Omphalos Magical Fair 2007 (cancelled)

Bath Omphalos at the Chapel
Bath Omphalos at the Chapel

Saturday Evening: Roberto workshop (Zivorod ).

Sunday Afternoon: 'Blood Lust and the Evil Dead' - extended workshop on supernatural assault. Workshop and performance of the Zar exorcism dance; audio/visual installation based around Mark Mirabello's Cannibal Within. Special altar and apotropiac rites. Illustrated lecture by Mogg Morgan based on his forthcoming book: Supernatural Assault in Ancient Egypt (Seth & Egyptian Magick volume III). More to be announced. A gathering of the clan rather than a commercial event so tickets £2-3 pounds.

Space in the chapel is limited so it would be handy to let the organisers know if you are coming. Bring food.

Website: http://www.omphalos.org.uk/

Yahoo elist: omphalosmagickalfair/
Sunday Afternoon: 'Blood Lust and the Evil Dead' - extended workshop on supernatural assault. Workshop and performance of the Zar exorcism dance; audio/visual installation based around Mark Mirabello's Cannibal Within. Special altar and apotropiac rites. Illustrated lecture by Mogg Morgan based on his forthcoming book: Supernatural Assault in Ancient Egypt (Seth & Egyptian Magick volume III). More to be announced. A gathering of the clan rather than a commercial event so tickets £2-3 pounds.

Space in the chapel is limited so it would be handy to let the organisers know if you are coming. Bring food.

Website: http://www.omphalos.org.uk/

Yahoo elist: omphalosmagickalfair/

Samkhya Dualism

In ancient India what we now call a philosophy was termed a view (skt darshan). This is in contrast to the western tradition where philosophy can be more doctrinaire in its approach. The Indian intellectual tradition is relativist, any philosophy is a point of view, correct only on the basis of a set of presuppositions. The six most important views were, according to one important text said to be:

Nyaya or the logical school;

Its close relative the school of Vaisheshika or Atomism;

Mimamsa, literally 'enquiry', a school dedicated to the defence of the authenticity of the Vedas;

The Vedanta non-dualist school;

Yoga (1)

The Samkhya or Reasoning School.

Samkhya is widely believed to be one of the oldest of the six and along with the Vaisheshika Atomic school the main influence on the medico-scientific (Ayurveda) tradition and Tantrism. Samkhya represents an extremely important philosophical tendency in Indian thought. All of the later philosophies defined themselves in relation to its theories, either for them or against.

In reality there were many more than six philosophies in India. One important view was preserved by the Raseshvara (mercury lords), ranked as about eighth in an imaginary league table of important views.(2) This system almost certainly comprises alchemical practitioners like Nagarjuna and is closely akin to the later Tantrik and Ayurvedic views. It is worth noting that ideas connected with medical science (Ayurveda) are also extremely pervasive and very authoritative. In fact, there is hardly any text in the Indian intellectual tradition from the Late Upanishads onwards that does not make some reference either directly or otherwise, to Ayurveda.

continued at samkhya

Pagan Federation Wessex Conference

Glastonbury
I'm speaking in the afternoon on 'Typhonian Magick'

Deconditioning - the wrong way (from JSM0

Mogg wrote:
Aleister Crowley recommends that magicians
cultivate the ability to argue the case from both sides -
as in the classical techniques of the sophists.

That kind of practice found its way into Pete Caroll's reworking of the whole
Crowley thing into his first book on Chaos Magick - _Liber Null_.
AFAIK chaos magicians still take this idea quite seriously -
ie i sure i read an article either in Chaos International or Oracle where one high level member of the IOT says how he was a 'lefty' most of his life but then decided he would be a 'fascist' for a while as some sort of intellectual exercise - which strikes me as about rhetoric - perhaps with the aim of deconditioning etc.

Personally i was never that impressed by that idea in crowley et al
- always struck me as 'bad faith' -



Mark said:
Clearly, if one already feels a conscious inclination toward fascism, the sincere adoption of a fascist world-view won't enact any profound de-conditioning. If in fact one finds it repugnant ( another mode of desire to be sure) than an engagement that seeks to find the truth or genius of the perspective might well be productive. Any sincere engagement with abjected material is potentially productive. In terms of Crowley, I immediately think of the squalor of the Abbey--an engagement with a basic form of the abject--filth.

As to playing at fascism, one need look no further than the west coast post-punk demi-monde of the 1980s, a'la Exit and ReSearch magazines,Feral House Press, Boyd Rice aka NON etc. Clearly the engagement exhibited by this group is as much about an interrogation of fascism as it is an embrace.


mogg said:
Thanks - that does help clarify the issues -
i suppose 'abjection' works on, or implies that these are arranged in some sort of binary pairs of opposites.
The middle way or equipoise (ie deconditioning)
comes by using them for some sort of intellectual kartharsis.
hence the famous binaries of hindu philosophy - pleasure/pain, attraction/revulsion etc

But I suggest that there is an unlimited number
of choices available to someone wanting to engage -
the other points of view -
and that some things (eg: fascism)
can be viewed as sui generis -
i.e. they don't stand in any meaningful
contrary with anything -

Of course the Buddhism philosopher might also say that the
idea of contraries is also an illusion -
ie: just a construct of some kind -
ie: in what sense is black really the opposite of blue ??

'love and do what you will'

mogg

ps: There is also the issue of ego -
imo an egotist believes that their personal development is more important than the suffering of others - but ego is the enemy of liberation - so they are caught in a paradox??

mark said:
Of course the abject can also be a function of suspended opposition. Those things considered monstrous or Other are abjected because they violate presupposed oppositions. Indeterminate race and/or gender is often construed as abject. The various figures of the undead also enact the kind of boundary crossings that call forth banishment. Most conceptions of the left-hand path--utilization of bodily pleasures or identification with "evil" as paths to spiritual elevation--enact this "impossible" co-presence as well. All of which is to say that the embrace of the abject may serve to reveal the illusory nature of binary opposition.

m


Dear Mark

that's very well put but a bit tricky for me to understand ; )
But guess you are talking about the nature of taboo ?
I.e. that the ideas of constructing a set of binary opposites -
often involves a lot of unexamined presuppositions
about what is 'good' and 'bad'?

So for example in
'tantrik' praxis a 'low caste woman' may be seen as defiling
and therefore as a source of powerful, liberating encounters.
But we might well question the initial assumption of
'low caste women' = 'impure'
- that kind of thing??


'love and do what you will'

Mogg

ps: in western magick the equivalent of the 'middle way'
is AFAIK the 'middle pillar' - which lies between
the twin poles of 'mercy' and 'severity' -
perhaps an idea influenced by Buddhism?

Blood lust and the 'Evil Dead' in Ancient Egypt (talk)

A talk in march at the Dark Arts Society, Deveraux Public House

I intend to continue my admittedly 'leftfield' exploration of the darker aspects of Egyptian folk magick.

The 'Zar' cult is probably a survival of a popular ancient Egyptian cult that involved 'demon dancing'. I will touch on this at some point in the talk although it might be even better to have someone demonstrate the Zar dance - perhaps one of the regular dancers might be able to have a go - as I believe Zar is part of the modern repetoire. I was wondering if anyone had a copy of Hassan Ramzy's 'Introduction to Egyptian Rhythms'.

Jan Fries has written an interesting chapter on Zar in his Seidways: shaking, swaying and serpent mysteries - he based that on the work of a eminent german anthropologist Enno Littmann, whose results are not otherwise readily available in English. I was pleased to find a connection between 'seething' and egyptian magick.

Magus: The Invisible Life of Elias Ashmole (Review)

By Tobias Churton, 2004, Signal Publishing.

'Elias Ashmole is a particularly striking case of someone who did well out of the Restoration through his flair at 'remembering' a largely apocryphal golden Stuart past before the civil war. His lasting fame and 'name' rest (in the title of the Ashmolean Museum) upon his dubious acquisition of another man's lifetime collection of rarities, and his subseqent gifting of them to the University of Oxford'

Lisa Jardine (2002) On a Grander Scale , her biography of Sir Christopher Wren, quoted by Tobias Churton.


The above quote from Jardine provides the raison d'être for Churton's less eloquent but arguable more informed study of the life and impact of the famous antiquarian Elias Ashmole. The house that Elias built as a repository of one of the world's' first museums, is still Oxford's small but wonderful treasurehouse of scientific history. Recent work to extend the basement turned up Ashmole's alchemical laboratory complete with instruments and human and animal remains. The main exhibit is now divided between the Bodleian library, and the founders room of the new Ashmolean in Broad Street - surely one of the world's great museums. Tradescant's original collection of curiousities is still on display - along with the only known portrait of John Dee and one of Ashmole himself, along with the gold chain presented to him by a Swedish monarch in gratitude for his monumental History of the Order of the Garter. It is said that the actual chain is missing a few links, a sure sign of the frequent ebbs and flows in the fortunes of the old magus.

Churton's excellent redaction of the life is only made possible by the five volume compilation of Ashmole's diaries, autobiographies and related notes published by OUP in 1966. The author, Conrad Hermann Hubertus Maria Apollinaris (Kurt) Josten (Pheeww! you don't get names like these very often these days) solved Ashmole's cipher and was thus able to do the work. Awarded an honorary DLitt by the university for his troubles, after his retirement as curator of the science museum, he become curator emeritus.

Which all goes to show that Jardine has probably got it wrong and Ashmole was no Hasolle and does deserve his fifteen minutes of fame. If you need more persuasion read Churton's book. Perhaps aimed more at the museum bookshop than the serious contemporary magi, it does nevertheless contain some gems, especially concerning his struggles to remake himself after the defeat of the royalist cause (hurrah) during the protectorate of Cromwell (booo). Ashmole tells how he "went to Maidstone assizes to heare the Witches tryed, and tooke Mr Tradescant with me." The six witches were hanged, accused of bewitching nine children, a man and a woman and £500 worth of cattle lost and corn at sea by witchcraft.'

Or account of his relationshp with otherwise puritan ministers who nevertheless had a perchant for 'sorcery'. Mrs John Pordage, whom he was amazed to see 'Clothed all in white Lawne, from the crown of the head to the sole of the Foot, and a white rod in her hand. She was hailing as a prophetess by those dancing country dances about her 'making strange noises". Explaining that they were rejoicing because they had 'overcome the Devil.' Dr Pordage then appeared 'all in black velvet' and pressed everyone to join in.'

or even the more intimate touches of Ashmole's struggles to find a wife or love or was it both? It's difficult to see whether his failures were down to a lack of good looks or the necessary finances : 'I dreamt in the morning that I put my hand into Mrs Marche's placket (slip) and then to her next petticoat and then to her third and then to her smock, and then pulled it up, and with very little struggling felt her bare cun(?) - well who hasn't had a dream like that??


This is a lively picture of the times. I could have had more information on the magical work but I learnt a hell of a lot from this densely illustrated and well made book. If you've an interest in the times then buy it. - mogg

Legend of the Witches (Review)

Written and Directed by Malcolm Leigh
Produced by Negus-Fancey
Edited by Judith Smith
Lighting Cameraman: Robert Webb
Border Film Production (London) Ltd
Year: 1969
Featuring: Alex and Maxine Sanders and their beautiful coven.
Format: DVD

‘In the beginning was the Moon, Diana. Her lover was the Dawn, Lucifer - God of Light. They created man, and built the monuments, which tracked their paths across the skies. Now man could predict the movements of the Gods, he sought to control them, through priests and ritual…’

Originally X-rated, this newly released DVD, is a real period piece this, documenting the beliefs and practices of Alex Sanders and the circle of witches, which under his leadership, electrified the popular imagination and attracted many into the Wiccan path.

The film's leisurely pace requires the modern viewer to make some adjustment to their viewing habits. Nevertheless this is a minor masterpiece and really manages to tell one of witchcraft's many 'stories'. We've perhaps become a little too knowing to accept all of the certainties of 1960s Wicca - but nevertheless we can all agree, that this 'warts and all' view, really does capture the spirit of the time. It's a beautiful film, shot I think in 16mm black and white, which lends it a very artistic feel, reminding me most of the experimental films of Maya Deren or indeed UK classics of 'socialist realism' such as 'Night Mail', the 1936 movie by John Grierson, with music by Benjamin Britten.

The documentary begins with lovely sweeping shots of seascapes and ancient, elemental landscapes over which the film's narrator begins his tale of the ancient witch mythology, of the Goddess Diana and her consort Lucifer, the sun. Now whether or not one buys into this spirited mythology, we have strayed into controversy almost immediately. Who amongst the current glut of media witches even dares to mention that name - Lucifer?

Almost half the film explores these ideas, covering issues such the mysteries of earth energy, altered states, the pagan traces that survive in pre-reformation churches, the persecutions and the rebirth of the old religion. It's foundation myth, easy to sneer at, but strangely wonderful just the same.

Seamlessly, the film now deliverers us into the hands of a modern coven. We see them perform a variety of rites. First, an outdoor initiation. The candidate, referred to throughout as Michael, not because that's his real name but presumably because of the ancient folk myth of 'crazy man Michael', Britain's very own 'holy fool'. The priestess repeatedly calls 'Michael' to various encounters with elemental forces, the whole rite done at Alderley Edge in Cheshire, itself a place of power, just a stone's thrown from Lindow Moss, where in Iron Age times, other, darker rites were done by our pagan ancestors.

Now the action moves into the temple, after some exploration of the many cursing exhibits, still to be seen at the Boscastle's Witchcraft Museum, we are prepared for the notion that witches sometimes curse. The coven, prepare such a curse, using the traditional and extremely ancient technique, in which a poppet is given life through the agency of Alex and Maxine's act of sexual magick - fascinating stuff.

We even get to see something seldom alluded to these days - the so-called 'Black Mass.' completed with a very lifelike 'sign of Osiris slain' - . These witches, known these days as Alexandrians, do not see such as mass as any form of inversion of Christian principles. They knew something that we have all perhaps forgotten - there is no impervable barrier between primitive Christianity and classical paganism. It was around this time that Professor Morton Smith wrote his groundbreaking book Jesus the Magician. The 'Black Mass' is only 'black to the blind' - it is in fact a celebration of life in all is bounty.

The film concludes with a nod to the future, when the special powers of the witch will be understood more in terms of the newish science of ESP and indeed the 1960s first forays into the psychedelic, encounter groups and other techniques of obsession and transcendence. Of course some in the new millennial will find this all too embarrassing and bad for business - but what do they know? Who are then the true successors to Alex Sanders and the witches of the 1960s? If they were still here I'd say the Temple ov Psychic Youth would be a likely contender. The film will outrage some but inspire others to take up where they left off after a generation or more of stoney sleep. Buy this and be refreshed. - Mogg Morgan

Ardhanarisvara or Ardhanari - Notes (in construction)

A modern cult of Ardanari draws upon its ancient manifestations but differ in many important respects. For example the historical Kaulas worshipped a Goddess possessed of special abilities including the ability to produce an androgynous elixir or 'goddess semen'. The experts say that Ardanari was viewed as androgynous in a different way and that this does not include the production of male and female seed or both semen and menstrual blood. see (White 2003 : 278)

The modern cult would be more flexible in its mythology - but is still able to draw inspiration from older sources for the idea that the male and female adepts can be the source of a (if not the) androgynous elixir. Inspiration for this could be drawn from the Tantrik kingship rites of Bali and Java - medieval centres of the Ardanari cult:

'An Old Javanese court poem, the Smara'Dahana ("The Burning of Kama"), translated and commented by C. Hooykaas, ends on the following verses:

Such is her loveliness, moving and sweet,
to be compared with mead in a chalice;
together with her as his principal spouse
did Smara come down to earth;
King and Queen as Ardhanaresvan
continuously on the jewel lion-throne;
King Kamesvara in [the] lotus' inner part,
having as sakti the eight goddesses after their arrival.45

This poem is in fact a reference to the Indonesian royal consecration, which was Tantric. Hooykaas explicates this verse on the basis of Balinese Saiva ritual, in which Ardhanaresvan is praised in the following terms:
"Hence a rain of nectar pours down, therefore on all the limbs and junc-
tions, born from the meeting of husband and wife, this is proclaimed to be
the 'real life.'"46

Here, the king and his queen, husband and wife, embody the divine pair Siva and Uma, who together are called amrti'karam, the "making of nectar, holy water." It is at this moment in the ritual, in which nectar or holy water is said to descend from the sky to earth, that the water in the vessel before the priest becomes transformed into holy water.47

This is the central mystery of Balinese Hindu religion. On the one hand, this consecration ritual transforms a man into a king: whereas as a boy, the king may have had an ordinary name like Ayam Vuruk, the Young Cock, following his abhiseka he is given the official name of Kamesvara. On the other hand, it transforms him and his spouse into the central deities of the Tantric mandala, vivifying the world with the nectar of their union:

in the moment of their consecration, the newly consecrated King Kamesvara and his spouse are identified with Siva and Uma bestowing the nectar of their supreme bliss upon humanity.48 The mandala is completed by the array of women that surround the royal couple: the king, together with his spouse, as Ardhanaresvan, are said to be seated in the padma'guhya, the hidden recess of the lotus, where they are surrounded by their eight Saktis, perhaps the king's lesser queens.49 However, as we noted in the previous chapter, the lotus and its heart are, in Tantric parlance, none other than the female sexual organ, and certain Kaula groups represented the Sri Cakra as a yoni surrounded by eight lesser yonis.50' (White 2003 : 135)


Thus we read in
Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit:

'Ardhanarishvara "The Lord Whose Half Is Woman" represents a transgendered being created by the union of the Hindu deities shiva (male) and shakti (female). Ardhanarishvara, above all, speaks to the totality that lies beyond duality. In Chinese Taoism (or Daoism), this concept is symbolized by the coming together of YIN AND yang in the Tao (or Dao). Like the Greek god Hermes, Ardhanarishvara is associated with communication; the intermediate being often serves to mediate between women and men, mortals and deities, and between other entities. For this reason, Ardhanarishvara is said to dwellin the chakra (sacred center of the human body) of the throat. In tantra, this chakra is also sometimes associated with oral intercourse, linking the deity not only to androgyny but also to homoeroticism. In the past, Ardhanarishvara was served by gender variant, cross- (or mixed-) dressing, priests.

Alain Danielou* writes, "The hermaphrodite, the homosexual, and the transvestite have a symbolic value and are considered privileged beings, images of the Ardhanarishvara. In this connection, they play a special part in magical and Tantric rites." To devotees, Ardhanarishvara, like Ganesha - Shiva's non-biological son and a companion of Ardhanarishvara - brings prosperity. In artistic depictions, Ardhanarishvarais typically shown with the left half of his body being female and the right half, male. The female (Shakti, or parvati, or Uma) half is usually garbed in red and often holds a lotus, while the male half (Shiva) wears a tiger skin or an ascetic's cloth around the waist. The skin of the female half is tan, while that of the male half is light blue. His/her gaze is pensive, serene; his/her pose sensuous, inviting. The cult of Ardhanarishvara appears to have reached a pinnacle during the tenth through the twelfth centuries and again in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when he-she became a popular subject in sculpture and painting.

*Danielou, Alain (1907-1994) French musicologist, writer, translator, musician (especially of the vina), dancer, and sportsman known especially for his works on Hindu music, mythology, religion, and mysticism, which include Hindu Polytheism (1964), The Ragas of Northern Indian Music (1968), Shiva and Dionysus (1982), and While the Gods Play (1987). Inspired by a deeply religious mother, at age four he constructed a sanctuary in the woods with images of the Virgin Mary and small crosses. His attraction to the sacred eventually led him to explore other spiritual traditions, particularly Hinduism, and to view eroticism as a bridge to enlightenment. He described his first homosexual experience in beatific terms - he felt suddenly "infused with light." "In that moment of intense pleasure, a god of sensuousness, happiness, and light was revealed to me - that god of love whom mystics [of ancient Greek religion, Sufism, Christianity, and Tantra] write about, the god of Jalal al-Din RUMI and Saadi, of Saint John of the Cross [San Juan de la Cruz] and Saint Theresa of Avila [Santa Teresa de Avila], of Dionysian and Tantric rites."

In the 1930s and 1940s, with his lover Raymond Burnier Danielou immersed himself in Hinduism, visiting, photographing, and writing about many otherwise neglected Hindu temples. In Fools of God (1988), one of his works which depicts the interrelationship of homoeroticism and the sacred, Danielou describes the erotico-spiritual dimension of the lives of certain sadhus(Hindu ascetics). For these, he insists, "the repression ofs ex is out of the question. The path of complete abstinence is considered impossible in the age of strife in which we live... The man who wishes to conquer heaven and earth must cultivate both sexual and mental energies and at length learn to channel the one into the other." While some sadhus have female companions, others, for reasons including the desire to avoid fatherhood, have male companions Danielou confirms that "relations between person same sex are . .. very widely practiced." Observing"this connection between homosexuality and spiritual life, and the sacred view of this kind of relationship, are well known in all religions," "Sex allows the pupil-teacher relationship to achieve fullness in which the flowering of the body leads to ennoblement of the soul."




see also

david white the alchemical body
david white, the kiss of the yogini
Sahajanath's Tantra Sadhana

website: O Grand Bucca, both Dark and Fair, divine androgyne, be in all heartsand on the tip of every tongue. For your time has come again as it does with the beginning of each moment! )http://www.geocities.com/cronnekdhu/Traditional_Cornish_Witchcraft.html

Pagan Theology & Ethics

In construction

Is it possibly to derive ethical views from pagan values?
Assuming we can use the term 'pagan' to capture a specific set of religious practitioners - it's unlikely they would be able to come up with an agreed list of values. Its the nature of paganism to be vague about these things. Even so here are are some possibilities.

pagan values
1. Cause no unneccessary harm
I've a feeling that might be a self-evident truth.
You have to be pretty bloody minded to think the opposite.
Can you think of a counter example?

2. The necessity of polytheism
Some would say monotheism is the only necessity.
But true monotheism is rare.
For example, Christianity is a good example of polytheism masquerading as monotheism. The complexity of nature implies a natural polytheism


3. The plurality of ultimate truth
A great deal of effort has been devoted to the discovery of one 'ultimate truth' or one 'Theory of Everything.' But theories such as Godel's Theorem of incompleteness surely imply this issue will always be unresolved. In which case ultimate reality is always plural - which is expressed in certain pagan mythology such as that the world comes into being from the interaction of a god and a goddess.

4. Tolerance

5. Principle of Honour

6. Compassion


Issues:
Abortion
Conflict

Death and Burial
I take it Caliban's long comment is intended for the issue of 'Death & Burial'. He seems to be saying that the intellectual paganism of the classical period (Greeks and Romans) is responsible for a loss of the richer attitudes to death and the otherworld, traces of which are still discoverable in older cultures. It's an interesting idea and one that is evidenced in the literature. It maybe goes hand in hand with the idea that magicians of the period were such trouble makers that they provoked their own demise. Certainly it can't all be blamed on the Christians - bad as they were - the first laws against magick were enacted by Augustus way before the Christian hegemony.

The high culture of Egyptian had three classes of sentient being-

the ankhw, the akhw and the neterw -

the living, the spirits and the gods.

All that talk of 'spiritualism' is really about the Akhw - the spirits of departed who have some continued existence - sometimes in a way helpful to us sometimes not so. Death customs may be for the benefit of the deceased or serve some other aim - perhaps display or redistribution of wealth. Nothing so far implies an afterlife in some otherworld. The Akhw live amongst us not somewhere else, if they did maybe they would be less troublesome? Some death customs clearly do implie an otherworld - as for instance when someone is buried with a sword presumably to do some fighting on the other side. The death customs I like seek to return the body to the biosphere in respectful but also quick and efficient manner. The departed spirit is reborn or otherwise reintegrated into the living world of those that come after. That to me seems a more pagan way.


Divorce
Drugs - use & abuse
Ecology
Euthanasia
Gambling
Medicine & its limits
Politics
Sexuality
Sexual politics

A dialogue - please leave your feedback

Seidr & Seething - the saga continues

UK's Pentacle magazine issue 19 has a response to the updated chapter of Seidr from the new edition of Jan Fries, Helrunar: a manual of rune magick. An extract from the said chapter was reproduced in the Beltain edition of the same magazine. At the moment the pagan scene is gripped by 'academeitis' - that's when someone attempts to end an awkward argument by invoking some supposed academic authority. I say 'supposed' because those cited are often no more of an authority on the matter than us regular mortals. I've heard it several times now - 'academics say that whatever else seidr might be - it can't posssibly be seething'. Given the supposed impossibility of proving a negative - that seems a rather reckless statement from a supposed cooled headed scholar.

I'm still not quite sure why some people get so hot under the collar about Jan's interpretation of the mysterious seidr practice. Surely there is room for more than one view on what it might have been. Jan attempts through various arguments to link it to the universal phenonemon of the shaking trance. But some heathens will have none of it - pamphlets have been published in the vain attempt to repudiate Jan's view; he is accused of an unspecified eastern influence; speakers have been known to digress from their scripts in order to warn their audience of the dangers of following Jan's lead.

Jan's seething hypothesis is hardly that threatening. Afterall it's not as if Jan isn't also sympathetic to the new American style seidr. He may point out the uncertainty of its theoretical basis but recognises that authors such as Diana Paxson have developed a nice syncretistic divination ritual which works well and to which they have appended the classy, ancient name seidr. All Jan does it point out that this same title is also associated with lots of things they don't like. Perhaps this explains why they loathe his theories and try to argue Nordic literature away?

Jan Fries is very much in favour of people making up new things. Afterall there is no necessity for all good things to be ancient in order to be genuine. I'm sure he would want them to be proud of their new interpretation of seidr which now has an ethical frame it probably lacked in its historic version.

Alan Nash is the latest to enter the fray. The intentions of Alan's letter in Pentacle may have got a bit lost in 'translation' but I suspect his interest is to provoke discussion and see the arguments rehearsed. Alan questions why Jan's appears to deny that that the lady in Erik's Saga was doing seidr. Erik's Saga is one of the prime sources of information on Seidr, and in it there are details of a supposed seidr rite (see Jan Fries Seidways: shaking, swaying and serpent mysteries, for the full text). I'd say that Jan merely asks why, if this really is an account of Seidr, the priestess isn't referred to as a seidkona as one would expect, but is instead almost invariably called a spakona (seeress)?

Alan Nash also questions Jan's apparent characterisation of seidr as 'evil' - now things are really getting serious as that could be seen as an insult to the whole heathen tradition! What Jan says is that historically seidr did have such a reputation in Nordic literature. Like it or not - there is apparently not a single text in Nordic literature that says anything kind about the practice.

Finally - as has been common on this debate - which has rumbled on for a while now - Alan evokes the shade of Edred Thorson, who apparently has strong views on this issue. The great man may have spoken but whether what he says stands up is another matter: "One thing I must vigorously insist on is that the word seidr can in no way beconnected to the English word 'seethe'."(Witchdom Of The True: A Study of The Vana-Troth and the Practice Of Seidr, Runa-Raven Press, 1999).

As any student of logic knows, definition is supposed to explain what a term means, not what it does not mean. Irvin Copi once wrote: "to define the word 'couch' as meaning not a bed and not a chair is to fail miserably to explain the meaning of a word." But to be fair I've not been able to see the article and perhaps it has some stronger arguments. I'm told Edred is an expert on etymology - so presumably he meant to say "Old English word 'seethe' ", occuring as it does in citations before 1100 AD. According to the lexicographers at the Oxford University Press it is in fact an Old Teutonic word - infinative seothan* - with an obsolete form sod.

There is a related word in Gothic sauth* which brings out its ritual connotations - as a sacrifice - which as Jan says in Helrunar - has the literally meaning of 'boiled meat' - the sine qua non for a Nordic sacrifice. The Oxford Lexicographers explain the limits of the OED's remit in their introduction, thus it is true that they do not mention Seidr as one of its cognates. The connection between the two is thus still, AFAIK, an open question. They do however say that seething had certain figurative uses not found in later texts - meanings such as 'to try someone by fire' or 'to afflict with cares'.

I suppose I ask myself does the word seidr survive in any form in the languages of Europe. If it does, then Old English or Modern English Seething, being very similar in sound to Seidr, would be a far from ridiculous suggestion that might yet be proved correct. The connection between Seidr and Sauthr is not something Jan made up. It has been argued before in many academic tomes, including Jakob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie in the 1830s.

But as it happens, Jan's characterisation of Nordic Seidr as 'seething' was probably never really based on linguistics - his arguments are more about the nature of magick and trance activity. The English word he choose turned out to have a fortuitous and evocative history all its own. Seething takes us right back to the appropriate time and to the rich sacrifices that go into the steaming cauldron of magick.

Check it out for yourself. By all means let's debate the issues but let's also stick to the facts rather than spurious appeals to authority.

E&OE - comments welcome

Yvonne comments (probably tongue in cheek) that 'Seidr' might be related to 'Cider'.
Strangely enough if you check that in the OED - it turns out to be a very old loan word from
Old Testament Hebrew - 'Shekar*' meaning 'strong drink' ; )


I may be facilitating a workshop of this style of Seidr/Seething
at London's Beltain Bash, May 2007. A chance to meet other seethers,
talk about problems, exchange ideas and techniques.

Curse of Merlin IV - Magical Journey

I never did find out why it was that Newport's Reference & Lending Library acquired so many magical books. I spent such a lot of my time in that library it was just a matter of time before I read them all. Best of all was Aleister Crowley's masterpiece - Liber ABA - Magick in Theory and Practice. The reference library must have bought a copy almost as soon as it was published in an edition edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant in 1973. It's a lovely book with the most evocative of covers. It was kept in a special cupboard, along with the Kinsey Report and Masters & Johnson. If you wanted to read it, you had to ask and I did ask.

continued at:


http://www.myspace.com/moggmorgan

Evil Sleep - lecture

London Earth Mysteries Circle
7.00pm Tuesdays (2nd & 4th in month)
Diorama Centre
34 Osnaburgh Street
London NW1
Admission: £4.00
(Meetings in Skylight Studio or Work Room at
34 Osnaburgh Street or Cherokee Room on Triton Square). Tubes:
Gt Portand Street, Warren Street & Regents Park.

Check London Earth Mysteries Circle website www.lemc.ic24.net for venue details and Autumn Programme 2006.

Next Meeting:
Nov 14: Pyramids for the future with Bob Harris
Nov 28: Evil Sleep of Egyptian Magick with Mogg Morgan

‘The night was man’s first necessary evil, our oldest and most haunting terror’
A Roger Ekirch (2005) At Day’s Close.
It is widely supposed that the night was always a source of fear, the domain of frightening and threatening entities. Thus Plato wrote:

‘Evil spirits love not the smell of lamps’
It may be well to remind ourselves that the humble lamp, that we take so much for granted, had in the ancient world wider connotations where is was a complex magical instrument with which the huddling masses did battle with the monsters from the Id.

I will discuss some of the Ancient Egyptian responses to the terrors of the night. This will bring us into the realm of ancient psychology and demonology. It will also reveal the domain of private, freeform Egyptian magick and witchcraft. We will touch upon the natural history of the Egyptian vampire. It will cause us to read the most ancient of dream books, and also look at almanacs of lucky and unlucky days. It will also uncover some hardcore 'spellkits' designed to fight evil with ‘evil’.

'I may be wrong' is not a phrase one ever associates with Richard Dawkins

From Giles Frazer, 'Doubters do it from the pulpit' in The Independent on Sunday, 26.11.06

CATHARSIS - POETRY AND HEALING (draft)

Mogg Morgan (c)

The literary vocabulary is peppered with metaphors of food and eating. We talk of 'good taste', 'to savour something' or of 'food for thought'. In this article I hope to show that this use of language is not accidental and in fact leads us to the heart of poetry. The contention that the mental feelings of enjoyment are indebted to bodily or physiological feelings may be difficult for some people to accept. We are inclined to draw a strict dividing line between mind and body; but this has not always been so, nor need it be in the future.

Aristotle in his Poetics speaks of 'Catharsis' which is also a medical term meaning cleansing or purging; a crucial component of the medical practice of his time. Aristotle was a physician as well as a philosopher and in the system of healing he practiced, which was based upon the Humours, Catharsis would have brought the sick person back to a state of psycho-somatic equipoise or isonomia

The similarities between Greek ideas and those of ancient Indian aesthetics are so striking that it is highly probably that they derive from a common source.
The oldest system of Indian medicine is called Ayurvedic, which is a compound of two words, 'ayur' meaning longevity and 'veda' meaning knowledge [anglicised spelling]. The main textual sources of Ayurveda go back to about the beginning of the present era. Many of its ideas are much older and derive from a very creative period in Indian culture at around the sixth century BCE. Ayurveda views the world rather like a vast organism, in which all the parts are interconnected. The essence of this organism is a constantly changing liquid called 'rasa', and so one analyses all its various parts by the sense of taste, which in Sanskrit is the same word - 'rasa'. This homonym has a number of interesting and related meanings, including sap, liquid, essence, elixir, serum, chyle, mercury, semen, taste, feeling, and sentiment. Therefore the sense of taste is the connecting link between an individual and the larger whole; an idea that has very wide implications in art and culture. In this system there are said to be six varieties of taste:
Sweet, Sour, Saline, Pungent, Bitter and Astringent.

According to the Ayurvedic system what one eats, and therefore tastes is also the cause both of health and illness.(1) This is because all foods are broken down in the stomach into a pure liquid food chyle (rasa), and its waste products. In this process three humours are also produced, in Sanskrit they are called Vata, Pitta and Kapha, and they are sometimes translated as Wind, Bile and Phlegm. The term 'humour' is a translation of the Sanskrit word 'dosha' which means 'to spoil. These substances are essential constituents of the human body, but if they are produced in too great a quantity or in the wrong part of the body they are the fundamental cause of all diseases that afflict humanity. Thus one form of Bile keeps the skin in a good tone, but if there is too much of it leads to swelling.

The Ayurvedic system tells us that there is a dynamic relationship between the three humours and the six tastes. For example:

Bile, which is oily, hot, sharp, liquid, sour, fluid and pungent is soon overcome by medicine having opposite qualities.

Wind, which is rough, cool light, subtle, mobile, non-slimy and coarse, is reconciled by medicines having opposite qualities.

Phlegm, which is heavy, cool, soft, oily, sweet, immobile and slimy is relieved by medicine of opposite quality.(2)

The relationship between tastes and humours is complex but can be represented in a very simplified form by the following diagram: (add diagram)

Equipoise is achieved by manipulation of these relationship through the food that one eats, so that a person is restored to or maintained in good health by an appropriate diet.

How all these factors effect the Mind gives us the link between medicine and poetry. The Indian intellectual tradition makes a division between consciousness and the body which is quite alien to that of the Western tradition. The Indian tradition divides all phenomena into two broad categories of spirit and matter. On one side is purusha, the transcendental aspect of ones personality, and on the other is ranged all our physical attributes, which in this system includes the Mind (manas), the Intellect (Buddhi) and the Senses (indriya). Thus ones mental sensitivities, although they are constructed from a finer material than the more gross aspects of the body, are still essentially part of the same model of causes and effects outlined above. The Mind has its food just like any other part of the body. Thus insanity (unmaada) means literally intoxication. Mental equipoise is achieved by reference to an allopathic model of mental tastes designed to counteract a particular temper.

The aim of Sanskrit poetry is to create a state of bliss in the hearer, an "impersonalized and ineffable aesthetic enjoyment from which every trace of its components..material is obliterated."(3). Aesthetic enjoyment is both a means of achieving perfect mental balance and ultimate salvation. This transcendental aspect of poetry is something lost in the present day, but would have been taken for granted by our ancestors. Plato spoke of the power of art to bring about spiritual liberation, and this tradition flows strong in the history of Celtic Bardic traditions. A good poem is often still recognized by the mysterious frisson it brings about.

Sanskrit poetry has several different moods designed to provoke particular emotions. "Mood" is another possible translation of the Sanskrit "rasa", literally the taste or flavour of something. This is more than an accidental homonym. The fact that the same word occurs in medical and poetic texts has to mean that there is a fundamental unity of outlook.(4). There are eight or sometimes ten moods in Indian poetics: Love, Courage, Loathing. Anger, Mirth, Terror, Pity and Surprise and optionally tranquility and paternal fondness .

Interestingly Yeats used the term "Mood" in a short piece on the purpose of poetry published in Ideas Of Good & Evil, page ?? this volume.
Perhaps the most widely used Mood is the erotic one, as it is a remarkable feature of Indian culture that the spiritual truths are most often conveyed by erotic images. Thus the story of Krisna's dance with the Cowherd's wives conceals an essential spiritual message. Each girl dances with Krisna and feels that she is unique. This symbolizes the mystery of the communion of the multiplicity of all human souls with the undivided Absolute. This theme is the subject of one of Indian most treasured poems, Jayadeva's Gitagovinda or "Love Song of the Dark Lord". which should be sung with Raga Vasanta or Spring Mode

Soft sandal mountain winds caress quivering vines of clove.
Forest huts hum with droning bees and crying cuckoos
When spring's mood is rich, Hari roams here
To dance with young women friend--
A cruel time for deserted lovers.(5)

Indian poetry is created within a totally integrated philosophy of the human psyche and body. Our aesthetic sense, literally our sense of taste, connects us to the wider universe of which we are only a small part. Perhaps here lies the mysterious secret of poetry. Its ability to lift us up out of ourselves, at the same time purifying and healing our alienated nature. The basis of which Indian poetical works may strike some as too literal an interpretation of the facts. However these ideas completely permeate the art of the sub-continent and have generated some of the most sublime artistic creations of any culture.

Mogg Morgan

1 Agnivesha's Caraka Samhita translated in English by R K Sharma and Vaidya B Dash (Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, Varanasi 1976) I.xxv.29
2 ibid I.i.59-61.
3 S K De History of Sanskrit Poetics (Calcutta 1960) page 37
4 R K Sen Aesthetic Enjoyment and Its Background in Philosophy and Medicine. (Calcutta 1966)
5 Jayadeva's Gitagovinda - Love Song of the Dark Lord Edited and translated by Barbara Stoler Miller (Columbia University press 1977)

Further reading


Medicine of the Gods:
Basic principles of Ayurvedic Medicine
by Chris Morgan
(If you would like to read a short essay explaining some of the principles of Ayurveda, click here)
ISBN 1869928377, 120pp. £9.99/$14.99
Order this book

Ayurveda is an Asian medical system which has its beginnings in the sixth century BCE and thrives even to the present-day. There was once a celebrated doctor called Caraka who lived in the second century of our era. He was one of the greatest physicians that has ever lived. He recorded the fact that the gods themselves were perplexed by the continued existence of disease, which was a hindrance to humanity's progress to enlightenment. These same gods, he says, therefore prepared the way for Ayurveda, which literally means the 'science of longevity' to be taught to the human race. Thus the title of this book is Medicine of the Gods.


Medicine of the Gods is the first of a series that aims to introduce the physical and metaphysical concepts of Ayurveda to a non-specialist audience. Medical ideas underpin a great deal of Eastern thought especially Tantrism, alchemy, yoga and the science of love. The book is not intended as a series of health tips or as a textbook for the clinical practice of medicine, which in the Ayurveda tradition requires at least seven years intensive training. The book is aimed at students and lovers of South Asian culture, perhaps also anthropologists and others with a need for a straightforward introduction to the core principles of another scientific tradition.

Praise for first edition:
'The author's main purpose, introducing ancient Indian medical theory in a relatively trustworthy manner to the interested general reader in easy language, while at the same time being intellectually challenging, is served well by this book.' Rahul Peter Das in Traditional South Asian Medicine Vol 6 2001

This book contains virtually everything you could want to know about the Hindu system of Ayurvedic medicine, which began on or about the sixth century BCE and is still thriving today. The history, correspondences or "humours', and other intriguing aspects of this intricate system are described in easy-to-understand language for those unfamiliar with Ayurveda. There is also a catalogue of ailments and how Ayurveda views each of them, and illness in general. I found this fascinating reading, both as a western herbal practitioner, and as a reader fascinated by how other cultures view the world and what goes wrong within it. Highly recommended!
Reviewed by Cerridwen Connelly in The Pentacle

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Persian 'Mar Nameh': The Zoroastrian Book of the Snake (review)

The Persian 'Mar Nameh': The Zoroastrian Book of the Snake, Omen and Calendar and the Old Iranian Calendar, essays by Payam Nabarz and S H Taqizadeh. ISBN 1905524-250, 128pp, £12
This is Payam Nabarz's follow-up to very well received Mysteries of Mithras. As one might expect he is extending further some of the cultic material available to initiates involved with that mythos. In this case he presents a short omen text from the Zoroastrian tradition.

Essentially this is a reprint of an 'Old' Iranian omen text in 30 verses with an accompanying short modern commentary plus the author's own rendering of the text. This rendering is rather misleadingly referred to as a 'transliteration', which might indeed have been useful too. The second part is a reprint of Seyyed Taqizadeh's 1937 essay on Persian calendar studies. This essay is obviously very erudite but likely to be mainly of interest to fellow researchers in calendar studies, although doubtless there have been other more modern studies in the sixty odd years since its composition? This is certainly the case with some of the Egyptian comparative material - Egyptian calendrics has experienced a continual renaissance over the last fifty years. Even so it presents quite a lot of highly informative material on the topic although it is at times impossibly heavy going for the non-specialist such as myself. The whole could have done with some sort of glossary or editing to provide the reader with a way through the jungle of unfamiliar terminology which obviously would only make sense to Persian readers.

The subject is complex because Persia, like so many countries in the region, has had many different calendar systems over the thousands of years of its existence. For example, Professor Taqizadeh tells us: 'the theory of the Persian New Years' Day originally falling on the Vernal Equinox is not supported by any convincing proof' (p52). In other words prior to the rise of Zoroastrianism in the sixth century BC, the original Persian New Year, may well have fallen on the summer solstice and not as is nowadays the case, on the spring equinox! Professor Taqizadeh was a prominent Iranian politician, responsible, so we are told, for many modern calendar reforms. He moved modern Iran away from the Arab based lunar calendar to a solar based system based firmly on Zoroastrian principles. Which made me wonder how very different the current situation might have been, if the learned professor had instead reconnected with the far older lunar-solar tradition of his land before the coming of Zoroaster!

Turning then to the 'Mar Nameh: the book of the Snake'. The observation of omens of one kind or another is an ubiquitous feature of the culture of the Ancient Near East. This particular omen text gives a Zoroastrian spin to what is a very ancient tradition. We are told this is a relatively modern exemplar, first translated into English in the nineteenth century and presumable composed a few centuries before that? The core of this edition is a metrical rendering, based on that first translation: For example:

1. If you see a snake on the day of Hormozd
Your honour, property and pay will increase'

The useful commentary tells us that Hormozd, is the lord of wisdom, (Ahura Mazda), the Zoroastrian name for God. It is also the name of various kings of the Parthian and Sassanian dynasties. The Zoroastrian calendar reprised an older tradition that linked particular gods with particular days (originally) of the lunar month, and indeed different quarters of the moon. These days were mapped onto a fixed year and the older lunar mysteries largely submerged and forgotten. On the whole I found Payam's book a useful stimulus to debate. There is also something for those non specialists in need of a short guide with which to interpret interesting dreams or alarming physical phenomena. - [Mogg]

Hindus and Neo-Paganism

Hindus and Neo-Paganism

Interesting piece but one has to bear
in mind that what he called 'sanatana dharma' or 'old time religion' is
really a construction of the nineteenth century when hindus were
striving to present a sanitized version of hinduism to their colonial
masters. Many commentators - including this one - are far from disinterested
academics but have a definite axe to grind. So for instance where he
says:

'From an orthodox Hindu viewpoint, most neo-Pagan groups would have a
status similar to the tribals of forested Central India. Though the
tribals are recognized as Indian fellow Pagans, Hindus by Savarkar's
definition, they are nonetheless commonly perceived as savages because
of their disregard for certain taboos and because of their not so
strict morality (as in the common youth dormitories where sexual
experimentation is encouraged). The city jungles of the West have
somehow spawned a lifestyle similar to that of the tiger infested and
snake haunted jungles of India.'

infact what he calls the tribals are closer to the religious diversity
of the indian subcontinent - where for instance the eating of meat is
definately Vedic or 'pukka' - and is still used in Ayurvedic medicine.
To get behind the propaganda you have to read something like David
White's Kiss of the Yogini and indeed tantrik material - but even
here you have a different set of prejudices with which to deal.

om ganeshaya namah


mogg

The Curse of Merlin III - Identity what Identity?

There's nothing quite like a trip to North Wales to make you think about who you are. Am I getting out of touch with my homeland? I was born in Pill (Pillgwenlly), still Newport's most deprived (and depraved) borough. It's a long time since I left Wales to become a 'quizling'. We used to called the Welsh speakers the viet-taff (or is it Taffi-ban?) - so the tension between the different regions of Wales is still as strong now as it was then.

Wales' south-eastern industrial population may not have all the trappings of other regions but is it any less the Welsh for that - I don't think so? We refuse to learn Welsh because we don't want to lose our welsh identity - English is our mother tongue - English is a language of Wales - is it not?

Then there is the question of Nationalism. During my teenage years I was an paid up member of the ultra-left - it goes with the territory afterall. I think it was Kate Roberts who wrote that Wales is under the 'triple net' - language, religion and politics. So for me politics has always been a stronger force than the others - which is hardly surprisingly given my roots.

Whatever the problems that beset the people of Wales, are they really deep down about nationality? I think lifestyle and social class are as valid a candidate for the core or base of society - from which so many structures and problems grow. Isn't it always the way of the demigog to play the nationalist card on any and every issue?

Back in Newport in the 1970s I was a young radical - not even out of school and bunking off to be on the picket-line with striking building workers. It brought me into contact with Irish labourers, amongst whom were fugitives from Ireland's 'troubles'. Into this melting pot - welsh nationalists were drawn. It was a bit of a dilemma for the neo-marxists, who had but recently inherited the mantle of the moribund communist party of Wales.

'Rebel in the soul'
How did it all start this political thing? Being a rebel was the only way to survive at school after age eleven. Either that or a victim be. Casting my mind back to my first overt act of political rebellion - it was always intimately connected with the whole nationalist thing - but never straight forwardly so. It was the tour of the Springbok rugby team - a racially segregated side from South Africa and therefore very controversial. I lived a stone's throw from the rugby ground - but had no natural affinity for the players - I was too much of a wimp for that. The newly formed anti-apartheid thing was in the news but was hardly expected at a redneck place like Newport. There was to be a picket of the match - I can't remember from whom I learnt it - but it seemed like such a good idea. I'm not sure i really understood the issues but the idea of standing outside the ground with placards sounded perfect to me. It was my first meeting with my own kind. I remember being particularly shocked then impressed by the presence there of the school Religious Studies teacher - I forget her name. I guess she had me marked down as just another oik but that day she made a point of saying hello.

But whoa - did it cause a row at home. I never did manage to get my placard out of the house. It can't have been too long after that my older brother Roy, who had actually joined the Communist Party, was asked to leave. I was grounded. Why such a strong reaction, my father had afterall been brought up in Moscow - the Maesglas suburb of Newport that had consistently elected communist town councillors? Maybe that was it - familiarity breeds contempt? Stories of the 1926 General Strike still did the rounds of Maesglas - lots of railwaymen lived there. When my grandfather - a former stoker - cold-shouldered someone in the street - my father asked why - 'because', came the reply, 'he went over the wall during the strike. Such was the bitterness following the defeat of the strike that nobody spoke to that man again - nobody went to his funeral. Politics was a serious business - the kind of thing that could ruin your whole life if you weren't discerning. And in the 1960s, apart from the occasional Labour interlude, most people were happy with the conservative consensus. The communists were seen as a moribund fifth column.

I asked my economics teacher what he thought of the communist newspaper the Morning Star. He told me it was the worst of the gutter press. I never could bring myself to read a copy afterthat even though I guessed that was not a balanced view - but it maybe gives an idea of the zeitgeist. The communist party was a spent force, a pale reflection of its glory days. A new ghost was haunting Europe - Leon Trotsky. Legend has it that my brother went to one of those monster Anti-Vietnam war demos in London - maybe he was even there on that fateful day outside the American embassy in Grosvenor Square. There was a splendid riot. He met one of the new trotskities called Pat Jordan and invited him to come speak to the communists of Newport. After the meeting the whole branch upped and joined a little organisation, headed by the likes of Tariq Ali and Jonathan Guinness which went by the soubriquet of the International Marxist Group. I being still a minor was earmarked for its youth section - the Sparticus League. My first ever political outing, was to London for the unification conference of both organisations.

The Curse of Merlin (Part II)

I like to walk. I always liked that, usually alone, sometimes with a friend. One of my favourite places when I was a teenager was Belview Park. It must once have been a part of the estate of the ruined house of Tredegar or is it Morgan. Tredegar park, passed into the ownership of the local council many years ago when the last scion of the Tredegar family died childless. They were an interesting bunch, gone mad over the years, more genteel than their merchantile origins would justify. They had names like 'Octavius Morgan the antiquarian', but that's another story. I'm still in Belview park, another of their bequests to Newport. It seems so much smaller now but so much has happened. Last year my mother gasped her last agonising breath in a hospital ward overlooking that same park, overlooking the very spot where i sat so many years before, locked in and wondered how to get out.

The entrance to the park passes through wrought iron ornamental gates, painted green and emblazoned now with Casnewedd's grand crest - the one that has my face. The vegetation is so luxuriant, almost tropical, covering the sides of the steep valley through which gushes a vigorous stream. I love the fenced walkways that snake the way over bridges until I am deposited just below the huge Victorian plant house, tea rooms and toilet. I love the view across the docklands to the Peterstone flatlands beyond. But when you look down, over the balustrade, into the seedy bushes, the sight is often not so good.

Time to move on, to the west end of the park. The feeling I had that first time I found the megalithic stone circle, right there in the park. The beautiful, hungry stones of local old red sandstone, blackened by the Casnewedd air, encrusted with lichen and moss. The secluded grove of ancient oaks lent it a synister feel that spoke of sabbatic rites to a god unknown. At its centre a single step led to a stone platform of appearance. Was this a place of sacrifice? The atmosphere darkens, the picnickers in the nearby meadow fade from view. Once I sat and quite spontaneously began to meditate - although back then I did not know that's what I was doing. A shiver ran through me anyway. Was this a magical place?

It was a while before I told anyone about my secret place. When I did I learnt that although it looked old it had been put there in the early part of the twentieth century as part of the celebrations for the eistedfod! The circle was 'false' but also real? But there again was it really false? Now Paul tells me all these 'bardic' circles are modelled on one very special instance from Boscawen in West Cornwall. I've still never quite been there. How can you not quite be anywhere? That's very Welsh isn't it? Simple - I got to within a few yards but had to turn back. Paul tells me Boscawen is the most perfect example of all the megalithic circles - that's why it was chosen as a form. I have a photograph of that day in 1910 when the vast crowd, now all ghosts, but then dressed in their sunday best, as they swirl around their priests. So maybe afterall I really did get a message from the past, that day in Belview park amongst the wind lashed trees?

Earth 'Marmas'

From Talking Stick discussion of Earth Mysteries:

The discussion initially ranged around the twin poles of 'places of power' and 'ley lines' - whether or not they existed. These two phenomena are often linked with certain types of bodily 'energy' such as chakras and nadis - thus it provides a neat example of the occult doctrine of 'as above, so below' - the body as microcosm of a worldly meso- or macrocosm. The erotic and otherworldy quality of landscapes was discussed, leading to ideas about how to harnness this power, or interact with it as in some more recent ideas of eco-sexuality. Most agreed that the 'earth' was the source of much power in magick and this was one of the central mysteries in question. Another interesting new concept (for me) was that of places of negative power - to use a sanskrit term - 'earth marmas'.
example:
(?) in Israel
Hell Fire caves

reading:
Phillip Heselton Earth Mysteries
Mogg Morgan: 'The Erotic Landscape Revisited' in Tankhem: Seth and Egptian Magick

The Green Man and the Dragon (review)

By Paul Broadhurst, isbn 0951323679, £12.95, illustrated (some in colour)

George, in origin a Greek name meaning 'farmer' or 'tiller of the soil',. St George was a Roman military tribune martyred at Nicomedia in 303. The dragon-killing legends were attached to his name later. His cult was brought to England from the East by returning Crusaders; he was said to come to their help under the walls of Antioch in 1089 and was then chosen as their patron by the Normans under Robert of Normandy, son of the Conqueror. There are 126 churches dedicated to him in England. But George as a christian name was slow in taking root. The earliest example noted is one George Grim at the end of the 12th century and there are occasional occurences in records of the 13th and early 14th c. Edward III had a particular devotion to St George and in 1349, on St Georges Day, founded the Order of the Garter, which he placed under his patronage and dedicated to him the chapel of the order at Windsor. From this time he was regarded as the patron saint of England.'

The above is the subject matter of Paul Broadhurst's solid tome, although taken from The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names (ed E G Withycombe), not quoted in Broadhurst's bibliograpy unlike many a lesser source.

Of course when you examine the early part of the myth - the trail soon runs cold and one is left with the unsatifactory conclusion that there must have been more than one 'holy Geo' - or is he some sort of god in disguise? The saint in roman armour is precisely the form than late images of the god Horus take on in Roman Egypt. This last fact has led many to suppose that the glyph of St George and the Dragon, is a cypher for the Contending of Horus & Seth, a theme explored in one of the many chapters in Broadhurst's book.

After his migration to England, St George is soon embroiled in the spirit of Beltain, into whose season his feastday on 23rd April falls. I wasn't sure how to take some of the more technical arguments in this book, especially those around calendar reform. One often does hear grumblings about the use of modern (Gregorian) dates, but to me the previous dates derived from the Julian calendar seem just as arbritrary and divorced from any natural cycle? In parts the narrative could be a little clearer and I personally could do without some of the more wacky linguistic arguments (shades of Kenneth Grant here). For example is the name really the trisyllable 'Ge - Or - Ge'. 'Or' cannot be the root of the name Horus - whose name is spelt 'HR' in Middle Egyptian. Egyptian vowels are largely a mystery - the 'O' just a publishers convention with no historical significance. But these and other quibles aside - this book presents all the pertinent facts in a stimulating manner and is a welcome addition to the literature on the topic. [Mogg].