Magus Magazine: The Occult and the Potentiality of Dreams Part I

Magus Magazine: The Occult and the Potentiality of Dreams Part I: The occult recognizes an experiential  need in the individual. However, this need is really an assertion that Man is born with a potentialit...

The Occult and the Potentiality of Dreams Part I

The occult recognizes an experiential  need in the individual. However, this need is really an assertion that Man is born with a potentiality for reaching a higher state of consciousness. It is a rational need based on reason and aesthetics. Ouspensky ameliorates the idea by saying that Man "as we know him is not a completed being; nature develops him only to a certain point and then leaves him, to develop further, by  his own efforts and devices, or to live and die such as he was born, or to degenerate and lose capacity for development" (Ouspensky 1974). These nascent potentialities for something greater are what fuel a quest for attainment. It is the reason for meditation. It is the striving for nirvanic consciousness that inspires Buddhists; And it is through the working of magic that the occultist hopes to contact the supernatural.

Occult ritual is an inciter of the mystic experience and vehicle for communicating with those out there. Reaching those 'out there' entities is a conscious as well as subconscious experience. D.T. Suzuki states that "just as our ordinary field of consciousness is filled with all possible kinds of images, beneficial and harmful, systematic and confusing; so is the subconscious a storehouse of every form of occultism or mysticism, understanding by the term all that is known as latent or abnormal or psychic or spiritualistic" (Suzuki 1956). The subconscious becomes as important as our conscious self in reaching those innate potentialities we're all born with.

Many occult groups construct elaborate hierarchal systems with which to initiate their neophytes of innate potentialities. According to Lama Anagrika Govinda, "If, through some trick of nature, the gates of an individuals subconscious were suddenly to spring open, the unprepared mind would be overwhelmed and crushed. Therefore, the gates of the subconscious are guarded, by all initiates, and hidden behind the veil of mysteries and symbols (Govinda 1960). The occult, then, uses psychological mechanisms and processes to  impart their teachings to initiates. But what goes on in the mind is what determines the experiential nature of the supernatural.  It is within these psychological nuances that we 'live the myth'. Our nascent potentialities become a process of becoming that occurs when we re-present the numinous.

Perhaps the most prevalent and deeply profound way to re-present the supernatural occurs in trance and dream experiences. When we dream or go into trance, the numinous is re-defined. re-calibrated, and re-presented anew. Every experience of this kind presents a reality where the supernatural is an epistemic conduit defining what we know of the supernatural. Because, of course, our knowledge of the supernatural moves and changes with every supernatural experience that we encounter. Dreams and trance make this effect more pronounced due to the fact that they can be indescribably beautiful or horribly bizarre.

Sometimes the dreamer's community interprets the nightmare as a portent for a future happening. Such was the case in 1642 when a Huron Indian dreamed that non-Huron Iroquois had taken him and burned him as a captive. As soon as he awoke, a council was held. "The ill fortune of such a dream," said the Chiefs, "must be averted." At once twelve or thirteen fires were lighted in the cabin where captives were burned, and torturers seized fir brands. When the dreamer was burned; he shrieked like a madman." When he avoided one fire he at once fell into another. Naked, he stumbled around the fire three times, singed by one torch after another, while his friends repeated compassionately, "Courage, my Brother, it is thus that we have pity on thee." Finally he darted out of the ring, seized a dog held for him there, and paraded through the cabins with the dog on his shoulders, publicly offering it as a consecrated victim to the demon of war, "begging him to accept this semblance instead of the reality of his Dream" (Quoted in Wallace 1967).

Although this narrative is terrifying, not all dream sequences are of the horrible variety. Myth and folklore also includes stories that showcase lovely dream-states. In fact, some dreams are interpreted as a means to procure supernatural powers. Anthropologist Roy D' Andrade studied dreams as a way to obtain the supernatural and discovered that in these cultures, independence and self-reliance is prevalent. Akin to the mythological 'Hero's Journey', the young man leaves the familiarity of the local network and dreams his endowing of powers due to the anxiety of leaving home.

But the dream is also a marrying of the philosophical object and subject. It is both knowledge and our experience of it. As Campbell has eloquently stated, "It is the field of all mythic forms, the gods, the demons, heavens and hells, and since the seer and seen are here one and the same, all the gods, demons, heavens and hells, whether of the Orient or of Dante, are to be recognized here as within us" (Campbell 1968). Merging the object and subject i.e. seer and seen makes it possible for us to reach the potentiality of attainment because the answer is within. But misreading our own communications is also possible due to the fact that we are the sender. Our own unconscious can be to blame for re-presenting a symbol that we misinterpret or misunderstand.

Furthermore, uniting the dream and dreamer also leaves us susceptible to a Bardo experience that takes place deep in the unconscious. The Tibetan Book Of The Dead makes use of dream-states in its teachings. Largely a book meant for the recently deceased, this Book describes a Bardo or liminal existence that occurs in the forty-nine day duration between death and rebirth. During the liminal period of the Bardo, the deceased travels through three states of consciousness. The Chikhui are the immediate happenings at the time of death. It is here that the initiate is awakened to the fact that he is dead. The second, or Chonyid Bardo is the dream state that is characterized by karmic illusions. During the time of the Chonyid, beautiful and loving apparitions give the deceased a sense of peace and belonging. However, after the peaceful entities have produced a sense of awe or contentment, they then change into horrifying demons. The wrathful demons are the changed aspect of the peaceful deities but they area the same. In the Chonyid dream-state, the initiator states to the deceased, "Act then so that thou wilt not fear that bright, dazzling transparent white light know it to be wisdom" (Evans-Wentz 1960). And the initiate is also encouraged to keep in mind the mystic names that were given to him during initiation. These divine names ward off the frightful demons and allow passage into the remaining Bardo that determines whether rebirth or attainment is reached...........

Magus Magazine: Schopenhauer and Mysticism Part 1

Magus Magazine: Schopenhauer and Mysticism Part 1: But in the end, much of what makes up the occult are stories. They are narratives designed to transmit something. They are signals that ...

Schopenhauer and Mysticism Part 1

But in the end, much of what makes up the occult are stories. They are narratives designed to transmit something. They are signals that relay a common purpose to reach alterity and make contact. Not so far removed from the use of Scriptures in some religious systems or the deploying of Mandalas in others. The narratives say something about the human condition and the need for supernatural agency. Because believe it or not, there is a real need for ‘Otherness’ in the human condition. This need manifests in the creation of subatomic particles by physicists to explain the universe. It is also evident in the ritualization of myth and folklore into daily lives. It is a need to be moved. Within this pathos is an appeal to communicate a specific feeling. In answer to this appeal, Man creates temple complexes with clear lines that demarcate sacred from the profane. Such is the case at the ‘Villa of the Mysteries’ at Pompeii.

Artistic iconography at the Villa transmits the pathos of life and fertility. As Carl Jung remarked, “Here death is embedded by a female demon, with great black wings, visibly thwarted by the erect phallus of the sacred basket” (Jung 1964). The story portrayed in the Villa walls is one initiation and it conjures the feeling of initiation. The ritual and the subjective experience of undergoing an initiatory journey converge to form an event. And this is the goal of occult pathos. Here there is no separation of object and subject. As Eliade states, “By virtue of his initiation, the neophyte attained to another mode of being; he became equal to the gods, was one with the gods” (Eliade 1989). The ritual and its experience are one in the same. I call this merging the occult law of convergence.

The Object Subject dichotomy is a classic philosophical problem that sometimes manifests in reconciliation of contrasts (duality). Ideas of plurality and distinction are considered mere appearances that distract the practitioner from attaining the oneness or at-one-ment of the sacred. Schopenhauer suggested that when someone mediates, they come into the contact with the Will. This Will is the life-force of that person. He wrote that “it is what is innermost, the kernel of each individual thing and equally of the whole. It is manifest in every blindly working force of nature; it is manifest, also, in the considered deeds of man” (Schopenhauer 1844). The Will, according to Schopenhauer, is that piece of sanctity and fire of life that everybody is born with. A spark of the divine, it is the gnosis and sublimity of being at one with the universe. He goes on to state that

                       

Up to now, the concept Will has been subsumed under the concept Force;           but I am using it just the opposite way, and mean that every force in nature is to be understood as a function of Will. For at the back of the concept Force there is finally our visual knowledge of the objective world, i.e. of some phenomenon, something seen. It is from this that the concept Force derives…whereas the concept Will, on the contrary, is the one, among all possible concepts, that does not derive from the observation of phenomena, not from mere visual knowledge, but comes from inside, emerges from the immediate consciousness of each one of us: not as a form, not even in terms of the subject-object relationship, but as that which he himself is; for here the knower and the known are the same. (Ibid)

Akin to the Hindu Brahman, the Will makes distinctions between the Self and the universe unnecessary. Being the universal spirit and the feeling of being in that state are one in the same and anything else is either paradox or absurdity…….

TO BE CONTINUED…    

Magus Magazine: Demons or Deliverance: What is the nature of Evil?...

Magus Magazine: Demons or Deliverance: What is the nature of Evil?...: “If you ask for the Holy Spirit, you’ll get the Holy Spirit. No one has ever asked the Father for the Holy Spirit and received an Unholy...

Demons or Deliverance: What is the nature of Evil?

“If you ask for the Holy Spirit, you’ll get the Holy Spirit. No one has ever asked the Father for the Holy Spirit and received an Unholy Spirit.” – H.A. Maxwell Whyte, Demons and Deliverance.

“The demons have a better theology than the modern theologians.” – Kurt A. Koch, Occult: The Christian Perspective.

Demon Possession: It’s difficult in this day and age to accept the relevancy of such a phenomenon yet all over the globe, people claim that diabolical entities wage war for the souls of Man. This isn’t the plot of some movie or book of fiction. We see this on the news. A belief in supernatural agency is one of those cross-cultural certainties that anthropologists love to examine. And on any given Sunday, television preachers paint a gloomy picture of the soul possessed. But how many of these stories are the real deal? I can only equate it to somebody in the throes of a nightmare. It’s those few petrified moments when your spine hurts from the balled-up tension and you grit your teeth until you can taste fillings. You haven’t yet reached a level of consciousness where you realize your dreaming. It’s absolutely real and absolutely happening. At this point you’ve accepted whatever is occurring, as horrible as it might be, and just let go. They say that waking up is a violent jolt that leaves the dreamer gasping for air. Perhaps this is what it feels like to be exorcised of demonic infestation. The reality is: Absolute believers absolutely believe in the works of the devil. It’s as real as the dreamer stuck momentarily in his nightmare. Except in a case of demonic possession, the nightmare can go on and on forever. Folklore is no stranger to motifs of the devil and demons. There are dozens of themes that include narratives of this type. Countless stories of Satanism, possession, and the occult permeate the folkloric canon. 

One of the most disturbing cases of the demon episode I’ve seen recently involves a minister named John Ramirez. A former demoniac, Ramirez’s Out of the Devil’s Cauldron: a Journey from Darkness to Light, details his escape from Santeria. According to a ‘Christian Post Reporter’, Ramirez’s story begins in the Bronx over two decades ago with the Caribbean Santeria cult. Growing up in a Puerto Rican family, Ramirez was introduced to the religious hodgepodge that is Santeria. It was in that traditional family setting that Ramirez first became acquainted with the Devil. According to Ramirez himself,

“I was drawn to the power and authority that the Devil gives you over people. I found that the more evil I acted, the more respect I earned from others. If they feared me, I could get more and more what I wanted, People who knew me knew I was Satan’s son.”

Ramirez’s words imply the presence of the Devil himself but nobody seems to know where in Santeria rites the Devil makes an appearance. According to the New World Encyclopedia, Santeria or the “Way of the Saints” is a set of religious systems that fuse Roman Catholic beliefs with traditional Yoruba beliefs that over time, became a unique religion in its own right. (www.newworldencyclopedia,org ) There is a deep respect for adoration of the saints and in a creator god called Olodumare. There is no belief in the Devil because Santeria doesn’t adhere to a good versus evil philosophy. However, a main tenet involves Ashe, the primal force that comes from a creator and permeates everything. As Ashe is in everything, Santeria recognizes and respects the value of nature and all living things. (Ibid) Moreover, Santeria priests use magic to integrate man and nature. According to a Santeria priest, “When I cast magic spells, I enter the mountain to greet the lords of nature and to obtain from them the necessary help to make things happen.” (www.santeriamagicspells.com )

All this seems relatively safe or at least not overtly weird as far as religions go. But minister Ramirez felt like a man who’d been wounded or wronged in a fight. He raves that, “The Devil can get you through identifying with your culture. I felt like I was loved and valued as part of an important family by joining Santeria. The sad thing is that the Devil can never love you or me. We are created in the image of God, and that is utterly alien to him now.” Although Santeria does have a creator being, it’s impossible to reason with somebody in the midst of a righteous religious frenzy. Ramirez went on to howl, “The demonic forces of the occult are so real you can touch them. They produce a spirit of fear that grafts onto people’s hearts.”

A true case of demonic possession is sad and miserable. The victim’s mind and body are frayed by an other who comes as an intruder, separates from the host, and ultimately undermines the person they inhabit. They violate and humiliate and degrade until the host gives up hope. Whether or not the entity is a fractured mind, an agent of evil, or some undiagnosed trauma is beside the point. The other exhibits behavior that is destructive and often times, life-threatening to the poor soul who is afflicted. Theologians will tell you that characteristics of demonic oppression and possession are in some ways uniform or fit into specific patters but the victim doesn’t want to hear statistics and could care less about what happened in the Bible. They are haunted by something that attacks without warning or provocation. Perhaps a handful of the afflicted have some idea of spiritual turmoil but the majority want to be able to eat without violently vomiting, cease from doing or saying unspeakable things and reverse the wasting away of their body and mind.  

In his book, Minister Ramirez remarked that he cut and burned Santeria symbols into his flesh, summoned spirits, drank animal blood, and even sold his soul in a ceremony that cost him $3,500. (Christian Post Reporter- November 17, 2011) So, what are we looking at here? Does these events jive with a demonic attack? Perhaps some. But Minister Ramirez’s rhetoric also suggests Holy warfare. There is a righteous vehemence to the Ramirez story. He states that, “animalistic cultures provide more accessibility for demonization because they typically not only practice Spiritism, they embrace it. But an atheistic biochemist teaching at an Ivy League College is just as susceptible to demonization as an illiterate hunter or farmer living in the rain forest.” (Ibid)

But nobody really knows what Ramirez means by ‘animalistic culture’. At first glance, I assumed he meant Nietzsche’s ‘Animal Philosophy’ or maybe the current technique of teaching non-humans through socially transmitted behavior but neither of these pertain to possession or exorcism at all. Then I realized that ‘animalistic’ was the Minister’s shrewd way of saying animistic. It’s not his fault. How many Minister’s are trained in the subtleties of spiritual beings? Most charismatics erupt in a torrent of wild god-speak until their eyes glaze over and the crowd begins to weep or faint. We’ve seen them on television. The eyeliner and rouged cheeks. The sweat on the brow and perspiring neckline. A mouth moving so fast that the words are nearly ‘in tongue’. Ah, yes my brothers! Praise the Lord! Jesus and baby Jesus! Good God! Then out come the snakes and a venomous ride to the local hospital. I don’t think Santeria is Ramirez’s real enemy. In reality, it’s his being born to an alcoholic father. It’s being born in extreme poverty. It’s having a rough childhood in the Bronx. We can’t blame Ramirez for his hatred of things ‘not-Jesus’. His hatred was a focal point for a poor, disenfranchised youth who sought refuge in a spiritual system that didn’t jive well with him later in life. Does that make Santeria evil? Not at all. But, he can be blamed for his actions and rhetoric when releasing a book into the public domain. Now he is getting paid to spew his hatreds. And I don’t even think the Minister is a crook or particularly crazy but simply somebody who doesn’t like competition in areas of religion.

In 1975, theologian James Hitchcock characterized charismatic religious movements as having these features.

1)      Faith needed continual reaffirmation through contact with the divine world. Any intensely meaningful experience was assumed to be divine in nature.

2)      Gods direct intervention superseded ordinary means of worship.

3)      Believers who are motivated spontaneously by the spirit were impatient about comparing these revelations with established theologies. (Ellis 2000)

These three postulates are all present in John Ramirez’s ministry. One of the strangest part of the whole bit is the fact that divine intercession happened to Ramirez himself. And that is an honorable thing…..in an occult kind of way. After all, according to the Christian Post Reporter, the “word occult contains the entire supernatural realm”. (Ibid) In one form or another, the occult contains all three charismatic features. In the Minister’s half-mad attempt at Deliverance we see every characteristic of the occult process. What is truly frightening is the fact that he doesn’t seem to know. The mechanisms he uses as part of the ministry are a reflection of every religious system, including those of Santeria. Within the epiphany that inspired Ramirez to be ‘born again’ are processes also used by Santeria to provoke revelation. It boils down to a question of whether Ramirez believes his Christian ministry to be the cure to Santeria’s sickness. Trying to inform silly fundamentalists of the concept of religious ethnocentricity is like trying to steal a jackal’s fresh kill. We can only hope that a backward sense of superiority hasn’t instruded itself too deep into the mind and body of the Minister.

      

Magus Magazine: Addendum: Mysterium Tremendum- Reconciling Heisenb...

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