Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Temple >

Becoming the Hanged God

09:03 / 28.04.04

Some loose thoughts on Kevorkomancy:

The idea of "dying to yourself" is one of the stock-in-trade themes of magickal initiation. We're all familiar with the accounts of Odinic danglings and ego dissolutions and other various and sundry psychic self-annihilations, and I don't think anyone would deny how powerful such 'workings can be.

But what about the real deal? What about actually offing yourself to achieve a magickal end? What would you expect from such a compleat sacrifice?

Obviously, such a 'working would be a last resort, an ordeal undergone for nothing short of the most dire or wonderful situations.

I recall that in Tibetan Buddhism, meditation during the lucid dream state is considered far more effective than when "awake". My own experiences with lucid 'workings have tended to bear this out for magick as well. If you agree, it would follow that making the final leap of this incarnation into the transitional void would have enormous magickal potential.

Thoughts?

09:10 / 28.04.04

I started this thread a while back. Got bashed - rightly so, since I hadn't really finished that line of thought before posting. But got a lot of good comments about the body, death and magick.

12:10 / 28.04.04

Suicide is rubbish - a waste of a life. Better attempting Metamorphosis. It's good to come to terms with thanatology as a psychospiritual initiation. Nuff said..

12:40 / 28.04.04

Kind of said what I thought about the body and so forth on that other thread. I can't see what sort of goal you'd have... what's beyond this life (if anything) seems pretty unknowable to me. Just postng to say I'm reminded a bit of the Red, Black and White ries at the end of Pete Caroll's Liber Null, where he goes on using the dying process to affect a reincarnation. Of course, this begs the question, has he done it? If so, who was he in a previous life? Hmmmm, lets's get out the rack and branding irons...

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:42 / 28.04.04

Well, various people have tried it over the years, sometimes in company, but they tend not to be terribly communicative afterwards.

Given that we're all going to buy the farm eventually anyway, it seems a tad drastic.

14:40 / 28.04.04

Much better would be a metaphorical/spiritual shedding of your past skin (bad habits, negative ideas from your past, history that keeps you down on yourself)....don't throw your life away to improve your life in the next dimension, that's sorta silly...and a waste.

15:03 / 28.04.04

On the subject of "Odinic danglings"... I've been searching for a discussion on this sort of ritual self-sacrifice. Has there been a thread on this before? I've come up with nada so far.

On topic, though... I would speculate that we could only see and verify the results of such a sacrifice on this plane if the working was geared towards impacting here. If the purpose were only to gain power for oneself, then anyone who's successful obviously isn't around to talk about it (unless they get reincarnated, or spend a lot of time hanging about blabbing at folks on the astral plane)...

Self-sacrifice for an Earthly result is a problem, too, though... People give up their lives for various causes all the time, often with no real impact. Would it make a difference if it were an experienced magician in a ritual setting? I'd say probably so, but I think we'd be hard pressed to come up with any evidence outside of mythology and Guy Gavriel Kay novels...

What cause or result would be worth this sort of ultimate sacrifice?... Assuming, of course, that you're not Jesus or the king of the Wasteland...

15:19 / 28.04.04

Funny, this came up recently in conversation for me. Along the lines of "what would you do if you found out you had only one week to live". My thought was, if my end was neigh inevitable, I would want to take charge of it and do it myself in my own time and manner of choosing. I would do it in a highly ritualized manner, defineing specificly where I intended to send my soul, crafting my afterlife/reincarnation to my choosing and useing the ritual and controlled death to insure I made the transition of consciousness in as complete a manner as possible.

Which brings up a topicly related question of, were you to do something like this, how would YOU approach it?

18:16 / 28.04.04

You first.

21:15 / 29.04.04

I'm not sure that any magick could compare with the overwhelming embrace of death. I certainly believe in preparing for death by living a good life and embracing thanatos as a part of life. But I tend to agree with macrophage that suicide probably wastes the whole thing and may totally blow your chances for redemption in the afterlife. If you're terminal and suffering, then perhaps. But isn't that just your lot? We all have our trials that we must pass. Isn't suicide a cop out?

I liked the way Aldous Huxley went out. On his death bed his wife injected him with avery large dose of LSD.

(Disclaimer: I've never really been in a situation where I considered that my life was so horrible that death would be better. So I can't really make any objective claims here, and I would never ever deny someone's right to take their own life. But I would always consider it a tragedy.)

02:28 / 30.04.04

this thread makes me wanna go see the passion.