worlds we travel and explore as magicians, the relationships we create and the things we bring back home from our quests - maybe that is the closest thing we have left these days to the journeys of Odysseus or Marc O'Polo?

And another thought struck me immidiately: Let's stop trying to bring the 'law' to places that have been beautiful for millennia without us. I guess that's the attitude that started all the trouble we are in today: trying to civilize the wilderness, rather than accepting it for what it is  and embracing its mesmerizing ambiguity.

But what will it take from us? How does the story of a hero need to change? What type of heroism will it take to traverse the wilderness without trying to change it? Without trying to impose our way of being and fulfillment of our desires, our needs and wishes on the world around us?

Well, I guess the one quality heroes never really stood for is humility. And that's exactly what it will take. If we want the last spots of wilderness to remain wild, if we want to expand rather than erase the last open spaces on this planet our journey needs to stop revolving around ourselves and our greedy egos... We need to stop trying to write history. 

The times of the magician as a hero are over. Our times, however, as keepers of the threshold between confined and open spaces might just about to begin...? Let's read another quote and change it again slightly. Here is what Wikipedia tells us about the term dragoman:

A dragoman was an interpreter, translator and official guide between Turkish, Arabic, and Persian-speaking countries and polities of the Middle East and European embassies, consulates, vice-consulates and trading posts. A dragoman had to have a knowledge of Arabic, Turkish, and European languages.

And here is what it could mean for us as magicians:

A dragoman was an interpreter, translator and official guide between the outer and inner realms, between the spheres of humans, angels and demons keeping various interests in  fine balance. A dragoman had to have a knowledge of human, angelic and demonic languages.

Maybe when our journey stops being about us, about our achievements, our fears and wishes, we can restart allover again and achieve something really meaningful. 

::

Did I ever mention that the wonderful Virignia Satir held the opinion that all conflicts arise from a lack of self-worth? Maybe that does the trick? Once we don't feel challenged by the wilderness in our own self-worth anymore, we can stop trying to change it into something similar to ourselves...  

What I have, what I have

Is nothing that you want

What I lack, what I lack

Nothing but your love

(It's easy)

Don't try, don't try so hard

My love is easy

Don't be the afterglow

These drugs won't leave me

All we have, all we have

Is nothing but our love

(It's easy)

It's easy, your love is easy

And I get more than I deserve

I get more than I deserve

Baby everyone some worth

And we get more than we deserve

Don't try, don't try so hard

My love is easy

Don't be the afterglow

These drugs don't leave me

Don't try so hard

My love is easy

Don't be the afterglow

Your drugs don't leave me

And I get more than I deserve.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - Nothing But Our Love

Less Creation, more Integration!

Currently I am working on two articles. One of them is related to the history of the concept of the Holy Genius and the Evil Daimon; it seem's I opened a can of worms here and it will certainly take some time until it is ready to be published... Meanwhile I am also writing a new article on a model that I have come to use to consciously integrate the impact subsequent to any magical rites. An aspect of magic that strikes me as heavily underestimated...

So it's this latter paper that has received most of my time these days - and led me to the rant below. I am not quite sure where my strong opinion on the subject came from, but unfortunately I have to admit that this is how I see things... So let me share a few thoughts on why I think creativity is heavily overrated these days - especially in magic. And why what we really need is more integration.

(...) Compared to any previous age of magic our current period is radically different.  Information has become instantly accessible all over our planet. The secret keys are not so secret any longer and there are more grimoires out there on the internet than any magician can ever perform in a lifetime... For centuries our ancestors were starving from information shortage. All they wanted to know were the ‘What and How’ of magic. In stark contrast today we live in an abundance of information. For us the burning question has changed from ‘What do I have to do in order to...’ to ‘And what’s next?’ 

Once the doors are opened, once contact is established to the inner realms - where do you go from here? What’s next? Or in other words: now that I have evoked the spirits of the Arbatel or Almadel or Picatrix - why isn’t my life more complete? We are living in a time of consumption and we started to consume magic like most other things in our lives. Yet the aftertaste is flat and for some reason we don’t feel satisfaction kicking in?  

Any good answer is simple; so here are my 2 cents: We don’t get satisfied, we move from one project to the next, because we don’t allow ourselves to rest, to look back - and to connect the dots. We are so obsessed with individuality and creativity, with achievement and output that we forget how to integrate all the living pieces back together again. We are writing a book, a chapter a day, and wonder why all of our stories are so short? We are opening ten new circles a day and have almost lost the knowledge on how to close anyone of them again...  

The word Grimoire stems from the root of the old French word grammaire. I guess this really makes my point: We have arrived at a time where the grammar of magic is openly available to everyone. Now it is time to say something meaningful. 

It's time to say something meaningful in the language of magic - not to other people, but to ourselves first and foremost. It’s not good enough anymore to create a mess of our lives in the name of exploration, of recreation of ancient magical systems or occult science. It’s time to take responsibility - for ourselves and for the people around us that matter. It’s time to apply magic and to give back through our practice. 

It’s time that this place and we ourselves become a little better - because of magic.

::

Ah, but what am I saying? Let's not allow the state of business to get us down. There is help! And it has the wonderful golden shape of a sax.... listen to this!

FREE - A Course in Dream Magic - in three parts

I once heard someone saying: 'Consciousness is the key to magic.' I guess that's pretty true but also pretty general. If we try to be a bit more concise we will need to admit: Consciousness is not the key but a heavy bunch of keys - just as large as the old prison guard would carry it in an aged black and white movie. And magic isn't a single door either, but a realm as vast and deep as the dark prison the old guard is warding with its hundreds of doors all quietly waiting locked behind thick steel.

Our consciousness can take hundreds of shapes. And each state of consciousness presents a key to one of these doors. Turning it around, opening the cold, old door something is waiting for us on the other side... A magical encounter, a spirit, a demon, an archangel, a being from another realm. And all these realms are normally inaccessible for our consciousness - unless it changes its shape and turns into the key we need...

The ability to induce a specific state of consciousness that matches the door and lock in front of us - that is the key to magic. What this requires is a simple yet often overlooked competency: The ability to observe and actively change our state of consciousness.

Simple.

Actual.

Dion Fortune's definition of magic is "the art of changing consciousness at will". I can not think of any better practice for this skill than using it in our dreams. 

Over the last decade I have worked intesely with dreams - my own ones and the ones of clients. Despite all the interesting adventures it taught me and took me through, there are way more experienced practitioner of this art out there. People who can induce lucid dreams instantly by will or who perform full conscious ritual circles while sleeping at night. I am clearly not one of them - and maybe should work harder to get there or at least regret it more than I do? But the type of magic I have learned to perform in and in partnership with my dreams is completely sufficient for my needs. It does the job.

The 'job' of all my magic is to lead a happy life. Now, I realized it's most easy to lead a happy life when my consciousness is flexible - to adopt, to change, to emerge and grow - and not stagnant or overly dependent on inner subconscious limitations or urges. Thus freeing my consciousness from limitations in order to resonate and echo livelily, in order to co-create and co-experience my own being and the world around me is the path of my magick.

For everyone interested in this type of co-creation and conscious flexibility I have shared the essential techniques of dream magic in a free Course on Dream Magic. Starting out as a personal working document almost ten years ago, then merging into a series of talks in my former study group and ultimately evolving into an online course in dream magic - the three parts on MyOccultCircle.com bring together all you need to know about working with your dreams successfully. At least for your first decade.

Here is an overview on the content of the Course. And a quick note: just in case you are already familiar with dream magic, take a look at chapter VI) Feeding Aggressive Dream Beings; there is some new stuff in there that might surprise...

:: 

::

Well, there is certainly a lot to read out there and it would be impolite not to recommend at least one good tune appropriate for this ride to the night side of our lives... So let's switch on the magic jukebox again, push the button, watch as the silver arm pulls out the disc, the sound descends... and you can close your eyes for the wonderful Alexander Ebert - TRUTH: 

The truth is that I never shook my shadow

Every day it's trying to trick me into doing battle

Calling out 'faker' only get me rattled

Wanna pull me back behind the fence with the cattle

Building your lenses

Digging your trenches

Put me on the front line

Leave me with a dumb mind

With no defenses

But your defense is

If you can't stand to feel the pain then you are senseless

Since this,

I've grown up some

Different kinda figther

And when the darkness come, let it inside you

Your darkness is shining

My darkness is shining

Have faith in myself

Truth.

I've seen a million numbered doors on the horizon

Now which is the future you choosen before you gone dying

I'll tell you about a secret I've been undermining

Every little lie in this world comes from dividing

Say you're my lover

say you're my homie

Tilt my chin back, slit my troath

Take a bath in my blood, get to know me

All out of my secrets

All my enemies are turning into my teachers

Because 

Light's blinding

No way dividing

What's yours or mine when everything's shining

Your darkness is shining

My darkness is shining

Have faith in ourselves

Truth.