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Underground > Temple >

Do insects get a bad rap in magic?

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23:19 / 15.04.04

Maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places, but it seems to me that insects seem to be usually associated with negative aspects of magic (for example, according to Bertriaux the most dangerous of the loa are the insect families), and very rarely do I see a god/spirit with insect qualities (unless you consider the butterfly or sometimes the spider). I suppose you could say insects get a bad rap in general, as many people seem afraid of them due to their alien appearance (in terms of occult literature, consider the insectoid agents of the works of Burroughs or Grant Morrison). Oddly enough, with the exception of wasps or certain bees, I've always felt very comfortable around bugs, so sometimes I feel that they get a bad rap. Anyone here know of any positive insect/arachnid/whatever gods or magical systems that revolve around bugs?

02:13 / 16.04.04

A lot of Native American and South American tribes hold spiders in high esteem as representatives of a creative force.

I think the "bad rap" insects tend to has a lot to do with how alien they appear to us. They seem emotionless, they tend to operate in hidden spaces, and they're invasive (in our homes, and even in our bodies - most especially after death).

02:49 / 16.04.04

Aboriginees have green Ant's too i think, that predated humans.

trouser the trouserian

04:36 / 16.04.04

Anyone here know of any positive insect/arachnid/whatever gods or magical systems that revolve around bugs?

Well there's the West African Trickster spider-god Anansi, for starters, and here's link to a Grandmother Spider story story of the Choctaw People of Tennessee and Mississippi. In India you'll find that the bee is variously associated with Visnu, Kama & Krishna, and I think there is a Lithunanian bee god/goddess pairing. Shouldn't forget the Eygptian Kephra & other sacred insects either. I've heard that there are methods of divination based on observing the behaviour of ants. The Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari revere the praying mantis as a divine messenger. For the San Bushmen of the same region, the mantis is a trickster god and they also pray to N'go, a caterpiller deity.

21:20 / 17.04.04

(These are personal theories, rather than anything historical, if that was what you were after.)

I went to a Berkeley professor's lecture on Star Trek: TNG a few years ago. (Bear with me.) She suggested that the Federation represented a utopic vision of cooperation (between humans and aliens, which in sci-fi is of course always code for humans and different humans), and that the Borg represented the dystopic vision: 'cooperation' to the point that individuality was entirely supplanted by mindless loyalty to the hive mind.

Spiders and butterflies and mantises, being pretty solitary for the most part, are easier to identify with. But I'm thinking that when we look at insects that come in swarms, and insects that build nests, we think mostly of the scary Borg aspects: cooperation that turns into sacrifice of the mind and body.

This leads me to think that insect gods might be really good to talk to in projects which involve strong cooperation, and in trying to overcome the ego, so long as you leave a thread to remind you to return to being an individualistic primate.

03:18 / 18.04.04

Wasn't the Scarab a powerful symbol or sacred in the Egyptian Hieroglyphics and culture. And if I'm correct they would use it for jewelery not the beetle it's self but the shape of it.

04:01 / 18.04.04

Not all "swarm" insects are bad in magick.

The Tower Always Falls

18:49 / 18.04.04

YAY IMP! IMP makes the best costumes I must say...

Magick insect paranoia? Oh yeah, I'm familliar with it. The whole thread is damned nifty actually.

19:04 / 18.04.04

Well I discovered last year that spiders were my power animal, through dreams. Strange since when I was young my Canadian Granny put the willies rite up me about Spiders before I would crash out. For years I wanted a tattoo of a giant fly on my back (HR Giger stylee) and after years of living close to nature I hate the bastards. Apologies to anyone who feels close to the fly world! There exists a strang symbiosis between the grey aliens of renown and insects, look at say HR Giger's work which seems to combine this with African symbolism. As far as I'm concerned the grey exists as a future self, let's face it, in the light of say world-wide extiction of the human race the insect would triumph if it was a nuke war or whatever.
But I'm digressing if that's the right word to use. If you believe you can expoit past DNA atavism then do so.

19:10 / 18.04.04

I would also like to say I experienced a vast butterfly once on DMT - just before experiencing faceless nuns and clones of humans on a hellish ketamine/black microdot snorting mission! IAO!