THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
	a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects.

Subject: LBR Query and the Nature of Deities
Date: Kali Yuga 49941018

While I'm not familiar with this literature or the performance of these
rites (I don't do banishings as I'm nonviolent) in my own work I don't
consider any gods 'non-Christian'.  This arrives from the supposition
that all gods are natural and therefore perfect in their place, and that
what makes something 'non-Christian' for me is my position with respect
to them.  That is, when that god is contrary to my energies (for a very
long time Yahweh (and/or) Allah were contrary to me and I could not
accept Hir, though now I've come to see Hir as the One God whom I adore).

If it makes it easier to comprehend work, consider the possibility that
all gods are expressions of the One and that dealing with such expressions
is one manner of having relationship with the One Source from which they
all spring.  Alternatively, as I tend to do, dispense with differentiating
absolutely between Source and Manifestation, God and gods, and (if you're
really good), self and other.  Life thereafter becomes ritual, magick
thereafter is manifest in every action, and the Holy Spirit is revealed in
dedicated consciousness.

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Subject: Re: LBR Query and the Nature of Deities
Date: Kali Yuga 49941018

All depends upon one's relation to the cosmos.  I treat all energies and
beings within that as living, part of the, and wholly divine.  Compare the
notion of 'archetypes' within Jungian psychology and 'gods' within many
indigenous trads.  There is a very important difference.

....what I dislike about the traditional systems
of magick I've come to study: 1) 'creation of sacred space' (as if the
space isn't already sacred);  2) 'clearing an area of mixed energies'
(usually without asking those energies to leave but simply displacing
them, often forcefully, which I do consider violating).

Unlike modern materialists I do not consider a vacuum to be the essence
of 'cleanliness'.  Consider that within a vacuum life cannot exist, in
fact that life itself is part of that 'dirt' which must be wiped out so
as to 'get the space clean'.  I think this permeates our culture all the
way down to the material level where we build compartmentalized homes
and then attempt to keep them 'clean of vermin' (i.e. the beings who
lived there before us and whom we displace in our violence against the
planet).
Subject: Re: Banishing and Discernment
Date: Kali Yuga 49941018

I do not decide which is "real", the One or the Many.
 
 
...I like the idea of saying 'I am not that',
*whatever* 'that' might be.  It is referred to by some mystics as 'Via
Negativa', and is represented within Hinduism by the statement 'neti neti'
('not that, not that').

What I wonder is what type of metaphysic do you think underlies this kind
of perspective?  Don't you think that it presupposes the whole 'spirit-flesh'
dualism rampant within Western culture?  I tend to avoid this as anti-nature
(in that we identify with some external nonphysical substrate) and tend to
associate it with anti-feminism (since there appears to be at least a deep
psychosymbolic link within my culture between flesh, woman, life and nature
- and the Devil too, but I'll not remark more on it).

 
I am not saying that I cherish distinction in itself, though I can see
its value.  I'm saying that I cherish the particulars, the personalities
which make up my experience.  While I have a deep appreciation for the
Perfect Form of 'dog', I also have a deep and meaningful relationship
with a *particular* dog (Eris, Doggess of Discord, who is my near-constant
companion).  While I embrace and feel a very important relationship with
what I know to be the Divine Feminine (perhaps some would call Her 'the
Goddess' or 'Shakti') I also have a relationship with my Wife, Kali-Ma,
who has a quite distinct personality all Her own.  This is also true in
that I have a very specific and meaningful relationship with the particular
personality of my Abyss/SO/lover/(personal shakti).

...it is not distinction or banishing which I find repugnant
but the attitude I often seen by those who make those distinctions (i.e.
what for me feels disrespectful, dismissing, and arrogant).  I have the
same reaction with Wiccans who 'call and dismiss' the Lord and Lady.  I
could not personally take this attitude and feel comfortable, I think.
When I work I accept those who wish to participate and do not attempt
to 'clean' in this way.   

On the other hand, when I'm about to do a ritual (for me it is usually
celebratory or exploratory) I do what my mother told me to do when
preparing for guests, yet not with 'ridding myself of unwanted energies'
in mind.  I take a shower, put on clean clothes, straighten up the Temple,
put out offerings of incense, fruit, candles, etc., and I'm *sure* that
some would call this 'banishing' of a sort.

I guess I just don't feel the same way about those beings which have
joined with me as tools and those entities/energies which I have not
asked to be in such a relationship.  When I venture into a forest, for
example, unless the mother tree calls to me or there is some other 
indicator that the limb wishes to accompany me (sometimes we've met 
in joyous rapture!) then I ask the limb if it wishes to enter into
this relationship with me.  Sometimes I am rejected.  Sometimes I do
not feel right about the energy regardless.  I do not force my will
in these matters.

I want to make it very clear that I'm talking about specific ritual
magick here and that within my life I am still resolving my feelings
about participating in the forced breeding and slaughter of the meatflesh
industry (which I rarely support these days) or living among and within
the flesh of my tree-kin (which I try to honor as best I'm able in my
support of their living progeny).  Do plants wish me to eat of their
bodies?  I don't know, yet there are some lines which I must draw at
present in order to survive in this urban environment, even while I
may not retain them as I perfect my practice.