Othila

American mythology praises the "self-made man" and loathes any hint that we might not be able to rise above our station and create our own destiny. But as they often say in African Diaspora circles, "the knife cannot carve its own handle." For better or worse, we carry our heritage in blood and sinew. We may add to our birthright or we may despoil it but we must engage with it. 

Othila is commonly associated with inherited wealth and ancestral land. And while it certainly represents those things, it also stands for something deeper. Othila's mysteries touch upon not only what we have but who we are and why we are here.

There is a great weight and solidity to Othila: it is as immovable and unchangeable as the past. It may be seen as a massive block keeping us from where we wish to be: think Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life, kept in Bedford Falls by family obligations despite his desire to see the world. Birthrights carry birth responsibilities and birth limitations: our genes carry our strengths and our weaknesses.  My nearsightedness precludes me from a career as an Air Force pilot: my height shuts me out of a career as a basketball player or a jockey and my manual dexterity means being a ballet dancer or pickpocket is right out.  If Othila is the boundary that marks what you have, it is also the wall that separates you from that which you do not possess.

But there is another lesson here as well.  In her Mystical Qabalah Dion Fortune said of Binah, the Sephirah of Form

Chokmah is pure force, even as the expansion of petrol as it explodes in the combustion-chamber of an engine is pure force. But just as this expansive force would expand and be lost if there were no engine to transmit its power) so the undirected energy of Chokmah would radiate into space and be lost if there were nothing to receive its impulse and utilise it. Chokmah explodes like petrol; Binah is the combustion-chamber

Othila is that form which directs your power. Its constraints allow you to reach your goal: what you see as weaknesses may be as important as your strengths. That does not mean that you should wallow in your flaws, or assume that because there are three generations of alcoholics in your family you might as well go for four.  Othila is not only about ancestors but also descendants. It reminds you that you are part of an ongoing process. Your birthright is your position and your inheritance: it is your task to build upon it and pass it down to the next generation.

I should note here that Othila is not only about blood ancestry, but also community. Like Mannaz, it reminds us that we are defined not only by our accomplishments but also by our peers. It teaches us to choose carefully the people with whom we share our hearth and friendship.  It reminds us that we will be judged by our associations and should choose them wisely and carefully. Othila knows, as Robert Frost knew, that good fences make good neighbors.

Poppies and Neolithic Shamanism

This is from my forthcoming manuscript, Papaver sominiferum: the Most Dangerous Ally. It's an exploration of the earliest usages of opium poppies - which, if the evidence is to be believed, was very early indeed. Hope you enjoy!

- k

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Approximately 7,500 years ago agricultural communities began to develop along the basin of the Danube River. Within less than 200 years they had spread to Belgium and northern France in the west and Ukraine in the east. Where their ancestors had foraged and hunted for a living, these people (called linearbandkeramik or LBK culture for their distinctive pottery) worked the land for their food. They took cues – and seeds – from the Near East, where farming had been taking place for millennia. Among the charred remains of their fires archaeologists have found traces of emmer and einkorn wheat, linseed (flax), lentils and peas, crops which originated in modern-day Turkey, Syria, Israel and Iran.[1]  But amidst all those eastern seeds there was one other non-native plant that came not from the east but from the southwest – Papaver somniferum, otherwise known as the opium poppy.

Today most modern-day botanists believe P. somniferum descends from Papaver setigerum, a wild poppy growing in the western Mediterranean. P. setigerum is found in Italy, northern Africa, eastern Spain, the Mediterranean coast of France, and the Canary Islands. P. setigerum is slightly smaller than P. somniferum: its leaves are thinner, with long jagged teeth tipped with a bristle that is not found on P. somniferum leaves: they also lack P. somniferum's waxy coating. Like its domesticated cousin, P. setigerum contains morphine alkaloids: indeed, the two poppies are so similar that the wild poppy is commonly called Papaver somniferum ssp. Setigerum or even Papaver somniferum var. setigerum.[2]

It has been suggested that poppies were introduced to LBK agriculture via trade with the La Hoguette culture, a group known primarily by its distinctive bone-tempered pottery. The La Hoguette culture is believed to have originated in southern and southwestern France: they descended from an earlier "Impressed Ware" culture which resided on the shores of the Mediterranean. La Hoguette and LBK pottery has been found together at many sites east and west of the Rhine, suggesting there was contact and trade between the two cultures.

From there, poppies continued on their journey northward. A dig at Raunds, a site in rural Northamptonshire, England, discovered eight opium poppy seeds dated from the early Neolithic period (5,800 – 5,600 years BP). While opium poppies can grow as weeds, the lack of other weeds in the ditch, as well as the absence of cereal remains, suggest this plant may have been a crop in its own right.[3] While Neolithic civilization has traditionally been envisioned as scattered collections of hunter-gatherers who supplemented their foraging with primitive agriculture, the Raunds poppy seeds reveal trade routes between Britain and the Continent. They also suggest that the people of Raunds held poppies in high regard – high enough, at least, to carry seeds across the English Channel, then haul them into the East Midlands and plant them.

At Cuevo de los Murciélagos ("Cave of the Bats," a Neolithic burial site located in Albuñol, Granada in southern Spain), we find still more evidence of poppy usage. Thanks to the cave's arid conditions, the round woven grass bags which were buried with the dead have been preserved, along with their contents – large numbers of poppy capsules which have been shown by carbon dating to be over 6,000 years old. Given the somnolence caused by ingestion of poppies, it seems clear that even at this early date they were associated with death and, presumably, with shamanic journeying.

Excavations at Egolzwil, an archaeological site located in Switzerland's Lucerne canton, have revealed signs of poppy cultivation dating back over 6,000 years, including poppy seed cakes and poppy heads. These may have been used to feed their cattle in emergencies (cattle generally dislike foraging on bitter-tasting poppies and will only eat them if no better food is available) but these farmers would certainly have known that poppies can produce intoxication and even death in cattle if too many are given. Yet evidence suggests that poppies were the most common crop at Egolzwil, more common than club wheat, barley or flax.[4]

Even earlier evidence of opium poppy use comes from recent underwater archaeological work at La Marmotta, a site in Lake Bracciano, Italy (northwest of Rome). La Marmotta was occupied by a Neolithic farming community for about 500 years before it was abandoned, then submerged by water some 7,700 years ago. Based on the sophisticated artifacts found at the La Marmotta site – and the paucity of evidence for any other contemporaneous cities or villages in the area – archaeologists believe this was a colony from another civilization in Greece or the Near East. And given the model boats (along with a well-preserved longboat found buried in the mud), it seems likely that there was considerable water traffic between the La Marmotta colony and traders from other civilizations.
 

 "This was not an ordinary village," says Maria Antonietta Fugazzola Delpino, director of the La Marmotta expedition. "The people were in touch with other communities in the Mediterranean. We picture it as a kind of highway—there were many ships coming and going."[5] Organic remains preserved beneath three meters of limestone included poppy seeds, presumably cultivated for food, oil, medicine, and possibly for religious use.

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[1]             Leendert P. Louwe Kooijmans.  "The Mesolithic/Neolithic Transformation in the Lower Rhine Basin" in Case Studies in European Prehistory, (Peter I. Bogucki, Editor). Boca Raton, CRC Press, 1993. 130.

[2]             C.C. Bakels. "Abstract: Papaver somniferum culture in prehistory and early history" (2004) at Program Symposium: Plants in Health and Culture. www.plantsinhealthandculture.nl/plantsinhealthandculture/Abstracts/AbstractBakels.html. Accessed January 13, 2009.

[3]             Gill Campbell and Mark Robinson (with Polydora Baker, Simon Davis and Sebastian Payne). "Environment and Land Use in the Valley Bottom" at English Heritage. www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/018-036_Chapter2_FINAL.pdf. Accessed January 14, 2009.

[4]             Graeme Baker. Prehistoric Farming in Europe.  Cambridge University Press, 1985. 123.

[5]             Robert Kunzig. "La Marmotta." Discover, November 1, 2002. http://discovermagazine.com/2002/nov/cover. Accessed January 13, 2009.

Finding Your Lwa

Many newcomers to Vodou start by scanning a few websites or books, discovering a few lwa that they find interesting, and making offerings to them willy-nilly. Often they get no response -- and sometimes they get a response for which they didn't bargain! This leads to claims that Vodou is "fake," or, alternately, that it is "dangerous."

One misconception stems from the idea that any lwa will respond to a call. That's not entirely untrue: a lwa will generally come in response to a call from an asogwe initiate who knows the appropriate ceremonial langaj. But yr. average person in the street can't just draw a vévé, sprinkle some libations on the ground, then say "Hello, " and expect the lwa to show up. If the spirit doesn't marche avec vous (walk with you), it is not likely to respond to your call. If I call downstairs for my roommate, I am likely to get a response: if I stand on a street corner shouting out the name of some random stranger who lives in a different country, not so much.

There is also the risk of a trickster or lying spirit stepping up to the plate and saying "Hello, I'm a lwa and I want you to feed me." This risk may be compounded if you're taking the silly but not uncommon approach of "whoa, this one comes when you set live animals on fire and it eats broken glass, then destroys your enemies body and soul! COOL!!!" If you are asking for a fierce murderous spirit to do fierce murderous work, you may get what you asked for. But if you're not up to controlling that spirit, there's no reason to expect that it will be honest with you or take orders from you.

Sometimes the spirits you want to work with are not the spirits you need to be working with. If you are a rough and tough guy who likes to get in barfights, you may think Ogou would be an ideal ally and drinking buddy - but you may actually do better with the cooling influence of a Damballah or Agwe. You may think that because you love pretty, frilly things you want to work with Freda, when you might do better getting practical hard-headed advice from Danto. It's easy to make a mistake that leaves you even more imbalanced and out of control than you were before.

There are several ways to determine the spirits who "walk with you." One of them is by attending a fet and seeing what spirits wish to communicate with you or even try to possess you. You can also have a spirit follow you home if you attend a fet, visit a hounfour, or otherwise come in contact with that spirit. You may have your spirits reveal themselves in dreams or through omens. You may approach Legba, the old man at the crossroads: since he is the gatekeeper between this world and the world of spirit, everybody can approach him. You can also work with the Ghede: since we all have ancestors and all must die, we all have a connection to the spirits of the dead. (That being said, I would take precautions before doing this -- more below). The most reliable way of doing this is to get a reading from a professional who can tell you which spirits walk with you and who will work with you if you serve them.

Another thing which is important for anyone looking for their lwa is to make sure you have the proper protections in place. If you don't know how to banish and shield, you should learn how to do so now. I recommend the Vodou approach of working with the appropriate holy symbols. A blessed rosary around your neck and a blessed crucifix over your bed can turn aside most spiritual attackers and ne'er-do-wells. Those who aren't Christian can still call on St. Michael the Archangel, who is happy to slap spiritual nasties silly. (It's one of his core competencies). This is particularly important if you are working with the dead. There are few things more dangerous than a malevolent ghost: since it's so close to this plane, it can do great damage and do it quickly. It's also important if you are called on by or call upon some of the "hotter" and more wrathful spirits. Anything that doesn't want to be in the vicinity of a cross, Holy Qur'an, mezzuzah, etc. is something you should dine with only with a long spoon - or avoid altogether.

Taking a balanced, slow path toward meeting your spirits and working with them will give you better results in the short and long term. There's no rush to get to Gineh: rather than calling on every spirit you can find, you will do better to figure out which spirits are interested in working with you and concentrate on them.

Chalc

Chalc is one of the Northumbrian runes, a 9th century extension of the Anglo-Saxon runes. It represents a guttural "ch" sound (the Scots loch or the Hebrew chai). There is little lore associated with Chalc and it is often neglected by modern runesters who favor the Elder Futhark. But those who seek its mysteries find it to hold considerable beauty and power: indeed, some call it the rune of the Holy Grail.

Raven Kaldera, who works extensively with the Anglo-Saxon runes, has said of Chalc:

Chalc is another of the Rune-Spirits who can show themselves as male or female depending on the circumstance and the summoner. Chalc is a dreamy adolescent with a high-flown imagination who speaks in poetry and vivid images. Sometimes Chalc is a young girl with faeries in her eyes, sometimes a young boy set on future adventure. Beauty and glory are very important to Chalc, as is the idea of love, but it is not wise to depend on Chalc to carry things through difficult and grubby times. However, Chalc's greatest gift is a deep well of faith in the future, and in one's ability to pursue joy, that many folks would do well to learn to tap into. Chalc's greatest love is the world of Ljossalfheim, for that world contains thousands of dreams and images, and is the most beautiful of all the worlds.

There is an aspect of Chalc which dissipates upon contact with reality. It can be a cup of illusions, filled with laudanum that numbs your pain and steals your soul. Like all the runes, Chalc gives you what you deserve. If you are seeking the chalice which will heal the king, Chalc will send you on a quest. If you are seeking a pretty dream that will help you avoid unpleasant realities, Chalc will give you the oblivion you crave. When working with the Runes, you are dealing with Odin's gift, and anything you get from the Old Man can turn on you if you're not careful.  (This is doubly true because of Chalc's connection to the Elves: there are many stories about people who came to rue Faery-gifts).

If you are worthy to seek the Grail, Chalc can be a bright, shining beacon that lights your way through the darkness. It can be the dream that keeps you going when common sense and reason tell you that it's time to quit, that this is hopeless, that you're just wasting your time. Galina Krasskova has identified Chalc with the bowl which Sigyn holds over Loki to keep the venom from dripping in his face: it is her hope in the face of despair which allows her to stand by her bound husband and ease his suffering.

The higher aspects of Chalc are not grasped lightly. It is the pearl of great price: to gain it you may need to sacrifice everything you hold dear. If you have chosen the wrong dream, if you have taken the wrong path, you may gain nothing to replace what you have lost. There are many perils and pitfalls on the path to the Castle: many knights lose their lives and fortunes searching for it.  And that is yet another lesson which Chalc offers us: perhaps it is better to die in our quest for a dream than to live without dreams. Chalc reminds us that those who seek the Grail are blessed: even if they never achieve their goal, they did not battle in vain.

The Gods of the Long Descent

I recently had a conversation on a mailing list about the religions that would arise after the oil ran out (or, more precisely, after the financial and energy cost of accessing the remaining oil became prohibitive). Among the participants was John Michael Greer, whose Archdruid Report is one of the finest online resources on peak oil and the post-technological world. John has written a number of books on the subject, including The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age and The Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak World. If you're looking for an expert's opinion, drop by his blog or pick up some of his books: what you are going to get here are the musings of an interested amateur.

In our discussion, JMG rightly pointed out that the new religions which arose in the wake of Rome's collapse were dark horses: within a century or so Christianity went from a nutty slave-cult to the Empire's official religion, and a couple centuries after that the chaos in the former Diocese of Oriens and Persia's Sassanid Empire helped an obscure desert religious leader become the Seal of the Prophets. But while we can't predict exactly what religious movement will become the Next Big Thing, we can assume the future will in many ways be a reflection of the past.

Christianity became a powerful force because it represented the past. It's no coincidence that the Orthodox Church looked to Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire while Western Christiandom looked to Rome. In both cases the Church presented itself as the survival not just of the Kingdom of Christ but of the Roman Empire. It didn't just stand for salvation in heaven but for the glories of the past.  The surviving literature of the Classical Era was in significant part preserved by the monasteries and church universities.

The feudal system of the Dark Ages was a low-budget form of the Pax Romana. In exchange for becoming landless serfs instead of freeman farmers, the peasants received protection from bandits, robbers and rampaging hordes. The scarce resources were largely concentrated in the hands of feudal lords and clerical leaders (who were generally connected through blood ties or political alliances). The system was not nearly so efficient as Roman rule: crime rates soared during this era and invasions by one barbarian tribe or another were fairly commonplace. But its existence was justified as a survival of "Christiandom" -- which was essentially synonymous with "the Roman Empire." Charlemagne and the rulers of Byzantium explicitly made this connection, even as their "empires" crumbled around them.

By contrast, Islam represented something New and Different. Muhammad (SAW) drew from a number of religions which were found in the Arabian peninsula, but his Qur'an was a New Dispensation. Instead of hearkening back to the halcyon days of the Roman Empire, it promised a glorious new future when the whole world would say "there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet." This vision of earthly and heavenly paradise captured the hearts and minds of people on the empire's eastern frontier and became a major threat to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Paradoxically, these "barbarian hordes" did a better job of preserving Greek and Roman knowledge than the old-timers. Because they were part of a new movement, they had less pressure to conform their scholarship to the "accepted way" of doing things (read: a badly-remembered mixture of tradition and superstition. Imagine the Texas Association of School Boards on steroids and you'll have some idea). And because Islam was a growing faith while Christiandom was beleagured on all sides, there was far more tolerance for unorthodox ideas. Diversity of ideas is a luxury which you can afford when you're firmly in charge: it becomes far less palatable when your position at the top of the heap is threatened.

(I admit that the above is an oversimplification of a very complex social order, but it is not an entirely unfair one).

I suspect the religions of the Long Descent will follow a similar pattern. On one hand you will see one or more religions which look back to the Old Days. They will use the remaining resources to protect their Have-Very-Littles from the Have-Nots, promising them order amidst the chaos. Not coincidentally, they will also use these resources to protect themselves from the Have-Very-Littles. I would expect them to keep some form of the Internet (which will be used primarily for communications and military purposes rather than as a repository for streaming video porn) and many forms of mechanized military weaponry. (Such gas and oil as is available will largely be used for those purposes, in the name of "preserving our Ancient Culture").

This religion will be the dominant faith of the cities and the former First World. It may call itself "Christianity" or "Islam" or it may claim those faiths as its primary influence. It will provide what education is available to those can afford it. Such education will be along rigid dogmatic lines with little tolerance for those who deviate from the One True Way. It will regularly engage in purges against "heretics" and "infidels" who question its preachings or its hold on power. You can expect regular replays of the Cathar-b-ques and Waldensian massacres of the Middle Ages.

Their primary competitors will be new religions led by prophets. These wild-eyed visionaries will promise a brave new world arising out of the ashes of the decadent Old Empire. They are likely to arise in the "Developing World," (a problematic term, I admit, but I don't have a better one handy) and may well be influenced by that old atheist prophet Karl Marx. These areas have seen the benefits of "progress" from afar and may have more use for that notion than a religion which is primarily concerned with maintaining order and stability. These new faiths will become a major threat to an establishment which is already faced with banditry and anarchy in its far-flung reaches (which, as gas becomes more scarce, could mean its exurbs). And, in time, they could serve to unify those bandits and barbarians into a powerful new force.

I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say about my thoughts. As I said, I'm a history buff rather than a trained historian. But this seems to me a plausible vision of the future and its major religious movements.

Mannaz

I was hoping to do money magic with the runes, and awoke from a dream wherein a giant told me that I should work with the Man-rune. This wasn't what I had expected: Mannaz is generally not connected with prosperity workings.  But I've learned that when you get advice from the spirit world (especially from Jotuns, who are quite skilled with the Runes despite their undeserved reputation as slope-browed savages), it is generally best to take it.

I worked with the rune by reddening it and then using it as a doorway for a vision. The results were quick, and once again they were unexpected. This most social of runes led me to a verdant, green valley. There was abundant grass, fresh water, clear skies, pleasant weather, game traipsing about past my nose - but there were no people.  I spent some time exploring this valley, but saw no signs of civilization anywhere. The man-rune had led me to a place where there were no men. I had plenty of abundance here, but there was nobody to help me take advantage of the resources which lay before me. And then it hit me: that was the message Mannaz was sending. I was trying to achieve prosperity on my own, without relying on anyone else or reaching out to those who could help me to conquer the territory. If I was going to succeed, I wasn't going to do it alone.  Writing may be a solitary job, but I was going to have to reach out to the community if I hoped to reach financial success. Toward that end, I've started work toward establishing an online radio show with a friend who has over 20 years of experience in broadcast journalism. Once that is established, I'm hoping to interview some of my other friends and acquaintances: I know a number of highly accomplished and intelligent writers, magicians and occult thinkers, and can also leverage my acquaintance with a number of publicity folk at publishing companies small and large.  I am also making some efforts toward filming a fet with some paranormal researchers and trying to parlay that into a video and, with any luck, some future television appearances. I'm also posting more to blogs and online forums. I've often found that off-the-cuff remarks can be developed into articles and even chapters. I've also discovered that online conversations help me to ascertain what people are looking for and what sorts of questions they want answered. The give-and-take of online debate, where punches are rarely pulled and logical flaws and errors are ruthlessly dissected by sometimes hostile audiences, forces a writer to hone their arguments and check their sources.

And I'm also focusing my efforts on two collaborative writing projects. Raven Kaldera and I are going to be following up on Drawing Down the Spirits: The Traditions and Techniques of Spirit Possession, with a book on communicating with spirits and personal gnosis, tentatively titled Talking With the Spirits. And Sophie Reicher, the author of the excellent Basic Psychic Hygiene, will be working with me on a guide to the Elves. (You may have read a few guides to Faerie, but chances are they steered clear of the places we'll be talking about!) I have a few other solo projects I'd like to work on in the future, but for now I'm taking the advice of Mannaz and working on partnerships and socializing. This doesn't come easy to a natural introvert like me, but I realize that it's something I need to do. (As I always say about any sort of divination, don't ask for advice unless you're willing to take it).

Interview with Jeremiah Greer on April 17, 2010 2-3pm Eastern Time

 I will be interviewed by Jeremiah Greer of Shadows in the Dark Radio during the Third Annual 24 Hour Marathon Broadcast at Ripley's Believe it or Not in St. Augustine, Florida. (Sadly, I won't be there in the flesh - the interview will be held by phone - but I'd recommend anyone in the area drop by, while those who are not can listen live on their computer).

The interview is currently scheduled to take place from 2:00pm - 3:00pm Eastern on April 17.  I've been interviewed by Jeremiah in the past and look forward to speaking with him again!