In magical theory, it's generally acknowledged that every individual possesses allies in the various realms: botanical, mineral, spirit, and animal. They share your essence and possess a loyalty and affinity toward you, and so are reliable magical partners. As an example, the Egyptian goddess Isis is affiliated with myrrh, blood-stone, a constellation of compatible fellow spirits, cows, scorpions, snakes, and crocodiles., She also has alliances with certain people, whom she protects but who are expected to offer devotion in exchange.
Alliances, as their name implies, are mutual relationships: obligations exist on both sides. These are not relationships to be exploited but are instead meant to be treasured and nurtured. It is a loving, caring, relationship and as such cannot be forced or compelled on either side.
Because animals are closest in nature to humans, they are our most accessible allies. Different people possess different needs: some are fairly solitary, one or two allies may be sufficient, in the same manner that one or two human friends are sufficient. Social butterflies may require a crowd. Some alliances are life-long; others are transitory, ships passing in the night. It's believed that every individual is born with at least one ally from each realm. Other alliances may be forged as needed during a lifetime.
A familiar is an ally but an ally may not be a familiar. Familiars are generally understood to be exactly what their name implies: familiar. These are animals with whom one can share your home and daily life.: ferrets, cats, dogs, hedgehogs, birds, frogs, and snakes. Extended contact need not be difficult or dangerous. Depending upon circumstances, a wild or potentially dangerous creature may become your familiar but they must choose you as, for instance, wild dolphins, which will occasionally form a friendship with a specific swimmer.
The possibility of familiars, then is relatively limited whereas the world of animal allies is vast. What if domestic animals don't fulfill your magical needs-your magic requires a komodo dragon or a snow leopard? What if your magic requires a velociraptor, a dragon, or a unicorn?
Because these animals may be accessed on a spirit level, animals with whom one could not normally have true contact become possible allies. Whether one possesses a relationship with a specific spirit-animal or with the spirit presiding over that animal is subject to interpretation and may very.
How do you discover the identities of your allies? Various methods exist:
Consciously or subconsciously, their identities may already be know to you. Intense passionate emotions, whether positive or not, may indicate an existing alliance. If you just adore lynxes, well, there you are. Conversely, passionate fear may also indicate alliance. Arachnophobes,I hate to break the news, but they could be your familiar.
Animals may reveal themselves to you. Magic scoffs at the concept of coincidence. If something reoccurs with frequency, pay attention: it might just be the clue you have been looking for.
Alliances my be revealed through dreams. Do certain animals consistently appear in your dreams? These may be your allies. Animals that feature in nightmares may also be allies; the nightmares may be due to miscommunication. A fierce wolf lies in wait for you in Dreamland, consistently appearing in your dreams. Terrified, you run or hide. The wolf, who longs to assist you or at least travel by your side, pursues, unable to communicate with you in a manner that would soothe your fears. This is a stalemate, the consistently reappearing nightmare that makes sleep something to dread and avoid. Next time some creature or person pursues you in a dream, don't run. Stop, turn, face them, and ask them what they want. Because it's a dream, anything can happen; you may be surprised.
Allies are revealed through divination. Various divination systems, usually cards, are commercially available; many are wonderful and extremely effective. The one drawback to these systems is that they tend to emphasize animals from a specific locale and by nature are limited to a finite number of choices. Remember that you do not have to be limited to a set of number of allies and that one can incorporate various systems as well as other methods.
Alliances are revealed through shamanic vision. Traditionally visions have been incubated through ascetic practices such a fasting or extended solitude in a place of power such as a cave or mountain, although with the exception of the extremely experienced, these practices tend to be mentored and supervised.
Alliances are identified through visualization, of which various methods exists.
Allow yourself to be surprised. Although you may be sure you know your allies' identities, hidden allies may shock you when they reveal themselves. Also, do not be disappointed. We long for alliances with dramatic, romantic, wild, powerful creatures that bolster our self-image and are dismayed when instead our allies are revealed as ants, slugs, and bees. Every creature has power and gifts to share. Ants teach important lessons about persistence; rats are the ultimate survival artists, and in many places are perceived as incredibly lucky allies to have. Negative perceptions are often cultural. If you have negative perceptions of an animal, explore and research differently perspectives and you may be pleasantly surprised. Spiders and bats for instance, while ominous in some cultures are incredibly auspicious in others.
Alliances may also be earned. If you crave a relationship with a particular animal, earn it by showing yourself to be a true ally. If you long for a hippopotamus ally, for instance, work to protect the species and preserve its natural environment. Investigate and see what needs to be done. on the spiritual level, erect an altar in the creature's honor or devote one to its presiding spirit or affiliate deity. Should your good works draw attention, the desired ally will signal to you by using one of the previously discussed methods.
*Credit to Judika Illes
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Dualism
Contrasting powers are no longer understood as complementary forces arranged on a spectrum; instead they are oppositional and no spectrum exists. There are no grey areas. Boundaries between oppositional forces are clear, distinct, and absolute. Each opposing force is mutually exclusive of each other.
Every item on one side of the balance sheet is linked to every other item on its side and opposed to all items on the other. Each item on one side shares an essence with the others on its side; they serve the same master. The categories on this world balance sheet not only includes physical observations but perceived moral, value judgement as well:
Because "evil" is now understood as absolutely distinct from "good", serious theological concerns arise as to the origins of evil, where it comes from, who is responsible and how it may be eradicated, once and for all. Questions as to who is leading each side, exactly who is responsible and in charge, becomes crucial.
Those concerns aren't relevant to the old shamanic/fertility cult perspective. It doesn't figure value judgments into the equation, at least not on an abstract basis. Any power may be used for good or evil; it is how it is used that affects the outcome. The power in itself is neutral. This is absolutely not the case with what will become known as "dualism".
The dualist perspective stems from very human emotions: fear and anxiety, a desire for security, clarity and order, firm unwavering boundaries, a need to categorize. Look at the balance sheet: order and clarity emerge on the same balance side as good, safe, and light. Male is on that side, too, as is right, high and white. That old shamanic swirling world of invisible, merging, ambiguous powers is chaotic, fluid, and messy. It finds itself on the balance sheet on the same side as evil, dark, dangerous, wild, and female.
The word "dualism" is derived from the Latin duo, "two". In English, the name also contains a pun: the two sides on that eternal chessboard duel with each other. That's the most basic explanation of "dualism" although that word, like "witchcraft" has come to mean many things to many people. However, at its most basic, the term is used to denote a theological system that explains the universe as the outcome of two eternally opposed and conflicting principles, such as good and evil. There is no way to balance these forces because balance implies compromise and compromise strengthens evil. Everything in the universe can be classified on one side or the other. If classification isn't clear, if something is ambiguous, then it's quite obvious on which side of the balance sheet that something belongs.
In the dualist view, soul and body are distinct, and potentially in serious conflict. There's only one of each and by nature they are out of balance. Too much attention to the finite body only places the immortal soul in danger. to strengthen the side of good, the perishable physical body must be sublimated, perhaps even mortified, and the soul nourished. Immortality is achieved through the survival and salvation of the soul.
On the other hand, sometimes these perspectives of the world are two sides of a single coin, like seeing the same glass as either half-full or half-empty. For instance, because women bring forth new humans from their own bodies and can provide nourishment from those bodies, and because parallels are clearly observed between women's bodies and such physical phenomena as lunar phases and tides, in the shamanic/fertility cult perspective, women are perceived as embodying divine energy. This is because those lunar phases, nature, the whole physical world are all understood to be sacred.
From the dualist perspective, however, those very same observations of women, their reproductive ability, their associations with the dark depths of night and ocean, all indicate women's powerful affinity with the physical world, which is affiliated with the evil side of the universal balance sheet, hence turning her into a danger zone for men's immortal souls.
It is hard to conceive a philosophy that has a greater worldwide impact than dualism. It has infiltrated virtually every corner of Earth, its roots so deep that they permeate our very language. Without an understanding and awareness of dualism, you cannot understand the fear, revulsion, and/or ambivalence so many feel towards witchcraft.
Its birthplace seems to have been in Persia, in what is now modern Iran, from whence it spread through the Middle East, the Mediterranean and beyond. Dates vary as to when Zoroaster was born in Iran. Conservative Zoroastrians, members of the religion founded on his teachings, suggest 6000 BCE. Historians generally suggest sometime between 1500 and 1000 BCE. Previously, Iranian religion had been similar to that of polytheistic Mesopotamia and the Pagan Middle East. Zoroaster preached a new faith with a new perspective. Initially he was attacked for his ideas, but eventually he found favor with the king. Zoroastrianism became the the state religion and remained so until the Islamic jihad arrived in Persia in 650 CE. Many Zoroastrians fled to India where a community remains, as they do in Iran and elsewhere.
Although these facts may be unfamiliar to most Western readers, elements of Zoroastrian religion will be familiar to many:
*Zoroastrianism envisions the universe as a battleground of two gods who existed from the beginning: the Lord of Light and Righteousness and the Lord of Darkness and Evil. The universe is divided between into their armies, including people, who must choose a side. Fence-sitting is not an option; there is no gray area, no middle-ground; it is a world of distinct, clear boundaries. One must actively, consciously enlist in the army of the Lord of Light because if one does not do so then one willingly or inadvertently supports the opposition, the Lord of Darkness.
*Many Zoroastrians believe in a savior born from a virgin of the lineage of Zoroaster who will raise the dead and preside over the Final Judgment.
*In the inevitable final show-down, the apocalyptic battle between the forces of good and evil, the Lord of Darkness and his forces will be destroyed. The dead will be resurrected and the world purged and cleansed via a flood of molten metal, although only the wicked are scalded. The righteous will wade through this fiery flood as if through warm milk.
*There is a Final Judgment of souls. Sinners are punished and then humans will be immortal, free from all Earthly ills: death, disease, old age, hunger, poverty.
This vision of a world struggling between forces of good and evil permeates the philosophies and spiritual traditions known as "Gnosticism" as well. In the most literal sense, gnosis refers to the knowledge or understanding that produces, or at least supports spiritual salvation. The Gnostic is saved when he personally sees the light and experiences epiphany.
There was never one unified Gnostic movement. Instead the term refers to a series of schools and teachers, emerging in strength during the 1st century CE, centered mainly in Egypt and Judea. There's wide variety, a broad spectrum of beliefs held by the various Gnostic schools, and Pagan , Jewish, and Christian schools of Gnosticism exists. Eventually, Gnostic philosophy would exert a profound influence on mainstream Christianity.
Although there are many variations on the theme, a typical Gnostic vision goes something like this: despite religious propaganda to the contrary, the material world was not created by the highest, good God. A lower being formed the physical world but in the process, true divine parks of light were trapped. Thus Earth is corrupt, tainted, or even possibly evil, but it contains sparks of godly, divine, trapped goodness that can potentially be nurtured, saved, freed and redeemed. Human suffering derives from entrapment in this physical world, which is governed by an Evil Being who impersonates God and usurps His power. To put it mildly, the early centuries of the Common Era were times of tremendous spiritual seeking. Back in Persia, dualist philosophy continued to evolve. in 216 CE, a man names Mani was born near the Tigris River in Babylonia, modern Iraq but then part of the Persian Empire. He was an intensely restless spiritual pilgrim who traveled widely, seeking enlightenment. Born a Zoroastrian, he studied and experimented with Buddhism and Gnosticism and even converted to mainstream Christianity for a while.
No religion he encountered satisfied him, although he found truths in many. He perceived all of them as incomplete, so he decided to perfect them, proclaiming himself the messiah of the new faith, Manicheism, characterized by an intense dualist vision.
Mani was a prolific artist and writer, setting down his philosophy and vision in words and drawings that were preserved for centuries. This became an important faith, not only during his lifetime but also for many centuries afterwards, with communities of adherents from Persia to Spain to China. Manicheism, at on time, was considered to be among Christianity's chief competitors. The Church perceived Manicheism as a great threat and actively campaigned against it for centuries. None of Mani's drawings, and only fragments of his writings survive because they were systematically searched out and destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church.
Mani's luck changed when a new Persian ruler devoted to Zoroastrianism came to power. As the story goes the magi perceived Mani as a competitor and pressured the king, Bahram I, to arrest and condemn him. Various reports exist of his death, every one of them horrific. Either he was crucified, or flayed alive, or beheaded with his head stuck on a pole for extended public display. His martyrdom, however, only increase his popularity among some believers and made his faith, with its martyred, possibly crucified messiah, even more of an alternative path to Christianity.
The mission of Manicheism is to entirely separate spiritual light from material darkness. If and when this process is complete, then the Kingdom of Darkness will be forever defeated. A microcosm of this war is fought within each human being as the soul struggles to break free from the corporal body, while simultaneously the corporal body, under the dominion of the Lord of Darkness, tempts and encourages backsliding. Each person must achieve individual salvation: each human is a battlefield for the forces of Light and Darkness. You must actively choose your side. Among the keys to achieving liberation of one's spiritual essence is an unwavering, complete obedience to the Manichean Church.
Some people are closer to that goal than others. Persons on the verge of spiritual liberation were known as the Elect. The Elect led highly disciplined, ascetic lives, abstaining from sex because indulgence in sensual pleasures strengthens the body at the expense of the soul, and because babies, the result of sex for reproduction, are but fresh prisons for entrapped sparks of light. Furthermore, those precious sparks of light may be contained within sperm, which should thus be protected from the moist, darkness of the womb.
The Elect maintained a strict vegetarian diet, with one exception. Saint Augustine, a Manichean for 9 years prior to his conversion to Christianity, reports that the Elect ritually consumed a concoction of dough and semen, the theory being that the trapped sparks of light might be liberated if consumed by those on the brink of salvation themselves.
Saint Augustine, pillar of the Christian Church, was a spiritual seeker, too, who explored Pagan paths and Manicheism before devoting himself to Christianity. Although he rejected much Manicheist doctrine, Augustine also introduced the Manichean worldview into conventional Christian thought. Among those doctrines rejected by Augustine is the notion that knowledge leads to liberation. In Augustine;s views, humans are too tainted by Original Sin to accomplish salvation either through knowledge or other individual effort. It can only be achieved through obedience to Christian doctrine, the shepherd guiding the flock. However, he did retain the basic Manichean distrust of matter and the material-especially regarding sex.
Augustine taught that Adam's defiance of God produced a state of unbalanced desire which infects every sexual act with the possible exception of completely pleasure-free, mechanical intercourse solely for the purpose of reproduction within the clear, firm boundaries of lawful Christian marriage.
Dualism permeates world culture, human culture, and especially Western culture. Dualist influence so pervades the vocabulary of modern spirituality that we don't consider what common words literally mean: redemption, salvation, liberation-from what? They derive from the dualist worldview:
*Redemption of the soul from the prison of the body.
*Salvation of the soul from its Earthly trap.
Dualists are right: dualism and the fertility cult, shamanic or otherwise, are incompatible views. From the moment of its emergence, dualism has been on an intense, inevitable collision course with those celebrating the cult of fertility, who wish to revel in Earth rather than be saved from her. At their roots, they are genuinely two oppositional viewpoints, two ways of looking at, organizing, and understanding the world. On the dualist side, there is no room for tolerance because compromise means that you've assented to the power of the Lord of Darkness. Very frequently, dualists have categorized people they've encountered who have possessed a shamanic or fertility-cultish perspective as "witches". The results for those thus categorized, whether in Europe, North America, Africa or elsewhere, have consistently been disastrous.
It's very tempting to see the "fertility cult" as the ancestor of witchcraft and dualism as that of its opponents; that very temptation demonstrates why dualism can be so attractive. Real life, however, is rarely that black and white and that would be a simplistic vision that denies the complexity of witchcraft as well as world history.
There are very few places on Earth that have not been influenced by both dualism and the more ancient shamanic/fertility cult. Most cultures blend these influences to varying degrees. Dualism even pervades the world of witchcraft. In those immortal words spoken by Glinda to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" Many, if asked whether they are a witch, answer affirmatively but stipulate that they are a "good" witch, as if whatever powers they possess can only be used for good, not possibly for ill.
Witchcraft, defined as magical practices, is seemingly a crucial human need. Like the Egyptians' heka, it emerges whenever it is necessary to attempt to ward off those harsh blows of fate or maybe whenever there's just not enough joy and fun around. Witchcraft exists everywhere in various forms, and is thus found in all kinds of communities possessing all sorts of philosophies. What differs is how witchcraft is perceived and whether it operates secretly or openly.
*Credit to Judika Illes
Every item on one side of the balance sheet is linked to every other item on its side and opposed to all items on the other. Each item on one side shares an essence with the others on its side; they serve the same master. The categories on this world balance sheet not only includes physical observations but perceived moral, value judgement as well:
Good---Bad/Evil
Strong---Weak
Clarity---Ambiguity
Order---Chaos
Safe---Dangerous
Tame---Wild
Manifest---Hidden
Masculine---Feminine
New---Old
Sun---Moon
Light---Dark
Male---Female
Human---Animal
Solid---Fluid
White---Black
Right---Left
High---Low
Soul---Body
Spirit---Material
Because "evil" is now understood as absolutely distinct from "good", serious theological concerns arise as to the origins of evil, where it comes from, who is responsible and how it may be eradicated, once and for all. Questions as to who is leading each side, exactly who is responsible and in charge, becomes crucial.
Those concerns aren't relevant to the old shamanic/fertility cult perspective. It doesn't figure value judgments into the equation, at least not on an abstract basis. Any power may be used for good or evil; it is how it is used that affects the outcome. The power in itself is neutral. This is absolutely not the case with what will become known as "dualism".
The dualist perspective stems from very human emotions: fear and anxiety, a desire for security, clarity and order, firm unwavering boundaries, a need to categorize. Look at the balance sheet: order and clarity emerge on the same balance side as good, safe, and light. Male is on that side, too, as is right, high and white. That old shamanic swirling world of invisible, merging, ambiguous powers is chaotic, fluid, and messy. It finds itself on the balance sheet on the same side as evil, dark, dangerous, wild, and female.
The word "dualism" is derived from the Latin duo, "two". In English, the name also contains a pun: the two sides on that eternal chessboard duel with each other. That's the most basic explanation of "dualism" although that word, like "witchcraft" has come to mean many things to many people. However, at its most basic, the term is used to denote a theological system that explains the universe as the outcome of two eternally opposed and conflicting principles, such as good and evil. There is no way to balance these forces because balance implies compromise and compromise strengthens evil. Everything in the universe can be classified on one side or the other. If classification isn't clear, if something is ambiguous, then it's quite obvious on which side of the balance sheet that something belongs.
In the dualist view, soul and body are distinct, and potentially in serious conflict. There's only one of each and by nature they are out of balance. Too much attention to the finite body only places the immortal soul in danger. to strengthen the side of good, the perishable physical body must be sublimated, perhaps even mortified, and the soul nourished. Immortality is achieved through the survival and salvation of the soul.
On the other hand, sometimes these perspectives of the world are two sides of a single coin, like seeing the same glass as either half-full or half-empty. For instance, because women bring forth new humans from their own bodies and can provide nourishment from those bodies, and because parallels are clearly observed between women's bodies and such physical phenomena as lunar phases and tides, in the shamanic/fertility cult perspective, women are perceived as embodying divine energy. This is because those lunar phases, nature, the whole physical world are all understood to be sacred.
From the dualist perspective, however, those very same observations of women, their reproductive ability, their associations with the dark depths of night and ocean, all indicate women's powerful affinity with the physical world, which is affiliated with the evil side of the universal balance sheet, hence turning her into a danger zone for men's immortal souls.
It is hard to conceive a philosophy that has a greater worldwide impact than dualism. It has infiltrated virtually every corner of Earth, its roots so deep that they permeate our very language. Without an understanding and awareness of dualism, you cannot understand the fear, revulsion, and/or ambivalence so many feel towards witchcraft.
Its birthplace seems to have been in Persia, in what is now modern Iran, from whence it spread through the Middle East, the Mediterranean and beyond. Dates vary as to when Zoroaster was born in Iran. Conservative Zoroastrians, members of the religion founded on his teachings, suggest 6000 BCE. Historians generally suggest sometime between 1500 and 1000 BCE. Previously, Iranian religion had been similar to that of polytheistic Mesopotamia and the Pagan Middle East. Zoroaster preached a new faith with a new perspective. Initially he was attacked for his ideas, but eventually he found favor with the king. Zoroastrianism became the the state religion and remained so until the Islamic jihad arrived in Persia in 650 CE. Many Zoroastrians fled to India where a community remains, as they do in Iran and elsewhere.
Although these facts may be unfamiliar to most Western readers, elements of Zoroastrian religion will be familiar to many:
*Zoroastrianism envisions the universe as a battleground of two gods who existed from the beginning: the Lord of Light and Righteousness and the Lord of Darkness and Evil. The universe is divided between into their armies, including people, who must choose a side. Fence-sitting is not an option; there is no gray area, no middle-ground; it is a world of distinct, clear boundaries. One must actively, consciously enlist in the army of the Lord of Light because if one does not do so then one willingly or inadvertently supports the opposition, the Lord of Darkness.
*Many Zoroastrians believe in a savior born from a virgin of the lineage of Zoroaster who will raise the dead and preside over the Final Judgment.
*In the inevitable final show-down, the apocalyptic battle between the forces of good and evil, the Lord of Darkness and his forces will be destroyed. The dead will be resurrected and the world purged and cleansed via a flood of molten metal, although only the wicked are scalded. The righteous will wade through this fiery flood as if through warm milk.
*There is a Final Judgment of souls. Sinners are punished and then humans will be immortal, free from all Earthly ills: death, disease, old age, hunger, poverty.
This vision of a world struggling between forces of good and evil permeates the philosophies and spiritual traditions known as "Gnosticism" as well. In the most literal sense, gnosis refers to the knowledge or understanding that produces, or at least supports spiritual salvation. The Gnostic is saved when he personally sees the light and experiences epiphany.
There was never one unified Gnostic movement. Instead the term refers to a series of schools and teachers, emerging in strength during the 1st century CE, centered mainly in Egypt and Judea. There's wide variety, a broad spectrum of beliefs held by the various Gnostic schools, and Pagan , Jewish, and Christian schools of Gnosticism exists. Eventually, Gnostic philosophy would exert a profound influence on mainstream Christianity.
Although there are many variations on the theme, a typical Gnostic vision goes something like this: despite religious propaganda to the contrary, the material world was not created by the highest, good God. A lower being formed the physical world but in the process, true divine parks of light were trapped. Thus Earth is corrupt, tainted, or even possibly evil, but it contains sparks of godly, divine, trapped goodness that can potentially be nurtured, saved, freed and redeemed. Human suffering derives from entrapment in this physical world, which is governed by an Evil Being who impersonates God and usurps His power. To put it mildly, the early centuries of the Common Era were times of tremendous spiritual seeking. Back in Persia, dualist philosophy continued to evolve. in 216 CE, a man names Mani was born near the Tigris River in Babylonia, modern Iraq but then part of the Persian Empire. He was an intensely restless spiritual pilgrim who traveled widely, seeking enlightenment. Born a Zoroastrian, he studied and experimented with Buddhism and Gnosticism and even converted to mainstream Christianity for a while.
No religion he encountered satisfied him, although he found truths in many. He perceived all of them as incomplete, so he decided to perfect them, proclaiming himself the messiah of the new faith, Manicheism, characterized by an intense dualist vision.
Mani was a prolific artist and writer, setting down his philosophy and vision in words and drawings that were preserved for centuries. This became an important faith, not only during his lifetime but also for many centuries afterwards, with communities of adherents from Persia to Spain to China. Manicheism, at on time, was considered to be among Christianity's chief competitors. The Church perceived Manicheism as a great threat and actively campaigned against it for centuries. None of Mani's drawings, and only fragments of his writings survive because they were systematically searched out and destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church.
Mani's luck changed when a new Persian ruler devoted to Zoroastrianism came to power. As the story goes the magi perceived Mani as a competitor and pressured the king, Bahram I, to arrest and condemn him. Various reports exist of his death, every one of them horrific. Either he was crucified, or flayed alive, or beheaded with his head stuck on a pole for extended public display. His martyrdom, however, only increase his popularity among some believers and made his faith, with its martyred, possibly crucified messiah, even more of an alternative path to Christianity.
The mission of Manicheism is to entirely separate spiritual light from material darkness. If and when this process is complete, then the Kingdom of Darkness will be forever defeated. A microcosm of this war is fought within each human being as the soul struggles to break free from the corporal body, while simultaneously the corporal body, under the dominion of the Lord of Darkness, tempts and encourages backsliding. Each person must achieve individual salvation: each human is a battlefield for the forces of Light and Darkness. You must actively choose your side. Among the keys to achieving liberation of one's spiritual essence is an unwavering, complete obedience to the Manichean Church.
Some people are closer to that goal than others. Persons on the verge of spiritual liberation were known as the Elect. The Elect led highly disciplined, ascetic lives, abstaining from sex because indulgence in sensual pleasures strengthens the body at the expense of the soul, and because babies, the result of sex for reproduction, are but fresh prisons for entrapped sparks of light. Furthermore, those precious sparks of light may be contained within sperm, which should thus be protected from the moist, darkness of the womb.
The Elect maintained a strict vegetarian diet, with one exception. Saint Augustine, a Manichean for 9 years prior to his conversion to Christianity, reports that the Elect ritually consumed a concoction of dough and semen, the theory being that the trapped sparks of light might be liberated if consumed by those on the brink of salvation themselves.
Saint Augustine, pillar of the Christian Church, was a spiritual seeker, too, who explored Pagan paths and Manicheism before devoting himself to Christianity. Although he rejected much Manicheist doctrine, Augustine also introduced the Manichean worldview into conventional Christian thought. Among those doctrines rejected by Augustine is the notion that knowledge leads to liberation. In Augustine;s views, humans are too tainted by Original Sin to accomplish salvation either through knowledge or other individual effort. It can only be achieved through obedience to Christian doctrine, the shepherd guiding the flock. However, he did retain the basic Manichean distrust of matter and the material-especially regarding sex.
Augustine taught that Adam's defiance of God produced a state of unbalanced desire which infects every sexual act with the possible exception of completely pleasure-free, mechanical intercourse solely for the purpose of reproduction within the clear, firm boundaries of lawful Christian marriage.
Dualism permeates world culture, human culture, and especially Western culture. Dualist influence so pervades the vocabulary of modern spirituality that we don't consider what common words literally mean: redemption, salvation, liberation-from what? They derive from the dualist worldview:
*Redemption of the soul from the prison of the body.
*Salvation of the soul from its Earthly trap.
Dualists are right: dualism and the fertility cult, shamanic or otherwise, are incompatible views. From the moment of its emergence, dualism has been on an intense, inevitable collision course with those celebrating the cult of fertility, who wish to revel in Earth rather than be saved from her. At their roots, they are genuinely two oppositional viewpoints, two ways of looking at, organizing, and understanding the world. On the dualist side, there is no room for tolerance because compromise means that you've assented to the power of the Lord of Darkness. Very frequently, dualists have categorized people they've encountered who have possessed a shamanic or fertility-cultish perspective as "witches". The results for those thus categorized, whether in Europe, North America, Africa or elsewhere, have consistently been disastrous.
It's very tempting to see the "fertility cult" as the ancestor of witchcraft and dualism as that of its opponents; that very temptation demonstrates why dualism can be so attractive. Real life, however, is rarely that black and white and that would be a simplistic vision that denies the complexity of witchcraft as well as world history.
There are very few places on Earth that have not been influenced by both dualism and the more ancient shamanic/fertility cult. Most cultures blend these influences to varying degrees. Dualism even pervades the world of witchcraft. In those immortal words spoken by Glinda to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" Many, if asked whether they are a witch, answer affirmatively but stipulate that they are a "good" witch, as if whatever powers they possess can only be used for good, not possibly for ill.
Witchcraft, defined as magical practices, is seemingly a crucial human need. Like the Egyptians' heka, it emerges whenever it is necessary to attempt to ward off those harsh blows of fate or maybe whenever there's just not enough joy and fun around. Witchcraft exists everywhere in various forms, and is thus found in all kinds of communities possessing all sorts of philosophies. What differs is how witchcraft is perceived and whether it operates secretly or openly.
*Credit to Judika Illes
The Fruitful Earth: The Fertility Cult
Anthropological discussions of witchcraft's origins almost inevitably refer to witchcraft as deriving from ancient "fertility cults". Little if any explanation is ever given as to exactly what constitutes a fertility cult, as if the meaning of the term should be self-evident. To a very large extent this is because old-school anthropologist-and society in general-were uncomfortable with explicit discussion of sexuality until recent decades.
The use of the word "cult" is the tip-off that we are outsiders looking in. Cult is a word used by outsiders to describe a phenomenon of which they are not part and towards which they bear either ambivalence or disapproval. "Cult" in modern usage carries a negative connotation" we have religion, strange other people have cults. At best, "fertility cult" has an archaic ring evoking Orientalist images of sacred prostitution. At worst, "cult" carries sinister overtones: people must be rescued from "cults", deprogrammed from the brainwashing kind.
Those old-school anthropologist may have been looking with outsiders' eyes but they weren't completely off-based or wrong: witchcraft, from its primal roots to this year's Halloween paraphernalia, demonstrates a profound preoccupation with fertility, even if it isn't always blatant or easily recognized.
Although obviously reproduction is crucial to survival as a species, it may not have been the literal output, the end-results, that were worshiped but instead a perception of women's fertility power, a female equivalent of something similar to machismo, for which no word or name now exists-with the exception perhaps of certain understandings of "witch". Machismo, perceived as intense male virility, almost a hyper-masculinity, is a perceived power potentially projected by men regardless of whether they are engaged in sexual activity at that moment. The dynamic power, the capacity, is always there, regardless of whether it's used.
Likewise, many women may have been understood to radiate fertility-power, for lack of a better name, whether or not they were actively engaged in reproduction. This is based on the very ancient use of contraception and abortion in areas that especially venerated sexy fertility goddesses, as well as on the image of specific female spirits of fertility; like Artemis, who emphatically and deliberately lack children. The Artemisia family of plants, which are intimately identified with witchcraft, were gifts from Artemis to humans, hence their name. They were used in ancient times as menstrual regulators: historically they have been used for either encouraging or terminating pregnancy.
To understand the ancient obsession with fertility one has to appreciate just how hard life was once upon a time. We in the modern industrialized world are buffered from so much of life's harshness. Human remains suggest that the average Paleolithic lifespan was only about 33 years. Death was a constant presence. Hunger, thirst, illness, the dangers of a harsh environment-remaining alive was not a passive act. Death, hunger, sterility must be consciously, vigilantly, consistently warded off.
The emphasis on fertility and rebirth that one sees in the most ancient human artwork and spiritual artifacts is an act of sheer defiance. It expresses the determination to survive, to bear children and see them survive, and to ecstatically celebrate and experience every possible moment of joy wrenched from potentially bitter experience: this is the birth of spirituality, religion, and witchcraft.
At its most primal and ancient, the fertility cult, for lack of anything better to call it, acknowledges that life is precious, sacred, potentially full of joy but all too often tenous and fraught with danger. Earth is a wonderful place; there is no better place to be but life is short and continually threatened. Life and the forces that renew and regenerate it are sacred but must be constantly, carefully, enhanced, empowered, and preserved. To remain alive, to bring forth new life, one cannot be passive. Life emerges from a balancing act between male and female forces. The world can be divided into complementary energies. There are forces that bring forth life (yin/female), there are forces that stimulate that process (yang/male). There are forces that generate fertility, understood as abundance of all kinds, as well as those that serve as obstacles and challenges.
When these forces are harmoniously balanced, life is preserved and continues to be generated. Times are good and living is comparatively easy. Earth, left alone, possesses her own balancing act but if one, whether individual or community, possesses a personal agenda with specific desired results, whether personal fertility, animal husbandry, hunting or agriculture, then the balancing act becomes more precarious. Those scales must be tipped in your favor.
The Chinese yin-yang pict-o-gram provides a visual depiction for this philosophy. Black in and white yang are nestled beside each other; each contains a spark of the other's essence. They are not mutually exclusive forces but require each other to exist. They do not war with each other. Their opposition may be understood as the opposing force that permits a vaulted ceiling to exist. Each needs the other: there is no perception of black without white, no perception of cold without knowledge of heat. Disharmony arises when there is imbalance between forces, when one side threatens to overwhelm the other.
Earth's complementary energies may be divided into affinities or affiliations. Thus women are affiliated with darkness, the moon, water, and certain kinds of magic power. All are connected and share and essence:
*If the moon's phases are consistent and reliable, all is well.
*If a woman's phases are consistent and reliable, all is well.
*If a woman's phases are inconsistent or unreliable, they can be realigned by strengthening her affinity with the moon, the tides, and other lunar forces.
Women are sacred and powerful because they can give life, because their bodies reflect the lunar phases, because the emergence of womanhood and fertility is announced by the rhythmic shedding of magical blood (menstruation becomes synchronized and frequently linked to a specific moon phase).
Women are sacred and powerful because they can magically provide nourishment from their own body in a godlike manner. Every woman thus is potentially a goddess; it is the image of the female divine brought down to life. Sparks of sacred life exist in every woman. It is no wonder that most ancient depictions of divinity are modeled after females, whether human, animal, bird or fish.
Men are magic, too. It doesn't matter how magical and godlike the female is, there's no reproduction without men, as is clear from tales of the machinations that Amazons or other female-only societies go through in order to conceive. It couldn't be clearer than in the ancient tale of Isis, Mistress of Magic, who has enough power to stop the sun in the sky but can't conceive the child she is destined to bear without sexual intercourse. Isis can resurrect her dead husband long enough for a quickie, she can charm up a working gold penis because the original went missing during the resurrection process, but with all that power she is unable to conceive a child without sperm.
It doesn't matter how fertile Earth is, if it doesn't rain or if irrigation isn't otherwise provided, there will be no harvest. No rain, no growth. No semen, no pregnancy.
Anthropologist debate as to whether the ancients understood the male role in reproduction. Although their understanding was certainly not as technical or analytical as the modern understanding of pregnancy and conception, based on a slew of ancient virile storm gods clearly some connection was made; some appreciation that men, too, are integral to conception.
Women bear but men activate the process. Sometimes the deity manifests in the form of a dancing shamanic man while in other cases he is a primordial source of fertility, the personified irrepressible procreative urge.
Other connections were made as well. Symbols radiate power. Basic magical fertility theory involves manipulation of various powers to generate a constant, steady, healthy, beneficial flow of fertility, not just of human beings but all living interconnected beings. The ultimate symbol, sacred shorthand transcending language, is the union of human genitalia. Each depicted separately radiates a magical, protective force. Put together they magically generate life.
Images of the human genitalia rank among the oldest religious artifacts; some images still linger on the outskirts of modern religious symbolism. Often the genitals are divorced from the rest of the body and venerated independently such as Himalayan lingams and yonis. Sometimes the whole package is left intact, as with ithyphallic statues of gods. You don't have to go back thousands of years; this imagery is recent too, as in the suppressed sacred genital imagery of traditional Japanese culture or that modern tourist souvenir, the Thai penis amulet.
Sometimes the imagery is more abstract, often geometric. Triangles are utilized to demonstrate the direction of genitals: upward for the male, downward for the female. The hexagram, the six-pointed Star of David, depicts their merger, the union of fire and water. The protective images of the triangle is ubiquitous in what belly dancers call tribal style. You'll see it on countless Oriental rugs and Middle Eastern amulets. It is also ubiquitous in the Western witch's wardrobe: she is rarely shown without her peaked, triangle hat.
Representations of this sacred merger of male and female may be observed elsewhere:
*The pestle in the mortar
*The first in the hearth
*The stick in the broom
*The broomstick between the legs
*The sword in its scabbard
*The foot in the shoe
Other fertility motifs may be harder for the modern eye to catch, mainly because our industrialized landscape is so vastly different from those of our ancestors who, as the cliche goes, lived much closer to nature. The most prominent of these are cattle horns, which in form symbolically unite male and female generative forces. The phallic connection may seem obvious, but cattle horns are also potently linked to female generative power. Think of all those ancient cow goddesses: Hathor, Isis, Io. The very continent of Europe is names in honor of Europa who rode a bull across the sea and who is virtually always depicted holding onto one horn.
What ancient eyes were exposed to that are missing, in addition to the ubiquitous presence of cattle, was the inside of the human body, viewed without any modern scientific context. When a body was opened, the resemblance of the female reproductive organs, from the ovaries, moving down to the fallopian tubes into the vaginal canal, to a bull's skull with horns was noted. The connection is very explicitly portrayed in relief on Catal Huyuk shrine walls. Images of the parturient goddess are placed above bulls' skulls with enormous horns, or sometimes over just the horns alone. The female figure's belly may be marked with a circle, emphasizing the promise that lies within. Luckily, that promise is easily, consistently, observed in the horns and so it isn't necessary to look inside the body. Instead that promise, that symbol, may be observed on every sacred cow.
You can see those horns, that promise of generative power, in the sky too, depending upon the phase of the moon. The Egyptian goddesses, Hathor and Isis are often depicted as beautiful, elegant, generous women wearing horned headdresses with a full moon held between the points. The horns within the female body are connected through essence and affinity with lunar horns in the sky, the cow's horns on Earth and the horns of powerful female deities.
Horns on a male deity invariable indicate that he's virile, sexually insatiable, always ready, willing and able, hot, horny. Horns on amulets, like those found among traditional Italian amulets, protect and generate male reproductive ability. They also ward off the Evil Eye, understood as the antithesis of fertility.
The image of the sacred cow is almost as universal as witchcraft. It's found in ancient statuary and in cave paintings. The sacred cow survives in modern India but once upon a time it was also common in Egypt, Greece, Ireland, Scandinavia, the Middle East and throughout Africa, not to mention the traditional Native American veneration of the buffalo, a form of wild cattle. This veneration hides in the Bible too: not only in the obvious golden calf, believed to represent Hathor or her son, but also in Leah, the only innately fertile biblical matriarch, whose name may be translated as "wild cow". Even today describing a woman as "cow-eyes", like the Goddess Hera, is still considered a great compliment in Greece, a testament to female beauty, although it doesn't translate well into English.
It isn't the cow or bull that is worshiped in such fertility cults- it's the potential and promise that they so potently represent, symbolized, and epitomized that is viewed with such veneration. The fertility cult isn't limited to awe for cattle either. Other animals were recognizes as radiating profound fertility power too:
*Those perceived as resembling human reproductive organs.
*Those perceived as being especially prolific.
*Those able to reproduce in the most challenging environments.
The basis of the "fertility cult" is that life is beautiful and precious. Earth is wonderful, sacred; there is no better place to be. Physical expression of life is sacred and worthy of regeneration and reproduction. The physical universe-Earth and her living waters, the moon, other animals, plants, spiritual entities, the very human body-all are linked in a holistic web. In the best of all possible worlds, all powers within this universe are in balance, with good health, the potential for new life as desired, happiness, and joy as the result.
It's not all positive, however. What of those who are barren, who can't or won't conceive? What if your individual goals are different than those of the community? What if your vision for your future, for whatever reason, doesn't involve reproduction? If involuntary infertility is linked to spiritual imbalance, what is the perceived impact of the individual on the community? The barren woman may be perceived as dangerous to the common good, particularly in societies where agriculture and individual fertility are intensely linked.
Because women are linked to the moon, to Earth, seeds, and growth, and because those affinities aren't perceived as only traveling one-way, an inability or unwillingness to conceive is often understood as adversely affecting the harvest, and hence everyone's ability to eat. A woman's infertility may be contagious or emblematic of some kind of dangerous imbalance or spiritual violation.
The healer/shaman/witch who can remedy this situation, producing miracles, stimulating conception whether through herbalism, negotiation with the spirits or any other magical process is a valued, priceless member of society. She is also feared: if she can increase odds of pregnancy, she probably has the power to decrease or eliminate it too. Maybe someone's infertility is her fault.
Of course, all of this postulates that fertility, sex, human bodies, existence on the Earthly plane is a good thing, and thus worthy and desirous of being reproduced.
* Credit to Judika Illes
The use of the word "cult" is the tip-off that we are outsiders looking in. Cult is a word used by outsiders to describe a phenomenon of which they are not part and towards which they bear either ambivalence or disapproval. "Cult" in modern usage carries a negative connotation" we have religion, strange other people have cults. At best, "fertility cult" has an archaic ring evoking Orientalist images of sacred prostitution. At worst, "cult" carries sinister overtones: people must be rescued from "cults", deprogrammed from the brainwashing kind.
Those old-school anthropologist may have been looking with outsiders' eyes but they weren't completely off-based or wrong: witchcraft, from its primal roots to this year's Halloween paraphernalia, demonstrates a profound preoccupation with fertility, even if it isn't always blatant or easily recognized.
Although obviously reproduction is crucial to survival as a species, it may not have been the literal output, the end-results, that were worshiped but instead a perception of women's fertility power, a female equivalent of something similar to machismo, for which no word or name now exists-with the exception perhaps of certain understandings of "witch". Machismo, perceived as intense male virility, almost a hyper-masculinity, is a perceived power potentially projected by men regardless of whether they are engaged in sexual activity at that moment. The dynamic power, the capacity, is always there, regardless of whether it's used.
Likewise, many women may have been understood to radiate fertility-power, for lack of a better name, whether or not they were actively engaged in reproduction. This is based on the very ancient use of contraception and abortion in areas that especially venerated sexy fertility goddesses, as well as on the image of specific female spirits of fertility; like Artemis, who emphatically and deliberately lack children. The Artemisia family of plants, which are intimately identified with witchcraft, were gifts from Artemis to humans, hence their name. They were used in ancient times as menstrual regulators: historically they have been used for either encouraging or terminating pregnancy.
To understand the ancient obsession with fertility one has to appreciate just how hard life was once upon a time. We in the modern industrialized world are buffered from so much of life's harshness. Human remains suggest that the average Paleolithic lifespan was only about 33 years. Death was a constant presence. Hunger, thirst, illness, the dangers of a harsh environment-remaining alive was not a passive act. Death, hunger, sterility must be consciously, vigilantly, consistently warded off.
The emphasis on fertility and rebirth that one sees in the most ancient human artwork and spiritual artifacts is an act of sheer defiance. It expresses the determination to survive, to bear children and see them survive, and to ecstatically celebrate and experience every possible moment of joy wrenched from potentially bitter experience: this is the birth of spirituality, religion, and witchcraft.
At its most primal and ancient, the fertility cult, for lack of anything better to call it, acknowledges that life is precious, sacred, potentially full of joy but all too often tenous and fraught with danger. Earth is a wonderful place; there is no better place to be but life is short and continually threatened. Life and the forces that renew and regenerate it are sacred but must be constantly, carefully, enhanced, empowered, and preserved. To remain alive, to bring forth new life, one cannot be passive. Life emerges from a balancing act between male and female forces. The world can be divided into complementary energies. There are forces that bring forth life (yin/female), there are forces that stimulate that process (yang/male). There are forces that generate fertility, understood as abundance of all kinds, as well as those that serve as obstacles and challenges.
When these forces are harmoniously balanced, life is preserved and continues to be generated. Times are good and living is comparatively easy. Earth, left alone, possesses her own balancing act but if one, whether individual or community, possesses a personal agenda with specific desired results, whether personal fertility, animal husbandry, hunting or agriculture, then the balancing act becomes more precarious. Those scales must be tipped in your favor.
The Chinese yin-yang pict-o-gram provides a visual depiction for this philosophy. Black in and white yang are nestled beside each other; each contains a spark of the other's essence. They are not mutually exclusive forces but require each other to exist. They do not war with each other. Their opposition may be understood as the opposing force that permits a vaulted ceiling to exist. Each needs the other: there is no perception of black without white, no perception of cold without knowledge of heat. Disharmony arises when there is imbalance between forces, when one side threatens to overwhelm the other.
Earth's complementary energies may be divided into affinities or affiliations. Thus women are affiliated with darkness, the moon, water, and certain kinds of magic power. All are connected and share and essence:
*If the moon's phases are consistent and reliable, all is well.
*If a woman's phases are consistent and reliable, all is well.
*If a woman's phases are inconsistent or unreliable, they can be realigned by strengthening her affinity with the moon, the tides, and other lunar forces.
Women are sacred and powerful because they can give life, because their bodies reflect the lunar phases, because the emergence of womanhood and fertility is announced by the rhythmic shedding of magical blood (menstruation becomes synchronized and frequently linked to a specific moon phase).
Women are sacred and powerful because they can magically provide nourishment from their own body in a godlike manner. Every woman thus is potentially a goddess; it is the image of the female divine brought down to life. Sparks of sacred life exist in every woman. It is no wonder that most ancient depictions of divinity are modeled after females, whether human, animal, bird or fish.
Men are magic, too. It doesn't matter how magical and godlike the female is, there's no reproduction without men, as is clear from tales of the machinations that Amazons or other female-only societies go through in order to conceive. It couldn't be clearer than in the ancient tale of Isis, Mistress of Magic, who has enough power to stop the sun in the sky but can't conceive the child she is destined to bear without sexual intercourse. Isis can resurrect her dead husband long enough for a quickie, she can charm up a working gold penis because the original went missing during the resurrection process, but with all that power she is unable to conceive a child without sperm.
It doesn't matter how fertile Earth is, if it doesn't rain or if irrigation isn't otherwise provided, there will be no harvest. No rain, no growth. No semen, no pregnancy.
Anthropologist debate as to whether the ancients understood the male role in reproduction. Although their understanding was certainly not as technical or analytical as the modern understanding of pregnancy and conception, based on a slew of ancient virile storm gods clearly some connection was made; some appreciation that men, too, are integral to conception.
Women bear but men activate the process. Sometimes the deity manifests in the form of a dancing shamanic man while in other cases he is a primordial source of fertility, the personified irrepressible procreative urge.
Other connections were made as well. Symbols radiate power. Basic magical fertility theory involves manipulation of various powers to generate a constant, steady, healthy, beneficial flow of fertility, not just of human beings but all living interconnected beings. The ultimate symbol, sacred shorthand transcending language, is the union of human genitalia. Each depicted separately radiates a magical, protective force. Put together they magically generate life.
Images of the human genitalia rank among the oldest religious artifacts; some images still linger on the outskirts of modern religious symbolism. Often the genitals are divorced from the rest of the body and venerated independently such as Himalayan lingams and yonis. Sometimes the whole package is left intact, as with ithyphallic statues of gods. You don't have to go back thousands of years; this imagery is recent too, as in the suppressed sacred genital imagery of traditional Japanese culture or that modern tourist souvenir, the Thai penis amulet.
Sometimes the imagery is more abstract, often geometric. Triangles are utilized to demonstrate the direction of genitals: upward for the male, downward for the female. The hexagram, the six-pointed Star of David, depicts their merger, the union of fire and water. The protective images of the triangle is ubiquitous in what belly dancers call tribal style. You'll see it on countless Oriental rugs and Middle Eastern amulets. It is also ubiquitous in the Western witch's wardrobe: she is rarely shown without her peaked, triangle hat.
Representations of this sacred merger of male and female may be observed elsewhere:
*The pestle in the mortar
*The first in the hearth
*The stick in the broom
*The broomstick between the legs
*The sword in its scabbard
*The foot in the shoe
Other fertility motifs may be harder for the modern eye to catch, mainly because our industrialized landscape is so vastly different from those of our ancestors who, as the cliche goes, lived much closer to nature. The most prominent of these are cattle horns, which in form symbolically unite male and female generative forces. The phallic connection may seem obvious, but cattle horns are also potently linked to female generative power. Think of all those ancient cow goddesses: Hathor, Isis, Io. The very continent of Europe is names in honor of Europa who rode a bull across the sea and who is virtually always depicted holding onto one horn.
What ancient eyes were exposed to that are missing, in addition to the ubiquitous presence of cattle, was the inside of the human body, viewed without any modern scientific context. When a body was opened, the resemblance of the female reproductive organs, from the ovaries, moving down to the fallopian tubes into the vaginal canal, to a bull's skull with horns was noted. The connection is very explicitly portrayed in relief on Catal Huyuk shrine walls. Images of the parturient goddess are placed above bulls' skulls with enormous horns, or sometimes over just the horns alone. The female figure's belly may be marked with a circle, emphasizing the promise that lies within. Luckily, that promise is easily, consistently, observed in the horns and so it isn't necessary to look inside the body. Instead that promise, that symbol, may be observed on every sacred cow.
You can see those horns, that promise of generative power, in the sky too, depending upon the phase of the moon. The Egyptian goddesses, Hathor and Isis are often depicted as beautiful, elegant, generous women wearing horned headdresses with a full moon held between the points. The horns within the female body are connected through essence and affinity with lunar horns in the sky, the cow's horns on Earth and the horns of powerful female deities.
Horns on a male deity invariable indicate that he's virile, sexually insatiable, always ready, willing and able, hot, horny. Horns on amulets, like those found among traditional Italian amulets, protect and generate male reproductive ability. They also ward off the Evil Eye, understood as the antithesis of fertility.
The image of the sacred cow is almost as universal as witchcraft. It's found in ancient statuary and in cave paintings. The sacred cow survives in modern India but once upon a time it was also common in Egypt, Greece, Ireland, Scandinavia, the Middle East and throughout Africa, not to mention the traditional Native American veneration of the buffalo, a form of wild cattle. This veneration hides in the Bible too: not only in the obvious golden calf, believed to represent Hathor or her son, but also in Leah, the only innately fertile biblical matriarch, whose name may be translated as "wild cow". Even today describing a woman as "cow-eyes", like the Goddess Hera, is still considered a great compliment in Greece, a testament to female beauty, although it doesn't translate well into English.
It isn't the cow or bull that is worshiped in such fertility cults- it's the potential and promise that they so potently represent, symbolized, and epitomized that is viewed with such veneration. The fertility cult isn't limited to awe for cattle either. Other animals were recognizes as radiating profound fertility power too:
*Those perceived as resembling human reproductive organs.
*Those perceived as being especially prolific.
*Those able to reproduce in the most challenging environments.
The basis of the "fertility cult" is that life is beautiful and precious. Earth is wonderful, sacred; there is no better place to be. Physical expression of life is sacred and worthy of regeneration and reproduction. The physical universe-Earth and her living waters, the moon, other animals, plants, spiritual entities, the very human body-all are linked in a holistic web. In the best of all possible worlds, all powers within this universe are in balance, with good health, the potential for new life as desired, happiness, and joy as the result.
It's not all positive, however. What of those who are barren, who can't or won't conceive? What if your individual goals are different than those of the community? What if your vision for your future, for whatever reason, doesn't involve reproduction? If involuntary infertility is linked to spiritual imbalance, what is the perceived impact of the individual on the community? The barren woman may be perceived as dangerous to the common good, particularly in societies where agriculture and individual fertility are intensely linked.
Because women are linked to the moon, to Earth, seeds, and growth, and because those affinities aren't perceived as only traveling one-way, an inability or unwillingness to conceive is often understood as adversely affecting the harvest, and hence everyone's ability to eat. A woman's infertility may be contagious or emblematic of some kind of dangerous imbalance or spiritual violation.
The healer/shaman/witch who can remedy this situation, producing miracles, stimulating conception whether through herbalism, negotiation with the spirits or any other magical process is a valued, priceless member of society. She is also feared: if she can increase odds of pregnancy, she probably has the power to decrease or eliminate it too. Maybe someone's infertility is her fault.
Of course, all of this postulates that fertility, sex, human bodies, existence on the Earthly plane is a good thing, and thus worthy and desirous of being reproduced.
* Credit to Judika Illes
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Shamanic Vision
According to many traditional understandings, there is no such things as one monolithic world; that perception displays limited vision. Instead the mundane world we live in, the world we experience only through our 5 senses, is but one among the carious realms or places of existence. Although there may also be others, international conventional shamanic wisdom suggests that the following realms exist:
*Earth: the tangible realm of mortal people and creatures.
*Spirit World: the realm of deities and spiritual beings-angels, fairies, djinn, and so forth.
*Dreamland: experiences in dreams really happen; just on different planes of existence.
*Realm of the dead: the after life.
These realms are not linear; instead they are simultaneous, parallel. They interconnect. You can communicated across realms; you can travel between them. Spirits go back and forth effortlessly; ghosts sometimes get stuck in the wrong realm and need a shaman to point them in the right direction, maybe giving them a little shove in the process.
Boundaries exist between these different realms, although precisely how permeable those boundaries are or aren't varies and is dependent on a number of factors, not least being something as simple as time of year. There are portals of entry between realms, if you can find them, if you can survive them, if you have the skill and knowledge to navigate your return. This is the soul-journey of the expert shaman.
Greek and Roman myths tell of Odysseus' and Aeneas' journeys to Hades. Orpheus journeys to Hades attempting to escort his beloved Eurydice back from the realm of the dead. In Norse mythology, emissaries are sent to Hel to see whether beloved, deceased Balder could be released. Because these "journeys" are often understood only literally, as if one ventures to the Realm of the Dead in the exact same way one travels to Disneyland, they are too frequently understood as "mythic" only in the sense of being fictional.
Shamanic functions include:
*Communication with other realms, including those of the spirits and the deceased.
*Soul retrieval and other forms of healing.
*Location of lost or stolen items, in particular buried treasure.
Shamanism may be the real first profession. The shaman is a unique specialist although there are cultures that support large multi-person shamanic societies-with "support" frequently being the key word. Typically a community provides for a shaman's needs in exchange for shamanic services, in particular in hunting/gathering or farming communities.
Shamanism isn't easy; the experiences can be frightening, unpleasant, and dangerous, acquiring the skills painful, and simultaneously traumatic and exhilarating: typically the pivotal initiation experience is described as a spiritual "death". Some part of the spiritual anatomy, although not the physical body, dies-ripped apart or butchered by spirits, frequently cooked up in a cauldron, consumed by the spirits and then finally, hopefully, if one passes all tests, put back together and resurrected. The shaman is able to journey into the after-life because they have "died" and returned. The are a liminal figure who exists in several realms simultaneously.
Because it is dangerous, because there may be a lengthy apprenticeship and because skill comes from experience, the full-fledged shaman is often an older person, and very frequently a woman for a variety of reason.
Although many enlist, many more are drafted. Very frequently the individual has little choice in the matter. The spirits choose you, their call manifesting through dreams, visions, illness, bad luck, and/or animal attacks. Traditionally, in some places, surviving bear, snake, or jaguar attacks was interpreted as a shamanic call.
Sometimes the shaman's refusal to heed the call affects the whole community adversely: bad luck spreads around, as in the biblical tale of Jonah. If the cause of misfortune is traced back to their recalcitrance, the community may insist that the shaman assume their role or risk ostracism, banishment, or worse-being sacrificed to appease the spirits.
On the other hand, if shamanic aptitude or calling is recognized, a community may nurture the individual so that they may acquire their skills, providing them with the best material goods, and sometimes tolerating bad, erratic, unpredictable behavior because a powerful, consistently effective shaman in invaluable. The shaman is responsible for the community's well being and survival, its life and death. Shamanic services were perceived as crucial and integral to a wide variety of dangerous pursuits, including:
*Childbirth, spiritual initiations, healing, and funerals: dangerous on the spiritual plane because of intense contact with other realms. On the physical plane, risk of physical contamination frequently exists.
*Hunting: eating meat involves killing a fellow creature, whose spirit guardians must be appeased to avoid disaster and maintain spiritual balance.
*Agriculture: digging holes or otherwise rooting around in Earth may be understood as rape if Earth hasn't expressly granted permission, which perhaps only the shaman can hear or interpret. Harvest maybe understood as murder, as in "John Barleycorn must die". Plants are fellow living creatures, possessing their own spirit guardians who must be propitiated and appeased to maintain spiritual balance.
There is no need to accuse or ask whether someone is shaman. Their results speak for themselves. If things consistently aren't going well, a more successful shaman will be found. It's a little bit like traditional Chinese medicine, where a physician is desirable and respected only provided her patients remain healthy.
The shaman provides a needed service that, although fraught with spiritual danger, is expected to be reliable and dependable. The shaman must perform functions as needed: like a modern physician, she may be "on call" at all times 24/7. The popular version of shamanism as the role primitive societies invented for those with seizure disorders or the mentally unbalanced is incorrect, simplistic, and based on the notion that all other realms and spirits are "made up", because if they don't exist, then of course, the shaman's journey is pure fantasy or fraud.
Shamanism is performed in various ways, through soul-journeying or through ritual possession. The shaman summons spirits and ghosts and sends them packing -exorcism-as individual need arises. Their work may be enhanced by music, especially drums, chants, singing, dance, or silence. The entranced shaman may appear to be asleep or in a coma or even dead. For ancient people lacking scientific context, with no hospital monitoring equipment to measure life, the shaman who appears dead is dead, at least temporarily. They are a figure of tremendous power.
The shaman may develop profound individual ties with animals, plants, spirits, or other allies. The ecstatic component of shamanism cannot be emphasized enough; the very word "ecstasy" derives from a Greek shamanic term "existanal" ("to put out of place" as in a soul out of body). At best, shamanism is an ecstatic, transcendent, rapturous experience, for the individual shaman and also for the community whom they lead in shamanic rituals. This intense, dynamic rapture can be experienced and witnessed through ecstatic music and dance, the best sex, ritual possession, some form of divination, or glossolalia, all of which may be components of shamanism.
The shaman is very likely also to be a solitary person, at least some of the time. The sol-journey, the psychic journey is an intensely private, individual experience. The shaman talks with animals; the shaman talks with ghosts and spirits who scare other people; the shaman may even be able to assume the form of animals. Some shamans mutter all the time. (A Slavic euphemism for witch is "mutterer")
New Age people are often dismayed to hear those from traditional cultures speak negatively of witchcraft and witches. Tolerance of witches is expected from these seemingly magic-tolerant societies. Of course, cultures that incorporate magical practices have also been known to burn witches. In these cases, "witch" is often understood to mean a shaman gone bad, a breach of a sacred trust.
The shaman doesn't have to become corrupt to stop working full-time for the community. Eventually some suffer burn-out, at least temporarily, too tired or psychically drained. Maybe, for one reason or another, the spirits stop talking to you. Some shamans, perhaps following bad experiences, failure, emotional exhaustion, psychic torpor, or perhaps just as directed by the spirits, might retreat into privacy-a cave, a hut in the forest, a little home on a mountain top or in a swamp-to recuperate, replenish their energy and live a private, magical life. People would know the shaman was there, this person in the wilds. They might be frightening, they might leave her alone most of the time, warn their children not to bother them-who knows what they could do if provoked. But in a moment of desperation, when a magical solution seems like the only option, particularly when a private secret magical solution is required, one would know exactly where to go to plead or pay for assistance.
*Credit to Judika Illes
*Earth: the tangible realm of mortal people and creatures.
*Spirit World: the realm of deities and spiritual beings-angels, fairies, djinn, and so forth.
*Dreamland: experiences in dreams really happen; just on different planes of existence.
*Realm of the dead: the after life.
These realms are not linear; instead they are simultaneous, parallel. They interconnect. You can communicated across realms; you can travel between them. Spirits go back and forth effortlessly; ghosts sometimes get stuck in the wrong realm and need a shaman to point them in the right direction, maybe giving them a little shove in the process.
Boundaries exist between these different realms, although precisely how permeable those boundaries are or aren't varies and is dependent on a number of factors, not least being something as simple as time of year. There are portals of entry between realms, if you can find them, if you can survive them, if you have the skill and knowledge to navigate your return. This is the soul-journey of the expert shaman.
Greek and Roman myths tell of Odysseus' and Aeneas' journeys to Hades. Orpheus journeys to Hades attempting to escort his beloved Eurydice back from the realm of the dead. In Norse mythology, emissaries are sent to Hel to see whether beloved, deceased Balder could be released. Because these "journeys" are often understood only literally, as if one ventures to the Realm of the Dead in the exact same way one travels to Disneyland, they are too frequently understood as "mythic" only in the sense of being fictional.
Shamanic functions include:
*Communication with other realms, including those of the spirits and the deceased.
*Soul retrieval and other forms of healing.
*Location of lost or stolen items, in particular buried treasure.
Shamanism may be the real first profession. The shaman is a unique specialist although there are cultures that support large multi-person shamanic societies-with "support" frequently being the key word. Typically a community provides for a shaman's needs in exchange for shamanic services, in particular in hunting/gathering or farming communities.
Shamanism isn't easy; the experiences can be frightening, unpleasant, and dangerous, acquiring the skills painful, and simultaneously traumatic and exhilarating: typically the pivotal initiation experience is described as a spiritual "death". Some part of the spiritual anatomy, although not the physical body, dies-ripped apart or butchered by spirits, frequently cooked up in a cauldron, consumed by the spirits and then finally, hopefully, if one passes all tests, put back together and resurrected. The shaman is able to journey into the after-life because they have "died" and returned. The are a liminal figure who exists in several realms simultaneously.
Because it is dangerous, because there may be a lengthy apprenticeship and because skill comes from experience, the full-fledged shaman is often an older person, and very frequently a woman for a variety of reason.
Although many enlist, many more are drafted. Very frequently the individual has little choice in the matter. The spirits choose you, their call manifesting through dreams, visions, illness, bad luck, and/or animal attacks. Traditionally, in some places, surviving bear, snake, or jaguar attacks was interpreted as a shamanic call.
Sometimes the shaman's refusal to heed the call affects the whole community adversely: bad luck spreads around, as in the biblical tale of Jonah. If the cause of misfortune is traced back to their recalcitrance, the community may insist that the shaman assume their role or risk ostracism, banishment, or worse-being sacrificed to appease the spirits.
On the other hand, if shamanic aptitude or calling is recognized, a community may nurture the individual so that they may acquire their skills, providing them with the best material goods, and sometimes tolerating bad, erratic, unpredictable behavior because a powerful, consistently effective shaman in invaluable. The shaman is responsible for the community's well being and survival, its life and death. Shamanic services were perceived as crucial and integral to a wide variety of dangerous pursuits, including:
*Childbirth, spiritual initiations, healing, and funerals: dangerous on the spiritual plane because of intense contact with other realms. On the physical plane, risk of physical contamination frequently exists.
*Hunting: eating meat involves killing a fellow creature, whose spirit guardians must be appeased to avoid disaster and maintain spiritual balance.
*Agriculture: digging holes or otherwise rooting around in Earth may be understood as rape if Earth hasn't expressly granted permission, which perhaps only the shaman can hear or interpret. Harvest maybe understood as murder, as in "John Barleycorn must die". Plants are fellow living creatures, possessing their own spirit guardians who must be propitiated and appeased to maintain spiritual balance.
There is no need to accuse or ask whether someone is shaman. Their results speak for themselves. If things consistently aren't going well, a more successful shaman will be found. It's a little bit like traditional Chinese medicine, where a physician is desirable and respected only provided her patients remain healthy.
The shaman provides a needed service that, although fraught with spiritual danger, is expected to be reliable and dependable. The shaman must perform functions as needed: like a modern physician, she may be "on call" at all times 24/7. The popular version of shamanism as the role primitive societies invented for those with seizure disorders or the mentally unbalanced is incorrect, simplistic, and based on the notion that all other realms and spirits are "made up", because if they don't exist, then of course, the shaman's journey is pure fantasy or fraud.
Shamanism is performed in various ways, through soul-journeying or through ritual possession. The shaman summons spirits and ghosts and sends them packing -exorcism-as individual need arises. Their work may be enhanced by music, especially drums, chants, singing, dance, or silence. The entranced shaman may appear to be asleep or in a coma or even dead. For ancient people lacking scientific context, with no hospital monitoring equipment to measure life, the shaman who appears dead is dead, at least temporarily. They are a figure of tremendous power.
The shaman may develop profound individual ties with animals, plants, spirits, or other allies. The ecstatic component of shamanism cannot be emphasized enough; the very word "ecstasy" derives from a Greek shamanic term "existanal" ("to put out of place" as in a soul out of body). At best, shamanism is an ecstatic, transcendent, rapturous experience, for the individual shaman and also for the community whom they lead in shamanic rituals. This intense, dynamic rapture can be experienced and witnessed through ecstatic music and dance, the best sex, ritual possession, some form of divination, or glossolalia, all of which may be components of shamanism.
The shaman is very likely also to be a solitary person, at least some of the time. The sol-journey, the psychic journey is an intensely private, individual experience. The shaman talks with animals; the shaman talks with ghosts and spirits who scare other people; the shaman may even be able to assume the form of animals. Some shamans mutter all the time. (A Slavic euphemism for witch is "mutterer")
New Age people are often dismayed to hear those from traditional cultures speak negatively of witchcraft and witches. Tolerance of witches is expected from these seemingly magic-tolerant societies. Of course, cultures that incorporate magical practices have also been known to burn witches. In these cases, "witch" is often understood to mean a shaman gone bad, a breach of a sacred trust.
The shaman doesn't have to become corrupt to stop working full-time for the community. Eventually some suffer burn-out, at least temporarily, too tired or psychically drained. Maybe, for one reason or another, the spirits stop talking to you. Some shamans, perhaps following bad experiences, failure, emotional exhaustion, psychic torpor, or perhaps just as directed by the spirits, might retreat into privacy-a cave, a hut in the forest, a little home on a mountain top or in a swamp-to recuperate, replenish their energy and live a private, magical life. People would know the shaman was there, this person in the wilds. They might be frightening, they might leave her alone most of the time, warn their children not to bother them-who knows what they could do if provoked. But in a moment of desperation, when a magical solution seems like the only option, particularly when a private secret magical solution is required, one would know exactly where to go to plead or pay for assistance.
*Credit to Judika Illes
Animism
The word "animism" was coined by the English anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor, generally acknowledged as the "father of anthropology". Tylor gave this name to what was perceived as the earliest phase of magical and religious thinking, deriving it from the Greek "anima" meaning "soul". According to Tylor, prehistoric humans believed that every person, creature, and object - everything-had a soul, was animated, and hence the name animism. That Sir Tylor did not identify or particularly empathize with the human subjects of his research is apparent by the words he chose to describe them: "savages" and "rude races".
Animism was perceived as a backward, primitive, uncivilized, unenlightened belief: the lowest rung on the ladder to civilization. That said, if one can cut through the thickest of value judgments, Tylor came very close to defining what might be understood as magical perception: the vision of the world that makes shamanism, witchcraft, and magical practices possible and desirable.
In this vision, everything is alive, continually interacts and can potentially communicate, if it so chooses, if it can be so compelled and, most crucially, if you can understand. There is no such things as an inanimate object. Because you cannot hear or understand them doesn't mean that rocks, wind, trees, and objects are not communication or cannot communicate. The shaman can hear, the shaman can understand, and maybe most importantly, the shaman can hold up her end in a dialogue.
The shaman, sorcerer or witch is the person who desires this knowledge and/or shows personal aptitude for this type of communication. This aptitude is invaluable and may have been crucial to the survival, success, and proliferation of the human species. Creation stories tend to end with that magical act of creation.
Science posits a lengthy trial and error period. Conventional shamanic wisdom suggests that those animated plants, animals, and substances identified themselves and explained their gifts and dangers in a manner comprehensible to the shaman, who served as their medium to the greater human community. Animals, humans' elder siblings, taught us healing, hunting, and basic living skills. This type of shamanism still exists, although it is as endangered as the rain-forests in which it is now largely centered.
*Credit to Judika Illes
Animism was perceived as a backward, primitive, uncivilized, unenlightened belief: the lowest rung on the ladder to civilization. That said, if one can cut through the thickest of value judgments, Tylor came very close to defining what might be understood as magical perception: the vision of the world that makes shamanism, witchcraft, and magical practices possible and desirable.
In this vision, everything is alive, continually interacts and can potentially communicate, if it so chooses, if it can be so compelled and, most crucially, if you can understand. There is no such things as an inanimate object. Because you cannot hear or understand them doesn't mean that rocks, wind, trees, and objects are not communication or cannot communicate. The shaman can hear, the shaman can understand, and maybe most importantly, the shaman can hold up her end in a dialogue.
The shaman, sorcerer or witch is the person who desires this knowledge and/or shows personal aptitude for this type of communication. This aptitude is invaluable and may have been crucial to the survival, success, and proliferation of the human species. Creation stories tend to end with that magical act of creation.
Science posits a lengthy trial and error period. Conventional shamanic wisdom suggests that those animated plants, animals, and substances identified themselves and explained their gifts and dangers in a manner comprehensible to the shaman, who served as their medium to the greater human community. Animals, humans' elder siblings, taught us healing, hunting, and basic living skills. This type of shamanism still exists, although it is as endangered as the rain-forests in which it is now largely centered.
*Credit to Judika Illes
13 Clues You Might Be A Witch
13 Clues That YOU Might Be A Witch
Witches come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and genders. Identification via wardrobe is unreliable. But, there are some telltale clues. If any one or more of these statements applies to you, then you just might be a witch, or at least have the option of heading down that path, should you choose to do so.
1. You're fascinated by the magical arts, the occult sciences, and/or the hidden powers of Earth.
2. You perceive Earth as sacred, filled with mystery, worthy of awe.
3. You feel an affinity with wild weather, wild creatures, and Earth's wild places.
4. You perceive power,, positive strength, and magic, maybe even the divine, in women.
5. You can maintain a relationship with an individual of another species, such as a bird or an animal. (weather you define your opposing gender as another species is up to you.)
6. By nature, you're nocturnal.
7. Darkness doesn't scare you, not consistently anyways.
8. You have an independent nature; you like to make your own rules and you value your privacy and autonomy.
9. You possess curiosity and a thirst for knowledge.
10. Ancient stories (myths, legends, fairy tales) enthrall you.
11. You think the universe might hold undiscovered mysteries. Not everything can be explained by science; not everything can be controlled by people.
12. The mysteries of birth and death fascinate you.
13. You consider yourself a witch, or sometimes suspect that you are one, or think you might like to be one.
Definition of Witch. Are you A Witch?
Most of my clothes are black. My favorite holiday is Halloween. Given the right company, I will happily chatter on about astrology, magic, herbs, and divination. So perhaps it is not surprising that occasionally i am asked whether I'm a witch.My response is to say that my answer depends upon the inquirer's definition of witchcraft. Inevitably this leads to frustration on the part of the inquirer: they think they've asked a straightforward, simple question because everyone knows the definition of "witch". I have experienced many unpleasant encounters with those whose definitions of witch or witchcraft did not correspond with my own. I've learned that what constitutes witchcraft is dependent upon the eye of its beholder.
Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary:
WITCH (n. ME wicche fr. OE wicca, masc. wizard and wicce fem. witch; akin to MHG wicken to bewitch, OE wigle divination, OHG wih holy-more at victim)
1a. Wizard, Sorcerer
1b. a woman practicing the black arts: SORCERESS
1c. one supposed to possess supernatural powers esp. by compact with devil or familiar
1d. or Witcher: Dowser
2. an ugly old woman: HAG
3. a charming or alluring woman
Which witch do you supposed me to be?
Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary
WITCH
1. one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers; especially: a woman practicing usually black witchcraft often with the aid of a devil or familiar:
SORCERESS-compare WARLOCK
2. an ugly old woman: HAG
3. a charming or alluring girl or woman
4. a practitioner of Wicca
Other references suggest a narrower definition of witchcraft.
Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend
WITCH
A person who practices sorcery; a sorcerer or sorceress; one having supernatural powers in the natural world, especially to work evil and usually by association with evil spirits or the Devil: formerly applied to both men and women but now generally restricted to women. Belief in witches exists in all lands, from earliest times to the present day.
Or a really virulent definition of witch by Martin Luther.
Witches are the devil's whores who steal milk, raise storms, ride on goats or broomsticks, lame or maim people, torture babies in their cradles, change things into different shapes to that a human being seems to be a cow or an ox and force people into love and immorality.
Perhaps not!
Author Raymond Buckland, a pivotal figure in the evolution of modern Wicca and an authority on magic, divination, and witchcraft, acknowledges the very same etymology quoted in the dictionaries yet proposes a positive understand of the word witch.
The actual meaning of the word Witch is linked to "wisdom" and is the same root as "to have wit" and "to know". It comes from the Anglo-Saxon wicce (f) or wicca (m) meaning "wise one", witches being both female and male.
Am I a witch, well that depends on which definition you are referring to.
Credit to Judika Illes
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