Category Archives: Mysticism

Toss Out a Few Nuts

Posted on February 19, 2014 | 1 comment
Tree Sketch 96

Don’t know why I picked this sketch to go along with this post. I guess it just seemed to match the mood.

In his retirement my Pop started throwing peanuts to the squirrels.  He’d stand at the back door and throw them way, way out there, back by the tree line.

Every week or so he’d put them a little less far out, maybe a foot.  Before too long he was putting peanuts directly on the back stoop.  He would sit there in his favorite chair and watch them eat, with nothing between them but the screen door.  It didn’t matter how hot or how cold it was outside — he would prop open the old wood door, put the peanuts down, and watch them eat through the patched wire screen.

Eventually the day came when he could open the screen door just a crack, hold out a big fat peanut, and a squirrel would come and take it right out of his hand.  I never tried the trick myself, but I remember the lesson.

Everywhere he went he talked to people.  He talked to the cashier and the bag boy at the market, to the waitress at the restaurant, to the neighborhood kids, anybody with whom he crossed paths.  When he died there was standing room only at the service.  Even his dialysis nurse showed up.  The two of them used to play lotto numbers together.

In the end, it was the same skill.  He drew people in, throwing out the nuts a little closer each time until they ate out of his hand.

Seems to me we could all stand to toss out a few more nuts.  The nuts aren’t the only things that end up coming out of their shells.

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My Favorite Low-Smoke Incense

Posted on February 17, 2014 | 2 comments

Incense sets the mood.  It’s your little helper, that little something special that gets your head where you want it to be for contemplation, meditation, and prayer.  There’s nothing like sitting down to meditate surrounded by the scent of sandalwood, praying to the aroma of smoldering frankincense, or offering a stick of myrrh to the ancestors.   It’s a wonderful thing.

The problem is, as we should all know by now, there are hazards associated with breathing in smoke, especially in enclosed spaces.

A few years ago I stumbled across Shoyeido incense.  The sticks come in various lengths, but I prefer the 5″ ones in the Aesthetics series (the Honoka is particularly fine). The Honoka sticks burn for about 30 minutes each.  The fragrance is great, smoke is low, and it’s made in Kyoto by a family of master craftspeople as it has been for twelve generations.  All of that for just $7.95 for 40 sticks.

If you don’t burn incense you should give it a try.  If you’ve tried it but you don’t like it, you might try again with Shoyeido.  It’s so much better than the cheap stuff, there’s no comparison.  Apples to oranges.

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Book Review: Eternal Life by John Shelby Spong

Posted on January 22, 2014 | Leave a comment
Eternal Life: A New Vision of Eternity by John Shelby Spong

Eternal Life: A New Vision of Eternity by John Shelby Spong

John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal Bishop of Newark before his retirement in 2000, and spent his entire adult life as a man of the cloth.  In this book he displays incredible bravery and honesty.

Imagine how hard it must be for him to look out into the world, into the faces of the hundreds of thousands of people to whom he has ministered over his long career, and say that he no longer believes in the literal truth of the Bible.  Not just in the literal truth of Heaven, Hell, and eternal life, but in the literal truth of any of it.  At all.

From page 44:

“Prayer, I would later surmise, was something like an experience of ritual hypnosis.  While everyone said the words, no one was expected to believe them. Religious rituals, I was beginning to learn, were defined as part of the human need to deny, to cope, and to pretend that all of these techniques are useful when reality presents us with something that is beyond our ability to manage emotionally.  At this point in my life I simply could not separate the human need to pretend from the human search for truth.  Organized religion would also forever fuzz over that distinction.”

His book is at once deeply personal and philosophical.  In the end, Spong’s viewpoint is, as the back cover suggests, a mystical re-interpretation of the Bible, Christianity, and indeed of Jesus.  And since it relates what amounts to his years-long ‘dark night of the soul,’ it is all at once a moving, inspiring, sad and uplifting book.

Every person of every religion should hear his words from page 185:

“The task of religion is not to turn us into proper believers; it is to deepen the personal within us, to embrace the power of life, to expand our consciousness, in order that we might see things that eyes do not normally see.”

I recommend this book to anyone, regardless of his or her religious or spiritual viewpoint.  If you want to put your spiritual childhood behind you and take a first step toward facing the truth about yourself, your religion, and the universe, go and get yourself a copy.  You won’t be disappointed.

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A Serious Look at Reincarnation

Posted on December 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

wpid-IMG_20131215_104548.jpgIn this month’s issue of The University of Virginia Magazine I happened across an article about Dr. Jim Tucker, a respected academic and M.D. who has published a book about his research into reincarnation called Return to Life (you’ll find links to buy the book at your favorite retailer or website on his page).

How refreshing to see a serious exploration of something that the mainstream so often dismisses as metaphysical clap-trap.  And from a faculty member at my alma mater?

This one goes on my reading list for sure.

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The Search for Abraxas

Posted on December 9, 2013 | Leave a comment
The envelope.

The envelope.

I ordered The Search for Abraxas months ago.  Apparently there were some delays from the printer.  But Salamander and Sons was responsive to requests for updates and put up with me gently (everyone knows I stink in the patience department).  It came on Saturday, from Thailand.  There’s something so exciting about getting a package from a faraway land, isn’t there?

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The postmark.

Not only did they ship me the book, they included a selection of postcards, a book mark, and a cloth shopping bag (which I used to carry my free-range eggs home from the market yesterday).

The quality of the book itself is excellent.  This is no print-on-demand production.  The weight of the cover is impressive and the beautiful and glossy color plates are perfect.

This is what was inside the envelope.

This is what was inside the envelope.

Everything about the experience was top shelf.

For a review for the book you’ll have to wait.  I gobbled it up in just two days and the material is fairly dense.  A re-read is definitely in order.

A tip of my hat to Salamander and Sons for the great service, the quality product, the free gifts, and for transforming the purchasing process from a mere transaction into a pleasant and memorable experience.

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Esoteric Artist Featured at Florence Biennale

Posted on November 22, 2013 | Leave a comment

A fascinating article over at The Wild Hunt about photographer and artist Cristina Francov:

Esoteric Artist Featured at Florence Biennale.

You can view more of her artwork here.

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Jesus on Toast? Nope, Christ in my Comet

Posted on November 7, 2013 | Leave a comment
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Christ in Comet (R)

The other day I was cleaning the bathrooms.  I sprinkled some trusty ol’ Comet® into the bathtub and got to work.  When I was done I stood up and continued with the chores.

When I walked over to clean the mirror I saw Jesus staring back at me in shroud-of-Turin-like glory.  Somehow the cleanser got on the edge of the tub and made an impression on my shirt.  I wonder if I’ll make the Wikipedia list of perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena.

Trippy.

 

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The Occult Revival Will Not Be Reported Upon

Posted on November 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

Several recent news articles have suggested that there is an ongoing occult revival in the U.S.  Maybe there’s an actual occult revival, maybe there isn’t.  But you won’t find out from these headline salesmen because they don’t understand what they’re reporting upon.

Katie J. M. Baker, the author of Newsweek’s article Hexing and Texting, cobbled together a few factoids and some light observations about pop culture trends and used them to draw some very hasty and condescending conclusions about the current state of the occult.  Not only is Baker uneducated on the subject (she doesn’t even know the difference between black magic and a moon ritual),  she doesn’t know she’s uneducated and doesn’t care.  Although she  had access to Pamela Grossman, an expert on the occult, she only gave her one short quote.  The rest of her article was spent making fun of people and events she didn’t take the time to understand or contextualize.

Zach Schonfeld used Baker’s piece as a launching point for a gleeful stomp through all things pop-occult in his article Brooklyn’s Millennials Are Turning Into Witches.  His sarcasm and derision have no bottom.  It’s unfortunate that his reporting skills and knowledge of the subject don’t go half as deep.

My advice to Baker and Schonfeld: when you report on pop culture, call it a pop culture report, not a report on the occult.  If you decide to report on real occult studies, start by doing some introductory research.  Next visit some blogs, like The Fire Lizard,  Letter from Hardscrabble Creek, Freeman’s Reviews, New World Witchery, The Wild Hunt, or any of the thousands of other great blogs that could inform you about actual trends in the occult.  Then interview occult scholars, attend lectures by recognized experts, or go to events like the Pagan Studies Conference or the Occult Humanities Conference (which Pamela Grossman could have told you all about if you had asked, because she organized it).  If you do, take a dictionary.  Real occultists use bigger words than those to which you are accustomed.

And for those interested what the occult really is and what occultists do, here’s my favorite definition, courtesy of André Nataf’s Dictionary of the Occult (Wordsworth Editions, (1994), page 80):

“Occultism holds that humanity is only revealed to itself by transcendence…religious feeling is a necessary part of humanity, with the important provision that this religious feeling is the ‘raw material’ on which the initiate works in order to experience glimpses of the sacred, borne within him and all mankind.  This transmutation of the religious into the sacred is the very object of the occult sciences and, especially of initiation.”

And as for an actual occult revival, whether or not we are in the midst of one or not I can’t say.  It sort of feels like it, but I’m not going to pretend as though I’ve done the sociological research required to comment intelligently.  I’ll leave the uninformed speculation and slapdash reporting to Baker, Schonfeld, and others like them.

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Voice from a Ghost Box

Posted on September 27, 2013 | 6 comments

Last night at the monthly meeting of Richmond League of Occult Research and Education (L.O.R.E.) we experimented with a “ghost box.”

Chris, one of our members, was kind enough to do the background research and set up the experiment.  After a failed attempt to set up an AM-scanner-type ghost box (wrecking a couple of transistor radios in the process), Chris was forced to download the SV-1 SpiritVox “Ghost Box” onto his android phone.  This is a very popular app, and has been used by Ghost Hunters International, Fact or Faked, and over 200 other paranormal investigation groups around the globe.

What does this thing do?  The SV-1 Spiritvox plays random audio clips and white noise.  An AM scanner ghost box pulls random words from the airwaves.  Either way, the idea is that any spirits in the area are able to manipulate the random clips and send messages to us mere mortals.

Chris and I made a list of questions and started asking them.  Our first question was “Is anyone there?” to which we got what seemed to be an immediate, although unintelligible answer (click to hear it yourself).  Next we asked, “What is your name?”  Again the answer was unintelligible (listen).

But when we asked, “When did you die?” we got a reply that sounds like “1832.”.   “1832” appears at 1:13 (listen).  At this point we were intrigued and excited.  Next we posed the question, “Where are you buried?” and got what seems to be “In the cemetery.”  This happens at :13 of the recording (listen).  I may be dreaming, but I think I hear it twice on the recording.  We asked a few more questions, but heard nothing.

Actual spirits or random sounds?  Wishful thinking, or actual phenomena?  I’m at a loss as to how we could possibly prove or disprove that what we heard was a real spirit.  I’m also fully aware that the human mind is really good at recognizing patterns and/or creating patterns when there aren’t any (a phenomena known as pareidolia).

All I can say is that the experience was a huge amount of fun.  By all means give it a try yourself.  When you’re done, just in case, I suggest completing a simple banishment.  Say something simple and direct like, “To the forces, powers, and spirits present, I bid you farewell and godspeed and send you back to whence you came — let there be peace between us all.”  As you make this statement, cross yourself, or if it suits you better, scribe a banishing pentagram with your finger, complete a Qabalistic cross, etc.

That’s what I did when I left the meeting.  You know, just to make sure nothing followed me home.

 

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Blue Öyster Cult’s Occult Influence: An Overview

Posted on August 21, 2013 | 2 comments
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My framed Blue Oyster Cult t-shirt autographed by (clockwise from upper left) Allen Lanier, Danny Miranda, Eric Bloom, Bobby Rondinelli, and Buck Dharma.

5/16/19 UPDATE: I want to collaborate with Blue Öyster Cult.  To find out why I think I’m qualified and whatnot, click here.

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My earliest three memories of being interested in the occult date back the 70s: buying a Tarot deck at the old B. Dalton book store at Eastgate Mall, finding a copy of Kathryn Paulsen’s Complete Book of Magic and Witchcraft (can’t remember where — a yard same maybe?) and listening to the music of the band Blue Öyster Cult.

I still have the Tarot deck, and it’s pretty much the only one I’ve ever used.  Although Paulsen’s book isn’t the very best, I am nostalgic about it.  I lost that original copy and had to buy a used copy just so I could have it around.  As for Blue Öyster Cult, they’re still my favorite band.  I’ve seen them in concert so many times I’ve lost count.

I’m surprised how few occultists have an interest in BÖC.  Then again, I suppose it makes sense if the only BÖC songs you know are Don’t Fear the Reaper, Burning for You, and Veterans of the Psychic Wars.  You have to get past the hits to get a taste of the occult flavor.

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“Mistress of the Salmon Salt” is on the album “Tyranny and Mutation.”

iconTake for example Mistress of the Salmon Salt which is, in my opinion, the creepiest example of the BÖC’s occult overtones (read the lyrics at the band’s website here).  Many people, at first blush, think this song is about a prostitute who kills her sailor customers.  But if you understand the word “reduction” in its various forms (namely chromosomal reduction and alchemical reduction) and note the final stanza, where it describes “the toes that crawl” and “knees that jerk” you’ll see that what the female protagonist is really up to.  The lyrics and the eerie guitar work come together in a way that gives me chills.  Occult rock doesn’t get any better or darker than this.

You can keep your oxymoronic, overtly occult heavy metal.  As far as I’m concerned, if you plaster your album covers with pentagrams (inverted or otherwise) and give your songs titles that contain references to occult books and occult ideas, that’s not occult.  The word occult means hidden, not in-your-face.  If I don’t have to dig a little, it’s not occult.  If I wanted my food pre-chewed I’d eat baby food out of a jar.

Most of the band’s occult influence came from Sandy Pearlman, Richard Meltzer, and Albert Bouchard.  It saddens me that the band’s occult influence left with the departure of those guys.  The material they produced with other collaborators (like Michael Moorcock, John Shirley, and Jim Carroll) is solid but lacks the occult depth of Pearlman and Meltzer.

They say the band, back in the old days, during song writing sessions they used to keep around a stack of notes and papers written by Pearlman and Meltzer.  Somebody should find those notes and tell the band to get back to basics, to return to what made them great.

If you’d like to dig into the occult underpinnings of Blue Öyster Cult, here is a short list of resources:

  1. The Blue Öyster Cult FAQ
  2. Blue Oyster Cult: Secrets Revealed! by Martin Popoff
  3. Wikipedia article on the Imaginos album

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