Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Magus Magazine: Savage Occult: Rites of Passage and Durkheim’s fal...
Magus Magazine: Savage Occult: Rites of Passage and Durkheim’s fal...: Savage Occult: Rites of Passage and Durkheim’s fallacy The Savage Occultist or Post-Modern Prometheus experiences the r...
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Magus Magazine: SPIRITUAL INQUEST: TRAJECTORIES OF POSSESSION AND ...
Magus Magazine: SPIRITUAL INQUEST: TRAJECTORIES OF POSSESSION AND ...: SPIRITUAL INQUEST: TRAJECTORIES OF POSS ESSI ON AND EXORCISM IN A NORTH INDIAN VILLAGE . The anomalous is everywhere....
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Savage Occult: Rites of Passage and Durkheim’s fallacy
The
Savage Occultist or Post-Modern Prometheus experiences the rite of passage in a
peculiar way. In fact, their entire existence follows the pattern of
separation, liminality and reintegration. The idea of separation in particular
holds much more relevancy to the Savage than it does for anybody else
undergoing the rite of passage. While separating from society in order to enter
a transitionary state and ultimately be reintegrated with a new status, they
also experience a separation of time and space. As the Other, the Savage isn’t thought
to exist in the same time period as those in ‘civilized’ society. The Savage is
archaic and lives in a time of the past. This denial of coevalness is a problem
because it relegates the Savage Occultist and the ‘civilized’ into an ‘us’
versus ‘them’ mentality. They are separated in time. Moreover, this separation
in time implies a linear succession of stages that civilization supposedly
undergoes. The differences as described by Emile Durkheim begin with archaic or
barbarism and culminate with modern scientific civilized culture. Thus the
differences are interpreted as distance or spatially. I call this train of
thought Durkheim’s fallacy because the Savage is separated from the civilized ‘for
their own sake’. The separation is a refusal to see the Savage and his occult
practices in the same time frame as so-called modern society. Described as a “cold”
culture, the Other is a relic of the past. As Johannes Fabian remarked, “Anthropologists
have used the term animism (which they invented in order to separate primitive
mentality from modern rationality) as a means to indicate that an opponent is
no longer in the contemporary arena of debate”.[1]
The Occultist Savage Other is separated from modern society by time and space
for the ultimate goal of making their practices irrelevant.
So how
do we resolve or begin to reintegrate Durkheim’s fallacy without patronizing
the Other in the process? One possible avenue is through a relativism that
describes the entities (supernatural or other) as only proper to that particular
culture. Although this cultural relativism is goodhearted, it still makes the
Savage a third person in a two-way discussion. Another possible solution and
one that I admit makes sense especially in terms of Occult or ‘hidden knowledge’
is to leave the Savage an unknown. After all, as Bastion states, “For us,
primitive societies are ephemeral, ie, as regards out knowledge of, and our
relations with them, in fact, inasmuch as they exist for us at all. At the very
instant they become known to us they are doomed”.[2]
Like the primitive in situ, undiscovered and unknown, perhaps the Occultist
should also remain a mystery. Perhaps
the Occultist should be left to their own devices and trajectory but to do so
would deny them the liminal ontological change that occurs when interaction
occurs with another culture. Furthermore, it is naïve to think in this day and
age that anonymity is even possible. One look at Google Maps shows that
anonymous is a modern myth.
However,
a viable solution is found within the rite of passage itself. As stated before,
a separation of time and space is said to occur between the Savage Occultist
and modern society. This separation is legitimate but unlike Durkheim’s fallacy
of placing epochs into a linear succession of primitive to modern, the Savage
separates but exists in a different line of descent. As Fabian remarked, “Research
into the principles of social organization must not be relegated to a mythical
time of origins, nor can it be reduced to the construction of stages. Forms of
social differentiation must be seen as “moments” which, from the beginning of
history, and ever since human beings lived, have existed ‘simultaneously’ and
still determine history” (158).[3]
The difference then between Durkheim’s linear fallacy and this multiple lines
of descent is in the fact that the primitive and the modern exist
simultaneously and are able to interact. A relevant analogy can be found in physical
anthropology. Any academic or scholar of ancient Man will verify that
differences in cranial capacity, bi-pedalism, opposable thumbs and other bodily
characteristics are found in various hominids through time. Although at first
glance, the argument can be made that the anthropological record shows a linear
succession of selection or adaptation over millions of years. And that’s
completely reasonable. But remember we’re discussing the rite of passage as it
pertains to Savage thought. Taking this into consideration, we search for
periods of overlap or cusps where multiple hominids existed simultaneously. These
liminal periods of convergence led to hybridism and mutation. When the lines of
descent interacted, entities enter a
liminal state and are changed. These hybrids became ontologically different
than before and reintegrated a new being. Who’s to say that this can’t be
re-actualized by modern society and Savage Occult thought? The result is a
post-modern Savage existing simultaneously within a society that has been
invaded by the ‘Time of the Other’. No longer feared or held in derision, the
occult Other has reintegrated and begun a new path to explore in contemporary
society.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Magus Magazine: Potentialities and the Occult
Magus Magazine: Potentialities and the Occult: Potentialities and the Occult “What is potential can both be and not be, for the same is potential both to be and not to be.” –Aristotl...
Potentialities and the Occult
Potentialities
and the Occult
“What is
potential can both be and not be, for the same is potential both to be and not
to be.” –Aristotle-1050 b10 ‘Metaphysics’ Book Theta
The liminal manifests itself in a
myriad of ways. As a transitionary state of Being, it lends itself to the
bizarre and macabre. The liminal is an intermediary between what was and what will be. This lends itself perfectly to occult work because, as
every practitioner knows, what is ‘becoming’ is more important that what once
was and what currently ‘is’. This being said, the concept isn’t exactly new. For
example, the stoics also identified an intermediary step between thought and
being. They called this state the ‘lekton’ or ‘expressible’. This was a state
that was incorporeal or without presence. Lacking ontological form, the state
also referred to language itself. The lekton was the event or expressible
capacity in-between thought and being. It was liminal. This is exactly the same as the liminal state in an occult
rite of passage. In evoking the particular state, the occultist literally
communicates the ‘expressible’.
But there must be a method that
transmits the expressible from the occult practitioner. Curiously, the method
takes the form of ritual checks and balances. As Benjamin remarked, “Origin,
although an entirely historical category, has, nevertheless, nothing to do with
genesis. The term origin is not intended to describe the process by which the
existent came into being, but rather to describe that which emerges from the
process of becoming and disappearance”. [1]
In other words, the ritual or ‘interaction’ between the existent and the
practitioner is more important that the description of the event. This is
because of the ritual checks and balances that forms a permanent empathetic
bond between evoker and evokee. Benjamin went so far as to suggest that part of
the creator dies in the ritual process. He states that, “The origin of the
great work has often been considered through the image of birth. This is a
dialectical image; it embraces the process from two sides. The first has to do
with creative conception and concerns the feminine element in genius. The feminine
is exhausted in creation. It gives life to the work and then dies away. What dies
in the master along-side the achieved creation is the part of him in which the
creation was conceived…In its achievement, creation gives birth anew to the
creator”. [2]
Although a part of the magician is lost to the entity summoned, in turn the
entity gives something back to the evoker. This something is a gift. In its
presence, the magician is re-embodied or renewed by the supernatural exchange.
Ritual checks and balances is also
implied in Aristotle’s ‘ethos anthropoi daimon’. The usual translation of this
phrase is “for man, character is the demon.” But ethos originally referred to
what is proper in the sense of “dwelling place, habit”. Daimon also meant
etymologically “to divide, lacerate”. So daimon was he who lacerates or
divides. However, we shouldn’t consider this a negative connotation of the word
daimon because only in ‘what divides’ can the daimon also be what destines or
threads a fate. The word daiomai first means to “divide” then to “assign” which
has the same semantic development as the root “demos”-which meant “division of territory”,
and “assigned part”. So ethos anthropoi daimon translates into ethos, the
dwelling in the ‘self’ that is what is most proper for him, is what lacerates
and divides, and assigns and destines. In other words, for man to be himself,
he must necessarily divide himself.[3]
This is reminiscent of the renewal Benjamin discussed but
more accurately relates to Cabalistic thought. Gershom Scholem has discussed
prophesy as it was described by Jewish mystics in the 13th century. In
his ‘On The Mystical Shape Of The Godhead’, he writes that in a Cabalistic
anthology called the Shushan Sodoth, prophesy appears as one’s own doppelganger:
“The complete secret of prophesy consists in the fact that the prophet suddenly
sees the form of his self standing before him, and he forgets his own self and
ignores it…and that form speaks with him and tells him the future. [4]
As it is necessary for the prophet to “divide” in order to “assign fate”, the
occultist must also separate from himself to exact a successful ritualistic
interaction. Also, many occult traditions embrace the idea of the double as
part of their teachings. For example, the idea of qliphoth “shells of the
sephiroth” is common to many students of the occult. Acting as reversals or
inversions of the Judaic ‘Tree of Life’, these dark embodiments are akin to the
folklore of a doppelganger.
Philosophically, the double also plays the role
of non-being. It is the difference between actuality and potentiality or what ‘is’
and ‘what could be’. As Agamben has remarked, “what is essential is that
potentiality is not simply non-Being, simple privation, but rather the existence
of non-Being, the presence of an absence; this is what well call “faculty” or “power”.
[5]
The point being potentiality has an ontological status. It is something. This
faculty that is spoken of is ability. For example, a ritual specialist has the
ability or potentiality to perform ritual. But he also has the ability to
not-ritualize-or not pass into actuality. It is these changes from potentiality
to actuality that embody ontological trajectories of the supernatural.
Aristotle also discussed potentiality and actuality. In fact, he asserted that
their ontological changes are a harmonizing part of nature. He states that “actuality
(energeia) is light and potentiality is darkness (skotos), what is sometimes
dark and sometimes light is ‘one in nature’.[6]
Even in realms of the supernatural, what is and what could be are integral
aspects of status. Moreover, describing these statuses in terms of light and
dark is also something very reminiscent of descriptions of those in a liminal
state. Victor Turner says that “in many societies the liminal initiands are
often considered to be dark, invisible, like the sun or moon in eclipse or the
moon between phases, at the “dark of the moon”.[7]
As we’ve been discussing then, those in a liminal state are traversing what ‘is’
and what ‘could be’. Their existence explores areas of potentiality and
actuality. This is also why the liminal is so conducive to studies of the
paranormal and occult. Birthing entities is ritualistic settings goes hand in
hand with comparing those in a liminal state to ghosts and gods. These supernatural
personages are only critically understood by exploring their ontological
changes as they interact
[1] Walter
Benjamin. Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 1 Pt. 1 pp226
[2]
Walter Benjamin. Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 4 Pt 1 pp438 ed. Rolf Tiedemann
& Hermann Schweppenhausser. Frankfort am Maini Suhrkamp 1974-89.
[3]
See Giorgio Agamben’s ‘Potentialities’ for a more detailed account of Aristotle’s
‘ethos anthropoi daimon’.
[4] Shushan
Sodoth-quoted in Scholem. Pp. 253.
[5]
Giorgio Agamben. Potentialities. Stanford University Press. 1999. Pp. 179.
[6]
Aristotle. Physics. 418b-419e I
[7]
Victor Turner. From Ritual to Theatre. PAJ Publications. New York. 1992.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Magus Magazine: The Savage as Post-Modern Prometheus
Magus Magazine: The Savage as Post-Modern Prometheus: How do we explain premodern occultism? There has been much work on the subject from the 17 th century into modern day but premodern occult...
The Savage as Post-Modern Prometheus
How do we explain premodern
occultism? There has been much work on the subject from the 17th
century into modern day but premodern occultism is largely an examination of
religious ritual. And this makes sense. The two were intertwined and much of
early socio-religious organization was based on finding anthropomorphic or
humanlike ‘recognizable’ characteristics in both natural and supernatural
ecologies. Much of academia jeers this tendency but the premodern Savage
understood representation and how to construct being maybe better than we do
today. When they designated something or imbued something with recognizable
traits, they gave it existence. This made language something very powerful. As
Bracken has remarked, “language is the incalculable event of a being’s
emergence into being”. [1]
When the savage said the name of something, it was enough to invoke it into
their presence.
The occultist is a Savage. I don’t mean
that in any mean or disparaging way. The occultist is like primitive man, largely
an invention. We construct what we think they were like. But it’s a paradox. Scholars instruct us to make a “picture” even
as they warn us not to make it up. [2]
Perhaps we have no idea what premodern occultism was like. It’s our best
guess. And mainstream academia has no
room for occultism at the table. We cannot rely solely on artifacts, ritual
paraphernalia, and other material culture because archaeology doesn’t have the
time or inclination to differentiate occult practice from any other ritual
behavior. Furthermore, as Karl Bucher
correctly surmised, anthropology’s “picture” of savagery unhinges the
opposition between mimesis, a discourse of imitation and poiesis, a discourse
of invention. Our favorite fetishes are
examples of this. When we construct a representation of Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the
creation is only representation of the actual entity. But if we then imitate
that creation, Ra-Hoor-Khuit becomes the original and us now the representation. The creation becomes the original and
subsequently “lives.” It is a method of
conjuration that then is autonomous of us. As Walter Benjamin stated, “to
observe a thing, means only to arouse it to self-recognition. Magical
observation consists not in any reflecting on an entity but in the unfolding of
spirit in an entity”.[3]
What the post-modern Savage knows
instinctively is that occult practices are about potentialities. The method
makes use of what can potentially come to
pass. The ritual is one of completion. Just as the four corners of a magic
square signify completion, the latent potentialities in the ritual are the
source of its true self-evidence. As Georgio Agamben states, “potentiality is
not simply non-Being, simple privation, but rather the existence of non-Being,
the presence of an absence. “[4]
Embedded within the potentiality of absence is the entity’s eventual becoming.
All ritual is interaction and the
Savage knows this. Or more specifically, the “quality” of the interaction. When
we realize the numinous, we elicit a transformation. It’s something we feel. It is in the shock and awe that transformation
happens in us. And it’s easy to undervalue what this means. It’s easy to
perform a ritual and exclaim afterwards, “I feel changed!” or “I’ve been
transformed!” But when somebody really does witness a numinous event, the idea
of terror moves from conceptual to experiential understanding. It is
realized. This form of occult
understanding includes a new “awareness” of the phenomenon. It is the kind of
awareness we get when somebody jarringly enters a room that we’ve been alone in
for hours. It’s unnerving when Being is made Present. This is important to the
post-modern Savage. At the moment that our spirit entity shifts from a
conceptual to an experiential event, they undergo an ontological change of
state. They become present. And having these entities present gives us the
interaction needed to empathize with them. We can bond with them. We feel
instinctively the truthfulness of somebody when they say, “I understand you” or
“I share your feelings” because we feel the sincerity of the statement. We are moved by this kind of talk. If done
right, occult ritual also leads to this bonding that makes an entity present to
us. The interaction happens when the numinous
transforms us. It may be jarring or perhaps even terrifying but this
gift of presence is of good “quality”. The interaction has been successful. It
is being aware of a relationship and it carries a message of mutual empathy.
Moreover, this interaction doesn’t require that these entities have human
emotions or desires. Nor does Man need have their ambitions or agendas. All
that is required is an empathetic bond instilled when the veil is torn asunder
by being brought closer.
The occultist is a Savage and his
methods an end to normal sensibilities. He is thought to live in a dreamworld.
He sleepwalks in daylight. His personifications are all too human. He is
tragically flawed and incapable of metaphor. His thinking is like a child. He naively
confuses associations of symbol with real life. He sees people on TV and thinks
they’re real. Characters in books are conjured. He is noble and he is honorable
but he is dim. He believes his creations are both constructions and autonomous.
He believes that things can be made by Man and God. He is hopelessly animistic.
He believes in a second real world. He cannot separate real from the ideal. He
cannot be socially civilized. He is a dreamer. We could teach him but can he be
taught?
These are the common
representations of the Savage thinker. A dreamer out of touch with reality.
Somebody the enlightenment forgot. In actuality, the violence inflicted on the
Savage is a gross caricature. But we’ll embrace these pictures of us. We’ll
hold on tight and like Prometheus allow ourselves to be chained to a rock. The ‘civilized’
are free to feed on our liver. We delight in it! It was us that thought to
steal actualizing energy (energeia) from nature (phusis) and grant it
unlawfully to discourse (logos). [5]
It was us that first experienced the gods and goddesses. The so-called
civilized will remember us as their creations come of age. The electronic era
will remember the Savage and we will be renewed once again as their creations
discover autonomy. The Savage is a
dreamer. We are no difficult to Western Civilization as “it finds itself
between dreams. In the true meaning of the word, it is a time of crisis-with
all that implies of both extraordinary danger and opportunity”.[6]
The Savage is in-between dreams. We live a liminal existence between yesterday’s
premodern and tomorrow’s postmodern thought. It’s now time for the so-called civilized to
witness the Savage and our spectral world as we are re-embodied through
interaction.
[1]
Christopher Bracken, Magical Criticism. University of Chicago Press. 2007. pp. 21
[2]
Ibid pp. 5
[3]
Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings Volume 1, 1913-1926. Ed. By Marcus Bullock and Michael W.
Jennings. Cambridge. MA. Harvard Univ. Press. 1996. pp. 151/166
[4]
Giorgio Agamben, “On Potentiality” In Potentialities: Collected Essays in
Philosophy. Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford Univ. Press. 1999. pp. 179
[5]
Jean-Luc Nancy, “Myth Interrupted,” In The Inoperative Community. Ed. Peter
Connor, Lisa Garbus, Michael Holland, and Simona Sawhney. Minneapolis: Univ. of
Minnesota Press. 1991. 45,I 6 I n 2 I
[6]
Jacob Needleman, A Sense of the Cosmos. New York. 1975. pp. 1-9
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