Conjuring thought forms…

(Austin Osman )Spare too was able occasionally to conjure thought-forms to visible appearance, but whereas in the old witch’s case it was an unfailing power, in his own case it was erratic and uncertain. On one occasion it worked only too effectively, as two unfortunate persons learnt to their cost. They were of the dilettante kind, mere dabblers in the occult. They wanted Spare to conjure an Elemental to visible appearance. They had seen materialized spirits of the dead in the seance room, but had never seen an Elemental. Spare tried to dissuade them, explaining that such creatures were subconscious automata inhabiting the human psyche at levels normally inaccessible to the conscious mind. As they almost always embodied atavistic urges and propensities, it was an act of folly to evoke them as their intrusion into waking life could be extremely dangerous. But the smatterers did not take him seriously.

Using his own method of elemental evocation, Spare set to work. Nothing happened for some time, then a greenish vapour, resembling fluid seaweed, gradually invaded the room. Tenuous fingers of mist began to congeal into a definite, organized shape. It entered their midst, gaining more solidity with each successive moment. The atmosphere grew miasmic with its presence and an overpowering stench accompanied it; and in the massive cloud of horror that enveloped them, two pinpoints of fire glowed like eyes, blinking in an idiot face which suddenly seemed to fill all space. As it grew in size the couple panicked and implored Spare to drive the thing away. He banished it accordingly. It seemed to crinkle and diminish, then it fell apart like a blanket swiftly disintegrating. But while it had cohered and hung in the room like a cloud, it was virtually opaque and tangible; and it reeked of evil. Both the people concerned were fundamentally changed. Within weeks, one died of no apparent cause; the other had to be committed to an insane asylum.

Kenneth Grant
Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare

Sex and Spirituality…

Sex is spiritual. We live in a culture that has historically insisted that sex and spirituality are mutually exclusive, in a country founded by puritans who were convinced that God hated sex. But as radical perverts, our experience and our belief is that sex is spiritual, and that a simple honest orgasm is a spiritual experience. Sexuality has been a path for both of us – the road we originally took to question our individual and social programming. Discovering the ways in which we as women could grasp our sexuality was a powerful way to heal from our childhoods and from our sex-negative culture. We have proceeded from that healing to further selfexploration, and to celebrating our spirituality in the practice of S/M.

Ritual S/M is edge play directed to the purpose of attaining altered states of consciousness, of travelling beyond our habitual perceptual screens to another way of being in which everything becomes special, extraordinary, brilliant. Goals for such a scene might be a quest for guidance or a vision, the pursuit of personal truth and understanding , or the experience of spiritual communion for its own sake.

S/M players have devised rituals for these purposes by mixing our sexual exploration and our own personal mythologies (our S/M roles and stories, like The Kidnapping of the Pleasure
Slave) with spiritual practices we learn from other traditions: kundalini yoga, the rites of Kali, vision quest, wherever we find the images that help us manifest what is beyond our ability to
imagine. Take, for example, a scene based on the simple act of chanting. Dossie recalls:

“My bottom and I were in deep grief over a mutual friend and mentor we had lost to AIDS, and we had decided to seek release in ritual SIM. I tied her to a padded table and flogged her to the point of weeping, all the while chanting “Om Krim Kalyae Namaha,” an invocation to Kali, the terrifying Hindu goddess of death and birth. As I struck with the whip in rhythm with the chant, I felt myself go into trance, the words of the chant serving to occupy my conscious mind, leaving me free to feel the energy flowing through the whip, my bottom’s grief surging beneath me, until I felt in myself Kali the inexorable, the implacable force of nature which dictates that everything we love must die. My partner struggled with her grief, writhing and thrashing, held safe by the bondage, and wept copiously, chanting “Jaia Ma,” an invocation to the Mother goddess, over and over, until both of our grief and despair had been fully poured out, and we had reached a sense of exhausted peace with the universe. The Hindus say of Kali that there is no way to understand her, no logic to explain her, no justification – she is like a storm, we have no choice but to love her, and in that love , come to acceptance of our human condition.”

Catherine Liszt and Dossie Easton
The Topping Book

Sex, Fear and Pain…

Working with sex, fear and pain together is a journey into the darkest regions of sex magic, and is the purpose behind the increasing popularity of S/M sexual practices within the realm of ritual magic. These practices consist of consensual acts of dominance and submission in a role playing context which gives the apparent ‘power’ of the situation into the hands of one person, commonly referred to as the ‘top’, while the other person, often referred to as the bottom’, submits to the will and actions of the top within boundaries which have been prearranged between them (or among them, in larger group situations). It is important to remember in these ‘scenes’ as they are called that the roles are consensual. Despite appearances, nothing happens by force or against the will or chosen parameters of the bottom. The bottom may experience very real fear or pain, possibly as well as pleasure and sexual stimulation of some sort alternately, and it is the very intensity of these experiential perceptions which will take the bottom into ritual gnosis of a very deep nature, known as ‘bottom space’. Bottom space may also include psychological reactions, not always of a pleasant nature, and yet these experiences are also desired by those who tread this path.

Jaq D Hawkins
The Cauldron of Subservience

MAGIC & THE SPRING EQUINOX

All are assembled in a clearing in the woods at about l1.3Opm. The priestess administers a powerful sacrament to the celebrants who are deployed around the circle. Light is provided by torches at the cardinal points.

PRIESTESS:

Ecstatic are the rites of Man
And doubly so when horned Pan,
Careering through the Wildwoods night,
Puts Temperance and Shame to flight.
Put off the black of robe and cowl
And naked run and stalk and prowl.
(The wildhunt seeketh not to kill
Dumb beast or bird, rather to thrill
Numb human sense, – to pinnacle
The peak phantasmagorical).

A human snake is formed of men and women alternately with the priestess at the head. She moves off into the darkness, slowly at first but gradually becoming faster, weaving between trees and bushes, through tall bracken until, careless of direction, she leads the group pell mell until it fortuitously arrives back at the circle. A short time elapses for the recovery of breath.

PRIESTESS:

lo Pan, raw power of Light and Lust,
lo Pan, our strength derives from dust,
But thine absorbs the power of spring
Then spirals out in beat of wing,
In tear of talon, rending beak,
Triumphant horn, astride the peak
Of ecstasy without control
As flutes shrill high and tabors roll.
We ask for no embodiment
For here we have a regiment
Of men prepared to take thy form
And ravish nature in a storm
Of fervent, frenzied frolicking,
All pleasure here encompassing.

The priestess sets the wand of Pan in the ground at the centre of the circle. The men stand at equidistant points facing outwards while they are blindfolded by the women who then chant and beat drums. To this accompaniment the men whirl and spin in situ for as long as the priestess deems fit. The women, as they dance within the circle, ensure that the men do not enter it. At the command of the priestess there is silence and the men attempt to get to the wand. They are hindered in this by the women who misguide them in whatever way they choose.

When the wand is eventually reached the man’s blindfold is removed and the other men are led back to the circumference where they remain blindfolded.

The priestess anoints the man’s body with fragrant oil; he is now regarded as the regent of Pan. She makes obeisance to him as does each woman in her turn in her own way. A fire is lighted.

At the command of the priestess the men, still hoodwinked, grope around the circle until each has found a woman. The women remove the men’s blindfolds and the couples leap the fire (the size of which depends on the priestess’s sense of humour) in the time honoured fashion.

The rite is concluded in whatever way the priestess sees fit.

PAULA PAGANI
The Cardinal Rites of Chaos

English professor’s ass….

My English professor’s ass was so beautiful. It was perfect and full as she stood at the board writing some important word. Reality or perhaps illusion. She opened the door. With each movement of her arms and her hand delicately but forcefully inscribing the letters intended for our eyes her ass shook ever so slightly. I had never learned from a woman with a body before. Something slow, horrible and glowing was happening inside me. I stood on the foothills to heaven. She opened the door.

Eileen Myles
Inferno (A Poet’s Novel)

The Moon’s Daughter

The moon releases her daughter –
Mid-Night Dancer,
it’s only early evening, winter.
She fish-nets the moat
in one continuous shriek of sparklers.

Shows herself on the mud flats,
snaking the surface
in a belly-dancing act,
glistening eyes caught
in tiny cats-eye puddles.

Climbs trees edging the towpath
skeletal swiftness
and she’s fox-trotting in clouds
shimmering all the way back
to her mother’s round body.

Must be just past mid-night now.
The moon’s voice full throttle
bellows onto the earth below,
did you see how beautiful she is?
Keep your hands to yourself.

Pauline Hawkesworth

Spell to send a dream message…

To send a message to someone in their dreams, if they just won’t listen to you in waking life, or you don’t know how else to tell them:
Materials:
• Small piece of paper
• Pen
• Lavender
• Rosemary
• Small drawstring bag
• Small white candle
• Sandalwood incense
• Clear/rose quartz crystal (optional. The clear would just be used as an enhancer, and the rose would be an enhancer also, but rose quartz works better for dreams)
• The person’s hair, or a picture of them (optional, but it may make the spell stronger)

Instructions:
1. Light the candle and incense.
2. Determine exactly what it is you want them to hear, see, or feel and write it down as detailed as possible.
3. Put the herbs, hair, and paper into the bag. Pass the bag through the candle flame and incense. Then hold it in your hands and say (or something similar):

“Holy Mother, Goddess divine, I stand before your sacred shine. [person] won’t listen or hear, my words tickle at deafened ear. Holy Mother, Goddess divine, send a dream, awaken the mind. Through his/her vision, he/she might live the (nightmare, lesson, message, etc.) he/she so freely give. Holy Mother, Goddess divine, send them you enchanted design. Clear out the cobwebs, tear down the walls. Carry my message through spirit calls. An’ it harm none, so mote it be.” (Change the chant to suit your needs)

4. Put the sachet next to the candle and incense and let them burn out completely. Then put it somewhere safe where it will not be disturbed until the message has been received.

Belladonna’s Witch Blog.

Beneath the surface…

I learned that just beneath the surface there’s another world, and still different worlds as you dig deeper. I knew it as a kid, but I couldn’t find the proof. It was just a kind of feeling. There is goodness in blue skies and flowers, but another force – a wild pain and decay – also accompanies everything.

David Lynch

Take a pee in the sea, bring a loved one back to me…

A rite seldom mentioned but frequently performed on Scarborough pier, and described by James Schofield in his ‘Guide to Scarborough’ (1787): there, on the pier, was a “small circular cavity” where the wife or girlfriend of a sailor, worried about his return from sea, could crouch and supply “a saline and tepid libation” – could piss in the hole, to use the vernacular. This “while the sacrifice, muttering her tenderest wishes, looks towards that quarter, from whence the object of her anxiety, is expected to arrive”. Pissing in the sea in this way ensured the acquiescence of the waves and the calming of the wind. Schofield mentions the case of a fisherman named Gradling given up for lost at sea, but his wife took a trip along the pier and pissed long and hard through the hole. “The libation was scarcely cold” before the missing boat arrived on the horizon!

You’ve got to be kidding me…