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When Pan Can’t Get Out

Dear Sin,

I’m sitting on the same train where I saw a witch dying because he wouldn’t invoke Pan.

He was loudly a witch, with a tattoo of a crescent moon at the top of his forehead, the points facing up to the sky like horns. He wore metaphysical jewelry, a pentagram necklace, and an amber ring with hebrew sigils. His face was gaunt, with a puffy goatee on his pointed chin. The moment I saw him, I knew Pan was trying to come through him, wildly, and failing.

I boarded the train with my bicycle, transitioning into the second of the three chapters of my commute; bike for a couple miles through the city, ride a train across the city, and then bike upriver for a few miles -> that’s my daily routine. I’ve only started cycling seriously this year, and in order to keep my core and upper body toned, I have an app on my phone called ‘Commit’ that asks me every day at 4 pm, “Are you going to do 25 pullups today?”

It went off as I boarded the train. I stowed my bike and gear, and moved to the nearly empty handicapped section of the train, the place where I generally do my pullups and stretches while I commute.

The sickly man sat across the aisle, a large purple suitcase next to him. “Do you mind if I do some pullups here?” I asked, grasping the bar above my head.

“Not at all,” he said in a southern drawl. He shrugged and looked out the window.

I went through my pullups in three sets, listening to my intuition. I could tell there was an important meeting in play. Limber, relaxed, and fully in my body, I sat down across the aisle from him and opened myself up, so that my angels could do their work through me.

“Now I get to hit the big green button,” I said, pulling out my phone. I showed him the app, with it’s question, “Are you going to do 25 pullups today?” and the big green button that I pressed with satisfaction. “This app keeps me in the habit of being a better person,” I said.

The man, young and frail in body but wise and old in his eyes, shrugged again. “I’m a lazy witch, so I don’t try too hard to be a better person.”

We rode in silence for a while. Then I ventured, in accordance with my inner promptings, “That’s an interesting phrase, you used. A ‘lazy witch.'”

I let this sit for a while, to see which way he would take it.

“I find that when I am in motion,” I said, “activity gives me greater clarity when I want to access deeper levels.”

He took this as a general spiritual observation, and not a specific insight relevant to his own path. I do not wear my esoteric leanings on my sleeve; I have no tattoos, I wear plain clothing, and the only jewelry I wear is my wedding ring. This enables me to disappear into a crowd, or wear a modest glamour as the need arises, but it does not advertise my participation in our fraternity. Some witches, like this young and sickly man, take it to mean that I am an outsider, and so lose access to a communion with someone who successfully invokes the very same energy that they are seeking.

This was part of his test, the test I was bidden to perform as his proctor by my inner guides. He did not recognize me as a witch, and so I let him play the eccentric, a role that he was accustomed to taking on, a role he took pride in, and a role that prevented him from gleaning the wisdom that I had waiting for him.

He deflected my conversation about habits and strength by reverting to his favorite default discussion, his cancer.

He had been diagnosed at 13, and was ready to go home to New Orleans and die. He said all of this very resigned, with finality, and talked about the benefit of dying at home with family instead of in a hospital across the country. His suitcase was packed, and he was on the train to the airport, leaving Portland for good.

“Do you want to survive your cancer?” I asked, genuinely.

He looked up, his pointed chin augmented by his bushy goatee, coming to a point that was complemented by the horns tattooed into his forehead. “No,” he said, and I could see the Pan in him withering. “I’m tired of fighting.”

He talked about his hospital ordeals, and the tumors on his spine, and how during the surgeries, “they put poison in my body. Poison, that’s what it is, it’s poison.” With a perspective like this, it is no wonder that the treatments were poisoning him.

I realize now, he assumed surviving cancer meant a lifetime of the same treatment. He did not know that I have access to a shaman in Costa Rica who has cured multiple people of cancer, with stringent diets and medicine from tropical plants. He did not know that the cure to his cancer lay in the wild, and all he had to do was say, “Yes, I want to survive,” and I would have given him the key to his cure, on his trip to the airport, diverting him from his journey back home to die, and letting the trapped Pan within him out to roam free in the wild.

In accordance with my inner guides, I did not offer the solution, because he did not ask for it. I let him ramble poetically about the wisdom of death, and the perspective granted to those who know they are dying shortly, because I knew it gave him solace.

Living this journey to death had become his identity. His body was weary, and his will was weak, and I dare not fault him for choosing to move along with his momentum. This flesh is strong. A decade of pain in hospitals took its toll on this witch, and I saw how the energy of the wild was so sapped within him that Pan himself had begun to take on the features of his flesh, in an attempt to push him back into the wilds, where his cure lay.

I fancy that in the bayou of his native land, Pan will take hold of him there, and lure him into the wild for one last pain-free dance in the flesh. Pan was so suppressed in this young man’s body, and so very necessary, that I wanted to share the story with you, digital priest of the horned god.

The Middle Pillar shields me from the Tower

Over the past six months, I have taken on a serious study of the magical exercise known as the Middle Pillar.

 

This powerful ritual serves as the basis for many of the more advanced workings in the Golden Dawn tradition, and it serves as an incredible tool for introspection and energetic healing. It is regarded as one of the necessary rituals to advance into deeper mystical training.

Having studied fairly broadly in mysticism through yoga, chakras, the tree of life, and meditation, I came to the Middle Pillar ready to take this final step as a magician, as a manifestor, into a practiced adept.

Doing so has surely saved me suffering and grief over the past week.

A member of my family is in a Tower period. All of her readings (from different readers and different decks) keep showing the Tower card.

8 days ago she fell and broke her arm. She has yet to get surgery, and she has had multiple difficulties in her life all growing upon each other. Her fear and worry has multiplied and manifested.

To protect myself while in her presence, I have relied heavily on The Middle Pillar. I have been unable to perform it every day, due to time, family, work, and travel priorities that have left me breathlessly busy. A few Qabalistic Crosses every day has served to maintain the Cross of Light within me, but what has really helped me weather the storm has been the Middle Pillar.

I feel it as a golden shell packed close around an inner layer of my aura, just beyond my body. The negativity and pain emanating from her have washed off of this shell, allowing me to dedicate myself to a calm and positive mindset.

During the few times that the negativity has crept through, and I react out of frustration or mild anger, the repercussions have unanimously been torrential. If I reply to something shortly, she invites a great conflict, and I must pull back and recede like the tide, allowing her grasp to slip off of me.

In the description of the Tarot card the Tower read to me by my wife this morning, ‘anything that you grasp on to will be destroyed.’ I can see those things that she is grasping on to are deteriorating, and were I one of them, I would surely be swept up in the fury of the tower.

Instead I back away, allowing the Tower experience to happen. My offers of assistance have been met with quick anger, which I politely decline to escalate. My assistance has been sidelined, and she can be allowed to have her necessary experience, without me being a necessary part of it.

I am sure that without the Middle Pillar I would be more involved in her catastrophes, holding stronger opinions, taking a stronger hand, making more of a fight. My energy would then be pulled down the vortex, and I would participate in the destruction.

Instead, I have found a place of calm, right outside the range, protected and shielded. I will forever be grateful for having this exercise in my arsenal.

Draining the Magicians

It’s an interesting day today.

The new moon, the eclipse, theres some major shit going down today. Last night, too, Saturday, I could feel it really strongly. Theres a lot of magical energy swirling…

…and I just want to sit it all out.

It’s funny, when I was younger, I always wanted to be involved in a big cosmic shift. Now that one is here, I don’t want to participate in it; I just want to sit out on the sidelines, shelter my family from any ill effects, and be prepared for the new world we’re going to get.

I’m writing this to you for a few reasons; first, you’re a good friend; second, I don’t have anyone to talk magic with here, and I really need that as an outlet.

For a while I was working with Amanda in this area, doing a distance coaching on moving up the Tree of Life. But I didn’t really want to go past Tiphareth, for a few reasons, and as I’m sure you know when coaching relationships are in disarray, communication is paused, until we can find the right way to resume the conversation.

So amanda and I aren’t really talking right now; I get the impression she is waiting for the Hierarchy to give her guidance, or waiting for today to perform an exit ritual. Normally I would write to her about this sort of thing, but I want to write this to you, because I’ve come to realize something:

the ipssissimus is not treating his flock well.

I say this as an outsider, as someone not involved in the Mystery School at any high level, as someone who has energetic antennae and can interpret my perceptions in an independent way. You, Mikaela, are in exactly the same status; you are Mystery School-friendly, but not part of their organization, practically or psychically.

I think the conversation we’ve been having over the last few years, about how all the RMs are broke and destitute, has something to do with what I’ve been feeling from the top: a pull. A draining. A siphoning of power.

Having only moderate knowledge of the workings of Golden Dawn traditions, I can’t postulate anything certainly, I can only hypothesize: I think the ipsissimus has a connection to all initiates through the initiation ritual, and he can draw power through that connection at will.

There have been times in history when members of the Esoteric Brotherhood were powerful and wealthy, in no small part due to their studies of the occult. Isaac Newton was the master of the Mint in London. Francis Bacon, and other of his contemporaries were powerful and wealthy. During that time, the practice of the magical arts was an augmentation of one’s power.

In our day and age, magicians are a sorry lot.

They tend to be poor, artistic, and counter-culture. The only major exception (in America) I can think of is the Masons, who function more as a power-broker-network than a magical society, but they still overlap.

So what has separated the Modern Mystery school from its forbears, in regards to the ability of its members to succeed and become powerful in temporal affairs?

The two major distinctions I see are the advance of the Internet, and the current head of the Brotherhood of Light.

My wife knew of the Rocky Mountain Mystery School when she grew up in Santa Fe. The heads of the local chapter were always in financial straits.

And Gudni was running it even back then.

Based on the experience I had with the Golden Pyramid meditation, which I told you about in our last Skype call, I can tell that he is using group connections for his own use of magical power.

I think it is draining all the magicians.

While I was working with Amanda, I saw things in my life beginning to fall apart. My clients stopped coming in, I had a contract fall apart, and it reminded me of the last time I worked with her, during the Elements Class I took with her in the end of 2010. At the same time, my financial life started falling apart; I lost my job at Spot Color Studio, and three business deals all crashed at the same time.

Having gone through this twice, I’m not calling them definitely connected, but I don’t feel comfortable calling it a coincidence.

I’ve stopped doing my daily rituals. Other than an occasional Qabalistic Cross, and a monthly practice of the MIddle Pillar on the full moon, I don’t do the daily rituals in the initiate’s manual. Especially the circle.

I think casting the circle is how the ipsissimus collects from the initiates.

I say this not as a declaration, or a condemnation, but merely as a theory. I stopped doing this ritual, and everything got easier. I got a job. Money started coming in. The effects, whatever their source, are reversing themselves.

And I’m not willing to put aside the idea that it is possible that this work has been knocking me into a better place than I ever could have been; the first time this happened, in the Elements class, my situation changed to allow me to move to Costa Rica. The second time, when I had a client walk out on a ten thousand dollar contract, it made me fold my business and look for a job (that I got in three weeks) that is exceptionally awesome and gets me in with some really powerful people. This could be the step-up I’ve been waiting for in my career.

So it’s possible that the mega-shift is better for me in the long run; but I’m no longer willing to pay the price of my financial success, with a family of 7 people counting on my ability to provide for them. So I’m taking my benefits and growth and stepping out.

I’d love to know your thoughts, and any experiences you’ve had in this regard.

Let’s buck a trend.

Magicians, nowadays, are broke financially.

 

Not all of them, I’m sure. You’ve probably met plenty of higher-ups in MMS who have successful businesses and careers under way; in general, though, magicians tend to be pretty strapped for cash, as a rule.

 

I have theories about why this stereotype exists, and is fulfilled. By scraping so much of the energy around us out of our personal space, we can sever our relation to the natural abundance of the universe.

This, coupled with a societal prejudice against woo-woo, can detract from our ability to foster successful business relationships. (Notice how insular communities like fundamentalist churches are populated with successful businesspeople who always do business together, and you can see the disconnect I am describing.)

Magicians don’t patronize each other’s businesses like Christians do, because there’s not nearly as many of us, and so many of us are broke.

We like to trade.

Barter works well for us, because we rely on money from outsiders (non-Magicians) outside of our circle to pay our bills, so we CAN’T be insular.

However, I wonder if we can step out of the classification of ‘broke magicians’ and into the demographic of ‘successful people who happen to be magicians.’

Any thoughts on how to firmly make that shift?

I have an idea…

Since I know that money is tight, and you are trying to get more clients, and still want to do the apprenticeship and talked about doing a trade, I’ve been thinking.

The question was:

What do I need or want that Caelan could offer?

Book Trailers!

It would showcase your video editing skills, it would pad your resume, and it would create something that I have been looking to have done anyway.  (There is a guy here in Seattle whose name is Brady Hall and he makes over $100,000 a year making book trailers for romance novels – http://youtu.be/650aVI4y3Us this one is funny (and Drago was in it)).

Anyway, I think you have e-copies of a few of my books, right? Is this something you would be interested in doing in trade for the apprenticeship stuff?

I need to do something to start increasing book sales and I think that having a catchy or clever video or book trailer I can embedd into my website and my Amazon author page would help.

What do you think?