The final frontier. The Last Things. The ultimate wisdom. We can say one certain thing about the present: we live. We can say one certain thing about the future: we will die. In the Black Power our understanding of that future imposes on the present.
Many people fear death. Our genetic design guarantees that we will seek to avoid death. When the organism perceives threat, it responds with fear, the fight-or-flight adrenaline bursts etc. When our conscious, reflective mind perceives fear, it responds with ... whatever we've trained it to do. We can learn to manage our emotional state in the face of fear.
As for dealing with the fear: meditation on death or ritual enactment of death and disposal can also help some to familiarise themselfs with the concept, which can help take away the sting. Methods from, say, NLP can do it more quickly, but we each need some belief which helps us to perceive the bigger picture. For example, one of mine goes:
"we come from stardust and unto stardust we shall return,"
and another, from the Kite's Credo, goes:
"I believe in my existence as a temporary knot in the five-dimensional cat's cradle, a concatenation of space time matter energy and f**k knows what else. I believe in the flesh, into being knotted into Here and Now."
Some of us have faced death and had the opportunity to let it hit home. These opportunities can come about spontaneously in this dangerous world or ritually through, say the enactment of death in meditation or Chod ritual. Rather than avoiding the implications of what we experienced, we have found out from these experiences what we truly believe about death.
Through several spontaneous routes I have learned that I do not believe in any form of afterlife. Furthermore, I feel cheated by the peddlers of afterlife insurance. Upon proper investigation, I found no -- repeat no -- reliable evidence for afterlife. Every believer's argument will hinge on that word 'reliable'. Harry Houdini spent many years searching for this evidence and found only fakers.
All holy books which guarantee an afterlife need some form of authority figure to guarantee the holy book. And who or what will guarantee that authority figure? I humbly offer our selfs as the only competent authority to judge the worth of anything to our selfs.
Beliefs of afterlife reflect our hardwired urge to avoid death, and the sheer variety of 'reliably' evidenced theories stands as a tribute to our human ingenuity. However we should not distract ourselfs with these comforting lies, but get on with living the life that we've got. And I take sufficient comfort in that.
See also the Pandaimonaion page.
In choosing a suitable guardian for a friend, I came upon the much-maligned goddess Hecate. Before the Romans misrepresented her as a three-headed monster, even before the Greeks dumped on this Titan all the ugly jobs the new-fangled Olympian gods didn’t want to soil their hands with, Hecate, young and fair, torch in hand, roamed the Netherworld making sure no soul got lost. I found a protective guide in the fair one, just right for my friend.
I created a wooden pentacle, in girly pink suitable to my friend, with stars in pentagram arrangement, and a sigil of Hecate prominent in the center. The pentacle required only a final coat of varnish. Placed it on altar, prepared as customary, but with cherry brandy in chalice and a prepared incense of Hecate.
Banishing.
Listening to: the Cult, ‘Beyond Good and Evil.’
Improvised evocation of the the classical elements, one at a time, by going to appropriate quarter with weapon in hand.
Focussing on the pentacle, walking around altar and glossolalia to enhance trance. At intervals, stopping and toasting the Goddess with this prayer:
Hecate,
Far-off one,
Titan,
with power to grant or withold anything,
shining one, bearer of light in our darkness,
keeper of crossroads,
mistress of life and death and all that lies between,
who undertakes the unclean tasks,
guide and protect us who worship you.
Ending rite when I got the feeling of ‘It’s done.’
Later: added some of the Hecate incense to the final varnish before giving the pentacle to my friend as a wall-mounted talisman.
Postscript: to this day my friend experiences what she considers the protection and friendship of Hecate.
