An “ax crazy” character is someone who is psychologically unstable and presents a clear danger to others. Ax crazies are capable of extreme violence, whether carried out with a Slasher Smile, a Creepy Monotone, or out and out murderous rage, and with no way of knowing just what will set them off, this makes them extremely frightening to deal with. This mainly differentiates them from other eccentric characters who may themselves be obsessive, weird or seemingly crazy, but use this condition hand in hand with doing good, or at least not being in the way. However, some formerly established heroes can go through an episode of ax-craziness and still retain their heroic mantle.
Despite the title, ax crazies aren’t limited to using axes — most of them favor big knives, straight razors, or other nasty implements of gory death, with the truly crazy among them favoring the chainsaw, and the best of them, chainsaw axes. A good number of other ax crazies are also Trigger Happy, preferring either Really Big Guns that blow really big holes in people, or weapons that allow them to kill lots of people with reckless abandon, such as any automatic weapon. The truly crazy among these people prefer a heaping helping of high explosives or a good-sized flamethrower.
Sadly, this is also an example of Truth In Television, as Real Life ax crazies have been responsible for many horrible tragedies.
If you find yourself sexually attracted to Ax Crazy people, seek help. If the attraction is to the person, run and do not try to reason with them, your safety is paramount. If your attraction is to the axe craziness in general, go for it, it’d be best to get you out of the gene pool.
Virtually a parody of the FEAR song, LET’s Have A War
SECONDS #44
DATE: October 1997
BY: Steven Blush
Some people scoff at Glenn because of his dour demeanor and dark offerings. His quasi-Satanic and Racialist philosophies have no doubt caused some problems for him and others. For example, according to his 1994 SECONDS interview with Michael Moynihan, Glenn spoke frankly about Race politics, saying that MTV wouldn’t play his video of “Until You Call On The Dark” because they thought it was Satanic. Later that interview was reprinted, without our permission, in Tom Metzger’s tabloid WAR, and we were soon thereafter contacted by the Anti-Defamation League. At least Danzig’s big enough to express his opinions without fear of recrimination. Glenn ain’t no Nazi Punk, he’s just got pride and self-esteem. The muscle-bound Danzig is his own man.
Sociologically speaking, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between The Misfits, Glenn’s subsequent band SAMHAIN, or the later eponymous outfit Danzig; they were all maniacal bands that killed from the heart. The Misfits’ mercurial lineups Glenn Danzig, Jerry Only, Bobby Steele, Doyle, Robo, Arthur Googy, Joey Image, Franche Coma, Mr. Jim, Manny, Brian Damage for a single song, even Necros and Laughing Hyenas alum Todd Swalla for half of a show played visceral, melodic Punk and dressed like a low-budget fusion of mad scientists, jock punks and cartoon superheroes. Perhaps their decline was precipitated by a particularly nasty April 1982 San Francisco performance in which Doyle used his axe to crack some kid’s skull open.
When he disbanded The Misfits in 1983, Glenn had already graduated from Punk Rock Comic Book Geek to Heavy Metal Beelzebub incarnate. He went off to form one of the greatest bands that never achieved stardom, Samhain, which consisted of such characters as Eerie Von, London May, Lyle Presslar, Brian Baker, Steve Zing, C.A. Richie, Pete “Damien” Marshall, and Al Pike. Their music makes a lot more sense a dozen years after the fact; it’s evocative of Alien Sex Fiend or Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel but with guitars blaring. The 1984 debut album Initium, on Glenn’s Plan 9 label, was fucking brilliant. Samhain’s heavy-handed Goth can still be heard today in bands like Type O Negative, Subarachnoid Space and Moonspell. Danzig, the band — to date it has included Eerie, Chuck Biscuits, John Christ, Joey Castillo, Mark Chaussee, Tommy Victor and Josh Lazie — has always been a full-on Rock experience. Their five albums and one live EP simply define “primal instinct” — no makeup, no bullshit, just hair and muscle and male perspiration. Face it, you can’t deny this guy.
The band’s self-titled 1988 Def American debut album was a stripped-down affair containing the hits “Twist Of Cain,” “Mother,” “Am I Demon,” and “She Rides.” Danzig II — Lucifuge (1990) was a dank, Delta Blues-driven opus with killer tracks like “Her Black Wings” and “I’m The One.” Danzig III — How The Gods Kill (1992) was perhaps best known for the cover, H.R. Giger’s 1976 masterpiece painting “Meister And Margeritha.” A feud over the use of that painting eventually erupted; during a noted New York performance, an ambitious process server allegedly crowdsurfed his way onto the stage to subpoena Glenn. Danzig 111 was uneven but had great songs like “Godless” and “Dirty Black Summer.” Also,’92 saw the release of Glenn’s symphonic outing, Black Aria.
The commercial pinnacle of Glenn’s varied recording career was the Gold-certified 1993 live EP, Thrall Demonsweatlive, with “It’s Coming Down” and the megaMTV hit “Mother.” The following year came 4p, a runicinspired morass which obviously went way over my head.
Hooking up with Rick Rubin and the (Def) Am~rican Recordings label was a mixed blessing. On one hand, Glenn put out his most successful records with Rick. On the other hand, the music of Danzig became ghettoized due to its harsh AC/DC-isms. Then again, Glenn hasn’t exactly excelled as self-producer and manager. The inevitable split between the two mega-egos was less than amicable, to put it politely.
Rubin tried to put the emphasis on Glenn’s voice — he saw the band Danzig as a vehicle for Glenn’s powerful deliveries — while Glenn curiously saw his Elvis-esque golden throat as just another instrument in the mix. On Blackacideuil, his trademark croon was obscured to the point of being unrecognizable (and on a remix of “Sacrifice,” Industrial guru Jim Thirlwell only heightened the confusion).
Throughout his career, Glenn has promoted striking visual strategies; in other words, he knows a good skull when he sees one. He currently runs his own comic publishing company, Verotik, home of nasty popular titles like Devil Man, Jaguar God and Satanika. Judging by all the action at their headquarters, there’s some nice coin to be made off racy renderings of heroic primates and sexy supervixens.
After all these years, I just don’t know what to make of Glenn. He’s alienated most of his friends from the early Hardcore scene, he’s disavowed his Metal daze and, to put it bluntly, most Industrial kids could care less about Glenn Danzig. I spent two days with him conducting an in-depth interview and making extensive plans for a symbiotic relationship between SECONDS and Verotik — only not to hear back from him since. According to Glenn’s publicist, he was upset that I never came through with the “double cover story” I allegedly offered. Neither I nor anyone I know in the publishing business have ever heard of such a thing. Glenn, I apologize …
SECONDS: What were you listening to before Punk?
DANZIG: Well, we always had Punk in America. Stuff was called “Punk” here way before it was called “Punk” in England. As a matter of fact, Malcolm McLaren got the great idea for his Punk band when he came over here and saw Television, Richard Hell and The Ramones. Even before that, in the Sixties, you could go in a record shop and there was a Punk section. It really meant Garage Bands but it said “Punk.” SECONDS: So were you buying The New York Dolls and The Stooges? DANZIG: I remembering liking The Velvet Underground and went from there. Of course, I loved The New York Dolls — always hated Kiss. I still hate Kiss, okay? I’m not on the Kiss bandwagon — never have been, never will be. They were just this really bad version of The New York Dolls from Queens. The Dolls were about attitude and I’ve always been into attitude in music. When British Punk hit American shores it was loud and crazy and that’s the kind of music I like. So I had versions of The Misfits going back around ’76,’77.
SECONDS: Were you writing at this time?
DANZIG: Yeah, way before. I mean, I wrote “Bullet” in 1974 as a three-verse poem.
SECONDS: Was your family supportive of your music?
DANZIG: No.
SECONDS: What was the vibe at these first shows?
DANZIG: We would shock people — open mouths dripping. I remember one show at CBGB’s. It was Jerry’s first show and he showed up in glam clothes, like shoes with platforms and open toes, and I was like, “I’m not going onstage with you.” It was hard getting people to understand what it was about.
SECONDS: When did the full-on Horror vibe arise in The Misfits?
DANZIG: The B-movie thing just started happening because I did this deal to get us into the studio where I sold off the rights to the name “Blank Records” to Cliff Bernstein for twenty hours at Mercury’s recording studios. Finally, The Misfits could record a real record. People heard “Bullet” and that other stuff but we still recorded “Teenagers From Mars” and “Return Of The Fly.” I was into the Mad Max movie and was trying to get those guys to see the movie — I wasn’t happy. I didn’t like the way my songs were coming out and what was going on in the band. I mean, Doyle couldn’t play guitar, Jerry didn’t practice his bass at all. I was already disillusioned.
SECONDS: Was Doyle in the band because he was Jerry’s brother?
DANZIG: As far as Doyle being in The Misfits, Jerry didn’t want Bobby in the band anymore. Originally, I didn’t want Bobby in the band at all, but he was in the band. They wanted Bobby out and Doyle in. I said, “Look, I don’t really care but don’t lead Bobby on anymore.” I was teaching Doyle stuff on guitar and it wasn’t working — his hands were just too big. Eventually, they didn’t tell Bobby, so I told Bobby. They wanted him to come down to the show and not know he was out of the band or something, which was not cool.
SECONDS: I always felt like The Misfits would have occurred whether or not there was Punk and Hardcore.
DANZIG: I had my own agenda with songs, style, and lyrics. It was coming from more of a literary standpoint. The whole Heavy Metal attitude I didn’t like. I wanted out of The Misfits and decided to do a new band. Besides, those guys never wanted to play and were very happy working for their dad and making lots of money. I just didn’t like a lot the bands they liked. They liked Van Halen and Judas Priest and I hated that shit — couldn’t stand it. I liked loud music but I liked Motorhead more. There’s a big difference between Judas Priest and Motorhead.
SECONDS: You were outsiders to the Hardcore scene. Why were those people so rabid about you?
DANZIG: I think the songs spoke for themselves. Why does somebody like Johnny Cash? Because he’s real. My problem was that while image is important, I thought that image was becoming too important. I wasn’t into it and I’m still not. Everything’s an image, even farmer shit. If you’re not from anywhere there’s a farm and you’re wearing lumberjack shit, that’s an image. What are you, cutting down trees for a living? My image is dark and somber. It fits my personality. The problem I always had with the people in The Misfits was that it was a put-on. You wouldn’t see those guys walking around like that.
SECONDS: The Misfits had a tangential relationship with Black Flag.
DANZIG: Well, I know Spot always wanted to work with us and Robo loved the band, he wanted to be in The Misfits. Henry was just a big fan. Black Flag were, and still are, one of my favorite bands. There were a bunch of bands that came out of Punk that were different and did music that still lives on. That was us, Black Flag, Minor Threat, and the Bad Brains. I remember when the Bad Brains first came up to New York and they were all in Ska jackets and they were like fast Jazz-Punk. We were doing stuff that was way faster than anyone ever heard and they were like, “Is this Punk? What is this angry stuff that’s really fast?” Out on the West Coast was Black Flag and a band people don’t realize was important, Rhino 39. It was all happening at the same time but it wasn’t getting covered. Of course, magazines in New York hated what we were doing, hated what Black Flag was doing, because it wasn’t New Wave. It’s still like that today where KROQ hates anything aggressive.
SECONDS: Is there a story of you and Henry Rollins chasing Motley Crue down a street ?
DANZIG: Not down the street, but we ran them out of The Whiskey when The Misfits first played there. It happened and it was pretty funny. You know, Motley Crue got a lot from The Misfits — so did Rick James. Up until then, Motley Crue was a Dolls imitation and then all of a sudden they were into “the mark of the beast.” So many bands have stolen from shit I’ve done — I don’t care anymore. The only one I really hate is Stone Temple Pilots. They out and out stole “Snakes Of Christ” and renamed it “Sex Type Thing.” I did Lonn Friend’s radio show and he goes, “You know this song?” and puts on what I think is “Snakes Of Christ” and all of a sudden I hear this doofus going, “I am, I am, I am,” and I’m going “Who’s this?” “Oh, this is Stone Temple Pilots. This song sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” We played them back to back and they were exact.
SECONDS: What was the real deal with the notorious Misfits incident in San Francisco in 1982?
DANZIG: All night people were getting hit with bottles and beer cans. These kids had singled out Doyle and were hitting him with full beer cans. Finally, Googy jumped in the audience in the middle of a song and started a fight with one of the guys throwing beer cans at him. It was a big fight, Googy started getting his ass kicked, and Doyle saw one guy throwing beer and hit him in the head with his guitar. It just went crazy after that, a big riot basically. I remember when Maximum Rock N’ Roll did their story, it was one-sided that everybody wanted The Misfits gone but that’s bullshit because a lot of people had come there to see The Misfits play. It was typical yellow journalism from Maximum Rock N’ Roll.
SECONDS: That magazine was sometimes seen as Communistic.
DANZIG: Isn’t it still like that?
SECONDS: What were highlights and lowlights for The Misfits Obviously, there were some great highlights.
DANZIG: Not towards the end. Once ’80 hit, that’s when it got pretty bad. The band you’re seeing right now as The Misfits is not The Misfits. It’s one guy trying to relive something and make some money because Punk is fashionable again. It’s not The Misfits and everyone who’s seen them has called me and said, “What the fuck is this?” The high point was that I got to do all my songs. The low point was putting up with all the bullshit. Once I got out of that situation, my life became so much better and easier. Those guys could go through money like you wouldn’t believe. You didn’t make that much money back then to begin with. If we made $500, we were lucky.
SECONDS: Was Samhain a decision to do something different?
DANZIG: It was supposed to be what I wanted to do all along. Originally, we were going to call it Danzig. It was a blending of what people call Goth with some slower grooves and tribal drums. More progressive, for sure. Punk was getting boring.
SECONDS: Samhain was definitely the precursor to Gothic Metal. I’m trying to think what was going on then.
DANZIG: Bauhaus and Alien Sex Fiend. We were doing stuff that was mid-tempo and dirge-y, and at that time I was playing so many instruments on records, it was like The Misfits. Again, it was hard finding people. I listened to Sex Gang Children, March Violets, Foetus — I like music that has the original Punk ethic, which is: as soon as it gets boring, change it. Music has always been revolutionary for me.
SECONDS: Samhain wasn’t horror; it went farther.
DANZIG: It was a more real approach. That’s what Earth A.D. was supposed to be; the other guys made it cartoon-y.
SECONDS: With Samhain, I got the idea people wanted you to do one thing and you were doing something else.
DANZIG: We played to way more people than The Misfits. People think The Misfits was a big band and it wasn’t. We had big shows in New York or L.A. but anywhere else except Detroit — you’re looking at fifty to five hundred.
SECONDS: I saw Samhain at The Ritz and it was on a bigger level.
DANZIG: In the beginning of Samhain, we’d play places of all sizes. One night we’d be playing a thousand-seater and the next night a club. The money was much better in Samhain; the band was able to play five nights a week, as opposed to The Misfits, where the guys wanted to fly in, do three nights, and fly out to be back at work. That became two nights, and then one night. They wanted me and Robe to sleep in the van while they would just fly in. They were primadonnas. As a matter of fact, when I first saw Spinal Tap, I was like, “This is my old band.” Anyway, Samhain was better. The first Samhain L.A. show we played at the Stardust Ballroom across the street from a big Metal bill at The Palladium. We did over fifteen hundred paid an Motorhead had three hundred people at their show. The Ramones were playing too in Long Beach and we did pretty good. Actually, at one show, Green River opened up. We had a direction and were moving. That’s the band Rick Rubin saw at the New Music Seminar. We were representing the United States and Celtic Frost wa there, DOA was there, MDC … Rubin had signed Slayer at the New Music Seminar the year before. He came down next year and came backstage and I didn’t know who he was. I knew the Beastie Boys, but I didn’t know he wa working with them. Here’s this guy with a long ZZ Top beard going crazy backstage and I’m like, “Who the fuck is this guy?” He’s telling me people he knows and I said, “I know Glen Friedman,” and he said, “Call him, he’ll tell you who I am.”At that time, Samhain was getting to be too much for me to handle. I was looking for a label and we had interest from Elektra, Epic, and of course Rubin’s label, which was Def Jam at the time. I decided Rubin’s label would be the best to go with. That became a whole other nightmare, but it did get the band out there. The guitarist had been kicked out and I began a guitar search; we ended up using John Christ. Rick and I sat and talked. I said, “This isn’t working.” He said, “To be honest, I don’t want any of these old guys. Eerie can’t play, the drummer can’t play. All I want to do is sign you. I never liked The Misfits; this band I like.” I said, “Eerie comes, or it’s not going to happen.” I was going to call Samhain “Danzig” before and now it was clear. I was like, “I’m tired of changing names of bands. We should just call it Danzig. I’ll never have to change the name again.
SECONDS: Do Samhain’s records accurately represent the band?
DANZIG: To an extent. I think live, it was much different. It was always hard getting a good guitar sound on the budget we had to work with. In the Samhain box set, there will be two live CD’s.
SECONDS: Danzig was different. Was that a matter of production or new ideas?
DANZIG: It was a combination of a bunch of things. What Rick wanted to do was strip my songs down. A lot of people don’t understand what a producer is. Actually, a producer works with you as a fifth member and rearranges songs and gives ideas. I liked his ideas of stripping it all down and making it raw. Eventually, what happened is I started missing all those layers. Some of the songs on the first Danzig record just came off like Rock songs. Maybe they were more aggressive than other stuff going on — and I guess they were, because no band would take us out for anything. As a matter of fact, to this day Danzig has only done a support slot on two tours: Metallica — and they waited until “Mother” was a massive hit in ’93 — and Ozzy. Everybody was scared of our audience and what we did. AC/DC’s management was scared to death. We were up for every tour and what happened is Danzig did their own tours. When we did our first full-scale tour for Lucifuge, Soundgarden and COC were the openers. The next tour we took White Zombie and Kyuss. The next tour after that was Proper Grounds and then Genitorturers. Later on, Type O Negative, Godflesh — Streetcleaner was one of my favorite records — and Marilyn Manson and Kern last year. I like to take out bands other bands wouldn’t. Aside from Trent Reznor, we were the only people to take out Manson.
SECONDS: What do you think of those first few Danzig records?
DANZIG: I like them. I would have liked to see more mood on the first record. The second record Rick didn’t have much to do with and you can hear the mood coming back in. How The Gods Kill is where it really starts changing and I’m producing because producers are scared to work with us. I added more keyboards and Eerie and Chuck both grew very unhappy with John as a guitar player. They hated his style and didn’t want him in the band. We actually tried out Dez Cadena from Black Flag and I called my friend Pepper from COC to see if he would want to do it.
SECONDS: What was the problem with John Christ?
DANZIG: The feel wasn’t there. It was becoming too stiff and Metal. They wanted a more loose, rhythmic guitarist. How Eerie put it was he wanted a more “soulful” guitarist. And a crazier one. I have no problem hitting my guitar and bending it and John would never do that. As a matter of fact, in “It’s Coming Down,” I was banging the fuck out of my guitar and John just put his guitar down and then he walked out.
SECONDS: He came from a different background?
DANZIG: Yes, he did. So, what happened was Chuck tried to kill himself in a hotel and whatever his problems were — drugs, liquor, everything –Chuck had grown unhappy with Eerie. He didn’t think he could play bass and by this time, Eerie hated Chuck. In retrospect, I should have changed the lineup sooner. Originally when Rick and I set the band up, I could have other musicians come in all the time –kind of like what Ozzy does. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t and Ozzy’s new lineup is awesome with Mike Bordin on drums. He’s probably one of the best drummers in the business and he doesn’t get his due. I remember Faith No More played with Samhain at the Metroplex in Atlanta and those guys had no money. I let them sell Samhain t-shirts and gave them a hundred bucks each. Eventually, John found out about us trying other people out. So he had done the Danzig 4 record with me and asked if he could finish out the tour and I had no problem with that. There was definitely going to be more experimentation going on in Danzig 5. I wanted to get back to a lot of stuff I had done in Samhain which Rubin would discourage. He hated anything digital. You couldn’t even put a digital harmonizer on vocals; Rubin would have a heart attack. That’s one of the reasons Danzig III sounds so different is that I got to play with a lot of stuff. When we did Danzig 4, he used to come down at the end of the night for fifteen minutes — that was his “production” — and he’d go, “Wait a minute. Is that digital?” We’d show him a little fuzzbox but not show him all the other shit it was patched with. At that time, it was basically just me and John working in the studio and sometimes he wouldn’t even come down at all and it was just me and the engineer.
SECONDS: And that was the end of Danzig part one.
DANZIG: On the Danzig 4 tour, Joey was the drummer. He’s an in-demand drummer, he’s turned down bands like Suicidal and Slayer, and was in Sugartooth and Wasted Youth. Immediately we clicked because of the Punk thing, he hated all the bands I hated, and liked Rap. That was cool because Eerie and John hated Rap, couldn’t stand it. It got to the point where I couldn’t even play Rap around Eerie. He was going in the opposite direction of Allman Brothers and Stevie Ray Vaughn — they’re the reason I started Punk bands. It got weird being around Eerie with him being into all this mellow, Hippie Potsmoking music and Country — new Country Music, not even old Country.
SECONDS: As for artwork, you’ve always understood the whole package.
DANZIG: I went to art school, and after high school I went to photography school at the New York Institute Of Photography. Some of my favorite photographers are Man Ray and Helmut Newton. In the beginning of New York Punk, art was very much a part of it and art is still important to me. We used Anton Corbijn for videos and photo shoots and he’s awesome; we even used Peter Christopherson people don’t realize he was in Throbbing Gristle. Getting off the track, the thing I hate is this “Industrial” tag. Every time people hear treated vocals, they’re like, “It’s Industrial,” but The Beatles treated vocals! Does that mean “Come Together” is Industrial? I don’t know what people mean by “Industrial. To me, it’s Throbbing Gristle and Neubauten.
SECONDS: You talk about the arty part of Punk but Hardcore was less arty.
DANZIG: I don’t think Hardcore was less arty. It had a definite look and style and there’s also an art to brutality. That’s why certain boxers are better than others — there’s an art to it. People would ask me why I was always working out and I said I wanted to have the perfect synthesis between mind and body, to take my mind and body to the ultimate plateau. It may sound Nietzschean, but I remember people in the beginning of Punk talking about how Nietzsche had made them do what they wanted to do. Art was important because it placed a value on the music that wasn’t on bands like Van Halen and Judas Priest. That’s why you don’t see pictures of Glenn Danzig hanging out with Sammy Hagar — an abomination on this planet. You don’t see pictures of Henry like that either. Don’t confuse me with them. It’s like the idiots are running the show again. With all this happy Pop-Punk, record companies finally found a way to make millions off Punk. It’s Green Day and The Offspring. There’s nothing angry about it. It’s not doing anything except putting money in their pockets. It may have the sound, but not the attitude.
SECONDS: Tell us about Verotik.
DANZIG: I never thought I’d be doing a company like this but no one was doing it in America. I had the opportunity to do it and make a difference. Up until now, there’s only been X-Men, Superman, Spiderman — silly superheroes running around in spandex trying to save the world and the only female character you had is Wonder Woman. What we’ve done is get together some really good writers, painters and colorists and put together a mature, adult package. It’s an uphill battle; there’s censorship everywhere and companies are scared of you and trying to get you closed down because now you’re making people re-think what their product is. All of a sudden, people are going, “Their stuff is for kids.” We’re not trying to get a expand people’s minds. The Verotika book is by people who write novels; they don’t do comic books. We also have female writers. Every other country has an adult comic market and I’m happy I did it.
SECONDS: What went down between you and H.R. Giger?
DANZIG: That was a problem with his management. After I negotiated the record deal, I thought we got t-shirt rights because it was pretty expensive. Somehow, the i management didn’t give us t-shirt rights and we couldn’t do a t-shirt of the How The Gods Kill album cover and we started getting bootlegged like crazy, especially in Germany. They thought we were doing the shirts and we told them we weren’t and some lawsuit erupted. I don’t know where it stands right now. SECONDS: Did they subpoena you onstage” DANZIG: No, that never happened. I met Giger and he was a real nice guy. He invited us to his museum in Zurich and we took photos with him. Then I heard him say some really fucked-up shit about me, which is really two-faced.
SECONDS: Why did you do an Electronic record, Blackacidevil?
DANZIG: It’s not an Electronic record. There’s guitars on it — a lot of the noises you hear are me screwing up my guitar and sending it through fuzz boxes. There are no machines playing themselves on this record. Live, whatever can’t be reproduced by an instrument has to be played by D-88s or whatever, but the vocals, guitar, bass and drums are live.
SECONDS: What inspired this record?
DANZIG: I really hate the state of music right now. The year 2000 is approaching and aside from a handful of bands, no one is really doing anything to further music. When I heard the Lords Of Acid record, it was exciting and the live show was like a Hardcore show, five slampits and people going crazy. A ritual, an experience beyond sitting there and clapping your hands. It was a synthesis of tribal drums and Hardcore mixed with Techno grooves. I’m not a big Techno fan but this was something different that reminded me of the early days of Punk. It was clear I was going to be changing shit up with my new record, but still keeping it hard. Bands like Pearl Jam tried to go all folky and I was going to go deep inside the belly and just rip. This album is the album I have no regrets on.
SECONDS: Labels put so much pressure on the artist and then don’t come through.
DANZIG: I’d rather be in charge of the artwork than have them do it. My original deal with Rick was that I would have less to do, because I was running Plan 9 and everything. He said, “All you have to do is worry about writing songs and going on the road.” Bullshit! I was doing everything down to producing the records because he was never there. He was off playing Hollywood producer, which he’s still doing — a millionaire living on the hill. Being on that label became a big joke. Verotik has been going for almost three years now and unless I’m on the road, I’m here all the time. I mean, Rubin was coming in for an hour on Wednesday for a lunch meeting and that was it. How could it be his vision anymore?
SECONDS: Isn’t it true that Curtis from Taang got his start bootlegging Misfits singles?
DANZIG: Yes, and if I ever get ahold of him his face is going to be planted in a wall. I stopped him with Caroline and had him destroy all the bootlegs and he just started doing it again. He’s going to be in a lot of trouble soon. He was a friend and for a friend to do that is not cool. There are givers and takers and somewhere along the line, Curtis decided he was going to be a taker. I also heard Tesco Vee bootlegs records. This is another person who got jealous his band didn’t do anything. His band was a joke band and one day he told everyone “We’re going to be bigger than Judas Priest,” and believed it.
SECONDS: It’s rumored Revelation got started through bootlegging, too.
DANZIG: I know they caught the guys from Youth Of Today bootlegging the SSD stuff. I heard from Jamie that Al wanted to demolish them. I see Springa all the time. He’s loony as ever. SECONDS: Are you still involved with Jeet Kune DoZ DANZIG: Yes. Jeet Kune Do means “way of the intercepting fist.” I train with one of Bruce Lee’s original five disciples. They were all students of Ed Parker, the guy who used to train Elvis. He said, “I want you all to meet this guy doing an exhibition.” They went to meet Bruce and the story is they didn’t go back to Ed, they stayed with Bruce.
SECONDS: The discipline is about restraint.
DANZIG: It is and it isn’t. It’s knowing when there’s a real threat and knowing when there’s not a threat. A fight is only a fight when you’re throwing down. People yelling at each other is just words. Until someone puts a hand on me, there’s nothing.
SECONDS: Quentin Tarantino glorifies violence but doesn’t seem to have experienced true violence.
DANZIG: Is he glorifying violence or just commenting on the world today? We’ve had wars forever, intrigue forever, people being framed for stuff they didn’t do since the dawn of time. We’ve had genocide since the Christians were murdered by the Romans. We’ve had slavery forever. It kills me when everyone acts like Black people were the only slaves. Tell that to the Spanish people down in Mexico who were made slaves. Tell that to the families in Germany and England who were all slaves at one time. Tell that to the people in England who had to give up their wives the first night of their wedding because they weren’t people, just part of the land, and the king could have any wife he wanted on the first night of her marriage.
SECONDS: There’s Black-on-Black slavery in. Africa, today.
DANZIG: Reverend Farrakhan now finally admits that Black brothers in Africa sold Black brothers to Dutch traders. We all knew that but now he’s admitting it. You can’t rewrite history; everybody’s family at one time was a slave. If there was a war and you were captured, you were a slave. The Romans had Greek slaves and the Greeks weren’t Black. Historically, slavery is not just Black people in the United States. There’s slavery going on right now with Asians and I don’t see everyone freaking out. There’s slavery where young blonde girls go over to Japan and are never heard of again. If we really want to comment on slavery, let’s not just go back to the 1800s. Someone might say I’m being insensitive but I’m being realistic about it. It’s an insensitive subject.
SECONDS: You’ve raised the question of what’s wrong with being proud to be White.
DANZIG: Why would I not be proud of being White? “Look what all the White people have done –” Well, look what all the Black people have done. Look what all the Mexican people have done. Every race has a ahadaw east over it at some point in history. What race am I? I’m a mutt, I’m a mix of a bunch of different stuff and so is everybody else. There is no “original” race anymore. As far as me being an Aryan or a racist, anyone who knows me knows that’s bullshit. But if there’s a race war, what I am going to do? Twenty Black guys with guns aren’t going to care that I’m not with anybody.
SECONDS: Is that in, our future?
DANZIG: Sure. Civil wars like that have always happened and are always going to happen. As much as you’d like to change it, the world will always take you back to what it is. You’re just a speck on this planet and as the world evolves, it repeats itself.
SECONDS: There are cleansing processes.
DANZIG: Nature has its own cleansing processes — AIDS may be one of them. Ebola, all these different things, nature controls what happens on this planet. The world always has its way of clarifying things.
SECONDS: If you stand for anything, you’re considered a racist.
DANZIG: They can suck my dick and die. There’s so many double standards. If you’re proud and White, all of a sudden you’re racist That’s not the case and anyone with half a brain knows that. Unfortunately, we live in a world where a lot of people don’t have half a brain. People try to acquiesce to certain groups and then that becomes a reverse inequality.
SECONDS: The ultimate racism is a White person saying to a Black person, “Hey man, you’ve got so much soul,” and patting them on the back.
DANZIG: What is Black? To be honest, Black people aren’t black. We’re all different shades of brown. Calling yourself Black and calling somebody White has already set up a division. So don’t moan about the division later, okay? As far as Black people talking White and White people talking Black, that’s bullshit. English is English and different communities have different slang. In German and Spanish, there’s different dialects. You’re a product of where you grew up.
SECONDS: I feel we’ve reached a point in society where DANZIG: — people think too much.
SECONDS: The racists aren’t the problem anymore; it’s the virulent anti-racists who cause trouble.
DANZIG: I’m going to say something very controversial: if you are African-American and you don’t want to live by White people, that should be your choice. Where I grew up, there were areas White people weren’t allowed to go in. If you did, you’d get your ass kicked or killed. The flipside of that is why shouldn’t there be areas a Black person can’t go? If a White person doesn’t want to live with Black people, that’s their decision. This is America; do what you want to do. The problem is that most people in this country aren’t secure with themselves as people. Reverend Farrakhan would like to see Blacks and Whites separated. Fine, because the people that don’t want to be separated will say,’You go do what you want to do and I’11 stay here. It might be better off, because we have these people here, those people there, and then all the people that want to be together. SECONDS: We teach everyone to love each other and maybe we’re being disingenuous; maybe it’s okay to hate. Why can’t you dislike someone DANZIG: Maybe a Black guy breaks into my house, I catch him, he goes to jail. I’m not going to distrust all Black people because of that. If a White person broke in my house, would I hate all White people? No. But there are people who do. I’m just being logical about the whole situation and sometimes that’s insensitive to people. I’m not saying I have all the answers, but I do have answers. I know in Idaho the Aryan Nation tried to form their own county. The problem was they tried to secede from the United States. But I don’t see a problem setting up a town of people who all believe the same stuff. They’re complaining that they have all these guns but everybody has guns. In L.A., the gangs have more guns than the police. Why isn’t there a big National Guard raid on every gang house? Well, then who would sell the drugs for the government?
SECONDS: If you’re not firm with people, they walk all over you anal we see this in society.
DANZIG: I don’t let people walk all over me and immediately I’m branded an asshole and hard to deal with. Why am I hard to deal with? Because I don’t want to do what you want me to do. I want to do what I want to do. Call me an asshole, fine. I’m still not doing anything you want me to do. The fact that I’m able to do what I do makes me successful. I have no regrets and I’m very happy. I would not change a thing about my life. Could I have been more successful? Sure, but I don’t play the game. If you play the game, you lose because it’s their game. I play my own game. I told you before I always hated Kiss and one thing that irritates me was when I saw this Gene Simmons article and all of sudden he was cocky again because Kiss are real popular. He was asked “How can you deny the success of the Velvet Underground?” “They were an abysmal failure. Kiss is the only successful band that ever came out of New York.” “How can you say that? The Velvet Underground have gone on to influence tons of bands.” “Oh, they sucked, they never had any success, and they’re poor. They never sold out arenas, they never had any Gold records.” That’s success to him. They asked, “What is success to you?” “Selling out arenas and multi-Platinum records. I live the life of luxury.” It’s not, “Did I write a good song?” Did Kiss ever write a good song? Not in their whole fucking career. Did they write a lot of Pop trash? Sure. Did it sell a lot of records? Yeah. So did Captain And Tennille. Selling records has nothing to do with music. He says no other band came out of New York that was popular? The Shangri-Las came out of New York and sold millions of records. Dion came out of New York and sold millions of records, Danzig came out of New York and we have Platinum and Gold records. In fact, Kiss offered hefty amounts of money to go on tour opening for them and I turned them down every time, to the point where they were begging us.
SECONDS: People now aren’t talking about the bands that sold a million records in 1982.
DANZIG: No, they’re talking about Black Flag, The Misfits Bauhaus. Those are the bands people remember and talk about because they made a statement, and damn selling records. During the Summer Of Love, Lou Reed was writing about Heroin. It gets to the point where you have to remember why you do this and I keep making myself remember. I try to stay hungry and remember — even when other people forget — why I’m doing it.
SECONDS: There’s a lot of confusion with you in terms of the dark side. First of all, people get confused between Satanism and the occult.
DANZIG: There is no occult. It’s a word given to arcane things by Christians, Jews and whoever didn’t want you to know about them. Religions, sciences, knowledges all became the occult. I don’t like the word “occult”; it makes it sound like Satanism. To be honest, what’s wrong with Satanism? Is it any worse than killing each other in religious wars like the Catholics and Islamics have been doing for centuries? How many years has it been going on in Bosnia? I don’t think there’s millions of Satanists boiling little children and using their fat for spells. That’s silly. What makes Satanism any less of a religion than these other ones, and why is there so much hatred towards people who practice Satanism? Isn’t that religious persecution? Isn’t that grounds for a lawsuit in this country? No, because it’s Satanism. There’s so many hypocrisies among these organized religions that it’s ridiculous. If you worship Satan, it’s a valid religion and should be afforded all the freedoms and rights other religions are offered. According to our Constitution, you have the right to freedom of religion in this country. If your religion happens to be Satanism, you should be able to practice it.
SECONDS: Who is Satan?
DANZIG: Well, according to The New York Times, it’s me. As soon as I say one thing about Satan, I’m Satan. One of the first authors I liked a lot when I was kid besides Edger Alien Poe was Beaudelaire. When Beaudelaire wrote about Satan being misunderstood, he was called a Satanist. Wagner, same thing.
SECONDS: Just for the record, is Glenn Danzig a Satanist?
DANZIG: No. I would have to say some of my thinking corresponds with some of the thinking of Satanism. There are parallels between the way I believe and the way other people believe and that does include some Satanists. I don’t even know what religion I am. As far as my dark side, I embrace both my light and dark side. I don’t feel bad about having a dark side, just as I don’t feel bad about having a light side. The two must coexist for me to be myself. That’s how I feel about the world. Without good, there is no evil. Without evil, there is no good. You wouldn’t know the difference if we didn’t have both polarities. If there’s a dark and light side, I’11 take both their energy. My mind is open to all different possibilities.
SECONDS: Has the worship of Jesus slowed down society?
DANZIG: It’s the whole messiah thing in general. Some people are waiting for the messiah to come back, some people are waiting for the anti-Christ — who cares? Stop waiting. Live your life and have fun.
SECONDS: A bumper sticker says “God is coming.”
DANZIG: Well, he’s taking a long fucking time. Meanwhile, people are starving. If there’s a god, it’s a cruel god, that’s for sure.
SECONDS: Where did you get the name Danzig from?
DANZIG: It’s my family name. Somebody started a rumor a long time ago that it wasn’t my name but it’s not true. It’s my name. My license says t. There is a story behind it but I don’t want to tell you because it’s a personal thing between me and my family. SECONDS: What would you like your real fans to know about you” DANZIG: I don’t have to tell them, they already know. These people already know what’s bullshit. Unfortunately, journalists in most cases don’t buy records, they get them sent to them for free. They’re a little jaded and they rarely go to live shows. There’s very few journalists I know who go to live shows. Some of them don’t even like the format of loud music. They get a record and go, “It’s loud and obnoxious. I’m going to trash it. What can I write about this? Oh, it’s that Glenn guy, he’s a Satanist.”
SECONDS: I’ve seen you sit and sign autographs for an hour after a show. Did you learn that from being a fan yourself? I’m sure you’ve seen bands that didn’t treat their fans right…
DANZIG: There’s still bands that do that. Kids will come up to us and say, “Candlebox played here last year and just walked right to the bus. They wouldn’t even talk to us.” When I was a kid, bands were never ever accessible to the fans. You have a personal side you want to keep private but there’s a side you can give to them. If hearing what they have to tell about what your music means to them is the least you can do, then what the fuck? I’ve been lucky that the asshole ratio among my fans is not that high. I don’t think journalists realize what it’s like to have a real following of people who can relate to you. You can never please the critics. Never try, because then you’re not pleasing yourself. Please yourself, it bears more fruit.
Black shalwar kameez, black balaclava, white parade gloves,
Mistress:
Black burka
Congregation:
Temple Preparations:
Altar is covered with a black cloth. A black candle is placed to the left of the altar. A red to
the right. A framed picture of Mohammad Amin al-Husayni is placed above the altar. A
black banner bearing the black sun is placed above the photo. A crystal tetrahedron is
placed on the center of the altar towards the back. A chalice of blood is placed on the center
of the altar towards the front. Incense of Mars is to be burnt.
The Aim:
The aim of this mass is to extol courage and defiance in its rawest emanations. To provoke
sinister and wrathful energies. Performing this ritual will mark its participants as
terrorists, thus presenting itself as truly dangerous.
Black military fatigues, black balaclava
THE MASS
The congregants wait in silence in the temple at attention. The Master enters with an
AK-47 with a blank firing adapter, the Mistress follows. Both stand before the altar and
raise their right arms out with a fist and shout Jihad Akbar!
The Master:
Hail to you, children of the great holy war!
Congregants:
Hail the holy war!
Mistress:
Why do we stand here?
Congregants:
To extol war! To honor those who have defied the Magian with their lives! To honor
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, who defied the Jews. To honor him for uniting all Aryans
and siding with the Holy Third Reich. To defy the Jewish controlled governments of the
world and their interests. To make the world aware that the Jews bear no claim to Israel
and that the only home they deserve are in mass graves. Their bodies used as fertilizer
for the new!
Master:
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni stated, “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases
God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you. “He was sent by our
Gods to disrupt the Magian. Let us now remember him and honor those who give their
lives every day to defy the Jews and their foot soldiers.
(A fitting Jihad Nasheed is played in the background, the Master then takes the chalice and
places his right hand above the chalice and infuses the blood with dark energy while
chanting the Diabolus)
Mistress:
(raises her fist out and shouts
Jihad Akbar!)Congregation:
Jihad Akbar!
Master:
(After several exclamations he places the chalice back onto the altar and turns to face the
congregants. He then brandishes his AK-47 and fires off one round after the congregants
have shouted Jihad Akbar. The whole procession will go on as long as needed.)
Mistress:
Jihad Akbar!
Congregants:
Jihad Akbar!
Master:
(Fires one round into the air.)
Mistress:
I who am Mistress of the Earth welcome you, who have defied the Magian and the
modern world. A world that knows no honor or courage. You have broken from their
world and replaced their values with a heroic ethos!
Master:
(Turns to face the black sun banner and vibrates
Agios O Vindex.)Mistress:
(Lifts her veil and goes up to each congregant lifting their balaclava to kiss them. She states
to each,
hands.)
glory is yours to behold. She then moves to the altar and takes the chalice in herBy our love of glory and change we take this drink in honor of our wrathful Gods who
will return one day.
Master:
(The Master points to the black sun.)
Behold the symbol of the black sun! A most ancient and sinister energy source of our
race! One day the black sun will rise and awaken the primordial instincts of our race to
action. Like a hidden nebulous star it sends forth it’s emanations to this planet.
Mistress:
(Sips the wine.)
Let us affirm our faith and our destiny!
Master:
You have affirmed your faith, but with faith comes action. Will you answer this call and
bring the Jihad to all corners of this planet? If your blood is noble seal your faith with
your honor, and let us drink to our Dark Gods!
(Each member then takes a sip from the chalice beginning with the Mistress and ending
with the Master.)
Mistress:
To believe is easy, to defy is hard, but most difficult of all is to die fighting for a noble
cause. Go now and remember those who came before you and hold honor for those of us
who still retain life on this planet. Our numbers are few, but we are vicious. Victory will be
Infidels, The West and Al-Islam: Some Terms Explained
Infidels:
The term infidel is a translation for the Arabic kaffir (plural Kuffar)which is usually taken to mean someone who does not believe in Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) and the Message of the Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam).
Generally, when speaking of non-believers, the term kaffir is used. However, there are – in my opinion – some occasions when the somewhat stronger translation of infidel or infidels may, or even should, be used. This is when the kuffar in question have shown themselves to be, through their deeds or words or both, to have “overstepped the limits” in their opposition to Islam.
A good example here is George Bush, currently (at the time of writing, 26 Jumaada al-Thaani 1423) the President of the United States. His actions in support of the Zionist occupation of Palestine, in killing Muslims in Afghanistan, in humiliating and imprisoning captured Mujahideen, in supporting corrupt rulers in Muslim countries, in waging a world-wide war against those striving to do their Islamic duty through such things as Jihad, his use of covert operations and “black propaganda” against Muslims (one thinks here, for instance, of the forged videos of Sheikh Osama bin Laden) and his utter hypocrisy, have surely entitled him to be called an infidel.
Thus, in many of my writings I have opted to use the terms infidel and infidels in preference to kaffir and kuffar.
The West:
By the West I mean those modern nations which form most of Europe, the United States, Canada and countries such as Australia, and especially the way of life and so-called “culture” that predominate in these countries.
The way of life of the modern West is essentially derived from the capitalist-consumer ethos with its reliance on usury, while the “culture” of Western societies is the mass culture that has come to dominate the modern world: the “culture” of modern “pop music”, advertising, sport, mass entertainment which appeals to the baser instincts (often “sex”) and so on. Not without reason, this “culture” has been described as Americanization.
The Western way of life is one of industrialization and the desire for continued economic growth where the Earth, and its peoples, are viewed are resources to be used, or exploited. Part of the ethos of the West is the belief that we human beings are, or can be, masters of our own fate and that there is some kind of ideal society which we can, or should create, or which we should progress toward through making and enforcing laws based on our own political and social ideas.
The way of the modern West is in complete contrast to the Way of Al-Islam. For Islam, what is important is the Will of Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala): for instance, the laws which govern our societies should be Allah’s laws, as evident in the Shariah just as our foremost aim should be to do what Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) has asked us to do, as evident in the Quran and Sunnah, for thus may we enter Paradise. In contrast, for the West, our aim is to achieve happiness, or wealth, or power, or enjoyment, or security, in this life, just as, according to the ethos of the West, our laws can and should be changed with each new change of government whose leaders always assume or believe in their arrogance (and often hypocrisy) they know what is best for the people they govern.
Numinous:
I use this term as a synonym for the sacred. A Sign of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala is numinous – reminding us of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala; reminding us of the beauty, the purity, of Emaan; reminding us of the truth of Islam itself.
Al-Islam:
Correctly understood, Islam is a Deen, a Way of Life, given to us by Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala, and, as such, it is complete and perfect. Thus, we should describe this Way as The Submission (Al-Islam) – as Deen Al-Islam.
Furthermore, the submission that is Deen Al-Islam is submission to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala and His Messenger, Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) – that is, it is not to “Islam” as if this “Islam” was some “thing” to to be adhered to or identified with.
“According to the Dark Tradition of the Order of Nine Angles, Baphomet is a sinister acausal entity, and is depicted as a beautiful, mature, women, naked from the waist up, who holds in Her hand the bloodied severed head of a man.
Thus, She is the dark, violent, Goddess – the real, primal, Mistress of Earth – to whom human sacrifices were, and are, made and who ritualistically washes in a basin full of the blood of Her victims. According to aural legend, She – as one of The Dark Gods – is also a shapeshifter who has intruded (”visited”, been presenced or manifest) on Earth in times past, and who can manifest again if certain rituals are performed and certain sacrifices made.
Traditionally, it was to Baphomet that Initiates and Adepts of the Dark Tradition dedicated their chosen, selected, victims when a human culling was undertaken, and such cullings were – and are – regarded as one of the prerequisites for attaining sinister Adeptship.
Associated with Baphomet, according to aural tradition and legend, are other dark, Sinister, female acausal entities – described in ONA fictional works such as Jenyah, and Sabirah – who have existed, hidden, on Earth for millennia, and who maintain their causal, ageless, and secret, existence by feeding off the acausal life-force of their male human victims whom they entrap, and test, using sexual enchantment. These other entities are often described as The Dark Daughters of Baphomet, and they – like their Mistress, The Mother of Blood, Baphomet – are thus, in a quite literal sense, vampires. Aural tradition and legend further asserts that some, if not all, ofthese Dark Daughters of Baphomet are capable of not only, if they so wish it, bearing half-human offspring from selected human males, but also of rewarding chosen humans, both male and female, with an ageless existence either on Earth, or in the realms of the dark formless acausal itself.”
From the “Guardians of Darkness” website–
The Gorgon Medusa
Guardians of Darkness
Author Unknown
[A note: the Pelasgians that originally lived in Libya or Palas Athena, and who later moved into ancient Greece as indigenous people there, were Altaic people. Excavations in Libya show this. They had some conflicts with the very first Egyptian dynasties. According to Herodotus, the pre-Greek population of the Lemnos island was Pelasgian, a non Indo-European people, and according to Thucydides they were Tyrrhenian. That word is the same word as Turanian (Altaic peoples).
Pythagoras, thousands of years later in time, was a Pelasgian and said so himself. They were described by ancient but later Greek historians as always riding on horseback and using strange, short horses (the kind used by other Altaics even today). Another ancient Greek name for them was Tyrrhenian, which is pronounced the same as the Turko-Tatar word for their own group: Turanian. These were considered the Old People or Original People there.
Later, the Achaeans moved into Greece and got along and intermixed with the Pelasgians. Ionian Artificers also came into Greece. Around 2000 BC the Dorians invaded Greece and, due to their invasion, many people left – such as the Milesian Migrations. Egyptians called the Milesians “People of the Sea.” Among the Milesians were the Scota.
By the time of Plato, the society was already well into degeneration. For instance, the open pre-Socratic teachings, Eastern in tone, which were part of what is known as the Pythgorean school, were, at this time, kept secret and underground. Those that had “dark, hidden wisdom” hid from the pagans, as much as they hid from the later Christians.
The conflicts with the Spartans (same people as the Dorians) finished that civilization. It was gone. This entire history can be looked at as having taken on a cultural change with conflict in culture, but it can also be clearly seen as having different ethnic groups in conflict.
It is considered by many that the more well-known Greek myths were just the folk tales of the Pelasgian people, but blown way out of proportion and fictionalized. The original author of this piece is unknown and we can only hope it is OK to put it here for educational purposes.]
Her Name and OriginMedusa means “sovereign female wisdom,” in Sanskrit it’s Medha, Greek Metis, Egyptian Met or Maat.
Medusa was actually imported into Greece from Libya where she was worshipped by the Libyan Amazons as their Serpent-Goddess. Medusa (Metis) was the destroyer aspect of the Great Triple Goddess also called Neith, Anath, Athene or Ath-enna in North Africa and Athana in 1400 c. BC Minoan Crete.
Medusa was originally an aspect of the goddess Athena from Libya where she was the Serpent-Goddess of the Libyan Amazons. In her images, her hair sometimes resembles dread locks, showing her origins in Africa. There she had a hidden, dangerous face. It was inscribed that no one could possibly lift her veil, and that to look upon her face was to glimpse ones own death as she saw your future.
Medusa as an ArchetypeMedusa has historically been seen as the archetype of the nasty mother, however she is far more complex. She symbolizes the following:
Sovereign female wisdom. The female mysteries. All the forces of the primordial Great Goddess: The Cycles of Time as past, present and future. The Cycles of Nature as life, death and rebirth. She is universal Creativity and Destruction in eternal Transformation. She is the Guardian of the Thresholds and the Mediatrix between the Realms of heaven, earth and the underworld. She is Mistress of the Beasts. Latent and Active energy.
Connection to the earth. The union of heaven and earth. She destroys in order to recreate balance. She purifies.
She is the ultimate truth of reality, the wholeness beyond duality. She rips away our mortal illusions. Forbidden yet liberating wisdom. The untamable forces of nature. As a young and beautiful woman she is fertility and life. As crone she consumes by devouring all on the earth plane. Through death we must return to the source, the abyss of transformation, the timeless realm. We must yield to her and her terms of mortality. She reflects a culture in harmony with nature.
Images of MedusaIn her image alone we can find this constellation of archetypal meaning. Throughout archeological history, there have been patterns of correspondence of her image around the world as the ancients translated the powers of the natural world into an organic image that was accessible, practical, ceremonial, mystical and potent. In the beginning, her images represent a powerful natural force that is worshipped and revered by cultures as sacred and holy as she was a symbol of the full potency of the Great Triple Goddess.
In the Beginning:
Medusa’s images in Old Europe begin several thousand years prior to her reinvention in classical Greek Myth. In the Upper Paleolithic, her power is represented in labyrinth, vaginal, uterine, and other female designs. Throughout the Neolithic, her forces are symbolized by the female figure positioned in holy postures and gestures of empowerment, with the presence of animals, primarily birds and snakes whom she is intimately connected with. These images appear in the Mediterranean area and continue to extend into the late Bronze Age of Minoan Crete,(1600 BC) where she is represented as the refined serpent-goddess-priestess. (modern copied image of the serpent goddess-priestess Ariadne and the original serpent-goddess-priestesses found at the Palace of Knosses in ivory and gold, and in faience)
Birds are appear on her head or shoulder, signifying her generative as well as death wielding powers of her dark, crone aspect. They also represent the heavens of the sky.
Snakes coil around her arms, legs or are entwined in her hair and are shown whispering into her ear. The serpent is a totem of the cycles of life, death and rebirth and the seasons. It is the connection to the fertile earth and to the underworld. It also symbolizes immortality as it was thought to shed its skin indefinitely.
Because of this the serpent was placed in relationship to women throughout antiquity as they correspond to the immortal properties of the blood of menstruation. Back then menstruating women were feared by men with holy dread as they inexplicably bled without wound or pain synchronized with the moon-tide cycles.
The serpent is also an emblem of the ocean as the sea was known as an earth girdling serpent. Centuries later, the myths of classical Greece cast the serpent as an evil, deceitful, revolting character associated with “witchy,” (wise), women.
In 750 BC, the full-bodied image of Medusa in Greece is a central piece on their oldest surviving temple, that of Artemis, one of their oldest gods. She is the Lady of the Beasts who carries with her memories of Crete and Angolia. Like Medusa, she kills in a sacred manner so that life may continue. In this image of Medusa, snakes are tied around her waist in the sacred healing knot as they were used for medicinal purposes. She retains spiraling hair, large bird wings on her back and even on her feet that sometimes have claws. The wings symbolize her freedom and dynamic movement between the worlds. There are even surviving images of Artemis wearing the mask of Medusa, also called the mask of the Gorgon or Hecate.
The Mask:
Medusa’s ancient, widely recognized symbol of female wisdom was her threatening, ceremonial mask . It has wide unblinking eyes that reflect her immense wisdom. They are all knowing, all seeing eyes that see through us, penetrating our illusions and looking into the abyss of truth. Her mouth is deathly; it looks like a skull. It is devouring of all life, returning us to the source. Sometimes she has the frightening tusks of a boar which is meant to scare men, yet these hearken back to the pig, an ancient symbol of the uterus of rebirth. Her tongue protrudes like a snake’s and her face is surrounded by a halo of spiraling, serpentine hair which symbolize the great cycles and her serpent wisdom.
The mask was used to guard and protect women and the secret knowledge of the Divine Feminine. It literally warned men to “Keep Away! Female Mysteries.” It was erected in stone,(corresponding to her look of stone), on caves and gateways at sacred sites dedicated to the Goddess. It also appeared on stone pillars erected in honor of her deceased lovers. Even after the degradation of Medusa Athenian culture after 7th c. BC, her mask image continued to be used until the reign of Christianity.
Her defilement began in Greece in the 7th-6th c BC, yet at this time there still exist images that revere Medusa in her full power. There was found a Cretan-like image of the Gorgon Medusa in a war chariot flanked by lions. It looks much like the Great-Mother Goddess Cybele, goddess of wild beasts and fertility of nature. At the same time there was found a relief of a woman wearing the Gorgon mask while in the menstrual/birth/erotic position, a posture of women’s power in Neolithic imagery. But her face and mask continued to be used in temples and sanctuaries, and to be commonly placed on columns, doorways and gateways, signifying her role as the guardian of the thresholds and mediatrix between realms. (Medusa’s face at Didyma, Temple to Apollo and a description of her image as it appears at the temple at Kalaaktepe)
Medusa in Patriarchal GreecePatriarchy began in the bronze and iron age of first millennia Greece. In this mind the world is no longer born of a sacred mother deity but from a supreme father. Earth and heaven are split eternally. In myth heroes and gods are created to dominate and subjugate the female and natural forces over and over again in various forms, the most common of them being gigantic snakes and serpent monsters. A prime example of this is the serpent dragon called Eurinaes who is overpowered by Apollo.
The god Apollo represents the rising patriarchy and the contemporary male interests. The Eurinaes is a dynamic female force representing the old, matrifocal civilizations, and the female values that pre-date the Olympian gods. The Eurinaes is subordinated, mastered and tamed by Apollo as she is forced to leave the sanctuary so he can establish his shrine at the temple of Delphi. Through domination the hero constantly conquers the cyclical pattern of nature and tries to make it linear. He tames the wild feminine forces and makes women conform to male-servicing gender roles.
Soon the holy image of the Gorgon Medusa as an ancient symbol of female power and wisdom became totally unacceptable. By the 6th c. BC her rites were disrupted, her sanctuaries invaded, the sacred groves were cut down, her priestesses were violated and her image defiled. Her images, (as well as women), are mastered and domesticated. Her mask was used on elaborate Etruscan lantern fixtures and stoves, probably for her relation to alchemical fire. Although the mask was widely used by country-folk, her female wisdom, natural forces, powers of creativity, destruction and regeneration were demonized and made evil. She was made into a horrid, ugly monster, (most monsters were female or born of the Earth). Her most popular image became that of her defeat in the Athenian myth of Perseus.
In Archaic art the moment in the story most often depicted is the chase after the beheading, when Perseus flees with the severed head pursued by the Medusa’s Gorgon sisters. In 550-450 BC, painted mainly in early and proto-attic black figure vases was the image of the hero sneaking up on his victim while she sleeps or cutting her throat while the gods look on. On these she is represented as a hideous snaky monster. (vase image of Perseus beheading Medusa while Hermes looks on and its description, also, a description of the slaying on another vase) At his time the remaining rituals of Medusa were allowed only for military function and her image was reserved for armor, on the breast plate or on their shield. (description of her image on a sacred shield)
In the course of the fifth century, she will emerge again as a beautiful woman in her maiden aspect. But when the Persians introduce the plumed serpent, her powers are transformed yet again into a dragon which is phallicly speared into its mouth, an image that is highly popular throughout the Middle Ages.
Medusa-Metis-Athene in Classical MythAthenian Myth fragmented and reduced the Libyan Triple Goddess Athene to Athena, Metis, Medusa and her Gorgon sisters. Gorgo, Gorgon, or Gorgopis was the `Grim Face’- and besides Medusa (Metis), was the title of Athene as Death Goddess. The eldest sister was Medusa, who represented Female Wisdom, her younger sisters were Stheno as Strength, and Euryale as Universality. All were born of Ceto and Phorcys, but Medusa was the only mortal. They were originally beautiful. Like Medusa, they had wings on their back and ankles, and wore the mask of Hecate, the mask of the Gorgon. (an image of a Gorgon sister wearing the mask while chasing Perseus after the murder)
In the 7th c. BC, Athenians recreated Athene as their patron Goddess. Through myth the Greeks severed her ancient roots in women’s culture by dividing her from her dark aspect as Medusa and Metis. In the separation of Athene from Metis and Medusa, the two were overlaid; Metis became her mother and Medusa her enemy.
Her mother Metis the shape shifter was said to be the original mother as well as the wisest and greatest of all the gods. To Athenians, she was raped and swallowed by Zeus. Thus Zeus gained his power over the other gods by consuming her ancient lineage along with her immense wisdom. [He used her shape shifting ability primarily to seduce/rape females]. Metis’ wisdom was so great that it impregnated Zeus’ head and from it sprang the new Athena.
Betraying her ancient lineage, traitor Athena became the dutiful daughter who retained only her virginal, fertile aspect. She was the municipal goddess of Zeus’ intelligence, in service of the male-solar ego, making men into heroes who dominate women and nature, and representing the patriarchal values, roles and ideals of Athens. She offers women a new blessed role; absent from the public sphere, and in the service of the male. Women are prescribed the role of virgin, wife and mother. As virgin, proof of his fatherhood is confirmed. As mother, she is the nurse of his children. And as wife she is in devoted service of her man.
In 458 BC, she blatantly rejects her mother Metis in Aeschylus’ Oresteia , as she also justifies the priority of men over women; “It is my task to render final judgment here…There is no mother anywhere who gave me birth… I am always for the male with all my heart, and strongly on my father’s side. So, in a case where the wife has killed her husband, lord of the house, her death shall not mean most to me.”(p.161)
Yet Athena’s character contains many contradictions that show the struggle of the male order to manage her potent past. One example is that her favorite animal is the owl, an ancient symbol of bird of death and regeneration, as well as female wisdom, darkness, night, the moon and mystery. However, Athena never uses the darkness to realize her self.
Athena’s new enemy Medusa rivaled her in beauty and power. Even Perseus was said to have admired Medusa’s beauty while she was dead, which is why he took her head with him to show the Greeks. When Medusa became a mythological monster, it was Athena herself who made Medusa ugly. According to Ovid’s Metamorphosis, when Medusa was a virgin, she was raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple. Athena blamed Medusa for the sacrilegious act and punished her by changing her loveliest feature, her hair, into snakes, (at this time snakes were considered revolting). But even the monster Medusa responds to the abuse with rage- a burning charge of a fiery vitality to protect life. From then on she forever uses her powerful gaze to turn her male enemies to stone, among others, Atlas is turned into a stone mountain.
List of the polarized separation of Athena and Medusa:[1]
In the fragmentation of the Great Goddess, Medusa and Athena are separated into polarized opposites.
MedusaAthena
feeling thought
crazy rational
cyclical linear
circular hierarchical
chaos order
dark light
death life
old new
ugly beautiful
mortal immortal
slut virgin
bestial civilized
nature city
earth heaven
left right
degraded honored
bad good
[Note the revolting dualism, a product of schizoid minds.]
The Myth of Medusa the Monster
In the Athenian myth of the Greek hero Perseus, Medusa’s female wisdom along with the potential of women in general is silenced and the forces of nature are conquered in an ultimate act of domination and vengeance.
Perseus is sent on a quest, by King Polydictes of Seriphos and Athena herself, to retrieve the head of the Gorgon, a deed said to require the maximum of heroic-male courage and skill. He is given magic winged sandals, a cap and a pouch,(a kibisis), from Hermes. Guided by Athena the entire time, he flies over the ocean to Lake Tritonis in Libya where makes his way through rough, thick woods. On the way to Medusa’s palace he sees several statues of men and beasts. There are also stone pillars erected in honor of her deceased lovers. Perseus comes upon the sleeping Gorgons. While Athena holds out a shield as a mirror, Perseus decapitates Medusa with his crescent sword,(a harpe). Enraged, the Gorgon sisters chase after him but to no avail as his cap makes him invisible.
Perseus could not have completed this task without the help of the traitor warrior goddess Athena. It is she who guides and instructs him throughout his journey and slaying. Since the myth symbolized the usurping of her powerful roots in a culture where she and Medusa were one, it is appropriate that only she would know the secrets to find and defeat Medusa. (Apollodorous’ Perseus myth and Pausanias’s rational version of the myth)
The Blood of Medusa:
Even in death Medusa’s blood retains its powers. It gives life to Pegasus, the winged, militant steed of Zeus that creates serpents in the earth with the touch of his hoof, and who also introduced Dionysiac worship to Athens. Also Chrysaor, the golden bladed giant, is born from her bleeding neck. Medusa’s blood is drained from her body and later used to raise the dead, (making Asculepeus a great healer). Used from her right vein it heals and nourishes life, from her left serpent it kills.
The snakes, her dreaded face, her look of stone, and her magical blood all correlate with the ancient menstrual taboo. Primitive folk believed that the look of a menstruating woman could turn a man to stone. Menstrual blood was also thought to be the source of all mortal life and also of death, as the two are inseparable.
The Head of Medusa:
Perseus puts Medusa’s head into his pouch. He uses her head as a weapon during other exploits and when he reaches home he returns it to Athena. The head of Medusa is then wrought onto the center of Athena’s aegis and Zeus’ shield which is given to Athena. (description of Athena’s aegis at the Parthenon) Even after her defeat, the face of Medusa forever maintains its Gorgon power to protect the Goddess from enemies by turning them to stone. It is the striking, central image on renderings of Athena. Medusa’s face continues to symbolize her fierce strength in military ritual and in battle on the warrior’s armor.
Encyclopedia entry of Gorgon Medusa in classical Greek literature[2]
Gorgon Medusa: – mortal daughter among immortal sisters; Stheno and Euryale. daughters of Ceto,(mother), and Phorcus, (father): (Hesiod’s Theog. 275; Apollodorous. vol. 2.49; Pausanaias. 10.26.9) some say her father was Sthenelus: (Apollod. vol. 1.167), or Priam – as queen she reigned at Lake Tritonis in Libya where she hunted and led troops into battle: (Paus.) -robbed of her virginity by Poseidon: (Ovid’s Metam.) -given snakes for hair by Athena: (Ovid’s Metam.) -said to have rivaled Athena in beauty: (Apollod. vol. 1.161) -beheaded by Perseus: (ibid) -Gorgon sisters pursue him: (ibid) – mother of Pegasus, (a militant winged steed) and Chrysaor, (a giant with golden sword), some say with Poseidon’s seed -head turns Iodama, Polydictes and others to stone: (Apollod. vol. 1.161; Paus. 9.34.2, and Aristophanes’ Heracles) -head given to Athena, wrought onto Zeus’ shield and her aegis: (Apollod. vol. 1.161, Paus. 5.10.4-12.4) -her blood used by Asculepeus, left of serpents to kill or of her vein on right to heal and give life, making him a great healer: (Apollod. vol. 2.17) -Medusa’s hair guards Tegea against capture by enemies -gilt head of Gorgon Medusa on Acropolis wall and her appearances at other sacred sites: (Paus. Des. of Greece) -she is threatened by Heracles in Hades: (Apollod. vol. 1.235)
The Symbolism of the MythThe mythological beheading of Medusa symbolizes the ultimate silencing of female wisdom and expression. It is the act which stops her growth, limits her potential, movement and cultural contributions. She is obliterated and her severed head is flaunted on the Acropolis and other works of art in pride of her and all women’s subjugation by violent men. She is broken and her body enslaved. Her spirit, her mind, her spiritual powers are killed. Her once honored forces of female creativity and destruction are halted. Her role as dynamic mediatrix degraded. Her life-giving, death-wielding powers and wild forces of nature are controlled, tamed, and mastered by the male order. The cycles of life and nature are made to conform to his linear perspective.
The Motive Behind the MythThe Perseus myth was invented to explain the appearance of Gorgon Medusa’s face, or mask, on Athena’s shield and aegis, the image of Athena that was inherited from the pre-Hellenic period. It is not surprising to learn that the earliest images of Athena had a striking resemblance to the revered Cretan serpent-goddess-priestess. Although Athena changes, in art she is consistently associated with snakes as they appear on her shoulders and on her armor, along with Medusa’s face as the central image.
The Perseus myth was also an attempt to conceal Athena’s roots in the Libyan Amazon Serpent-Goddess-Trinity-Athene, (a deity that was also present in Minoan Crete). In pre-Hellenic myths Athena was said to have come from the uterus of Lake Tritonis, (meaning Three Queens), the same place that Medusa is said to have ruled, hunted and led troops in Athenian myth. The older myths are more specific, they say that Athene was born of the Three Queens of Libya themselves, the Triple Goddess, with Metis-Medusa as her destroyer aspect.
BibliographyBarbara Walker: The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, and The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects
Marija Gimbutas: The Civilization of the Goddess
A special thanks to Joan Marler’s Celebrating the Gorgon slide lecture and workshop at Interface, in Cambridge MA, March of 1996.
Here is an image of Medusa. She was beautiful.
The story of Medusa, the real history of her, presents a very sad story and elicits grief: grief for so much that was lost.
There is also, along with these others listed below, the most ancient Slavic concept of the Chernobog, or Chernaya Bog – the Black God. This deity is very similar to Mahakala – it is not a Central Deity, it has no offspring or extentions. It is the Boundless Darkness. This concept, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1975 edition article on their indigenous deities, bears no resemblence to anything Indo-European or Semitic. It is very Shamanistic.
From Encyclopedia Britannica, 1975, page 874, Slavic Religion – paraphrase.
….Since patria potestas, paternal power in the form of absolute authority, was absent from their family structure and monarchical government from their civil society, the Slavs’ pantheon of deities was without a center or a hierarchy of divinities As in Baltic religions each supernatural being was active in its own particular sphere without contact with other deities. Although contacts with the Indo-European world are evident as for example in the their concepts of a celestial god and a god of lightening, the Slavic religious atmosphere was substantially different from that of other Indo European peoples.
Socially the Slavs were organized as exogamous clans, based on marriages outside blood relationship. The elected chief did not have executive powers. The world had been created, in the Slavic view, once and for all and no new law ought to modify the way of life transmitted by their ancestors. Since the social group was not homogenous, validity and executive power were attributed only to decisions taken unanimously in the assembly and the deliberations in each instance concerned only the question of conformity to tradition.
Many of their varieties of spirits and practices evidence the preagrarian origin of these beliefs. A myth known to all Slavs tells how God ordered a handful of sand to be brought up from the bottom of the sea and created the land from it. This myth is diffused throughout practically all of Eurasia and is found in ancient India as well.
A 12th century German missionary, Helmold, left a record of his surprise in encountering among the Slavs on the Baltic a belief in a single God who ignored the affairs of this world, having delegated the governance of it to certain various spirits begotten by this God. This is the only instance in which the sources allude to a hierarchy of divinities, but its center is empty. The divinity mentioned by Helmold is a deus otiosus, i.e., an inactive god, unique (not common) in the mythology of the Indo European peoples. However, such a deity is found among the Volga Finns, the Ugrians and the Uralians. Common to this Eurasian area is another divinity called by Helmold and in the Knytlinga saga (Danish legend that recounts the conquest of Arkona through the efforts of King Valdemar I of Denmark against the pagan Slavs). The Deity is Zcerneboch or Chernobog, the Black God, and Tiarnoglofi, the Black Head. The Black God now survives in numerous Slavic curses and in a White God whose aid is sought to obtain protection or mercy in Bulgaria, Serbia and Pomerania. This religious dualism of white and black gods is common to practically all the peoples of Eurasia.
See also the Kievan Chronicle also called the Chronicle of Nestor, a 12th-13th century account of events and life in the Kievan state; this enumerates pagan divinities. See also in this document.
The only celestial body which was an object of Slavic veneration was the moon. The name of the moon is of masculine gender; and the word for sun is feminine gender. The Sun is always the bride or the maiden.
The Slavs did not record genealogies; exogamous societies have no need of them and the founders of their clans were mainly legendary.
Slavs, Eastern Finns and Ugrians venerated their dead in the same way, similar to the use of totems. It is ancestor worship.
Look up reference for full text.
This is presented for educational purposes.
From: Society of the Ukrainian Native Faith “PRAVOSLAVYA” Kyiv, Ukraine (See also the Declaration dated 25th August 1998.)
The society was founded in Kyiv in 1993 and was registered in 1997 (certificate No. 829)
The name Ukrainian heathenism is a generic term referring to the national religion of our Ukrainian ancestors 1000 years ago, prior to Christianity, and which is now enjoying a revival in Ukraine.
We reject the term Paganism imposed by the Christian priests, as the Latin paganus has a negative connotation in the Ukrainian language, suggesting bad, in Ukrainian pohany. In the English language, we use the transcription Yazychnystvo and the full name Confession of the Ukrainian Native Faith Pravo –
The name Pravoslavya, originally an ancient heathen term, was adopted by the Christian Orthodox church to deceive the faithful during the first centuries following conversion to the Christian religion. Prav means peace of Gods and the Divine Law.
Slavya is a ceremonial divine heathen service, as well as the name of the Godess Slava. Thus, the term means the laudation of the Gods.
Holy Scriptures The Ukrainian heathens have the ancient Ukrainian chronicle (oaken boards) The Book of Veles, written in V-IX centuries. This document contains various historical mythological and perspective sources of Ukrainian Native Faith, as well as the approaches to:
God Understanding different prayers and holidays. Volkhovnyck … are the presentations of the main approaches of heathen Faith, written in the modern Ukrainian language. Pravoslov The prayers to Native Gods – Proceedings of prayers and religious songs presented in The Book of Veles and people’s memory. Scientific Investigations Prof. Volodymyr Shayan (1908 – 1974) – Ukrainian philosopher, Sanskritist, poet and publicist, began the Renaissance of Ukrainian Native Faith in 1934.
In 1943, the Knightly Order of the Sun God was founded in Ukraine. The fundamental works are presented in the book The Faith of our Ancestors (Hamilton, Canada, 1987, V.I). Halyna LOZKO is the Chairwoman of the society (Confession) of the Ukrainian Native Faith Pravoslavya, a scientific member and author of many publications on Ukrainian heathenism.
The dissertation Ukrainian Heathenism as a Source of Everyday Religious Syncretism proves the possibility of a reconstruction of the ancient Ukrainian religion.
Mission and Vision Statement of the Ukrainian Native Faith Society Pravoslavya 1. The collection and systematisation of Ukrainian national faith sources. 2. The scientific and theological treatment and revival of ancient traditions, prayers, songs and religious artifacts. 3. The education and cultivation of respect towards the religious heritage of the Ukrainian people, the nature and the development of ecological mentality and behaviour.
Knowledge of God The ancient God of our faith is Svaroh, the main God of the Universe, the heavenly Zodiac. His sons are Dazhboh, Perun, Veles, Sryboh, Yarylo, Khors, Lado, Kupajlo, Symarhl, Pozvizd, Pereplut and others. His daughters are Lada, Leiya, Kupala, Dana, Perunystya, Mokosha, Kolyada and others.
All of them with their various names, as God is immortal, polyfacial and polynamed. Our faith is genotheical.
Trinity of existence … …is reflected in the idea of the sacred Tree of Life:
The roots of this tree reach to underground depth (the universe of the ancestors) – Nav, i.e. the roots of our Family.
The trunk and branches symbolize the manifestation of Life (the Universe of living people) – Yav.
Nature The main idea of our Faith is to obtain a better knowledge of Nature and the Universe and to praise our Gods for the happiness in our lives.
This Feeling is an essential condition of human happiness. Our holidays help us cultivate a feeling of being part of Cosmic life, a cell of the great Cosmic ocean, to obtain a positive solar Energy from our God’s love. Thus, there is a conception of Sacredness as the Creative Strength of God in our Native Faith.
There seems to be a God of Light and Darkness in this tale, which means there is a dualism here corresponding to agrarian seasons as shown in the text. This differs from the account in the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
“Tell, Gamayun, prophetic bird, tell about the birth of Dazhdbog the
Kind, the son of Mighty Perun and beautiful mermaid Ros. And about the
combat with father of him, as they fought and fraternized, tell about
Dazhdbog’s victory…”
“Of what that know, hide nothing I will…”
In the ancient Russian mythology Dazhdbog appears as a son of the Almighty Perun and a mermaid named Ros. Perun is a son of Svarog (Vedic Isvara) who is a top God in Russian pagan beliefs, a kind of an analogue of Cronos of the Greeks, although he did not actually create the World, he only created the living Universe but… this is the different story of cosmological beliefs of Russians. Perun symbolizes a victory (not the war as he is not Mars, and ancient Russians did not have this kind of god) over enemies, lightnings and things of that sort (looks like Zeus of Greeks but not exactly as he shares some other functions). Basically, Perun is a male God, God of warriers, those who protect the Land. His day is July, 20th, if I remember this right. So, you see that Dazhdbog is a grandson of Svarog, and we all, Russians, are his grandchildren. This kind of relationship makes Dazhdbog similar to Vedic Indra if you will, although I can not give a 100% for such a correspondence. I should also make a note that mermaids in Russian mythology are not the ones with a fish tail, as in many other European pagan religions, though. These are just beautiful girls that dance on celebrations, before harvesting, etc. Ros is also a name of the river which is still alive and doing well. It is in Ukraine, and it is one of the many branches of the river Dnepr. Look for the town called Belaya Tserkov (White Church) on the map and you will immediately see the river. One brunch of Slavs that lived near Ros called themselves rosichi or later rusichi that finally gave a name to the state of Rus, its Peter the Great’s modification Rossiya (Russia) and to all Russkie (Russians). This explanation seems to be close to the truth because it has a very strong religious and mythological underlay — a thing of the extreme, if not the first, importance when one is trying to analyze an ancient civilization. This explanation also seem to be connected with another name, Ruskolan, an ancient name for the state. It is a conjunction of two words: Rus and Kol. In this context Kol does not mean a stick (there is such a meaning of this word in Russian language) but a solar turn-around, equinox. Russian mythology teaches that on this very day the fight between the God of Light, Belobog, and the God of Darkness, Chernobog, turns around. After the winter equinox day becomes longer — Belobog wins, and after the summer equinox it shortens — Chernobog wins. Each equinox has a celebration associated with it: the winter equinox is celebrated on Koliada’s Day, and the summer on Kupala’s Day. You see, this sequence of events represents a seasonal change, and it was of the great importance for ancient Russians who were mostly farmers.
Unfortunately, many Western scholars still make the largest mistake on this matter: they get the word Rus from some Scandinavian or German roots. God blesses them, though, for everybody wants to belong to a nation that originated everything — pride is one of those seven deadly sins of mankind! These issues are fully covered and very extensively discussed in the literature.
But… where does the word Dazhdbog come from, anyway? All right, here is one version of Yuri Miroliubov that I personally support. The word is a complex conglomerate of the two. Listen: Dazhdbog –> Dazhdbo –> Dai Bo –> Dai Bog. The final two are in English Give me, God. However, let’s go back to Dazhdbog’s story.
Once Perun went by a bank of the Dnepr river and, on the other side, he saw several girls dancing and singing. He felt in love with one of them, Ros, and tried to get to that other bank but Dnepr did not allow him to swim across. Then Perun took his golden arrow and made a shot towards the bank where Ros was standing. The arrow flew as lightning and struck into a big stone that started to shine when the arrow hit it. A fire image of a man appeared on that stone, and Perun screamed to Ros: “Call out for Svarog, and He will help you”.
Ros called out for Svarog, he came and helped her out to create a man from the stone. That man was Dazhdbog. He happened to be really mighty (anyway, he was a son of Perun) but he never saw his father. When he grew up he studied books, ancient wisdom, and an art of a battle. The glory about him was spreading over the Land. At that time his father Perun was walking over that all the sky and lands recognized who was going. Ros also recognized him and told him:
“Grettings, Mighty Perun, Svarog’s son”.
“So, you know my father as well”!
“Do not be angry, mighty Perun, but walk to the clean field and see your son, Dazhdbog, but be graceful as Dazhdbog is still young”.
So, he did. Perun went to the field and saw his son playing with a cudgel. Then Perun told Dazhdbog:
“Stop boasting, and show how mighty you really are”.
And the two, father and son, started to fight. They fought for three days and three nights, fought that lands, woods and sea screamed, and finally Perun weakened and fell down. Dazhdbog asked him then:
“Tell me your name and name of your father, oh warrier”!
“I am Perun, son of Svarog and came from the shining Iriy”.
Then Dazhdbog said:
“Sorry, father! I did not know that this is you because I never saw you before! Rise, my dear father”!
After this fight they both got together and Dazhdbog asked his mother to allow him to go with his father to the shining Iriy (the World where the Gods live). Ros allowed him to go and Dazhdbog joined other Gods.
Roll 11
“Tell, Gamayun, prophetic bird, as Dazhdbog, son of Perun married young
Zlatogorka Vievna…”
“Of what that know, hide nothing I will…”
Once at a time, Dazhdbog was going through a big and wide field. He saw a warrior-girl riding a horse. The blood boiled up in his heart and the God has decided to try her. He took his sword and hit the girl but she didn’t show any sign of weakness. He did it once more and one more time but only got injured.
“Who are you?”, asked Dazhdbog.
And the girl answered:
“Hmmm… I thought these were flies stinging me but you look like a warrior”.
So, she grabbed him, put into a crystal casket and locked this casket with a silver key. Then the girl got her horse and went away. She was riding the whole day and the whole night, three days in a raw but her brave horse got tired and started to implore:
“Oh, you brave and mighty Zlatogorka, daughter of Vij, you excuse me, please, my dear, but I can’t carry two great warriors anymore!”
Zlatogorka recalled that she carries a warrior and released him:
“Oh, the brave young warrior! I want you to marry me, and if you won’t I’ll slay you”!
“Release me, Zlatogorka, I agree to be your husband”.
They got together and went to mountains where they met Svarog and mother Lada who blessed them to become husband and wife. So, that was the deal. There was a wonderful bride on Heavens and everybody was happy.
This happiness did not last for a long time, and here is why. Once Dazhdbog and Zlatogorka were riding horses in deep mountains of Armenia and found a strange tomb. There were the following words on it: “The one who lays in here will stay there by a will of the Fate”. Zlatogorka asked Dazhdbog to give it a try (oh, these women were always the same!!). He tried, and the tomb was too small. Then his wife tried and the tomb was just of the right size. She asked Dazhdbog:
“My amiable husband, you put the cover on, for I want to lay here for a while and look around”.
He put the cover on as his wife asked him to do and… yes it happened exactly as you expected: it was a deadly move, the cover could not be removed anymore. Dazhdbog tried to hit it with his cudgel and his sword but… Then Zlatogorka said:
“You, my husband, go to my father Vij, give him my last bow and ask him to forgive me as I must stay here in this tomb forever”.
Dazhdbog went to Vij and told him about what happened:
“She asked to give you her last bow and asked for the forgiveness. Probably Rod himself wishes this to happen”.
Vij got really angry. He thought that Dazhdbog killed his daughter, so he tried to through him away from his Kingdom. Vij asked to give him a hand but Dazhdbog made his cudgel red-hot and gave it to the King. As Vij cried out that Dazhdbog brings light to his world, so he gave his daughter the forgiveness. Dazhdbog went back to the tomb and told Zlatogorka her father’s forgiveness, so she rested forever. He then wrote on that tomb: “Zlatogorka Vievna rests here by the wish of mother Mokosh and the will of the Divine Rod”.
The only thing left for me is to explain a couple of new names. Zlatogorka can be translated into English as Golden Hill, and Lada is Svarog’s wife. The name is still in use in Russia and basically means love: when a married couple lives in love people say that they live ladno (it is an adverb). The expression is a little bit old fashioned but it is OK. You see that Svarog, the forces and laws of the Universe, is married with love, and this union gave the birth to everything. Vij is a representative of the Underground Kingdom (what a nice abbreviation — UK), a story of which is a totally different one. If you read Gogol’s “Night before Christmas” you should remember Vij from there. Mokosh is actually the Fate. The very important and special character is Divine Rod. This is the heart of all pagan religion of ancient Russians. He created everything, he is the only one who really rules the World, he created Lada and with her help broke the Darkness. By the way, the word divine, I believe, comes from Sanskrit, as Deva () means the God in this language. The spelling in Sanskri is not entirely correct but this is a problem of my typesetting system: I still can’t quite teach it the conventions. Sorry!
Roll 14
“Tell, Gamayun, prophetic bird, as Dazhdbog married Marena”
“Of what that know, hide nothing I will…”
As we can see Dazhdbog lived alone not for a long. He had found Marena. This name is in use even now and even in English. As far as I remember, one of the supermodels has this name but I bet she doesn’t even realize what her name means. There are very good reasons for the name to be spread that far, and they are connected with Celtic culture. I’m not going to discuss this here because, you won’t believe me, only this name is a topic for the whole PhD thesis. I will limit myself only to the meaning of it. Marena (Celtic Mara) is a synonym of either winter or death in Russian folklore, depending on a situation it is used in.
Once at a time, a big feast happened in Irij. All the Gods came there and Svarog and Lada met them all. Dazhdbog had been there also, and on the middle of the joy he had decided to take a walk in Irij. Walking along he discovered a nice palace, music was playing there as golden strings. He wondered : “What might that be?” and found the answer: this was a palace of Marena Svarogovna. So, Dazhdbog entered the palace and got to Marena’s halls. She was sitting there on a high throne, she invited him to eat with her and all her guests but Dazhdbog refused this invitation thinking that Marena was quite known sorcerers and could poison him. When the dinner was finished she tried to get him into her rooms but young man refused and got out of the palace quite fast. That made Marena really mad, and she started to conjure on Dazhdbog…
Marena’s guests were coming back home and on their way they met Perun who asked what they were up to. The guests told God that they had a nice dinner in Marena’s palace and that they saw Dazhdbog there as well. This was quite striking for Perun, so he decided to get in a hurry and teach his son not to visit such suspicious places as Marena’s palace:
“You, my son, should think where you are going. I advise you to break with Marena and forget this whole story.”
Dazhdbog got really offended and asked his mother Ros:
“Mom, why is dad so angry? I have been in this palace only once and spent there just an hour.”
“Your father was really worried about what happened because Marena is a terrible sorcerers. You should keep your feet far from her palace. Do not look that she is beautiful.”
As any child Dazhdbog got mad towards his mother because he thought she started to teach him how to live. His blood boiled up, and, as you expected, he went to Marena’s palace. As Dazhdbog entered the palace, he made a shot with his golden arrow. Marena’s guests asked him why he did that. Dazhdbog was really angry and said that he will make pieces out of the guests if they won’t shut up. Then Marena suggested to turn Dazhdbog into an ox. Everybody agreed and so was it. They threw him away from the palace. Next day shepherds found this ox and recognized Dazhdbog in him. They grabbed the ox and delivered to Ros. The mother called for Perun and asked him to get Marena and force her to turn Dazhdbog back to a man. Perun found Marena and said a couple of “nice” words to her. She found the ox and promised that she will turn Dazhdbog back to a man if he agrees to marry her. There was nothing anybody could do, and the wedding happened.
Roll 15
“Tell, Gamayun, prophetic bird, as Kashchej stole Marena from Dazhdbog,
and as Dazhdbog was looking for her, and as Zhiva saved Dazhdbog…”
“Of what that know, hide nothing I will…”
The news about Dazhdbog’s bride was so great that Kashchej himself got jealous and decided to abduct Marena. He called for a great amount of evil spirits that flooded the Land. Unfortunately, only Dazhdbog alone was there, no other Gods, so he himself fought all these spirits. He fought them for three days and three nights, and finally finished them all. Then he got back home and felt asleep. Kashchej entered Dazhdbog’s home and started to persuade Marena to come with him because Dazhdbog, as he told her, was only a natural son of Perun, so was only a half-god. This trick worked, Marena turned into a bird and disappeared together with Kashchej. When Dazhdbog woke up he, obviously, did not find his wife, so he asked his father to go with him and look for her but Mighty Perun said that this is his son’s duty, so Dazhdbog left alone.
Let’s now clarify some things. First of all Kashchej is a representative of the Underground World, son of Vij. However, another thing seems to be of the great importance here — a general subject of the ancient song. All Russian fairy tales follow this line: Kashchej abducts a beautiful wife, so a husband gets sad and goes to look for the Kashchej’s death and for his wife. Further development of this line leads a reader to cosmological beliefs of pagan Russians, about creation of the World by Rod. This subject is a bit complicated, so I will not discuss it here, this is not a proper place for it. I will only mention that these cosmological descriptions are very similar to the Vedic ones. A little picture at the end of this essay represents just what I said: a search for the death of Kashchej.
…So, Dazhdbog was heading towards Kashchej and Marena and shortly he recognized them. However, Marena poured a goblet of wine and said:
“Oh, my husband, Kashchej took me with the force. Drink this wine for a great grief!”
Dazhdbog finished it all and fell down. “What a great power the Hop has!”, said Marena and asked Kashchej to kill her husband but the former refused to do this because Dazhdbog once saved his life and Kashchej promised to forgive him three times. “This will be the first time”, said Kashchej and they threw Dazhdbog to a deep well that led to the Underground World…
After a while Dazhdbog woke up and found himself in a deep cave. God whistled calling for his horse. The horse came and dropped his tail to the cave that Dazhdbog used to climb up. They continued their journey and found Marena and Kashchej two more times. Two more times Dazhdbog drank the wine and two more times Marena was trying to force Kashchej to kill her husband but he refused. Finally, Marena nailed Dazhdbog to the rocks in Caucasus mountains in the hope that nobody will find him there.
I think now you recall Greek mythological story about Prometeos. See the parallels? That will be a food for your brain for the rest of the day. If you are really interested in ancient civilizations you will think about it for long enough time. I promise!
Let’s get back to our story… At that time Zhiva (means Life in many Slavic languages), a daughter of Svarog asked her father to go for a walk outside the Gardens. He allowed, she turned into a dove and flew away from Irij. During this airing she discovered Dazhdbog nailed in the mountains and felt in love with him. She asked him to turn away from Marena as the former was actually death and wouldn’t give anything to him. He agreed, and the Dove took Dazhdbog away from the mountains to Irij and healed.
Roll 16
“Tell, Gamayun, prophetic bird, tell us about the death of Kashchej
Immortal, tell about the Great Flood…”
“Of what that know, hide nothing I will…”
When Dazhdbog recovered he decided to find Kashchej and kill him. Zhiva told Dazhdbog that there is no way to kill Kashchej because he is Immortal God and Marena’s friend. They are both deaths.
“It can’t be that”, answered Dazhdbog, “It is not possible that Rod made the World this way. His death must be hidden somewhere!”.
So, our God went to Makosh the Fate and asked her. She told Dazhdbog that the death he is looking for is hidden in the Egg, the Egg is in the Duck, the Duck is in the Rabbit, the Rabbit is in the Chest, the Chest is under the Oak on the Island. So, Dazhdbog left to look for Kashchej’s death. On his way he met the Eagle, Wolf who promised to help Dazhdbog if he will need them. When the God came to the coast the great Snake helped him to get to the Island. Then Perun helped to get a Chest, Wolf grabbed the Rabbit, and Eagle-Rarog caught the Duck. So, Dazhdbog found this Egg.
When ancient tales and stories describe the creation on the World by Rod this Egg has a very big meaning as a source of the Fire that created everything, and Rarog is a small part of this Fire.
Our hero took the Egg and went to Kashchej’s palace. Marena was trying to give him wine using her old trick but Zhiva appeared again as a dove and spilled the wine. Nothing could stop Dazhdbog anymore, and he broke the Egg. As he did it, the Voice from Rod came and said that a Celestial Fire will appear from the broken Egg, and the Fire will kill everything as the end of the World will occur. So, that was it! All the Gods got together in Irij in order to protect it from the Fire because Irij represents Good, and the Fire is a wild and powerful Nature that only wants to destroy everything.
At this point the manuscript is sort of fuzzy. It looks like either a person who copied it from the ancient source got a real mess in his head or we have a very interesting theory here. The thing is that further events are described in a mixed pagan-plus-old-testament way. The text describes the Great Flood and Gods who survived it. Anyway, let’s get to the end of our story.
Roll 17
“Tell, Gamayun, prophetic bird, about the birth of the Kin of Russians,
about Laws given by Svarog…”
“Of what that know, hide nothing I will…”
So, after the first era finished, Dazhdbog and Zhiva started to create the new world. They planted woods, released fish into the sea. Dazhdbog had set Prav, separated Nav and Yav. These are the parts of the natural life flow, as Russians believed in. Dazhdbog and Zhiva accepted golden wreaths from Svarog and got married. So, that’s how Russians appeared, and that’s why they are called his grandchildren. Just because we really are…
To Attract a Domovoi: Go outside of your home wearing your finest clothing and say aloud “Dedushka Dobrokhot, Please come into my house and tend the flocks.”
To rid yourself of a rival Domovoi: Sometimes a home may have one too many Domoviki. In this case poltergeist-like activity may occur. Beat the walls of your home with a broom shouting “Grandfather Domovoi, help me chase away this intruder.”
•To Gain Magickal Knowledge
Calling a Leshii: Cut down an Aspen tree so that it’s top falls facing the East. Bend over and look through your legs saying “Leshi, Forest Lord, Come to me now; not as a grey wolf, not as a black raven, not as a flaming fir tree, but as a man.”
The leshii will teach the arts of magick to any whom he befriends.
(from Ivanits – Russian Folk Lore)
•For Love
a zagorovui, or runespell, to capture the one you love:
In the ocean sea, on the island of Buyan, there live three brothers, three winds: the first Northern, the second Eastern and the third Western. Waft, O winds, bring on (lover’s name) sorrow and dreariness so that without me s/he may not be able to spend a day nor pass an hour!
and yet another…
I, (conjuror’s name), stand still, uttering a blessing.
I go from the room to the door, from the courtyard to the gates.
I go out into the open field to the Eastern side. On the Eastern side stands an izba (cottage). In the middle of the izba lies a plank, under the plank is the longing.
The longing weeps. The longing sobs, waiting to get at the white light. The white light, the fair sun, waits, enjoys itself, and rejoices.
So may s/he wait, longing to get to me, and having done so, may he enjoy himself and rejoice! And without me let it not be possible for him to live, nor to be, nor to eat, nor to drink; neither by the morning dawn, nor by the evening glow.
As a fish without water, as a babe without its mother, without its mother’s milk, cannot live, so may s/he, without me, not be able to live, nor to be, nor to eat, nor to drink, nor by the evening glow; neither every day, not at mid-day, nor under the many stars, nor together with the stormy winds. Neither under the sun by day, nor under the moon by night.
Plunge thyself, O longing, gnaw thy way, O longing, into his/her breast, into his/her heart; grow and increase in all his/her veins, in all his bones, with pain and thirst for me!
– from “Songs of the Russian People”, William Ralston
•For Protection
Prayer: Recite the following prayer to Zorya:
Oh Virgin, unsheath your father’s sacred sword.
Take up the breastplate of your ancestors.
Take up your powerful helmet.
Bring forth your steed of black.
Fly forth to the open field,
There, where the great army with countless weapons is found.
Oh, Virgin, cover me with your veil.
Protect me against the power of the enemy
Against guns and arrows, warriors and weapons;
Weapons of wood, of bone, of copper, of iron and steel.
(from The New Larousse Encyc. of Mythology)
• For Happiness
Recite the following to a flame:
“Dear Father, tsar fire,
Be gentle and kind to me.
Burn away all my aches & pains, tears & worries.”
• To Have Lost Animals Return
The following letter is written on three pieces of birchbark:
I am writing to the forest tsar and forest tsaritsa with their small children; to the earth tsar and earth tsaritsa with their small children; to the water tsar and water tsartitsa with their small children. I inform you that (name of owner inserted) has lost a (color mentioned) horse (or cow, or other animal – distinctive marks should be given). If you have it send it back without delaying an hour, a minute, a second. If you do not comply with my wish, I shall pray against you to the great God, Weles and tsaritsa Alexandra.
One letter is fastened to a tree in the forest, the second buried in the earth and the third thrown with a stone into water. After this, the lost animal is supposed to return by itself.
• To Bring the Rain
If rain was needed a virgin girl was chose, one not yet old enough to conceive whose mother was no longer able to conceive. Naked, yet draped all over with flowers, she would whirl around and around while singing invocations to Perun. All the while she would be “watered” by the surrounding women.
• To Win a Fist Fight
Recite while holding a stone from a gravesite:
“I summon to my aid the forest spirits from the forest and the water spirits from the water: and you, forest spirits of the forest, water spirits of the water, come to my aid against my opponent fist-fighter, and enable me to defeat my opponent fist-fighter with my own fists. And you, forest spirits from the forest and water spirits of the water, take the rock from this corpse and place it on the hands, or head, or feet of my opponent fist-fighter…and just as this dead man is heavy from the earth and rock, so too may my opponent fist-fighter be heavy to lift his hand against me, and may my opponent become weak in the arms and the legs, and blind in the eyes from my verdict until the time I remove it.”
• To Guard against Slander
A zagovorui, or runespell, against Slander:
O righteous Sun! Do thou in my foes, my rivals, my opposers, in the powers that be, and public officials, and in all people of good mouth and heart, parch up evil thoughts and deeds, so that they may not rise up, may not utter words baleful for me!
• Spoiling
“Spoiling” is a Slavic term for cursing. The following spells are posted here only for research purposes:
• To Cause One to Wither
Dirt from the victim’s footprint was collected and placed in a little bag, or a lock of the victim’s hair was coated with clay. Either of these were hung inside the chimney. As the dirt or clay dried out, so, supposedly, did the victim.
• To Cause Death
Bareheaded and wearing only an undergarment, the magick user would circle the property of his or her victim’s yard with a burning candle. The candle was then broken in two and turned upside-down.
Eggs (termed “white swans” for this purpose) and/or bread were brought to the gravesite of a known criminal in exchange for some soil from their grave which was removed while saying “As this corpse has died unrepentant, so may you too die, unrepentant.”
Divinations
Tatyana curiously gazes
At the prophetic waxen mold,
All eager in its wondrous mazes
A wonderous future to behold.
Then from the basin someone dredges,
Ring after ring, the player’s pledges,
And comes her ringlet, they rehearse
The immemorial little verse:
“There all the serfs are wealthy yeomen,
They shovel silver with a spade;
To whom we sing, he shall be made
Famous and rich!” But for ill omen
They take this plaintive ditty’s voice;
Koshurka (kitten) is the maiden’s choice
– Pushkin, from Eugene Onegin V.8, translated by Walter Arndt.
Podbljudnaja – (Pohd-blyood-NIE-ya) – “Under the Plate”
This form of divination should be done on Koliada and New Year’s only. Each person takes a ring off their finger and places it into a bowl filled with water. A plate covers the bowl and songs are sung over it. At the end of each song, a ring is pulled out and the fate that the song is believed to apply to the owner of that ring.
Some traditional Podbljudnaja:
Podbljudnaja that fortell a wedding:
The ring was rolling
Along the velvet
The ring rolled up
To the ruby.
For one who takes it out
For her it will come true,
For her it will come true,
She will not escape
A Maple entwined with a birch
It did not untwine – Lada, Lada
Whoever takes it out
For her it will come true,
All will be well.
A little cat is sitting
In a wicker basket
She is sewing a towel.
She will marry the tom
For whom we are singing
All will be well.
Podbljudnaja that fortell wealth:
A rooster was digging
on a little mound of Earth
The rooster dug up
A little pearl.
For whoever gets it
All will be well.
A calyx is floating from somewhere beyond the sea.
To wherever it floats, there it will blossom.
Whoever takes it out – For her will it come true.
She will not escape – glory!
To predict a journey:
The sleigh stands, ready to go – Glory!
In it the cushions are all arranged – Glory!
It stands near the forest, waiting to go for a ride – Glory!
To whom we sing this song, all will be well.
It will come true, she will not escape – Glory.
To predict widowhood:
I sat – by a window
I waited – for my beloved
I could no longer wait
I fell asleep.
In the morning – I awoke
I suddenly – realized
I am a widow.
To whom we sing, all will come true.
To fortell death:
Death is walking down the street
Carrying blini* on a plate
Whoever takes the ring out
For her it will come true.
She will not escape – Glory.
(*blini is a traditional food offering to the dead)
This podbljudnaja is traditionally sung at midnight on New Year’s eve and also predicts death.
A dandy once took a very sharp axe – Lileju
The dandy went out – into the wide courtyard.
The dandy began – to hew some boards
To nail the wood – into an oaken coffin
Whomever this song reaches,
For her it will come true
She will not escape
If you choose to write your own songs for this divination ritual, you may want to use some traditional symbolism. Bread, grain, millet or rye symbolize harvest, fulfillment and material security. Gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fur and expensive cloth symbolize luxury and wealth. Doing things together like eating, drinking, working, standing or sitting together symbolize love and happy marriages. The songs are usually short as one song quickly follows another and traditionally, each refrain ends with a praise word such as glory.
Songs taken from Reeder: Russian Folk Lyrics. See Resource Page.
A Russian flower divination resembles the “He loves me” rhyme. They say:
Lyubit, Ne lyubit, Plyunit, Potseluyet, K sertsu prizhmet, K chertu poshlet, Dorogoj nazovet
(S/He loves, doesn’t love me, Spits on me, Kisses me, Hugs me to his/her heart, Sends me to the devil, Calls me his/her dear one.)
If a thread was hanging from one’s clothing, they would wrap it around the finger while reciting the alphabet. Whatever letter you stop on when the thread is fully wrapped is the initial of the future spouse. The color of the thread is also important. If the thread is pale, the spouse will be blonde, if dark, the spouse will be a brunette.
Wax Divinations – before Koljada, wax was melted and after it cooled, or was dropped into water, special attention was given to its shape. A coffin meant death to the inquirer, a ring meant marriage, etc. Sometimes this method was used by dropping molten lead into the water instead of wax.
New Year’s Divinations –
Divination rituals that occurred on New Year’s Eve were considered especially powerful if one followed certain rules. No crosses or belts could be worn and no blessings could be asked.
It was customary on New Year’s Eve for a girl to back up to the bathhouse door with her hem over the back of her head (rear-end exposed) and ask a question of the Bannik. If a cold touch or scratch from his claw was felt, it meant no. If a warm touch or caress was felt, it meant yes.
This same divination could be used if one put their hand in-between the wood of the bathhouse.
If you looked into the mirror in the steam bath on New Years eve, you would see the face of your future husband, or if you slept on a log, you would see his face in a dream.
If you caught the moons reflection in a mirror, your future spouses name would also be revealed there.
Remedies
These are actual remedies that were used, taken from various sources. Whether or not they work, I could not tell you.
• Alcoholism:
a zagovorui, or rune spell, for alcoholism:
Dost thou hear O Sky (Svarog)? Dost thou see, O Sky? O ye bright Stars! Descend into the marriage-cup, and in my cup let there be water from a mountain spring. O thou fair Moon! Bow down to my klyet (store-room). O thou free Sun! Dawn upon my homestead. O ye Stars! Deliver me,(insert name here), from drink! O Sun, draw me from drink!
• Colds:
I think Babci was just trying to keep me quiet with this one when I was little!
Into a cup of hot tea add fresh lemon juice, honey and a shot of jezynowka (Polish cherry brandy). Sip. Have no more than 2 cups, unless you WANT to get drunk.
• Coughs:
Upon retiring, have a glass of hot beer.
Add some honey to a grated radish and eat along with any of the radish juices.
• Crankiness:
“When your child is mysteriously cranky, has a strange unyielding headache, or can’t sleep after a day out or around people, either the child has been jinxed or exposed to negative energy/forces
The child’s mother should take the lower left corner of her skirt, apron, or shirt with her right hand and wipe the childs face several times in a clockwise direction. Afterwards, give the child some water and put it to bed.
This spell is normally used for young children but it works at any age. My 70 year old grandma did it to my 50 year old mother a little while ago and it worked.”
(Thanks to Vika for this Ukranian remedy)
• Fever:
Rub vodka on your chest and feet, put some mustard powder in a pair of woollen socks and put them on. Drink a mixture of milk, honey, baking soda, and vodka and go to sleep.
Before bed, stand naked, wearing only a woolen hat, with your feet up to the ankles in hot water and drink a large mug of tea with honey, jam, and at least 100g (about 2 1/2 shots) of vodka.
• Hemmorhoids:
Put two liters of milk and four large onions in a large covered clay pot and slowly heat it in the oven. Remove the pot from the oven, replace the cover with a toilet seat or similar object and sit on it. Steam yourself for a while and then rub the afflicted area with vaseline.
• Hiccups:
Rub a mixture of vinegar and mustard on your tongue. Hold for two minutes and then rinse.
• Illness, general:
a zagorvorui, or runespell, for healing:
Mother Zorya of morning and evening and midnight! as ye quietly fade away and disappear, so may both sicknesses and sorrows in me, (insert name), quietly fade and disappear – those of the morning, and of the evening, and of midnight!
• Pain:
“For unexplainable pain in the arm, hand, or wrist which nothing seems effective on….
Take a piece of thread (red is best…I don’t know why but I can ask if you like) and tie it around your wrist. It should ease the pain if it doesn’t get rid of it all together.”
– From Vika.
• Sore Throat:
Mix one cup vodka, one cup oil and the juice of one lemon. Gargle with it and then drink.
Make a juice of mashed onion and water. Gargle.
Breathe heavily on a frog for about 8 to 10 minutes. The frog’s heart should start beating rapidly and the sickness should pass entirely to the frog. You should feel instant relief. The less faint of heart should put the frog directly into the mouth and hold it for a couple of minutes.
• Stuffy nose:
Mash several cloves of garlic and put them in a pot of boiling water. Stand over the pot and breathe through your nose for five minutes.
•Tickling, To proof a child against:
Roll dough over the child’s back, then bake a flat cake of that dough and feed it to the dog.
• Toothache:
Place a piece of salo (a slab of fat) in the opposite side of the mouth from the painful region. Hold for about 20 minutes.
A zagovorui, runespell, for a toothache:
O thou young Moon! Test the dead and the living: the teeth of one who is dead, do they ache? Not at all ache the teeth of one dead, whose bones are tanned, whose teeth are mute….Grant, O Lord, that the teeth of me, _______, may become mute and never ache.
This zagovorui must be recited three times while biting the stone doorway of a church:
As this stone is firm, so may my teeth also become stony – harder than stone
This supposedly goes back to pre-Christian times and the stone was originally the stone of an axe or hammer, symbols of Perun.
• Ulcer:
Mix two raw eggs with a shot of vodka and drink 20 minutes before breakfast.
• Upset stomach:
Add salt and pepper to two shots of vodka and drink.
• Warts: My grandmother’s remedy –
Cut a piece from a potato (be careful that it does not include an “eye”) rub the cut part on the wart and then bury the piece of potato. As the potato dissolves, so will the wart.
Omens & Superstitions
Never touch a person or shake their hand over the threshold. If you don’t wait until they are inside, you will not see them again for seven years and risk angering the Domovoi to boot.
It is unlucky to sit at the corner of a table.
If the cat is cleaning herself it means that company is coming.
If you whistle inside, you risk losing all your money.
Never begin a new project on a Friday.
If you compliment a person on their appearance or their baby’s health, you must either knock unpolished wood or spit three times over the left shoulder lest the fairy’s take them.
Never shave or cut your hair when a family member is in danger.
Never cut your hair while pregnant or the unbilical cord will wrap around ur baby’s neck – From Vika.
When giving flowers, give only odd numbers of flowers. Even numbers are for the dead.
If a bird hits the window, someone will die.
If you accidently step in poop or a bird poops on you, you will win money. – From Vika.
If you break a mirror, you can run the pieces under water to counteract the bad luck.
Never show a newborn baby to a stranger until it is at least 40 days old.
Do not put keys on a table. You’ll lose money – From Vika.
Tatyana, in her heart obeying
The simple folkways of the past,
Believed in dreams and in soothsaying
And heeded what the moon forecast.
Weird apparitions would distress her,
And any object could impress her
With some occult significance
Or dire foreboding of mischance.
A preening pussycat, relaxing
Upon the stove with lick and purr,
Was an unfailing sign to her
That guests were coming; or a waxing
Twin-horned young moon that she saw ride
Across the sky on her left side
Would make her tremble and change color;
Each time a shooting star might flash
In the dark firmament, grow duller
And burst asunder into ash:
All flustered, Tanya would be seeking,
While yet the fiery spark was streaking,
To whisper it her heart’s desire.
But if she met a black-robed friar
At any place or any season,
Or if from out the meadow swath
A fleeing hare should cross her path,
She would be frightened out of reason,
And filled with superstitious dread,
See some calamity ahead.
– Pushkin – from Eugene Onegin V.5 & V.6 – translated by Walter Arndt.
Most agree that the word comes from the Roman word “calendae” which meant the first 10 days of any month. Some, however, believe the word is derived from the word “Kolo” or wheel – much like the word “Yule” is an Anglo-Saxon word for wheel. The holiday’s original name may have been “Ovsen”. The holiday was filled with revelry. Processions of people masked like animals and cross-dressers roamed the village. Often they were accompanied by a “goat”- a goat’s head, either real or (usually) made and stuffed on a stick. The person holding the “goat” would be covered by a blanket to play the part. Sometimes a child on horseback – symbol of the reborn sun – would accompany them; the horse was often played by two young men in horses costumes. One of the wenders would carry a spinning solar symbol, internally lit by a candle, on a stick. Later, after Christianity entered the scene, the spinning “sun” became a star.
This unusual group would stop and sing Koljada songs from house to house. These songs usually included invocations to “Koljada”, the god or goddess of the holiday, praises and good wishes,requests for handouts and threats for refusal. The handouts, also called “koljada”, usually took the form of little pastries or “korovki” shaped like cows or goats. The were sometimes just in the shape of the animals head, but often were described as having “horns and tails and everything.” The korovki were traditionally baked by the old people in the house, the grandmothers and grandfathers.
The “tricks” played by those who were not rewarded could be brutal: Garbage might be brought from all over the village and piled in front of the offending host’s gate, their gate might be torn off and thrown in the nearest water or livestock could be led off.
In Poland one “caroller” would carry a bundle of hazel twigs and after receing koljada, would gently hit his host/ess with a small stick loudly wishing “Na shchestia, na zdravia, na tot Noviy Reek” (happiness, health, in the coming New Year). A small twig was left with the farmer who nailed it above his door for wealth and protection.
Bonfires were sometimes lit and the dead ancestors asked inside to warm themselves. Mock funerals were held where a person pretending to be dead was carried into the house amidst both laughter and wailing. Sometimes even a real corpse was used. One young girl would be chosen and tradition made her kiss the “corpse” on the lips. If a pretend corpse was used, the person would leap up after being kissed – a symbol of rebirth.
Holiday foods included kut’ia, a traditional funeral food consisting of whole grains and pork. The whole grain is a universal symbol – “the seed as the mysterious container of new life” (J A Propp p.8)
On the last day of the koljada season in Poland, all the unmarried men of the village would get together to “wend” for oats. It was impossible to get rid of them with a scoop of oats; it took at least 7 liters. The farmer would keep a sharp eye on his grain that night, because otherwise the carollers would steal it as part of the evening’s custom. With the money from the sold oats the men would hire musicians and organize a large dance party in the village during the pre-Spring festival period.
If you don’t give us a tart – We’ll take your cow by the horns.
If you don’t give us a sausage – We’ll grab your pig by the head.
If you don’t give us a bliny – We’ll give the host a kick.
– Reeder, p.85
New Year’s Day – originally on the Winter Solstice, New years was considered the most powerful time for divination. A traditional New Year’s divination was called podbljunaja (powd-blyew-NIE-ya) or “under the plate”. Details of this divinatory system may be found on the Slavic Magick page. Pork was traditionally eaten at this time.
Spring
Strinennia – Mar 9th. Clay images of larks were made, their heads smeared with honey and stuck with tinsel. They were carried around the village amidst the singing of vesnjanki, invocations to Spring. Birds were thought to bring the Spring with them upon their return. Children were given pastries shaped like birds to toss into the air while saying “The rooks have come.”. Sometimes the pastries were tied to poles in the garden. The baking of these pastries was to ensure that the birds would return.
Oh little bee, Ardent bee!
Fly out beyond the sea.
Get out the keys, the golden keys.
Lock up winter, cold winter
Unlock summer, warm summer.
Warm summer –
A summer fertile in grain.
– Reeder, p 92
Maslenica (Mah-sweh-NEET-sa) “Butter woman” from the word Maslo which means butter. Originally it was practiced at the Vernal Equinox but later was celebrated the week before lent. Maslenica (mah-sweh-NEET-sa), sometimes called Shrovetide, was a celebration of the returning light, a time of games and contests, especially horse racing, fist fights, sliding and mock battles. It was a time for protection and purification rituals and a time of gluttony, obscenity and dissolution.
At the beginning of the festivities a life-sized corn doll would be made as a personification of the holiday. The doll would be invoked and welcomed by the name Maslenica. Sometimes a drunken peasant was chosen, instead, to represent Maslenica. He would either be dressed in woman’s clothing or in a costume sewn all over with bells. His face would be smeared with soot and he would be seated on a wheel resting on a pole within a sledge. Wine and pastries would surround him and as many as could would accompany him in other sledges. Crowds would follow on foot, laughing, dancing and singing ritualsongs. Corn “Maslenitsas” were also driven around in barrows, wagons or sleighs accompanied by crowds of celebrants.
Many customs honoring the sun were included in the festivities such as the lighting of bonfires, pushing a wheel whose axel pole was a flaming torch about or circling the village on horseback with torches. Farmsteads were also circled at this time, either with a religious icon or with brooms, sweeping around the entire property three times to create a magickal circle which protected against illness and evil spirits.
Traditionally, the house and barn were cleaned and decorated and holiday foods such as bliny (pancakes), kulich (sweet bread) and paskha (pyramid shaped cottage-cheese bread) were prepared. Special loaves were baked and fed to the cattle to guard them from unclean spirits. Kozuli, pastries shaped like cattle, goats, etc. were prepared and eaten to bring on the multiplication of the herds. Eggs were decorated and rolled along the ground in order to transfer the fertility of the egg to the earth. The customary “swinging” which occured at this time was believed to strengthen the stock and fertility of the villagers as well.
Maslenitsa was considered to be a time for purification. All salt was prepared for the coming year, as salt was used for cleansing and curative purposes. Ritual baths to prepare for the oncoming work in the fields were also taken before sunrise and followed with fumigation in the smoke of the juniper.
Another important part of Slavic ritual is the funeral meal. A huge feast was prepared and brought to the cemetary where it was eaten amidst much wailing and laughter. Food was always left for the dead. In Eastern European ritual, funeral and fertility rites are intertwined. Volos, a god of the herds, is believed by many to be the same god as Veles, an underworld deity.
At the end of the week the Maslenitsa (if a doll was used) was taken to a field outside the village, usually where the winter crops were planted. There it was destroyed, either by being torn apart and thrown into the field or burned. This was the remnant of an earlier cult of a dying and resurected God, Volos perhaps, whose death brought life to the fields. The “God” was always destroyed with laughter as such a “death” was seen to bring life. Smaller dolls were also made for individual households which were also torn apart at the week’s end and fed to the livestock. This was believed to ensure their fertility and the customary willow branch they were fed was thought to protect them for the entire year to come.
Our Dear Maslenica, dear, leli, dear
Came for a while, for a while, leli, for a while
We thought for seven weeks, seven weeks, leli, seven weeks
But Maslenica stayed only seven days, seven days, leli, seven days
And Maslenica deceived us, deceived us, leli, deceived us
To lent she offered a seat, offered a seat, leli, offered a seat
Bitter horseradish she put out, put out, leli, put out
And that horseradish is more bitter than xren, more bitter than xren,
leli, more bitter than xren.
(Traditional Maslenica song – Zemcovskij – xren is a form of horseradish also)
It is interesting to note that in this song, the singer laments that he is betrayed by Maslenica because she gives up her seat to Lent and gives him bitter things (to eat). In the Slavic traditions, The periods directly before and after Easter were filled with customs, rituals and celebrations although Easter itself came and went without much ado. This is supposedly due to the Orthodox Priest’s successful efforts to keep the day of Easter, itself free of pagan influence.The holiday of Maslenitsa lasted a week and marked the beginning of the Slavic Spring Festivals which continue through to the Summer Solstice, Kupalo.
Krasnaja Gorka – “beautiful” or “red” hillock – the Sunday after Easter. In Russia, a woman holding a red egg and round loaf of bread would face East and sing a spring song which the chorus then took up. Afterward, a doll representing Marzena, grandmother Winter, was carried to the edge of the village and thrown out or destroyed. Xorovods, Russian circle dances, started on this day as well as were Spring game songs; A female performer would enter the center of a circle and mime the sowing, pulling, spreading, etc..of the flax all the way up to the spinning. She and all those in the circle would sing:
Turn out well, turn out well, my flax.
Turn out well, my white flax. *
This is a form of sympathetic magic to ensure a bountiful flax harvest.
(* – Reeder – Russian Folk lyrics)
Radunica – (Rah-doo-NEET-sa) The second Tuesday after Easter. This holiday was originally known as Nav Dien (Day of the Dead) and was a bi-annual holiday to celebrate the ancestors. The original dates of these two holidays were probably May eve and November eve – cross-quarter dates. Usually feasting and celebrating occured in the cemetaries among much ritual wailing. Offerings, often of eggs, were left to the dead.
Ascension – 40 days after Easter. This holiday may have originally fallen on May eve and been tied in with the holiday of Nav Dien. On this day, lark pastries were again baked. After supper, all would rest a while and then take their lark pastries into the rye fields. A prayer would be offered at each side of the field while the larks were tossed into the air and people cried “So that my rye may grow as high”. The larks were then eaten.
Village girls customarily imitated the spring bird’s song. Songs were sung on opposite ends of the village with one chorus answering the other. When finished, another song would begin in the distance and in this fashion the songs would travel from village to village.
St. Egorij (George) Day – April 23 – George is Greek for “farmer”. The first day the flocks are taken to the fields. They were driven out using pussy willows that had been blessed on Palm Sunday. The energy of the willow was thought to be transferred to the animal, or person, being whipped by it. According to an old song;
The pussy willow has brought health
The pussy willow whip beats you to tears
The pussy willow does not beat in vain.
People walk around the fields singing invocations to Egorij begging him to protect the flock from wild animals in the fields and beyond them. These invocations probably originated as prayers to the god Weles, ruler of horned animals, wealth and the underworld. After the flocks left, the entire village would gather together for one solemn moment. Some of the pussy willows were then stuck in the rye fields to give them strength, others were brought home to ensure the flock’s return.
St. Egorij is a holiday predominated by men. One ritual for this day consisted of the old village men going down to the river and gathering a stone for every animal in their family’s flock. They would then put them in a bag and hang the bag in the courtyard saying
Tsar of the fields, Tsarina of the fields,
Tsar of the forest, Tsarina of the forest,
Tsar of the water, Tsarina of the water,
Protect my flocks, from the evil eye,
From wicked people, from wild beasts,
And from all others.
On the eve of this holiday, young boys and men do a form of trick-or-treating by singing from house to house for food and bestowing blessings upon those who are generous and curses upon those who are not. This door-to-door singing was called “The Labor of St. George.”
Cows, give birth to calves. Pigs, give birth to sucklings.
Roosters, stamp your feet. Hens, hatch chickens.
Hostes be good to us. Host, don’t be stingy.
If the host and hostess were generous, the singers would usually wish for the hosts and for themselves 200 cows and 150 bulls each. If the host was stingy, he might hear:
Neither a farm, nor a courtyard
Not any chicken feathers
May God grant you cockroaches and bedbugs
Rusal’naia Week – (Roo-sahl-NIE-ya) originally just after May eve, this holiday was later celebrated on the 7th or 8th week after Easter. The holiday was possibly named after the Roman holiday Rosalia. During this week the Rusalki, female water spirits, were said to leave the rivers and go to the forests and fields. Birches were considered a source of vegetative power and homes were decorated with birch branches, both inside and out.
On the Wednesday of this week, girls would go into the forests and choose and mark the birches. The following day, Semik, bringing fried eggs (omelettes) & beer, they would decorate the chosen trees with flowers. One special birch would be chosed and “curled”. That is, the ends of the twigs would be knotted and twisted to form wreaths. The fried eggs would be placed around it while Semickajas (songs sung only at Semik) were sung. Then the kumit’sja ceremony would be held: The girls would kiss each other through wreaths on the birch tree and swear an oath of friendship. This spell was believed to ensure that they would be friends for life or, “kumas”.
This tree was sometimes left in the forest, and sometimes cut down and brought into the village. No males were allowed to touch the tree. The tree might be dressed in woman’s clothing and/or stripped of its lower branches. Sometimes this tree was set up in a home as a guest. If left in the forest, its tip might be bent down and tied to the grass, ensuring that its sacred energy would return to the earth. Girls would sing and dance the xorovod around the tree.
Banishings of the Rusalki were performed during Rusal’naia. Dolls of them were made and ritually torn apart in the grain fields.
On the Sunday of this week, girls would perform memorial rites on the graves of their parents and afterward divide eggs among their family members. Then the sacred birch tree was removed from the village and tossed into a local river or stream. Girls would take wreaths from their heads and toss them in after the birch. If their wreath floated off, love was to come from the direction the wreath floated toward. If the wreath sunk, the girl was supposed to die within the following year. If it circled, misfortune would come.
I, a young girl, am going to the quiet meadow, the quiet meadow.
To the quiet meadow, to a little birch.
I, a young girl, will pick a blue cornflower,
A little blue cornflower, a cornflower.
I, a young girl, will weave a wreath.
I, a young girl, will go to the river.
I will throw the wreath down the river.
I will think about my sweetheart
My wreath is drowning, drowning.
My heart is aching, aching.
My wreath will drown.
My sweetheart will abandon me.
– Reeder, p.101
Semik – (Seh-MEEK) the Thursday of Rusal’naia Week. This was the day to perform funerals for all those who had not yet been properly buried.
Semik songs (Semikjas):
While selecting the birch:
Don’t rejoice oak trees. Don’t rejoice green ones.
Not to you are the girls coming. Not to you, the pretty ones.
Not to you are they bringing pies, pastries, omelettes.
Yo, Yo Semik and Trinity!
Rejoice birches! Rejoice green ones!
To you the girls are coming!
To you they are bringing pies, pastries, omelettes.
Yo, yo Semik and Trininty.
While curling the birch:
Oh birch, so curly, curly and young,
Under you, little birch, no poppy is blooming.
Under you, little birch, no fire is burning –
No poppy is blooming –
Pretty maids are dancing a xorovod,
about you little birch, they are singing songs.
Summer
Kupalo – (Coo-PAH-loh) – the Celebration of the summer solstice. Kupalo comes from the verb kupati which means “to bathe” and mass baths were taken on the morning of this holiday. On this holiday, the sun supposedly bathed by dipping into the waters at the horizon. This imbued all water with his power and therefore, those who bathed on this day would absorb some of that power.
Fire was sacred to the ancient Slavs and fires were never allowed to go out. In the sanctuaries, fires were tended by the priests and in the home, guarded by the mother. On the eve of Kupalo, however, all fires were extinquished and rekindled with “new fire”. New fire was created by friction. A peg was rotated within a hole in a block of wood made especially for this purpose. In some areas, animals were sacrificed on Kupalo’s eve and a feast prepared of them entirely by men was shared as a communal meal. Bonfires were lit and couples jumped over them. It was considered a good omen and prediction of marriage if a young couple could jump the flame without letting go of each other’s hand. Cattle was chased through the fires in order to ensure their fertility.
At the beginning of the celebration, a straw image of “Kupalo” was made of straw, dressed like a woman and placed under a sacred tree. At the end of the festival, the effigy was ritually destroyed by burning, “drowning” or being ripped apart. Afterward, elaborate mock funerals were held. Two people pretending to be a priest and deacon would cense the figure, with a mixture of dung and old shoes burning over coals in a clay pot. The funeral was carried out among much wailing and laughter.
Kupalo was considered the most powerful time to gather both magical and medicinal plants. It was considered the only time to gather the magical fire-fern. On Kupalo’s eve, the flower of the fern was said to climb up the plant and burst into bloom. Anyone who obtained it would gain magical powers including the ability to find treasures. To gather the herb, one must draw a magic circle around the plant and ignore the taunts of the demons who would try to frighten them off. Kupalo marked the end of the “Spring festival” period which started in the beginning of March.
Perun’s Day – July 20th. On this day a human sacrifice was chosen by ballot. There is record of a viking’s son being chosen and the viking refusing to give him up. Both father and son were killed as a result. This day was considered a “Terrible” holiday. The sacrifice was seen as necessary to placate the God and keep him from destroying the crops with late summer storms. According to Dr. Buhler in De Diis Samogitarum, the prayer uttered by the officiating priest went as follows:
Perkons! Father! Thy children lead this faultless victim to thy altar. Bestow, O Father, they blessing on the plough and on the corn. May golden straw with great well-filled ears rise abundantly as rushes. Drive away all black haily clouds to the great moors, forests, and large deserts, where they will not frighten mankind; and give sunshine and rain, gentle falling rain, in order that the crops may thrive!”
A bull was also sacrificed and it was eaten as a communal meal.
Autumn
St. Ilia’s Day – August 2nd. In the Ukraine, this day marked the beginning of autumn. It was said “Until dinner, it’s summer. After dinner, it’s autumn.” Ilia is closely related to Perun and this was most probably one of Perun’s holy days. After this day, no swimming was allowed as Ilia will curse anyone he finds swimming after his feast day.
Harvest – Harvest Holidays occured anywhere from Aug 2 to the autumn equinox and lasted from 4 days to a week. Various rituals center around the reaping and threshing of the sheaths.The Harvest Holidays of the Slavs were far more practical than ritual. The songs sung at this time are almost completely concerned with the work at hand or praises for the host and hostess or the one who brought the cup. Work parties called tolo’ka or pomoi’ were formed and these travelled from farm to farm until all the work was done. The host was obligated to provide the day’s food and entertainment.
Yablochnyi/Medovoy Spas – or “Apple/Honey Saviour. This is a crossquarter holiday between the summer solstice and the fall equinox. It celebrates the wealth of the harvest when fruit and honey are ready to be gathered. The first fruits and honey picked on this day and the bee hives were blessed.
Zaziuki – on or around Aug 7, might be the same holiday as Spas. Particular attention was paid to the first sheaf (zazhinochnyi or zazhinnyi) which was usually brought into the house and threshed separately. Sometimes it was blessed and then mixed back in with the seed. The end of the harvest celebration was called Dozinki. The last sheaf (the dozhinochnyi orotzhinnyi) was also brought in the house where it was either decorated with flowers and ribbons or dressed in woman’s clothing. It was then placed in the entrance corner of the home or near any religious icons until Oct 1, when it was fed to the cattle. Sometimes the last sheaf ceremony was merged with the ritual surrounding a small patch of field that was left uncut. The spirit of the harvest was said to precede the reapers and hide in the uncut grain. This small patch was referred to as the “beard” of Volos, the God of animals and wealth. The uncut sheaves of wheat in “Volos’ beard” were decorated with ribbons and the heads were bent toward the ground in a ritual called “The curling ofthe beard”. This was believed to send the spirit of the harvest back to the Earth. Salt and bread, traditional symbols of hospitality were left as offerings to Volos’ beard.
Mokosh Day – Mokosh was honored on the Friday between Oct 25 and Nov 1. She was given offerings of vegetables. One reference fixes this date on Oct 28.
The three phases of the classic journey of internal alchemy are the Nigredo, Albedo, and Rubedo. Blackness. Whiteness, and ablution. Rubedo, The Ruby, redness, the blood flowing.
Traits of each are listed below. Below these are the notes and quotes.
1. Nigredo
The beginning of the dissolution of the false ego, often with accompanying physical pains. The “self” sees itself as a constructed being, a character playing a social role, and the pressures of life begin to wear away at the self concept. Looking for truth outside one’s own self, one encounters only misery and woe, depression, suicidal and nihilistic ideation, and often headaches. The dark night of the soul, symbolized by the Caput Corvus. The nigredo is Saturnine and often chaotic. Blackness is also a color of fertility–black like the rich soil– and hence the new self is being formed inside the shit of the old self. The nigredo is a cooking process in which the imagines self is reduced to it’s rawest elements. The “BLACK SUN” sigil is an indicator of this phase. One typically during this phase cannot practice kenosis or zazen for any length of time and alcohol and drug use are common. Deliberate attempts to enter the nigredo to clear out psychologic complexes are possible but only recommended if one has a partner of friend to act as a guide. Typically, the kundalini cannot rise normally during the nigredo, and this can cause emotional and sexual problems. Undertaking an ONA insight role during the nigredo can be dangerous in the extreme, as a person discovers in bits and pieces their true strengths and weaknessess. Equivalent tothe Lovecraftian UBBO SATHLA. Also in Lovecraftian terms, this nigredo is an encounter with DAOLOTH, often the first encounter.
2. Albedo
The ablution. The self becomes aware of it’s place in the totality of all things and becomes humbled. This is a good phase of the journey to practice Taoist kenosis and ZAZEN. You’ll accept Ma Durga during this phase and see what your weaknessess are without making excuses. Illumination, Lucifer. The importance of clan and ethnos may seem to be of much less importance here. AZATHOTH is Lovecraftian mythos. Some may be tempted to embrace RHP type compassion doctrines during this phase. The defensive mechanisms of the false ego are now gone.
3. Rubedo
The re-awakening. In some ways, the rubedo is a second mode of the albedo. Once chastened, the person realizes that they cannot LIVE normally as a perpetually humbled person, being surrounded on all sides by the mundanes– and so must allow the life to flow back in once more. During the RUBEDO, you will become what you’ve always been, but didn’t know your were with any clarity. Some eastern practices refer to this phase as entering the “Diamond Body”. The self that cannot die for it LIVES FOREVER. NYARLATHOTEP, as Lord of Awakening, the OBIC MASTER that lives outside the cosmos, yet effects it’s contents.
NOTES
A lot of Batman’s journey in the early phases of the movie “Batman Begins” are a pretty good idea of what the Nigredo is, especially as it dissolves, due to the addition of an herbal drug, into the Albedo.
The transit from the nigredo to albedo can be physically dangerous and so the deliberate entering of the nigredo as part of better understanding an INSIGHT ROLE should taken with extreme care.
QUOTES
Mundane or Sinister? The Standards of The Sinister Way
So, you want to join us? You want to become one of the sinister few? Part of our sinister Order of Nine Angles family? One of those who understand – who know – mundanes for the expendable resource they are. One of those who knows or who feels, in a wordless way in their very being, that we can be far more than we are; one of those who knows, who understands, or who feels, in a wordless way in their very being, that all laws, past and present, are restrictions – a means of mundane control, devised and implemented by mundanes in a mundane attempt to prevent we sinister few from turning our lives into a succession of ecstasies. One of those defiant ones who would rather die than submit, and who understands that words are a means, not the essence.
Know then that you have to prove and test yourself – taking yourself to and beyond your physical and emotional and moral limits. If you succeed, fine. If you fail – no excuses, you failed. You can try again, and again, until you succeed. Or you can accept the truth – that failure makes you, marks you, as mundane. No excuses.
Are you, then, ready to test yourself? To defy, to overcome? To be heretical? If so, here are the challenges. Here are the minimal standards you must meet to become of us, to join us. And if you do not desire to so test yourself, to meet, to surpass, the standards, we set – then go elsewhere. If you somehow in some way want to debate or to dispute these standards of ours, then you can go elsewhere.
We are not interested in your excuses, your mundane words – for these are minimal entry standards for our traditional sinister nexions. For you to join us – for you to become a member of our sinister elite, to become a genuine Initiate of our Seven-Fold Sinister Way – you have to undertake the following.
Physical Standards
Train for and undertake all three of the following physical tasks – the minimum standards (for men) are: (a) walking thirty-two miles, in hilly terrain, in under seven hours while carrying a pack weighing at least 30 lbs; (b) running twenty-six miles in four hours; (c) cycling two hundred or more miles in twelve hours. [Those who have already achieved such goals in such activities should set themselves more demanding goals. For women, the minimum acceptable standards are: (a) walking twenty-seven miles in under seven hours while carrying a pack weighing at least 15 lbs. (b) running twenty-six miles in four and a half hours; (c) cycling one hundred and seventy miles in twelve hours.
If you cannot achieve all these minimal standards – you failed.
Mental Standards
Construct and learn to play both the basic and the advanced Star Game.
If you cannot do this – you failed.
Moral Standards
Find, and test (according to our sinister guidelines) a suitable mundane, and then cull that mundane.
If you cannot do this – you failed.
Heretical Standards
Become, for a minimum of six months, a public advocate of one of the following modern heresies – radical (Jihadi) Islam, or National-Socialism.
If you cannot do this – or fail to understand why these are genuine modern heresies – you failed.
No excuses; no debates. You are either of us, or you are mundane.
Anton Long
Order of Nine Angles
121 Year of Fayen
The wise man is not surprised by death
he is always ready to leave.
“Putrefaction is so effective that it destroys the old nature and form of the rotting bodies; it transmutes them into a new state of being to give them a totally new fruit. Everything that has live, dies; everything that is dead putrefies and finds a new life.” (Pernety, 1758)
And who is this pure fool? Lo,In the sagas of old time, legend of scald, of bard, of druid…Cometh he not in green like spring? O thou water that art air, In whom all complex is resolved! OH YES…fill the churches with dirty thoughts! Introduce honesty to the white house! Write letters in dead languages to people you’ve never met! Paint filthy words on the foreheads of children! Burn your credit cards and wear high heels! Asylum doors, stand open! Fill the suburbs with murder and rape! DIVINE MADNESS! Let there be ECSTACY, ECSTACY in the streets!! Laugh, and the world laughs with you.
– Mr. J
Red. White. Black.
Black in the center, turns to white, turns to red.
Notes and quotes for establishing a correspondence grid.
What I’m trying to do here is to open a dialogue. I certainly don’t have all the answers but a functioning correspondence grid could at least allow for future dialogues that aren’t confused due to mistranslations of symbolism and “in group” terminology. It’s worthwhile to come up with a SINGLE Codex of Doctrine which contains at least the skeleton of the basic Dark Doctrines fromt he previous world age, and this codex could be disseminated among the nexions for preservation after the world rending catastrophe which will bring about the end of KALI YUGA.
This is what I’m trying to do, but I’ll need some help from others to establish the skeleton of the codex.
Establishing a correspondence grid can be tough or easy, depending on how much digging around has to be done. For example, a duh duh easy example would be that the Pentamychos concept of the “Ophionic tunnel” is equal to the transformations of the demon MAHISA in the Mahishasuramardini. A less obvious example would be a more oblique character, like for example THE JOKER from the Batman movies representing the “Moved by the Crawling Chaos (NYARLATHOTEP)” state as it would manifest in the human. Below are notes and quotes. My own commentary is prefaced and ended with percentage marks, so it’ll look like this —
“In Egypt, Isis Urania was a bringer of knowledge and a preserver at the first half of human life while the second half was ruled by Isis Xator, the Queen of the Dead and personified destruction. Fifteen avatars of Kali varied from Uma, goddess of medicine and bringer of life, to Dhumavati, goddess of rot, decay, putrefaction and disease. All these attributes were accepted as a whole picture of the Deity in question. It was not a case of “one man’s god is another man’s devil.” It was moreso that a God embodied all aspects of personality viewed as positive and negative, just as any living thing could be seen as friend or foe, nice or not-nice.
There was an element of true elitism in invoking certain aspects of the ancient gods. Only a skilled follower of the Left Hand Path could call the powers of Dhumavati and only a warrior would pray to Durga.”
-A. A. Vladimirov, USSR
*********************************
«(…) That is the sigil of Baphomet. She is a dark goddess from an old Tradition,
who beheads her victims and enemies, and washes in a basin of their blood.
She is a goddess of war and sacrifice. She represents the brutal necessity of
Death on Life’s claim. She that strips away in order to renew. She represents
the wild brutal aspect of Nature which is necessary in order to fructify, and
produce change. She is the darkest Goddess of all.»
– Raven-Made
«A beautiful red-headed woman with a black abyss in lieu of a face stands
holding the severed head of a bearded man in her right-hand, a humble but
blood-stained kitchen knife in the other. At her feet writhes an abomination; the
both of them standing in a river of flowing blood. In the red sky, a sigil snakes,
and a vulvic rent has opened and its presence has torn the world. Behind
‘Baphomet’, in the distance, an army of similar faceless women are beginning to
assemble, each holding a kitchen knife also. A bloody severed penis and set of
testicles lay beside the abomination; a tetrahedron floats along bouyed by the
bloody torrent.»
– From Archetypia XV, “Unbound”
%%%It’s of note that from all I’ve read from the available materials of the ONA, and I’ve hardly read them all, that BAPHOMET is not the thing to bow down to and pray to, like a temple idol, but it’s something that is ultimately within. That being said, she also has an external existence distinct from the temporal/causal human life.
Durga is a “mirror principle” , and in several of the paintings available of Baphomet, she is holding a mirror. DURGA uses a mirror as a weapon, holding it up to her opponent, and causing them to see themselves as they really are. The typical response is to want to FLEE and LIE, to create excuses, to add brick and mortar to the false ego. This is what the expression “going down the Ophionic Tunnel” means, and this is what the demon Mahisa is doing in the story of Durga and Mahisa.
When the mirror doesn’t work, Durga unleashes her secret weapon- KALI MA SAKTI.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
VINDEX and the WHITE HORSE AVATAR
” The Imperium which Vindex will create will be different from previous Empires because it will be a conscious creation: the result of a reasoned, honourable, civilized, approach: that is, it will be based upon honor, and will be the result of the esoteric understanding we have achieved over hundreds, indeed thousands, of years.
This means it will not impose itself by force of arms upon others. Rather, it means it will be composed of thinking warriors who uphold honor and who prefer combat to dishonourable modern war. In particular, it means a federation of countries, or nations, who co-operate together in the pursuit of a numinous goal: not an Empire in the old sense of domination and conquest and occupation.
The old type of Empire belongs in the past: it is unsuitable for an honourable, rational, people. Furthermore, the old type of Empire is founded upon a basic error.
The basic mistake is to believe that war can solve problems or be of benefit. Thus to have war as a political policy is stupid. This mistake about war arises from two things: (1) a lack of perspective, and thus a viewing of events in current rather than historical terms; (2) failing to act in accord with the ethics of honor.
Every old type of Empire has a time of glory; as it has to maintain itself by occupation, war, and repression. Every such Empire declines, and is then destroyed. Sometimes an Empire may last a few decades; sometimes a century or more. Rarely, a few centuries. After the destruction of the Empire, there follows a period of chaos, of barbarism, of regression, with only a few positive attributes of the Empire remaining: some stories of glory, perhaps; or some literature; some monuments, or some technological or scientific achievement. But a great deal is lost. – D Myatt
The central character of the Kalki Purana is the tenth avatar of Vishnu mostly referred to as Kalki. The etymology of this name is by no means clear. According to Norman, “the name Kalki is derived from Kalka and would mean “the destroyer of what is foul’. The Marathi variant kalanki points to the same meaning. Some Indus scholars derive the word from Kali and a root kai to destroy, but this is not authenticated”. In his postface to the French translation of the Kalki Purana (Bhatt and Remy, 1983: 192) Preau stresses the ambiguity of the name: “The very name of Kalki or Kalki (both forms are found) is intriguing because kalka in Sanskrit means ‘dirt’, ‘stain’. Actually the name of Kalki is perceived by Abegg as an antithesis, whereas, according to the Kalki Purana, Kalki would mean ‘he who removes sin or blemish from the world’, Kalki being sometimes referred to as kalkavinasana, ‘the destroyer of blemish’ “.
In other texts Kalki is known by alternative names such as Parasraya in the Visnu Purana (Stutley, 1985: 138) and Visnuvyasa in the Mahabharata, the Vayu Purna and the Harivamsa (Bhatt and Remy: 192). Curiously enough he is nowhere, as far as I know, referred to as Niskalank although this Sanskrit adjective meaning “immaculate” or “stainless” – otherwise used to designate the Absolute or formless God – would certainly suit him better than the obscure form Kalki.
– Commentary on the Kalki Purana
Who Is Imam Mahdi?
The term “MAHDI” is a title meaning “The Guided one”. Hadhrat Abdullah bin Mas’ood (R.A.) says that Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said, “This world will not come to an end until one person from my progeny does not rule over the Arabs, and his name will be the same as my name.” (Tirmidhi)
Hadhrat Ali (R.A.) narrates that Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said, “Even if only a day remains for Qiyamah to come, yet Allah will surely send a man from my family who will fill this world with such justice and fairness, just as it initally was filled with oppression.” (Abu Dawood)
His Features
Hadhrat Abu Saeed Khudri (R.A.) relates that Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said, “Al Mahdi will be from my progeny. His forehead will be broad and his nose will be high. He will fill the world with justice and fairness at a time when the world will be filled with oppression. He will rule for seven years.”
Other ahadeeth inform us that:
* He will be tall
* He will be fair complexioned
* His facial features will be similar to those of Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam)
* His character will be exactly like that of Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam)
* His father’s name will be Abdullah
* His mother’s name will be Aamina
* He will speak with a slight stutter and occasionally this stutter will frustrate him causing him to hit his hand upon his thigh.
* His age at the time of his emergence will be forty years
* He will receive Knowledge from Allah.
– Various Sources
“Vindex thus represents, par excellence, what is numinous, and restores the balance that has been lost; lost because of the imposition of un-numinous, impersonal, and tyrannical, abstractions. As mentioned elsewhere (for instance, in Honour: The Practical Foundation of The Numinous Way, and The Way of The Warrior ), personal honour is one primary manifestation of the numinous, and it is personal honour that the abstract impersonal laws of all large modern “nation-States” take away, reducing the individual, as such States do, to a mere characterless often debt-ridden lackey or drone who is expected to toil to pay the taxes that the State imposes, which taxes are nothing more than a government run protection-racket, and which taxes keep the whole rotten, corrupt System of corrupt dishonourable politicians, and their flunkeys, going.”
– David Myatt
On the Dark Age
(from "Revolt Against the Modern World") by JULIUS EVOLA
[...]
In reference to what I previously said concerning what ancient traditions called the Dark Age (Kali Yuga), I will now describe some of the features of this age found in an ancient Hindu text, the Visnu Purana. I will put in brackets what I consider to be the
contemporary applications.
Outcastes and barbarians will be masters of the banks of the Indus, Darvika, the Chandrabhaga and Kashmir.
These will all be contemporary rulers [of this age] reigning over the earth: kings [rulers] of violent temper ...
They will seize upon the property of their subjects; they will be of limited power and will for the most part rapidly rise and fall; their lives will be short, their desires insatiable,
and they will display but little piety. The people of various countries intermingling with them will follow their example ...
The prevailing caste will be the Shudra ... Vaisyas will abandon agriculture and commerce and gain a livelihood by servitude or the exercise of mechanical arts
[proletarization and industrialization] ... Kshyatrias instead of protecting will plunder their subjects: and under the pretext of levying customs will rob
merchants of their property [crisis of capitalism and of private property; socialization, nationalization, and communism] ...
Wealth [inner] and piety [following one's dharma] will decrease day by day until the whole world will be wholly depraved.
Then property alone will confer rank [the quantity of dollars - economic classes];
wealth [material] will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes;
falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation....
Earth will be venerated but for its mineral treasures [unscrupulous exploitation of the soil,
demise of the cult of the earth] ...
Brahmanical clothes will constitute a Brahman ...
weakness will be the cause of dependence [cowardice, death of fides and honor in the modern political forms] ...
simple ablution [devoid of the power of the true rite] will be purification [can there really be anything more in the alleged salvation procured in the Christian sacraments?] ...
In the Kali age men corrupted by unbelievers ... will say:
"Of what authority are the Vedas? What are gods or Brahmins? ..."
Observance of caste, order and institutes [traditional] will not prevail in the Kali age.
Marriages in this age will not be conformable to the ritual, nor will the rules that connect the spiritual preceptor and
his disciple be in force. ... A regenerated man will be initiated in any way whatever
[democracy applied to the spiritual plane] and such acts of penance as may be performed will be unattended by any results
[this refers to a "humanistic" and conformist religion] ... all orders of life will be common alike to all persons. ...
He who gives away much money will be the master of men and family descent will no longer be a title of supremacy [the end of traditional nobility, advent of bourgeoisie, plutocracy]. ...
Men will fix their desires upon riches, even though dishonestly acquired. ...
Men of all degrees will conceit themselves to be equal with Brahmins
[the prevarication and presumption of the intellectuals and modern culture]. ...
The people will be almost always in dread of dearth and apprehensive of scarcity;
and will hence ever be watching the appearances of the sky [the meaning of the religious and superstitious residues typical of modern masses]. ...
The women will pay no attention to the commands of their husbands or parents....
They will be selfish, abject and slatternly; they will be scolds and liars; they will be indecent and immoral in their conduct and
will ever attach themselves to dissolute men....
Men having deviated into heresy, iniquity will flourish, and the duration of life will therefore decrease. *
Nevertheless, in the Visnu Purana there are also references to elements of the primordial or "Manu's" race that have been preserved in this Dark Age in order to be the seed of new generations; what appears again is the well-known idea of a new and final epiphany "from above":
When the practices taught by the Vedas and the institutes of law shall nearly have ceased, and the close of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine
being who exists of his own spiritual nature in the character of Brahma, and who is the beginning and the end, and who comprehends all things, shall descend upon the earth. ...
He will then reestablish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who live at the end of the Kali age shall be awakened, and shall be as pellucid as crystal. The men who are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time shall be as the seeds of
[new] human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita age, or age of purity [primordial age].
In the same text and chapter it is said that the stock from which this divine principal will be born lives in the village of Shambhala; Shambhala - as I previously suggested -
refers to the metaphysics of the "center" and the "pole," to the
Hyperborean mystery and the forces of primordial tradition.
---JULIUS EVOLA
* This prophecy appears to have been contradicted by facts, unless we distinguish the case in which a longer life is due to contact with that which transcends time from the case of artificial "devices" to prolong life (which is meaningless and just a parody of the first type of life),
realized through the means of profane science and modern hygiene.
%%% DUH, most of this is happening or has happened, hence the folly of the Tea Party movement
and it's efforts to close the gate after the horse got out and died long ago.%%%
“Someone needs to take biological evolution, merge that with neurology (see Antonio Damasio especially: “Descartes’ Error”), merge that with neurovirology and parasitology and then merge that with the PUBLIC HEALTH DISASTER that agricultural living brought on, the WORK people had to endure, the overpopulation way out of balance with resources, and come to the RIGHT conclusion: that the dogmatic types of woman hating patriarchy and religion we have had since then is NOT a normal thing at all. We are hunter gatherers at base: what do we hunt and gather now? Someone needs to understand what some “esoteric” doctrines have been saying – which is SPELLED OUT in Wilhelm Reich’s works – and merge that with Antonio Damasio’s work. It seems that E. O. Wilson, an expert entomologist, is suggesting this too. He has done a lot of it already or at least hinted at some of it in a book “Consilience” – BUT – he has failed to mention the public health disaster brought on by agrarian life – there is FORENSIC PROOF of that statement; he has failed to reason what humans would BECOME and what they’d “think up” when they felt pain all day long from back breaking agrarian work, when their lives became constant drudgery; or what some of those people would do to GET OUT OF the drudgery – at the expense of all others of course! He has failed to reason PENT UP instinct, upbringing designed to bury instinct and condition the child to IGNORE the 5 senses, sensual impacts, somatic markers. He has failed to conclude that such a human is NOT CAPABLE of logic – but neurologists could explain it – Damasio has explained it: they are anosognosic – alexithymic. He has failed to factor in the fact that we are DOOMING ourselves and there is NOTHING “animal” about this – nothing “normal” about it – it’s insane. Humans are SUPPOSED TO have logic and the ability to STOP DOING such things to themselves and each other: do they have logic? Can they stop? I think NOT.) Perhaps one should look into something other than humans: WHAT BENEFITS in the animal world from the actions of humans destroying a human habitat? Let us look THERE for the answer.”
— T. Jantsang, Tree of Destruction, 1999
THE HERALD By Tani Jantsang
Great Nyarlathotep welcomes the birth
Of all of Its creatures who dance on this earth;
Each holds a gift, is endowed from the start
With courage, laughter, and a fearless True-Heart.
Each through their Being gives praise to a Force
Which drives all things forward, assigns each its course
And destined Nature. Yet all true to the Self
Like a Call of the Wild: innate to itself.
And each are unique, yet, as Sister and Brother
We reach out our hands and welcome each other
As children of Fortune, weavers of spells,
We are Warlock sons and Witch belles!
A three-lobed eye, has our Dark Chaos Lord,
Yet neither form nor face to be adored;
Yet we, in our hearts, delight in that name:
NYARLATHOTEP: echoes in our fane.
The Deep Ones in R’lyeh who worship Cthulhu,
The Yuggs and Yuggya whose father is Ubb
The Other Nations, so said the Sage,
Will herald the dawn of our New Age!
Myatt David W., The Way of the Lighting & the Sun: A Western Martial Art, The Black Order (ONA), 1972.
Myatt, Vindex – the Destiny of the West, Liberty Bell, Virginia, 1984.
Myatt (aka Thorold West, Anton Long), Naos: A Practical Guide to Modern Magick, ONA, Shropshire, 1989.
Anton Long, Aeonics – The Secret Tradition, ONA, Shropshire, 1989.
Lovecraft Howard, – Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Nema- Maat Magick
**********************************************
Below is a document by “Soror Nema” of the Horus Maat Lodge. It details one possible interpretation of a hive mind/warrior society in the future, and it’s rituals.
Feast Of the Hive
by Soror Nema
N’Aton:
These rituals are given to Man to know in the seventy-third year of the Aeon of Horus. They are practiced in the flowering of the Aeon of Maat. They have been revealed at this time so there may be a comprehension and understanding of the nature of Man as he will be, and of the Alchemy of Maat.
The “post-Victorian” climate of sexual liberation has diluted the intensity of the subjective appreciation of sexual Alchemy. The social environment of Western man in the seventh decade of the Aeon of Horus has rendered a sacred form profane.
In keeping with the formula of IPSOS, by which the Magickal Current of Maat has been united with the Current of Shaitan, it is now the time and here the place for the unveiling of the evolution of Alchemy. To the end of infusing new life into the High Art, are these rituals given.
The celebrants of these rituals are Kings, individuals secure in their self-awareness and personal sovereignty. They freely choose to function as priest and sacrament for the benefit of the gestalt. Not from a desire to cease living, nor from a concept of the “nobility of martyrdom” do they base their acts… From a profound love for and unity with their Race, they donate their physical bodies.
Individuals dwell in small enclaves, or Hives, whose populations range from a few hundred to about a thousand. There is but one true city on the planet, Meshikan. It is mounted upon a platform and travels from continent to continent. Its function is to serve as the administrative and archival center of the Race. In our time, there is no desire to crowd together in cities. We are en rapport through individual participation in the gestalt.
The Hive Temple functions as a center for religious gathering, artistic-display (as a museum/theater of creative and performing arts), and local administrative functions. It is not uncommon for individuals of other Races of the Comity to be guesting in the Hives (provided, of course, that such Brothers are of structures compatible with the environment.) These Brothers may, if they choose, participate in the Hive-Feasts — our definition of “human” has expanded considerably since your era.
The Shadow Priesthood functions as a balance-weight for the Hive; as such it is perhaps philosophically more akin to the essence of Maat than the Dayside order. We have found that only the younger Race-members of the Comity, such as ourselves, still distinguish between noumena and phenomena, the Nothing and the All. Until we achieve the degree of maturity enjoyed by our Elder Brothers, however, we will maintain the dual priesthood for the sake of polarity and balance.
The rituals presented here may strike some individuals of your time as a reversion to barbarity and precivilized practices. Evolution progresses in spiral form, with a point on the circle also moving forward with each revolution. To acquire the essence of certain virtues our ancestors ate their enemies; for the same basic purposes we eat our friends and brothers.
The Christian Communion service was a type of prefiguring of the Hive-Feast, though the symbolism of bread and wine, despite the factor of “transubstantiation”, was indirect and dilute. The sacramental flesh of the Feast of the Hive is the most direct transmitter of energy available to us on the physical plane.
As you read of these rituals, be careful of your guard. There are eaters of bodies other than flesh, who lurk about the Gate between our times… By the same mouth that eats the holy flesh is the word of love and balance spoken.
To the south of Temple rotunda is a large iron cauldron, suspended over a fire-pit. In the Great Hall of the Temple is the banquet table, large enough to seat the entire Hive. On the north of the rotunda is the Arena. To the west is the dias-altar, vested in crimson, and to the east, a latticed meditation-bower.
THE WAY OF COMBAT (Rajas)
Two Warrior-Priests/Priestesses, of matched skill, strength and spiritual enlightenment, shall, agree to participate in this Working. They shall have been on a vegetarian diet for at least six weeks prior to the working, on a regimen of lean, rare meat for the week immediately preceding the rite. and fasting for twenty-four hours in advance of the actual combat.
Only after five years of intensive physical and spiritual training is an Aspirant qualified to participate in a Ritual of Combat, and that is as an Armed Warrior. The only weapons permitted are a blade of forearm’s length and a shield of forearm’s diameter. After surviving five years of armed combat and further training, a priest is then, qualified as a Warrior of Air; the only weapons are the naked hands.
Both types of ritual are fought to the death of one Combatant.
This ritual is performed on the Solstices. The Combatants are the concelebrating priests for the rite, with the Firemaster, Tanner, Goldsmith and assistants as acolytes.
The Hive assembles within the Temple before the Solstice dawn. From the appearance of the first light, all sit in silent meditation, and then hymn a greeting to the sun as the disk rises above the horizon.
Wine, cakes and fruit are distributed among members of the Hive, as the young candidates for Warriorhood are brought forth and presented with their Aspirants’ robes and practice weapons.
They are received by the teaching-priests with due solemnity, and this reception marks the beginning of their training-period.
There follows a duel-dance by pairs of fourth-years students using blunted weapons. They enact an appropriate Martial legend from the race-past. As the Sun approaches noon, the Arena is cleared and the Hive falls silent.
The Firemaster enters with the Combatants, who are naked and oiled. The Firemaster kindles two torches and hands one to each of the Combatants. They bow toward the Hive to the Firemaster, and embrace each other. They touch the torches together, uniting the separate fires into one flame, then cast the torches into the bed of kindling beneath the cauldron. As the flames grow, they return to the Arena.
They fight, each seeking to inflict a swift and fatal blow upon the other. Lithe, catlike, their strikes and parries are more rapid than the eye can follow. They are evenly matched, veterans of other such rites, and dedicated Masters of their Art. Their fasting has heightened the senses, the danger has brought them to the peak of their ability in act.
The Balance of the Feather brings the decisive blow; one stands, one fails. The Firemaster determines death; if necessary, he indicates one further strike by hand or sword, and the first part is complete.
The body of the vanquished is suspended, and the Tanner removes the skin, which he will process into fine parchment for the Temple scribes The scribes will write of the life of the slain upon it, and place it within the revered Book of the Great Ones.
The body of the slain one is butchered and seethed in the cauldron until sundown, when the feasting begins. At sundown, the cauldron is removed from the fire and the stew is served as main dish for the banquet. The victor is awarded first choice of parts, usually the heart or the liver.
The Skull will be gilded and jeweled and placed in a niche of honor in the Temple wall above the Arena. The bones will be transformed, where possible, into hand weapons; the remainder will be burned.
The preliminary dietary discipline of the combatants, plus the battle-engendered adrenaline, form the chemical base of the sacrament of this rite. It is part of the Firemaster’s task to so employ the use of herbs in the cooking process that the communal benefit from the feast manifests in terms of strength and endurance rather than agitation and belligerence.
Communion in the ritual of the Way of Combat confers upon the participants those virtues – peculiar to Mars, Jupiter and the Sun, and special facility on the Paths connecting them. To balance the forces invoked by this rite, its Dark counterpart is performed by the Shadow Priests in the subterranean chambers below the Hive Temple.
The Shadow Priests are few in number; the Hive is aware of their existence and necessity, but they operate on a hidden basis, as a symbolic Unconscious of the gestalt. Their ranks are filled by a selective process: candidates are those who discover within themselves a talent for Working the Qlipoth, and who are deemed acceptable by the practicing priesthood. Their Initiation Ordeal consists of living for a year severed from participation in the gestalt.
The Dark version of the Way of Combat has, as its major distinguishing feature, the death by suicide of one of the combatants. Instead of defending one’s life while seeking to bring death to the other, the warriors of the Shadow Priests seek to prevent the other from suicide while attempting to bring death to oneself. The first death accomplished signals the end of the Combat, with the one left alive obliged to preserve himself for the next occasion.
Following the feasts in the Temple above and the Temple below, the Firemasters from both priesthoods meet to exchange a small quantity of their Sacrament. The opposite broths are then distilled for use as seasonings, thus maintaining Balance for the Hive.
THE WAY OF LOVE (Tamas)
This rite is held on the Equinoxes.
The celebrants’ are a priest and priestess, assisted, as before, by the Firemaster, Goldsmith, Tanner and others.
Unlike the Way of Combat, the first part of the ritual is conducted not in assembly of the entire Hive. but with the Brothers and Sisters of the Priesthood of the Bee. This priesthood consists of those whose Will it is to maintain the open communication of the Hive within itself (i.e., to keep the health of the gestalt) and with the forces of nature.
The major celebrants are assisted by six other couples of the Priesthood of the Bee. Maat is invoked as the Gynander, and Gaia also is called as the general representative of elemental Nature. This is done at the dias altar.
The first couple unites on the dias altar. They consume a token amount of the Elixir, but leave the greater part of it to be taken by the second couple. The second pair, after sharing the Elixir of the first, assume their place upon the altar, proceed with the Mass and Communion, sharing this intensified Elixir with the third couple. This process continues to the point where the sixth couple has shared Elixir with the major celebrants. There is here both a cumulative and distilling effect, so that the primary celebrants will be producing an Elixir of seven distillations and seven increments.
On this final occasion, however, when the priestess mounts astride the priest, the Firemaster binds them together with cords, permitting just enough mobility for the act to be performed. As the first slow movements begin, to the soft chanting of the encircling priesthood, the assistants of the Firemaster quietly enter with a silver-pointed javelin. This he takes and holds, standing at the foot of the altar.
As the tempo of the act increases, so does the chant rhythm. At the orgasm of the priest, the priestess leans forward upon him in embrace, and the Firemaster hurls the javelin, piercing both through the heart.
The binding cords prevent any death-reflex from separating them; still coupled they are spitted and slow-roasted until nightfall. The bodies are gutted and cleaned through lateral incisions that do not disturb their positioning.
In preparing the flesh for serving, the Firemaster carefully extracts the Elixir. He extends its quantity with consecrated and purified ingredients and it is used with the fleshmeat in the form of a sauce.
The Hive assembles at sundown for the feast. The twelve participating priests; and priestesses wait upon the feasting Hive-Members, bringing the Elixir to each in a silver vessel. The Singers perform love songs and lays in honor of the day’s concelebrant couple. The wine for the feast is aphrodisiac, and a variety of drugs is available after the eating is finished. Night sees the Hive in embrace, in dance, in love-making.
A torchlight procession forms at midnight and the bones of the concelebrants (excepting the skulls) are carried to a plot of earth on the Temple grounds that is the representation of all lands under cultivation. The bones are buried in a trench along the perimeter of the plot, except for the femurs which are added to those already positioned vertically as fencing for the plot.
Gala is invoked by the Firemaster, a small libation of the Elixir is poured on the earth, and the procession sings hymns to the elements and to the planet as it returns to the Temple and home.
The Goldsmith silver-plates the skulls and jewels them, after which they are placed in niches above the dias-altar. The Tanner’s only task following this rite, is to plait the hair of the celebrants in intricate patterns to form a mat upon which the skulls will rest.
The virtues here pertain to Mercury (communication), Venus (unifying relationships) and the Moon (receptivity to and linking with the spirit of Nature).
The Shadow Priesthood, meanwhile, conducts the obverse rites underground. This consists of a dual process of oral homosexual workings, with the Sisters and Brothers working on twin dias-altars. The description will follow the male aspect, but the Sisters work in the same manner, with the vaginal fluids being processed like the semen.
There are six participants assisting the main celebrant. The first is fellated to orgasm by the second; the majority of the Elixir is conveyed by mouth to a silver vessel between the dias altars (the Sisters deposit their Elixir within the same vessel), and a small portion of it is retained and consumed by the second priest. The third priest duplicates the process, and so on until the major celebrant completes it with the sixth priest.
The Firemaster stands ready with the javelin, and the Tanner does the same at the Sisters’ altar.
The first assisting priest kneels before the celebrant who is spreadeagled on the altar, and with the utmost skill, brings him to orgasm. This is timed as closely as possible with the Sisters, so that both achieve ecstasy and are slain simultaneously.
The first assistants then turn to each other and commingle the Elixirs in a kiss, again depositing the majority in the vessel and retaining a small amount for their own consumption.
The Firemaster binds the slain priest and priestess back-to-back for the roasting, and proceeds with the preparation of the Elixir as a sauce. There is an exchange of a small quantity of it between the Firemasters later, as in the Way of Combat.
The Shadow Priesthood assembles for this feast, which is followed by a great ring of oral-genital connection, with the sexes alternating.
A torchlight procession forms. Since the Shadow Priesthood is relatively small in number, the remaining flesh is placed on the Tower of Silence for the Temple vultures to consume in the morning. The bones are carried to the sea, or to the nearest inland water-way. The Dark Mother Ocean is called upon, and Dagon. Cthulhu and the other Elder Gods are invoked. A libation of the Elixir is poured into the water, and the seal of Maat is placed upon the Gate between when the Elder Gods withdraw. The Shadow Priests return to the Temple before Dawn.
THE WAY OF THE DRAGONFLY (Sattvas)
There is no fixed time for the culmination of this ritual; it is set according to the word and will of the celebrant.
The celebrant selects a young assistant from among the Priesthood of the Black Flame. This assistant vows a year’s time to the completion of the Dragonfly rite, during which he or she will live with the celebrant as chela.
They will spend most of their time in a hut in the woods, coming to the latticed bower within the Temple during the Full Moon. They are assisted in the Temple by the Healer and the Firemaster.
The ritual is begun by an invocation of Shiva on the night of the Full Moon. He is invoked in his Lion Face aspect.
With the assistance of his chela and the Healer, the celebrant severs his left foot and offers it to the Firemaster to be prepared. The celebrant then consumes his roasted appendage, sharing a portion of it with the chela.
The bones are carefully cleaned and varnished and are used to begin the construction of a Shivalingam. The ritual is continued for the next eleven Full Moons, with the severings at ankles, knees, hips, wrists, elbows and shoulders.
The periods of time between the rituals are used by the celebrant to bring down and manifest within himself the essence and completion of the All. In the process of self-consuming, the celebrant concentrates the All in an ever-decreasing volume of his earth-self, symbolized and materialized in his physical body.
On the thirteenth Full Moon, the group again assembles within the lattice-bower. Upon this occasion, however, the chela takes up the Dagger, and upon command of the celebrant, stabs the limbless trunk to the heart. The chela receives the dying breath of the celebrant in a kiss.
The Firemaster prepares the body for a Hive-feast, reserving the pineal gland which is carefully sun-dried, and covered with gold leaf. The skull is plated with iron, and set within a niche above the lattice bower. The remaining skeletal bones are placed within the Shivalingam sculpture, which is then added to a circle of similar symbols surrounding the bower.
A Shadow-Priest compliments the ritual as follows:
Kali and Maut are invoked on the dark of the Moon. With the severing of each part on the following months, the chela bears the part to the Tower of Silence for the vultures. Any bones that may remain are collected on the following visit.
The Shadow Priest spends the intervals between rituals in a subterranean grotto, expanding his being toward the Nothing. The vultures disperse his physical self in like manner
On the thirteenth occasion of the rite, the Firemaster and Healer attend. The chela dispatches the celebrant with a Dagger, but here the celebrant receives the chela’s breath with his dying gasp.
The Healer cuts two openings in the skull, immediately above the cars, and thus removes the pineal gland. He then carries the skull to an anthill where the soft parts are removed. The trunk is carried to the Tower of Silence, and the available bones are recovered at an appropriate time. The skull and bones are taken to the shrine of Kali in her cavern-temple and are added to the adornments begun by previous celebrants. The skull is strung on Her necklace, and the skeletal bones are hung from her girdle.
The gilded pineals are brought by the respective Firemasters to an iron coffer that occupies a niche in the corridor that joins the Temple of the Hive and the Temple of the Shadow Priests. Not even the Firemasters can distinguish among these Eyes of those who became All, and those who became Nothing.
***
In considering these Ways-to-come, o ye Warriors of Heru, remember that the atoms of your body were once dancing at the heart of a star. That of which you are made will dance again in many forms, down through the Aeons, for nothing of the Universe is ever lost.
Pour out freely your blood, and eat whatever is given to you – for which is the greater ecstasy – “to be sugar, or to eat it”?
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law; love is the law, love under will.
IPSOS
First published in The Cincinnati Journal of Ceremonial Magick Volume I, Number 3, 1978 Feast Of the Hive
by Soror Nema
N’Aton:
These rituals are given to Man to know in the seventy-third year of the Aeon of Horus. They are practiced in the flowering of the Aeon of Maat. They have been revealed at this time so there may be a comprehension and understanding of the nature of Man as he will be, and of the Alchemy of Maat.
The “post-Victorian” climate of sexual liberation has diluted the intensity of the subjective appreciation of sexual Alchemy. The social environment of Western man in the seventh decade of the Aeon of Horus has rendered a sacred form profane.
In keeping with the formula of IPSOS, by which the Magickal Current of Maat has been united with the Current of Shaitan, it is now the time and here the place for the unveiling of the evolution of Alchemy. To the end of infusing new life into the High Art, are these rituals given.
The celebrants of these rituals are Kings, individuals secure in their self-awareness and personal sovereignty. They freely choose to function as priest and sacrament for the benefit of the gestalt. Not from a desire to cease living, nor from a concept of the “nobility of martyrdom” do they base their acts… From a profound love for and unity with their Race, they donate their physical bodies.
Individuals dwell in small enclaves, or Hives, whose populations range from a few hundred to about a thousand. There is but one true city on the planet, Meshikan. It is mounted upon a platform and travels from continent to continent. Its function is to serve as the administrative and archival center of the Race. In our time, there is no desire to crowd together in cities. We are en rapport through individual participation in the gestalt.
The Hive Temple functions as a center for religious gathering, artistic-display (as a museum/theater of creative and performing arts), and local administrative functions. It is not uncommon for individuals of other Races of the Comity to be guesting in the Hives (provided, of course, that such Brothers are of structures compatible with the environment.) These Brothers may, if they choose, participate in the Hive-Feasts — our definition of “human” has expanded considerably since your era.
The Shadow Priesthood functions as a balance-weight for the Hive; as such it is perhaps philosophically more akin to the essence of Maat than the Dayside order. We have found that only the younger Race-members of the Comity, such as ourselves, still distinguish between noumena and phenomena, the Nothing and the All. Until we achieve the degree of maturity enjoyed by our Elder Brothers, however, we will maintain the dual priesthood for the sake of polarity and balance.
The rituals presented here may strike some individuals of your time as a reversion to barbarity and precivilized practices. Evolution progresses in spiral form, with a point on the circle also moving forward with each revolution. To acquire the essence of certain virtues our ancestors ate their enemies; for the same basic purposes we eat our friends and brothers.
The Christian Communion service was a type of prefiguring of the Hive-Feast, though the symbolism of bread and wine, despite the factor of “transubstantiation”, was indirect and dilute. The sacramental flesh of the Feast of the Hive is the most direct transmitter of energy available to us on the physical plane.
As you read of these rituals, be careful of your guard. There are eaters of bodies other than flesh, who lurk about the Gate between our times… By the same mouth that eats the holy flesh is the word of love and balance spoken.
To the south of Temple rotunda is a large iron cauldron, suspended over a fire-pit. In the Great Hall of the Temple is the banquet table, large enough to seat the entire Hive. On the north of the rotunda is the Arena. To the west is the dias-altar, vested in crimson, and to the east, a latticed meditation-bower.
THE WAY OF COMBAT (Rajas)
Two Warrior-Priests/Priestesses, of matched skill, strength and spiritual enlightenment, shall, agree to participate in this Working. They shall have been on a vegetarian diet for at least six weeks prior to the working, on a regimen of lean, rare meat for the week immediately preceding the rite. and fasting for twenty-four hours in advance of the actual combat.
Only after five years of intensive physical and spiritual training is an Aspirant qualified to participate in a Ritual of Combat, and that is as an Armed Warrior. The only weapons permitted are a blade of forearm’s length and a shield of forearm’s diameter. After surviving five years of armed combat and further training, a priest is then, qualified as a Warrior of Air; the only weapons are the naked hands.
Both types of ritual are fought to the death of one Combatant.
This ritual is performed on the Solstices. The Combatants are the concelebrating priests for the rite, with the Firemaster, Tanner, Goldsmith and assistants as acolytes.
The Hive assembles within the Temple before the Solstice dawn. From the appearance of the first light, all sit in silent meditation, and then hymn a greeting to the sun as the disk rises above the horizon.
Wine, cakes and fruit are distributed among members of the Hive, as the young candidates for Warriorhood are brought forth and presented with their Aspirants’ robes and practice weapons.
They are received by the teaching-priests with due solemnity, and this reception marks the beginning of their training-period.
There follows a duel-dance by pairs of fourth-years students using blunted weapons. They enact an appropriate Martial legend from the race-past. As the Sun approaches noon, the Arena is cleared and the Hive falls silent.
The Firemaster enters with the Combatants, who are naked and oiled. The Firemaster kindles two torches and hands one to each of the Combatants. They bow toward the Hive to the Firemaster, and embrace each other. They touch the torches together, uniting the separate fires into one flame, then cast the torches into the bed of kindling beneath the cauldron. As the flames grow, they return to the Arena.
They fight, each seeking to inflict a swift and fatal blow upon the other. Lithe, catlike, their strikes and parries are more rapid than the eye can follow. They are evenly matched, veterans of other such rites, and dedicated Masters of their Art. Their fasting has heightened the senses, the danger has brought them to the peak of their ability in act.
The Balance of the Feather brings the decisive blow; one stands, one fails. The Firemaster determines death; if necessary, he indicates one further strike by hand or sword, and the first part is complete.
The body of the vanquished is suspended, and the Tanner removes the skin, which he will process into fine parchment for the Temple scribes The scribes will write of the life of the slain upon it, and place it within the revered Book of the Great Ones.
The body of the slain one is butchered and seethed in the cauldron until sundown, when the feasting begins. At sundown, the cauldron is removed from the fire and the stew is served as main dish for the banquet. The victor is awarded first choice of parts, usually the heart or the liver.
The Skull will be gilded and jeweled and placed in a niche of honor in the Temple wall above the Arena. The bones will be transformed, where possible, into hand weapons; the remainder will be burned.
The preliminary dietary discipline of the combatants, plus the battle-engendered adrenaline, form the chemical base of the sacrament of this rite. It is part of the Firemaster’s task to so employ the use of herbs in the cooking process that the communal benefit from the feast manifests in terms of strength and endurance rather than agitation and belligerence.
Communion in the ritual of the Way of Combat confers upon the participants those virtues – peculiar to Mars, Jupiter and the Sun, and special facility on the Paths connecting them. To balance the forces invoked by this rite, its Dark counterpart is performed by the Shadow Priests in the subterranean chambers below the Hive Temple.
The Shadow Priests are few in number; the Hive is aware of their existence and necessity, but they operate on a hidden basis, as a symbolic Unconscious of the gestalt. Their ranks are filled by a selective process: candidates are those who discover within themselves a talent for Working the Qlipoth, and who are deemed acceptable by the practicing priesthood. Their Initiation Ordeal consists of living for a year severed from participation in the gestalt.
The Dark version of the Way of Combat has, as its major distinguishing feature, the death by suicide of one of the combatants. Instead of defending one’s life while seeking to bring death to the other, the warriors of the Shadow Priests seek to prevent the other from suicide while attempting to bring death to oneself. The first death accomplished signals the end of the Combat, with the one left alive obliged to preserve himself for the next occasion.
Following the feasts in the Temple above and the Temple below, the Firemasters from both priesthoods meet to exchange a small quantity of their Sacrament. The opposite broths are then distilled for use as seasonings, thus maintaining Balance for the Hive.
THE WAY OF LOVE (Tamas)
This rite is held on the Equinoxes.
The celebrants’ are a priest and priestess, assisted, as before, by the Firemaster, Goldsmith, Tanner and others.
Unlike the Way of Combat, the first part of the ritual is conducted not in assembly of the entire Hive. but with the Brothers and Sisters of the Priesthood of the Bee. This priesthood consists of those whose Will it is to maintain the open communication of the Hive within itself (i.e., to keep the health of the gestalt) and with the forces of nature.
The major celebrants are assisted by six other couples of the Priesthood of the Bee. Maat is invoked as the Gynander, and Gaia also is called as the general representative of elemental Nature. This is done at the dias altar.
The first couple unites on the dias altar. They consume a token amount of the Elixir, but leave the greater part of it to be taken by the second couple. The second pair, after sharing the Elixir of the first, assume their place upon the altar, proceed with the Mass and Communion, sharing this intensified Elixir with the third couple. This process continues to the point where the sixth couple has shared Elixir with the major celebrants. There is here both a cumulative and distilling effect, so that the primary celebrants will be producing an Elixir of seven distillations and seven increments.
On this final occasion, however, when the priestess mounts astride the priest, the Firemaster binds them together with cords, permitting just enough mobility for the act to be performed. As the first slow movements begin, to the soft chanting of the encircling priesthood, the assistants of the Firemaster quietly enter with a silver-pointed javelin. This he takes and holds, standing at the foot of the altar.
As the tempo of the act increases, so does the chant rhythm. At the orgasm of the priest, the priestess leans forward upon him in embrace, and the Firemaster hurls the javelin, piercing both through the heart.
The binding cords prevent any death-reflex from separating them; still coupled they are spitted and slow-roasted until nightfall. The bodies are gutted and cleaned through lateral incisions that do not disturb their positioning.
In preparing the flesh for serving, the Firemaster carefully extracts the Elixir. He extends its quantity with consecrated and purified ingredients and it is used with the fleshmeat in the form of a sauce.
The Hive assembles at sundown for the feast. The twelve participating priests; and priestesses wait upon the feasting Hive-Members, bringing the Elixir to each in a silver vessel. The Singers perform love songs and lays in honor of the day’s concelebrant couple. The wine for the feast is aphrodisiac, and a variety of drugs is available after the eating is finished. Night sees the Hive in embrace, in dance, in love-making.
A torchlight procession forms at midnight and the bones of the concelebrants (excepting the skulls) are carried to a plot of earth on the Temple grounds that is the representation of all lands under cultivation. The bones are buried in a trench along the perimeter of the plot, except for the femurs which are added to those already positioned vertically as fencing for the plot.
Gala is invoked by the Firemaster, a small libation of the Elixir is poured on the earth, and the procession sings hymns to the elements and to the planet as it returns to the Temple and home.
The Goldsmith silver-plates the skulls and jewels them, after which they are placed in niches above the dias-altar. The Tanner’s only task following this rite, is to plait the hair of the celebrants in intricate patterns to form a mat upon which the skulls will rest.
The virtues here pertain to Mercury (communication), Venus (unifying relationships) and the Moon (receptivity to and linking with the spirit of Nature).
The Shadow Priesthood, meanwhile, conducts the obverse rites underground. This consists of a dual process of oral homosexual workings, with the Sisters and Brothers working on twin dias-altars. The description will follow the male aspect, but the Sisters work in the same manner, with the vaginal fluids being processed like the semen.
There are six participants assisting the main celebrant. The first is fellated to orgasm by the second; the majority of the Elixir is conveyed by mouth to a silver vessel between the dias altars (the Sisters deposit their Elixir within the same vessel), and a small portion of it is retained and consumed by the second priest. The third priest duplicates the process, and so on until the major celebrant completes it with the sixth priest.
The Firemaster stands ready with the javelin, and the Tanner does the same at the Sisters’ altar.
The first assisting priest kneels before the celebrant who is spreadeagled on the altar, and with the utmost skill, brings him to orgasm. This is timed as closely as possible with the Sisters, so that both achieve ecstasy and are slain simultaneously.
The first assistants then turn to each other and commingle the Elixirs in a kiss, again depositing the majority in the vessel and retaining a small amount for their own consumption.
The Firemaster binds the slain priest and priestess back-to-back for the roasting, and proceeds with the preparation of the Elixir as a sauce. There is an exchange of a small quantity of it between the Firemasters later, as in the Way of Combat.
The Shadow Priesthood assembles for this feast, which is followed by a great ring of oral-genital connection, with the sexes alternating.
A torchlight procession forms. Since the Shadow Priesthood is relatively small in number, the remaining flesh is placed on the Tower of Silence for the Temple vultures to consume in the morning. The bones are carried to the sea, or to the nearest inland water-way. The Dark Mother Ocean is called upon, and Dagon. Cthulhu and the other Elder Gods are invoked. A libation of the Elixir is poured into the water, and the seal of Maat is placed upon the Gate between when the Elder Gods withdraw. The Shadow Priests return to the Temple before Dawn.
THE WAY OF THE DRAGONFLY (Sattvas)
There is no fixed time for the culmination of this ritual; it is set according to the word and will of the celebrant.
The celebrant selects a young assistant from among the Priesthood of the Black Flame. This assistant vows a year’s time to the completion of the Dragonfly rite, during which he or she will live with the celebrant as chela.
They will spend most of their time in a hut in the woods, coming to the latticed bower within the Temple during the Full Moon. They are assisted in the Temple by the Healer and the Firemaster.
The ritual is begun by an invocation of Shiva on the night of the Full Moon. He is invoked in his Lion Face aspect.
With the assistance of his chela and the Healer, the celebrant severs his left foot and offers it to the Firemaster to be prepared. The celebrant then consumes his roasted appendage, sharing a portion of it with the chela.
The bones are carefully cleaned and varnished and are used to begin the construction of a Shivalingam. The ritual is continued for the next eleven Full Moons, with the severings at ankles, knees, hips, wrists, elbows and shoulders.
The periods of time between the rituals are used by the celebrant to bring down and manifest within himself the essence and completion of the All. In the process of self-consuming, the celebrant concentrates the All in an ever-decreasing volume of his earth-self, symbolized and materialized in his physical body.
On the thirteenth Full Moon, the group again assembles within the lattice-bower. Upon this occasion, however, the chela takes up the Dagger, and upon command of the celebrant, stabs the limbless trunk to the heart. The chela receives the dying breath of the celebrant in a kiss.
The Firemaster prepares the body for a Hive-feast, reserving the pineal gland which is carefully sun-dried, and covered with gold leaf. The skull is plated with iron, and set within a niche above the lattice bower. The remaining skeletal bones are placed within the Shivalingam sculpture, which is then added to a circle of similar symbols surrounding the bower.
A Shadow-Priest compliments the ritual as follows:
Kali and Maut are invoked on the dark of the Moon. With the severing of each part on the following months, the chela bears the part to the Tower of Silence for the vultures. Any bones that may remain are collected on the following visit.
The Shadow Priest spends the intervals between rituals in a subterranean grotto, expanding his being toward the Nothing. The vultures disperse his physical self in like manner
On the thirteenth occasion of the rite, the Firemaster and Healer attend. The chela dispatches the celebrant with a Dagger, but here the celebrant receives the chela’s breath with his dying gasp.
The Healer cuts two openings in the skull, immediately above the cars, and thus removes the pineal gland. He then carries the skull to an anthill where the soft parts are removed. The trunk is carried to the Tower of Silence, and the available bones are recovered at an appropriate time. The skull and bones are taken to the shrine of Kali in her cavern-temple and are added to the adornments begun by previous celebrants. The skull is strung on Her necklace, and the skeletal bones are hung from her girdle.
The gilded pineals are brought by the respective Firemasters to an iron coffer that occupies a niche in the corridor that joins the Temple of the Hive and the Temple of the Shadow Priests. Not even the Firemasters can distinguish among these Eyes of those who became All, and those who became Nothing.
***
In considering these Ways-to-come, o ye Warriors of Heru, remember that the atoms of your body were once dancing at the heart of a star. That of which you are made will dance again in many forms, down through the Aeons, for nothing of the Universe is ever lost.
Pour out freely your blood, and eat whatever is given to you – for which is the greater ecstasy – “to be sugar, or to eat it”?
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law; love is the law, love under will.
IPSOS
First published in The Cincinnati Journal of Ceremonial Magick Volume I, Number 3, 1978
Insectoid hive —–SWARM!
Inside the hive it’s warm
Eggs are incubating
The Queen is fascinating
All the drones
The drones drone
Buzzz and suckle
All fuck the Mother
Droning drones
Fuzzing moaning hive
Buzzzing humm of life
Hive mind
Binding drumming thrive
WarmSwarmfuzzbuzzz
Skitterclickcrick
Thickethumdrumdrone
All-one alone
A thousand drumming bugs
Sect of semblance, assembly of asexual a-sect-u-all kin
Unity of hive-mind drumdance kind (are you in?)
Kindred one-mind multi-bodied being
Being a-buzzz (are you in?)
Are you in the sect?
Are you in-sect?
buzxzzzzzzzzz
buzzzzzzzz
bzzzzz
bzzz
zz
z
I
I
I
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Who makes the whole earth happy,
Who rejoices with this universe,
Who is the daughter of Nanda,
Who resides on the peak of Vindhyas,
Who plays with Lord Vishnu,
Who has a glittering mien,
Who is praised by other goddesses,
Who is the consort of the lord with the blue neck,
Who has several families,
Who does good to her family.
Who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh goddess who showers boons on devas,
Who punishes those who are undisciplined.
Who tolerates ugly faced ogres,
Who enjoys in being happy,
Who looks after the three worlds,
Who pleases lord Shiva,
Who removes effect of sins,
Who rejoices with the holy sound,
Who is angry on the progenies of Dhanu,
Who is angry with the children of Dithi,
Who discourages those with pride,
Who is the daughter of the Ocean,
Who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh , mother of the entire world,
Who loves to live in the forest of Kadambha trees,
Who enjoys to smile,
Who lives in the top peak of the great Himalayas
Who is sweeter than honey,
Who keeps the treasures of Madhu and Kaidabha,
Who is the slayer of Kaidabha,
Who enjoys her dancing,
Who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess who breaks the heads of ogres,
In to hundreds of pieces,
Who cuts the trunks of elephants in battle,
Who rides on the valorous lion,
Which tears the heads of elephants to pieces,
Who severs the heads of the generals of the enemy,
With her own arms,
Who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess who has the strength which never diminishes,
To gain victory over enemies in the battle field,
Who made Pramatha, the attendant of Lord Shiva,
Known for his tricky strategy, as her assistant,
Who took the decision to destroy the asuras,
Who are bad people, with evil thoughts and mind,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess who forgives and gives refuge,
To the heroic soldiers of the enemy rank,
Whose wives come seeking refuge for them,
Oh Goddess who is armed with trident ,
Ready to throw on the heads of those,
Who cause great pain to the three worlds,
Oh Goddess who shines likes the hot sun,
And who is aroused by sound of “Dhumi, Dhumi,”
Produced by the beating of drums by the devas,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh, Goddess who blew away hundreds of ogres,
Who had smoking eyes,
With her mere sound of “Hum”
Oh Goddess who is the blood red creeper,
Emanating from the seeds of blood,
Which fell in the battle field,
Oh Goddess who delights in the company of Lord Shiva,
And the ogres Shumbha and Nishumbha,
Who were sacrificed in the battle field,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess who decks herself with ornaments,
On her throbbing limbs in the field of battle,
When she gets her bow ready to fight,
Oh Goddess , who killed her enemies,
In the field of battle with a shining sword,
And the shaking of her golden brown spots,
Oh Goddess , who made the battle ground of the four fold army,
In to a stage of drama with screaming little soldiers,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess , whose victory is sung,
By the whole universe,
Which is interested in singing her victory,
Oh Goddess who attracts the attention of Lord Shiva,
By the twinkling sound made by her anklets,
While she is engaged in dancing,
Oh Goddess who gets delighted ,
By the dance and drama by versatile actors,
Even while she is half of Lord Shiva’s body,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess of the people with good mind,
Who is greatly gracious to such people,
Oh Goddess who appears very pretty to the good minded,
Oh Goddess with moon like face,
Who is as cool as the moon ,to those in the dark,
Oh Goddess whose face shines in the moon light,
Oh Goddess whose very pretty flower like eyes attracts the bees ,
Oh Goddess who attracts devotees ,like a flower which attracts bees,
Oh Goddess who attracts her lord like a bee,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess who becomes happy,
In the sport of battle, assisted by warriors,
Oh Goddess who is surrounded by hunters,
Whose hut is surrounded by creepers,
And the tribes of Mallikas, Jillakas and Bhillakas,
Oh Goddess who is as pretty as
The famous fully opened flower,
Oh Goddess , who is as pretty as the creeper,
Full of red tender leaves,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Avirala ganda kalatha mada medura,
Matha matanga rajapathe,
Tribhuvana bhooshana bhootha kalanidhi,
Roopa payonidhi raja suthe,
Ayi suda thijjana lalasa manasa ,
Mohana manmatha raja suthe,
Jaya Jaya hey Mahishasura mardini ,
Ramya kapardini, shaila Suthe. 12
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess , who walks like a royal elephant in rut,
In Whose face there is a copious flow of ichors,
Oh Goddess , who is the daughter of the ocean of milk,
From where the pretty moon also took his birth,
Oh Goddess who is the ornament of the three worlds,
Oh Goddess who is worshipped by the God of love,
Who fills the minds of pretty ladies with desire,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Kamala dalaamala komala kanthi,
Kala kalithaamala bala lathe,
Sakala vilasa Kala nilayakrama,
Keli chalathkala hamsa kule,
Alikula sankula kuvalaya mandala ,
Mauli miladh bhakulalikule,
Jaya Jaya hey Mahishasura mardini ,
Ramya kapardini, shaila Suthe. 13
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess , whose spotless forehead,
Which is of delicate prettiness,
Is like pure and tender lotus leaf,
Oh Goddess who moves like the spotlessly pretty swans,
Which Move with delicate steps,
And which is the epitome of arts,,
Oh Goddess ,Whose tress is surrounded
By bees from bakula trees,
Which normally crowd the tops of lotus flowers,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess with sweet tender thoughts,
Whose sweet enchanting music,
Made through the flute in her hands,
Put the sweet voiced nightingale to shame,
Oh Goddess who stays in pleasant mountain groves,
Which resound with the voice of tribal folks,
Oh Goddess, whose playful stadium,
Is filled with flocks of tribal women,
Who have many qualities similar to her,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh goddess, who wears yellow silks on her waist,
Which has peculiar brilliance ,
That puts the moon to shame,
Oh goddess, whose toe nails shine like the moon,
Because of the reflection of the light,
From the crowns of Gods and asuras who bow at her feet,
Oh Goddess whose breasts which challenge,
The forehead of elephants and the peaks of golden mountains,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess , whose splendour ,
Defeats the Sun with his thousand rays
Oh Goddess , who is saluted by the Sun,
Who has thousands of rays,
Oh Goddess who was praised,
By Tharakasura after his defeat,
In the war between him and your son,
Oh Goddess who was pleased with King Suratha,
And the rich merchant called Samadhi,
Who entered in to Samadhi,
And who prayed for endless Samadhi,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Padakamalam karuna nilaye varivasyathi,
yo anudhinam sa shive,
Ayi kamale kamala nilaye kamala nilaya
Sa katham na bhaveth,
Thava padameva param ithi
Anusheelayatho mama kim na shive,
Jaya Jaya hey Mahishasura mardini ,
Ramya kapardini, shaila Suthe. 17
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Oh Goddess, in whom mercy lives,
And who is auspiciousness itself,
He who worships thine lotus feet,
Daily without fail,
Would for sure be endowed with wealth,
By that Goddess who lives on lotus,
And if I consider thine feet as only refuge,
Is there anything that I will not get,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Kanakala sathkala sindhu jalairanu
Sinjinuthe guna ranga bhuvam,
Bhajathi sa kim na Shachi kucha kumbha
Thati pari rambha sukhanubhavam,
Thava charanam saranam kara vani
Nataamaravaaninivasi shivam,
Jaya Jaya hey Mahishasura mardini ,
Ramya kapardini, shaila Suthe. 18
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
He who sprinkles the water of the ocean,
Taken in a golden pot , on your play ground,
Oh Goddess will get the same pleasure ,
Like the Indra in heaven, when he fondles,
The pot like breasts of his wife Suchi,
So I take refuge in thine feet Oh Goddess,
Which is also place where Shiva resides,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
He who keeps thine face adorned by moon,
In his thought would never face rejection,
By the bevy of pretty beauties with moon like face,
In the celestial Indra’s court,
And so oh Goddess who is held in esteem by Shiva,
I am sure you would not reject my wishes,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Ayi mai deena dayalu thaya krupayaiva
Thvaya bhavthavyam ume,
Ayi jagatho janani kripayaa asi
thatha anumithasi rathe
Na yaduchitham atra bhavathvya rari kurutha,
durutha pamapakarute
Jaya Jaya hey Mahishasura mardini ,
Ramya kapardini, shaila Suthe. 20
Victory and victory to you,
Oh darling daughter of the mountain,
Please shower some mercy on me,
As you are most merciful on the oppressed.
Oh mother of the universe ,be pleased,
To give me the independence ,
To consider you as my mother
And do not reject my prayer even if it is improper,
But be pleased to drive away all my sorrows,
Oh Goddess who has captivating braided hair,
Who is the daughter of a mountain.
And who is the slayer of Mahishasura.
Since 1999, or thereabouts, I’ve been a correspondent with the SR. Some of the articles on the Satanic Reds site are pretty essential, especially the Tree of Destruction stuff.
Little of the material would be possible without the tireless research of T. Jantsang and P. Marsh.
Since roughly early December 2009, I’ve been researching the ONA. It seems likely that the ONA’s founder Anton Long and David Myatt are the same person. I’ve here provided info regarding both.
The best site for contemporary ONA theory seems to come from “chloe” who apparently writes out of California USA. Below is the White Star Acception’s blog right here on wordpress.
I’ve often promoted websites, for the sake of sinister dialectics, that I don’t necessarily agree with completely. Some are merely a site for good graphics or quotes, others provide all the stuff necessary for the creation of an INSIGHT ROLE.
Ophionzagarna's Blog 