Here is a small excerpt from a larger work on Rites of Passage and the Occult...Check it out!
Each initiate who undergoes a rite
of passage also undergoes a corresponding change in consciousness. This change
is indicative of the change in status that occurs as part of the experience.
Often times, the change occurs as a time of transition during the liminal
state. Literally a transitional event within the transitional state. Sometimes
this event happens while sleeping. Rothman and Sudarshan remark of this
transitional period in regards to Kashmir Shaivism. They remark that “if one
examines Kashmir Shaivism, one finds
extremely specific instructions for achieving various states of consciousness.
We are first told that there is a junction, or transition point, between each
of the three states of consciousness and the next: the waking state, the dreaming
state and the state of dreamless sleep” ( 18 Doubt & Certainty by Tony
Rothman and George Sudarshan. Reading Mass. 1998. Perseus Books). Proponents of
this form of Shaivism state that, “you should [focus on] the center of any two
movements, every two breaths. After some time when that concentration is
established, then whenever you go to bed to rest you will automatically enter
the dreaming state through that junction…Here you do not lost consciousness
even though you feel intoxicated…Here the aspirant does not experience moving
about nor does he hear or see. He cannot move any part of his body. At that
moment the aspirant hears hideous sounds” (Kashmir Shaivism, the Secret
Supreme. Swami Lakshman Jee. Albany. SUNY Press under imprint of the Universal
Shaiva Trust. 1988. Pp 109).
The transition point is reminiscent
of folklorist David Hufford’s work with Old Hag phenomenon. Often times, an Old Hag event entails the
victim being attacked by a supernatural entity. The victim usually awakes in
the middle of the night unable to move or scream. Then, a horrifying presence
is exerted on his or her chest. (Quote) The Old Hag attack involved complete paralysis
and is associated with night terrors. Like Kashmir Shaivism, the Old Hag experience occurs upon waking from sleep.
During the transition from dream to wakefulness, or from one state of
consciousness to another, the aspirant is in a liminal state and is more
susceptible to the strange or unusual.
Carl
Jung also studied transitional moments of a liminal state. In particular, he
researched the effects of complexes and neuroses when they become conscious. He
wrote that, “it is felt as strange, uncanny, and at the same time fascinating.
At all events the conscious mind falls under its spell, either feeling it as
something pathological, or else being alienated by it from normal life. If the
content can be removed from consciousness again, the patient will feel relieved
and more normal. The irruption of these alien contents is a characteristic
symptom marking the onset of many mental illnesses. The patients are seized by
weird and monstrous thoughts, the whole world seems changed, people have horrible,
distorted faces, and so on” (119- Carl Jung. Psychology and the Occult.
Bollingen Series. Princeton. 1981). As transitional events during a betwixt and
between state, the complex is no longer repressed and allows for experiences of
the Other or Alien.
Changes
in state occur at a ritual level when the rite is used as a proxy for the
mythical narrative. As Walter Otto exclaimed, “ cultic rites were frighteningly
serious because they were concerned with none other than the presentation of
the supernatural occurrence which the myth had expressed in words” (77 Walter
Otto. Dionysus-Myth and Cult. Dallas, Texas. Spring Publications. 1981. Orig.
Published 1965- Indiana Univ. Press). Often times, the occult ritual is the most
important catalyst for inducing a change in consciousness. It is within ritual
that the supernatural narrative can be acted out, grasped and given legitimacy.
Sometimes the climax of the ceremony extracts the numinous in the initiate and
serves as the transitionary event. Such
was the case at the Isaeum in ancient Egypt.
The
Isaeum was the sanctuary and place of ceremonies for the Egyptian goddess Isis.
A physical representation of the liminal state, the initiate separated
themselves from the world of the profane by entering its walls. And this was
serious business in ancient Egypt. When aspirants left the blazing light of the
desert and entered the cool chambers of the Isaeum, it was thought they were
passing from the world of the living to that of the dead. It was in these liminal
spaces that their most important rituals occurred. Robert Turcan describes a becoming rite when the initiate is
transformed into a god. He states that, “the initiate was dressed in a linen
robe never previously worn; then the priest took him by the hand to lead him to
‘the remotest part of the sanctuary’, or penetralia. The neophyte was probably
shown statues that were concealed from the gaze of ordinary followers. In the
middle of the sanctuary, a platform was set up which the new initiate mounted,
this time clad in an embroidered linen robe…When the curtains were drawn, he
was revealed like a statue, crowned
with palm leaves and armed with a torch” (Robert Turcan. 1996. The Cults of the
Roman Empire. Blackwell Publishing Inc. Williston). The transitionary event and
its change in consciousness becomes the focal point of the ritual.
This
state of affairs was common in the mystery cults of the Greco-Roman era. A way
to resolve the immanence/transcendence dichotomy, many of the cults sought to
instill the divine within thus making them immortal. As Jane Ellen Harrison
remarks, “To become a god was therefore incidentally as it were to obtain
immortality. Their great concern was to become divine now” (477-Prolegomena To
The Study of Greek Religion. Princeton Univ. Press. Princeton. 1991).
To Be Continued....
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