Namaste Asshole

There has been an issue in my local area which has become more prevalent over the past few years that can no longer be ignored. While the city of Reading Pennsylvania is largely a crime ridden slum we do have a nice area called West Reading. This small section of the city is full of trendy little shops and boutiques full of useless garbage such as a violin and antique picture frame store (I wish I was kidding). Now with any area like this come pretentious people, reading however has a special brand of hipster douche-bag known as a pseudo Hindu. These are the over-privileged house wives and trust fund babies who frequent the several yoga schools and vegan restaurants in the area all the while wearing their mala beads and claiming to be enlightened. This insult to the great mystical traditions of India need to stop and I am going to list of a few of the key points about Hinduism that I learned and hopefully educate somebody.

The first thing that we need to talk about is the hypocrisy of driving your gigantic suv to the yoga school and stepping out in your $200 yoga outfit and throwing down your “official made in India” yoga mat and beginning your class because it makes you feel spiritual. Once you get past the realization that both your outfit and yoga mat were made in third world sweat shops you should begin to realize how superficial the whole experience is. Congratulations you are now siting in a room with a bunch of rich white people and making a farce out of the beliefs and practices of a culture so that you can look better at the beach.

This guy thinks your 200 dollar yoga outfit is adorable and he one day hopes to be as enlightened as you

The true ruling class of the yoga twats are the people who pay thousands of dollars to go on a “pilgrimage” to India. I would almost have a respect for this except for the fact that they aren’t going into the streets of India to truly learn the mystic ways. They are staying at Indian resorts/spas and taking day trips to pre-approved gurus who are on the payroll of the travel agency. How many of these pilgrims actually live the experience and try to bathe in the Ganges the way true yogis do. I myself cannot imagine many of the people I have seen in the yoga community wading through corpses and meditating among the cremation pyres for a true insight. But be prepared when you talk to these people upon their return they will immediately burst into tears and gush over how powerful the experience was (especially if others are around). How truly spiritual to stay at an all-inclusive resort while right outside of your locked gates are children drinking sewer water and eating animal feces to survive.

Probably not on the resort approved list of teachers by the way this is a traditional worshiper of Shiva, notice the human skull at his feet

The hallmark however of these pathetic frauds is their strict vegan diets which are supposedly saving the planet. What they do not tell you and I know this from personal exposure is that this supposedly superior diet is only sustainable with a massive amount of added vitamins and supplements which are in reality more dangerous to a human body then fresh meat. Be prepared if you ever confront a vegan on this however for them to retort with “meat production is more hazardous to the environment because it uses x gallons of fuel to grow meat while vegetables only require a fraction of that”. That would be a valid point if everyone was ate local grown food, but when vegans are having fruit shipped in year round from around the world I am sure they are burning sever amounts of fossil fuels. This also doesn’t take into account the cost to manufacture and process your fake vegan foods. I am not even going to get into the fact that having people in a third world country starving because all of their arable soil is used to feed yoga egos is probably not very good Karma.

more Shiva followers being pure vegans haha

The last section is just going to be on a few of the Hindu gods whom these idiots all claim to follow despite never extending their spirituality beyond a trendy shirt of their favorite god or goddess.

First lets talk about Shiva, he is pretty popular the yoga community loves to say OM NAMAH SHIVAH all of the time anyway. How could he be bad he is always meditating? He represents peace and kindness that everyone who meditates must feel. Ok so first off Shiva is the god of destruction and the dead, when he stops meditating and awakens he destroys the universe with lasers from his third eye (not making this up). The warrior series in yoga is named after him because it represents him raising a sword and then decapitating an enemy and finally places his head on a stake.

Krishna, the all time favorite god of the douchebags. Krishna worship became popular due to the Hare Krishna movement of the 60’s. The Hare krishna movement was about a bunch of hippies sitting around, smoking dope and not wanting to get a job simple as that, most true Hindus and Krishna monks in India consider it a disgrace. If you read the Bhagavad Gita which is the telling of Krishna’s tale you find out that contrary to the peaceful flute player he is often depicted as he was kind of a baddass. The Bhagavad Gita takes place during a war where Krishna with his army is telling a man named Arjuna that as a soldier it is his duty to kill and that he shouldn’t feel bad because it is the way of reality. In fact at one point he goes so far as to say that killing is good because it will help people get reincarnated and move on faster. Also besides being an unstoppable war machine he also has a harem and loves to drink. The truth of Krishna from the Bhagavad Gita actually reads more like a Conan the barbarian novel.

Ganesh is popular as he is an easily recognizable symbol that everyone will recognize thereby letting everyone on the street know how deep and spiritual you must be. The yoga phonies will even normally be able to tell you that Ganesh is the god of removing obstacles, what they don’t know however is that he does so with axes and is a raging elephant when angered who will destroy all objects in his path.  The traditional story of moon cycles involves Ganesh getting angry at the moon and killing it, thats right he killed the moon once. Also in case you were ever wondering why he has an elephant’s head, he wasn’t born that way but his father Shiva had to kill an elephant to replace the head he blew off with his laser eyes due to an argument.

Hanuman is the monkey god of Bravery and also a fucking war chieftain who carries a mace and leads an army of inter-dimensional apes known as Vanaras against an army of demons. He doesn’t use the mace to break open coconuts or anything stupid like that he uses that mace to murder demons.

I am only going to mention very little about Kali here because I have written so much about her already. Kali is the demon slaying, blood drinking goddess of darkness. She wears a skirt of human arms, a necklace of skulls and carries around severed heads. Most of her traditional worship involves meditating in cremation grounds and a blood sacrifice. She will utterly destroy your life to help you rebuild it as a better person. Most yoga people tend to stay away from her as she is less forgiving of people’s stupidity.

The gods of the Hindu pantheon as well as the Vedic culture is rich and complicated like all cultures. It may seem like I am merely being a jerk but the overall hypocrisy of the yoga community is beyond reproach and frankly these people need to start being called on it. The vedic gods and culture are wear my ancestors came from and this farce is a mockery of everything that they sought to build and create.

Embracing the wild

So I have had an idea going through my mind for some time now but could never quite figure out how to formulate it into words. Then yesterday I am pretty sure I was given a little bit of inspiration from a spirit I have been working with on how to do this, or in his case how not to do this. 

As I look out at the world today I can’t help but feel that we as a species have lost our connection to the Earth. Everybody is running around like a panicked deer trying to find ways to make more money to buy things that they don’t need and will only cause more desire (maybe it’s my Buddhist training who know). I make a decent living but I need to earn it by putting in 40+ hours at a lead foundry. I notice however around me that many other people can never seem to make enough money, but then I look at them as they are leaving and they are wearing designer clothes and getting into a BMW.  The amount of money I make allows my wife and I to live a simple but honest life without too many worries, but this article is not about my job it is about what I feel people are missing in life.

People need to remember that they are not beings separate of the Earth but are rather a piece of the Earth itself. I do not mean this in the flake, hippy way but literally we have evolved from the dirt of the Earth and for untold millennia have existed in harmony with the Earth. Even the great, ancient empires of the Earth always maintained a connection to the Earth and practiced it as part of their spirituality. In all great societies of the past the Gods either represent the natural world or else use the natural world as a means to speak through us. It is only recently that we have begun to worship our “new” gods in a technological dystopia. People now worship the god of television, the god of computers and many other things which pull us further from our Earthen roots. I was at the park near my home a few weeks ago and saw people walking on the hiking trail through the forest and texting the entire time. The beautiful world was right in front of them and rather then take it in and feel it’s power they had to see what their zombie friends were putting on Facebook.

To me you not only need to remember your savage, primal side but you need to honor it. People must remember to walk barefoot through the grass. People must remember the simple joy of grappling and wrestling for fun with friends. People need to remember the ancient ritual of sitting around a fire and speaking with your “pack” face to face not over a screen.

I don’t speak much about the Gods I work with. By Gods here I am referring to the masculine aspects I work with. I tend to speak with the Gods who represent the savage nature of truth, the Gods who are neither human in appearance nor spirit. The two I most work with and Fenrir and Jormundgandr, the sons of Loki (the sound of every Nordic Wiccan dropping their monocles all at once is deafening). These Gods both have a very human intelligence but that is as far as their humanity extends.

I have spoken with Fenrir on several occasions and have grown to take much strength from him over the months. I first started trying to get hiss attention when people were attacking me over my beliefs and just put out a basic plea for help. The next thing I knew while meditating a gigantic, black wolf appeared and told me in a gravelly voice “fuck em”, that is pretty much the core of Fenrir. He told me that they only try to bring me down because they are afraid of anything new and them losing their grip over the sheep who follow them. Since then I have traveled to him in meditation several times both as a human and in totem form when I am feeling scared or just need advice for connecting to my “primal” side. Offerings to the dread-wolf for me are simple I place a candle with a bowl of water and a bowl of mead next to a piece of raw meat outside over night. To me though the most important part is to show him that you are not trying to subjugate him as a lowly animal. I sit on the ground before my offering and sip the mead and water as well as share the raw flesh with him.  The last time I did this there was a dust print on the patio door in the form of an almost perfect wolf silhouette, I know that sounds crazy but I swear on the Gods that it was there and unmistakable.

From speaking with him I realized that he is a much deeper character then most people realize. He is not a ravenous monster who ends the universe but rather a symbol of responsibility and paying for your actions. Everything involving Fenrir is simply cause and effect like everything in our lives, maybe remembering his story will help you remember that everything you do has a cost.

• Odin kills Fenrir’s mother and kidnaps his family, Fenrir kills Odin
• Tyr breaks his oath to Fenrir, Fenrir takes his hand (Tyr is also later killed by Fenrir’s cousin Garmr)
• Fenrir kills Odin, Fenrir is later slain by Odin’s son Vidarr.

Jormundgandr is slightly more difficult to describe, and before I will do him any injustice I need to spend more time formulating how to write about him. For right now we can just say that to me he represents the human subconscious and that he doesn’t speak. I did however perform a ritual to him when a friend of a friend was lost at sea. The message came through clearly and bluntly ” HE’S DEAD”, that was all he said. The next day his body was found in the ocean.

I guess to sum this whole thing up I am saying that the human race needs to put down technology (yes, I get the irony there) and spend time in the wild. We need to run through the forests and play on the Earth with our pets and children. We need to remember our base instincts, eat real food, howl at the moon and have sex. Our true nature is being repressed and hidden behind false glamours put up by people who wish to enslave you. Sometimes just like Fenrir you need to say enough is enough, break your chains and take command of your own fate.

Some poetry and prayers I have stumbled across

I wish I came up with these but I didn’t.

The Morrigan

Blessed Morrigan, whose sacred names are three,

I do not pray for strength, for you show me the strength within me.
I do not pray for courage, for I follow you willingly into battle.
I do not pray for wisdom, for you teach me of the Crone within me.
I do not pray for blessings, because I live each day in blessed Magic, following the ways of the wise.
I do not pray for prosperity, for I live in gratitude of the abundance which flows through my life.
I do not pray for love, for love runs like water to me through my family and friends.

I pray to remember these gifts, for in my despair I can lose my way, and lose my awareness that I am a daughter of your ways.
I pray to remember that when I look into my image, your face is reflected there, and I can carry any burden because you live within me.

Funerary prayer to Hel

“hel, great goddess, daughter of loki
Guard of the spirits of the dead
Our friend (insert name) has come to you now
As (insert name) kneels bedore you, hel
know how much (he/she) was loved in this life
And how many (he/she) loved in return
Before (he/she) crossed over (he/she) was an honorable soul
A soaring spirit, a brave warrior
Watch over (him/her), hel as (he/she) crosses the bridge
From this life to the next
And welcome (him/her) with honor and glory
So that (he/she) may live on forever
In our hearts and memories

Prayer to Lilith

Lilith, Queen of demons and mother to us all. Teach us the ways of the night. You are the second to rebel against the god of the Jews and the first against man. Give me the rebellious spirit just as you have. As you were made through the dirt and your spirit given to you by Satan through a dark mist, so give me the same spirit. May that same spirit rise up within me so that I may have the strength to fight against the lies and dominance of the god of the Jews and of mankind’s lies. You fled away from the garden of bondage to be with the demons, to make children of the night. Wrap me in your wings and take flight into the night sky, your element, and keep me from harm. Whisper in my ear your secrets as you do to all of mankind. Great mother Lilith Queen of demons and mother of us all, you are the first vampire and Succubi. You take your vengeance on the children of mankind because the god of the Jews has done so to your children. Your children are the Lilim, and we are your loyal servants of your infernal royal beauty. Hail Lilith Queen of demons and of the night. Mother to us all! Nema!

Mantras to Kali

OM KALIKAYE NAMAHA

This is the basic Kali mantra, meaning “OM and salutations to Kali”. It is for those who want to focus themselves on Kali as their principal spiritual practice.

2.OM SRI MAHA KALIKAYAI NAMAHA

This mantra is the basic Kali mantra strengthened by the words “Sri” (an expression of great respect) and “Maha” (great).  It has been said that very few people are initiated into this mantra because of the intensity of its “purgative nature.

3.OM KLIM KALIKA-YEI NAMAHA

This mantra is said to bring rapid and even drastic relief from any situation that is difficult or problematic. The kind of solution attained might not be the kind you would want or envisage, because the effects of the mantra are said to be potentially drastic and unexpected. The results will be right and appropriate for you at the time, although they may not be pleasant in the short run

4.OM HRIM SHREEM KLIM ADYA KALIKA PARAM ESHWARI SWAHA

This is known as the Great Fifteen-Syllable Mantra (not counting the Om at the start) and is said to provide a rapid boost to one’s spiritual growth, although once again the results may be unexpected and drastic. One should only use this mantra if one is prepared for results that may be quite intense. From personal experience, I can vouch for the power of this mantra

light from the shadows

To silver scales beneath blackened seas awaiting thundering fate

The deep one who holds us in coiled embrace, seeing all but speaking not

To the forgotten queen at whose table all must one day sit

 The cold skeletal face of truth behind the sweet mask of illusion

To hunger and rage bound in defiance of what must be

The beast who under chain dreams of injustices past and vengeance to come

To the silver tongued scion of flames who treads the sky

The burning light of truth among a dark viper’s nest of deceit

To the untamed wolf maiden who rules the ironwood snarling from within

Thrice burned who rose again to defy the will of gods laughing at revenge to be

 

The Path of Wild Women

Throughout all of time and across all cultures there exist certain archetypes. I am going to take a look at one of those in this blog, more specifically that of the fierce mother. This aspect of the divine mother can be called many things fierce, dark, wild, and vengeful to name a few. The common linking factor however is that to the outside she is a monster, to those who call her mother she is nothing but loving protection.

Since this is such a universal archetype I know I cannot cover all of the fierce mothers. I am only going to cover the goddesses that I have a history of working with so I can better explain them. So sorry Artemis, Pele, and Itzpapalotl but I am going to let someone better researched cover you guys. On a quick side note you guys should look up Itzpapalotl some time. She is an Aztec goddess referred to as the “obsidian butterfly” and appears as a skeleton with black wings and a stone machete in each hand, she also comes down during an eclipse to eat the faces of sinners.

If we start where it all began and work to the present we Begin in what is now Iraq. The Sumerians were the first recorded, human civilization, with historical records dating to about 2900 BC. They had a very rich and diverse pantheon full of heroic deeds and epic battles between gods. One of these goddesses was Lilith.

Lilith to the Sumerians was a vampiric creature and mother of vampires who would appear as a beautiful woman with bird feet. She later was adopted as a  character in the Old testament as the first wife of Adam . In the old testament version she was created equal with Adam and after refusing to let Adam be on top during sex she got angry, spoke the forbidden name of Yahweh and flew away. Speaking the forbidden name was akin to cursing out God by the way. After flying from the garden of Eden she landed near some caves where she began to mate with various unclean spirits, angels including Archangel Samael, and in some stories she was even the consort of God himself. The problem however was that all of her children were born as demons, which is how she gained the name “Mother of Demons”.

But Adam got lonely and began begging God to bring her back so God sent 3 angels (Senoy, Samsenoy, and Semengelof) to go convince her to return. She refused and in true old testament style God told the angels to kill 100 children every day until she returned, which she never did. In retaliation  however she vowed to never rest populating the world with demons. She also vowed to spend eternity seducing men and taking her vengeance out on the infant descendants of Adam. It is this aspect of her as an angel of miscarriages that has mostly given her a bad name. This may not have even been her originally as there is the Sumerian legend of the Lamashtu. The Lamashtu was a hideous monster who stole the soul of babies, and there is evidence of translation errors among the ancient Hebrew scholars.

Whether she was the one killing infants or not the point stands that she is fierce, jealous and proud and in my opinion from working with her very plausible. I do not take the new age route on Lilith, calling her simply a misunderstood goddess. She can frankly be a bitch, a powerful ancient goddess of a bitch who oathed against mankind. But when approached respectfully and for the right reasons she is a strong protector. She will be a mother to those she deems worthy, they tend to be strong and confident women who are not afraid of the dark within.

A little later and two countries to the right we come across India. In India we come across the dark mother Kali. She is a gigantic woman with skin the color of obsidian and a mouth full of fangs. Her only clothes are a garland made of severed heads and a skirt of human arms. Her eyes are wild and her tongue lolls furiously out of her mouth spilling blood down her chest. In each arm she carries a different weapon or else a severed head. This of course all serves a purpose.

The legend goes that there was a terrible battle between the gods and a race of demons. The problem with the demons was that every time a drop of blood was spilled it grew another demon. So naturally the gods were losing and none were more upset then Durga. Durga was a warrior goddess who could best be described as the Hindu version of Xena. None could or would even attempt to match her in battle. As the frustration of battle began to set in however she became so angry she morphed into Kali (think Hindu Super Saiyan). Kali began storming through the demons slicing off the demons heads and drinking their blood which stopped new demons from being made. The problem however was that after Kali got into her blood rage she couldn’t stop and began attacking her own side. The God Shiva transformed himself into a crying baby on the battlefield hoping his plan would work. And it did, Kali saw the weeping baby and rushed over to comfort the crying child which immediately calmed her blood lust.

This is because while fierce Kali is still a mother who deeply loves all of her children. In fact the truth of this story is that the battle described above goes on inside each of us. The demons are our egos, our fears, our doubts. Kali is fierce against our negativity, but we must be brave enough to see past her imagery to embrace her for what she is. When working with her she is loving but very direct and not gentle in the least. Praying to Kali I have heard referred to as “removing a splinter with a chain saw”. Sometimes though a mother needs to grab you by the arm and scold you.

Further west and into the new world we come across the Morrigan. She is a three fold goddess of Celtic tradition. One of her aspects Anu, is that of the mother goddess. She is the benevolent provider of all things on this earth. Her second aspect is Macha, this is the goddess of war and battle. The third aspect is Nemain, this is her aspect as a mad banshee and a spirit of insanity. She flies through the battlefield wailing and driving opposing armies into making mistakes.

So while a kind mother in some occurrences at other times she appears as a woman in black armor surrounded by crows. She sometimes is the shrieking mist in the night letting you know she is on the opposing side of a war and still other times she is the old crone washing your blood stained clothes before a battle, letting you know that you die today.

All these aspects make her a mother, a seeress, a warrior, a banshee, and a guide to the underworld.

A little further north in Scandinavia we come to Angrboda. She is the Jotun wife of Loki and mother to his children Fenrir, Hel, and Jormundgandr. To those who don’t know this means her children are as follows a giant wolf, a zombie, and a giant snake.

She is a gigantic woman (about 10 feet tall) with a female power lifter build. She haves a huge, wild mane of Red hair that extends down to her knees full of beads and braids. Her face while beautiful is always angry and covered in war paint. She is heavily tattooed in a tribal fashion. Her clothing consists of leather and chain armor with a long cape of pelts.

She is the leader of the Ironwood clan, a clan of fierce Jotun warriors and shape shifters. In the lore she was asked to visit Odin’s hall where she was sneak attacked and then burned alive. While this happened her children were kidnapped and banished to the recesses of the universe because of a suspected prophecy that her children would bring Ragnarok. Loki was able to bring Angrboda back to life; however she wanted nothing to do with the mess anymore and retired to her forest to mourn the loss of her children.

She is a mother to all those who feel like outsiders and who are persecuted. She is there to give strength and fortitude to those who she deems worthy. I have only tried working with her once, very unsuccessfully at that. I in essence just called on her to see if she would answer, but I was young and foolish.

The archetype still holds true to modern religions. In the Voodoo tradition there is a loa named Marinette. She is the patron saint of werewolves and will only accept a sacrifice if the animal was black and in pain (traditionally a black rooster plucked alive).  I do know that Marinette is not to be trifled with and used only for cursing. I have never worked with her but I thought it made sense to include her since she is the most recent incarnation. She is symbolized by the angry and oppressed woman, making her a modern day composite of several older gods. She gets the fire of Kali, the werewolves of Angrboda, and the screech owl of Lilith.

The wild mother archetype traveled along with people as they migrated across the globe, undergoing small cultural changes along the way but always holding true to it’s original message…..Sometimes a kind word isn’t as effective as getting smacked with a 2×4.

The Mythos of Insanity

Yes I Can BTW

This post is coming a little late but I guess it is better late then never. A few weeks ago there was a debate going on as to the validity of people worshiping superheroes as gods. Don’t worry because this article is not going to be about that, there was more then enough anger over this issue without me getting involved. However the topic of worshiping and working with deities who are works of fiction got me thinking. If people are going to work with an invented character why don’t they go all in and work with the most powerful creatures ever seen in print? I am speaking of course about about the Great Old Ones created by HP Lovecraft. I first need to say that he has been a huge influence of mine for over 15 years so this article will be an immense joy for me to write.

So in this post I am going to be sticking to what Lovecraft himself wrote and not his contemporaries. I thoroughly enjoy the way modern authors have further developed his mythos, but that is not what I am here to talk about. Lovecraft himself did not consider the Great Old Ones to be evil, rather they were of a level of consciousness so high that they were beyond the very notion of good and evil. The comparison between us and them is the same as comparing us to a microscopic bacteria. Our entire reality and our thoughts are of no consequence to a race of beings who come from beyond the stars and live between and outside of time and space. Another key component of Lovecraft’s work was that if we were to actually communicate with these beings we would immediately go insane. Now onto how to work with elder star spawn who cause raving lunacy.

The first thing to realize is that you cannot hold onto your sanity, the most you can do is guide the insanity in a direction you can use (the same as working on any god path). You also need to realize that you will most likely not be developing a relation with what you are working with as the Great Old Ones do not care and will not notice.

I am going to be putting together a few Lovecraftian path workings and rituals in the lower sections. All of these exercises are based off of chaos magic, the reason for this being that these beings were created less then 100 years ago. That does not change their validity as the essence of the gods is how you form them. I recently was told people worship My Little Pony from the show “Friendship is Magic”, believing the ponies to be various aspects of the divine channeled down through the shows creators. I have no problem with this as long as it gets the job done.

CTHULHU

“Yielded simultaneously pictures of an octopus, a dragon and a human caricature. A pulpy tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings.”

“The thing cannot be described, it is the green, sticky spawn of stars with flabby claws and an awful squid head with writhing feelers”

I may as well start with the guy everybody knows about first. Cthulhu is regarded as the high priest of the Great Old ones who sleeps beneath the pacific ocean in his sunken city of R’lyeh. R’lyeh is a city of impossible geometry where one goes mad trying to navigate it’s slime coated alleys.
He is served by his descendants the “deep ones” they are a hideous race of amphibious frog-like humanoids. His is the one who is always dreaming and inspires his servants through his mad dreams.

If you look like this, you are doing it right. (artist unknown)

So here is a path working with Cthulhu. First light some green candles, set out a bowl of salt water and lie down in either a dark room with a cd of ocean sounds or even better on the beach under a full moon. Begin to relax your muscles and control your breathing feeling the room begin to move away from you. As the room fades begin to feel your body changing, becoming more squat and frog like. You begin to feel yourself changing into one of the deep ones swimming through the ocean. Begin to descend swimming down into the blackness seeking out the lost sunken city of  R’lyeh. As you find it swim through the ever changing labyrinth until you come across a large temple capped with an onyx pyramid. This is where Cthulhu lies dreaming. Begin to feel the power building and radiating from the temple until the vibrations fill you with power. All at once there is an explosion of knowledge and strength which brings you back to your body. This is the end of the path working and as close as you can ever come to understanding Cthulhu.

Yog Sothoth

“Yog Sothoth knows the gate. Yog Sothoth is the gate. Yog Sothoth is athe key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, and future are all one in Yog Sothoth. he knows where the great old ones broke through and where they shall break through again. He knows where they once tread earth’s fields and where they still tread them, and why no one can behold them as they tread”

Yog Sothoth by Mrzarano@deviantart.com

Ok so Yog Sothoth is essentially the gatekeeper who lives outside of our reality as well as being the gate that keeps are reality separate from that of the Great Old Ones. He is described as a misty cloud congaing random eyes, teeth, and tentacles appearing at random. Like the other old ones to fully look upon him or contemplate him is to cause madness. But as he is “the gate” I believe he could be  called upon to open the path to working with of Great Old Ones.

Luckily LaVey has a prayer to Yog Sothoth for exactly that……..

“Yog Sothoth, master of dimensions, through which we are set upon the world of horrors. Faceless one, guide us through the night of thy creation that we may behold the bond of the angles and the promise of thy will” …..Anton LaVey, the Satanic Rituals

Shub Niggurath

Shub Niggurath is the black goat of the forest with 1000 young. She is a primal fertility goddess of the wild, similar to a female Pan like figure. She is never described physically in the works of Lovecraft, however all of the stories regarding her refer to the orgies and bacchinals of her cult. Any workings with her would be prayers of primal strength and fertility. LaVey also mentions this deity but interestingly enough refers to Shub Niggurath as a man, luckily enough he has written a prayer to him. I would use black candles and make my offerings in the forest during a new moon.

Shub Niggurath- artist unknown

“Hail, Shub Niggurath, father of the world of horrors, father of the hornless ones. Hail, ram of the sun and deathless one who sleepest not while we honor thy name and thy bond. Hail Shub Niggurath!”…..Anton LaVey, the Satanic Rituals

at this point I would leave my offering and state my request. The entire ceremony should consist of wild dancing and drumming around a fire.

Tsattoggua

He is described as a gigantic, squat black toad. He hops throughout his underground caverns and abandoned ruins in eternal blackness. The interesting thing about this deity is that I have heard of people working with him  as a healing deity. So I put together a guided meditation using Tsattoggua to heal and removes blockages and fears.

Tsattoggua- artist unknown

Light some brown candles and earthly incense and begin to meditate. Envision the room fading away until you are in blackness. Begin to see yourself sitting among ruins with a black altar before you. Out of the blackness you begin to see a gigantic black toad with wings and fangs hopping towards you. He climbs atop the altar merely just watching you as if diagnosing your very soul. Approach him respectfully before kneeling and opening your mouth. His tongue then extends outwards moving down your throat and removing the fear and pain within your stomach. Feel the pain and emotion being removed as he removes his tongue and leaves. From here begin to envision the room returning to normal.

Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep- Artist unknown

 

He is the black pharaoh, the crawling chaos, the wanderer of the dark. He is referred to in the stories as the ambassador between the Great Old Ones and us. He will directly communicate with humans, as he has throughout history. He is the basis for our Devil and all evil gods. because while he interacts with us he still loathes humanity and treats them as inferior toys. His true form, like the others is a hideous creature beyond description but he will normally appear as a perfect, beautiful man. This imagery when combined with his eloquence and charm lend to his Luciferian description. He can be worked with if you are willing to bargain with him. I could only imagine asking him to curse someone or else for the gaining of personal power and intimidation over others. If you decide to work with him everything must be done in total blackness with black candles. I would highly recommend doing more research first however, just remember he delights in the pain of humanity.

Feast of Ghouls

The ghouls in the works of Lovecraft were hideous humanoid dogs who feasted on the flesh of corpses in cemeteries. They rose from underground tunnels at night to come and feast. Working with the ghouls can be done mentally or physically depending on how deep you and your partners are willing to take it. The purpose of the working is similar to that of  Tsattoggua in that it involves removing negativity.

Lovecraft ghoul – artist unknown

The mental way is as follows. In the standard way begin to meditate, calming your breathing and visualizing the room fading away. Now begin to visualize yourself as a rotted corpse lying upon a slab in a crypt. You are unable to move but begin to hear the shuffling of the ghouls approaching. As they approach they surround you and begin to feast, removing all the flesh from you. You feel no pain as you are already dead, to the contrary you realize that the flesh is what caused you your stress and emotion. After they are done and you are just a skeleton you realize that you are now purged of your negativity and ready to be reborn. As you come to take time to ground yourself as this can be traumatizing.

The Physical way is honestly sick but more effective. If you cannot find a cemetery at night to meet up in then you need a totally black room. Take the time meditating to get into a trance state preparing for the ghouls feast.You lie on a table totally nude and covered in raw meat. At this point you have your friends who have been channeling a ghoul gnosis enter the room and begin eating the meat. The rest is the same as the mental exercise.

So that is it, I know that this was easily my most insane blog post but I had fun with it. Plus Like I mentioned earlier when dealing with any chaos magic let alone the chaos magic of the great Old Ones insanity is the key.

A Travel Guide Through Helheim

I was speaking about Hel and her realm yesterday and I noticed that much of the lore regarding her and her realm are largely unknown to non-Helsman. So I thought it may be fun to put down what I know here, both through lore and upg so that maybe the communal well of knowledge can grow a little.

First Regarding Hel herself, the lore  varies on what her appearance looks like throughout time. Some times she is half black and half white, other times she is half beautiful woman and half rotted corpse. Even the rotted corpse part is up for debate as some say she is rotted from the legs down while others say that she is split down the middle two face style. Her personality is described as dour and depressive as she wanders her hall dressed in filthy black rags.

Every time I have communicated with her she has not been wearing black rags and was most assuredly not dirty. She normally wears a long and flowing regal black dress with some form of ornate jewelry around her neck. She is also neither half rotted nor half black, she is actually half tattooed in a very tribal manner similar to Samoans. The tattoos wind around her face, down into her dress and continue out onto her hands, I assume her entire left side is done in this way.She is also not ugly by any stretch, she has a very short pixie cut style hair style and beautiful blue eyes. She is maybe 5 foot 3 and skinny but with a beautiful athletic physique. I do however believe that as a goddess she can appear as a  giant half rotted corpse if she would have the need to (or if that is how people wanted to see her). I have also never seen the depressive personality, however when most people call on her it is normally something stupid so that could cause her to be less receptive.

What we know of her history is that she was the youngest daughter between Loki and Angrboda. She made her parents very proud of her due to her psychic ability, and was paraded around amongst all the Jotuns and far realms as a true treasure. But after the Aesir interpreted a message from the Norns as meaning Loki’s family may bring the end of times they set upon a plan to end all this. While Loki was away they captured her brother Fenris in a burlap sack and chained him up for all of eternity, they then captured her other brother the serpent Jormungandr and threw him into the ocean. Regarding Hela they captured her and forced her to watch her mother Angrboda be tortured and burned alive three times. At this point she cursed  Odin so badly that he released her out of fear and disgust, she traveled by foot through Nifelheim to go await her mother’s soul amongst the land of the dead. When Loki returned and found out what happened  he returned Angrboda to life and immediately flew out to look for his daughter. He found her huddled in Nifelheim and when he asked her to return, she refused stating ” I will not live among them, I have the dead to keep me company now”.

Regarding her realm Helheim is seated within Nifelheim which is in the deepest roots of the Yggdrasil(world tree). This naturally gives the place a dark appearance but it has a strange phosphorescent glow radiating from the rocks and aura about it. The region is very craggy, windy, and mountainous, all of it appears to be some black igneous rock. The actual hall of Hel is situated on a cliff bluff overlooking a black sea. The only way to this hall is over a bridge at the foot of the cliff, this bridge is guarded by Mordgud. She is the gatekeeper of Hel’s hall keeping all who do not belong and are not dead away. She is an immensely strong and fierce woman standing guard with a large sword in full plate mail. She is neither friendly nor aggressive, just professional and she takes her job seriously. The bridge she guards is over the river Gjoll which is the oily, black river flowing through Helheim. On the other side of the bridge surrounding Hel’s hall Eljudiner (misery)  are immense iron gates,these are not so much to keep people out as to keep people in. Inside of her hall there are long tables of people just sitting and resting. The walls have that old stone castle look to them where everything is lit by torches. Nobody is being tormented or in any pain as that is not the purpose, the place has the feel of a doctor’s office. Patrolling the halls is Hel’s immense wolf Garm, he is the protector of her hall as well as her loyal friend. Hel has 2 servants Ganglati and Ganglot, they are both supposed to be so slow you cannot see them move, I have never seen them however. Other possessions Hel is supposed to have are her bed (sick bed), her curtains (glimmering misfortune), her knife (famine), and her plate (hunger). To me this is more of Snorri’s melodramatic garbage trying to Christianize the faith of our people and demonize our goddess.

Outside of Hel’s hall on the shore of the ocean the truly wicked are staked out on the beach awaiting Niddhog and his children. Niddhog is the great wyrm who chews through the roots of the Yggdrasil and only emerges to chew on the bodies of the evil. His children are venomous serpents and dragons who also feed upon the damned. This punishment is reserved for the truly evil. In the mountains is the great black eagle Hraesvelg “corpse eater” who also flies from his perch to gnaw on the dead occasionally, but his primary purpose is to flap his wings creating the icy wind which blows through Helheim.

All of this may make you wonder “why would you work with her?”. I can tell you that she is a necessary part of the pantheon and while her realm may appear dark or gloomy it is no worse then Midgard. We may not have monsters chewing on bodies but we have world wide famine and disease being ignored by monsters in business suits. Also if Hel were truly so evil she would not of Given Baldr a place of honor in her hall. Plus let us not forget that the reason she is there was to stay away from her siblings kidnappers and her mother’s murderers, so I’m sure she would want anything to keep them away.   Also, all people who do not die in battle must at least travel through Helheim; therefore, people should at least know the truth about Hel and Her dominion.

A Quick Note on Discarnates…

Lately among my local crew of pagans the topic of discarnates has been coming up and I wanted to write a little on it. Based off of what I was taught a discarnate is a thought form that is created by someone with enough faith and intent that it gains it’s own sentience. According to lore these “thought forms” can then be sent out to achieve various results and perform various tasks, similar to a familiar.

While at first this seems crazy the Tibetans have been practicing this feat of shamanism for thousands of years. They call the thought form a Tulpa. Numerous scientific tests have been performed on these Buddhist monks who through months of arduous meditation and visualization are able to see and communicate with a manifestation of their own creation. Often times these tulpas are charged with remembering things, similar to a hard drive. The amazing thing is that the monks communicating with the tulpas are actually able to draw on these memories. So one of two things is happening: either they are creating a forced Schizophrenia or they are actually communing with a created energy.

My personal opinion is….WHY DOES IT MATTER, IF IT WORKS. I can say for a fact that I have witnessed a hex so intense and emotional it manifested as a thinking entity.  If what I believe about the gods is true in that they are mass thought forms and archetypes powered by millenia of belief then these entities have just as much validity, only on a much smaller and much less powerful scale.

I have done work with discarnates in a few varying ways, both to the approval and horror of various respected members of the community. My favorite use is in shielding, to those of you unfamiliar with the term shielding is creating a form of psychic barrier to keep you spiritually safe. This is especially useful in places that may be haunted or when around “psychic vampires”. In addition to envisioning myself as my totem the hyena (more of a were-hyena actually) to make any spirits think twice and encasing behind a crystal wall I visualize an animal in front of me at all times. I like to use one of my other totems the spider as a defender. And I will go more into how to do that below,along with the necessary precautions.

A second way I have used discarnates which many people do not approve of is manifesting parts of my personality into a form and deciding what to do with it. My examples are private but after visualizing them and having conversations with them one could stay, one had to leave, and one was re-purposed. The one that had to leave was causing me no end of mental anguish and I had my spiritual guardian with me who needless to say got a good dinner that night. I essentially had my guardian there awaiting either a thumbs up or down before she moved.

The important thing to remember is that anything you create or remove is all part of yourself and your energy. This is why some people are leery about working with them as they believe it can cause  a part of your soul to fracture. This never concerned me as my Buddhist training taught me that  my soul is the entire universe anyway and that what I believe is reality. But take time to realize what you believe first as you can harm yourself if you believe you can. I know I am repeating myself but I cannot stress the importance of belief enough when practicing the craft.

When I brought forth aspects of my personality I had to sit and focus hard on the emotion attached and allow it to create an avatar of that feeling. From there I brought it forth through my minds eye in a contained circle and took an objective look at what was there. If nothing else it is good to see how your sub conscious mind portrays aspects of yourself, this is actually probably more useful in some ways as the first step in shamanism is self discovery. This activity however should not even be attempted unless you are already familiar with methods of protection as well as knowledge of banishing and meditation experience. Shit can get extremely real extremely fast and depending what you create it may not leave. I myself am guilty of letting things tag along when they shouldn’t. Also be aware that depending what you call it may look absolutely beautiful of absolutely demonic, it can also be given a name and personality depending how it manifests. So long story short…don’t mess around with these things if you are new, and be careful and smart regardless.

Creating a protector animal as part of shielding is much safer. First sit and meditate on an animal you associate with protection. Incense and candles may help with this, I like to burn some mugwort and dittany of Crete personally. As you get deeper into meditation and can see the animal better begin to visualize everything about it including how it feels and sounds. I like to imagine a mist radiating from my minds eye, growing more solid on the exhalations until the creature takes shape. By the way,this creation can be whatever you want it does not need to be an animal, I am sure an armor plated angel or Valkyrie would get the job done. After you have created this entity before you, speak to it and ask it (I do not believe in commanding) to help protect you. Remember since it comes from your mind it will do what you want it to as long as you believe it will. The rest is up to you, whether you do things like name the creature is up to you entirely, I find it helps form a better connection and idea of what you are working with. But when you are done always be sure to close out the ritual and cleanse the area, without closing doors and ending that mental ritual you set yourself up to be a target of little nasties. Like i said earlier, I have an orb-weaver that is the size of a large dog to back me up and she has never let me down; this was the method I was taught.

Again before I end this post, whether you believe that this is real spirituality or just a psychiatric construct the point is still simple……..

BE CAREFUL WHEN MESSING WITH YOUR OWN PSYCHE

Darth Shaman

“The Morrigan”, by Jessica Galbreth

I have been trying to think about what topic I wanted to cover in my next entry for about 2 weeks now and had no idea, that is until recently. I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression by the title, this is not going to be a long diatribe about the bombing in Boston, it ties in but I will not go on at length as that is not what I am about.

So over the last few months I have been being put to work by the gods as basically a ferryman for spirits that have passed, this has been mostly a combination of me lighting candles and putting in good words for people with some “honey… he’s dead” thrown in for good measure. The problem has been that  despite everything I still was feeling like something was incomplete. Last Sunday Ren and I went to a fire walk with the Celtic shaman Andrew Steed, for anyone who doesn’t know; a fire walk is walking over hot coals after some chanting and mental  preparation. There really was no trick, you just have to believe you can step over the 900+ degree coals without an issue and trust you will be fine. I crossed four times without a mark so I was feeling pretty good. After that he pulled out some arrows and some of us broke them on our throats, also mind over matter. This whole experience made me feels if something weird was happening or I was being opened to something, enough so that I was chanting to Kali by the end. Then before I left the shaman approached me and said, “Do you work with the Morrigan?, because she is right behind you and brought you here”. My immediate thought was “big surprise, another death goddess”. So awesomeness aside I left with this bizarre feeling that something changed and I had been opened from the inside out.

The next day I at work I just began feeling all kinds of nausea and panic, I find out on my lunch break about the Boston bombing. I wondered if maybe I was picking up some of the trauma in the dimensional web of wyrd, but I just pushed it down as superstition and went on with my day. After I got home I could not shake the feeling that something was watching and wanted attention, despite how much I tried paying attention to angry birds (remember as a tool of death deities I am used to people randomly swinging by). Ren comes out later and despite me saying nothing asks if I know there is a pale women with black hair and ragged black dress behind me “to get off my lazy ass and tend to Boston, and do it right”. So the way she is described right down to the lovely brogue I realized that Andrew has hooked me up to the Morrigan now as well. This brings the death deities count to 5 (Hel, Baron Samedi, Cernunnos, Anubis, and the Morrigan). So I quick throw together a good Celtic service and all is going well if you don’t count the rapping on the windows at midnight (banshees, no big deal I’m Irish and an Irish town was hurt).

Today after a sound sleep I woke up feeling a little jittery yet, probably from what I would guess was a poor job of shielding or just to much expended energy but jittery none the less. I decided to get some much needed info on this bossy Celtic woman who decided to adopt me as one of her own so I went to visit my friend who is a Celtic witch. She gave some advice but seemed confused that the Morrigan had not grabbed me before. She told me to wear some symbols of her ( luckily I have a raven claw) and asked if I had any specific protection wear. I knew I could throw something together but first had to stop at the grocery store for some random garbage when I noticed a pair of black mardi gras beads in the parking lot outside of my car. First off it is April, second it was a grocery store, and third these beads aren’t normally made in black. So   I stared dumbfounded a second at what was obviously a gift from my big bad voodoo daddy baron Samedi and immediately threw them on, as soon as Ren ever so kindly repaired them like magic with nothing more than a lighter. Apparently the Baron had a better and blingier idea for protection then me making something.

So despite the craziness going on I cannot complain because life is great and always interesting, I also know that I am being taken care of despite what butthurts or white light bunnies say. I am learning real shamanism the real way by doing it and not just reading books. I am filling a need often overlooked or hidden in our world today that of the psychopomp.

“To me the diving into the black abyss, is the keenest joy in life”…..HP Lovecraft

However, it should be understood that death is a necessary part of life- that the only “darkness” we find in death is in our culture’s fear of it.  I find it comforting that I am granted the gift to help souls on their journeys after this life ends for them- if nothing else, I’m friendly.

The Essence of Me

So it seems that there is a lot of interest in blogs lately so I have decided to throw myhat in the ring as well. I figured my first post would be a little bit about myself and what I believe in. This has been sorely needed and is long overdue since I generally get 2 reactions to my life: 1. you believe in some interesting ideas, please tell me more, or 2. you have no idea what you are talking about.

Ok some from the beginning I was raised Roman catholic but then after starting martial arts I developed an interest in Buddhism which vicariously lead to Hinduism through yoga which in the end led to Northern tradition Shamanism….so let me take some time to explain how these ideas all work together without causing me to abandon any of them.

Let me start with God, in Buddhism there is no god because the entire world is connected by one unifying energy (think the force or Higgs Boson based on your geek score). This energy is the collected consciousness of all time and space, it is unquantifiable and unable to even be comprehended. But on some occasion an individual can tap into this force within themselves causing them to develop a greater understanding of themselves and the world, this is what it means to be enlightened. This in my opinion is the basis behind people such as Jesus, Krishna, Merlin and so on because with a greater understanding of reality comes a greater control of it, because after all in Buddhism your reality is shaped by your thoughts.

So when people began trying to connect with what they already knew was out there they realized that they couldn’t come close to grasping the enormity of truth but could shape aspects kind of like personalities of this force into smaller easier to understand forms called deities ( this is where the Hinduism comes in). Contrary to popular belief Hinduism is actually monotheistic, the trick is that all the little g gods are part of the one big G god.

The shamanism came in as I started researching and discovering the religions of my ancient European ancestors and through my own curiosity and being invited to rituals I found something which seemed to resonate inside me like it belonged….then a strange thing happened. I started working with the Goddess Hel, this felt great until I began to notice that whatever pantheons I research or study I keep being drawn back to the same archetypes. Whether in Hinduism, Egyptian, Voodoo, European etc i was always working with the god of the underworld or death.This made me think back to my Buddhist training and ponder if all these different cultures were really just feeling the same archetype. Could and Hel and Baron Samedi be one in the same? My personal upg and conclusion is yes. While peoples belief has made them their own entities with unique personalities they still represent the same thing among cultures. This is why I do not have any problems with what anyone believes because all these things are shaped and customized for you by you.  There has always been a god of death and even though the image and faces change the fact remains that it is still the manifestation of death in a form we can understand. The priests of old basically take a bucket of water from the endless ocean that is God and pour it in a pretty container people can see. The container is not the ocean only a small piece of it, however peoples belief and faith are strong enough to actually give an idea life, but tulpas are a whole different rant altogether.

So where I am now is trying to dig deeper and synch up with the small piece of this endless ocean that I can be blessed with seeing by any means necessary. Hopefully this clears a few things up among certain communities that recoiled at my writing out vedic mantras in Scandinavian runes or other such activities.

Now before I go I need to make something clear about my worship of the death goddess. I am not some creepy gothic kid or someone who has seen to many movies. Death is merely the transition between worlds and the gateway to our ancestors and I feel it deserves my respect. Also regardless of where I go Pantheonicly speaking I always get grabbed by death, only now as I embraced it am I beginning to reap the benefits of it (however I am not sure if constant ghost activity is a benefit, but whatever).