Keywords: Darkness, Mystery, Fear, the Unknown, the Unconscious Mind, Alien

The crushing abyss is a realm completely alien and all but completely inaccessible to humans. It’s an environment we can’t possibly survive in, but one that can teach us a lot about ourselves and the universe.

The Abyss represents the unknown, unseen, and unexplored aspects of ourselves and our psyche. It symbolizes the dark, mysterious, and often feared parts of our inner world. When the Abyss appears in a reading, it may indicate that you are being called to confront and explore your inner depths, including your fears, shadows, and unconscious patterns.

This card can also represent a need for transformation and rebirth. Just as the abyss is a vast, dark expanse that can also hold the potential for new life and discovery, you may be entering a period of profound change and growth. The Abyss can symbolize the dissolution of old patterns, beliefs, or identities, making way for new possibilities and perspectives.

The abyss is a strange, mysterious place that could easily pass for being on another planet. It literally is a whole other world that exists right alongside our light and air-filled world. It represents the unconscious mind, which is even deeper and less accessible than the subconscious. If cards like “Mist” and “Swamp” suggest shadow work, then Abyss represents even deeper and darker shadow work. It is frightening and uncertain, but necessary.

In a spiritual context, the Abyss can represent the void or the unknown aspects of the divine. It may indicate a need to surrender to the mysteries of the universe and trust in the unknown which is an inescapable part of life. The Abyss can also symbolize the collective unconscious, not just the individual, representing the shared human experiences and archetypes that lie beneath the surface of our conscious awareness.

Life is born and thrives even at the depths of the sea, below massive amounts of pressure and at the mouths of toxic thermal vents. There is always so much more that is so much deeper below the surface than we realize.

Those who contend that, historically speaking, marriage is a male-female phenomenon only are, in effect, wrong.

In fact, there's good evidence for rites of male-male bonding—a functional equivalent of marriage—across the Indo-European-speaking world.

Such a rite survives to this day among the Kalasha of what is now northwestern Pakistan, the only IE-speaking people who have practiced their traditional religion continuously since antiquity.

The Goat at the Heart

Being a mountain culture, the Kalasha are aigocentric: goat-centered.

Like the Celts of ancient Britain, Kalasha culture is transhumant. During the Summer, the young men take the flocks of goats up to the Summer pastures in the mountains and live there together for months at a time.

It's unsurprising that intense emotional relationships should spring up between these young men. When two of them wish to make a lifelong commitment to one another, it's time to enact the traditional rite of, in effect, blood brotherhood.

An Act of Mutual Adoption

Together, the two sacrifice a goat to Sájigor, the protector of flocks. (Here in the West, the Horned has always been patron of male-male bonding.)

Having slaughtered the goat, they roast its kidneys over the fire. They then feed one another pieces of the kidneys on the tips of their knives.

Then they suck each other's nipples.

Though pungent with symbolism throughout, it is this final act which articulates the rite's central meaning. Across the Indo-European world, the act of suckling figures as part of the rite of adoption.

The Kalasha rite of blood-brotherhood constitutes, in effect, an act of mutual adoption.

A Pan-Indo-European Phenomenon?

Nineteenth century travelers' accounts make it clear that this rite was once common among the cultural kin of the Kalasha, the so-called “Kafiri” cultures of northwestern Afghanistan, now—since its forcible conversion to Islam during the 1890s—called Nuristan, “land of light”.

In fact, British consul George Scott Robertson undertook the rite with Waigali warrior Shermalik, and wrote of it in his 1896 book The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush, though he clearly didn't understand the implications of what he was doing.

We may suspect that similar, parallel rites of male-male bonding once occurred across the Indo-European-speaking world. As among the Kalasha, traditional societies tend to be structured along lines of kinship; such rites serve to build ties between kinship groups, and are hence indispensable for long-term cultural stability.

What Magic Is...and What It Isn't

Belief in literal magic can be cruel.

When Lady N. was diagnosed with cancer, she wasn't worried.

She knew she was going to beat it. She believed in magic, you see.

All over the country, night after night, people of her lineage and tradition cast circles and raised cones of power to heal her.

They didn't work.

She had given her life to the Craft, but in the end, the Craft failed her. Her magic failed her. Even her gods had failed her.

A dear friend was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is a cruel disease. At worst, it can end in the butchery of prostatectomy, leaving a man stripped of dignity, sexual function, and even sense of identity.

My friend is someone given to expecting the worst. He's not from a magical background, but in our conversations I've found myself, in effect, discussing the basics of magical thinking.

Your job now, I've heard myself telling him, is expectation management.

Expectation shapes outcome. That's the heart of real magic.

You've seen it; I've seen it. All the studies show it. If you expect a bad outcome, you're more likely to get one.

Fortunately, the converse is true as well.

Belittle it as magical thinking; dismiss it as self-deception. If a little self-deception can win you a better outcome than otherwise, then, me, I'm all for it.

Of course, there are no guarantees. You may get the bad outcome anyway, as Lady N. did.

But, in the end, that's not necessarily failure. There's magic, and there's magic.

When Old Lady Manygoats was dying of cancer, her family held a ceremony of healing for her.

They hired a ritualist to lead the ceremony. Friends and family converged from all over.

Sometimes it can be helpful to question the very basics of our tradition. Today, I want to take a look at ritual. What is the point of ritual, and what does good ritual require?

Ritual helps us to mark time, celebrate moments in time and connect us to the greater cycles of life around us. They can also serve to help us change our consciousness, so that we can better see and feel these moments and cycles.  Ritual consists of words and actions that are designed to create an emotional/spiritual response, such as connection to the seasons, to nature, to the earth, to the gods, etc.

Ritual is rather pointless unless it moves us. True, sometimes we are just not our very best witchy/druid/pagan selves, and we sometimes go through the motions in order to keep up our practice. But for ritual that requires connection, the most important part of it is the feeling, the emotion. We must feel the actions that we perform, and the words that we say. A little drama in ritual – the good kind – performed without overdoing it can lead to a change in consciousness and a change in the self. Because isn’t that what you came to do in ritual in the first place?

Frank discussion of matters physical, and non-physical

Oh, the hazards of being male.

Prostate cancer has been much in the news since King Charles' recent (and courageous) revelation of his own diagnosis. Guys, this means you.

For biological men, chances are that we'll pretty much all get prostate cancer eventually, if we live long enough.

Chances are excellent, though, that something else will kill us first.

In a culture that, all too often, views men as expendable, it's unsurprising that many men are, in effect, at war with their own bodies. Really, this doesn't need to be.

Hence:

Boss Warlock's Practical Guide to Prostate Health

The Minoans were a Bronze Age people, so obviously they didn't have electric lights. So how did they light their living spaces?

With oil lamps.

Religion has, for far too long, been given carte blanche to run rampant throughout the world, throughout culture, society and government. Religion has been hiding behind a facade of infallibility; behind the notion that just because it is a religious belief, it must be inherently respected and protected. This needs to end NOW.

It is a very controversial thought, but it is high time for religion to stop getting the “respect” that it never, ever deserved. Do we even question why we “respect” everyone’s religious beliefs? Granted, not everyone, even (or especially) within religions, respects the other beliefs. This is plainly evident in wars like the Crusades and the never-ending conflicts in the Middle East, for example.

What is this fear that has kept too many people from really examining and critiquing religion the way it desperately needs to be? What is this fear that makes people think they can’t speak up against an injustice or atrocity just because it is under a banner of religion? It is especially because certain actions are done in the name of religion that they should fall under the most scrutiny and should not ever be seen as beyond reproach. If there is or ever was one thing in human existence that is not beyond reproach, it is the poison that is religion.

If you never have before (or if you have), consider these questions -

1. Why do I have religious beliefs? Why do I believe what I believe?
2. Why do I respect other people’s religious beliefs, even the ones I disagree with?
3. Do I really think that all religious beliefs and practices should be protected? Why?
4. What am I so afraid of that keeps me not only believing what I believe, but keeps me respecting other beliefs?
5. What is it about a “religious belief” that makes me instantly think that it should be respected?


I don’t think that many people will have good answers to any of these questions, though surely the most self-righteous and virtue signaling will certainly think that they do. Ultimately it will just be a lot of grandeur, posturing and regurgitation of whatever has been fed to them in their ecclesiastical echo chambers.

The root of all evil in this world is not money, it is religion. Religion is the culprit at the center of all the hate and “isms” that are destroying the world – racism, sexism, xenophobia, the list goes on. Fears of the other, the different, the deviant. Hatred for the other, the different, the deviant.

Religion was made by men for men. We already know that this is a man’s world, that it is run by a crushing patriarchy, and religion is at the heart of that. So of course, no surprise that religion is also patriarchal. So men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed to believe, by religion, that they are above nature, above women, above all others who are not like them. This is one of the greatest, if not the greatest lie of humanity. What began as a way to cope with our mortality and the harder aspects of the human experience became a simple way to control people.

There has been no real separation of church and state, though one is desperately needed. In fact, the church and religion were originally created by the “state” for the purpose of controlling the masses and exploiting them. Religion is built upon a foundation of control and it’s main tools are fear and guilt. Religion creates fear and guilt in people in order to control them.

The notion that religion just demands automatic respect is so out of control that a non-religious person gets shamed for not bowing their head while grace is being said. In a “Dear Abby” style letter, the person relates that they were at a relative’s house for dinner and that they did not bow their head during the blessing, for which they were chided by their sister after the meal.

The religious believe that they are so entitled to so much “respect” and coddling that they do not even consider the beliefs, feelings or comfort of others. This is just the tip of the iceberg that is religious hypocrisy. If you do not practice or believe in something, there is no requirement to respect it. If anything, hospitality demands that guests be as comfortable as possible, and if your guest is not comfortable participating in “saying grace” then that is what should be respected. No, contrary to how the advice columnist responded, one does not have to participate in or even respect the religious beliefs of others, not even when in their home.

Do not misunderstand, this does not mean one should stand up and denounce another’s beliefs right in their own home. Not respecting something doesn’t mean that you go full tilt and attack it. But it does mean that you don’t have to participate in any measure if you don’t want to. Unfortunately autonomy is not something the religious understand.

Why are the beliefs of the religious (or any of the delusional that this world is crawling with these days) so very delicate? Why do they seem to think that if they don’t get coddled or kowtowed to, that they are somehow being slighted or that their beliefs – or the veracity of those beliefs – is negated if the other person doesn’t support it? Do they know deep down that these delusions are indeed so false and damaging that they can’t hang on to them if someone else isn’t enabling them?

So now ask yourself, “If no one respected any of my beliefs, would I still have them?” That at least is the way to tell if a belief is part of who you genuinely are, or if it dictates who you are because of fear and what others expect you to be because of their beliefs.

Many people pretend to be something they’re not in order to be loved or accepted. A particularly delusional woman I once knew, who destroyed two marriages and lost many friends and later her own children because of those delusions, admitted that she was afraid other people not liking her. This made her a very weak and phony person. Who then was she, if she made herself into an image that she thought everyone would like?

To be fair, we all do that to some extent. Obviously we all want to be loved and accepted and we all make adjustments to our appearance, our personality etc. in order to gain that love and acceptance. But it’s not hard for this to go too far, and for people to essentially play a role in order to gain love, power, control, money, safety, or confidence. But if you are fabricating an entire character, as though in a role playing game, then you are missing the mark and the inauthenticity of that character will poison your life, just as the costumes and inauthenticity of religion have poisoned the world.

I could go into a very long dissertation about all the different evils, inconsistencies, damages etc. caused by religion, all religions. But I will leave that to the late, great Christopher Hitchens and recommend his excellent book “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything”.

More people need to start questioning religion more, resisting is influence more, and being more honest with themselves about what they believe and why. Belief ultimately shapes our lives and our worlds so we need to start being much, much more careful with our beliefs. Stop accepting, start questioning, and stop respecting religion just because it is religion. It is time to evolve.