Purpose: to 'touch base' with all the magician's powers, energies, spirits, gods, information matrices or selves. This promotes congruence within the magician and prevents both obsessive focus on and neglect of any aspect of the magician. Octarine consciousness acts as a portal to the others, hosting this party of the magician's aspects and circulating among them, favouring each in turn. Enjoy.
Make plenty of time for this ritual. Gather into the chosen space all altar trappings, tools, amulets, talismans and so forth as feasible and lay them out as if on exhibition. Full altar, including chalice of mix of choice, wine perhaps, and plenty of it. You’ll need it. Favourite incense.
Banishing or similar ritual.
Charge chalice, perhaps by pointing, or holding a hand or magical tool over it, to suitable music, eg. ‘Take the Power’ by the Cult. NOTE: at each phase of this, take the time you need to feel the effect. If the music runs out first, repeat it.
Octarine. To suitable music, eg reprise of the Cult, take up an Octarine tool, eg wand, and invoke according to custom. Unlike the other invocations to come, the magician pulls out all the stops to achieve the invocation here. Go round the space, acknowledging the presence of other Octarine artefacts and briefly addressing and toasting any Octarine entities such as servitors or gods represented here. Charge the chalice with Octarine, and take a sip.
Black. As above, but with suitable music eg Marilyn Manson’s ‘the Man that you Fear’, and tool eg sword and acknowledging Black artefacts. To suitably invoke here, the magician needs only a taste of the consciousness, shmoozing rather than taking to bed. Charge the chalice with Black and take a sip.
Got the idea now? And so on, through Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red.
The Collect. General address to the whole gathering ad lib or glossolalia to taste. Music: reprise the music used at the beginning. Toast and finish the chalice. Feel free to dance.
Banish
Purpose: to invoke each of the eight powers of magic and obtain means of invoking them more easily in future.
Banish.
Pick a colour of magic. Brainstorm words or phrases that express it best for you. Write them. Cross out the ones that on reflection don't fit. Collect the best ones on a separate sheet.
Immediately come up with a sound that expresses this power of magic for you, eg you might find 'Mmmmmmmmm!' expresses Blue magic best for you. Experiment. Try a few sounds, however likely it seems that the one you first thought of would fit best. Note it down with the key words and phrases, noting also its characteristic tone of voice, eg. a self-satisfied humm as opposed to a strangulated grunt. (!) Does a particular pitch, drumbeat or music express this colour of magic for you? Note it down.
Immediately do it again, thinking the words and phrases you chose, and put yourself in what seems the most fitting posture. You may even find yourself moving rather than just standing or sitting as you really get the feeling for the state of mind. Note it down so that you could assume the posture or movement again.
Imediately repeat the above, noticing any peculiar body sensations. A tingling? A warmth? A something else? Where? What happens to it? What happens when you start it up again, more intensely? When you loop it? Note it down.
Immediately do all this again, noting if any pictures come to mind. In our example does the colour blue come to mind? What shade? What hue? How does surrounding yourself with it affect the feeling of the Blue power? Would you prefer in fact to visualise another colour altogether to represent this power? Then do it. Note it down.
Put it all together. Get into the posture, vizualise. Make the sound, say or think the words and phrases, loop the feeling. Intensify it, make it all happen faster and more powerfully for you. You may now find yourself approaching gnosis of the power. Realise that you can do this at any time, just by doing the 'putting it all together' stage.
Banish.
Next colour of magic ...
We performed the visualisation in front of a fractal spiral poster in which I'd embedded a Vortex. You will need to provide something similarly trancy. The spiral represents an entoptic image allegedly common in shamanic visions and a feature of Stone Age art.
I provided some neurolinguistic incantations of power, especially so that more experienced magicians may have something unusual to bring to their vision of the Maghos. Use them if you WILL. Or replace them with something even better.
I cannot emphasis enough the communal nature of this rite. The shaman and the magician require a social context and role, even if only amongst one another.
THE VISION IN THE CAVE
An investigation into the origins of magic.
Objective: research into archeology and into proto-Indo-European studies.
Subjective: invocations of Celtic, Germanic, proto-Indo-European and European Paleolithic magic.
Results:
Objective: artefacts but no rules for use. Imagine archeologists of the future finding TV remotes, or half a chess set. Therefore we cannot reconstruct accurately Stone Age magic.
Subjective: The origin of magic lies within you.
No Newage pretending to be Stone Age shamans.
Nor Postmodern ‘anything goes.’
Nor a line of argument to attack or defend.
Rather, a meditation leading to ritual action and results.
‘What is Magic?’ There is no thing called Magic. Magic is just what ‘magicians’ do.
Magi- priestly caste in ancient Persia. Root of ‘magus,’ ‘magician.’
Proto-Indo-European root *maghos means ‘One Who Can.’
‘One Who Can what?’
We may take the view that the *maghos derived from the ‘shamans’ of the Proto-Indo-Europeans’ hunter-gatherer forbears.
Fortunately, anthropologists have recorded many recent shamanisms, from which we can draw out a few features common to many members of the shamanism family past and recent.
The shaman can:
· Have extraordinary experiences via intent
· As a result of such experiences, access extraordinary resources
· Use such resources in extraordinary deeds in and for the community
The extraordinary nature of the experiences, resources and deeds gives the kudos, the reputation and thus the name of One Who Can.
In the Vision in the Cave we will have an extraordinary experience, a transforming vision of ourselfs as One Who Can. We will experience this vision as a magical resource originating in ourselfs. At the end, we will recognise each other as Ones Who Can.
A TRANSFORMING VISION OF ONE WHO CAN
Becoming master of your past, present and future.
Learn from and leave behind your PAST with these incantations:
‘I USED TO’ the incantation that separates you from your behaviour
‘THEN’ – the magic word that removes your past from you
Experience your PRESENT with these incantations:
‘NOW’ – the magic word that lasts 6,000 years
‘I CAN.’ ‘I CAN’ implies ‘I DO.’ I can speak this language
Project your FUTURE with these incantations:
‘YET’ - ‘I can’t YET.’ ‘I can’t-YET-I-can-learn’
‘SOON’ - a ‘NOW’ that you haven’t experienced ‘YET’
‘I WILL’ = Desire - ‘I WANT’ plus Decision - ‘I’M GOING TO’
Statement of Intent: I WILL experience myself as One Who Can.
Method: Paint the palm of one hand. Project onto it all that you think you are NOW. Hold that awareness while you imprint the hand onto the cloth, leaving all that you are NOW on the cloth and wash your hands of it. That imprint has become what you were THEN.
Leave all that behind you and wash your hands of all trace of what you were THEN. Stand before the spiral vortex and gaze at it with defocussed eyes. In the deepening trance, visualise the vortex surrounding you. See in front of you yourself as The One Who Can whom you haven’t experienced YET, and take into yourself this One Who Can. Notice the different feelings this creates and start to think about where you WILL use what you have received.
Upon returning to ‘normal’ consciousness of NOW, greet the others with ‘You are One Who Can’ and receive the greeting yourself.
