Jason Miller's "The Sorcerer's Secrets: Strategies in Practical Magick"

Last Friday the mailman brought this little book and whilst not the one i was oh so needy to get my hands on, it actually dragged me into a reading frenzy. I liked it, i liked it a lot, here's why:

For some years I've noticed two trends in the occult publishing community. In one side of the spectrum, it seems to become more and more common the raging voices of malcontents that either don't understand or simply dont like the "lust for results" that a lot of (if not all) students have, specially in "high magic" circles. As a consequence, "low magic" gets the shaft. Its particular nature that is in accordance to those very results, is often sneered at as if, somehow, a sorcerer can't achieve some abstract and deeply individual "great work" in his sorcery or if the worry for physical comfort was a blasphemy (oh i do recall the string of magicians praising poverty as if it was, by itself, some privileged means to attain enlightenment). On the other hand, pop books that dwell on half arsed spells, tidbits of magical techniques poorly explained and that regurgitate the same correspondence tables abound. Often i asked myself: "Well, where's the  new material that is neither in denial of human basic needs and that doesn't treat the subject as if it was all a matter of praying to the goddess whilst adding color X with stone Y?". And this small gap in literature is what Jason Miller filled with his slim volume. It's not revolutionary book by any means, nor does it present exactly something new, but his honesty and the very workable sorcery system presented in the book was a breath of fresh air in my shelf. Traditionalists that cringe at the thought of eclecticism should stay away, i guess, so should people that worry a bit too much about that elusive karma and the even more elusive ethical behaviour for this book both mix'n'matches and has no qualms with influencing and manipulating people regardless of their willingness to comply. There is no real cosmology presented, there are no great appeals to tradition or to established mythos. There is only the overall feeling of doing what works in order to get what you desire. And it delivers what it promises whilst still not forgetting personal development, practice, and directing the student to further study with a personalized recommendation list. And this is what makes it awesome.
There are problems with the book, though. For one, the book is riddled with typos. Even I, not a native speaker of English, saw this and found it detrimental to the reading. Its notes are also far and in-between and are not nearly sufficient for the book he is presenting; only one ritual (that I've noticed) presented a pronunciation description (something very important if you are going to vibrate something), still, he does have a forum on his webpage where you can discuss his work and he does interact with people that hang around there...this transparency is a plus for me.

All in all, recommended to anyone that wants to read something a bit out of the ordinary, clearly written and focused on pragmatic side of magic.
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The Birth of a Shaman: An outlook on Death and Rebirth

1968 marked the Western world with the publishing of an M.D thesis that became well accepted in both academic and popular circles. "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge" was the first of a series of volumes pertaining to Carlos Castaneda supposed apprenticeship under the guidance of Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Shaman. Despite being later debunked by Richard deMille and riddled with controversy, Castaneda's work still retains a mystique and allure that inspires and awakens people to the hidden and profound realities of the human psyche which makes these books recommended time again and again. This massification and popularization of Shamanism was sealed with the works of Michael Harner whose contribution, alongside with other anthropologists such as Barbara Tedlock and Larry Peters, marked a new milestone in Anthropology for they not only registered what they saw, but also became a part of the communities they studied. For the first time, the scholar was not only the observer but also the participant. 

As a nontraditional Shaman, Michael Harner and his Foundation for Shamanic Studies is usually credited the popularization of shamanic techniques and the birth of Neo-Shamanism that, in his Foundation, is called Core Shamanism, a syncretic approach that gathers the similarities between the different types of shamanic experiences and produces a whole that's workable to the western frame of mind and experience. Whilst not the aim of this short exposition to analyze and opinionate on the validity, or lack of, of Neo-shamanism, it is crucial to be aware of its development in conjunction and contrast with its counterpart, Traditional Shamanism, for much of our own practices as witches and magicians are rooted in this ancient spiritual tradition.

Shamanism, as with everything, has the beginning of its problematic with its very definition. To define it I will use the one I consider most appropriate, being " Shamanism can be defined as a family of traditions whose practitioners focus on voluntarily enter altered states of consciousness in which they experience themselves or their spirit(s) communing and encountering several entities, often by travelling to other realms, in order to serve their community" *.I find this definition to be very accurate since it touches on the controlled and ecstatic ways that enable the shaman to be of service, their perception and contact with spirits, and also relates this figure to its validating source: the tribe in which they are inserted. This magico-religious system is one, if not the, oldest religious tradition of Mankind. Whilst not possible to ascertain when it began, it has been popularly linked with Palaeolithic parietal art being a common favourite the display of Le Trois Frères human figure covered with a bison skin as if it was a shaman, however, as said previously, the engravings of Trois Fréres and other caves are simply not enough to infer precisely on what type of religious tradition the Palaeolithic people had and much less if it was Shamanism or not.

The word Shamanism entered our vocabulary through Russian and stems from the Tunguric word saman – a male practitioner -. Shamans are responsible for several roles within the community they serve. They are the priests, the healers, the lore-keepers, the magicians and the mediators between the seen and the useen reality. This formula of spiritual guidance is found throughout the world and it appears to be prevalent in nomadic hunter-gatherer societies that have little to no hierarchical stratified roles. The selection of a shaman happens in three ways: He can be predestined to be so because of hereditary factors; because of a series of events that sets them apart from the community, or, finally, a person can choose to become a shaman, however, the latter ones are perceived to be much less powerful and effective then the former ones. This selection is done either by their community or by the spirits, whose choice is later confirmed by the tribe or the already existent shaman. It is rather obvious the dependence and crucial role that the tribe has on the life of the shaman. As a symbiotic relationship, one serves the other being the community that ratifies a person in his role.In the hereditary end of the spectrum, this selection is filled with superstition and taboo. Even before the would-be shaman is born there are harsh measures placed upon the parents and those taboos follow the him throughout his life. Knud Rasmussen gives an account of one such shaman, Aua, whose mother, amongst other things, was put on strict diet and had to eat from special pots and not able to be visited by any other woman, nor even Aua's father during the first year of his life; his father, on the other hand, was never allowed to sharpen his own knives. The taboo's followed Aua to his adult life being directly concerned with the tribe's sustenance means such as hunting.

Those who were called to shamanism by the spirits had different, but equally harsh experiences. Mircea Eliade notes that "sickness, attacks, and hallucination" were often pre-stages of an emergent shaman. He said that " among the Chuckchee Indians the process is a painful and long journey", this same tribe also believes that a future shaman can be recognized by the look in the eyes are not directed towards the speaker/listener but towards the infinity. The selection, however, is only the first stage for, although in the western world a lot of the shaman's behaviour would be regarded as a psychopathology, there is a distinct mark that sets them apart from the man who was lost to the spirits, and that is control. Indeed the very foundations of shamanism lie in the controlled ability to, ecstatically and at will, walk between the spirit and normative world. This ability, as well as some of the conditions that precognize a shaman and some of the features that accompany their rituals, have, due to the lack of understanding and biases of past scholars, often equated this figure with mental illnesses, something that is not, at all, correct. When Michael Harner was studying with the South American Jívaro tribe, he noticed a man who was always in the jungle talking with spirits. He asked one of his contacts if said man was a shaman. "No" – he replied – "he is crazy". This view is is further supported by psychological data now available due to the increased interest in the subject, something that I will explore later when time is more willing to comply with my wishes. This "control" necessary to allow a shaman to work for the benefit of both himself and his tribe is acquired through a two sided training. Firstly, there is a time of apprenticeship with a master where the theory and practices are presented according to lore, cosmology, ritual and taboo in the ever pervading formative context of culture and myth. It is the mythos that frames and guides the shaman through their cognitive worlds and that sustain him in his altered consciousness states where he will discover and persuade spirits to befriend and help him and the tribe he serves. To this end, the apprentice shaman undergoes a series of ascetic practices such as prolonged fasting, solitude, exposure to cold and other inclement weather, sleep deprivation, pain. An Eskimo Shaman tells us that:

"The only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and it can be reached only by suffering. Privation and suffering alone open the mind of man to all that is hidden to others".

Personally, I find this statement beautiful, echoed by the words of Andrew Chumbley:

"Solitude is a Muse to Those whom it loves. "

For a shaman, the suffering and solitude are the means par excellence for the sublimation of the mind and it is during this time that he will learn to recognize, encounter and obtain his first familiar spirits/animals as well as spirit journeying in what is the second part of his training: The direct experience of the "unseen" reality.

The culmination of this stage of learning is initiation. Initiation in a shamanic context is not a stage of beginning but of achievement. An awakening and recognition of attainment. The Eskimo Aua speaks of such attainment thus :

"And then, in the midst of such mysterious and overwhelming delight I became a shaman, not knowing myself how it came about. But I was a shaman. I could see and hear in a totally different way. I had my quamenEq, my enlightment, shaman light of brain and body, and this in such a manner that it was not only I who could see through the darkness of life, but the same…"

This quamenEq refers to a light that the shaman feels in his body, within his brain and that illuminates the dark allowing him to see both literally and metaphorically for it also grants the shaman the ability to see far ahead into the future, the spirit world and within one's soul. This, in conjunction with his ability to journey to other worlds, is what allows him to act as psychopomp.

Despite being actively described as a "Initiation", this event significant and ontological – for the one experiencing it – process is a "death and rebirth" stage. Shamans, yet again, are unable to provide the "whys" to this death and rebirth that has the shaman's body being destroyed and then reconstituted. Rasmussen offers the explanation that, for the shaman to withstand shamanic work and please the spirits, a shaman must be able to see himself as a skeleton. The only part that will remain are the bones for that is the part of himself that will endure long after death. Thus, the blood, flesh and other bodily fluids are taken from him in a dismemberment done by demons or ancestors in a transformative and healing way. Eliade echoes this theme with a discription of a neophyte of the Avam Samoyed of Siberia. This neophyte traveled to the underworld escorted by animal guides provided by the Lord of the Underworld where he encountered evil shamans, Lords of Epidemics, which taught him in the nature of diseases. After this lesson, his heart was ritually torn out, thrown into a pot and then he traveled to the land of female shamans where he was gifted with a stronger voice as well as to the Tree of the Lord of Earth where he received several powers, such as healing power. He continued onwards encountering several entities and again ritually slain and boiled over the cauldron for three years till the blacksmith forged the neophyte's head on one of three anvils which gave him his superhuman sight. Only after becoming a master did the neophyte awoke, revivified as a Shaman.

This dismemberment theme is not only found in Siberia but also amongst the Australian aborigines and others. Whilst not possible to retell every single account of death/rebirth process, it is important to retain that for a shaman to become so he must die for become worthy of the spirits and of the gift the spirits give to him. Shamans start their process being sick, they peak at death, and when they come back they gain mastery, power, and effectively become weller, that is, better then they ever were. To us, in this post-modernist age where the individual is praised above all else and where shamanism is being sold in a few hours workshop it is crucial to ask ourselves, what are we truly doing?

*Definition provided in Roger Walsh in "The world of Shamanism – New views of an ancient tradition"

Resources used in this piece:

Eliade, Mircea. Rites and Symbols of Initiation : The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth


Eliade, Mircea: Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy

Harner, Michael – The Way of the Shaman

Harner, Michael – The Jivaro: People of the sacred Waterfalls

Rasmussen, Knud – Across arctic America

Walsh, Roger - The world of Shamanism – New views of an ancient tradition

 

  "The greatest peril of life lies in the fact that human food consists entirely of souls. All the creatures that we have to kill and eat, all those that we have to strike down and destroy to make clothes for ourselves, have souls, souls that do not perish with the body and which must therefore be pacified lest they should revenge themselves on us for taking away their bodies"

(I just felt like adding this up because its beautiful and im experimenting with the quote thingy)

Surrealistically Grotesque

As I lay there I knew if that if the man dressed in a suit with his back to me would turn I wouldn't see a face, there would only be the innards of a skull, as if he was made by nature to coexist in the world after a shotgun discharge, despite all laws and reason. I tried to shrug it off, it didn't matter, I wasn't participating in it, it was just another image, but the mongoloid child staring adoringly into the guys bloody mess wouldn't go away and neither would he and I didn't wanted her to notice me, the unwilling observer. She was pale and red haired, the down-syndrome characteristics making her look even more pitiful as she smiled, toothless. I tried again, and again the zoom on her face. I broke it off, the fear overwhelming me.

 

Sometimes I think the bizarre will always keep me from myself. Sometimes I think I deserve being kept from myself for being a coward.

Easy Database for the technologically impared.

Was talking with a friend the other day about how some new technological device that incorporates a multimedia board just came out and was still in a phase where its not so useful. To my wild imagination, such a device would be awesome, especially if it allowed you to read documents and , regardless of the document format, take notes and create links based on tags, much how it already happens in a blog, where you could easily cross reference through several books with the plus of being portable and usable anywhere. This would help immensely in an investigation setting for you no longer had to solely rely on your memory or note-books and easily go through literally gigabytes of information in seconds looking only for that particular "tag" that's relevant to your research at the time, all this completely customizable by you and based on the notes you created in the documents present in said err notepad. I'm sure something akin to this already must exist in some form - I either dont know about it and probably can't even afford it - but this little wish had me thinking on how i could improve my acess to all the data that i'm either working on or have already worked on without having necessarily to go dig through countless diaries and notebooks, filled with scribbles, ink blotches and a tremendous amount of space occupied. Would this negate the very mystique of operating your own diary of experience and testing? Certainly not, on the other hand, it would help to keep things easily organized, virtually space free, and easily accessible, something that a clumsy, forgetful person like me would very much appreciate.

In the beginning i thought about creating a database in Microsoft Access, but my knowledge of it would prompt me to precisely state what the parameters of search would be, and that, in the long run, would make it counter what initially designed it for: Simplicity in accessing information. It was with this in mind that yesterday I created an Microsoft Excell workbook related only to my herbalism exploits. Now, Excell is really awesome. Its a very vast application that allows you to crunch numbers, data, and text; it allows the input of data and the consequent treatment. So, i created already a bunch of pages in said workbook regarding the plant species I have in store, which ones i actually grow, which ones i want to plant, which part of the plant i have/use, and what plans I have for future acquisition, when are the best seasons for planting and harvesting plus little tidbits of folklore. But this is not all, with the application of filters and data validations linked to mutable and fixed anchors I can cross reference those plants with existent recipes where they play part, and, of course, have a page for the recipes themselves where i decided to give it the most "scientific" treatment possible.
This recipe page is my crown and glory. Since I am developing my own recipes as well as working with a bunch of different texts on the subject, its so easy to follow the progress of the recipes, where i failed and what i think can be improved on, if they need or not further testing...its amazing. I am so proud of myself that I'm filled like a balloon :)

This is an example, not complete, of the recipe database. The cathegories included are: The recipe name, if it was tested on what, how you prepared it and the supposed effects as well if they worked or not. There are also cathegories for its effectiveness (on a 1 to 5 scale), where did the recipe come from, the conditions of preparation (poor, average, good, excellent and perfect) as well as a description of said conditions and also a space for notes and if the recipe requires further testing and perfection or if its good the way it is. Excel's filters will allow me to navigate easily through the recipes using any of the categories as a search parameter. All in all, works great for what its intended for.

Pathworking

We stood together and clasped hands, fearful that all out efforts would be in vain. “Nothing will take us from here” we said, as the wind nudged slowly forward.  Turned to stone we waited, as the gate grew to immense heights, so humble and small it seemed to us, that our fear subsided and we dared to come in. Inside, the halls were of wood made of stone, nothing  as was supposed to be.

 The chambers circled themselves in a maze and the wind nudged us forward, it nudged us forward and so we went. Feline like, covered in fur, she weaved her arms commanding and they came. Howling winds and a darkness alive, a darkness that spoke of stone and moss and screeching voices in the wind. We turned into ice and flame, we rode the winds. We screeched and brought the world’s end. Animals, we were, no more than animals-Engulfed, she bade them farewell. Obediently they conceded and she, now a bird, took us to a woman, languidly stretching into the ocean. The more we gazed into her orange eyes the more we forgot who we were, lost in a slumber of ages. Spots of light floated as we swayed in her and to her rhythm. Not we, for we were no longer we. We were the sway and the spots, just not the woman. Briskly, the bird that was a woman that was a cat waved her arms again and took us south. There lay great deserts entombed in silence. In an arid void we layed, despairing that we were forgotten, dead.  We lay there and the sands dried our bodies, we were now our shadows and nothing but shadows we were, to haunt the desert. She came again, waving the mastery that were her hands and arms and with her waving came the birds and the breezes full of life, and in the end it was all a great joy and we burst into dance as the breezes sang with us. We could stay there forever, we wanted to stay there forever but the screeching winds and the desert and the orange-eyed woman called us and so we left, this time, of our own accord.

The thing woman was no longer to be seen, only the gate was there and the initial wind that pushed us away, and away we went.