Amen to all of this! As an instinctive "Groucho Marxist", I'm both attracted and repelled by all of these modes of seeking the divine. Meanwhile, the lesson I take from chaos magic is that it's (apparently) possible to make some sort of contact with a greater consciousness through pretty much any means - I have friends who eschew Christ or Buddha, Hermes or Horus in favour of comic-book characters. And they seem to achieve comparable results.
(I have other friends who've loudly converted to Christianity, which I find... strangely specific. I've got over my lifelong antagonism to the Bible, and am finding plenty of interest in there, and indeed have started to occasionally attend Quaker meetings, but I'm equally interested in other religions. The idea of declaring oneself explicitly "a Christian" - indeed, the idea of associating so strongly with any abstract noun - is something I struggle to understand)
I'm sure much of this over-identification with particular practices and ideologies is really about the practitioner's own search for identity. How cool, to be an Instagram witch! How admirable, to become an expert in psychedelics or astrology! I've always been wary of over-identifying, and in the last year it's become apparent to me that "the project" requires quite the opposite approach: the abandonment of ego, sublimation into The One. Quite impossible, of course, and SO lonely to even attempt, and yet it feels like the way to go. I'm reminded (as so often) of the words of T. S. Eliot:
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God.
...
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Wolf/God time is an interesting one - it's rarely held any fear for me (except perhaps when I've had an important meeting to attend the next morning - I think that standardised & enforced 9-5 working hours screwed up a lot of things for us humans) and it tends to be at around 4am that many of my most valued revelations arrive.
Interesting too to read your thoughts on AI too (and, yes, that episode of The Emerald clarified so much for me [again, as so often]). A couple of years ago I started justifying my use of AI with an excuse which started out as 99% joke, but has become increasingly more real to me: I'm allowing other forms of intelligence to express themselves. I don't mean AI developers, or computers, or processors, but of the tiny elements and fields which constitute those things (and the greater field which contains and exceeds them all). Inspired by microanimism - which I published a friend's essay about here: http://peakrill.com/2023/10/guest-post-journeying-with-the-smalls.html - I sometimes refer to this as atomanimism: giving electrons autonomy to jump between elements sandwiched in silicon, and so effect a new future. Again, I try to relinquish control as much as possible, and lean into whatever the universe throws out. (I should probably add that I've not really found a way of doing this with text-based AI, the stuff it throws out is just so milquetoast, but it's been fun to do in a visual context - you can see some of the results at https://www.instagram.com/mycoleum ). I've also started writing a set of poems, provisionally titled "learning the machine", exploring the interplay between human and non-human intelligence).
Dan, can I just say, your comments consistently make me so happy that I live in the age of the internet and can have this kind of conversation. You know when the right poetry hits you at the right time and it’s a full-body experience? That happened to me with these lines from Four Quartets on Sunday and I cried. Thank you.
“Weirdly specific” is exactly my feeling about all the recent conversions too. I believe in the Christian story (among other stories), I suppose I just feel that that story is now part of another unfolding, and I want to stay open to that, whatever it is.
Your insight about “the project” feels exactly right to me.
I’m very excited to read all the insane and brilliant things you’ve published. Thank you so much for sharing.
Ahhh, thank you so much Ellie! That's cheered me right up. Conversations like this, engaged and with lots of interesting tangents, used to be my meat & drink in the early days of the Internet. Nowadays it seems that 99% of time people aren't willing to do anything more than hit the "like" button (unless they disagree with you, in which case they'll devote entire days to argument), so it's lovely to be having a proper conversation.
So glad that those lines from Four Quartets did it for you! I got fascinated by the poem(s) a few years ago, drawn in by those first few lines "Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future...". During lockdown, I would take long walks around the common, trying to commit the poems to memory (I got about a third of the way there), and I'm so glad I did (I really ought to return to that project), they've been really potent, but I also feel I've barely scratched the surface: I honestly think that I could spend the rest of my life studying them and it would keep on rewarding me. Funnily enough, at the time I was still a bit sniffy about Eliot's Christianity and his references to God, but I've now reached a stage where I can accept it into my own unfolding perspective on the Everything.
As an appreciator of Goblin Band and attendee of many of the Broadside Hacks Folk Club gigs at Moth Club in Hackney I might go as far as to suggest that we're somewhat out the otherside of the folk revival of the 00s (Fleet Foxes, Mumford & Sons, pine trees, hipster beards and wolf tattoos). Folk as I've come to experience it over the past couple of years feels best as a subaltern non-commercial ritual experience. That being said, I do agree with the majority of this piece and feel a distinct sense of lonliness in this/these space(s).
Something that's helped me try to expand beyond my lonliness has been taking part in the pedagogical experiment of the New School of the Anthropocene - https://www.nsota.org/ since September 2022, contributing to the Extinction Rebellion Art Group, lurking on the periphery of the Hard Art Collective, attending folk gigs, and trying to adjust my life towards incorporating more space for the imaginal that you so eloquently point to in your essays. It is long, slow and arduous work, that often feels alienating when so steeped in and surrounded by Western necropolitics and necroculture.
"a subaltern non-commercial ritual experience" -- yes!! I love this description, thank you so much for sharing it. That's sort of what it felt like when I saw Goblin Band too, though that was on a balmy May day on a medieval college campus in Devon, which I think might have coloured the whole thing with a little more whimsy than they might usually carry. In any case, thank you so much for the nuance you offer here. I definitely bow to your superior knowledge of the folk scene today (also, I want to go to one of these gigs with you!). I suppose my point was much more facile than the one you're making, i.e. does the cultural coding of folk music and lore as a historical movement create the false impression that imagination/the imaginal realm live in the past only? But I'm glad that if nothing else, that somewhat facile point made space for your much more interesting clarification.
Sounds like I need to find out about the New School of the Anthropocene. Looking into it now.
I have, inevitably, a lot of thoughts on all of this! I’ll be exploring Hurry Up Please… with a lot of interest (my day job - day-self? - is deeply tech driven) with lots of interest. With witchcraft, I’d have to ask “Which witch?” There’s the witchcraft which is all manifesting and monetising and then there’s the distinctly less visible variety which is very much focused on a highly-grounded, humble engagement with the divine. Not that there isn’t a spell or two involved, admittedly ;-)
Hi Gabriel — thank you for this and also for the very thoughtful notes on this piece in your recent essay. (And sorry about the delay — I’m away on a writing retreat, clearly doing great at staying offline.)
Yes, “which witch” — it’s definitely not fair to lump the whole craft in together and I know that there are very powerful and wise people using witchcraft in all sorts of subtle and nuanced ways. It’s more the current cultural coding that I wanted to poke at. Though I am instinctively sympathetic to Evelyn Underhill’s view that to approach the expanded Reality with an outcome in mind warps your ability to apprehend that expanded Reality in the first place.
In any case — I’m always so grateful for your thought-provoking comments, which often help me to rethink and refine my ideas. Thank you!
Would love to hear your thoughts on the Anastasia/Ringing Cedars book series and backstory. Have you read? Her teachings on God and imagination align very much with a lot of what you've written here.
"yikes" does imply a bit of judgment, though, doesn't it?
to hear Martin tell the story, he didn't choose Christian ideology. he encountered Christ, while doing some no-bullshit visionary work, and had to find a way to integrate that revelation into this life. not quite the same as popping down to the local Evangelical church and picking up a brochure.
i'm that kind of Christian too, in a different way: i've never had the full-on transcendent encounter, but i can recognize Jesus as a source of Big Magic, in spite of what the Church has done to him. don't let your prejudice make you think there's no expansive mythic consciousness there.
Thanks for the details RE Martin. I’m a PK (preacher’s kid) raised by an abusive, imperfect Lutheran pastor. Perhaps this has tainted my views. I’ve met Christ consciousness in deep ways, too. What disturbs me about Christianity and most religions is the sense that only Jesus can save you, or that there’s only “one right way” to experience the divine.
Thank you for disclosing your reluctance about all these things, esp. astrology. I always thought of it as a kind of oracular parlor game--a sort of Tarot card reading of the stars that helps us tap into what we already know is true. But some people take it so seriously! I've met people who basically want to profile you according your chart rather than get to know you through an actual conversation. When it's presented so stiffly, it makes us less imaginative about our dynamic, invented selves and less insightful about other people.
Yes! That’s exactly the part of it that gets to me — the “Oh that’s because you’re a Taurus” sort of response to life events. Always makes me want to say, Or MAYBE I’m just a stubborn bitch of my own accord??
Lol. I’m also a Taurus but I insist that my stubborn bitchness is MY OWN. Damnit.
There's a really good book related to this subject called Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa. It came out in the early 1970’s during the New Age movement. It seems to me like we’re sort of reliving a kind of New Age moment now…So much of contemporary spirituality is packaged as something we are supposed to consume.
Thank you so much, Toby — I love this: ‘In fairy tales, lonliness is not always about the individuals experience of being lonely, but of the consequences of allowing loneliness in an individual to go too far for the collective. Or, as fairy tales would call it “the kingdom.”’ There’s lots I hadn’t considered here about the possible link between imagination and loneliness. Thank you!
Ellie! I look forward to every one of your writings now. After reading “This Moment” I haven’t stopped thinking about it. I’ve referenced your work in an upcoming piece about the matriarchal gaze and embodied cognition. Both of which I see as joining, or being a significant part of, this new consciousness contract. Thank you so much for your work, it inspires me greatly!
Ah Jacqueline, thank you so much! This made me so happy to read. (And sorry about the delay — I’m on a writing retreat, failing to write.) Can’t wait to read your piece; please let me know when it’s out. x
Well this is just utterly fascinating and covers so many of my primary areas of interest… thank you for giving voice to all this nebulous mystery and strangeness. I’m particularly fascinated by the whole AI-as-spirit concept, and can’t wait to follow that magazine and to read your piece!
This brings up a lot (and I actually would love to reflect on the OA’s place in all this further — I think it does a good job of not aligning the Otherworld with the traumatic but rather showing how trauma in our world can sometimes open portals into it, but is not the only way to access it) but ultimately it just kind of made me think — what a time to be alive… and I’m glad to be following your work in the midst of it!
Thank you so much for reading! I think you’re right about the OA — there was definitely a fuller spectrum of experience in its otherworld than in Stranger Things, anyway. Though it did irritate me that it was another in a long line of films and shows that came out around then in which a young woman who’d led a sheltered life finally went out exploring and was immediately kidnapped. But that’s another conversation!
Very true! I do think that you're right in that sense - it definitely does still maintain that association between parallel dimensions and trauma/fragmentation. I wonder how they would have finished it in the last few seasons because I think it may have been working towards some kind of integration at the end; I think for example they were going to say she chose to come back into the first dimension and undergo the experiences she did in order to undergo liberation or something of the kind.
Still, I definitely think it's clear that the unknown terrifies us, hence the horror/Otherworld association. But the thing is life itself is full of unknowns as it is — and populated by masked daemons from the infinite consciousness masquerading around as finite beings and stories, as you said. And as life grows even stranger and more digitized the cracks will be even easier to see, and of course more light from the beyond will then also start slipping in ... Anyway, I can't wait to keep reading your writing and insights about all this.
Great piece again. It counterpoints well with my substack and obviously mine is from a male perspective. Yours is one of only a few I pay for and it’s always worth it.
this is excellent! looks like we're cultivating different parts of the same field. i'm beginning a project to explore the construction of sacred space; maybe you'd be interested in participating? always looking for more opportunities to collaborate in this space.
Thanks so much for reading! Would love to hear more about your project. (I’m on writing retreat at the moment — clearly doing great at staying offline — so might be slow to respond.)
I am a psych witch, and I really hate the cultural magazine and WitchTok trends. It isn’t that I think it’s dangerous, necessarily, as long as the new witches respect what they are tapping into. It brings in the new generation, the future witches and mystics (for those that stick with it).
There are so many paths, and many do not seek to control things, but to tap into the Source (however one chooses to define it) for magical works. Many of us work with guides (I do) and they are our helpers for working in the liminal space.
I work in divination (tarot) and mediumship. Others will concentrate on ritual works with a coven. Some will only study. There are always the folks out there that will abuse the access to the liminal and imaginary space. The witchtok folks are probably harmless, and with any luck they will mature their practice in whatever way suites them. The point is, it’s hard to pin down witchcraft to one path or way.
The use of the craft is so open and varied. I have a path, and it’s unique to anyone else. Most of it is private, and I reveal only a small part here on Substack. But others choose to share it. Fine, too. But there’s a responsibility for using it properly that does not upset the balance of the energies surrounding us.
Thank you so much for this nuance, Erica. I fear my original piece was missing it, because I stopped at the cultural coding, so thank you for bringing it. I’m going to subscribe to your page so I can learn more. x
Love that you found it interesting! And thank you for subscribing! I am about to post a big one on death, Hecate, and transformation (with a tarot spread). Probably in the next half hour. You may like it!
Sounds great, I’ll keep my eyes peeled! (On writing retreat and not meant to be online, oops, so might take me a while to read, but I definitely will.)
Amen to all of this! As an instinctive "Groucho Marxist", I'm both attracted and repelled by all of these modes of seeking the divine. Meanwhile, the lesson I take from chaos magic is that it's (apparently) possible to make some sort of contact with a greater consciousness through pretty much any means - I have friends who eschew Christ or Buddha, Hermes or Horus in favour of comic-book characters. And they seem to achieve comparable results.
(I have other friends who've loudly converted to Christianity, which I find... strangely specific. I've got over my lifelong antagonism to the Bible, and am finding plenty of interest in there, and indeed have started to occasionally attend Quaker meetings, but I'm equally interested in other religions. The idea of declaring oneself explicitly "a Christian" - indeed, the idea of associating so strongly with any abstract noun - is something I struggle to understand)
I'm sure much of this over-identification with particular practices and ideologies is really about the practitioner's own search for identity. How cool, to be an Instagram witch! How admirable, to become an expert in psychedelics or astrology! I've always been wary of over-identifying, and in the last year it's become apparent to me that "the project" requires quite the opposite approach: the abandonment of ego, sublimation into The One. Quite impossible, of course, and SO lonely to even attempt, and yet it feels like the way to go. I'm reminded (as so often) of the words of T. S. Eliot:
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God.
...
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Wolf/God time is an interesting one - it's rarely held any fear for me (except perhaps when I've had an important meeting to attend the next morning - I think that standardised & enforced 9-5 working hours screwed up a lot of things for us humans) and it tends to be at around 4am that many of my most valued revelations arrive.
Interesting too to read your thoughts on AI too (and, yes, that episode of The Emerald clarified so much for me [again, as so often]). A couple of years ago I started justifying my use of AI with an excuse which started out as 99% joke, but has become increasingly more real to me: I'm allowing other forms of intelligence to express themselves. I don't mean AI developers, or computers, or processors, but of the tiny elements and fields which constitute those things (and the greater field which contains and exceeds them all). Inspired by microanimism - which I published a friend's essay about here: http://peakrill.com/2023/10/guest-post-journeying-with-the-smalls.html - I sometimes refer to this as atomanimism: giving electrons autonomy to jump between elements sandwiched in silicon, and so effect a new future. Again, I try to relinquish control as much as possible, and lean into whatever the universe throws out. (I should probably add that I've not really found a way of doing this with text-based AI, the stuff it throws out is just so milquetoast, but it's been fun to do in a visual context - you can see some of the results at https://www.instagram.com/mycoleum ). I've also started writing a set of poems, provisionally titled "learning the machine", exploring the interplay between human and non-human intelligence).
[For anyone reading this as a note, it was originally a comment on Ellie Robins' post at https://ellierobins.substack.com/p/witchcraft-astrology-psychedelics ]
Dan, can I just say, your comments consistently make me so happy that I live in the age of the internet and can have this kind of conversation. You know when the right poetry hits you at the right time and it’s a full-body experience? That happened to me with these lines from Four Quartets on Sunday and I cried. Thank you.
“Weirdly specific” is exactly my feeling about all the recent conversions too. I believe in the Christian story (among other stories), I suppose I just feel that that story is now part of another unfolding, and I want to stay open to that, whatever it is.
Your insight about “the project” feels exactly right to me.
I’m very excited to read all the insane and brilliant things you’ve published. Thank you so much for sharing.
Ahhh, thank you so much Ellie! That's cheered me right up. Conversations like this, engaged and with lots of interesting tangents, used to be my meat & drink in the early days of the Internet. Nowadays it seems that 99% of time people aren't willing to do anything more than hit the "like" button (unless they disagree with you, in which case they'll devote entire days to argument), so it's lovely to be having a proper conversation.
So glad that those lines from Four Quartets did it for you! I got fascinated by the poem(s) a few years ago, drawn in by those first few lines "Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future...". During lockdown, I would take long walks around the common, trying to commit the poems to memory (I got about a third of the way there), and I'm so glad I did (I really ought to return to that project), they've been really potent, but I also feel I've barely scratched the surface: I honestly think that I could spend the rest of my life studying them and it would keep on rewarding me. Funnily enough, at the time I was still a bit sniffy about Eliot's Christianity and his references to God, but I've now reached a stage where I can accept it into my own unfolding perspective on the Everything.
As an appreciator of Goblin Band and attendee of many of the Broadside Hacks Folk Club gigs at Moth Club in Hackney I might go as far as to suggest that we're somewhat out the otherside of the folk revival of the 00s (Fleet Foxes, Mumford & Sons, pine trees, hipster beards and wolf tattoos). Folk as I've come to experience it over the past couple of years feels best as a subaltern non-commercial ritual experience. That being said, I do agree with the majority of this piece and feel a distinct sense of lonliness in this/these space(s).
Something that's helped me try to expand beyond my lonliness has been taking part in the pedagogical experiment of the New School of the Anthropocene - https://www.nsota.org/ since September 2022, contributing to the Extinction Rebellion Art Group, lurking on the periphery of the Hard Art Collective, attending folk gigs, and trying to adjust my life towards incorporating more space for the imaginal that you so eloquently point to in your essays. It is long, slow and arduous work, that often feels alienating when so steeped in and surrounded by Western necropolitics and necroculture.
"a subaltern non-commercial ritual experience" -- yes!! I love this description, thank you so much for sharing it. That's sort of what it felt like when I saw Goblin Band too, though that was on a balmy May day on a medieval college campus in Devon, which I think might have coloured the whole thing with a little more whimsy than they might usually carry. In any case, thank you so much for the nuance you offer here. I definitely bow to your superior knowledge of the folk scene today (also, I want to go to one of these gigs with you!). I suppose my point was much more facile than the one you're making, i.e. does the cultural coding of folk music and lore as a historical movement create the false impression that imagination/the imaginal realm live in the past only? But I'm glad that if nothing else, that somewhat facile point made space for your much more interesting clarification.
Sounds like I need to find out about the New School of the Anthropocene. Looking into it now.
Thank you for your generous read and comment.
I have, inevitably, a lot of thoughts on all of this! I’ll be exploring Hurry Up Please… with a lot of interest (my day job - day-self? - is deeply tech driven) with lots of interest. With witchcraft, I’d have to ask “Which witch?” There’s the witchcraft which is all manifesting and monetising and then there’s the distinctly less visible variety which is very much focused on a highly-grounded, humble engagement with the divine. Not that there isn’t a spell or two involved, admittedly ;-)
Hi Gabriel — thank you for this and also for the very thoughtful notes on this piece in your recent essay. (And sorry about the delay — I’m away on a writing retreat, clearly doing great at staying offline.)
Yes, “which witch” — it’s definitely not fair to lump the whole craft in together and I know that there are very powerful and wise people using witchcraft in all sorts of subtle and nuanced ways. It’s more the current cultural coding that I wanted to poke at. Though I am instinctively sympathetic to Evelyn Underhill’s view that to approach the expanded Reality with an outcome in mind warps your ability to apprehend that expanded Reality in the first place.
In any case — I’m always so grateful for your thought-provoking comments, which often help me to rethink and refine my ideas. Thank you!
Would love to hear your thoughts on the Anastasia/Ringing Cedars book series and backstory. Have you read? Her teachings on God and imagination align very much with a lot of what you've written here.
No! I've never even heard of those books. Please tell me more! Thank you for this. x
MYSTIC MISFITS, UNITE!
I adore your roundup approach: can we unite the threads and themes of our great consciousness web? Or stick to our archetypal identities?
If you haven't yet given The Emerald a listen, may I suggest the 2-part episodes "For The Intuitives." https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/
PS: Martin Shaw? YIKES 😳
why 'yikes' for Martin Shaw?
No judgement, I’m simply surprised that he’s chosen Christian ideology. Perhaps a tad limited, compared with expansive mythic consciousness?
"yikes" does imply a bit of judgment, though, doesn't it?
to hear Martin tell the story, he didn't choose Christian ideology. he encountered Christ, while doing some no-bullshit visionary work, and had to find a way to integrate that revelation into this life. not quite the same as popping down to the local Evangelical church and picking up a brochure.
i'm that kind of Christian too, in a different way: i've never had the full-on transcendent encounter, but i can recognize Jesus as a source of Big Magic, in spite of what the Church has done to him. don't let your prejudice make you think there's no expansive mythic consciousness there.
Thanks for the details RE Martin. I’m a PK (preacher’s kid) raised by an abusive, imperfect Lutheran pastor. Perhaps this has tainted my views. I’ve met Christ consciousness in deep ways, too. What disturbs me about Christianity and most religions is the sense that only Jesus can save you, or that there’s only “one right way” to experience the divine.
Thank you for disclosing your reluctance about all these things, esp. astrology. I always thought of it as a kind of oracular parlor game--a sort of Tarot card reading of the stars that helps us tap into what we already know is true. But some people take it so seriously! I've met people who basically want to profile you according your chart rather than get to know you through an actual conversation. When it's presented so stiffly, it makes us less imaginative about our dynamic, invented selves and less insightful about other people.
Yes! That’s exactly the part of it that gets to me — the “Oh that’s because you’re a Taurus” sort of response to life events. Always makes me want to say, Or MAYBE I’m just a stubborn bitch of my own accord??
Lol. I’m also a Taurus but I insist that my stubborn bitchness is MY OWN. Damnit.
There's a really good book related to this subject called Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa. It came out in the early 1970’s during the New Age movement. It seems to me like we’re sort of reliving a kind of New Age moment now…So much of contemporary spirituality is packaged as something we are supposed to consume.
Not sure where my comment went, but I definitely want to read this book. Thank you for the recc!
Thanks for summarising these threads or strands, places where imagination and the numinous meet.
I’m most struck though by the fact that your topic is loneliness.
I wonder what the connection is between imagination and loneliness- also whether the one is always a cure for the other
I wrote a longer piece here on loneliness and imagination - sharing it below - sharing being the main antidote to the dangers of loneliness
https://open.substack.com/pub/tobychown/p/the-sun-princess-and-her-deliverance?r=fybi1&utm_medium=ios
Thank you so much, Toby — I love this: ‘In fairy tales, lonliness is not always about the individuals experience of being lonely, but of the consequences of allowing loneliness in an individual to go too far for the collective. Or, as fairy tales would call it “the kingdom.”’ There’s lots I hadn’t considered here about the possible link between imagination and loneliness. Thank you!
Ellie! I look forward to every one of your writings now. After reading “This Moment” I haven’t stopped thinking about it. I’ve referenced your work in an upcoming piece about the matriarchal gaze and embodied cognition. Both of which I see as joining, or being a significant part of, this new consciousness contract. Thank you so much for your work, it inspires me greatly!
Ah Jacqueline, thank you so much! This made me so happy to read. (And sorry about the delay — I’m on a writing retreat, failing to write.) Can’t wait to read your piece; please let me know when it’s out. x
I hope the ships turns on the retreat! Thanks for sharing your writing here, it does a spirit good.
Well this is just utterly fascinating and covers so many of my primary areas of interest… thank you for giving voice to all this nebulous mystery and strangeness. I’m particularly fascinated by the whole AI-as-spirit concept, and can’t wait to follow that magazine and to read your piece!
This brings up a lot (and I actually would love to reflect on the OA’s place in all this further — I think it does a good job of not aligning the Otherworld with the traumatic but rather showing how trauma in our world can sometimes open portals into it, but is not the only way to access it) but ultimately it just kind of made me think — what a time to be alive… and I’m glad to be following your work in the midst of it!
Thank you so much for reading! I think you’re right about the OA — there was definitely a fuller spectrum of experience in its otherworld than in Stranger Things, anyway. Though it did irritate me that it was another in a long line of films and shows that came out around then in which a young woman who’d led a sheltered life finally went out exploring and was immediately kidnapped. But that’s another conversation!
Very true! I do think that you're right in that sense - it definitely does still maintain that association between parallel dimensions and trauma/fragmentation. I wonder how they would have finished it in the last few seasons because I think it may have been working towards some kind of integration at the end; I think for example they were going to say she chose to come back into the first dimension and undergo the experiences she did in order to undergo liberation or something of the kind.
Still, I definitely think it's clear that the unknown terrifies us, hence the horror/Otherworld association. But the thing is life itself is full of unknowns as it is — and populated by masked daemons from the infinite consciousness masquerading around as finite beings and stories, as you said. And as life grows even stranger and more digitized the cracks will be even easier to see, and of course more light from the beyond will then also start slipping in ... Anyway, I can't wait to keep reading your writing and insights about all this.
Great piece again. It counterpoints well with my substack and obviously mine is from a male perspective. Yours is one of only a few I pay for and it’s always worth it.
Thanks so much for all your support, David! You're a gem.
this is excellent! looks like we're cultivating different parts of the same field. i'm beginning a project to explore the construction of sacred space; maybe you'd be interested in participating? always looking for more opportunities to collaborate in this space.
Thanks so much for reading! Would love to hear more about your project. (I’m on writing retreat at the moment — clearly doing great at staying offline — so might be slow to respond.)
envious! i'll make a note to DM you sometime next week so as not to bother you. enjoy the retreat!
I am a psych witch, and I really hate the cultural magazine and WitchTok trends. It isn’t that I think it’s dangerous, necessarily, as long as the new witches respect what they are tapping into. It brings in the new generation, the future witches and mystics (for those that stick with it).
There are so many paths, and many do not seek to control things, but to tap into the Source (however one chooses to define it) for magical works. Many of us work with guides (I do) and they are our helpers for working in the liminal space.
I work in divination (tarot) and mediumship. Others will concentrate on ritual works with a coven. Some will only study. There are always the folks out there that will abuse the access to the liminal and imaginary space. The witchtok folks are probably harmless, and with any luck they will mature their practice in whatever way suites them. The point is, it’s hard to pin down witchcraft to one path or way.
The use of the craft is so open and varied. I have a path, and it’s unique to anyone else. Most of it is private, and I reveal only a small part here on Substack. But others choose to share it. Fine, too. But there’s a responsibility for using it properly that does not upset the balance of the energies surrounding us.
Thank you so much for this nuance, Erica. I fear my original piece was missing it, because I stopped at the cultural coding, so thank you for bringing it. I’m going to subscribe to your page so I can learn more. x
Just posted it: https://open.substack.com/pub/ericaphillips/p/intuitive-transformation-with-our?r=1utrit&utm_medium=ios
Love that you found it interesting! And thank you for subscribing! I am about to post a big one on death, Hecate, and transformation (with a tarot spread). Probably in the next half hour. You may like it!
Sounds great, I’ll keep my eyes peeled! (On writing retreat and not meant to be online, oops, so might take me a while to read, but I definitely will.)