A Flickering of Lights and Shadow

As Autumn progresses towards her equinox, I having been playing with Twilight Consciousness. This has been accomplish by using dimmer lights in the evening, fires in the yard, and natural lighting as much as possible during dusk and dawn. This has lead to a greater appreciation of the interplay of light and shadow. This "flickering" time has also triggered interesting perceptions of "reality"; a growing awareness of the beings that dwell in shadows, the ease of entrance into the Magonian or Fey realms, a shift in the boundaries between Industrial Consensus Reality, and the Mythopoetic Realms.

I have been watching and studying Wayang Kulit, Indonesian Shadow Play, there is a rich vein for the Mutant Mage to explore. I have also renewed my interest in Jackalope, and Goblin Lore, twilight seems to suit them both. Instead of writing a blog-post, I have used the cut up techniques of two of my favorite Mutant Mages, William Burroughs and Byron Gysin. In fact if you want to experience the full effect of flickering light, build yourself a Dream Machine.

I have included links to all of the original texts below, none of what follows is my original work, but I felt it more aptly captures the interplay of light and and shadow that I have experienced this Autumn. Go outside in the evening or morning and experience these shifting perspectives for yourself, the Shadow Realms await.

Shadow Play: Goblins and Jackalopes

The Indonesian word 'wayang' is derived from a word meaning 'shadow' or 'ghost'. These intricately cut and perforated shadow puppets are made from buffalo hide. 'Kulit' means 'leather' or 'skin'. 'Wayang Kulit' has a documented history of existence of at least 800 years in the Indonesian archipelago.

I'm writing this story as a result of a pact I made with a goblin ghoul last night as I was walking home up the hill near Withdean in Brighton. Every part of it is true and exactly how I remember, though the events of last night now seem like they happened in another world. As I look at these words it seems strange that I could be writing them. Who will believe what I have to say? You, Dear Reader, safe in the daylight or under the protective glow of your electric light can have no conception of the horrors that dwell so close to our twenty first century civilization, just beyond the reach of the shadows. But I must hurry. My life depends on completing this tale before she returns.

It’s an aggressive species, willing to use its antlers to fight. Thus, the jackalope is also sometimes called the “warrior rabbit.” 

The word crepuscular derives from the Latin crepusculum ("twilight").[1] Its sense accordingly differs from diurnal and nocturnal behavior, which respectively peak during hours of daylight and dark. The distinction is not absolute however, because crepuscular animals may also be active on a bright moonlit night or on a dull day. Some animals casually described as nocturnal are in fact crepuscular.

There is no hiding the mechanics of the show as in Western theatre since the bamboo platform had no sides. The audience is free to sit either facing the screen, or can watch the dalang at work.

Gunnar, king of the Old Wessex Division of the goblins, had a problem. His old slave, Eric, had died. That usually happened to humans once they became about seventy or eighty, and there was nothing you could do about it, except get a new one. The king had grown quite fond of Eric who had been captured by the goblins in 1925 as a young boy. It was best to catch them young. There had been a hue and cry. There always is, when a man child disappears. You can't hush these things up. Some people blamed the gypsies. Others said: perhaps he had wandered off to join the circus. 

Twilight is the time between darkness and sunrise in the morning, and sunset and complete darkness in the evening, when there is light outside, but the Sun is below the horizon. There are 3 types of twilight: civil, nautical, and astronomical. 

Before a play begins, the dalang undertakes several ceremonial acts and rituals to assure a successful performance. With great reverence, he taps three times on the wooden box containing all his puppets in order to wake them up. Figures of deities representing good and evil (sometimes over one hundred) are ranged in their prescribed place to the left and right hand sides of the screen. When quiescent, the puppets are spiked into the soft flesh of the trunk of a banana tree at the base of the cotton screen. This represents the earth. 

It was after he beat one poor old woman to death that the evil monk was imprisoned and sentenced to hang for his crimes. But just after he was cut down from the noose and pronounced dead, his corpse began to transform before the horrified eyes of the people. The face twisted and small tusks sprang from either side of his nose. His shock of white hair grew long and greasy, and two pointed canines emerged from his slit of a mouth. The goblin-monk opened eyes that glowed yellow even in the light of noon-day, and sprang to feet that now ended in claws rather than toes. 

Special classes of crepuscular behaviour include matutinal (or "matinal") and vespertine, denoting species active only in the dawn or only in the dusk, respectively. Those that are active during both morning and evening twilight are said to have a bimodal activity pattern. 

Civil twilight occurs when the Sun is between 0 degrees and 6 degrees below the horizon. In the morning, civil twilight begins when the Sun is 6 degrees below the horizon and ends at sunrise. In the evening, it begins at sunset and ends when the Sun reaches 6 degrees below the horizon. 

The dalang underscores the action and the rhythm of his chanting while sitting cross-legged by tapping loudly with quickening tempo on the wooden puppet box at his back with a little bronze knob held between the toes of one foot. He also uses this device to conduct the small Gender Wayang orchestra of xylophones and gongs sitting behind him, all the time maintaining a number of different body rhythms as he manipulates the puppets. 

The various patterns of activity are thought to be mainly antipredator adaptations, though some could equally well be predatory adaptations. Many predators forage most intensively at night, whereas others are active at midday and see best in full sun. Thus, the crepuscular habit may both reduce predation pressure, thereby increasing the crepuscular populations, and in consequence offer better foraging opportunities to predators that increasingly focus their attention on crepuscular prey until a new balance is struck. Such shifting states of balance are often found in ecology.

She was tall, Very tall. Then as she got closer and stepped into the light I realized that her shadowy outline had looked so tall at first because she was wearing an old fashioned riding hat, from out of a Victorian novel. As she stepped closer her features took shape. She was about my height, thin and was dressed all in black. She wore a veil and I couldn't see her face, but I imagined from her voice she might be quite pretty. She stopped a few feet in front of me. Her perfume was strong and heady. Like the strong sweet scent you get in the perfume departments in the major stores at around Christmas when all the smells from the testers and the customers blend into one.

The jackalope is the product of a male jackrabbit and a female antelope. Jackalopes possess an uncanny ability to mimic human sounds. In the Old West, when cowboys would gather by their campfires to sing at night, jackalopes would frequently be heard singing back, mimicking the voices of the cowboys. Jackalopes become especially vocal before thunderstorms, perhaps because they mate only when lightning flashes—or so it is theorized—which explains the rarity of this species. 

A number of familiar mammal species are crepuscular, including some bats, hamsters, housecats, stray dogs,^[5] rabbits, ferrets, guinea pigs, and rats. Other crepuscular mammals include jaguars, ocelots, strepsirrhines, red pandas, bears, deer, moose, chinchillas, the common mouse, skunks, Australian wombats, wallabies, quolls, possums and marsupial gliders, spotted hyenas, bobcats, tenrecidae, capybaras, African wild dogs, sitatunga, and the extinct Tasmanian tiger. Crepuscular birds include the common nighthawk, owlet-nightjar, chimney swift, American woodcock, and spotted crake. Many moths, beetles, flies, and other insects are crepuscular and in particular, vespertine.

But no one ever thought of blaming the goblins... That's because 1925 was the twentieth century and people didn't believe in such things any more. Gunnar's great grandfather, Aleric the goblin had once met King Arthur, and now most people thought Arthur was just a legend.

Nautical twilight occurs when the geometrical center of the Sun is between 6 degrees and 12 degrees below the horizon. This twilight period is less bright than civil twilight and artificial light is generally required for human activities. 

So what is the effect of all this? When the puppet is pressed up against the cotton sheet, its shadow is sharp and steady. Where it curls away from the screen a little, the shadow rapidly softens. The flickering light from the uncertain oil lamp causes these indistinct portions to quiver and waver. Sometimes puppets are presented to the screen from behind the lamp instead of entering from the wings. When this happens, they seem to magically materialise out of the very air itself as soft indistinct forms darken, gathering form and substance as they near the screen. The effect is ethereal and utterly mesmerizing.

When chased, the jackalope will use its vocal abilities to elude capture. For instance, when chased by people, it will call out phrases such as, “There he goes, over there,” in order to throw pursuers off its track. The best way to catch a jackalope is to lure it with whiskey, as they have a particular fondness for this drink. Once intoxicated, the animal becomes slower and easier to hunt.

Astronomical twilight occurs when the Sun is between 12 degrees and 18 degrees below the horizon. In the morning, the sky is completely dark before the onset of the astronomical twilight, and in the evening, the sky becomes completely dark at the end of astronomical twilight. Any celestial bodies that can be viewed by the naked eye can be observed in the sky after the end of astronomical twilight.

The headquarters of the Old Wessex Division of the goblins was in the tunnels beneath the old bookshop in Petersfield. If you went into the dark forgotten corners of the shop, and moved aside the dusty bookcase with the really old falling-apart books with no covers, which were hardly ever sold, you might, if you looked carefully, see the outline of a secret door which led into tunnels underground. The goblins liked living there because, if they got bored at night, they could sneak upstairs and "borrow" some of the old books. They didn't like modern writers. They even regarded Jane Austen as modern.

The compelling visual appeal of a Wayang Kulit show might easily be explained by the physical laws and properties of light. The spiritual and metaphysical dimensions of the shadow play are much harder for a Westerner to describe.

Jackalope milk is particularly sought after because it is believed to be a powerful aphrodisiac—for which reason the jackalope is also sometimes referred to as the ‘horny rabbit.’ However, it can be incredibly dangerous to milk a jackalope, and any attempt to do so is not advised. A peculiar feature of the milk is that it comes from the animal already homogenized on account of the creature’s powerful leaps.

She touched my face with her fingers. A light caress. Then she flicked her fingers and the light went out. I heard a clip clop as she walked away up the hill and then a clippety clop but I never saw her horse or her minions who had been holding me from behind. The street light started flickering its yellow sodium glare again, and I was too deep in thought to notice anything else unusual on my way home.

The shadow play is magically powerful. At times the dalang appears to be in a trance. It is commonly believed that the audience is protected from evil influences during a Wayang Kulit performance. Its vast repertoire of tales covers all aspects of life. As well as having an educational role in society, its stories provide spiritual guidance for the people. It is as though this translucent screen with its play of light and shadow is the interface between two realms of existence - a small rectangle in the fabric of the world mediated by the dalang from where spirit beings from other planes of existence impart the wisdom of the ages to mankind. Wayang characters provide types to be emulated, giving the young an idea of what qualities to strive for.

The people screamed and fled, and no prayer of his former brothers-in-faith could banish the goblin. It disappeared deep into the forest, only to return at night and prey upon the monks of the mission who had been responsible for its death. After five of the brothers had fallen to the goblin, the rest of the monks abandoned the mission and moved to another part of the country. Since that time, the mission-house had slowly fallen into ruin. 

The jackalope is now most commonly sighted in the states of Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. However, the jackalope does appear to have a European cousin, which in Germany is known as the wolperdinger. In Sweden, a related species is called the skvader.

With a trick of light and shade and a deft exchange of the puppet, characters were made to transform before a wide-eyed audience into mystical beings, a garuda, a snake. 

You're right. Anyway this doesn't affect the story line. Our pact was, or is, that not one word of the story would change. OK here are the few details which set the record straight. And this is exactly as I remember, without varnish and honest gospel...When I first heard her clip clopping down the road it was too dark to see her horse. But as she left and the street lights glowed back on - I saw there was no horse - as she clip clopped away on all fours on her claws like a wild beast. Her perfume too, was not quite as I described. It was more like the smell of rotten cat food which has been left in an open tin too long in summer, and which the flies and the maggots have got into. And finally, her appearance. It is true that she was tall and slim but by the light of the sodium lamp her skin seemed green and wrinkled like old walking boots. When I wrote these facts in my original draft she was very displeased and I learned how vain a goblin queen can be. She made me change these points, on peril of my life, but bade me keep all else the same.

 These are my sources:
 
 http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~dwa/WayangKulit.html

http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/different-types-twilight.html

 http://jackalope.com/legend-of-jackalope/

http://www.goblinsearch.com/mypactwiththegoblinqueen.html

http://www.goblinsearch.com/story1.html

http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/2010/07/the_goblin_of_easton.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular

 

The Apocalypse of Quantum Delights

“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland 

I find it odd how the accepted meaning of the word apocalypse went from having a root in revelatory knowledge to one of eschatological tones. That in and of itself is a revelation. Revelation can be destructive especially when they uproot deeply held beliefs, some do not survive the journey. It helps to have some form of mythic structure in place, makes navigation a little easier. Sometimes the shifts are easier like a series of small quakes instead of one huge one and subsequent aftershocks. I am currently experiencing a small scale apocalypse, but one that is opening doors of wonderment.

A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

I don't have to tell you how bad things are, that's what the daily news is for; you know, the regularly scheduled programming. That's not even the full story and it's pretty grim. In between the collapsing economies and the extreme environment, there are bright shining stars, beckoning us out there into the great beyond. NASA announcing in May about there certainty of finding signs of alien life within a decade, remember President Kennedy said the same thing about going to the moon and it happened right on time. There is probably much more to this story than we are being told, as evidenced in this quote from Chief NASA Scientist, Ellen Stofan :

"We know where to look. We know how to look," she said. "In most cases, we have the technology, and we're on a path to implementing it. And so I think we're definitely on the road."

NASA knows where to look? Sounds very MIB to me, but I tend to be suspicious. Either way exciting news.It will literally change the way that humanity  views itself and its place in the universe. This sparked a renewed interest in UFOs and other high weirdness, so when Gordon started a discussion of Space Shamanry, my interest was immediately piqued.

INVOLUNTARY SHIFTS

Having been primed and open to suggestion, it does not surprise me that the next course of events unfolded as it did . It all started with a simple article about Octopuses. Basically geneticists have decided that octopuses might as well be aliens given how weird their DNA is. That dovetails nicely with several pet theories of mine.

Shortly after reading the aforementioned article about alien octopuses, I stumbled onto Gordon's list of films for Space Shamans. In the beginning I went through the list and ticked off all that I had already seen and then I compiled a list of what was left. On that list was Europa Report, I had not seen it. So I made a date with myself to watch Europa Report late at night alone. Remember the mention of Europa in the article about NASA expecting to find alien life? Yeah, it gets weirder, more synchronous. The movie is slow, but highly believable, so I stayed interested. I won't reveal everything for those that have not seen it, but I will give you a hint, tentacles.

Gobsmacked would be an understatement, this was revelation, apocalypse. Something shifted in a major way. If we are going to explore space we need to develop a mythology to guide us. Read Gordon's blog, watch the films, add to the conversation.

RETURN TO TERRA FIRMA

In days past, I would get overly excited after receiving a revelation like this, now a days my approach is much different. After a session of ritual that seems to open doors or a sudden revelation as the result of noticing the omens where they occur, I like to ground and restore myself. There are many methods for doing this, Aidan describes a particularly beautiful and rich ritual that belies its simplicity.There is power here learn to use it.

If Aidan's ritual does not appeal to you, I strongly recommend T Thorn Coyle's book Crafting A Daily Practice. This book has been very beneficial to me, daily ritual practice helps to keep me grounded and has increased my powers of concentration. Doing this practice of grounding lets me review my notes and develop an informed opinion of the mechanisms at play. This  apocalypse has lead to the discovery that two different fields of personal research may in fact only be one field. This has deep reaching implications.

Now the Mutant Mage Dirt Sorceror is left to contemplate Space Shamanry. I feel compelled to release sigils via rockets, and to study the connections between Crop circles and Magical circles. Like the Tabula Rasa of the surrealist manifests at Burning Man so to must our Sorcerous visions populate space. Perhaps we could begin now with Space Shaman Fertility Rituals. I think I will stick with the rockets.

Profane Truths and Sacred Lies

We live in interesting times, times where everything seems to be in upheaval. A readjustment, like an earthquake or tsunami, old structures fall, new structures fall and unexpected structures persevere against all odds. This is not the Truth, but it is a truth. Not all that is true is universally so, everything varies by region. Sometimes in order to "remain true" we will prop up falsehoods rather than face a truth that could possibly shatter our world. And so we have co-created a culture where truth is shunned in favor of comfortable lies.

PROFANE TRUTHS

pro·fane -/prəˈfān/ adjective

1.  relating or devoted to that which is not sacred or biblical; secular rather than religious.             "a talk that tackled topics both sacred and profane" 

The profane is what you encounter everyday and as the definition says it relates to non sacred things the secular. I have never fully understood this concept, except as it relates to the world of Religious Bigotry. Whether gushing forth from the church of Rome or the tent revival fanaticism found in evangelical suburban mega churches with multi-million dollar entertainment budgets, the message is the same, you are a subject. Don't worry little lamb the shepherd knows each of you by name. Yes, because you are valuable in a commodities driven culture. I have always believed the everyday was sacred because it only happens once: forever.

Some everyday truths we need to face and take responsibility for include the environment, racial justice and economic disparity. The problem with each of these problems is that even though they are global in scope, the answers are more localized. There are some aspects of the solutions that are global, such as, all people must make this a priority or else nothing will change very quickly.

One everyday truth we can no longer ignore is that the Earths environment is in bad shape. I do not want to start a debate about this, if you have been paying attention for the last 45 years or so, then you already know. If not, please read anything relating to climate change, except for the deniers. They don't care about truth they just want attention. DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS. ( Unless you practice ancient Scandinavian rituals to control such things.) If you are a climate denier, first I want to know why you read my blog, please tell me in the comments section. Secondly, if you really believe this is all some sort of weird conspiracy, please go to Kirbati, and tell them not to worry it's all just a lie. 

The sad truth is that it is already too late, we must develop new strategies for survival. I'm not say go all out prepper crazy, but knowing how to be self sustaining and practicing those skills is helpful. Better yet form a community of people that know how to handle tough situations collectively and hang with them. the advantage of a tribe is that everyone gets a chance to develop their strengths and contribute a more developed skill set to the group. In my opinion we need Apocalypse Witchcraft, a blend of technology and magic; Linux code and and medieval grimoires, Modern Folk Magic. I believe that if we dedicate more time to understanding the local ecology and figure out how to live in accord with its rhythms; this will be of more benefit than the Noah' ark syndrome currently gripping environmentalism.

Most of this desire to restore nature to some pristine state that supposedly existed at some point in the past, is a romanticism that has no founding in reality. To usher in this new age I would like to share Gordon White's Totem of the Apocalypse. I would also propose that all invasive species become the new totem spirits of the twenty first century. Europeans being the most pervasive of all, we don't just move in, we completely rearrange your culture. Far worse than fire ants, or molluscs. We live in a mercurial age where flux is the rule of the day.

Problems with the environment go hand in hand with racial injustice, both locally and globally. The poorest nations are literally living off of our garbage and scraps. The poorest and often the darkest members of the so called western economies often are forced to live near very poor and even dangerous environmental conditions. Racial justice is about so much more than making sure the cops treat everyone equally, which they don't #blacklivesmatter. Racial justice is environmental and ecological justice. The two cannot be parted. Want to make a difference? Volunteer. Find a cause you believe in and volunteer. Even if all you do is give up a Thanksgiving meal so you help feed the homeless, do it.

Economic disparity will not be solved without major changes to our current system . Generally we are given two choices, let a few have great amounts of wealth, a few more moderate in come and the masses will live in a state of hardship or poverty; or impose some authoritarian system to regulate an equal distribution of resources. The answer lies some where in between, a democratization of money. This can happen simply by refusing to buy the Megalocorp's products and supporting local economies instead. Creating intentional communities can help also. Many people are excited by Uber and Lyft, meanwhile teenagers have free carpool circles with friends through the use of cellphones. Thanks to technology, we can create virtual communities. We should also learn lessons from other nations that do not dominate the world's economies. When you are not expected to be a part of the game you tend think beyond the rules.

SACRED LIES

sa·cred- /sākrəd/adjective

1. connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration."sacred rites"

There are many sacred lies that go unquestioned, they become accepted as truth. Lies that permeate our very culture and separate us from the full experience of life. The government knows what is going on at any moment in the day. Religion and science are opposed to one another. God is good. Imagination is not real. Most of these lies have to be viewed from different angles than those intended by their creators. In fact the majority of these do not work if you question them or examine them critically. Much like an alien autopsy, or a planned parenthood organ harvesting video these shoddily put together cultural edifices, are easily exposed for the facades they truly are.

These types of lies are crumbling daily, and monolithic culture seems to be on the defensive. As a consequence of this apparent breakdown, people are agitated, edgy, suspicious. Imagine what that does to ones ability to reason or think critically. Feeling threatened by the surrounding environment is one of our most primal instincts, and for good reason. In your brain is your amygdala, a small almond shaped organ that amongst other things controls your flight or fight response. This is triggered by threats, like those in the news every night. The news that is broadcast by the same corporations that are running the commercials, producing the stuff you don't need, and taking control of governments.

Corporatism, is also an easily spotted lie, the hard ones are the ones people tell themselves. I am powerless, I am only one person, the situation is hopeless. Bull poopie. History is filled with examples of driven individuals who made a difference. It all starts with stopping. Stop participating in the lie. Stop being a silent witness. Stop.

ANECDOTAL ANTIDOTES

As I lay in a bath of green tea, peppermint, and damiana, after sharing some tea with Ganapati, I became possessed by strange thoughts. I have been participating in Jason Miller's Strategic Sorcery course for half a year now, and it has lead to some great insights about my personal practice and my approach to magic. I am a Mutant Mage, one part Dirt Sorcerer, one part Mystic Christian, and one part Psychonaut. I use science, sorcery, media, pop culture and elbow grease to make my life one giant three dimensional art collage punctuated by periodic rituals of construction.

I believe this is the root of liberation, self directed spirituality. Your relationship to reality, know matter what name you give it or how complex or simple it may be, is a personal journey. It is important to share and get input from others. Find people who challenge without criticism as well as support with love and enthusiasm. These individuals will keep you grounded and help you reach your greatest heights, and depths. It is a crooked path, this path of self directed spirituality, one where you will learn that Herne Christos, is Luciferius Mercurius' hermetic twin. Yes a crooked path indeed.

One must face one'sp angels as well as one's demons. Both are terrifying, and both have much to teach. You are full of monsters, and saints too. This is not dichotomy as it is understood in the Occidental mythologies, but the spectrum that typifies the Oriental ideal of the undifferentiated whole. I exercise my daemons and my kakodaemons too. Revelations come from below as often!n as from above. This is my personal apocalypse, built upon a lifetime journey to discover this place, and to discern for myself what is profane truth, and what masquerades as a sacred lie.

Hallucination Engines

At this point I am fairly certain that most people who read my blog have seen the Google Deep Dream images. Those trippy reinterpretations of reality that seem to be covered with eyeballs no matter what else is going on. If you are not familiar with this, do an internet search for the words"deep dream google", then come back and finish this article. I feel this opens many doors for the attentive and proactive Mutant Mage. There are several aspects that I personally find intriguing, recursive feedback loops, mechanical neural networks, and projective imagery. The crossover between technology (the study of craft) and magic (the craft of creating) is not only natural but wholly interdependent. This has given rise to what I have come to think of as Modern Folk Magic. I will outline exactly what I think distinguishes Modern Folk Magic from other paths in another essay. For now I want to discuss what technology can teach us about magic.

TECHNOMANCY  

Technomancy, quite simply is the use of technology for magical divination. I have come to use the term to describe a wide variety of magic that uses technology, such as, audio/visual cut up divinations, or recordings of mantra recitations, to magic that imitates technology like Gordon White's Robo Fish. Many Mutant Mages including Phil Hine, use Byron Gysin's cut up method, which was popularized by William S. Burroughs. All of these methods share a commonality in that they work under the premise of universe as information, by altering the information you alter the reality represented by that information. This is just a modern revision of magical theory stated in accordance with modern parlance.

My approach is simply that Folk Magic springs from the environment surrounding it, and is informed by the dominant paradigm. We are surrounded by technology and it should be part of our magic as well. Hoo doo root doctors used horseshoes, keys, locks, etc. because that was what they had. I am quite sure that the first person to use a hurricane lamp for conjure was frowned upon by the community at large, then again maybe not so much. The quest for "purity" and the resultant de facto Orthodoxy that springs from it is a modern affliction for our whole culture, not magical circles alone. It is what feeds most Ism's and I suspect it is born out of fear and special snowflake syndrome. As science expands our knowledge of the world around us, we the mutant mages should learn to use it to our advantage. This leads us back to Deep Dream.

STUCK IN A LOOP

The process Deep dream uses to produce images is basically a large recursive loop. The machine is fed millions of images of an object in order to "learn " what the object "is". From Popular Science article, These Are What the Google Artificial Intelligence’s Dreams Look Like, by Dave Gregshorn:

Google’s artificial neural networks (ANNs) are stacked layers of artificial neurons (run on computers) used to process Google Images. To understand how computers dream, we first need to understand how they learn. In basic terms, Google's programmers teach an ANN what a fork is by showing it millions of pictures of forks, and designating that each one is what a fork looks like. Each of network's 10-30 layers extracts progressively more complex information from the picture, from edges to shapes to finally the idea of a fork. Eventually, the neural network understands a fork has a handle and two to four tines, and if there are any errors, the team corrects what the computer is misreading and tries again.

Interestingly enough the AI did not find a "perfect Platonic form of the object" even after being fed millions of images of the same object, an example of this:

This showed that even when shown millions of photos, the computer couldn’t come up with a perfect Platonic form of an object. For instance, when asked to create a dumbbell, the computer depicted long, stringy arm-things stretching from the dumbbell shapes. Arms were often found in pictures of dumbbells, so the computer thought that sometimes dumbbells had arms.

This should immediately point to new ways to think about the assumptions we make when interpreting data. Even when we have  millions of data points we can get it wrong, perhaps the spirits we work with are like the technicians trying to correct the machines errors, and we are the machine. How do we break free of this? Perhaps we should imitate Deep Dream and replicate the image over and over again until its absurdity becomes clear. Perhaps the reason your prosperity spell isn't working is because you don't have a fundamental understanding of finances. If we are putting arms on dumb bells we have not fully understood what a dumb bell is.

YOUR BRAIN IS A MACHINE

Much like Deep Dream is trying to interpret layers of data with millions of images, and failing to find a quintessential essence to the objects, so too the human brain and especially the collective dream. Perhaps we need to see that dumb bells have arms, to develop a more fluid view of Universe. The collective dream is nothing more than an attempt by monolithic cultural structures to codify experience into a manageable commodity. Universe is the ultimate open source platform, our brains are lazy and project learned patterns onto the canvas of life. We fall into patterns, perform rituals, follow scripts, practice daily; none of which is bad as long as we don't let it cloud our vision. 

Rote and repetition are great tools for memorization, but a bad way to conduct a relationship with the divine. Daily practice is important, but it must be performed with sincerity, simple repetition will not suffice. In a world ruled by clock and dollar, it is easy to slip into a routine that can turn into a rut. There is hope, if Google can teach a machine to dream, imagine what you could do with your brain. There are programs that have been running for many millennia that need to be dismantled and reassembled. Folk Catholicism is far more vibrant than the Church in Rome, and probably better for the soul. Most of Europe runs on Democracy 2.0, the United States is still running the beta version, we need an upgrade. Unlike social revolutions of the past, which were collective and dismissive of the past, we must build upon the past but in a manner that advances the individual as much as the mass if not more.

Upgrade your brain and your magic. Quantum theory has much to support the aspiring Mutant Mage. AI can teach us much about how our brains process information about the environment around us, and thus lead us to greater understanding. Magic seems to work best as a hedged bet, if your working is able to bring about two separate but equally beneficial outcomes, you will be surprised with a third alternative that you never conceived. It will be better than what you thought you wanted. Rote and repetition work to our advantage when we want to create new patterns. When we create two or more new patterns in reality, the overlaps create new possibilities. We can anticipate some of the overlaps, but it is the unintended consequences that will always teach us the greatest lessons.

SLEEPER AWAKE

Why did Google develop an AI to produce trippy images? Truth is it didn't, Deep Dream is a side effect. The project that the engineers were working on was called "Deep Stereo". It is an imaging recognition system that would be able to take two to five images of a space and based on its library of images make a 3D rendering filling in empty spaces. In other words, they were creating a machine that could take incomplete data and transform it into an accurate 3D model based simply on what the machine has been taught should fill the gaps. Sound familiar? One day someone got the idea to ask the machine to make renderings based on what it had learned. Thus they were presented with the following:

The Google team realized that the same process used to discern images could be used to generate images as well. The logic holds: if you know what a fork looks like, you can ostensibly draw a fork.

 

Unintended consequence that lead to new discoveries. Look at all the fun people are having with this accident. Always record ALL results from your workings, further review may reveal something you had missed. The great thing about these images for me on a personal level is that they illustrate better than anything else my impression of the divine. Textures, lighting, vague impressions combined with distinct details, yes, this is an apt metaphor for life itself. Looking at the above images makes me realize that I have not noticed things that a machine considered intrinsic. The hartebeest for instance, is the grassland and the community of the herd. Look closely, every one of the renderings includes the surrounding environment, one does not exist without the other. Think about that, a hallucination engine is able to see the fluid, dynamic, non dualistic nature of Universe. 

Deep Dream teaches that unintended consequences lead to new discoveries. It shows the world through the eyes of an intelligence that views objects in a relational rather than isolated way. This machine, this hallucination engine, by following rigid programs after being fed millions of data points has come to have a fluid view of its world. There is deep wisdom there, and hope. Revisit your failed workings and find the gold buried there, nothing is as static as it seems. Perhaps, instead of showing the world what we believe it wants to see we can learn to show the world our Deep Dreams.

This is a great lecture from 1976, that has many techniques and ideas that still need further research.

Freedom and Being Free

Ganapati and Catwoman  Getting Freaky

Om Gam Ganapataye Namah.

America, we need to have a talk.

It is time we face some ugly truths about ourselves. Contrary to what many believe, this country was not founded to protect individual freedom. It was founded by religious zealots, criminals, venture capitalists, and slave traders. The intention behind the constitution was to protect the vested interests of those early power-mongers. Fortunately, people learned to hack this tool of the state towards true freedom. The quest for freedom is an always evolving pursuit. In my opinion, the surest path to this freedom is the self directed spirituality called witchcraft by so many today.

The descendants of those self righteous bigots, can be found in today's surveillance state, the Congress, Wall Street, and corporate boardrooms. Equality is a buzzword for equal deprivation. The reason they called it a trickle down economy is because we only get a trickle down here. Have you seen Mad Max? We are in the same boat, trapped between Bullet Farm, Gas Town, and Water and Power. There is no Utopia on the horizon, we must stake our claim here. Those in power fear us, "We the people", and use everything at their disposal to divide and conquer. Ask yourself, who is benefiting from homophobia, sexism,racism, class-ism, and religious bigotry?

Divide and conquer has always been the game. How do we address this? What is the proper response to Power when that power is waiting for an excuse to use all the weaponry it protects itself with. This is Peter Grey's perspective, Beneath the Rose, read it and then come back. There are things I agree with in this article and some things I strongly disagree with. First I do agree that secrecy is the greatest tool a Mutant Mage can have in this day and age. I also agree with the call to return to visceral experience of magic and the world in general. The late Peter Paddon also believed strongly in the execution of Visceral Magic. Before I get into my issues with the article, I would like to address a side issue. I have come to the firm conclusion that although I find some of the ideas expressed in the Traditional Witchcraft circles, I personally am not enough of an anglophile to follow this path. I prefer more homegrown esoteric traditions. One of the many reasons I refer to myself as a Sacred Artist, or Mutant Mage. I am a Twenty First Century American who works with magic.

The main problem I have is the most obvious, going on the internet to argue that the internet is to persuasive is a bit, well hypocritical. Just like all the TV preachers in the late 80's and early 90's, railing on and on about the evils of television. Whenever some one uses the medium they profess to be opposed to, I am immediately slightly dubious. What would Mr. Grey have to benefit from this double-blind? The same thing as every other person doing it, a captive audience guaranteeing a steady income stream. Kind of like the anti-capitalist that sell anti capitalist books, for capitalist dollars. I do not begrudge one making a living, in fact I do not believe that capital and freedom are contradictory. The democratization of capital has lead to far more good than harm. It is the concentration of capital that causes problems. What is the solution? Magical Activism.

Build large street theatre puppets of political and religious figures and race them in the parks. Flood the Internet with nudity, not pornography, plain old nudity, especially nipples. Flood Facebook with male nipples to counter the absurdity. Big Data is running experiments to control human behavior, use social media to run your own experiments.  Counter measure the countermeasures, information technology lends itself to chaos and discord, help it. Meanwhile build cabals and communes both physical and virtual with like minded individuals. Everything is spectacle and theatre now, Break The Proscenium. Perform public curses on your state capital steps, they are doing it to you inside, most of all engage the public. Be a clown for Lucifer.

I see I have struck a nerve, that name, Lucifer gets a lot of peoples goats, so to speak. I believe this may be due to confusion between Sataniel (satan), and Lucifer. Lucifer is an old Roman god, the light bringer, and he was a twin, his brother is Noctifer, the dark bringer. Lucifer has gotten a bad rap for  a long time, all because the Roman Catholic Church does not like competition with its brand. Sataniel was the fallen angel who dared to rebel against God and received his own kingdom as a reward. I do not want to get bogged down in a discussion on Lucifer, one can find plenty of info online. Oh, and the aforementioned Mr. Grey has a book on the subject, if that's your sort of thing.

Ultimately the goal is freedom, personal freedom won out of love and respect for your fellow beings. We are evolvers and so we must evolve always being a Mutant Mage, use science and finance, buy a 3D printer, become a bio-hacker, study sorcery, play RPG's IRL, stay one step ahead, and laugh. If Tank Girl and Delerium have not joined your pool of inspiration it's time to invite them in. I use the methods that work for me; subterfuge, secrecy, outlandishness, and the dead. My ancestors lead me, folk catholic saints sustain me, Rebel Saints inspire me, Hoodoo and Santeria inform me, and angels comfort me. I am a dreamer, a mystic, a spirit warrior, sacred artist, and spirit guide. Above all others I am a Mutant Mage.

Praxis Sasquatch Jones 2015

This Place

Bindweed Sasquatch Jones 2015

This place.
I ask again, the answer is the same.
This place.

I have lived on this land for eight years now, but it only began to speak to me about two and a half years ago. This place, is only my interpretation of the vibratory sensation that pulses through me from the ground. The first time it spoke to me I was naïve enough to believe that I understood. Days later I went to talk to the land again, but at first I thought I misunderstood.

This time the tone was different, yet still familiar. At last I thought I understood, I was in a different place so that would account for the difference. I could have not been more wrong. The next weekend I returned to my original spot and began again to speak with this place, again it was different but somehow the same . Over a period of months I came to realize some very special things about this place.

First lesson I learned was about temporal relationships. This came to light after conversations at different times of day. Time is as intrinsic as space to this place, time and space are not separate. This place was as much a time specific event as it was a space specific event. This wisdom has lead to major shifts in all of my relationships. Just as this place and all that inhabit it, including me, are corporeal and spiritual in nature, so too is all of Creation.

I began to discern two distinct vibratory sensations; like a sound that you hear with your bones. The low background drone that is always there I have come to call the spirit of the land. The tonal variations and differing energy frequencies I have begun to think of as the spirit of place. This place is both two distinct aspects, each unique in itself, yet completely inseparable. This undifferentiated duality encompassing the whole relates directly to the shamanic and Taoist worldview, there is no true "other". We are all here together. This profound truth continues to reshape my vision of Universe.

OTHER PLACES

 

"Yes, the long memory is the most radical idea in this country. It is the loss of that long memory which deprives our people of that connective flow of thoughts and events that clarifies our vision, not of where we're going, but where we want to go." Bruce "Utah" Phillips 1935 - 2008

Spanish Oak Sasquatch Jones 2015

There are things that have been long forgotten, and they live on, in the land . The land does not forget, it remembers all that is, and how that shapes all that is becoming. The land has a long memory. Learning to speak to the land and more importantly to listen to the land will give one access to that long memory. This knowledge will open more doors than all the libraries in the world. I personally believe this due to the physical nature of this practice. You must actually go out into the world and interact with it to gain entry to this vault of knowledge.

There are places that sing with power and crowds flock to them. This is all well and good, but I know secret places, places that only those who know This Place can enter. There are many such places, but to find them one must develop a relationship with the land they belong to. When This Place first opened up and let me enter the imaginal realms, I was immediately cognizant of the similarities and differences between this realm and descriptions I had read of Fey realms.

Geography affects relation to spirit as much as time, whereas the Realm of Fey is universal it's manifestation is definitely local. My wife has told me several times about the Sasquatch that live here. I will not go into a lengthy discussion about the physicality of these guardian spirits, I will simply say they are real in the same sense that all Faerie are. The first one I met resembled a bear in build, but its face was clearly sasquatch, and it had horns like a goat. There are others here, hobs and gobs, but not quite like the ones you find in European lore. More earthy, and bony, like armadillos. Buffalo, and Bear, long gone are remembered and live on. Many of the people who once lived here, are still represented by their spirit, the land, like the body, never forgets.

There are others here too, angels, for lack of a better term. The form that appears to me most often, and seems to be THE Guardian Angel of this place, resembles a black-jaguar headed man, with enormous wings of rainbow colored flame. His presence is fiery and fierce like midsummer sun. He likes meat, and rainwater. This is a wild spirit, we never meet indoors. He belongs to the land. Others come and go, like Shadow Rabbit, and the Sun Sprites. None of this will make sense unless you have been to This Place, but the place you find will be different because it is not This Place.

The majority of my work over the last few years has been with the spirits of This Place and the land itself. When I said that I had spent a year and a day in the Earth, in many ways that was quite literal. My work could not happen and would be incomplete without this relationship. Everything is connected from the most mundane to the most fantastic. Here there are realms within realms all overlap and informing one  another Holoarchically. This Place exists in many times and spaces and they are all This Place. This Place has a very long memory.

STEWARSHIP

Baby Bur Sasquatch Jones 2015

I have been lazy in the most productive way. My garden has lain fallow for two years now, I only garden in containers. My yard is a garden in the most magical of ways, wild edible, useful and magical plants have sprung up all over my yard. I have entered into a relationship with the land. I have studied its microbiomes and it has given me instruction on how to be a better steward. A forest garden is my next major project with this land. I will mimic the natural processes at work at This Place and restore the land and garden it at the same time.

This land was once cleared for cattle grazing, for the last 30 years there has been a community here and people have reintroduced trees to the environment. This lead me to idea of working with land to create an environment that was managed and yet followed the natural variations and rhythms of This Place.The initial step involves letting the high side of the property return to woodland. The squirrels have been remarkably helpful, I now have a small forest of oaks, mesquite, and pecan, covering the front of the property. This transitions into grassland as the land slope towards an arroyo seco. It is important to keep this open because of flash floods.

Pecan Seedling Sasquatch Jones 2015

More long range projects include improving the drainage in arroyo to minimize erosion. Farther down the line, a retention pond is in the works. The retention pond would be unnecessary if my neighbors had not filled the arroyo's course through their property. It has created  a far worse flooding problem. No worries, studying the lay of the land form my roof in winter I have discerned the natural water course and how to counteract my neighbors stupidity. Added bonus, more biodiversity, more complexity to This Place. We evolve together This Place. Much as the Basque is identified by his etxe, so to does This Place inform who I am. This Place and I work towards the same goals, and we both benefit from the relationship. This did not happen because I asked the land to bend to my will, no this happened because I asked the land what it willed and how I could help.

This Place.

It is where I call home, and where home calls me.

This Place.

Soul Companion Sasquatch Jones 2015

Reflections on the Occurrence of an Annual Cyclical Solar Event

Today is the solstice that occurs in June. What that means depends on what hemisphere you live on. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere today is the day with the longest amount of daylight during this solar cycle. For the southies, shortest. As I write this I am relaxing in the tub at 10:35 a.m. local time.

Noon local time, coffee and breakfast tacos are secured. Hearty debate about the merits of turtles versus tortoises. Followed by a discussion about the TMNT. I love my kids.

12:24 p.m. I have a pipe. Now I contemplate the  mysteries. Most obvious to my mind is the solar aspect of today. Immediately I think of Helios, with whom I have only begun working. Always felt solar archetypes were too masculine for me. Well I was wrong about Helios, he has interesting friends. For instance he associated with Saturn, Hermes, and Hekate. This is a dynamic I plan to explore more over the next year or so.

1:05p.m. The coffee has whiskey in it now. The kids are playing in the lawn sprinkler. Storm clouds are rolling in from the east. The last thing we need is more rain. The ground is so wet that every new round of showers brings flooding. Nothing like Memorial Day but one tires of the news.

Back to the Sol Father discussion but first an apology. I have neglected my blog for a while, but it is because I have been very busy, in the actual world. I have been blessed with many projects and responsibilities, overwhelming at times but manageable none the less. I am going to experiment with weekly posts on Sunday evenings. Yes it will be Sasquatch's Sunday Evening Post.

My daughter interrupts to let me know that the children are doing a rain dance, just for practice.

Last night I had the strangest dreams. Possibly due to the flying ointment I liberally applied to my person. I was given instructions for my Hermes/Helios Mutation Ritual. This will begin a major campaign to align several different works into one master work. The end result will be a presentation of Post Millennial Folk Magic.

This will be based on my own experiences and some of others I know perhaps an anthology will be in the works. My personal path includes Hoodoo Folk Magic that I learned growing up in East Texas and has been expanded by the works of Hyatt and Yronwode, amongst others. I have also picked up some Santeria along the way. Almost like the protestant and catholic traditions they sprang from the regions where these traditions are practiced are divided geographically and culturally. In  addition to these I use chaos magic techniques in the manner of Genesis P-Orridge, and William S. Burroughs.

2:36 p.m. Time for another pipe. The methods of which I speak mainly consist of using technology along the lines of folk magic. Photographs altered to reflect desired outcome, videomancy, cut up audio divination and ritual reinforcement techniques, and collage sigils to activate dormant psychic abilities all fall into what I consider Post-Millennial Folk Magic. The practitioner of such arts also has a penchant for tradition and uses it as a guidepost for technique. So along this path you will meet Hoodoo Hepcats, Wily Witches, Sexy Sorcerers, and Mutant Mages, these are my people. Not content to pursue theurgy alone, these Rebel Saints challenge convention and produce tangible magic. It matters not one iota if they are working with botanicals, metals, alchemical preparations, or internal combustion, they are all magicians of the highest order.

3:34 p.m. Time for a nap. Good day so far, excellent time to recharge the batteries this evenings festivities.

4:27 p.m. Nap time over. Final reflections before I make my preparations for this evening. There is no dress rehearsal, we only get one shot, make it count. Those of us who engage in the Sacred Arts must be wary of critics that claim a wrongness to our methods. Authenticity always shines above rote repetition. Esoteric wisdom has always been misinterpreted by the exoteric school, stay strong and love with all your soul. In this time and place we all borrow from one another, there is no pure path, only profane truths. We are all Mutant Mages in the end, each of us developing new ways of looking at old traditions and creating new wisdoms for future study. Do not be content to simply repeat what has been done, step off of the path, go into the woods...

 At some point we must all confront the reality that we were only "practicing" magic and now we must make some magic. It is a hard transition for some, and others still never find their own voice. There is only one way to make magic happen, you must go out and do what is necessary, to paraphrase Robert Cochrane. This is always true whether you cook bread or make hot-rods.The magic is in the Doing. Hope your day went well and that you enjoyed whatever activities you engaged in to mark the occasion. Lechyd!