Local Witch Hunter Falls

י"ג בניסן תש"ע
Raven 14

I don't keep up on the local news, so I was surprised when I just now read on The Wild Hunt that eight days ago, local media reported that a local Vermilion County witch hunter (a youth minister at the Rossville Church of Christ in Rossville, Illinois) who led the anti-pagan crusade to drive all the witches out of town (in the claimed effort "to protect young people from witches") was recently charged with the rape and criminal sexual assault of a 16 year old boy he was mentoring. It seems it wasn't the witches, but rather was the the witch hunter, that Rossville young people needed protection from. Ironic, isn't it?

Today's related blog - The Witch's Wheel.

The Witch's Wheel

י״ב בניסן תש"ע
Raven 13

Commentary on Tzav from Garden of the Dark Moon Jubilee - The Witch's Wheel.

Voice Of Adjuration - Charge Of The Goddess

ה' בניסן תש"ע
Raven 6

On this Shabbat Sabbat Ostara, commentary on Vayikra from Garden of the Dark Moon Jubilee - Voice of Adjuration, Charge of the Goddess.

Maāt Kheru - True Voice

כ״ח באדר תש"ע
Keowulf 30

In my previous entry (The Immortals), I described the mark of the immortals:

I noticed that each immortal had a mark on the side of his or her neck. The mark was in a artery-like stave form of Ogham writing, the specific written code unique on each immortal. The mark was beautifully radiant under the skin of the neck and sparked like glowing light-filled blood.

In the dream, I recognized that each mark, though similar, was unique. Interestingly, I didn't translate the mark into words because, within the context of the dream, a translation of the writing mattered very little.

We find an explanation of this detail in Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, volume 1:

Understand from these words that Thoth made Osiris to use his voice in such a way that the words which he spoke had exactly the effect he wished them to have. The words maā kheru are written after every 'dead' follower of Osiris, and of all the meanings which have been assigned to them by scholars, none represents their general meaning better than 'victorious' or 'triumphant.' With what words we translate maā kheru matters very little, for the general sense of the [hieroglyphic] word is perfectly plain. When a god, [or a goddess], or a man, or a woman is said to be maā kheru [fem. maāt kheru] we are to understand that when he or she has spoken, or 'uttered words', the words are followed immediately by the desired effect, that is to say, she who is maāt kheru possesses unlimited power, and there is nothing she cannot do or obtain.

From my dream, it is also written:

I had the power to unlock and open up the silos and to release the imprisoned immortals. I had the power to do it. I could release the terrifyingly awesome power of the immortals. I did it.

Thus, while the specific code written in the blood sign was unique to each immortal, it's general meaning is maāt kheru.

On the connection between the concept of maāt kheru and coffins (also in the dream), it is written:

Maat is an ancient Egyptian word meaning 'justice' and 'balance.' At the end of a civil trial, one party or the other was declared maat kheru, 'true of voice' or 'justified.' After death, each Egyptian expected to face a trial in the next world. In the final phase of this trial, the heart, the seat of intelligence and moral judgment as well as of emotions, was weighed against an ostrich feather that represented Maāt, the goddess of Truth and Justice. If the heart balanced, against the feather, the person had lived a good life, and could enter into the Afterlife. If the heart did not balance, a monster called The Devourer consumed it. The weighing of the heart is a common motif on coffins of the Late Period, and can also be seen in Books of the Dead.

The immortals are those declared maāt kheru.

The Immortals

כ״ח באדר תש"ע
Keowulf 30

I subscribe to Smithsonian magazine. Until last night, my latest issue had been laying around waiting to be read. Last night before bed, I picked up the issue Discovering Our Ancestors, Researchers Trace the Human Family Back 7 Million Years. Within the context of the main article, there are two particularly interesting sentences that stand out in my mind this morning:

"Their work inspired American and European researchers to sweep through the Great Rift Valley, a geological fault that runs through Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia and exposes rocky layers that are millions of years old."

"White explains that the team returns to this hostile spot year after year because it's the only place in the world to yield fossils that span such a long stretch of human evolution, some six million years."

These two sentences are particularly interesting to me this morning because last night I dreamt a dream which immediately reminded me of them when I woke up. The dream ...

With a few companions, I was walking in the daylight down a path which led by fields of rocky earthen layers which exposed mass graves of people who had been killed by the ruling powers over eons of time. The killing fields revealed a holocaust of humanity. So many had died over time, so very very many. The layers were composed of bodies stacked upon bodies stacked upon bodies stacked upon bodies intermingled with the treeless barren soil and rock of the earth. It reminded me of pictures I've seen of this century's holocaust only on a much larger scale encompassing eons of ancient time and layered like fossils into great rifts of earth.

The killing fields had been to my left as I walked down the path. To my right as I walked down the path, was a special graveyard consisting of iron body-sized silo-like tombs standing upright, squeezed together side by side, and hidden among a grove of trees. As I entered among the trees, I discovered that the ruling powers had hidden this special graveyard and that it was not really a true graveyard at all. The people entombed here could not die, they were the immortals. The ruling powers had entombed the immortals here to contain them, since the rulers were powerless to kill them. The immortals were the only ones in existence who posed a threat to the power of the rulers.

I felt the presence of awesome power emanating from within each of the silos built like an upright-standing iron coffin. [It occurs to me now that this detail is important - the iron coffins all stood upright, suggesting that the rulers were not only incapable of killing the immortals, but were also incapable of burying them on their backs laying down as the bodies in the killing field had been stacked.] I climbed up onto one coffin-silo and penetratingly peered down into it, communicating eye to eye with the immortal inside. I had the power to unlock and open up the silos and to release the imprisoned immortals. I had the power to do it. I could release the terrifyingly awesome power of the immortals. I did it. I unlocked the silos and released the immortals.

I and my companions were gathered among the group of immortals. I noticed that each immortal had a mark on the side of his or her neck. The mark was in a artery-like stave form of Ogham writing, the specific written code unique on each immortal. The mark was beautifully radiant under the skin of the neck and sparked like glowing light-filled blood.

As I was watching the heartbeat of one immortal's mark pulse with eternal life, he told me that I had the mark too. I looked - I had the mark of an immortal too. I am an immortal.

Together, we left the grove of trees and stepped upon the path between the killing fields and the grove where the iron prison-coffins had been hidden. We turned toward the direction opposite the direction my companions and I had initially been walking upon the path (away from the civilization controlled by rulers). We were immortals and we were no longer imprisoned. We went to reclaim our rightful place on the Earth and in the Universe. The rulers ruled no more.

As we walked back toward civilization, I was to learn how to control the power I had released in myself as an immortal. I watched my hand shapeshift like a werewolf's might and then return back to its human form. The immortal beside me explained the werewolf-like form arose when the power was not fully controlled. I looked at my human-formed hand, and woke up.

Related writing - The Witch's Staves

The Witch's Staves

כ"ז באדר תש"ע
Keowulf 29

Commentary on Vayakhel-Pekudei from Garden of the Dark Moon Jubilee - The Witch's Staves.

When Magicians Collide

כ"ו באדר תש"ע
Keowulf 28

In follow-up The Magical Lesson of the Golden Calf, two more interpretations are offered up by DovBear:

According to some modern interpreters the golden calf story was written during the era of Israelite kings and it is really a disguised attack on Jeroboam and Aaron's descendants.

Some modern interpreters propose that a Levite wrote the golden calf story for the purpose of discrediting the Aaronid priesthood. As made clear in 1 Kings 12:31 Jeroboam didn't permit Levities to serve in his temples; the honor was reserved for Aaronids. According to this approach, the golden calf story was really written to discredit Jeroboam's calves and to discredit the Aaronid priests who served them.

A second modern interpretation is slightly different. This view proposes that the golden calf story was originally written (perhaps by an Aaronid priest) to justify Jeroboam's calves which, at first (the theory goes) were meant to serve the same purpose as the cherubim served in the southern Temple. Just as the people brought material to Moshe for the purpose of building the tabernacle and its utensils (including the cherubim), they also brought gold to Aaron for a similar purpose.

These two modern interpretations further support my theory that the episode with the golden calf illustrates a confrontation between two magicians (namely, Moses [a Levite] and Aaron [a Kohen]) and two approaches to magic - one playing on the superstitions of others to influence them (Moses' approach) and the other which emphasizes spiritual accountability and views magic as a method of spiritual development and evolving consciousness (Aaron's approach).

The Magical Lesson Of The Golden Calf

כ"ה באדר תש"ע
Keowulf 27

DovBear (who putatively doesn't believe in magic) blogs about the golden calf, telling us that there are two traditional explantions of the verse:

וַיִּקַּח מִיָּדָם וַיָּצַר אֹתוֹ בַּחֶרֶט וַיַּעֲשֵׂהוּ עֵגֶל מַסֵּכָה וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלֶּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלוּךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם

He took [the gold] from their hand[s], tied it up in a cloth, and [someone else, i.e., sorcerers] made it into a molten calf. They said: "These are your gods, O Israel, who have brought you up from the land of Egypt!"

One is logical, one is "fanciful."

One tells us Aaron took a tool, and carved a calf; the other says he wrapped the donations of gold in a cloth and somehow a statue was produced. One relies on the text itself, the other depends on the introduction of unmentioned characters (the sorcerers) and a belief in their magic.

One makes sense, the other doesn't.

Menashe comments:

I think reason the sorcery interpretation is favored is because of verse 24, where Aaron responds to an irate Moses, 'I threw [the gold] into the fire and out came this calf.' The idea that Aaron would tell a lie (and such a comically lame one to boot), was untenable to many commentators.

SM further comments:

Although the lame explanation powerfully conveys Moses' anger and Aaron's sense of shame and need to offer up some excuse.

What actually makes sense is this - Aaron's response to Moses demonstrates an astute observation on the unjustified nature of Moses's anger since earlier Moses had claimed to have thrown some gold into a fire and out came a menorah. Consequently, we can see then that the 'magical method' of Moses and Aaron is seemingly the same. One difference, I think, is that Aaron demonstrates more enlightenment than Moses in the area of magic - which explains the reason why Moses would need a menorah, namely, to en-lighten up!

Aaron exemplifies an intelligent benevolent magician, who understands to some degree how magic works. Moses, in this case with the golden calf, shows himself to be a deluding manipulative one, who (in the case of the menorah) had used superstition (which is not magic) to fool people and who became angry that a better magician called him on it.

The Witch's Mask

כ' באדר תש"ע
Keowulf 22

Commentary of Ki Tisa from Garden of the Dark Moon Jubilee - The Witch's Mask.