There was a great magical working that took place in Chicago early in October ‘05. It was specifically done for the benefit of north america and also for the benefit of the naths of america. It was a cleansing of north american magical space. I cannot speak for the others involved. They may decide to write from their own viewpoints someday.

The origins of this working sprang from the heart of the magician at the center of the working. His joyous mystical vision inspired all that was to follow.

“I’ve passed through these mystical states off and on my entire
meditation career, these waves of unbearably good news when the hope
and joy and reality of the future just pours off me and all I can see
of human life and human history is suffering annhilated by love and
wisdom.

Wherever you are, this blessing is carried to you, not from me, even
from us, but from Lalita, the Goddess herself who is beginning to show
her face around here, and the radiance of her smile blinds us to all
pain. Om”

After this vision he stated his intent. It was focussed and personal and aggressively attacked a corrupting and alien occult formulation which was in opposition to the kulas aims and human welfare. This intent could be understood by others on many levels starting with the intimate psychological need to confront the source of dark childhood fears. These fears are a response to the actual abusive, brutal and terrifying forces and events that shape many children into adult members of society. The terrors of childhood, though forgotten and dismissed, easily provide the powerful energy needed for magic work. Suppressed sensations of terror are easily extended into the mythological world, where we combat alien demons and the dark spirits of our imagination. At the same time these demons and spirits are as real and as manifest as anything else in the material world. The intent is to make room for life and growth and the enjoyment of happiness and fearlessness in the world of here and now.

This message of intent was sent out to nath internet community sites. I responded with delight and excitement mixed with fear. I felt such pleasure from the truthful words of a heart in mystic communion with itself and the group. My personal response was to build a protective circle around the magicians who would do the actual work. The forces they must encounter were known to be dangerous and powerful. The potential for ‘blowback’ was great. My own fears were drawn in the very forms they were about to engage in battle.

I saw potential for re-uniting some of the fractured elements of the nath community. I called on those with whom I had previously done magical work to join me in forming a protective shield around our magicians. Rather than feeling disheartened by the at best petty and at worst zero responses from these naths, I decided that the work being done by the Chicago mages would clear the way for american naths to function as a continental kula of magicians. The ‘immune system’ of american culture had certainly left me unable to work for a long time. It was only when the magician at the center of this working magically removed the thick shell which was suffocating me, that I understood something about this ‘immune system’. We do need to earn our right to operate here. We are culturally dissonant with the commonly held beliefs and values of america. We are something new! And we’re not welcome yet.

One exception to the general disdain and torpor of the american naths was our Kula mom, the Firecat of Boston. She understands her role as kula mother. Her love overcame inertia and she threw her energy into our working. The encompassing love of the kula mother is the beginning of real Tantra. The kula mother is the one who puts her shoulder to the wheel of Tantric interaction and begins the process of acknowledgment and mirroring that lights the fire of inspiration that could burn so brightly in our clan hearts and our clan homes.

The entire working was internet based. I realized that there would be no great continental cone of energy raised by american magicians so I decided to try “The Fiction Suit”. In “The Invisibles” by Grant Morrison, Raggedy Robin, isolated in a kind of space suit in the future, writes the storyline that is being enacted by the cast of her friends. It is a barely developed idea but it has captured the attention of many young magicians and this old one too. I only dimly grasp the meaning and procedure of this idea and what follows is definitely flying by nightlight. I began to script the protective circle idea. I wrote the same storyline four different ways. I hoped to be understood on at least one level, speaking to the heart, the mind, the body and at least to a sense of humour. I used the language of battle as it seemed the most dramatic and suitable to the job. Respectfully I suggested that naths view with their own magical mystical methods to see if my vision had any reality for them.

I quickly entered into one of my own magical personae, Bujungi, and the world began to shift as I fed myself a diet of my own fictional efforts. My totem animals began to gather and I took them for long night walks down dark country roads and into the bush. I read a description of our personified targets and the weapons and tools they are known to use. I befriended the insects and animals that are usually theirs, working metaphorically and in absolutely literal ways too. I made deals with spiders and horses. Butterflies, frogs, hawks, wolves and a bear joined into the magic whirlwind which I was creating. (I am writing from a remote and wild part of Canada’s north. All these animals are part of my life here.)

An experienced nath from the antipodes joined us. The sight of an ally on such a lonely field of action was beautiful. The mantras were proclaimed and posted to the net. The Mantra of the Nine Naths was used because from the beginning I had felt these mythical and very real Beings were the inspiration and the heart of this Work. I had brought this mantra from India. We would then use Mahendranath’s mantra. This powerful and ancient formula came from the war god Virabhadra and had been given by him to Krishna as an aid to perform an impossible feat. The sigil was posted by the magician in Chicago. It had been drawn in such a way that it continually shifted from 2 to 3 dimensions and therefore fascinated the eye and was appropriate to the Work. More than 50 pages of internet postings flew out in 3 days. Coordination between magician and protective circle was terse but forcefully furthered the magic. The date was set for the 7th and 8th of October. On the 6th I built a fire and began chanting the mantras, visualizing the sigil and above all visualising the circle of protection.

The circle, to my tremendously affected sight was a beautiful vision. Astral beings and the astral body of the occasional embodied one began to gather in the gloom. Big cats and wolves patrolled the perimeter. These manifested as self-motivated, fully conscious, delighted and amused beings. Friends from among the dead began to appear. Our pilgrim workings on Bear Butte now brought native american friends into the circle. The antipodean mage appeared as many fierce and beautiful warriors, tattooed, drumming and wonderfully dressed for battle. Our local Rimpoche suddenly appeared with his famous shotgun, much stronger in the astral than in his ailing body at home. My recently deceased but oh so feisty 92 year old aunt appeared in all her 80 lb. fightin’ glory.

I began to receive internal voice messages at a furious rate. Fire, incense, offerings, mantras, devotion, emotion, ash and smoke added to my intense inner experience. A need to accommodate Buddhists, Sufis and various styles and belief systems arose.The cone of energy abruptly rose above our huge and motley circle. The great energetically charged and lightning filled creation of our combined effort began to function and poured light energy and protection down on the mages in the center.

Suddenly a memory of a story I had read long ago surfaced. These dark forces enter the internet and operate from there. The story will permit them this escape route, as they can use their own fiction suit material. I sent out a warning to the Firecat and Chicago. “Don’t let them escape into the Web!!” G-mail flickered and went down for a moment, but came on again almost instantly. I saw the dark forces leaving the planet in a broad beam of grey, like a reversed rainstorm in the distance. I saw the sigil must be placed in the sky as a warning against their return to Earth.

Exhausted, I broke my vigil and made a cup of tea. It dawned on me that it was already over. The actual magical work lasted no more than an hour. I emailed the magician. Yes, as I had perceived at that great distance, the working was almost instantaneously successful. Once such fearsome beings, they had grown fat and lazy from years of easy pickings among the corrupt and easily lead.

That night at midnight I checked the crossroads. I stood alone in the lonely windy darkness, vulnerable and a little afraid. Nothing. All was clear. I shot the sigil into the sky one more time and warned the invaders to never return. I went home to bed. America had changed. Would the naths benefit?

PART TWO

This short description is written entirely from within the world view of magic reality. To an outsider the belief that my ‘hallucinations’ and internal dialogue have an external validity and an effect outside of my own mind appears to be nonsense, insanity or at best an example of pre-scientific, primitive thought.

Our magical tools are usually taken from a pre-scientific age. When modern science was born it was suckled on the debunking of our most basic human beliefs. This was liberating to the vast majority as we took back the night from the relentless fear of lurking supernatural evil and the dangerous otherworldly humans that haunted our lives with their curses and traffic with dark spirits. Simple disbelief in anything that was not material and measurable and malleable to our needs was the remedy to aeons of terror. Disbelief has liberated us from the coercive power of the churches that promise punishment of hell and reward of heaven. Why would we ever return to such darkness?

Much like the domestication of animals loses them their freedom while earning them a steady food supply and a measure of safety, science has been a double edged sword for us.

Freedom is our first reason for approaching magic again. Magic is individual, lacks rules or form and permits the poorest and lowliest among us to effect change without tools or permissions or specialized knowledge. At this point it has no context within our culture and as outsider activity it is unbounded by the usual conventions. We all dream of a life where we can do exactly as we see fit, a life that reflects our inner vision and our personal reasons for incarnating on planet earth.
A carefully de-conditioned mind and powerful magical intent can deliver us this life. Do as thou wilt, as free as the sky. This is the life of the Avadhoot.

When we work as a group we become the kula, the clan, the tribe. This must be a tantric undertaking as nothing else forges the true links between and among us. Tantra on this level is very much acknowledging another and then others. This is too simple to be easy. After acknowledgment comes mirroring (I need a better word!). This is how we work together without coercion, bosses, single aims, or self-sacrifice to the group will. This is also too simple to be easy. It is at the very core and heart of tantra. [No good love and sex without it!]

As a kula we create our own world, our own magical consensus reality. I mean this as literally as aboriginal ‘dreamtime’ as what the yaquis and the egyptians and everybody else has built for themselves. We could actually carve out an astral world, another reality in another space outside of time and other earthbound limitations. From this shared secret place, created by repeated acts of imagination and creative intent, we can wander and create in the outer reaches of the imagination, the only frontier that is never fully explored. We could practice on the internet.

The rational scientific mind that finds this a toxic brew of lunacy and delusion is now out of date. The maxim “As above, So below” permits me to co-opt sub-atomic science as my own psychological reality. Probability theory becomes the royal road to magic. Science and magic only parted ways for a short time and now we are becoming reacquainted. Religion and fundamentalism are our true opposition because they forbid free exploration of own consciousness and our own imagination.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 14th, 2005 at 12:01 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.