Op-Ed- Anarchism and Sub-Cultural Excavation: Politics as Occult?

Op-Ed

Anarchism and Sub-Cultural Excavation: Politics as Occult?  By Preston Copeland

I used to think that occult and politics were incompatible. That adventure in subversion and the pillars of the underground had no substantial place in esoterica. Even now, it’s hard to reconcile socio-spiritual paradigms of Self with the machinations of the political beast. But the correlations are prevalent and I don’t mean in just right-wing extremist cults or left-hand path liberalism. These things have been discussed extensively. No, I mean politics is occult. It is full of mechanisms that are secret, obscure, unseen and hidden behind a veil. Political occult is a bombardment of subtle yet complex myths designed under a network that remains behind closed doors.

Yet this network makes use of the media to perpetuate ‘tradition’ and discourage change. The press itself is in collusion with these reality makers to maintain the traditional status quo. When information funnels through the tunnels of media and is highly editorialized, it becomes a representation of tradition. Some viewpoints or “currents” are accepted while others whither in the cold. This results in “falsification through miscontextualization even of the currents properly present.”[1] The status quo no longer accurately represents the reality it tries so hard to convince us of. Thomas Jefferson understood these problems with the press when he remarked that “Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”

You could say I’m an anarchist- but not in the ‘traditional’ sense of no government and unrestricted chaos. As philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend once remarked, “professional anarchists oppose any kind of restriction and they demand that the individual be permitted to develop freely, unhampered by laws, duties or obligations. And yet they swallow without protest all the severe standards which scientists and logicians impose on research and upon any kind of knowledge-creating and knowledge-changing activity.” (my italics). [2] It is the same with the reality making that occurs within political media arenas. Many so-called anarchists want to beat governmental policy like a mule yet tolerate restrictions on epistemological processes at face value. Many don’t even know what the acronym FOIA stands for or the implications of having this law prohibited. Peter Alexeivich Kropotkin said it best when he remarked that “Anarchism is a world concept based upon a mechanical explanation of ‘all phenomena’. It’s method of investigation is that of the exact natural sciences…the method of induction and deduction.”[3] A concept of “anything goes” must be included in modern political occult because ‘traditional’ epistemology, however decisively grounded in social architecture, is violated at one time or another. Ideas and information acquisition become the most important facet of this “anything goes” anarchism.  

Also hidden, made secret or outright ignored by mainstream media is the influence the 1% has on reality-making. For example, in Bill Clinton’s first six months in office a series of private parties or “soirees for the elite”[4] were hosted. Guests were political leaders, business men, and influential members of the press-corps such as Sidney Blumenthal of ‘The New Yorker’, Rita Braver and Susan Spencer of CBS and Evan Thomas of ‘Newsweek’. These parties were a way of molding upcoming reality. This was in the mid-1970s, “a period when Samuel Huntington of Harvard and Nelson Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission wrote of the need to curb the ‘excess of Democracy” in the USA, Japan and Western Europe.[5] At the time, profits were down and businesses needed to convince Americans to have less so corporations could have more. As elucidated in a mid- 1970s issue of ‘Business Week’, “Nothing that this nation, or any other nation, has done in modern economic history compares in difficulty with the selling job that must now be done to make people accept the new reality.” In an attempt to shape a new trajectory, millions of dollars were funneled into right-wing think tanks with ideas saturated by the media. It was reality-making at its best.

But perhaps the most concealed aspect of the socio-political spectrum now sits in the 4^th branch of government known as the NSA. Abhorrent as it seems, a second Defense Department now acts without any fear of accountability whatsoever. In 2001, ‘The Economist’ wrote in regards to the Patriot Act, “Infringement of civil rights, if genuinely required, should be open to scrutiny and considered a painful sacrifice, or a purely tactical retreat, not as the mere brushing aside of irritating legal technicalities. Those who criticized such measures should be given a careful hearing, even if their views must sometimes be overridden.” Yet this hasn’t happened. The Department of Homeland Security has operated with impunity with much of the American public ready to protect it under a veil of fear. Now, CIA in collaboration with U.S. Marshal Services are invoking digital dragnet on cell phones. Planes equipped with tech that mimics cellphone towers can now gain complete access to emails, texts, and phone calls.

Indeed, we exist in a new Aeon- One in which politics, government and the media operate under a cabal while the populace remains blissfully unaware. I can only imagine the lunacy of the 2016 elections were these issues really addressed in open forum. As it is, there is an underground movement but it now exists in a re-design of the anarchist ideal. Anarchy is now pluralism and the real enemy is physical and mental constraints. When an anarchist now says they oppose the ‘state’ they refer to a state of ‘Being’; an ontological State of obliviousness and gullibility. The enemy is any law, organization or ideal that attempts to stop information from getting to the public. Citizen journalists are now the most important members of the socio-political system. Not just because they challenge the major news media to think for themselves but because they instill a shift from a few powerful entities towards an information democratization characteristic of grass-roots movements. Now, news consumers are also the creators. The sub-underground are those that utilize online and mobile technologies to contribute information to global discourse and re-affirm the real beauty and power of information dissemination.

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[1] See Black’s ‘Beneath the Underground’ 1994.

[2] Paul Feyerabend. Against Method. 2010. Verso. New  York. pp. 4.

[3] Peter Alexeivich Kropotkin. Modern Science and Anarchism. Kropotkin’s Revolutionary Pamphlets. Ed. RW. Baldwin. 1970. pp. 150-52.

[4] Roxanne Roberts of ‘The Washington Post’.

[5] End Times: The Death Of The Fourth Estate. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. 2006. CounterPunch. pp. 25 See Reference for more information.

"ETHOS HERESY" AND MODERN RELIGIOUS TRAJECTORY by Preston Copeland

ETHOS HERESY AND MODERN RELIGIOUS TRAJECTORY by Preston Copeland

One glance at contemporary events makes it clear as crystal that there is a modern problem with religious perversions. From right-wing Christian mutterings to the horrors of Islamic extremism, religious trajectory has stopped and its movements paralyzed. It’s not the gods fault. They too bear witness to the distortions carried out in their name. The problem isn’t even modern – if we can even call ourselves that. In reality, this religious sickness has festered and metastasized since ancient Egypt and even before that. The problem is embedded in religion itself and came to light when mankind realized that power to control can be perpetuated religiously.

Divine interaction and cosmology creation is a beautiful thing. But when ethos was thrown into the cauldron, mankind made a mockery of the relationships formed with the Other. The gods fled man and even now much of our interactions bear little or no resemblance to the bond of before. When Moses shattered the sapphire tablets that supposedly bore the Ten Commandments, he should have destroyed the stone versions as well. Not as an iconoclastic gesture but because that particular interaction may have been a trap. Similar to the warnings attached to Via Negativa or traversing into religious wilderness, sometimes deity contact isn’t beneficial to religious trajectory. And not because we aren’t ready for spiritual evolving-although ufologists would understand these kind of utterances. No, Judaic mysticism provides a clue as to why the Ten Commandments narrative may have been designed to steer man away from god.

Think on the sequence of events that characterizes the Ten Commandments. Moses is contacted by an otherworldy entity that then relays the message on sapphire tablets. After the interaction culminates, Moses then shatters the sapphire and inscribes the message on stone. But we’ve heard this narrative before in Judaic mysticism. Specifically, in the creation of the Kelipot husks that characterize evil in Jewish tradition.[1]  According to legend, the emanations of god or Sephiroth were filled with the love and light of god but began to overfill due to the sheer enormity of the divine. As they ran over and spilled those emanations or states of consciousness ‘shattered’ and became personifications of evil. This is the problem of evil in Jewish mysticism. Does that not sound eerily similar to the Moses narrative on Mount Sinai? As any folklorist will tell you, these slight variances usually hold some correspondence or connection. Is it so farfetched to suggest that these nearly identical events were deliberately conceived? That the message is meant to be the same? No, I’m no anarchist. I firmly believe in a set of secular rules and regulations. But it’s repugnant to attach what should be purely secular laws to gods and goddesses that probably could care less whether they are adhered to or not. In fact, it is evil to do so.

And I only used Judaism as a quick example of this very human process of propagating greed and control onto fellow humans through deity manipulation. A cursory glance at Christian history, ancient Egypt, and even the concept of karma all use some sort of divine retribution as a means to control the herd. This is why many atheists despise the concept of religion in its entirety. What they don’t understand is that the pantheons despise it as well. The gods are also disgusted with how man makes the Other both in-determinate i.e. archetypal and self-determining i.e. autonomous then has the vile nerve to ascribe secular restrictions in their name. It’s an offensive gesture meted out for human property and wealth.

But as you can surmise, this has been the problem for thousands and thousands of years. And although it seems organized religion must also project an aspect of human values or ethos to be successful-It really doesn’t.  Who made that rule? I would even suggest that the reason religious method and more importantly, religious ideas have become stagnant is due to our own perversions of religious interaction. I can’t be the only one to recognize that ideas concerning religious form and philosophy are not just few and far-between but nearly indiscernible in the modern world. Oh sure, there are a few exceptions but they are either marginalized or content to be small movements. This point is: Why does control of the populace always involve divine threat and where are the religious thinkers that offer new avenues of faith and form? Probably being stoned to death by perpetrators of the ethos heresy.

Now I won’t just spout my mouth off without offering some sort of alternative to the status quo. One possible option can be found in ontological certainty. This method negates that gods can get into our heads through an understanding of our own thoughts and desires. Instead, god is as surprised as we are about our lunacy. Also irrelevant is suggesting that god’s ‘Being’ is proven by the properties of his creation such as the universe or that the Other exists to right humanity’s wrongs.  Perhaps we can take a page out of Claude Bruaire’s (1932-86) book of ideas and suggest ontology as a gift. For Bruaire, gift is a substance (being), (absolute) freedom, and donation. We gift the Other within the awe and wonder of an encounter with the Other. He once remarked that, “Accepting both the Other and one’s own otherness translates into the intellectual inquisitiveness set in motion by the encounter with the Other and the humble receptivity of the Other as what it is, in its insuppressible Otherness.”[2] How refreshing is it to regard the Other in its pure and utter numinousness? To gift being onto the gods through our encounters with them. In our ‘surprise’ of the interaction, we give the gods a gift and in turn receive one ourselves. Our astonishment is its own alterity. Bruaire once stated that “eternity” should be translated as “victory”. Doesn't this seem like a viable alternative to the ethos heresy? I think the gods would be much more receptive to interacting with us if we came bringing gifts.

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[1] See Gershom Scholem’s  ‘Kabbalah’ for a detailed analysis of Kelipot and how they came into existence.

[2] Claude Bruaire, “Philosophie et Spiritualite”, 1379. 

ISIS And Iconoclasm: De-facement As A Failed Politic by Jack Vates

Op-ed

www.magusmagazines.com

ISIS And Iconoclasm: De-facement As A Failed Politic by Jack Vates

It was hard to miss. Last week the ISIS idolaters once again showed the entire world their propensity for awfully stupid actions by looting the Mosul museum in Iraq and demolishing the precious relics stewarded inside. In their mind, this kind of evocation is a high virtue. Something to absolutely aspire to while securing their bid for ‘statehood’ in the world theatre. This is nothing new. Iconoclasm has been practiced all the way back to Akhenaton and surely before that. As Latour remarked, “Iconoclasm is an absolute – not a relative – distinction between truth and falsity, between a pure world, absolutely emptied of human-made intermediaries, and a disgusting world composed of impure but fascinating human-made mediators”.[1]

In a desperate attempt to instill secular legitimacy, ISIS chose de-facement as a means to re-face Mosul under the shroud of the IS flag. As if defacing the artifacts would inevitably create new faces, as if defacement and ‘re-facement’ were necessarily coeval.[2] When ISIS took sledgehammers to the museum they did it under the rationale that the icons were counterfeit. That the more they are constructed by the human hand, the less truth they embody. But what if truth is increased by being human-made.  Perhaps interaction with the Other is increased through the construction of sacred images. As Ramon Sarro eloquently suggests, “Far from despoiling access to transcendent beings, the revelation of human toil, of the tricks, reinforce the quality of this access.”[3]

ISIS would clearly gnash their teeth at the thought and in doing so, fall into the ultimate conundrum involving iconoclasm. What Bruno Latour calls “The Double-Bind”. Are the relics human-made or transcendent? There is a concept called acheiropoite that suggests sacred icons are not made by the human hand. They are constructed by the Other as representations of the numinous and thus real purveyors of religious power. So ISIS must make a choice. Either the relics are human-made or literally transcendent. Either it is made or it is real.

The ultimate idolatry of ISIS comes in their denial of the objects being transcendent. By destroying the religious icons they have made it impossible to produce objects of sanctity. As Latour remarks, “the idol-smasher is doubly mad: not only has he deprived himself of the secret to produce transcendent objects, but he continues producing them even though this production has become absolutely forbidden, with no way to be registered.”[4] And herein lays the stupidity of ISIS. They have inadvertently made their own icons religiously irrelevant. They have corrupted the power and legitimacy of IS re-presentation. And they can’t even identify what form their icons come in. Although it’s obvious to anybody who can think critically that the IS icon is video production. The videos are their mediators. In the highly ritualized productions complete with voice-overs and special effects, ISIS has created an idol that they then made illegitimate and devoid of power by making themselves unable to assemble or gather divinities. Destroying the museum destroyed any chance of the IS to create religious power.

On the other hand, if ISIS clumsily tries to say the icons were indeed transcendent and not made by human hands then again they show their idolatry. After all, if the smashed objects have real religious power, ISIS is giving legitimacy to these ancient religions and renewing them in modernity. How would Muhammad react to giving real religious power to other spiritual paradigms? He’d be disgusted with ISIS. Not to mention a true Jihad comes as a war between peoples of differing religious systems and their gods. And the first foray of Jihad comes in making the opposing religion’s gods illegitimate. By giving the smashed icons religious reality, they’ve already lost the Jihad. They’ve made it impossible for themselves to produce religious icons while at the same time making other’s icons transcendent.

Perhaps the most important point to take away from all this is that iconoclasm destroys something in the idol-smasher that must be atoned for. It goes beyond making one’s own spiritual predilections devoid of any real power. The iconoclast offends every god and goddess by the sheer audacity of their actions. The deities become appalled at this perversion of inter-action. IS are not only idolaters to their own cause but bereft of religious power and offensive to the gods that Be. And in their stupidity, they will continue to be a nuisance to the rest of the world. Perhaps if they had the foresight to divorce themselves from any religious paradigm and admit that the real goal is secular statehood, they wouldn’t be seen as idolaters but they had to win the hearts of minds of the populace somehow. And now even Iran is leering at them and ready to lash out. It won’t be long now. The ISIS bid for relevance has been denied on every level- both secular and spiritual.  

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[1] Bruno Latour. On The Cult Of The Factish Gods. Duke University Press. Durham & London. 2010. Pp. 68.

[2] See Han Belting, “Beyond Iconoclasm. Nam June Paik, the Zen Gaze and Escape From Representation.” In Iconoclash: Beyond the Image-Wars in Science, Religion, and Art. Ed. Peter Weibel and Bruno Latour. 390-411. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press. 2002.

[3] See Ramon Sarro, “The Iconoclastic Meal: Destroying Objects and Eating Secrets Among the Baga of Guinea. In Iconoclash Pp. 227-230.

[4] On The Cult Of The Factish Gods. Pp. 80.

John Dee and Ufology

John Dee & Ufology by MDA

It had begun like any other night in Belize. A dreary eight hours of sweat and Ayahuaska. I had been dodging the locals due to their dislike for wine-soaked Americans shrieking night after night for Quetzalcoatl and Kukulcan. And there had been an incident with a tour guide on the stairs of the great Altun-Ha pyramid. But that’s neither here nor there. I was finally getting my head in the game. My idiot editor thought it might be a good idea to cover Mayan astrology in Belize. I went along with the hopes of contacting the Mayan spirit guides in the rain forest. It was a sound plan that was as always meticulously thought out.

When I left the hotel, I knew I had a walk ahead of me. I didn’t rent a car and cabs are always a mixture of strange jabbering and foul smells. So I gathered my guide Philipe and we headed into the dense canopy of Belize. The first hour of hiking was uneventful. It was after midnight when we came across a dozen or so indigenous Mayans holding captive what appeared to be a Russian thief. Philipe instantly flew into a panic and screamed “Oh God!” But it was too late to run. I knew these parts. If the Rusky still had his hands by the end of the night it would be either dumb luck or due to fervent praying to Putin.

I sat down to enjoy the proceedings but Philipe couldn’t be calmed. He was in the midst of stammering an apology to the native chief when one of the women lashed out so quickly that to me it was only a blur. Philipe shrieked as he went down and clutched his chest as if suffering some bodily fit. I knew it was over for him. He’d never return to a calm state of mind. He’d forever be looking over his shoulder for Mayan warriors and would never ever go out at night again. As he crawled away weeping, I gave him a 50/50 odds of surviving and turned my attention back to the pleading Russian.

Suddenly, a blinding flash erupted overhead. The natives all stared up transfixed but I knew it wasn’t a helicopter or drone. It was too quiet and too still. As it hovered above and bathed us all in a pearl white glow, I knew something had just gone awry.

The natives plunged into the rain forest like terrified deer leaving the Russian hog-tied and shackled. I heard him scream, “Mother Russia!” But I had the feeling that what was above was a “Mother-Ship.” Nobody would be saving him today. As he unbound his legs, I crouched behind a rock enclosure and tried to steady my knees and regulate my breathing.

A few minutes passed s the thief hummed the Russian national anthem and got free from the knots the Mayans had tied to his hands and neck. It was then that something invisible blasted out from the object paralyzing the Russian in mid-verse. I witnessed the realization as it occurred to him that what was silently above us wasn’t a Russian envoy or search party. As fast as it came, the object shot off and took the thief with it. I can only imagine the horrors that poor soul is enduring at the hands of what can only be demons or extraterrestrials. As I headed back to camp, I knew there would be no stargazing tonight. The stars had come to us. That was my first foray into discovering what it was that erupted above us that night. So I scrapped the astrology piece and began to research aliens and the occult.

Ufology and the occult have had a strange trajectory. Modern lore of the saucer tends to focus on ‘modern’ incidents. However, ET’s and their contact with Man has been apparent forever. This is not an article espousing Ancient Aliens theory but something in my mind, much more believable. As any occultist will tell you, our daimons or Holy Guardian Angels have extraterrestrial motifs. The characteristics of these entities are identical in tone and the narratives more than just similar.

One such case study involves the famous John Dee. This famous 16^th century magician meandered with alien entities as part of his occult operations. A scholar, Dee was a devout Christian who, like his contemporaries, wanted to build a Jacob’s Ladder that would effectively network the Heavens and earth. He was a man who adhered to a Universal Science by utilizing mathematics, alchemy, kabbalah, astronomy and other hermetic arts to communicate with the Other. But he also wanted these communications to meet with God’s approval. This is why the aliens he came into contact with were deemed ‘Angels’.

Like today, the time in which Dee lived was awfully preoccupied with the sky above. Portents were made of unusual sights and happenings and used as fodder for astrological and other occult interpretation. For example, in November 1577, a comet raced through the sky and made the population go all to pieces. When it appeared, Elizabeth I herself called  on Dee to soothe her anxious courtiers and to interpret the comet’s potentially eschatological message.[1] And this wasn’t the first time. Astrologers of the period were always flailing about when something came from Heaven. One such event was the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn that was such a rarity that it was discussed in print for years before it actually took place in 1583.[2] Even Tycho Brahe gnashed his teeth and went wild with fear about the upcoming apocalyptic conjunction. He railed at anybody who would listen that this event would only be magnified by a star he discovered in 1572. Local folklore suggests he went underground and only surfaced at the prodding of loved ones and jeers by the local community.

In 1581, Dee began working with a skryer named Edward Kelley. The methods used by this pair involved a showstone that when stared at by Kelley, would yield contact with heavenly personages. The reason they employed a showstone was to assuage the anxieties attached to attempting open communication with the Other. The showstone acted as an artifact to instill faith in the operators. Dee himself stated that he was prompted to use a “shewstone, which the High Priests did use…wherein they had lights and judgements in their great dowtes.” [sic] In addition, Dee thought his extraterrestrial angels were liminal beings. They wee part substance and part potential and held an intermediary space in the cosmos. He wasn’t alone in this regard. Because of the intermingling of various currents in the 16^th century, it wasn’t strange for Pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Occult figures to assert that angels were planetary intelligences that moved the celestial spheres. Dee often remarked that “planetary angels or intelligences move the Heavenly Bodies.”[3] The universe was always a part of the process and interpretation of these strange occurrences. The entities involved were the ‘extraterrestrials’ we contact or ‘witness’ in modern times.

In occult circles, a rift in when contact occurred exists that even now inspires righteous animosity and shrieking across the aisle. I’ve personally witnessed rage and blind hatred at some of these gatherings. One man was bloodied for simply suggesting that Crowley’s Aiwass was an earthly elemental. Another wept openly at the thought of a flying saucer corresponding to the disks or pentacles of tarot lore. But never mind that. Those that espouse a more modern interpretation claim 1947 as an important year in Ufology. According to Kenneth Grant, “When Parsons[4] received Liber 49, which he proclaimed to be the fourth chapter of AL, it was in musical concert with L.R. Hubbard that extraterrestrial contact was established. The working began in 1945-46, a few months before Crowley’s death in 1947, and just prior to the wave of unexpected, aerial phenomena, now recalled as the ‘Great Flying Saucer Flap.”[5]

Like Dee and Grant, modern Ufologists appreciate the network that connects daimonic and extraterrestrial realities. They have barked more than once that the entire UFO sequence is an analysis of dimensions. According to John Mack, abductees have spoken of aliens “breaking through from another dimension.” As he reported, “through a ‘slit’ or ‘crack’ in some sort of barrier, entering our world from ‘beyond the veil’”[6] in both concept and terminology, this statement oozes occult thought. It’s not a stretch to suggest that a showstone could very well be the liminal link between ‘us’ and the ‘E.T Other’. Also, Ufology interprets contact with aliens as an assemblage of intelligences. The acknowledgement of alien beings’ existence, after the initial ontological shock, Mack writes, “is sometimes the first step in the opening of consciousness to a universe that is no longer simply material. Abductees come to appreciate that the universe is filled with Intelligences and is itself Intelligent. They develop a sense of awe before a mysterious cosmos that becomes sacred and ensouled.”[7] Like John Dee and his contemporaries, the entities that populate the night sky are ‘Intelligences’ to be interacted with for mutual benefit. When a ceremonial magician encounters a livid Grey alien in the confines of a ritualistic circle, it’s clear that these networks are much closer than what is supposed.

Modern Ufology also attributes portents of the future to contact with aliens. It was the same with Dee’s angels. According to Harkness, “Dee believed that the information shared by the angels would include divine law, revelations of future events, prophesies, and doctrines.”[8] Modern abduction narratives are also characterized by usually dire warnings for the future of mankind. Apocalyptic visions of an ecologically deplete earth as well as nuclear disaster are common in accounts of visitation.

Whether it be dirty little Grey probes, cold and mean reptilians or narcissistic Nordics, the modern alien is a re-embodiment of what John Dee communicated with through his showstone. These creatures stay relevant and are renewed as they take on recent forms and structure. in fact, the modern Ufologist performs occult-like ritual every time they venture out into a rain forest or build a mountain of mashed potatoes. The visions are real and so is the contact. It doesn’t matter whether the entities are interpreted as angels or extraterrestrials. In the end, the experiential nature of the event gives credence to the accounts given.

  

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[1] Deborah Harkness. John Dee’s Conversations with Angels. 1999. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. pp. 69.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] See Jack Parsons. An occultist, rocket scientist, and one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (JPL)

[5] Kenneth Grant. Outside the Circle of Time.1980. Frederick Muller Limited. London. pp. 50.

[6] C.D.B. Bryan. Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind. 1995. Alfred. A. Knopf publishing. New York. pp. 420.

[7] Ibid. pp. 444.

[8] Deborah Harkness reference. pp. 115.

Wallowing in Witchcraft. A Press Release for Magus Magazine. February 2015.

There are ravings coming off the wire that state a feeble-minded soulless degenerate has published another piece of occult rhetoric. How will it end? I had been lazily vacationing in Borneo when a rude and spiteful weasel showed up at my hotel room with an ‘urgent letter’ from the editor. We were going on with it. The train was leaving the station. Somehow this stupid and dirty publication was still being released. I was appalled. After trying to unsuccessfully calm my jangled nerves, I again picked up the letter and fell into such a foul and despondent state of mind that the hotel concierge remarked later that, “suicide would have been the only bright point to the entire weekend.” I railed and cursed incoherently as I read what my filthy editor had planned. An interview with a witch? Folklore of the supernatural? It was a frighteningly real and clear case of dementia. Something had to be done.

It had already been a trying few months and I was still in the grip of deciphering the implications of an FBI run Pirate Bay. We've had whole throngs of people going crazily berserk and picketing because the File Sharing website had been rudely sacked by Swedish authorities. Some of these brave souls refused to leave the premises in ? and have convinced themselves the authorities are all ‘undead’. Some have gone half-mad and stare vacantly at FBI agents who walk nervously past and mumble something about “the goddamn downloads”. And the whole Pirate Bay staff has holed up in their office building and refuse to leave due to the ‘zombies’ outside. Behaving like arctic Eskimos or Australian aborigines, these employees get drunk all day on cheap whiskey, stare defiantly outside, and talk of increasing the armament. I’ve seen them with my own eyes. They are a reckless brood constantly jabbering about conspiracy, the evil disposition of the zombies, and the need for more ammunition. And my nuisance editor of a clearly blasphemous and godless publication wants to join the ranks of these crazed simpletons? No thank you, I’ll take the zombies. It’s no time to be doing business. Not in this day and age.

Most days, it’s a complete waste of time to go on the internet. There is something profoundly wrong and ugly about any devise that is so laden with information that even the dumbest can fire off an intelligent-sounding blog or post and have people take notice. Not so last week however. We bore witness to the internet creature from the deep rear its many heads and slap the government silly by conducting a 24-hour blackout. It was Old Testament, violent, and clearly intended to spite. Even now, the shamed legislators that conceived the SOPA fiasco are shaking their heads in bewilderment and trying to backpeddle towards the First Amendment. Many have joined the anti-zombie militia and are now cowering in government buildings with corporate bigwigs. It’s a slow-moving fire and the internet entity has once again fallen asleep but there are remnants of scorched earth. Like Frankenstein’s hideous abomination, most are wondering what kind of mediations and networking granted this creature autonomous existence. At what point did ontological and epistemological distinctions disappear and give rise to this folkloric absurdity. We may never know. It’s clearly a savage end to normal sensibilities.

And this is what is going on in my head when that misshapen bell-boy came ringing with his ‘urgent correspondence’. What he forgot to tell me and what I only gleaned from the sheer horror of the experience was that my foul editor Preston Copeland had included a surprise with his letter. The swine had set me up an interview with a known occultist and practitioner of the Dark Arts. It was after midnight when a loud rapping at the door signaled the arrival of the Beast. She was disheveled as if she’d just gotten into a fight or car accident. Her strange Boston accent coupled with the smudges on her face and pasty complexion gave her the appearance of a corpse or monster. I backed away and instinctively raised my fists into a defense posture. This is it; I thought. The end of the ride. She squealed something high-pitched and began to rummage into her purse for what I could only imagine was pepper-spray or a shiv. I bit my lip to keep from screaming and snarled, “Get out of my hotel room.” She fished some horrid lipstick out of her bag and began to smear it across her face like a demonic clown. “I’m here for the interview.” She quipped and sat down lazily on the bed. “There’s no time for that.” I said as forcefully as I could while trying to stop my leg from shaking. “I’m the witch. I’m here for the interview.” She said again and produced what could be construed as a pentagram from a chain that hung around her neck. “What kind of witch?” I asked warily. It is well-known that each and every esoteric Order has its own set of curses, countercurses, and rituals that it uses to negotiate the numinous. Most if these groups get along with each other but never under any circumstances, would they tolerate a laymen or non-initiate perpetuating the secrets of the group. In the old days, this was grounds for a large push off a short cliff. A terrible insult. I turned to the Old Hag and remarked icily, “No, you’re not. I’ve met real witches and they’re not you.” It was as this second that again my nerves were tested to the point of flight or fight. I frowned dolefully, “It’s too late. People with black robes will get you as soon as you leave this room.” She suddenly jumped up and flung herself onto me. “Get me outta here!” She begged. “I’m too young to be eaten by crazies. I just needed money so I told your editor I was the real deal.” “I know.” I soothed. “It’s a terrible shock.” As she wept openly and chattered about being a good Christian, I remarked about the severity and downright nastiness of witch retribution. “They’re wicked and ill-tempered. They’ll make an example out of you.” She suddenly screamed and fled the room in a blind panic. I peered out and caught a glimpse of her wild-eyed and in full gallop heading for the elevator. The last thing I heard was her whimpering as she abandoned the elevator idea and headed directly for the stairs.

And now you ask me, why I’m hesitant to endorse this Magus Magazine? They want a glowing Press Release and want me to just sit back and take orders from that Copeland character? Not from me. These buggers can burn in a vat of piss before I’ll condone their rubbish. Granted, the occult and the supernatural are both vaguely interesting. Any magazine that has the cojones to approach these taboos with an ear towards critical thinking is both laudable and deserving of a good read. Does that mean I’m gonna stoop to the level of dumb beast, yapping and howling the praise of a cur who barely pays and sends strange-smelling women to my hotel room in the middle of the night?

Hardly.

Mad Doctor Abdullah   

Magus Magazine: Via Negativa: Occult and The Naked God

Magus Magazine: Via Negativa: Occult and The Naked God: Via Negativa: Occult and The Naked God By Jack Vates “The light shone in the darkness. He came to his own, and all who received him ...

Via Negativa: Occult and The Naked God

Via Negativa: Occult and The Naked God By Jack Vates

“The light shone in the darkness. He came to his own, and all who received him became sons of God by reason of power; power was given to them to become Sons of God.”     Jn. 1:5, 11, 12

Recently, I watched an excellent video on YouTube presented by the Ritman University in Amsterdam about the life and works of Jacob Boehme. The speaker, Dr. Wouter J. Hanegraaf spoke at length about Boehme’s work and provided a keen understanding of the 17^th century mystic. However, when he spoke of perhaps the most important concept in Boehme’s repertoire, Ungrunde, he moved past it without barely a remark on what it is or what it entails. But what is it? What is this strange German word? I researched the term and discovered that Ungrunde is translated as “groundless”. It is the dark emptiness before creation. Andrew Weeks describes it as the “uncertainty which precedes the divine Will’s arousing itself to self-awareness (though in the deity this “happens” in eternity.”[1] Ungrunde is an aspect of Via Negativa or darker paths of experiencing divinity. It may be compared to the Kabbalistic Ein Sof, the “infinite” in which all union and wholeness are secreted in the secrecy that cannot be grasped and cannot be known…the only one that knows, yet without knowing, is the highest desire, concealed of all concealed, nothingness.[2] Ungrunde is a terrifying thing. It is a void. True and utter nothingness. A place the mind really doesn’t want to familiarize itself with. But why did Professor Hanegraaf  refrain from discussing the nuances of Ungrunde? I believe it is due to the stigma attached to dark or negative theology. Many are wary to speak of things like left-hand magick, dark aspects of the godhead, or the Other. They prefer to stay in the light. And this is understandable certainly in light of the fact that the same legitimacy afforded to traditional avenues of experiencing God must be afforded dark theology if any concept of the reality of belief is to be accepted.

Via Negativa has a variety of currents that describe its processes and method yet many are largely shunned even by practitioners of the esoteric arts. The concept is made up of cautionary tales, legends of broken minds, and even death. I call it the conspiracy of Harpocrates due to the lack of discussion on the subject. But perhaps it’s time to shed a dimming light on Via Negativa in order to better understand occult interactions that many deem horrifying. Why? Because the avenues of Via Negativa inhabit the undiscovered content of the Other. It is truly a landscape of mystery and uncharted oceans. There are some that have claimed to have explored these areas. They return with descriptions of opaqueness, scarecrows, unnamed entities, demons, emptiness, and terror. Via Negativa is without any coherent system at all. It is chaos and the only way out is to be lost and manage to find a way back. In addition, describing Via Negativa is no easy task. Because of the limitations of language, discerning the idea becomes an exercise in naming. But naming ‘what it is’ doesn’t provide insights into the concept because by its very nature, Via Negativa is a journey from what the mind can grasp into something that is hidden and silent. It is sometimes thought of as the pathless path of contemplating God.

Judaic mystics call it ‘Ayin’ or nothingness. David G. Abraham ha-lavan in masoret ha-berit  (end of 13^th century) defined the Ayin as having more being than any other  being in the world, but since it is simple and all other simple things are complex when compared with its simplicity, so in comparison it is called nothing. [3] Daniel Matt also elucidates the concept when he states that “Ayin is a window on the oneness that undermines the manifest appearance of the world. The ten thousand things are not as independent or fragmented as they seem. There is an invisible matrix, a swirl that generates and recycles being. The ego cannot abide Ayin, you cannot wallow in nothingness. In Ayin, for an eternal moment, boundaries disappear.[4] The dissolution of boundaries is really an ontological emptying of divinity. During an event of this kind, either by ritual or self-activation, the boundaries of our and God’s understanding of the self are dissolved.

Jewish mystics also contemplate Via Negativa in the notion of the Abyss of Abada. On the Tree of Life there exists what is known as the Supernal Triad. The triad is made up of the first three emanations on the Tree, namely Keter, Binah and Chokhmah, Each emanation is a part of God’s and our own consciousness. The Tree then is a glyph for all of creation. But the Supernal Triad cannot be grasped due to the absence of duality amongst the three Sephiroth. Separation from the Godhead or ‘duality’ doesn’t occur until the emanation known as Chesed. Furthermore, the Supernal Triad is separated from the rest of the Tree by a double-row of veiled curtains called the Paroket. The abyss is a liminal space between these veils. And the abyss is also the unitary experience of being one with the Godhead. It’s clear why so many religious and occult ceremonies use the ‘veils’ in both method and symbology. The veils are a way of keeping hidden and secret that which is beyond explanation.

There is also danger in slipping the veil. This is why there is a stopping-point or limit that initiates must adhere to. The stop point is the bifurcation of knowledge and understanding. Those that study Via Negativa are encouraged to grasp conceptually how the abyss unfolds but to stop before an experiential discerning of its nature. In many descriptions, the abyss is called Daath or ‘false Godhead’. A hidden Sephiroth, it is knowledge without understanding. To occultist Kenneth Grant, Daath is the “outer gateway” to the Mauve Zone. It is a kind of anti-Sephiroth.[5] It is also a trap. Daath is everywhere and is the abyss. Some claim that it is infinities within infinities within infinities and so on forever.

Insanity or worse can be the end result of traversing the abyss and there are abundant tales of fragmented minds in both religious history and folklore. The legend of Rabbi Akiva is testament to this. While he was able to cross over into the abyss and reintegrate unscathed, he had colleagues that died, went insane, or became dangerously heretical due to the process. This is because one cannot bring psychological baggage into at-one-ment with God. There can be no ego and this is what the lower emanations on the Tree are designed to prepare us for. Only pure divine love can be brought past the veils.

With the caveat of danger now discussed, there are also aspects of Via Negativa that are luminous in their darkness. Boehme’s Ungrunde encourages an exploration of dark theology as a means to experience sublimity. He states that “the truth seeking believer stands closer to the divine indefiniteness of the Ungrunde than to the false personal God who is thought to have predestined chosen individuals for grace.”[6]  Similar to Gnostic thought, those that seek Ungrunde i.e. the Abyss have the same potential for unitary consciousness as anybody in the Bible.

The ontological emptying of divinity that begins with duality also has peculiar effects on the Godhead itself. As Boehme asserted, “the conjunction of Will and Desire severs itself into two properties, viz. into joy and sorrow, light and darkness; for it makes two worlds- a dark fire-world and a light fire-world…in the shining of the fire in the original the deity in understood, and in the dark fire the original of nature is understood.[7] A separation of wills into negative and affirmative wills is also a separation of wrathfulness and goodness. Wrath is of the self, goodness the unity of God. The separations though are reflections of one another. There is a mirroring that reconciles the original separation. Boehme remarks that “although what grows out of the dark ground is not causally determined by the darkness, the light-world is a positive mirror image, a sublimation, of the forces operating in darkness.”[8]

Medieval mystic Meister Eckhart also practiced a form of Via Negativa in his idea of Durchbrach or ‘Breakthrough’. When we break on through, our soul penetrates beyond the trinity into divine wilderness. Another liminal status, this is the Godhead beyond God. No uniting, no identity. A naked God. For Eckhart, Via Positiva (creation) plus Via Negativa (letting go) results in Via Creativa. When we let go of fear and death we are free to be re-conceived into another consciousness. Let’s think on this. What does it mean to be conceived? We clearly get ideas of birth and conception and creation of even distillation and extraction. The awakening of birth then is the ‘breakthrough’ of his theology. Eckhart exclaimed,

“Oh, Lord, where is the silence and where is the place where this Word was spoken? We say, as I have already said, that it is the purest place that the soul has to offer- in its most notable place, in the soul’s foundation; yes, in the soul’s being, that is, in its most hidden part. There the “means” is silent, for neither a creature nor an image can enter there. The soul knows in that place neither action nor knowledge. It is not aware in that place of any kind of image, either from itself or from any other creature.”[9]  

Eckhart shows the inadequacy of trying to describe with language the ‘Breakthrough’ of being birthed into another consciousness. The passage also has some of the most important key words to describing Via Negativa. In words like ‘silent’ and ‘hidden’ and in Eckhart’s distressing plea to God, we are shown the status-less condition of somebody ‘betwixt and between’. Eckhart goes on to say “Now note here, finally, the value and fruit of this secret Word and of this darkness. Not only is the Son of the heavenly father born in this darkness, but you also are born there as a child of the same Heavenly Father and no other; and he also gives that power to you.”[10] Breakthrough is penetrating the door’s that oppose God’s entry. And because God is “already there”, the breakthrough is one of consciousness.

The reflection or mirroring that leads to re-conception manifests most importantly in the idea of love-play. As any occultist will attest, the study of the bride-groom or sacred marriage is an essential aspect of the initiatory structure. Sometimes we forget that falling in love and renewing that love with talk and play is the closest thing to divinity. For God, this love-play comes in Sophia. As Boehme remarked, “As the mirror she generateth [sic]  nothing and is the Chaste Virgin. [11] Did you catch that? Sophia generates nothingness. She is the abyss the darkness and also a part of God. It’s in the “delight” of this image that the spirit of God plays with itself for this is now God’s companion to the Honor and Joy of God.[12]

I know it seems counterintuitive and a horrid blasphemy to equate nothingness of the abyss with Sophia but this is Christian mysticism. And indeed it gets even weirder. Because Sophia is a dark mirror of God. An examination of Grunewalds’s altarpiece (1515) shows some powerful imagery in this regard. In the second level of the piece, an alchemical elixir is being blessed by the ecstatic Virgin with a crown of flames. Purportedly, this liquid has curative powers and is also the source of Gnosis. In this apotheosis, “Mary has become identified with Sophia, the personification of knowledge. We can now understand her bizarre and somewhat demonic union with Satan in the enigmatic scene in heaven. Sophia and Satan were interpreted as the two S’s, the two contrary serpents, male and female, entwined on the caduceus staff of Hermes, the Greek God, who with his Latin name Mercurius presides over the silvery poisonous metal, the hydagyros, quicksilver or “silver-water.”[13] With clear alchemic connotations, it’s fascinating to follow this trajectory. If Sophia is equated with Mary and is a mirror reflection of God, then not only is the Christ story a hell of a lot more interesting but so is God’s relationship with Saturnian influence.

It’s become apparent that Via Negativa is much more than its common misconceptions. The act of naming the methodology is grossly inadequate and ultimately refutes the idea that epistemology can grant us access to its secrets. Knowledge and knowing just isn’t the key. The final act is experiential. A true experience of Godhead requires God himself to acquire experience. It is a translation. Through a process of making two differing things equivalent, God as an entity can colonize the undiscovered continent of the Other.[14] This continent takes form through ontological negation of divinity itself. By dissolving Being with Un-being, knowing with un-unknowing, light with darkness, we can annihilate traditional theistic metaphysics and open new doors of consciousness. And although these experiences are displayed in the alien darkness of true vacuum, they are rich in liminal impulses and contain profound exchanges with what I can only describe as Another.   

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[1] Boehme. Andrew Weeks. State University of New York Press. 1991. Albany. pp. 148.

[2] Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment. Trans. By Daniel Chanan Matt Ramsay. Paulist Press. 1983. New Jersey. pp. 147.

[3] Kabbalah. Gershom Scholem.

[4] “Ayin: The Concept of Nothingness in Jewish Mysticism” Daniel Matt. In Problem of Pure Consciousness. Ed. Robert K. C. Forman. Oxford University Press. 1990. New York.

[5] The Dark Lord. Peter Levanda. Ibis Press. 2013. Lakeworth, Florida.  pp. 265.

[6] Weeks. Ibid. pp. 149.

[7] Signature Of All Things. Jacob Boehme. 2.17

[8] Weeks. Ibid. pp. 182.

[9] Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart’s Creation Spirituality In New Translation. Intro. And Commentaries by Matthew Fox. Doubleday & Co. 1980. Garden City, NY. pp. 294

[10] Ibid. pp. 301.

[11] Jacob Boehme (TLM 5.41) and (TP 14.85).

[12] The Three Principles of Divine Essence. Trans. John Sparrow. 1948. London. pp. 14.86.

[13] The Hidden World: Survival of Pagan Shamanic Themes In European Fairy Tales. Carl AP. Ruck, Blaise Daniel Staples, Jose Alfredo Gonzalez Celdran, Mark Alwin Hoffman. Carolina Academic Press. 2007. Durham. pp. 39

[14] See Nick Lee and Steve Brown. Otherness and the Actor-Network: The Undiscovered Continent. 1994. American Behavioral Scientist. 36: 772-790.